A chance therefore seems to have decided Milton; Salandra's tragedy fell
into his hands, and was welded into the epic form which he had designed
for Arthur the Great, even as, in later years, a chance question on the
part of Elwood led to his writing 'Paradise Regained.' [Footnote: _Thou
hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise
Found?_ He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse. . . .]

For this poem there were not so many models handy as for the other, but
Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its
inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the
inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived
in a mere dialogue such as 'Paradise Regained '; it lacks the grandiose
_mise-en-scene_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the
stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of
'Paradise Lost,' is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is
the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt--a
serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar
excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most
specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected
eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as
his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long
experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of
us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to
hear 'Paradise Lost' preferred to 'Paradise Regained,' in view of the
very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton
knew, namely, to how large an extent 'Paradise Lost' was not the child
of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as
'Paradise Regained,' we might have understood his prejudice.

Certain parts of 'Paradise Lost' are drawn, as we all know, from other