being so much more necessarily correspondent to each than those in any
other poem or poet. The connexion of the sentences and the position of
the words are exquisitely artificial; but the position is rather
according to the logic of passion or universal logic, than to the logic
of grammar. Milton attempted to make the English language obey the logic
of passion as perfectly as the Greek and Latin. Hence the occasional
harshness in the construction.

Sublimity is the pre-eminent characteristic of the Paradise Lost. It is
not an arithmetical sublime like Klopstock's, whose rule always is to
treat what we might think large as contemptibly small. Klopstock
mistakes bigness for greatness. There is a greatness arising from images
of effort and daring, and also from those of moral endurance; in Milton
both are united. The fallen angels are human passions, invested with a
dramatic reality.

The apostrophe to light at the commencement of the third book is
particularly beautiful as an intermediate link between Hell and Heaven;
and observe, how the second and third book support the subjective
character of the poem. In all modern poetry in Christendom there is an
under consciousness of a sinful nature, a fleeting away of external
things, the mind or subject greater than the object, the reflective
character predominant. In the 'Paradise Lost' the sublimest parts are the
revelations of Milton's own mind, producing itself and evolving its own
greatness; and this is so truly so, that when that which is merely
entertaining for its objective beauty is introduced, it at first seems a
discord.

In the description of Paradise itself you have Milton's sunny side as a
man; here his descriptive powers are exercised to the utmost, and he