preconception of the kind of interest intended to be excited in that
admirable work. In its kind it is the most perfect poem extant, though
its kind may be inferior in interest--being in its essence didactic--to
that other sort, in which instruction is conveyed more effectively,
because less directly, in connection with stronger and more pleasurable
emotions, and thereby in a closer affinity with action. But might we not
as rationally object to an accomplished woman's conversing, however
agreeably, because it has happened that we have received a keener
pleasure from her singing to the harp? 'Si genus sit probo et sapienti
viro hand indignum, et si poema sit in suo genere perfectum, satis est.
Quod si hoc auctor idem altioribus numeris et carmini diviniori ipsum
per se divinum superaddiderit, mehercule satis est, et plusquam
satis'. [2] I cannot, however, but wish that the answer of Jesus to Satan
in the 4th book, (v. 285.)--

Think not but that I know these things;
Or think I know them not,
Not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought, &c.

had breathed the spirit of Hayley's noble quotation rather than the
narrow bigotry of Gregory the Great. The passage is, indeed, excellent,
and is partially true; but partial truth is the worst mode of conveying
falsehood.

Hayley, p. 75. "The sincerest friends of Milton may here agree with
Johnson, who speaks of 'his controversial merriment as
disgusting'."

The man who reads a work meant for immediate effect on one age with the