His portraits of men have a sort of similarity; but it is the similarity, not of a painting, but of a bass-relief.  It suggests a resemblance; but it does not produce an illusion.  Euripides attempted to carry the reform further.  But it was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers.  Instead of correcting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent.  He substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good odes.

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly, much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides deserved.  Indeed, the caresses which this partiality leads our countryman to bestow on “sad Electra’s poet” sometimes remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairy-land kissing the long ears of Bottom.  At all events, there can be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes.  Had Milton taken Aeschylus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on those dramatic properties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve.  In the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent he has failed, as every one else must have failed.  We cannot identify ourselves with the characters, as in a good play.  We cannot identify ourselves with the poet, as in a good ode.  The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed, neutralize each other.  We are by no means insensible to the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives so striking an effect to the choral passages.  But we think it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius of Milton.

The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on the model of the Greek Tragedy.  It is certainly the noblest performance of the kind which exists in any language.  It is as far superior to The Faithful Shepherdess, as The Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the Aminta to the Pastor Fido.  It was well for Milton that he had here no Euripides to mislead him.  He understood and loved the literature of modern Italy.  But he did not feel for it the same veneration which he entertained for the remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many lofty and endearing recollections.  The faults, moreover, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which his mind had a deadly antipathy.  He could stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style; but false brilliancy was his utter aversion.  His muse had no objection to a russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day.  Whatever ornaments she wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but capable of standing the severest test of the crucible.