To remain at such an elevation was impossible.  Milton compares unfavourably with Homer in this; his epic begins at its zenith, and after a while visibly and continually declines.  His genius is unimpaired, but his skill transcends his stuff.  The fall of man and its consequences could not by any device be made as interesting as the fall of Satan, of which it is itself but a consequence.  It was, moreover, absolutely inevitable that Adam’s fall, the proper catastrophe of the poem, should occur some time before the conclusion, otherwise there would have been no space for the unfolding of the scheme of Redemption, equally essential from the point of view of orthodoxy and of art.  The effect is the same as in the case of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” which, having proceeded with matchless vigour up to the flight of the conspirators after Antony’s speech, becomes comparatively tame and languid, and cannot be revived even by such a masterpiece as the contention between Brutus and Cassius.  It is to be regretted that Milton’s extreme devotion to the letter of Scripture has not permitted him to enrich his latter books with any corresponding episode.  It is not until the very end that he is again truly himself—­

   “They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
    Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
    Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
    With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. 
    Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon. 
    The world was all before them, where to choose
    Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 
    They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
    Through Eden took their solitary way.”

Some minor objections may be briefly noticed.  The materiality of Milton’s celestial warfare has been censured by every one from the days of Sir Samuel Morland,[6] a splenetic critic, who had incurred Milton’s contempt by his treachery to Cromwell and Thurloe.  Warfare, however, there must be:  war cannot be made without weapons; and Milton’s only fault is that he has rather exaggerated than minimized the difficulties of his subject.  A sense of humour would have spiked his celestial artillery, but a lively perception of the ridiculous is scarcely to be demanded from a Milton.  After all, he was borrowing from good poets,[7] whose thought in itself is correct, and even profound; it is only when artillery antedates humanity that the ascription of its invention to the Tempter seems out of place.  The metamorphosis of the demons into serpents has been censured as grotesque; but it was imperatively necessary to manifest by some unmistakable outward sign that victory did not after all remain with Satan, and the critics may be challenged to find one more appropriate.  The bridge built by Sin and Death is equally essential.  Satan’s progeny must not be dismissed without some exploit worthy of their parentage.  The one passage where Milton’s taste seems to us entirely at fault is the description of the Paradise of Fools (iii., 481-497), where his scorn of—­