It is a most interesting subject for inquiry from what sources, other than the Scriptures, Milton drew aid in the composition of “Paradise Lost.”  The most striking counterpart is Calderon, to whom he owed as little as Calderon can have owed to him.  “El Magico Prodigioso,” already cited as affording a remarkable parallel to “Comus,” though performed in 1637, was not printed until 1663, when “Paradise Lost” was already completed.[8] The two great religious poets have naturally conceived the Evil One much in the same manner, and Calderon’s Lucifer,

“Like the red outline of beginning Adam,”

might well have passed as the original draft of Milton’s Satan:—­

                               “In myself I am
    A world of happiness and misery;
    This I have lost, and that I must lament
    For ever.  In my attributes I stood
    So high and so heroically great,
    In lineage so supreme, and with a genius
    Which penetrated with a glance the world
    Beneath my feet, that, won by my high merit,
    A King—­whom I may call the King of Kings,
    Because all others tremble in their pride
    Before the terrors of his countenance—­
    In his high palace, roofed with brightest gems
    Of living light—­call them the stars of heaven—­
    Named me his counsellor.  But the high praise
    Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose
    In mighty competition, to ascend
    His seat, and place my foot triumphantly
    Upon his subject thrones.  Chastised, I know
    The depth to which ambition falls.  For mad
    Was the attempt; and yet more mad were now
    Repentance of the irrevocable deed. 
    Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
    Of not to be subdued, before the shame
    Of reconciling me with him who reigns
    By coward cession.  Nor was I alone,
    Nor am I now, nor shall I be, alone. 
    And there was hope, and there may still be hope;
    For many suffrages among his vassals
    Hailed me their lord and king, and many still
    Are mine, and many more perchance shall be.”

A striking proof that resemblance does not necessarily imply plagiarism.  Milton’s affinity to Calderon has been overlooked by his commentators; but four luminaries have been named from which he is alleged to have drawn, however sparingly, in his golden urn—­Caedmon, the Adamus Exul of Grotius, the Adamo of the Italian dramatist Andreini, and the Lucifer of the Dutch poet Vondel.  Caedmon, first printed in 1655, it is but barely possible that he should have known, and ere he could have known him the conception of “Paradise Lost” was firmly implanted in his mind.  External evidence proves his acquaintance with Grotius, internal evidence his knowledge of Andreini:  and small as are his direct obligations to the Italian drama, we can easily believe with Hayley that “his fancy caught fire from that spirited, though irregular and fantastic