"The reason," says Blake, "why Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it." The passages in "Paradise Regained" which most nearly approach the magnificence of "Paradise Lost," are those least closely connected with the proper action of the poem, the episodes with which Milton's consummate art and opulent fancy have veiled the bareness of his subject.

The description of the Parthian military expedition; the picture, equally gorgeous and accurate, of the Roman Empire at the zenith of its greatness; the condensation into a single speech of all that has made Greece dear to humanity--these are the shining peaks of the regained "Paradise," marvels of art and eloquence, yet, unlike "Paradise Lost," beautiful rather than awful.

The faults inherent in the theme cannot be imputed to the poet.

No human skill could make the second Adam as great an object of sympathy as the first: it is enough, and it is wonderful, that spotless virtue should be so entirely exempt from formality and dulness.

The baffled Satan, beaten at his own weapons, is necessarily a much less interesting personage than the heroic adventurer of "Paradise Lost." Milton has done what can be done by softening Satan's reprobate mood with exquisite strokes of pathos:-- "Though I have lost Much lustre of my native brightness, lost To be beloved of God, I have not lost To love, at least contemplate and admire What I see excellent in good or fair, Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense." These words, though spoken with a deceitful intention, express a truth.
Milton's Satan is a long way from Goethe's Mephistopheles.