Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this scholar's mental possessions. [Illustration: MILTON DICTATING TO HIS DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING BY ROMNEY] Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action, girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit which demands freedom of speech and conscience. Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style: High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat. And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of Milton's style at its best: