Fired by the splendid fictions which romancers had raised on the basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh traditions, Milton had designed the exploits of King Arthur for the subject of his lofty epic strain. What we have lost, in his abandoning the theme, can only be estimated by the enthusiastic tone into which he always swells, when he touches upon the "shores of old romance." The sublime glow of his imagination, which delighted in painting what was beyond the reach of human experience; the dignity of his language, formed to express the sentiments of heroes and of immortals; his powers of describing alike the beautiful and terrible; above all, the justice with which he conceived and assigned to each supernatural agent a character as decidedly peculiar, as lesser poets have given to their human actors, would have sent him forth to encounter such a subject with gigantic might. Whoever has ventured, undeterred by their magnitude, upon the old romances of "Lancelot du Lac," "Sir Tristrem," and others, founded on the achievements of the Knights of the Round Table, cannot but remember a thousand striking Gothic incidents, worthy subjects of the pen of Milton. What would he not have made of the adventure of the Ruinous Chapel, the Perilous Manor, the Forbidden Seat, the Dolorous Wound, and many others susceptible of being described in the most sublime poetry! Even when that sun had set, Arthur had yet another chance for immortality; for Dryden repeatedly expressed his intention to found an epic poem upon his history. Our poet, it may be guessed, was too much in the trammels of French criticism, to have ventured upon a style of composition allied to the Gothic romance. His poem would probably have been formed upon the model of the ancients, which, although more classical and correct, might have wanted the force, which reality of painting and description never fails to give to epic narrative. Arthur, in such a poem, would, like Rinaldo, have reminded us of Achilles; and the sameness of a copy would have been substituted for the spirit of a characteristic original. But, had Dryden executed his intended plan, we should have found picturesque narrative detailed in the most manly and majestic verse, and interspersed with lessons teaching us to know human life, maxims proper to guide it, and sentiments which ought to adorn it. In the Knight's Tale, and in Dryden's other narrative poems, we see enough to induce us to regret the sordid negligence, or avarice, which withheld from him the means of decent support, while employed upon the promised task. But Arthur, as a sort of counterpoise to his extravagant reputation during the middle ages, was doomed, in the seventeenth century, to be reluctantly abandoned by Milton and Dryden; and to be celebrated by the pen of Blackmore.