This principle we might exemplify, and explain at great length; but we impose a law of severe brevity upon ourselves. And we have said enough. Out of this one principle of subtle and lurking antagonism, may be explained everything which has been denounced under the idea of pedantry in Milton. It is the key to all that lavish pomp of art and knowledge which is sometimes put forward by Milton in situations of intense solitude, and in the bosom of primitive nature--as, for example, in the Eden of his great poem, and in the Wilderness of his _Paradise Regained_. The shadowy exhibition of a regal banquet in the desert, draws out and stimulates the sense of its utter solitude and remotion from men or cities. The images of architectural splendor, suddenly raised in the very centre of Paradise, as vanishing shows by the wand of a magician, bring into powerful relief the depth of silence, and the unpopulous solitude which possess this sanctuary of man whilst yet happy and innocent. Paradise could not, in any other way, or by any artifice less profound, have been made to give up its essential and differential characteristics in a form palpable to the imagination. As a place of rest, it was necessary that it should be placed in close collision with the unresting strife of cities; as a place of solitude, with the image of tumultuous crowds; as the centre of mere natural beauty in its gorgeous prime, with the images of elaborate architecture and of human workmanship; as a place of perfect innocence in seclusion, that it should be exhibited as the antagonist pole to the sin and misery of social man. Such is the covert philosophy which governs Milton's practice, and which might be illustrated by many scores of passages from both the _Paradise Lost_ and the _Paradise Regained_. [Footnote: For instance, this is the key to that image in the _Paradise Regained_, where Satan, on first emerging into sight, is compared to an old man gathering sticks 'to warm him on a winter's day.' This image, at first sight, seems little in harmony with the wild and awful character of the supreme fiend. No: it is _not in_ harmony; nor is it meant to be in harmony. On the contrary, it is meant to be in antagonism and intense repulsion. The household image of old age, of human infirmity, and of domestic hearths, are all meant as a machinery for provoking and soliciting the fearful idea to which they are placed in collision, and as so many repelling poles.] In fact, a volume might be composed on this one chapter. And yet, from the blindness or inconsiderate examination of his critics, this latent wisdom--this cryptical science of poetic effects--in the mighty poet, has been misinterpreted, and set down to the account of defective skill, or even of puerile ostentation.