Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence
of the character of Satan as expressed in Paradise Lost. It is a
mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the
popular personification of evil. Implacable hate, patient cunning,
and a sleepless refinement of device to inflict the extremest
anguish on an enemy, these things are evil; and, although venial
in a slave are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; although redeemed
by much that ennobles his defeat in one subdued, are marked by
all that dishonours his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil as
a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres
in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of
adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted
triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from
any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in
enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve
new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this
shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority
of moral virtue to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of
a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy
of Milton's genius. He mingled as it were the elements of human
nature as colours upon a single pallet, and arranged them in the
composition of his great picture according to the laws of epic
truth; that is, according to the laws of that principle by which a
series of actions of the external universe and of intelligent and
ethical beings is calculated to excite the sympathy of succeeding
generations of mankind.
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