Not only the figure of Satan, but his speeches in council, his soliloquies, his address to Eve, his share in the war in heaven, or in the fall of man, shew the same decided superiority of character.  To give only one instance, almost the first speech he makes: 

      “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
      Said then the lost archangel, this the seat
      That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom
      For that celestial light?  Be it so, since he
      Who now is sov’rain can dispose and bid
      What shall be right:  farthest from him is best,
      Whom reason hath equal’d, force hath made supreme
      Above his equals.  Farewel happy fields,
      Where joy for ever dwells:  Hail horrors, hail
      Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell,
      Receive thy new possessor:  one who brings
      A mind not to be chang’d by place or time. 
      The mind is its own place, and in itself
      Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. 
      What matter where, if I be still the same,
      And what I should be, all but less than he
      Whom thunder hath made greater?  Here at least
      We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
      Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
      Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
      To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: 
      Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

The whole of the speeches and debates in Pandemonium are well worthy of the place and the occasion—­with Gods for speakers, and angels and archangels for hearers.  There is a decided manly tone in the arguments and sentiments, an eloquent dogmatism, as if each person spoke from thorough conviction; an excellence which Milton probably borrowed from his spirit of partisanship, or else his spirit of partisanship from the natural firmness and vigour of his mind.  In this respect Milton resembles Dante, (the only modern writer with whom he has any thing in common) and it is remarkable that Dante, as well as Milton, was a political partisan.  That approximation to the severity of impassioned prose which has been made an objection to Milton’s poetry, and which is chiefly to be met with in these bitter invectives, is one of its great excellences.  The author might here turn his philippics against Salmasius to good account.  The rout in Heaven is like the fall of some mighty structure, nodding to its base, “with hideous ruin and combustion down.”  But, perhaps, of all the passages in Paradise Lost, the description of the employments of the angels during the absence of Satan, some of whom “retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of battle,” is the most perfect example of mingled pathos and sublimity.—­What proves the truth of this noble picture in every part, and that the frequent complaint of want of interest