“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674offered a potent rejoinder.^101 The book is a nicely printed octavo, though not so
handsome as the first edition; it contains an engraving made by William Dolle from
the Faithorne engraving, as well as two highly laudatory commendatory poems.
The first, in Latin, titled “In Paradisum Amissam Summi Poetae” (On the Paradise
Lost of John Milton Consummate Poet) and signed S. B. M. D., is generally attrib-
uted to the court physician Samuel Barrow, who was evidently Milton’s friend.
Barrow praises especially the sublimity and scope of Milton’s poem – “the story of
all things,” all places, and all times.^102 He was especially impressed by the episode
closest to classical epic, the War in Heaven, which he thought awe-inspiring for its
magnificent warriors, grand battles, and especially Messiah’s wondrous chariot. He
did not recognize, or at any rate did not discuss, Milton’s radical revision of the
classical epic, but he ends by proclaiming Milton’s resounding victory over all an-
cient and modern epic poets: “Yield, ye writers of Rome, yield, ye writers of
Greece... Whoso shall read this poem will think that Homer sang only of frogs,
Virgil only of gnats.”
The second poetic commendation, signed A. M. and titled “On Paradise Lost,”
is a brilliant rhetorical performance by Milton’s good friend Marvell, who casts
himself as a skeptic won by degrees to recognize the sublimity of Milton’s achieve-
ment. Amazed, like Barrow, at the “vast Design,” the intent to treat “Heav’n, Hell,
Earth, Chaos, All,” he first thought Milton might, like a spiteful Samson, pull down
the whole edifice of religion: “That he would ruine (for I saw him strong) / The
sacred Truths to Fable and old Song” (2–8). Then, thinking better of the project,
he feared Milton could not bring it off, that he would perplex or trivialize these
matters of faith. Then, with snide reference to Dryden’s project, he predicts that
“some less skilful hand” would seek fame by “ill imitating” Milton, presuming,
“the whole Creations day / To change in Scenes, and show it in a Play” (18–22).
But that, he concludes, would be folly, for Milton’s perfection is such “that no
room is here for Writers left, / But to detect their Ignorance or Theft” (29–30).
Indeed, Milton’s art and sublimity prove him to be inspired. He is not a blind
Samson wrecking the Temple to revenge his eyes, but a blind prophet like Tiresias:
Thou singst with so much gravity and ease;
And above humane flight dost soar aloft
With Plume so strong, so equal, and so soft,
The Bird nam’d from that Paradise you sing
So never flaggs, but always keeps on Wing.
Where couldst thou words of such a compass find?
Where furnish such a vast expence of mind?
Just Heav’n thee like Tiresias to requite
Rewards with Prophesie thy loss of sight. (36–44)Marvell claims for Milton the religious inspiration that the Anglican establishment
so abhorred in the dissenters and the poetic exaltation that Dryden and court cul-