...invested them with form and matter. This, being necessary, was therefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping...immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop it ifrom his thoughts. But he has, unhappily, perplexed his poetry with his philosophy. His infernal and...

...invested them with form and matter. This, being necessary, was therefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of his system, by keeping...But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy.66 Johnson assumed that Milton believed in the immateriality of the spirit world, but his...

...therefore invested them with form and matter. This being necessary was therefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping...unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy" (Lives, i: 184). 8. Richardson uses every opportunity to emphasize this notion of angelic substance....

...invested them with form and matter. This, being necessary, was therefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of his system, by keeping...body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the burning marie, he has a body; when in his passage between hell and the new world, he is in danger of sinking...

...toad (Iv. 800), and of the Serpent (Ix. 85, 86, 187—90). There is in fact some inconsistency : " his infernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated body" (Johnson). The difficulty is really insuperable, but Milton purposely modifies its effect, particularly...

...the spirits should be clothed with material forms. " But," says he, " the poet should have secured 35 the consistency of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." This is easily said ; but what if Milton could not...