he that looks for an Hero in it, searches for that which Milton never intended;
but
if he will needs fix the Name of an Hero upon any Person in it, '
certainly the Messiah who is the Hero, both in the Principal Action, and in the
chief Episodes
. Paganism could not furnish out a real Action for a Fable greater than that of the Iliad or Æneid, and therefore an Heathen could not form a higher Notion of a Poem than one of that kind, which they call an Heroic.