Or let us return to the Paradise Lost? If the mustering of the Fallen Legions in the First Book—if the Infernal Council held in the Second—if the Angelic Rebellion and Warfare in the Fifth and Sixth—resemble Public History, civil and military, as we commonly speak—if the Seventh Book, relating the Creation by describing the kinds created, be the assumption into Heroic Poetry of Natural History—to what kind of History, I earnestly ask you both, does that scene belong, of Eve's relation of her dream, in the Fifth Book, and Adam's consolation of her uneasiness under its involuntary sin? To what, in the Fourth Book, her own innocent relation of her first impressions upon awaking into Life and Consciousness?
BULLER.
Ay!—to what kind of History? More easily asked than answered.
NORTH.
And Adam's relation to the Affable Archangel of his own suddenly-dawned morning from the night of non-existence, aptly and happily crowned upon the relation made to him by Raphael in the Seventh Book of his own forming under the Omnipotent Hand?
SEWARD.
Simply, I venture to say, sir, to the most interior autobiography—to that confidence of audible words, which flows when the face of a friend sharpens the heart of a man—and Raphael was Adam's Friend.
NORTH.
Seward, you are right. You speak well—as you always do—when you choose. Behold, then, I beseech you, the comprehending power of that little magical band—Our Accentual Iambic Pentameter.
SEWARD.