Dim foreshadowings, which Milton, I doubt not, discerned and cherished. The Iliad was the natural and spiritual father of the Paradise Lost—
SEWARD.
And the son is greater than the sire.
NORTH.
I see in the Iliad the love of Homer to Greece and to humankind. He was a legislator to Greece before Solon and Lycurgus—greater than either—after the manner fabled of Orpheus.
SEWARD.
Sprung from the bosom of heroic life, the Iliad asked heroic listeners.
NORTH.
See with what large-hearted love he draws the Men—Hector, and Priam, and Sarpedon—as well as the Woman Andromache—enemies! Can he so paint humanity and not humanise? He humanises us—who have literature and refined Greece and Rome—who have Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton—who are Christendom.
SEWARD.