An extract from the “Mystery of St. Denis” is in the “Bibliotheque du Theatre Francois, depuis son origine, Dresde. 1768.” In this serious drama, St. Denis, having been tortured and at length decapitated, rises very quietly, takes his head under his arm and walks off the stage in all the dignity of martyrdom.
The idea of “No light but rather darkness visible” was perhaps suggested to Milton by Spenser's
A little glooming light much like a shade.
In the Dutch Vondel's tragedy “The Deliverance of the Children of Israel” one of the principal characters is the Divinity himself.
Darwin is indebted for a great part of his “Great poem” to a Latin one by De La Croix, published in 1727 and entitled “Connubia Florum.”
Mr. Bryant in his learned “Mythology” says that although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as existing realities.