in Greek, was inspired by Homer; while, on the contrary, it was Shakespeare who inspired Milton. It is known that Paradise Lost was at first conceived as the subject of a tragedy, and that it was only after reflection that the English poet saw therein the material for an epic poem. I will tell later on, in speaking of the Messiah of Klopstock, what has prevented these two subjects, which appear equally epics, from attaining wholly to the majesty of epopœia. As many of the motives that I have to offer apply to the two works, I will thus avoid useless repetition. I shall begin by translating the exposition and invocation of Milton, by imitating its movement and its harmony, as I have done with the other poets.
De l'homme, viens chanter la disgrâce, et la fruit
De cet arbre fatal, dont le goût homicide
Livra le Monde au crime, à la mort, aux malheurs,
Et nous ravit Eden, jusqu'au moment qu'un Homme
Plus grand, par son trépas, racheta le séjour
- [Footnote: in the spirit of its government and its superstitious cult. They have all
thought that the tribunal of the Inquisition alone was capable of arresting the impulse of genius and of stifling the development of learning. In this they have taken effects for causes, and consequences for principles. They have not seen that the spirit of the government and the cult is always not the motive, but the result of the national spirit, and that the wealth and the colonies, indifferent in themselves, are only instruments that this spirit employs for good or evil, according to its character. I can only indicate the first cause which has prevented Spain from reaching the culminating point which France is very near to attaining. This cause is pride. Whilst Europe, enveloped in darkness, was, so to speak, in the fermentation of ignorance, Spain, conquered by the Arabs, received a germ of science which, developing with rapidity, produced a precocious fruit, brilliant, but like hot-house fruit lacking internal force and generative vigour. This premature production having raised Spain abruptly above the other European nations, inspired in her that pride, that excessive amour propre, which, making her treat with contempt all that did not belong to her, hindered her from making any change in her usual customs, carried her with complacency in her mistakes, and when other peoples came to bring forth fruits in their season, corrupted hers and stamped her with a stationary movement, which becoming necessarily retrogressive, must ruin her, and did ruin her.]
