that he believed that the visions reflected realities, and especially that the biblical story of the Fall was true. He held his beliefs so strongly that the tortures of the Inquisition would not have extorted a recantation.
The question, however, from a poetical point of view is not whether he could believe, but whether, in modern phrase, he could 'visualise' the objects of his belief; and in this respect, the contrast with Dante is significant. Dante can hardly have believed that his elaborate plan of the Inferno was precisely accurate. When a man is deliberately contriving an imaginary world, he cannot, unless he is actually insane, suppose that he is mapping a real world. He must know that he is creating, not surveying. But Dante's vision could, at any rate, be as distinct and definite as reality. The circles of hell are as visible to Dante, and therefore to us, as the streets of Florence, while Milton's scheme is so vague that he does not even know clearly whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system is correct. And the reason is obvious. Dante was a profounder student of theology and philosophy than Milton; but he does not mix his philosophy with his statement of facts. Throughout his journey, he is still in pre-
