[Marginalia in Keats' annotated copy of "Paradise Lost"]: 'The Genius of Milton, more particularly in respect to its span in immensity, calculated him, by a sort of birthright, for such an "argument" as the paradise lost: he had an exquisite passion for what is properly, in the sense of ease and pleasure, poetical Luxury; and with that it appears to me he would fain have been content, if he could, so doing, have preserved his self-respect and feel of duty performed; but there was working in him as it were that same sort of thing as operates in the great world to the end of a Prophecy's being accomplished: therefore he devoted himself rather to the Ardours thean the pleasures of Song, solacing himself at intervals with cups of old wine; and those are with some exceptions the finest parts of the Poem. With some exceptions - for the spirit of mounting and adventure can never be unfruitful or unrewarded: had he not broken through the clouds which envellope [sic] so deliciously the Elysian fields of Verse, and committed himself to the Extreme, we should never have seen Satan as described - But his face/ Deep Scars of thunder had entrench'd etc.'