The destruction of Jerusalem is the only subject now remaining for an epic
poem; a subject which, like Milton's Fall of Man, should interest all
Christendom, as the Homeric War of Troy interested all Greece. There would
be difficulties, as there are in all subjects; and they must he mitigated
and thrown into the shade, as Milton has done with the numerous
difficulties in the Paradise Lost. But there would be a greater assemblage
of grandeur and splendour than can now be found in any other theme. As for
the old mythology, _incredulus odi;_ and yet there must be a mythology, or
a _quasi_-mythology, for an epic poem. Here there would be the completion
of the prophecies--the termination of the first revealed national religion
under the violent assault of Paganism, itself the immediate forerunner and
condition of the spread of a revealed mundane religion; and then you would
have the character of the Roman and the Jew, and the awfulness, the
completeness, the justice. I schemed it at twenty-five; but, alas!
_venturum expectat_.
_April_ 29. 1832.