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JOHN MILTON.* 



IN considering the genius and productions of Milton, and the im- 

 pression they have made on the public mind, great as his renown is, 

 we cannot but be struck with the inequality of his fame with the 

 transcendent eminence and variety of his merits. It is a fact, we 

 fear, as true as mortifying to our national pride, that John Milton's 

 prose writings, sublime in themselves, and ripe with thought-exciting 

 energy, are so little known, and still less studied, that in strict jus- 

 tice they cannot be said to constitute more than a very small portion 

 of the basis on which rests the unsurpassed reputation already ac- 

 corded to his name. The might and vigour with which he wielded 

 the champion's pen the fiery, unquenchable zeal with which he es- 

 poused the cause he deemed to be just the quail and terror which 

 his very name struck into the hearts of his opponents, are known, 

 we fear, to the majority, even of the reading world, only from the 

 faintly-sounded echo of a far-derived tradition. As the public mind 

 acquires strength, we may anticipate a corresponding change in the 

 character of its appetites ; and we hail with joy this substantial proof 

 that, to the eyes of some, a change of this kind either has taken place, 

 or is about to occur. 



The writings of Milton constitute a rich treasury of diction, 

 grandly embellished, of thoughts nobly conceived, and of principles 

 weightily argued. This eloquence, like the imitations of a musical 

 composer, whether employed to express anger or ridicule, still vi- 

 brates within the limits of pleasure, and delights by the beauty and 

 melody of its modulations. When from distant ages and regions he 

 calls in the aid of those chosen minds with whom he held habitual 

 converse, and adduces from the poets and sages of ^antiquity, those 

 moral maxims with which his pages are studded, he seems to speak 

 with the name and no longer mortal voice of the assembled wise and 

 good in the elysium of worthies. A strong sense of justice, a daring 

 pursuit of duty, a love of the fair and good, the high consciousness 

 how greater far than rank or wealth are the gifts of genius and 

 virtue such are the lofty sentiments he is able and calculated to in- 

 spire. One rises from his books dilated, as it were, and purified 

 may it long form the manual of our youth, the canon of the patriot ! 



Milton may, however, be designated a religious jacobin. For de- 

 liberate hostility to church arid king, he yields not to the disciples of 

 Volney. They lean more to democratic sway, he to aristocratic- 

 they display abhorrence at Christianity ; his shudders are excited by 

 popery and infidelity, to a degree which can be as little acquitted of 

 prejudice and intolerance. This yet remains to be done for the dif- 

 fusion of Milton's desirable influence on national opinion to separate 

 those finer passages, which preserve their interest and their value, 



* The Prose Works of John Milton, with an Introductory Review, by 

 Robert Fletcher. London : Westley and Davis. 1833. 



