64 
He lived seven years after his great task was done and then 
passed away and was buried at St. Giles’, Cripplegate. One 
hoped against hope that the profanation of his grave and the 
scattering of his bones when the church was restored in 1790 
was not true. One only fears that it has never been conclusively 
disproved. A few years ago anybody might have found his will 
tied together with Napoleon the First’s in Doctors Commons, 
and so the whirligig of time makes strange bed-fellows. 
In early youth Milton planned something great, ‘‘ something 
in the after time which the world will not willingly let die.” 
Various biographers and critics have done their utmost to find 
out what literature it was that led John Milton in this direction. 
Whatever the origin was we are not going to detract from the 
wonderful originality of ‘‘ Paradise Lost ’’ by considering what 
sources he may have drawn from. What is it that enthrals as 
‘¢ Paradise Lost’ enthrals? The great poem is greatest not in 
what it describes, but in the power it has of carrying the imagin- 
ation along with it, to create its own images, which images are 
not to be found there. And as we read through ‘* Paradise Lost” 
we find ourselves creating those images. The strange, vague 
nebuiosities of preternatural beings—they are not Milton’s, but 
they are ours. He has given us the power through waking up 
the wonderful powers of the imagination, to imagine things which 
Milton never sketched. It is that, I think, which causes 
‘«‘ Paradise Lost’’ to grip a man with such power, because it gives 
the power which poetry should impart to the reader instead of 
keeping it as a monopoly to the writer, (Cheers.) As instances 
of the enthralment which Milton had over others, he quoted Scott 
and Macauley, and in a few closing words compared the intel- 
lectual relationship of Milton and Dante. They had something 
in common in their lives, but the contrast between them is very 
remarkable. Dante jibbets all his foes, and emparadises all his 
friends. You could not read Dante without the history of 
Florence open at your elbow. You do not require anything 
approaching history in reading “ Paradise Lost’””—at any rate, 
nothing more than ‘ Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary.” Dante 
is himself throughout projected over every part, but Milton loses 
himself in his theme. Some of Milton’s critics had thrown 
vitriol really in the face of the poet, but we need not stop to 
defend him ; he does not need our defence; he had been raised 
by the consensus of the intellectual ever since he lived, and 
placed upon a height which is unassailable, and from which he 
looks down upon his critics snarling and barking in the flesh. 
(Cheers.) 
Mr. H. L. Joseland, M.A., in moving a vote of thanks to the 
Bishop, stated that Milton was a member of his college at Cam- 
bridge, and that in the Fellows’ Garden, at the back of the college, 
