Ss ee eee, 
II 
JOHN MILTON 
To bring a sketch of John Milton within the com- 
pass of a single hour seems much like attempting the 
feat described by Jules Verne, of making the journey 
around the world in eighty days. In the dimensions 
of that human personality there is a cosmic vastness 
which one can no more comprehend in a few general 
statements than one could sum up in some brief for- 
mula the surface of our planet, with all its varied con- 
figuration, all its rich and marvellous life. There have 
been other men, indeed, more multifarious in their 
worth than Milton, men whose achievements have 
been more diversified. Doubtless the genius of 
Michael Angelo was more universal, Shakespeare 
touched a greater number of springs in the human 
heart; and such a spectacle as that of Goethe, making 
profound and startling discoveries in botany and com- 
parative anatomy while busy with the composition of 
“Faust,” we do not find in the life of Milton. A mere 
catalogue dealing with the Puritan poet and his works 
would be shorter than many another catalogue. But 
when we seek words in which to convey a critical esti- 
mate of the man and what he did, we find that we have 
a world upon our hands. Professor Masson, of the 
University of Edinburgh, has written the “ Life of Mil- 
ton” in six large octavos ; he has given as much space 
to the subject as Gibbon gave to the “ Decline and 
37 
