KASHMIR. 265 



Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, 

 Aud slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise." 



But praise, or fame, as here used by Milton and some 

 of our older writers, is not to be confounded with the 

 notoriety of the world, which almost any eccentricity, 

 vulgarity, self-assertion, or accidental success may 

 command. It is even something more than the 

 " good and honest report " of the multitude, or the 

 approval of the better-minded of the human race, both 

 of which judgments must often proceed on very im- 

 perfect and misleading grounds. Milton himself ex- 

 pressed the truest meaning of fame when Phoebus 

 touched his trembling ears, and, immediately after 

 the passage just quoted, he went on to say 



" Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, 



Nor in the glistening foil 



Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies, 

 But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, 

 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 

 As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 

 Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 



It may be fancied that the poet is rather inconsis- 

 tent here, because he begins by speaking of fame as 

 " the last infirmity of noble minds ; " and surely it 

 can hardly be an infirmity to value the judgment 

 which proceeds from the " perfect witness of all- 

 judging Jove." But there is no inconsistency when 

 the whole passage in Lycidas is considered, beginning, 



"Alas! what boots it with incessant care 1" 



The argument is that it must matter nothing, seeing 



