politics, a Laud and Howe in religion. But if on a few great topics they widely differed, in how many respects we can trace a similarity between them. Both were great scholars, skilled controversialists, profound theologians, though not always sound divines. Both had ready at hand all the rubbish of the schoolmen, and knew how to transmute their dust to gold. Both were led for a time to assume the scholastic profession, and published grammars for their pupils. Both, while mixed up in the wild discord. of stormy times, had a fair garden of beauty into which they might at any moment retire for rest and relaxation, a garden in which the voice of God was heard, and over which angelic spirits brooded. Both, like Dante, were able to pass at will into another region, tenanted by gorgons, horrors, and chimeras dire. Both were austere in principle, and ascetics in practice. alone in that age, as defenders and expounders of religious toleration; and, finally, both did their life's work with the zealous energy of Christian men, and not without prayer to that Eternal Spirit "who can touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases." If a friendship between these eminent men had been possible, it might have proved of service to both. Taylor, with his gentle nature and loving heart, would have softened down whatever was stern and harsh in the poet's temperament; while Milton might have imparted to the bishop that manly vigour and straightforwardness which are sometimes lacking in his writings, but never in his life.

Both stood almost

HARTLEY. As a proof that the genius of Milton was not fully perceived by his contemporaries, TALBOT has

mentioned the silence of Taylor; but it is a fact almost equally significant that Milton makes no mention of the bishop.

STANLEY. There was more reticence in those days, than in this age of critical garrulity. Men of letters had not then been infected by the Laird of Auchinleck's example. But it is not only from the silence of his contemporaries that we learn how little Milton was appreciated. of their statements, direct or indirect, prove it still more palpably.

Some

HARTLEY. Yes, there is that of Lord Clarendon, for instance, who affirms that Cowley had in that age "taken a flight above all men in poetry ;" and Waller, you remember, declared in a letter to Buckingham that Milton had just published a poem "remarkable for nothing but its extreme length;" while, beyond these individual assertions, we have the glaring fact that the volume containing Milton's minor poems, a volume which, considering its size, was more brim with poetry than any which has since appeared, did not reach a second edition until he himself republished it twenty-eight years afterwards.

TALBOT. I have observed of late, a slight vein of depreciation running through our reviews, whenever reference is made to Milton. Another proof, if true, of the intellectual weakness of the age.

HARTLEY. True it may be, but it is not the whole truth. Remember the freedom-the laxity of Milton's religious views. How can such a heathen be tolerated by those who hold the dogma of apostolic succession, and who therefore look on all that worship

F

outside the pale of the English Church, as heretics and schismatics.

TALBOT. Genius belongs to no sect, and is dependent on no lines of demarcation. Milton was as good as he was great. Why should his notions on church government, and on kindred topics, affect his reputation as a poet or his heritage as a Christian? Such bigotry is intolerable. True Churchman though I be, if a member of the socalled "Liberation Society were to write a noble poem, or to paint a fine picture, I should read the one and gaze at the other, with as much avidity as if they had emanated from Oxford, or from a bishop's palace. Truly that man's mind must be of infinitely small calibre, which can restrict itself to one narrow groove in literature, in politics, or in religion.

STANLEY. The invasion of new ideas is apt to shock respectable middle-aged persons. It is unpleasant to have one's opinions unsettled; better therefore to avoid the faintest risk of such a calamity, better a Galileo in prison, than a Luther at Worms. It would be curious and yet saddening could we know how much of what we believe, is simply the result of education, and how much is the result of earnest thought, and impartial examination. It would be curious, also, to know how far a man's belief is influenced by his position and prospects. A high office or a good income, must affect considerably his mental vision.

TALBOT. Dryden never uttered anything more foolishly false than when he said, that

"Truth has such a face and such a mien,

As to be loved, needs only to be seen;"

for the beauty which truth possesses is so quiet and retiring, that it rarely, if ever, wins at first sight. Indeed, it is not the glance at Truth, but rather, to continue his metaphor, the careful examination of her features, which may prove the harbinger of love. If any man sought for truth in simple honesty of soul, I dare believe that that man was John Milton. One almost feels inclined to wish that he had been born in our day, and so had helped to unriddle some of the problems, which seem beyond the range of any living thinker

66 Milton, thou should'st be living at this hour;
England has need of thee."

HARTLEY. Milton's prose works are only second to his poetry. I do not admire his style; but for vehemence, power, and rare eloquence, for manly vigour and for sublimity, I know no prose writer who can compete with him. And one reason for this pre-eminence arises from his thorough belief in the force of his own arguments. It were to be wished, that this belief had restrained Milton from the use of intemperate language, and from what, to be honest, I must call the vulgar abuse of his antagonists.

TALBOT. Remember the provocation he received, and the missiles that were showered at him from all sides. Think too, of the license permitted in that age.

HARTLEY. Fair excuses these, if applied to common men. The latter has, indeed, some force, even when applied to Milton; but, when I consider the exquisite taste, the just notion of proportion, and the delicacy of sentiment shown

by Milton in his poetry, I can only wonder that a similar sense of what was fit and harmonious, did not soften his asperity, and give even to his most earnest invective, a certain dignity and calmness.

STANLEY. Let it suffice, that Milton was but a man, although one of the greatest. His consummate skill as an artist appears to me as admirable as his poetical genius; yet, as Campbell truly remarks, "his early poetry seems to have neither disturbed nor corrected the bad taste of his age."

HARTLEY. Dr. Johnson affirms that Milton's "images and descriptions of the scenes of nature do not seem to be always copied from the original form, nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation;" and Mr. Keightley, in his "Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton," holds the same view, and backs it with a quotation from Dryden, which is also used by Johnson in a previous paragraph to the one I have read to you. Speaking of Milton's shorter poems, Mr. Keightley says:

"Exquisitely beautiful as these poems are, they still furnish a proof that Milton 'read nature through the spectacles of books;' for we nowhere meet with that accurate description of natural objects indicative of actual observation, which we find in Homer, Dante, and Thomson."

Whether these assertions be false or true, is the subject we have now to consider. Does Milton describe Nature with the instinct and felicity of a man who really sees into her very life, or does he copy the images and descriptions of those who have gone before