[111] These are the concluding words of that most exquisite creation of early genius, the "Comus." Beyond their intrinsic value, they have authority from the circumstance that they were adopted by Milton as a motto, and inscribed by him in an album at Geneva, while on his foreign travels. This album is now in my hands. The truth thus embalmed by the grandest poet of modern times is also illustrated in familiar words by the most graceful poet of antiquity:—
"Integer vitæ scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauris jaculis, neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
Fusce, pharetra."
Hor., Carm. I. xxii. 1-4.
Dryden pictures the same in some of his most magical lines:—
"A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged;
Without unspotted, innocent within,