If we knew for certain which of the many causes that have enlisted noble minds in our age would array Milton's spirit "in brief dust and light," supposing it returned to earth in this nineteenth century, we should know which was the noblest of them all, but we should be as far as ever from knowing a final and stereotyped Milton.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A famous Presbyterian tract of the day, so called from the combined initials of the authors, one of whom was Milton's old instructor, Thomas Young. The "Remonstrant" to whom Milton replied was Bishop Hall.
[2] This principle admitted of general application. For example, astrological books were to be licensed by John Booker, who could by no means see his way to pass the prognostications of his rival Lilly without "many impertinent obliterations," which made Lilly exceeding wroth.
[3] Two persons of this uncommon name are mentioned in the State Papers of Milton's time—one a merchant who imported a cargo of timber; the other a leatherseller. The name also occurs once in Pepys.
[4] Rossetti's sonnet, "On the Refusal of Aid between Nations," is an almost equally remarkable instance.
[5] The same is recorded of Friedrich Hebbel, the most original of modern German dramatists.
[6] In his "Urim of Conscience," 1695. This curious book contains one of the first English accounts of Buddha, whom the author calls Chacabout (Sakhya Buddha, apparently), and of the "Christians of St. John" at Bassora.