His fame is now old-established and settled, so there is no place left for the eloquence of the memorialist, or the studied praises of the pleader. I have tried to understand Milton; and have already praised him as well as I know how, with no stinted admiration, I trust, and certainly with no merely superstitious reverence. If I must round my discourse by repeating something that I have already said or suggested, it shall be this--that as he stands far aloof from his contemporaries, so in the succession of great figures that mark for us the centuries of our literature he is seen once more singular and a stranger. We bred Shakespeare in our Midlands; he was nourished from the soil that still grows our daily bread. But Milton was an alien conqueror. The crowd of native-born Puritans, who sometimes (not without many searchings of heart and sharp misgivings) attempt to claim him for their leader, have no title in him. It is a proof of his dominating power, and no credit to their intelligence, that they accept him as their representative. His influence on the destinies and history of our literature might be compared to the achievement of Napoleon while he was winning the victories that changed the map of Europe. He could not change the character of a people, nor perpetuate his dynasty. But nothing is as it would have been without him. Our literature is as hospitable as the Hindoo pantheon; the great revolutionary has won a place even in our creed. And the writer has this advantage, at least, over the conqueror and legislator, that he has bequeathed to us not maps, nor laws, but poems, whose beauty, like the World's unwithered countenance, is bright as at the day of their creation.
[INDEX]
[For the following Index I am indebted to the kindness of three of my pupils, Miss F. Marston, Miss E. L. Morice, and Miss D. E. Yates.]
Abdiel, [72], [138]-39, [156], [211] Abstract terms, Milton's use of, [227]-31 Adam, [32], [35], [54], [64], [82]-4, [87], [92], [95]-6, [105], [112], [115], [122], [141]-45, [148]-50, [154]-57, [160], [207], [222], [237], [248]-50, [261] Adamo, [95] Addison, Joseph, [157]-58, [206], [218], [242] Æneid, Virgil's, [158] Akenside, Mark, [243] Allegorical figures, Milton's, [237]-38 Amyntor and Theodora, Mallet's, [243] Andreini, [95]-7, [104], [106] Angelo, Michael, [88] Animadversions on the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus, [217] Apology for Smectymnuus, [16], [69], [71], [74] Arbuthnot, John, [218] Areopagitica, [43], [46], [48], [49], [52], [56]-7, [65], [76], [180] Arianism, [86] Ariosto, [171] Armstrong, John, [242] Art of English Poetry, Bysshe's, [241] Art of Preserving Health, The, Armstrong's, [242] Arthurian Legend, [23], [60], [89]-90 Ascension Day, Vaughan's, [257] Athanasian Creed, [86] Athenian Mercury, [240] Augustine, Saint, [112]
Bacon, Francis, [1], [198] Barclay, John, [57] Baxter, Richard, [20]-21 Beaumont, Francis, [218] Beaumont, Joseph, [176] Beelzebub, [140] Belial, [140], [211]-12, [239], [259] Bembo, Pietro, [46] Bentley, Richard, [157]-58 Biron, Tragedy of, Chapman's, [204] Blair, Robert, [243] Blenheim, Lyttelton's, [243] Blenheim, Philips's, [242] Blount, Sir Thomas Pope, [241] Bodley, Sir Thomas, [17] Boileau, Nicolas, [178] Book of Sports, [25] Bossu, Charles, [158] Boyd, Zachary, [175] Brice, Thomas, [173] Broome, William, [242] Bunyan, John, [147], [155] Burke, Edmund, [40], [47], [77], [134] Burnet, Dr. Thomas, [84] Butler, Samuel, [44], [72], [246] Byron, George Gordon, Lord, [233] Bysshe, [241]
Cædmon, [106] Cambridge, Milton at, [13] Camden, William, [61] Carew, Thomas, [197] Catalogues, Milton's Epic, [236] Catullus, [206] Chapman, George, [204], [218] Charlemagne, [60] Charles I., [23] Charles II., Court of, [26], [259] Chase, The, Somerville's, [242] Chaucer, Geoffrey, [145], [236], [255] Chesterfield, Lord, [133] Christian Doctrine, Treatise of, [43], [113], [140] Church of England, [17], [19]-21, [24], [34] City Match, The, Mayne's, [189] Classic School, [220], [226] Cleveland, John, [72] Clovis, Saint-Sorlin's, [178]-79, [205] Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, [127], [151], [173], [214], [238], [251] Comus, [28], [93], [162]-63, [182], [184], [191], [199], [235], [245] Congreve, William, [147], [225] Cooper, John Gilbert, [243] Coriolanus, Shakespeare's, [122] Court lyrists, [259]-63 Cowley, Abraham, [72], [177], [206], [219], [231], [242] Crabbe, George, [223] Crashaw, Richard, [106], [256] Cromwell, Oliver, [62]-3, [65], [135] Cyder, Philips's, [242] Cynthia, Hymn to, Jonson's, [185] Dalila, [51], [149], [209]-10 Daniel, Samuel, [218] Davenant, William, [177], [180], [206], [219] Davideis, Cowley's, [177]-78, [231] De Re Poetica, Blount's, [241] Death of a Fair Infant, On the, [181]-82 Defence of the People of England, [47], [74], [131] Defence of the People of England, Second, [34], [47], [63] Dekker, John, [218] Denham, John, [206], [219] De Quincey, Thomas, [82], [103], [120], [192] Dialogue between the Resolved Soul and Created Pleasure, Marvell's, [162] Discourse of Satire, Dryden's, [202], [205] Divine Institutes of Lactantius, [101] Divine Weekes and Workes, Du Bartas's, [18] Divorce Pamphlets, [16], [19], [48], [52], [54], [69], [75], [248], [259] Donne, John, [181], [183] Dramatists, influence of, on Milton, [15]-16, [185]-87 Drayton, Michael, [27], [174], [218] Dryden, John, [10], [17], [133], [180], [202], [203], [206]-208, [219], [240]-41, [246]-47, [256] Du Bartas, Guillaume, [18], [237] Dunciad, Pope's, [251] Dyer, John, [242], [245]
Ecclesiastical Pamphlets, [49] Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker's, [103] Economy, Shenstone's, [243] Economy of Love, The, Armstrong's, [242] Education, Of, [48]-9 Eighteenth-century poetry, [233]; influence of Milton on, [241] seq. Eikonoklastes, [16], [67] Elizabethan Poetry, [116], [173]-75, [186]-87; Milton's relation to, [15], [16], [218]-20 Ellwood, Thomas, [161], [163] English Dramatick Poets, Account of the, Langbaine's, [241] Epic catalogues, Milton's, [236] Etherege, George, [190] Eve, [27], [54], [83], [87], [92], [96], [112], [121]-22, [142]-50, [154]-59, [160], [204], [206]-207, [222], [249]-50, [260] Excursion, The, Mallet's, [243]
Faerie Queene, Spenser's, [199]-200 Fenton, Elijah, [242] Fleece, The, Dyer's, [242] Fletcher, Giles, [106] Fletcher, Phineas, [106] Ford, John, [117]
Gabriel, [72], [129], [135], [154], [239] Galileo, [100] Gay, John, [242] Gibbon, Edward, [138] Glover, Richard, [243] Godwin, William, [185] Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, [133] Gondibert, Davenant's, [177] Gorboduc, Sackville's, [196] Grainger, James, [242], [244] Grave, The, Blair's, [243] Gray, Thomas, [238], [253]-55 Grongar Hill, Dyer's, [245]
Hall, John, [71] Hamlet, Shakespeare's, [142] Hampton Court Conference, [17] Handel, [239] Harmonie of the Church, Drayton's, [174] Hazlitt, William, [198] Herbert, George, [174] Herodotus, [100] Herrick, Robert, [21], [256] Hervey, Lord, [203] History of Britain, [60], [143] Hobbes, Thomas, [58], [219] Homer, [171], [206], [220], [234] Homer, Pope's, [251] Hop Garden, The, Smart's, [242] Horace, [202] Horton, [22] Howard, Sir Robert, [180] Hume, Patrick, [240] Hyperion, Keats's, [227]