Landor.—I have not said that.
North.—You think well of Spenser?
Landor.—As I do of opium: he sends me to bed [66].
[Footnote 66:
Thee, gentle Spenser fondly led,
But me he mostly sent to bed.—LANDOR. ]
North.—You concede the greatness of Milton?
Landor.—Yes, when he is great; but his Satan is often a thing to be thrown out of the way among the rods and fools' caps of the nursery [67].
[Footnote 67: Vol. i. p. 301.]
He has sometimes written very contemptibly; his lines on Hobbes, the carrier, for example, and his versions of Psalms. [68] Milton was never so great a regicide as when he smote King David.
[Footnote 68: Blackwood.]
North.—You like, at least, his hatred of kings?