rse" in our time would do well to analyse, it is
the most complete expression of his own individual character that he
ever attained. Here the Captain of Jehovah, here the champion of
Light against Darkness, of Pride against Humility, of Man against
Woman, finds his opportunity and his hour. Out of his blindness, out
of his loneliness, out of the welter of hedonists and amorists and
feminists and fantasists who crowded upon him, the great, terrible
egoist strikes his last blow! No one can read Samson Agonistes
without being moved, and those who look deepest into our present
age may well be moved the most! One almost feels as if some great
overpowering tide of all the brutalities and crudities and false
sentiments and cunning hypocrisies, and evil voluptuousness, of all
the Philistias that have ever been, is actually rushing to overwhelm
us! Gath and Askalon in gross triumph--must this thing be? Will the
Lord of Hosts lift no finger to help his own? And then the end
comes; and the Euripidean "messenger" brings the great news! He is
dead, our Champion; but in his death he slew more than in his life.
"Nothing is here" for unworthy sorrow; "nothing" that need make us
"knock the breast;"--"No weakness, no contempt, dispraise or
blame--nothing but well and fair, and what may quiet us in a death
so noble."

And the end of Samson Agonistes is as the end of Milton's own life.
Awaited in calm dignity, as a Roman soldier might wait for Caesar's
word, Death has claimed its own. But let not the "daughters of the
uncircumsized" triumph! Grandeur and nobility, beauty and heroism,
live still; and while these live, what matter though our bravest and
our fairest perish? It only remains to let the thunderbolt, when it
does fall, find us prepared; find us in calm of mind, "all passion
spent."

CHARLES LAMB

Charles Lamb occupies a very curious position in English literature
and a very enviable one. He is, perhaps, the most widely known, and
widely spoken of, of any stylist we possess, and the least understood.
It was his humour, while living, to create misunderstanding, and he
creates it still. And yet he is recognized on all sides as a Classic of
the unapproachable breed. Charles Lamb has among his admirers
more uninteresting people than any great artist has ever had except
Thackeray. He has more academic people in his train than anyone
has ever had except Shakespeare. And more severe, elderly, pedantic
persons profess to love him