I think Shakspeare is to Milton precisely what Gothic architecture is to
Grecian, or rather to the warmest, most vitalized reproductions of the
Grecian; there is in Milton a calm, severe majesty, a graceful and
polished inflorescence of ornament, that produces, as you look upon it,
a serene, long, strong ground-swell of admiration and approval. Yet
there is a cold unity of expression, that calls into exercise only the
very highest range of our faculties: there is none of that wreathed
involution of smiles and tears, of solemn earnestness and quaint
conceits; those sudden uprushings of grand and magnificent sentiment,
like the flame-pointed arches of cathedrals; those ranges of fancy, half
goblin, half human; those complications of dizzy magnificence with fairy
lightness; those streamings of many-colored light; those carvings
wherein every natural object is faithfully reproduced, yet combined into
a kind of enchantment: the union of all these is in Shakspeare, and not
in Milton. Milton had one most glorious phase of humanity in its
perfection; Shakspeare had all united; from the "deep and dreadful"
sub-bass of the organ to the most aerial warbling of its highest key,
not a stop or pipe was wanting.

But, in fine, at the end of all this we went back to our hotel to
dinner. After dinner we set out to see the church. Even Walter Scott has
not a more poetic monument than this church, standing as it does amid
old, embowering trees, on the beautiful banks of the Avon. A soft, still
rain was falling on the leaves of the linden trees, as we walked up the
avenue to the church. Even rainy though it was, I noticed that many
little birds would occasionally break out into song. In the event of
such a phenomenon as a bright day, I think there must be quite a jubilee
of birds here, even as he sung who lies below:--

"The ousel-cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill;
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray."

The church has been carefully restored inside, so that it is now in
excellent preservation, and Shakspeare lies buried under a broad, flat
stone in the chancel. I had full often read, and knew by heart, the
inscription on this stone; but somehow, when I came and stood over it,
and read it, it affected me as if there were an emanation from the grave
beneath. I have often wondered at that inscription, that a mind so