Church, imposed from above upon an
unawakened people, was falling into wreckage. Here was an opportunity
that has not often, in the world's history, come to a poet, of realising
the dream that he had dreamed in his study, of setting up again, for the
admiration and comfort of posterity, the model of an ancient Republic.

The best of all Milton's critics has left us the worst account of his
political opinions. Johnson's censure of _Lycidas_, much as it has been
ridiculed and decried, is judicious and discerning compared with his
explanation of Milton's political creed:--"Milton's republicanism was, I
am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire
of independence, in petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful
of superiority. He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the
Church; for he hated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be
suspected that his predominant desire was to destroy, rather than
establish, and that he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance
to authority." It may, at least, be credited to Johnson for moderation,
that he requires only four of the Seven Deadly Sins, to wit, Pride, Envy,
Anger, and Sloth, to explain Milton's political tenets. Had he permitted
himself another sentence, an easy place might surely have been made for
Gluttony, Luxury, and Covetousness, the three whose absence cannot fail
to be remarked by any lover of thorough and detailed treatment in these
intricate problems of human character.

If, in our more modern fashion, we seek for the origin of Milton's ideas
in his education, his habits of thought, and his admirations, we shall be
obliged to admit that they are all rooted in his conception of the
ancient City State. It was the wish of Thomas Hobbes to abolish the study
of Greek and Latin in our schools and colleges, because this study
fosters a love of freedom, and unfits men to be the subjects of an
absolute monarch. His happiest illustration would have been the case of
his contemporary, Milton. Yet in all Milton's writings there is no trace
of the modern democratic doctrine of equality. A hearing is all that he
claims. So far from hating greatness, he carries his admiration for it,
for personal virtue and prowess, almost to excess. The poet who described
the infernal conclave in the Second Book of _Paradise Lost_ was not
likely to be insensible to the part played in politics by men of eminent
and dominating personality. To t