as he was, was
always, and not least in his final Puritan phase, a supreme artist.
Poetry has been by far our greatest artistic achievement and he is by
far our greatest poetic artist. No artist in any other field, no Inigo
Jones or Wren, no Purcell, no Reynolds or Turner, holds such
unquestioned eminence in any other art as he in his. If {17} the world
asks us where to look for the genius of England, so far as it has ever
been expressed on paper, we point, of course, unhesitatingly to
Shakspeare. But Shakspeare is as inferior to Milton in art as he is
superior in genius. His genius will often, indeed, supply the place of
art; but the possession of powers that are above art is not the same
thing as being continuously and consciously a great artist. We can all
think of many places in his works where for hundreds of lines the most
censorious criticism can scarcely wish a word changed; but we can also
think of many in which the least watchful cannot fail to wish much
changed and much omitted. "Would he had blotted a thousand" is still a
true saying, and its truth known and felt by all but the blindest of
the idolaters of Shakspeare. No one has ever uttered such a wish about
the poetry of Milton. This is not the place to anticipate a discussion
of it which must come later. But, in an introductory chapter which
aims at insisting upon the present and permanent importance of Milton,
it is in place to point out the immense value to the English race of
acquaintance with work so conscientiously perfect as Milton's. English
writers on the whole have had a tendency to be rather slipshod in {18}
expression and rather indifferent to the finer harmonies of human
speech, whether as a thing of pure sound or as a thing of sounds which
have more than mere meaning, which have associations. Milton as both a
lover of music and a scholar is never for a moment unconscious of
either. It would scarcely be going too far to say that there is not a
word in his verse which owes its place solely to the fact that it
expresses his meaning. All the words accepted by his instinctive or
deliberate choice were accepted because they provided him with the most
he could obtain of three qualities which he desired: the exact
expression of the meaning needed for the immediate purpose in hand, the
associations fittest to enhance or enrich that meaning, the rhythmical
or musical effect required for the verse. The study of his verse is
one that never