the Cavaliers were many
of them formalists, and the Puritans many of them fanatics, led to the
rise of many sects, and caused rude soldiers to bellow their own riotous
fancies from the pulpit. In the suddenness of change, when the earthly
throne had been destroyed, men misconceived what was due to the heavenly;
the fancy which had been before curbed by an awe for authority, and was
too ignorant to move without it, now revelled unrebuked among the
mysteries which are not revealed to angelic vision, and thus "fools rushed
in where angels fear to tread."

The book could not fail to bring him immense fame, but personally he
received very little for it in money--less than L20.

PARADISE REGAINED.--It was Thomas Ellwood, Milton's Quaker friend, who,
after reading the _Paradise Lost_, suggested the _Paradise Regained_. This
poem will bear no comparison with its great companion. It may, without
irreverence, be called "The gospel according to John Milton." Beauties it
does contain; but the very foundation of it is false. Milton makes man
regain Paradise by the success of Christ in withstanding the Devil's
temptations in the wilderness; a new presentation of his Arian theology,
which is quite transcendental; whereas, in our opinion, the gate of
Paradise was opened only "by His precious death and burial; His glorious
resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost." But if
it is immeasurably inferior in its conception and treatment, it is quite
equal to the _Paradise Lost_ in its execution.

A few words as to Milton's vocabulary and style must close our notice of
this greatest of English poets. With regard to the first, the Latin
element, which is so manifest in his prose works, largely predominates in
his poems, but accords better with the poetic license. In a list of
authors which Mr. Marsh has prepared, down to Milton's time, which
includes an analysis of the sixth book of the _Paradise Lost_, he is found
to employ only eighty per cent. of Anglo-Saxon words--less than any up to
that day. But his words are chosen with a delicacy of taste and ear which
astonishes and delights; his works are full of an adaptive harmony, the
suiting of sound to sense. His rhythm is perfect. We have not space for
extended illustrations, but the reader will notice this in the lady's song
in Comus--the address to

Sweet Echo, sweeter nymph that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell,
By slow Meander's margent gree