alled little which is
great enough for virtue?' ('Statura, fateor non sum procera, sed quae
mediocri tamen quam parvae propior sit; sed quid si parva, qua et summi
saepe tum pace turn bello viri fuere--quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae
ad virtutem satis magna est?') This is precise enough; but we have
Aubrey's words to the same effect. 'He was scarce so tall as I am,'
says Aubrey; to which, to make it more intelligible, he appends this
marginal note,--'_Qu. Quot_ feet I am high? _Resp._ Of middle
stature': _i. e._, Milton was a little under middle height. 'He had
light-brown hair,' continues Aubrey,--putting the word 'abrown'
(auburn) in the margin by way of synonym for 'light brown';--'his
complexion exceeding fair; oval face; his eye a dark gray.'"

We are far from accusing Milton of personal vanity: his character was
too enormous, if we may be allowed so to say, for a fault so petty.
But a little tinge of excessive self-respect will cling to those who
can admire themselves. Ugly men are and ought to be ashamed of their
existence; Milton was not so.

The peculiarities of the austere type of character stand out in Milton
more remarkably than in other men who partake of it, because of the
extreme strength of his nature. In reading him this is the first thing
that strikes us. We seem to have left the little world of ordinary
writers. The words of some authors are said to have "hands and feet";
they seem, that is, to have a vigor and animation which only belong to
things which live and move. Milton's words have not this animal
life,--there is no rude energy about them; but on the other hand, they
have or seem to have a soul, a spirit which other words have not. He
was early aware that what he wrote, "by certain vital signs it had,"
was such as the world would not "willingly let die." [9] After two
centuries we feel the same. There is a solemn and firm music in the
lines; a brooding sublimity haunts them; the spirit of the great writer
moves over the face of the page. In life there seems to have been the
same peculiar strength that his works suggest to us. His moral
tenacity is amazing: he took his own course, and he kept his own
course; and we may trace in his defects the same characteristics.
"Energy and ill temper," some say, "are the same thing;" and though
this is a strong exaggeration, yet there is a basis of truth in it.
People who labor much will be cross if they do not obtain that for
which they