deceased antagonist of Salmasius into the other world to
compliment him with his own infirmity of purpose. It is a wonder he did
not add in a note that Milton called him aside to whisper in his ear
that he preferred the new English hexameters to his own blank verse!

Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent
instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power
and fashion, as is the case with painters and musicians--things without
an opinion--and who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the
day. There are persons in common life who have that eager curiosity and
restless admiration of bustle and splendour, that sooner than not be
admitted on great occasions of feasting and luxurious display, they will
go in the character of livery-servants to stand behind the chairs of the
great. There are others who can so little bear to be left for any length
of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and folly,
that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their characters
as well as of a change of dress. Milton was not one of these. He had too
much of the _ideal_ faculty in his composition, a lofty contemplative
principle, and consciousness of inward power and worth, to be tempted
by such idle baits. We have plenty of chanting and chiming in among some
modern writers with the triumphs over their own views and principles;
but none of a patient resignation to defeat, sustaining and nourishing
itself with the thought of the justice of their cause, and with
firm-fixed rectitude. I do not pretend to defend the tone of Milton's
political writings (which was borrowed from the style of controversial
divinity), or to say that he was right in the part he took,--I say that
he was consistent in it, and did not convict himself of error: he was
consistent in it in spite of danger and obloquy, 'on evil days though
fallen, and evil tongues,' and therefore his character has the salt of
honesty about it. It does not offend in the nostrils of posterity. He
had taken his part boldly and stood to it manfully, and submitted to the
change of times with pious fortitude, building his consolations on the
resources of his own mind and the recollection of the past, instead
of endeavouring to make himself a retreat for the time to come. As an
instance of this we may take one of the best and most admired of these
Sonnets, that addressed to Cyriac Skinner, on his own blindness:--

Cy