Milton, with an Introduction and Notes

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Macmillan and Company, 1892 - 139 páginas

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Página 130 - He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views, At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
Página 52 - ... combinations. The shepherd likewise is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always unskilful ; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been conscious. Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure had he not...
Página 52 - We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel.
Página 40 - Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting, without impatience, the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.
Página 10 - Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places ; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary ; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure.
Página 34 - I have a particular reason," says he, " to remember ; for whereas I had the perusal of it from the very beginning, for some years, as I went from time to time to visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time, which, being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly want correction, as to the orthography and pointing...
Página 52 - We know that they never drove a field, and that they had no flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote that it is never sought because it cannot be known when it is found.
Página 71 - Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing ; he 30 knew human nature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending passions.
Página 4 - ... the Church, to whose service by the intentions of my parents and friends I was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions, till coming to some maturity of years and perceiving what tyranny had invaded the Church, that he who would take Orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which unless he took with a conscience that would retch he must either straight perjure, or split his faith, I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking bought,...
Página 58 - To convey this moral there must be a, fable, a narration artfully constructed, so as to excite curiosity, and surprise expectation. In this part of his work, Milton must be confessed to have equalled every other poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Man the events...

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