The words in Milton's poems have been counted, and it appears that he
employs 8000, while Shakspeare's plays and poems yield about 15,000.
From this it might be inferred that the Miltonic vocabulary is only
half as rich as that of Shakspeare. But no inference can be founded
upon the absolute number of words used by any writer. We must know,
not the total of different words, but the _proportion_ of different
words to the whole of any writer's words. Now to furnish a list of
100 different words the English Bible requires 531 common words,
Shakspeare 164, Milton 135 only. This computation is founded on the
poems; it would be curious to have the same test tried upon the prose
writings, though no such test can be as trustworthy as the educated
ear of a listener to a continued reading.
It is no part of a succinct biography, such as the present, to furnish
an account in detail of the various controversies of the time, as
Milton engaged in them. The reader will doubtless be content with the,
bare indication of the subjects on which he wrote. The whole number of
Milton's political pamphlets Is twenty-five.
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