The difference is not merely
that we tolerate in a man of confessed superiority what would be
intolerable in an equal. This is true; but there is a further
distinction of moral quality in men's confessions. In Milton, as
in Gibbon, the gratification of self-love, which attends all
autobiography, is felt to be subordinated to a nobler intention.
The lofty conception which Milton formed of his vocation as a poet,
expands his soul and absorbs his personality. It is his office, and
not himself, which he magnifies. The details of his life and nurture
are important, not because they belong to him, but because he belongs,
by dedication, to a high and sacred calling. He is extremely jealous,
not of his own reputation, but of the credit which is due to lofty
endeavour. We have only to compare Milton's magnanimous assumption of
the first place with the paltry conceit with which, in the following
age of Dryden and Pope, men spoke of themselves as authors, to see
the wide difference between the professional vanity of successful
authorship and the proud consciousness of a prophetic mission. Milton
leads a dedicated life, and has laid down for himself the law that
"he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in
laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem.
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