This was
precisely what Milton could not have done. He had none of that
sympathy with which Shakspeare embraced all natural and common
affections of his brother men. Milton, burning as he did with a
consuming fire of passion, and yearning for rapt communion with select
souls, had withal an aloofness from ordinary men sad women, and a
proud disdain of commonplace joy and sorrow, which has led hasty
biographers and critics to represent him as hard, austere, an iron man
of iron mould. This want of interest in common life disqualified him
for the task of revivifying historic scenes.
Milton's mental constitution, then, demanded in the material upon
which it was to work, a combination of qualities such as very few
subjects could offer. The events and personages must be real and
substantial, for he could not occupy himself seriously with airy
nothings and creatures of pure fancy. Yet they must not be such
events and personages as history had pourtrayed to us with well-known
characters, and all their virtues, faults, foibles, and peculiarities.
And, lastly, it was requisite that they should be the common property
and the familiar interest of a wide circle of English readers.
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