But a work such as Milton has constructed, at once intense and
elaborate, firmly knit and broadly laid, can afford to wait. Time
is all in its favour, and against its detractors. The Church never
forgives, and faction does not die out. But Milton has been, for two
centuries, getting beyond the reach of party feeling, whether of
friends or foes. In each national aggregate an instinct is always at
work, an instinct not equal to exact discrimination of lesser degrees
of merit, but surely finding out the chief forces which have found
expression in the native tongue. This instinct is not an active
faculty, and so exposed to the influences which warp the will, it is
a passive deposition from unconscious impression. Our appreciation of
our poet is not to be measured by our choosing him for our favourite
closet companion, or reading him often. As Voltaire wittily said of
Dante, "Sa reputation s'affirmera toujours, parce qu'on ne le lit
guere." We shall prefer to read the fashionable novelist of each
season as it passes, but we shall choose to be represented at the
international congress of world poets by Shakespeare and Milton;
Shakespeare first, and next MILTON.
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