Milton is saved from making total shipwreck of his large-utteranced
genius on the desolate Noman's Land of a religious epic only by the lucky
help of Satan and his colleagues, with whom, as foiled rebels and
republicans, he cannot conceal his sympathy. As purely poet, Shakespeare
would have come too late, had his lot fallen in that generation. In mind
and temperament too exoteric for a mystic, his imagination could not have
at once illustrated the influence of his epoch and escaped from it, like
that of Browne; the equilibrium of his judgment, essential to him as an
artist, but equally removed from propagandism, whether as enthusiast or
logician, would have unfitted him for the pulpit; and his intellectual
being was too sensitive to the wonder and beauty of outward life and
Nature to have found satisfaction, as Milton's could, (and perhaps only
by reason of his blindness,) in a world peopled by purely imaginary
figures. We might fancy him becoming a great statesman, but he lacked the
social position which could have opened that career to him. What we mean
when we say _Shakespeare_, is something inconceivable either during the
reign of Henry the Eighth, or the Commonwealth, and which would have been
impossible after the Restoration.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230