" Does Milton, answering Hall's innuendo that he was
courting the graces of a rich widow, tell us that he would rather "choose
a virgin of mean fortunes honestly bred"? Mr. Masson forthwith breaks
forth in a paroxysm of what we suppose to be picturesqueness in this
wise: "What have we here? Surely nothing less, if we choose so to
construe it, than a marriage advertisement! Ho, all ye virgins of England
(widows need not apply), here is an opportunity such as seldom occurs: a
bachelor, unattached; age, thirty-three years and three or four months;
height [Milton, by the way, would have said _highth_] middle or a little
less; personal appearance unusually handsome, with fair complexion and
light auburn hair; circumstances independent; tastes intellectual and
decidedly musical; principles Root-and-Branch! Was there already any
young maiden in whose bosom, had such an advertisement come in her way,
it would have raised a conscious flutter? If so, did she live near
Oxford?" If there _is_ anything worse than an unimaginative man trying to
write imaginatively, it is a heavy man when he fancies he is being
facetious. He tramples out the last spark of cheerfulness with the broad
damp foot of a hippopotamus.
I am no advocate of what is called the dignity of history, when it means,
as it too often does, that dulness has a right of sanctuary in gravity.
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