In both these great poets, more than in any others, the
character of the men makes part of the singular impressiveness of what
they wrote and of its vitality with after times. In them the man somehow
overtops the author. The works of both are full of autobiographical
confidences. Like Dante, Milton was forced to become a party by himself.
He stands out in marked and solitary individuality, apart from the great
movement of the Civil War, apart from the supine acquiescence of the
Restoration, a self-opinionated, unforgiving, and unforgetting man. Very
much alive he certainly was in his day. Has Mr. Masson made him alive to
us again? I fear not. At the same time, while we cannot praise either the
style or the method of Mr. Masson's work, we cannot refuse to be grateful
for it. It is not so much a book for the ordinary reader of biography as
for the student, and will be more likely to find its place on the
library-shelf than the centre-table. It does not in any sense belong to
light literature, but demands all the muscle of the trained and vigorous
reader. "Truly, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect
that it is Milton's life it is naught."
Mr. Masson's intimacy with the facts and dates of Milton's career renders
him peculiarly fit in some respects to undertake an edition of the
poetical works.
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