When shown Faithorne's crayon portrait (not the one engraved in Milton's lifetime, but one exceedingly like it) she exclaimed, "in a transport, ''Tis my dear father, I see him, 'tis him!' and then she put her hands to several parts of her face, ''Tis the very man, here! here!'" * * * * * Milton's character is one of the things which "securus judicat orbis terrarum." On one point only there seems to us, as we have frequently implied, to be room for modification.

In the popular conception of Milton the poet and the man are imperfectly combined.

We allow his greatness as a poet, but deny him the poetical temperament which alone could have enabled him to attain it.

He is looked upon as a great, good, reverend, austere, not very amiable, and not very sensitive man.

The author and the book are thus set at variance, and the attempt to conceive the character as a whole results in confusion and inconsistency.