ust be owned that the reader is glad whenever Adam
plucks up heart of grace and gets in a word edgeways. Mr. Bagehot has
complained of Milton's angels. He says they are silly. But this is, I
think, to intellectualize too much. There are some classes who are
fairly exempted from all obligation to be intelligent, and these airy
messengers are surely amongst that number. The retinue of a prince or of
a bride justify their choice if they are well-looking and group nicely.

But these objections do not touch the main issue. Here is the story of
the loss of Eden, told enchantingly, musically, and in the grand style.
'Who,' says M. Scherer, in a passage quoted by Mr. Arnold, 'can read the
eleventh and twelfth books without yawning?' People, of course, are free
to yawn when they please, provided they put their hands to their mouths;
but in answer to this insulting question one is glad to be able to
remember how Coleridge has singled out Adam's vision of future events
contained in these books as especially deserving of attention. But to
read them is to repel the charge.

There was no need for Mr. Arnold, of all men, to express dissatisfaction
with Milton:

'Words which no ear ever to hear in heaven
Expected; least of all from thee, ingrate,
In place thyself so high above thy peers.'

The first thing for people to be taught is to enjoy great things greatly.
The spots on the sun may be an interesting study, but anyhow the sun is
not all spots. Indeed, sometimes in the early year, when he breaks forth
afresh,

'And winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring,

we are apt to forget that he has any spots at all, and, as he shines, are
perhaps reminded of the blind poet sitting in his darkness, in this
prosaic city of ours, swinging his leg over the arm of his chair, and
dictating the lines:

'Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine.
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me--from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off; and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and razed
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather, Thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inwards, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate--_there_ plant eyes; al