within the house of his own book; he pays all accounts whatever; and
readers that have either a bill, or bill of exceptions, to tender against
the concern, must draw upon _him_. To Milton he returns upon a very
dangerous topic indeed--viz. the structure of his blank verse. I know of
none that is so trying to a wary man's nerves. You might as well tax
Mozart with harshness in the divinest passages of 'Don Giovanni,' as
Milton with any such offence against metrical science. Be assured, it is
yourself that do not read with understanding, not Milton that by
possibility can be found deaf to the demands of perfect harmony. You are
tempted, after walking round a line threescore times, to exclaim at last--
'Well, if the Fiend himself should rise up before me at this very moment,
in this very study of mine, and say that no screw was loose in that line,
then would I reply--'Sir, with submission, you are----.' 'What!' suppose
the Fiend suddenly to demand in thunder; 'what am I?' 'Horribly wrong,'
you wish exceedingly to say; but, recollecting that some people are
choleric in argument, you confine yourself to the polite answer-'That,
with deference to his better education, you conceive him to lie;'--that's
a bad word to drop your voice upon in talking with a fiend, and you hasten
to add--'under a slight, a _very_ slight mistake.' Ay, you might venture
on that opinion with a fiend. But how if an angel should undertake the
case? And angelic was the ear of Milton. Many are the _prima facie_
anomalous lines in Milton; many are the suspicious lines, which in many a
book I have seen many a critic peering into, with eyes made up for
mischief, yet with a misgiving that all was not quite safe, very much
like an old raven looking down a marrow-bone. In fact, such is the
metrical skill of the man, and such the perfection of his metrical
sensibility, that, on any attempt to take liberties with a passage of his,
you feel as when coming, in a forest, upon what seems a dead lion; perhaps
he may _not_ be dead, but only sleeping; nay, perhaps he may _not_ be
sleeping, but only shamming. And you have a jealousy, as to Milton, even