From this it might be inferred that the Miltonic vocabulary is only
half as rich as that of Shakspeare. But no inference can be founded
upon the absolute number of words used by any writer. We must know,
not the total of different words, but the _proportion_ of different
words to the whole of any writer's words. Now to furnish a list of
100 different words the English Bible requires 531 common words,
Shakspeare 164, Milton 135 only. This computation is founded on the
poems; it would be curious to have the same test tried upon the prose
writings, though no such test can be as trustworthy as the educated
ear of a listener to a continued reading.

It is no part of a succinct biography, such as the present, to furnish
an account in detail of the various controversies of the time, as
Milton engaged in them. The reader will doubtless be content with the,
bare indication of the subjects on which he wrote. The whole number of
Milton's political pamphlets Is twenty-five. Of these, twenty-one are
written in English, and four in Latin, Of the _Tractate of Education_
and the four divorce pamphlets something has been already said. Of the
remaining twenty, nine, or nearly half, relate to church government,
or ecclesiastical affairs; eight treat of the various crises of the
civil strife; and two are personal vindications of himself against one
of his antagonists. There remains one tract of which the subject is of
a more general and permanent nature, the best known of all the series,
_Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, to the
Parliament of England_. The whole series of twenty-five extends over
a period of somewhat less than twenty years; the earliest, viz., _Of
Reformation touching Church Discipline in England, and the Causes that
hitherto have hindered it_, having been published in 1641; the latest,
entitled, _A ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth_,
coming out in March, 1660, after the torrent of royalism had set in,