English poems - 1872 Author:John Milton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION. John Milton was born twenty years after the defeat of the Armada. That deliverance had been regarded as little less than miraculous, and had... more » been accepted as the token of Divine favour to the English nation and its sovereign. More than once in his prose writings does Milton recur to it, in language that shews how vivid was the remembrance of ' eighty- eight' in the popular mind, till the troubles and turmoil of succeeding years partially effaced the impression. Looking at the Elizabethan era as reflected in and interpreted by Spenser's great poem, we can have no difficulty in thinking of the victory over Spain as the reward, if not as the result, of the exercise of high virtues and mighty energies. A poem so truly heroic could only have been written in an heroic time. In no mean or narrow generation could such an ideal as is there set forth have been conceived, expressed, or accepted. The England of his own day is ' Spenser's lond of Faerie,' and he feels that his theme exalts rather than is exalted by his imagination. He thinks, indeed, that his wit and tongue are too weak and dull for the worthy fulfilment of his great work. But to us it is, with one sole exception, the most noble literary monument of the Elizabethan age, and amply justifies the traditional reverence with which that age has been regarded. The gorgeous allegory expresses in apt similitudes the fulness, energy, and beauty of the national life. In Elizabeth, her subjects reverenced the visible head and symbol of the divine order and society of which they were members by right of birth. The defects of her personal character were scarcely discernible in the blaze of ideal splendour that surrounded her throne, while her nobler qualities hadfull scope and instant recognition. ' Domestic treas...« less