Milton by Thomas de Quincey — Read

[1839.]

We have two ideas, which we are anxious to bring under public notice, with regard to Milton. The reader whom Providence shall send us will not measure the value of these ideas (we trust and hope) by their bulk. The reader indeed -- that great idea! -- is very often a more important person towards the fortune of an essay than the writer. Even 'the prosperity of a jest,' as Shakespeare tells us, lies less in its own merit than 'in the ear of him that hears it. ' If _he_ should happen to be unusually obtuse, the wittiest jest perishes -- the most pointed is found blunt. So, with regard to books, should the reader on whom we build prove a sandy and treacherous foundation, the whole edifice, 'temple and tower,' must come to the ground. Should it happen, for instance, that the reader, inflicted upon ourselves for our sins, belongs to that class of people who listen to books in the ratio of their much speaking -- find no eloquence in 32mo., and little force of argument except in such a folio as might knock him down upon occasion of his proving restive against its logic -- in that case he will despise our present essay. _Will_ despise it? He _does_ despise it already: for already he sees that it is short. His contempt is a high _a priori_ contempt: for he measures us by anticipation, and needs to wait for no experience in order to vindicate his sentence against us.