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 affecting contemporary thinkers; and it is difficult to say that even that is true of Milton's performances.

When, therefore, Professor Raleigh says that Milton's prose works 'raise every question they touch' even if they do not 'advance it,' we must make a reservation. He approaches his problems from a lofty point of view, and desires that politics should be the incarnation of morality. The tone is as rare in political writings as it is admirable. No one can wish that Milton should be one whit less high-minded and patriotic or less anxious to see his ideals applied to practice. It may be as unseemly for politicians to grumble 'as for the herdsmen of Admetus to complain of the presence among them of a god.' Still we may regret that the god so lost his temper as to join in a mere 'rough and tumble'; and, moreover, that he devoted so much energy to a fray in which, as he admits, he was fighting with his 'left hand.' No one ever saw more clearly what a long and arduous training was desirable for a great poet; but to be a great publicist, he assumed, it was enough to be in a towering passion. Professor Raleigh, indeed, argues ingeniously that it was good for Milton occasionally to give 'a loose to