SOURCE: "A French Critic on Milton," in Mixed Essays, Smith, Elder, & Co., 1903, pp. 266-70.

In the following excerpt, Arnold describes Milton as the supreme English poet.

Milton has always the sure, strong touch of the master. His power both of diction and of rhythm is unsurpassable, and it is characterised by being always present—not depending on an access of" emotion, not intermittent, but, like the grace of Raphael, working in its possessor as a constant gift of nature Milton's style, moreover, has the same propriety and soundness in presenting plain matters, as in the comparatively smooth task for a poet of presenting grand ones. His rhythm is as admirable where, as in the line

 And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old— 

it is unusual, as in such lines as—

 With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms— 

where it is simplest. And what high praise this is, we may...