Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton may be found in all his works; but it is most strongly displayed in the Sonnets.  Those remarkable poems have been undervalued by critics who have not understood their nature.  They have no epigrammatic point.  There is none of the ingenuity of Filicaja in the thought, none of the hard and brilliant enamel of Petrarch in the style.  They are simple but majestic records of the feelings of the poet; as little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been.  A victory, an expected attack upon the city, a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown out against one of his books, a dream which for a short time restored to him that beautiful face over which the grave had closed forever, led him to musings, which, without effort, shaped themselves into verse.  The unity of sentiment and severity of style which characterize these little pieces remind us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy.  The noble poem on the massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse.

The Sonnets are more or less striking, according as the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less interesting.  But they are, almost without exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not where to look for a parallel.  It would, indeed, be scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences as to the character of a writer from passages directly egotistical.  But the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, though perhaps most strongly marked in those parts of his works which treat of his personal feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, English, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness.

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of spirit so high and of an intellect so powerful.  He lived at one of the most memorable eras in the history of mankind, at the very crisis of the great conflict between Oromasdes and Arimanes, liberty and despotism, reason and prejudice.  That great battle was fought for no single generation, for no single land.  The destinies of the human race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the English people.  Then were first proclaimed those mighty principles which have since worked their way into the depths of the American forests, which have roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the oppressors with an unwonted fear.