with the levity of Tasso or the cynicism of Fletcher,
was undoubtedly himself wholly unconscious that any
such charge could be brought against his work.
It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a
curious want of delicacy, which in his later work
results at times in passages of offensively bad taste[356].
As yet it is hardly responsible for anything worse
than a confused conception in the poet’s imagination.
[Greek: Pa/nta kathara\ toi~s katharoi~s], and
the allegory is an old one whereby virtue appears
as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is,
however, to those alone who are innocent of evil that
belongs the faery talisman. The virtue, knowing
of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence,
but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler,
with less of the glamour of romance reflected from
its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels instinctively
that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch
forth into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing,
of course, would be easier than by means of a little
judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule upon
the whole of Milton’s conception of virtue in
woman, and nowhere is it more needful than in such
a case as the present to remember the fundamental
maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking
at its strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside
for the moment all questions of art and all considerations
of taste, there remains a question worthy of being
fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained.
Milton has deliberately penned passages of smug self-conceit
upon a subject whose delicacy he was apparently incapable
of appreciating, and these passages he has placed,
to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child
just passing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby
outraging at once the innocence of childhood and the
reticence of youth. Is it possible to pretend
that this is an action upon which moral censure has
no word to say[357]?
It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this
point of view, or to dwell upon objections which,
when one surrenders to the magic of the verse, can
hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the
somewhat injudicious and undiscriminating praise which
it has been the fashion of a certain school of critics
to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality
of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the
nobleness of Milton’s conception and the brilliance,
within certain limits, of the execution; but when
we are further challenged to admire the ’moral
grandeur’ of the figure in which virtue is honoured,
there are some at least who will feel tempted to reply
in the significant words: ’Methinks the
lady doth protest too much!’