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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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With the year Seasons return , but not to me returns , Day or the sweet approach of ev ' n or morn , Or sight of vernal bloom , or summer ' s rose , Or flocks , or herds , or human face
dine , But cloud instead , and ever-during dark Surrounds me—from the cheerful ways of men Cut off , and , for the book of knowledge fair ,
Presented with an uuiversal blank Of Nature ' s works to me expung'd and ras'd , And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out ! So much the rather thou , celestial light , Shine inward , and the mind thro' all her
powers Irradiate—there plant eyes—all mist from thence Purge and disperse , that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight I
After this interesting account which Milton imparts of his own blindness in prose and in poetry , I shall also furnish a delineation of his person from his own pen , by way of reply to a scurrilous opponent who had reproached hiin with deformity . The
poet thus breaks forth indignantly on the occasion : * Let us now come to the charge wliich he brings against me . Is there any thing in my life or my morals on which his censure can fasten ?
Certainly , nothing ! What then is his conduct ? that of which no one but a savage and a barbarian could be guilty ; he reproaches me with my form and my blindness I In his page I am
A monster , horrid , hideous , huge and blind' / " I never indeed thought that with respect to person there would be instituted any competition between me and a Cyclops . But my accuser corrects himself immediately : * So far , however , is he from huge , that a more meagre , bloodless , diminutive animal
can no where be seen ! ' Although it be idle for a man to speak of his own form , yet since even in this particular instance I have cause of thankfulness to God , and the power of confuting * the falsehoods of my adversary , I will not be silent on the subject lest any
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person should deem . me * m tlie credulous populace of Spain are induced by their priests to believe those whom they call heretics , to be akind of rhinoceros or a monster with a dog ' s head ! By any man , indeed who has ever seen me , I have never to
the best of my knowledge been considered as deformed—whether handsome or not forms a less object of my concern . My stature I confess not to be lofty , but it approaches more to the middle height than to the low . If it were , however , even low , I should
in this respect only be confounded with many who have eminently distinguished themselves in peace and in war , —and I know not why that human body should be called little
which is sufficiently large for all the purposes of human usefulness and perfection . When my age and the habit of my life would permit , I accustomed myself to the daily exercise of the sword , and was not either so
puny in body or so deficient in courage as not to think myself with that weapon , which I generally wore , to be secure in the assault of any man hand to hand , how superior soever he might be to me in muscular strength . The spirit and the power which I then possessed continue unimpaired to the
present day ; my eyes only are not the same , and they are as unblemished in appearance , as lucid and free from spot , as those that are endued with the sharpest vision . In this instance alone , and much against my own inclination , am I a deceiver 1 My face , than which , he says , nothing is more bloodless , still retains , at the age of
more than forty , a colour the very reverse of pale , and such as induces almost every one who sees me to consider me as ten years younger than I am ; neither is my skin wrinkled nor is my body shrunk . If I should
misrepresent any of these circumstances my falsehood must be instantly detected by thousands of my own countrymen , and by many
foreigners who are acquainted with my person , and to whose ridicule and contempt I should justly be exp osed . It might then be fairly concluded that he who in an affair of no moment
could unnecessarily be guilty of ll gross and wanton violation of truth , could not be deserving of credit u *
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592 The Person and Blindness of John Milton
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page 592, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/20/
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