In respect to person, he was rather of the heroic stature, being above the middle size ; but though strong, broad, and muscular, his parts were slovenly put together. When he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the con comitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that motion, independent of his feet x . (Page 87.)
Amongst the poets of his own country, next to Shakespeare, he admired Milton 2 ; and though in some parts of the life of this great man, he has been rather severe on his political character, there are others where he bestows the highest praises on his learning and genius. To this I am happy to add another eulogium, which I heard from him in conversation a few months before his death : ' Milton (says he) had that which rarely fell to the lot of any man an unbounded imagination, with a store of knowledge equal to all its calls V (Page 99.)
In his conversation he was learned, various, and instructive, oftener in the didactic than in the colloquial line, which might have arisen from the encouragement of his friends, who generally flattered him with the most profound attention and surely it was well bestowed ; for in those moments, the great variety of his reading broke in upon his mind, like mountain floods, which
1 Boswell quoting this description therefore learned.' Works, vii. 130. says : ' His peculiar march is de- Edward FitzGerald wrote to Pro scribed in a very just and picturesque fessor C. E. Norton on Jan. 23, manner.' Life, iv. 71. 1876: *I don't think I've read
2 For Johnson's estimate of Shake- Milton these forty years ; the whole speare see Life, ii. 86, n. I, and of scheme of the poem, and certain Milton, ib. i. 230 ; iv. 40 ; ante, i. parts of it, looming as grand as any- 216. thing in my memory; but I never
3 ' The thoughts which are occa- could read ten lines together without sionally called forth in the progress stumbling at some pedantry that [of Paradise Lost} are such as could tipped me at once out of Paradise, only be produced by an imagination or even Hell, into the schoolroom, in the highest degree fervid and worse than either. . . . Tennyson cer- active, to which materials were sup- tainly then thought Milton the sub- plied by incessant study and un- limest of all the gang ; his diction limited curiosity. . . . Milton had modelled on Virgil, as perhaps considered creation in its whole Dante's.' Letters of Edward Fitz- extent, and his descriptions are Gerald, 1894. ii. 193.
he
\
�� �
