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!’