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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 1894)
COLLEGE ARCHIVES •HAS A. t M. COLLEGE THE BATTALION. Entered at the College Station Postoffice as Second Class Mail Matter. Prof. W. B. PIIILPOTT, - Superv. Ed. 1 Published on the First (HUTSON W. F ’95, (Cal) Asso. Ed F. M. LAW Jr. ’95,(Austin) - Ed-in-chief J. of Each Month, by the j ®^TLE P. B. ’96, (Cal) - Assa Ed. MILL P. P. ’95, (Austin) -- Asso. Ed. V Austin and Calliopean | HUTCHINSONF Sfil 'A) Asst. Bus Mgr ABE GROSS’96, (Austin) - Asso. Ed.J Societies. [KYLE C ’96, (Cal.) Asst, Bus. M’gr. so si c pe p r t a n n N u: ce ' } COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS DECEMBER 15,1894. <; Vol. 2, No. a JVIilton’s Oenias as a Poet. As a poet he singularlj links the age of Spenser and Shakespeare with the age of Cowper; for, while his genius has the seriousness of both and, in his earlier works, the air of romance and the rich diction characteristic of the former, his spirit is worlds away from the frivolous vein and the prosaic outlook of the lit erary generation that was contemporary with his closing years. As much as Spenser or Shakspeare, he is a child of the great Revival of Letters. As much as Bunyan or Cromwell, he is a child of the intenser spirit of that Re vival of Christianity which we call the Reformation. Seldom has a great gen ius been better equipped in all the harness of culture, and at the same time in the defensive armor of personal pur- ity, lofty enthusiasm, and noble pur pose. He had, too, a two-edged sword of style, for he wrote Latin and English in either prose or verse with equal vigor, and to reach the ear of Europe in that age Latin was essential. Two gifts alone were not his: the genial nature and the sense of humor; and the absence of these accounts fully for all that is faulty in his life or his works. Among the poems, the Comus is my choice for perfect beauty in thought and in workmanship. As Saintsbury says: u It is impossible to single out passages, for the whole is golden.” The Hymn on the Nativity is remark able, aside from its intrinsic merits, as being the first sustained lyric strain in the language. Lycidas and Arcades have the same charms of noble thought and exquisite diction which give imperishable grace to all his earlier song. The two delicious companion pieces, L’Allegro and II Penseroso, have almost passed into the inner tissue of the English language, for almost every line of each has become a piquant quotation in social life. The Sonnets are unique of their kind, few in any age or tongue being so evi dently autobiographic. As to tne Paradise Lost and its se-