Hence, he did
not read, and did not like Shakspeare; the music was here too rapid and
life-like: but he sympathized profoundly with the solemn cathedral
chanting of Milton. An appeal to his sympathies which exacted quick
changes in those sympathies he could not meet, but a more stationary
_key_ of solemnity he _could_. Indeed, this difference is illustrated
daily. A long list can be cited of passages in Shakspeare, which have been
solemnly denounced by many eminent men (all blockheads) as ridiculous: and
if a man _does_ find a passage in a tragedy that displeases him, it is
sure to seem ludicrous: witness the indecent exposures of themselves made
by Voltaire, La Harpe, and many billions beside of bilious people.
Whereas, of all the shameful people (equally billions and not less
bilious) that have presumed to quarrel with Milton, not one has thought
him ludicrous, but only dull and somnolent. In 'Lear' and in 'Hamlet,' as
in a human face agitated by passion, are many things that tremble on the
brink of the ludicrous to an observer endowed with small range of sympathy
or intellect. But no man ever found the starry heavens ludicrous, though
many find them dull, and prefer a near view of a brandy flask. So in the
solemn wheelings of the Miltonic movement, Addison could find a sincere
delight. But the sublimities of earthly misery and of human frenzy were
for him a book sealed.
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