IN LITERATURE
plar by a stroke of apoplexy just in time to save Ivanhoe. It might have been thought that Shakspere, who was closer than most men to the realities of experience, would have taken the edge off the miracle, as Scott did; but in As You Like It Orlando, having a just cause, is able to throw the professional wrestler. It remained for Milton to reject magic. To see how far he advanced beyond Spenser, for example, we have but to imagine how Spenser would have written Comus. The heroine of the poem, another Britomart, possessing the heavenly virtue of chastity, would have been armed against the spells of the sorcerer. All that Milton claims in the end, though he starts out bravely, is that the lady's soul was unharmed, though Comus did enchant her body. This concession is larger than at first might appear, for it contradicts the fine boast of the elder
[141]
