[14] "_Hide himself in--light_."--The greatest scholar, by far, that this island ever produced, viz., Richard Bentley, published (as is well known) a 4to volume that in some respects is the very worst 4to now extant in the world--viz., a critical edition of the. "Paradise Lost." I observe, in the "Edinburgh Review," (July, 1851, No. 191, p. 15,) that a learned critic supposes Bentley to have meant this edition as a "practical jest." Not at all. Neither could the critic have fancied such a possibility, if he had taken the trouble (which _I_ did many a year back) to examine it. A jest book it certainly is, and the most prosperous of jest books, but undoubtedly never meant for such by the author. A man whose lips are livid with anger does not jest, and does not understand jesting. Still, the Edinburgh Reviewer is right about the proper functions of the book, though wrong about the intentions of the author. The fact is, the man was maniacally in error, and always in error, as regarded the ultimate or poetic truth of Milton; but, as regarded truth reputed and truth _apparent_, he often had the air of being furiously in the right; an example of which I will cite. Milton, in the First Book of the "Paradise Lost," had said,-- "That from the _secret_ top Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire;" upon which Bentley comments in effect thus: "How!--the exposed summit of a mountain _secret_? Why, it's like Charing Cross--always the least secret place in the whole county." So one might fancy; since the summit of a mountain, like Plinlimmon or Cader Idris in Wales, like Skiddaw or Helvellyn in England, constitutes a central object of attention and gaze for the whole circumjacent district, measured by a radius sometimes of 15 to 20 miles. Upon this consideration, Bentley instructs us to substitute as the true reading--"That on the _sacred_ top," &c. Meantime, an actual experiment will demonstrate that there is no place so absolutely secret and hidden as the exposed summit of a mountain, 3500 feet high, in respect to an eye stationed in the valley immediately below. A whole party of men, women, horses, and even tents, looked at under those circumstances, is absolutely invisible unless by the aid of glasses: and it becomes evident that a murder might be committed on the bare open summit of such a mountain with more assurance of absolute secrecy than any where else in the whole surrounding district. [15] Which "_saying_" is sometimes ascribed, I know not how truly, to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. [16] It strikes me, upon second thoughts, that the particular idiom, which Lord Monboddo illustrated as regarded the Greek language, merits a momentary notice; and for this reason--that it plays a part not at all less conspicuous or less delicate in the Latin. Here is an instance of its use in Greek, taken from the well-known night scene in the "Iliad:"-- ------_gaethaese de poimenos aetor_,