The points of resemblance between Milton and Wordsworth are numerous--both were proud in spirit, and pure in life--both were intensely self-conscious--both essayed the loftiest things in poetry--both looked with considerable contempt on their contemporaries, and appealed to the coming age--both preferred fame to reputation--both during their life-time met with obloquy, which crushed them not--both combined intellect with imagination, in equal proportions--both were persevering and elaborate artists, as well as inspired men--both were unwieldy in their treatment of commonplace subjects. Neither possessed a particle of humor; nor much, if any, genuine wit. Both were friends of liberty and of religion--their genius was "baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire." But there were differences and disparities as manifold. Milton was a scholar of the first magnitude; Wordsworth no more than respectable in point of learning; Milton may be called a glorious book-worm; Wordsworth an insect feeding on trees; Milton was London born and London bred; Wordsworth from the provinces; Milton had a world more sympathy with chivalry and arms--with the power and the glory of this earth--with human and female beauty--with man and with woman, than Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved inanimate nature better than Milton, or at least, he was more intimately conversant with her features; and has depicted them with more minute accuracy, and careful finish. Milton's love for liberty was a wiser and firmer passion, and underwent little change; Wordsworth's veered and fluctuated; Milton's creed was more definite and fixed than Wordsworth's, and, perhaps, lay nearer to his heart; Wordsworth shaded away into a vague mistiness, in which the Cross at times was lost; Milton had more devotion in his absence from church than Wordsworth in his presence there; Wordsworth was an "idler in the land;" Milton an incessant and heroic struggler.