For the same reason (and, without such aids, he would have had no proper element in which to move his wings) he enriched his diction with Hellenisms and with Hebraisms; [Footnote: The diction of Milton is a case absolutely unique in literature: of many writers it has been said, but of him only with truth, that he created a peculiar language. The value must be tried by the result, not by inferences from _a priori_ principles; such inferences might lead us to anticipate an unfortunate result; whereas, in fact, the diction of Milton is such that no other could have supported his majestic style of thinking. The final result is a _transcendant_ answer to all adverse criticism; but still it is to be lamented that no man properly qualified has undertaken the examination of the Miltonic diction as a separate problem. Listen to a popular author of this day (Mr. Bulwer). He, speaking on this subject, asserts (_England and the English_, p. 329), that, "_There is scarcely an English idiom which Milton has not violated, or a foreign one which he has not borrowed._" Now, in answer to this extravagant assertion, I will venture to say that the two following are the sole cases of questionable idiom throughout Milton:--1st, "Yet virgin of Proserpine from Jove;" and, in this case, the same thing might be urged in apology which Aristotle urges in another argument, namely, that _anonymon to pathos_, the case is unprovided with _any_ suitable expression. How would it be possible to convey in good English the circumstances here indicated--namely, that Ceres was yet in those days of maiden innocence, when she had borne no daughter to Jove? Second, I will cite a case which, so far as I remember, has been noticed by no commentator; and, probably, because they have failed to understand it. The case occurs in the "Paradise Regained;" but where I do not at this moment remember. "Will they _transact_ with God?" This is the passage; and a most flagrant instance it offers of pure Latinism. _Transigere_, in the language of the civil law, means to make a compromise; and the word _transact_ is here used in that sense--a sense utterly unknown to the English language. This is the worst case in Milton; and I do not know that it has been ever noticed. Yet even here it may be doubted whether Milton is not defensible; asking if they proposed to terminate their difference with God after the fashion in use amongst courts of law, he points properly enough to these worldly settlements by the technical term which designated them. Thus, might a divine say: Will he arrest the judgments of God by a _demurrer_? Thus, again, Hamlet apostrophizes the lawyer's skull by the technical terms used in actions for assault, &c. Besides, what proper term is there in English for expressing a compromise? Edmund Burke, and other much older authors, express the idea by the word _temperament_; but that word, though a good one, was at one time considered an exotic term--equally a Gallicism and a Latinism.]