Mr. Milton joined us soon with my Father. He was a few years older than Dr. Taylor, but in appearance much more youthful; with his brown un-Puritan love-locks, his short stature, his face determined, almost to severity, yet delicate as a beautiful woman's. And then between these two, while we listened, ensued an hour's converse, like the antiphons of some heavenly choir. Names of ancient heroes and philosophers--Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Latin--dropped from their lips like household words. Until at last they rose into a chorus in praise of liberty, of conscience, and of thought; Dr. Taylor, I thought, basing his argument more on the dimness of human vision, and Mr. Milton on the inherent and victorious might of truth. Dr. Taylor pleading for a charitable tolerance for error, Mr. Milton for a glorious freedom for truth; the which converse I often recalled when, in after years, we read the Liberty of Prophesying by the one, and the Liberty of Printing by the other. As they spoke, the glory faded from the sky and the golden autumnal woods, and when they ceased, and we stepped from the terrace into the gloom of the dark wainscoted parlour, it seemed to me as if we had stepped out of a fragrant and melodious elysium into a farm-yard, so homely and unmeaning, like the cacklings or lowings of animals, did all common discourse seem afterwards. The next day, when Mr. Milton had left us, and we were speaking together of this discourse, Aunt Gretel said it was like beautiful music, only, being mostly in a kind of Latin, was, of course, beyond her comprehension. Aunt Dorothy only consoled herself for what she regarded as the dangerous licence of their conclusions, by the thought that their path to them was too fantastic and fine for any common mortals to tread. And my Father said afterwards that it seemed to him as if Dr. Taylor's learning and fancy hung around his reason like the jewelled state-trappings of a royal palfrey; you wondered how his wit could move so nimbly under such a weight of ornament; whilst Mr. Milton's learning and imagination were like wings to the strong Pegasus of his wisdom, only helping him to soar. When Dr. Taylor alluded to the lore of the ancients, it seemed like a treasury wherewith to adorn his fancies or to wing his airy shafts. But to Mr. Milton it seemed an armory common to him and to the wise men of whom he spoke, and to which he had as free access as they; to draw thence weapons for his warfare and theirs, and to add thereto for the generations to come. Yet brilliant and glowing as their speech was, Roger would have it that Mr. Cromwell's brief and rugged words had in them more of the red heat that fuses the weapons wherewith the great battles of life are fought. For we spoke often of that evening, Roger, and Lettice, and I, in the few short days that remained of our golden age of peace.