The one, like his own Adam, with fair large front and hyacinthine locks, serene and blooming as his own Eden; in all the dignified graces which temperance and self-conquest lend to youth,[139] in all the purity of his stainless mind, radiant like another Moses, with the reflected glories of the Empyreum,--and then look upon the other!--But it is an awful thing for little people, to meddle with great and sacred names; and so leaving the Hippopotamus of literature in his den--proceed we. It relieves the heart from an oppressive contradiction to behold Milton, such as he is represented by his other biographers, and such as undoubtedly he really was. It is well known, that in his youth, and even at a late age, he had an uncommonly fine person, almost to effeminacy; and was as gracefully endowed in form and manners, as he was highly and holily gifted in mind. His natural mildness, cheerfulness, and courtesy, are commemorated by all who knew him, or lived near his time.[140] He whom Johnson accuses of a "Turkish contempt of females, as inferior beings," and whom he represents in a light so ungentle and gloomy, that we cannot imagine him under the influence of beauty, was early touched by the softest passions, and during his whole life peculiarly sensible to the charm of female society: witness his successive marriages, and his friendship and intercourse with Lady Margaret Ley, and the all-accomplished Countess of Ranelagh, who supplied to him, as he says, the place of every friend:[141]--witness, too, a thousand most lovely and glorious passages scattered through his works, which women may quote with triumph, as proofs that we had no small influence over the imagination of our great epic poet. What but the most reverential and lofty feeling of the graces and virtues proper to our sex, could have embodied such an exquisite vision as the Lady in Comus? or created his delightful Eve? on whom, "as on a queen, a pomp of winning graces waited still." All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; wisdom, in discourse with her, Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows; Authority and reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat, Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelic plac'd. And this is the being whom a lady-author calls a "great overgrown baby, with nothing to recommend her but her submission, and her fine hair!"[142]--two things, be it observed, among the most graceful of our feminine attributes, mental and exterior. The poet who conceived and wrote this description, most assuredly had not a "Turkish contempt" for the female character.