besieging army. But, in order to make such an evocation effectual, it was
necessary to know the original and secret name of the beleaguered city;
and this, therefore, was religiously concealed.

[13] Hamlet, Act v., scene 1.

[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