proposed-'who

Updated: May 2, 2025

So accustomed are we to survey a great man through the cloud of years that has gathered round him so impossible is it to detach him from the pomp and equipage of all who have quoted him, copied him, echoed him, lectured about him, disputed about him, quarrelled about him, that in the case of any Anacharsis the Scythian coming amongst us any savage, that is to say, uninstructed in our literature, but speaking our language, and feeling an interest in our great men a man could hardly believe at first how perplexed he would feel how utterly at a loss for any adequate answer to this question, suddenly proposed-'Who and what was Milton? That is to say, what is the place which he fills in his own vernacular literature? what station does he hold in universal literature?

Thomas De Quincey - Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 2