The Airy Tongues that Syllable Men's Names

‘September 12 [1826]…Well, I visited the spring in the morning, and completed my task afterwards. As I slept for a few minutes in my chair, to which I am more addicted than I could wish, I heard, as I thought, my poor wife call me by the familiar name of fondness which she gave me. My recollections on waking were melancholy enough. These be

"The airy tongues that syllable men's names."

All, I believe, have some natural desire to consider these unusual impressions as bodements of good or evil to come. But alas! this is a prejudice of our own conceit. They are the empty echoes of what is past, not the foreboding voice of what is to come…’

Official remembrance of the ten year anniversary of 911 has completed.  So far, no successful terrorist activity in the States (I’m writing on Sunday night).  Journaling on September 12th, 1826, Scott invokes Milton, perhaps to convince himself that what he’s experienced is not real, and that he should return to his life and work.  After watching some of the Ground Zero ceremony on TV today, I’m sure many who lost loved ones on 911(and otherwise) would welcome the bittersweet solace such an experience would provide.

Poet's Corner - Westminster Abbey

On Monday, December 20, 1784, Samuel Johnson's remains were buried in Westminster Abbey. Johnson, who died a week earlier (on the 13th), joined several other illustrious poets/writers interred or memorialized in Poet's Corner. Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet buried there. Others include John Dryden, Lord Tennyson, and Robert Browning.

Memorials includes such famous poets/writers as John Milton, William Blake, Robert Burns, and, of course, Sir Walter Scott. Scott himself is buried in Dryburgh Abbey, near his Abbotsford.

John Milton

"John Milton!" exclaimed Sir Henry in astonishment-"What! John Milton, the blasphemous and bloody-minded author of the Defensio Populi Anglicani!- the advocate of the infernal High Court of Fiends; the creature and parasite of that grand impostor, that loathsome hypocrite, that detestable monster, that prodigy of the universe, that disgrace of mankind, that landscape of iniquity, that sink of sin, and that compendium of baseness, Oliver Cromwell! "

" Even the same John Milton, answered Charles..."

These lines are from Scott's Woodstock, which was published during the economic downturn of 1826. The novel's setting is the English Civil War (c. 1651), and the quote given to Sir Henry Lee is clearly unfavorable to a supporter of Cromwell. Samuel Johnson, a devout Tory, described Milton as "an acrimonious and surly republican."

John Milton was born December 9, 1608.