Read it through once

In Milton, though there is a noticeable, an even distinctly marked, reduction of the life of the spirit (in the sense in which I have been using these words) exhibited by Shakespeare, it is still very strong and efficient, and continues uninfluenced by the malign atmosphere around him the last fifteen years of his life, which were lived in the reign of Charles II. Within that period he wrote the ‘Paradise Lost’, ‘Paradise Regained’, and ‘Samson Agonistes’. “Milton,” says Emerson, “was the stair or high table-land to let down the English genius from the summits of Shakespeare.”