Laudator Temporis Acti

George Macaulay Trevelyan, Clio, a Muse, and Other Essays Literary and Pedestrian (London: Longmas, Green and Co., 1913), pp. 130-131:

The best poetry should be the common ground of all creeds and of all parties. What a blessing it is that we do not know what "party" or "Church" or no-Church Shakespeare "belonged to"; and the innate conservatism of Paradise Lost so neatly balances Milton's Republicanism that he remains a national instead of a party asset. Poetry unites those whom all other writing divides. It is a body of scripture, almost a religion, common to those who, though not of one opinion in everything, seek some method by which to approach one another on subjects of deepest feeling and importance. Liberal spirits and pious souls would have greater difficulty in understanding each other, if it were not for Milton, Wordsworth and Shelley, and the emotions to which they give the most perfect expression. If poetry were at all widely understood and loved, we should find among men more of those several qualities to engender which is the true function of religion and of free thought, of conservative and liberal movements.