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Professor Ernest Sirluck died on September 4, aged 95.

Ernest was one of the legendary figures of the University of Toronto and the Department of English. Along with such other Canadians as A.S.P. Woodhouse, Douglas Bush, Arthur Barker, Northrop Frye, and Balachandra Rajan, he was without question one of the greatest Milton scholars of the 20th-century. The second volume of the magisterial Yale Milton, which Ernest edited and introduced, not only turned that particular project around but had an impact way beyond Milton studies.

In reflecting on the origins of the “Cambridge School” of early modern history, with its extraordinary emphasis on the tactical details, shifting motives, and contingencies of both political and literary publication, Quentin Skinner identified Ernest along with Peter Laslett as one of the two key influences.

Ernest came to the University of Toronto from Manitoba in 1940. After distinguished war service, he completed his doctoral dissertation and became the first Jewish professor to hold a position in the Department of English, a fact of which he was immensely proud. In 1948 he went to the University of Chicago where he became a mainstay of that great institution.

He returned to Toronto in 1962 at the behest of President Claude Bissell to play a critical role as Dean in shaping the future of graduate studies at the University; he led the way in creating Robarts Research Library and in introducing the position of University Professor, the latter to keep Frye from going to Columbia.

In 1970 he was sounded out about becoming President of the University but declined to pursue the matter further because he had already accepted the Presidency of University of Manitoba. Not only a great scholar and gifted administrator, he was a man of remarkable courage and the greatest integrity.

My happiest memory of him is at the Canada Milton Seminar in 2007 which he attended to hear the plenary lecture of his former student, Barbara Lewalski. Even as he approached his 90th year, he was astonishingly articulate, precise, and passionate about intellectual matters. Even more impressively, he continued to drive his car with formidable panache.

There will be a memorial service for him at the Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm Street, Toronto on Sept. 22 at 1 p.m. 

Paul Stevens is a Professor and Acting Chair in the University of Toronto's Department of English.