Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

mention of Usher, that he had now adopted the Puritanical savageness of manners. His next work was, 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy,' by Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this book he discovers, not with ostenta5 tious exultation, but with calm confidence, his high opinion of his own powers; and promises to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country. 'This,' says he, 'is not to be obtained but

by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with Io all utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim, with the hallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases. To this must be added, industrious and select reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some 15 measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expectaFrom a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected the Paradise Lost.'

6

He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same question. To one of his antagonists, who affirms that 20 he was 'vomited out of the university,' he answers in general terms: The fellows of the college wherein I spent some years, at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many times how much better it would content them that I should stay.-As for the common appro25 bation or dislike of that place, as now it is, that I should esteem or disesteem myself the more for that, too simple is the answerer, if he think to obtain with me. Of small practice were the physician who could not judge by what she and her sister have of long time vomited, that the worser stuff she 30 strongly keeps in her stomach, but the better she is ever

kecking at, and is queasy; she vomits now out of sickness; but before it will be well with her, she must vomit with strong physic. The university, in the time of her better health, and

my younger judgment, I never greatly admired, but now.. much less.

This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been injured. He proceeds to describe the course of his conduct, and the train of his thoughts; and, because he has 5 been suspected of incontinence, gives an account of his own purity: That if I be justly charged,' says he,' with this crime, it may come upon me with tenfold shame.'

The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of his antagonist. This roughness he justifies by great 10 examples, in a long digression. Sometimes he tries to be humorous: Lest I should take him for some chaplain in hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one who serves not at the altar only, but at the court-cupboard, he will bestow on us a pretty model of himself; and sets me out 15 half-a-dozen phthisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the measure of convulsion fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having escaped narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets us with a quantity of thumbring posies. And thus ends this section, or rather dissection, 20 of himself.' Such is the controversial merriment of Milton; his gloomy seriousness is yet more offensive. Such is his malignity, that hell grows darker at his frown.'

His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside in his house, and his school increased. At Whitsun- 25 tide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powell, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town with him, and expected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady, however, seems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of spare diet and 30 hard study; for, as Phillips relates, 'having for a month led a philosophic life, after having been used at home to a great house, and much company and joviality, her friends, possibly

by her own desire, made earnest suit to have her company the remaining part of the summer; which was granted, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas.'

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife; he pursued 5 his studies, and now and then visited the Lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has mentioned in one of his sonnets. At last Michaelmas arrived; but the lady had no inclination to return to the sullen gloom of her husband's habitation, and therefore very willingly forgot her promise. He sent her Io a letter, but had no answer; he sent more with the same success. It could be alleged that letters miscarry; he therefore despatched a messenger, being by this time too angry to go himself. His messenger was sent back with some contempt. The family of the lady were Cavaliers.

15

In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less provocation than this might have raised violent resentment. Milton soon determined to repudiate her for disobedience; and, being one of those who could easily find arguments to justify inclination, published (in 1644) 'The 20 Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' which was followed by the Judgment of Martin Bucer, concerning Divorce,' and the next year his 'Tetrachordon, Expositions upon the four chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage.'

This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by 25 the clergy, who, then holding their famous assembly at Westminster, procured that the author should be called before the Lords; but that house,' says Wood, 'whether approving the doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, did soon dismiss him.'

30

There seems not to have been much written against him, nor anything by any writer of eminence. The antagonist that appeared is styled by him, 'a serving man turned solicitor.' Howel, in his Letters, mentions the new doctrine

н

with contempt; and it was, I suppose, thought more worthy of derision than of confutation. He complains of this neglect in two sonnets, of which the first is contemptible, and the second not excellent.

From this time it is observed that he became an enemy 5 to the Presbyterians, whom he had favoured before. He that changes his party by his humour is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself rather than truth...

His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not 10 an unresisting sufferer of injuries; and perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great accomplishments, the daughter of one Doctor Davis, who was however not ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a reunion. He went sometimes to 15 the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and at one of his usual visits was surprised to see his wife come from another room, and implore forgiveness on her knees. He resisted her entreaties for a while; but partly,' says Phillips, 'his own generous 20 nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger or revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a fair league of peace.' It were injurious to omit that Milton afterwards received her father and her brothers 25 in his own house, when they were distressed, with other Royalists.

He published about the same time his 'Areopagitica, a speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed Printing.' The danger of such unbounded liberty, and the 30 danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be published but

C

what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his projects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government may diffuse 5 discontent, there can be no peace; and if every sceptic in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed that every society may punish, though not prevent, the publication of opinions which that society shall 10 think pernicious; but this punishment, though it may crush the author, promotes the book; and it seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief. But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic, poetry was never long out of his thoughts.

15

20

About this time (1645) a collection of his Latin and English poems appeared, in which the 'Allegro' and 'Penseroso,' with some others, were first published.

[ocr errors]

He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception of scholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away; and the house again,' says Phillips, now looked like a house of the Muses only, 25 though the accession of scholars was not great. Possibly his having proceeded thus far in the education of youth may have been the occasion of his adversaries calling him pedagogue and schoolmaster; whereas it is well known he never set up for a public school, to teach all the young fry of a parish, 30 but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to his relations, and the sons of gentlemen that were his intimate friends, and that neither his converse, nor his writings nor his manner of teaching savoured in the least of pedantry.'

« AnteriorContinua »