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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5098-0.txt b/5098-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2db8055 --- /dev/null +++ b/5098-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6692 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lives of the English Poets: Waller, Milton, +Cowley, by Samuel Johnson, Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Lives of the English Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley + + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: October 26, 2014 [eBook #5098] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: +WALLER, MILTON, COWLEY*** + + +Transcribed from the 1891 Cassell and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY. + + * * * * * + + + + + + LIVES + OF THE + ENGLISH POETS + + + Waller Milton Cowley + + BY + SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. + +[Picture: Decorative graphic] + + CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: + _LONDON_, _PARIS & MELBOURNE_. + 1891. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +SAMUEL JOHNSON, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th of +September Old Style, 18th New Style, was sixty-eight years old when he +agreed with the booksellers to write his “Lives of the English Poets.” +“I am engaged,” he said, “to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to +a little edition of the English Poets.” His conscience was also a little +hurt by the fact that the bargain was made on Easter Eve. In 1777 his +memorandum, set down among prayers and meditations, was “29 March, Easter +Eve, I treated with booksellers on a bargain, but the time was not long.” + +The history of the book as told to Boswell by Edward Dilly, one of the +contracting booksellers, was this. An edition of Poets printed by the +Martins in Edinburgh, and sold by Bell in London, was regarded by the +London publishers as an interference with the honorary copyright which +booksellers then respected among themselves. They said also that it was +inaccurately printed and its type was small. A few booksellers agreed, +therefore, among themselves to call a meeting of proprietors of honorary +or actual copyright in the various Poets. In Poets who had died before +1660 they had no trade interest at all. About forty of the most +respectable booksellers in London accepted the invitation to this +meeting. They determined to proceed immediately with an elegant and +uniform edition of Poets in whose works they were interested, and they +deputed three of their number, William Strahan, Thomas Davies, and +Cadell, to wait on Johnson, asking him to write the series of prefatory +Lives, and name his own terms. Johnson agreed at once, and suggested as +his price two hundred guineas, when, as Malone says, the booksellers +would readily have given him a thousand. He then contemplated only +“little Lives.” His energetic pleasure in the work expanded his Preface +beyond the limits of the first design; but when it was observed to +Johnson that he was underpaid by the booksellers, his reply was, “No, +sir; it was not that they gave me too little, but that I gave them too +much.” He gave them, in fact, his masterpiece. His keen interest in +Literature as the soul of life, his sympathetic insight into human +nature, enabled him to put all that was best in himself into these +studies of the lives of men for whom he cared, and of the books that he +was glad to speak his mind about in his own shrewd independent way. +Boswell was somewhat disappointed at finding that the selection of the +Poets in this series would not be Johnson’s, but that he was to furnish a +Preface and Life to any Poet the booksellers pleased. “I asked him,” +writes Boswell, “if he would do this to any dunce’s works, if they should +ask him.” JOHNSON. “Yes, sir; and _say_ he was a dunce.” + +The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson’s +intellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the best +engravers, and another committee to give directions about paper and +printing. They made out at once a list of the Poets they meant to give, +“many of which,” said Dilly, “are within the time of the Act of Queen +Anne, which Martin and Bell cannot give, as they have no property in +them. The proprietors are almost all the booksellers in London, of +consequence.” + +In 1780 the booksellers published, in separate form, four volumes of +Johnson’s “Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the most Eminent of +the English Poets.” The completion followed in 1781. “Sometime in +March,” Johnson writes in that year, “I finished the Lives of the Poets.” +The series of books to which they actually served as prefaces extended to +sixty volumes. When his work was done, Johnson then being in his +seventy-second year, the booksellers added £100 to the price first asked. +Johnson’s own life was then near its close. He died on the 13th of +December, 1784, aged seventy-five. + +Of the Lives in this collection, Johnson himself liked best his Life of +Cowley, for the thoroughness with which he had examined in it the style +of what he called the metaphysical Poets. In his Life of Milton, the +sense of Milton’s genius is not less evident than the difference in point +of view which made it difficult for Johnson to know Milton thoroughly. +They know each other now. For Johnson sought as steadily as Milton to do +all as “in his great Taskmaster’s eye.” + + H. M. + + + + +WALLER. + + +EDMUND WALLER was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill, in +Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Esquire, of Agmondesham, in +Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish +Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden, in +the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion. + +His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income +of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value +of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent to +ten thousand at the present time. + +He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed +afterwards to King’s College, in Cambridge. He was sent to Parliament in +his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the court of +James the First, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the +writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who seems to have been well +informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has +delivered as indubitably certain: + +“He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, Bishop of +Durham, standing behind his Majesty’s chair; and there happened something +extraordinary,” continues this writer, “in the conversation those +prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His +Majesty asked the bishops, ‘My Lords, cannot I take my subject’s money, +when I want it, without all this formality of Parliament?’ The Bishop of +Durham readily answered, ‘God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the +breath of our nostrils.’ Whereupon the king turned and said to the +Bishop of Winchester, ‘Well, my Lord, what say you?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the +bishop, ‘I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases. The king +answered, ‘No put-offs, my Lord; answer me presently.’ ‘Then, Sir,’ said +he, ‘I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale’s money; for +he offers it.’ Mr. Waller said the company was pleased with this answer, +and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; for a certain lord coming in +soon after, his Majesty cried out, ‘Oh, my lord, they say you lig with my +Lady.’ ‘No, Sir,’ says his lordship in confusion; ‘but I like her +company, because she has so much wit.’ ‘Why, then,’ says the king, ‘do +you not lig with my Lord of Winchester there?’” + +Waller’s political and poetical life began nearly together. In his +eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, on +“The Prince’s Escape at St. Andero:” a piece which justifies the +observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity +like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be obsolete; and that +“were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know what was wrote +at twenty, and what at’ fourscore.” His versification was, in his first +essay, such as it appears in his last performance. By the perusal of +Fairfax’s translation of Tasso, to which, as Dryden relates, he confessed +himself indebted for the smoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety +of observation, he had already formed such a system of metrical harmony +as he never afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. +Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually +upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham was +inherited by Waller. + +The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is supposed by +Mr. Fenton to be the “Address to the Queen,” which he considers as +congratulating her arrival, in Waller’s twentieth year. He is apparently +mistaken; for the mention of the nation’s obligations to her frequent +pregnancy proves that it was written when she had brought many children. +We have therefore no date of any other poetical production before that +which the murder of the Duke of Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness +with which the king received the news in the chapel deserved indeed to be +rescued from oblivion. + +Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could have +been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on the prince’s escape, +the prediction of his marriage with the Princess of France must have been +written after the event; in the other, the promises of the king’s +kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly +praised till it had appeared by its effects, show that time was taken for +revision and improvement. It is not known that they were published till +they appeared long afterwards with other poems. + +Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their minds +at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, he took +care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the +city, whom the interest of the court was employed to obtain for Mr. +Crofts. Having brought him a son, who died young, and a daughter, who +was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer, of Oxfordshire, she died in +childbed, and left him a widower of about five-and-twenty, gay and +wealthy, to please himself with another marriage. + +Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think himself +resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly and half-ambitiously, +upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, +whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sacharissa is celebrated; the +name is derived from the Latin appellation of “sugar,” and implies, if it +means anything, a spiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, such as +excites rather tenderness and esteem, and such as, though always treated +with kindness, is never honoured or admired. + +Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, of lofty +charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather +than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in vain, to break, and +whose presence is “wine” that “inflames to madness.” + +His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of +boasting its influence; she was not to be subdued by the powers of verse, +but rejected his addresses, it is said, with disdain, and drove him away +to solace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 +the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newbury in the king’s cause; and, in +her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, asked him, when he would +again write such verses upon her; “When you are as young, Madam,” said +he, “and as handsome as you were then.” + +In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among the +rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature; +but known so little to his advantage, that they who read his character +will not much condemn Sacharissa, that she did not descend from her rank +to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit. + +The lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon comprised in wit, +qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to the +scholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of that time, +however they might receive his love, were proud of his praises. Who they +were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, cannot now be known. +Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. Perhaps by +traditions preserved in families more may be discovered. + +From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected that he +diverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his biographers, from his +poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited the Bermudas; +but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himself with forming +an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, as a visit to +America, should have been left floating in conjectural probability. + +From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieces on +the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. Paul’s; to the King on +his Navy; the Panegyric on the Queen Mother; the two poems to the Earl of +Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the time cannot be +discovered. + +When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him for an +easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or Breaux. +The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has not been +discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is anything told of +her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtless praised some +whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom he +would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to domestic +happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and +sallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters them never can +approve. There are charms made only for distant admiration. No +spectacle is nobler than a blaze. + +Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him five sons +and eight daughters. + +During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as living among +those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and enjoying an +exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of speech and +conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was, however, +considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was therefore supposed by the +courtiers not to favour them. + +When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller’s +political character had not been mistaken. The king’s demand of a supply +produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection and discontent +regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical complaints of +imaginary grievances: “They,” says he, “who think themselves already +undone, can never apprehend themselves in danger; and they who have +nothing left can never give freely.” Political truth is equally in +danger from the praises of courtiers, and the exclamations of patriots. + +He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time of a +favourable audience. His topic is such as will always serve its purpose; +an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment: and he exhorts +the Commons “carefully” to “provide” for their “protection against Pulpit +Law.” + +It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has in his +speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in another has copied him, +without quoting. “Religion,” says Waller, “ought to be the first thing +in our purpose and desires; but that which is first in dignity is not +always to precede in order of time; for well-being supposes a being; and +the first impediment which men naturally endeavour to remove, is the want +of those things without which they cannot subsist. God first assigned +unto Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title to the rest of the +creatures before he appointed a law to observe.” + +“God first assigned Adam,” says Hooker, “maintenance of life, and then +appointed him a law to observe. True it is, that the kingdom of God must +be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but inasmuch as a +righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live virtuously it is +impossible, except we live; therefore the first impediment which +naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and want of things without +which we cannot live.” + +The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances ought to +be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to law and +reason: nor was Waller, if his biographer may be credited, such an enemy +to the king, as not to wish his distresses lightened; for he relates, +“that the king sent particularly to Waller, to second his demand of some +subsidies to pay off the army, and Sir Henry Vane objecting against first +voting a supply, because the king would not accept unless it came up to +his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly to Sir Thomas Jermyn, +comptroller of the household, to save his master from the effects of so +bold a falsity; ‘for,’ he said, ‘I am but a country gentleman, and cannot +pretend to know the king’s mind:’ but Sir Thomas durst not contradict the +secretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr. +Waller, that his father’s cowardice ruined the king.” + +In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3, +1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and was considered +by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty and acrimonious to +be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge Crawley, for his opinion +in favour of ship-money; and his speech shows that he did not disappoint +their expectations. He was probably the more ardent, as his uncle +Hampden had been particularly engaged in the dispute, and, by a sentence +which seems generally to be thought unconstitutional, particularly +injured. + +He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their +opinions. When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to be +abolished, was debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, so +reasonably, and so firmly, that it is not without great injury to his +name that his speech, which was as follows, has been hitherto omitted in +his works: + +“There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered from +the present bishops hath produced these complaints; and the apprehensions +men have of suffering the like, in time to come, make so many desire the +taking away of Episcopacy: but I conceive it is possible that we may not, +now, take a right measure of the minds of the people by their petitions; +for, when they subscribed them, the bishops were armed with a dangerous +commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and the like; but +now we have disarmed them of that power. These petitioners lately did +look upon Episcopacy as a beast armed with horns and claws; but now that +we have cut and pared them (and may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into +narrower bounds), it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they +be still in passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use and +antiquity thereof; and not to comply further with a general desire, than +may stand with a general good. + +“We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof are mingled +like water and oil; we have also, in part, severed them; but I believe +you will find, that our laws and the present government of the Church are +mingled like wine and water; so inseparable, that the abrogation of, at +least, a hundred of our laws is desired in these petitions. I have often +heard a noble answer of the Lords, commended in this House, to a +proposition of like nature, but of less consequence; they gave no other +reason of their refusal but this, ‘_Nolumus mutare Leges Angliæ_:’ it was +the bishops who so answered them; and it would become the dignity and +wisdom of this House to answer the people, now, with a ‘_Nolumus +mutare_.’ + +“I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops; which, +I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I look upon +Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, if it be taken by this +assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once revealed, ‘that we +must deny them nothing when they ask it thus in troops,’ we may, in the +next place, have as hard a task to defend our property, as we have lately +had to recover it from the Prerogative. If, by multiplying hands and +petitions, they prevail for an equality in things ecclesiastical, the +next demand perhaps may be _Lex Agraria_, the like equality in things +temporal. + +“The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to flock about the +Senate, and were more curious to direct and know what was done, than to +obey, that Commonwealth soon came to ruin; their _Legem regare_ grew +quickly to be a _Legem ferre_: and after, when their legions had found +that they could make a Dictator, they never suffered the Senate to have a +voice any more in such election. + +“If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a flat and level in +learning too, as well as in Church preferments: _Hones alit Artes_. And +though it be true, that grave and pious men do study for learning-sake, +and embrace virtue for itself; yet it is true, that youth, which is the +season when learning is gotten, is not without ambition; nor will ever +take pains to excel in anything, when there is not some hope of excelling +others in reward and dignity. + +“There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Church government. + +“First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out another form. + +“Second, the abuses of the present superiors. + +“For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am confident +that, whenever an equal division of lands and goods shall be desired, +there will be as many places in Scripture found out, which seem to favour +that, as there are now alleged against the prelacy or preferment of the +Church. And, as for abuses, when you are now in the remonstrance told +what this and that poor man hath suffered by the bishops, you may be +presented with a thousand instances of poor men that have received hard +measure from their landlords; and of worldly goods abused, to the injury +of others, and disadvantage of the owners. + +“And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is that we may settle men’s +minds herein; and by a question, declare our resolution, ‘to reform,’ +that is, ‘not to abolish, Episcopacy.’” + +It cannot but be wished that he, who could speak in this manner, had been +able to act with spirit and uniformity. + +When the Commons begun to set the royal authority at open defiance, +Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to have returned +with the king’s permission; and, when the king set up his standard, he +sent him a thousand broad-pieces. He continued, however, to sit in the +rebellious conventicle; but “spoke,” says Clarendon, “with great +sharpness and freedom, which, now there was no danger of being out-voted, +was not restrained; and therefore used as an argument against those who +were gone upon pretence that they were not suffered to deliver their +opinion freely in the House, which could not be believed, when all men +knew what liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day with impunity +against the sense and proceedings of the House.” + +Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners nominated by +the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and when they were +presented, the king said to him, “Though you are the last, you are not +the lowest nor the least in my favour.” Whitelock, who, being another of +the commissioners, was witness of this kindness, imputes it to the king’s +knowledge of the plot, in which Waller appeared afterwards to have been +engaged against the Parliament. Fenton, with equal probability, believes +that his attempt to promote the royal cause arose from his sensibility of +the king’s tenderness. Whitelock says nothing of his behaviour at +Oxford: he was sent with several others to add pomp to the commission, +but was not one of those to whom the trust of treating was imparted. + +The engagement, known by the name of Waller’s plot, was soon afterwards +discovered. Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who was clerk of the +queen’s council, and at the same time had a very numerous acquaintance, +and great influence, in the city. Waller and he, conversing with great +confidence, told both their own secrets and those of their friends; and, +surveying the wide extent of their conversation, imagined that they found +in the majority of all ranks great disapprobation of the violence of the +Commons, and unwillingness to continue the war. They knew that many +favoured the king, whose fear concealed their loyalty; and many desired +peace, though they durst not oppose the clamour for war; and they +imagined that, if those who had these good intentions should be informed +of their own strength, and enabled by intelligence to act together, they +might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to comply with the +ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes levied for the +support of the rebel army, and by uniting great numbers in a petition for +peace. They proceeded with great caution. Three only met in one place, +and no man was allowed to impart the plot to more than two others; so +that, if any should be suspected or seized, more than three could not be +endangered. + +Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, incidentally +mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or projects, which +however were only mentioned, the main design being to bring the loyal +inhabitants to the knowledge of each other; for which purpose there was +to be appointed one in every district, to distinguish the friends of the +king, the adherents to the Parliament, and the neutrals. How far they +proceeded does not appear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, +was, that within the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, there +were three against them; but that without the walls, for one that was +against them, there were five for them. Whether this was said from +knowledge or guess, was perhaps never inquired. + +It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller’s plan no violence or +sanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended only to abate the +confidence of the rebels by public declarations, and to weaken their +powers by an opposition to new supplies. This, in calmer times, and more +than this, is done without fear; but such was the acrimony of the +Commons, that no method of obstructing them was safe. + +About this time another design was formed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, a man +of loyalty, that deserves perpetual remembrance; when he was a merchant +in the city, he gave and procured the king, in his exigencies, a hundred +thousand pounds; and, when he was driven from the Exchange, raised a +regiment, and commanded it. + +Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some provocation +would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much encourage, the +king’s friends in the city, that they would break out in open resistance, +and would then want only a lawful standard, and an authorised commander; +and extorted from the king, whose judgment too frequently yielded to +importunity, a commission of array, directed to such as he thought proper +to nominate, which was sent to London by the Lady Aubigny. She knew not +what she carried, but was to deliver it on the communication of a certain +token which Sir Nicholas imparted. + +This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the time should +require it. To have attempted to raise any forces would have been +certain destruction; it could be of use only when the forces should +appear. This was, however, an act preparatory to martial hostility. + +Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of Parliament, +had his strength been equal to his zeal; and out of the design of Crispe, +which involved very little danger, and that of Waller, which was an act +purely civil, they compounded a horrid and dreadful plot. + +The discovery of Waller’s design is variously related. + +In “Clarendon’s History” it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns, lurking +behind the hangings when his master was in conference with Waller, heard +enough to qualify him for an informer, and carried his intelligence to +Pym. + +A manuscript, quoted in the “Life of Waller,” relates, that “he was +betrayed by his sister Price, and her Presbyterian chaplain Mr. Goode, +who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangely dreamed the +night before, that his sister had betrayed him, and thereupon burnt the +rest of his papers by the fire that was in his chimney, he had certainly +lost his life by it.” The question cannot be decided. It is not +unreasonable to believe that the men in power, receiving intelligence +from the sister, would employ the servant of Tomkyns to listen at the +conference, that they might avoid an act so offensive as that of +destroying the brother by the sister’s testimony. + +The plot was published in the most terrific manner. + +On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were listening to +the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and communicated his errand +to Pym, who whispered it to others that were placed near him, and then +went with them out of the church, leaving the rest in solicitude and +amazement. They immediately sent guards to proper places, and that night +apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; having yet traced nothing but that +letters had been intercepted, from which it appears that the Parliament +and the city were soon to be delivered into the hands of the cavaliers. + +They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and +indistinct notices. “But Waller,” says Clarendon, “was so confounded +with fear, that he confessed whatever he had heard, said, thought, or +seen; all that he knew of himself, and all that he suspected of others, +without concealing any person of what degree or quality soever, or any +discourse which he had ever upon any occasion entertained with them; what +such and such ladies of great honour, to whom, upon the credit of his wit +and great reputation, he had been admitted, had spoken to him in their +chambers upon the proceedings in the Houses, and how they had encouraged +him to oppose them; what correspondence and intercourse they had with +some Ministers of State at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all +intelligence thither.” He accused the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway +as co-operating in the transaction; and testified that the Earl of +Northumberland had declared himself disposed in favour of any attempt +that might check the violence of the Parliament, and reconcile them to +the king. + +He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have discovered, and +perhaps somewhat which they would wish to have been suppressed; for it is +inconvenient in the conflict of factions, to have that disaffection known +which cannot safely be punished. + +Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears likewise to +have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of Crispe’s commission +of array, of which Clarendon never knew how it was discovered. Tomkyns +had been sent with the token appointed, to demand it from Lady Aubigny, +and had buried it in his garden, where, by his direction, it was dug up; +and thus the rebels obtained, what Clarendon confesses them to have had, +the original copy. + +It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two +designs, however remote from each other, when they saw the same agent +employed in both, and found the commission of array in the hands of him +who was employed in collecting the opinions and affections of the people. + +Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. They sent +Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent danger and happy +escape; and inform them, that the design was, “to seize the Lord Mayor +and all the Committee of Militia, and would not spare one of them.” They +drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by every member of either House, +by which he declared his detestation of all conspiracies against the +Parliament, and his resolution to detect and oppose them. They then +appointed a day of thanksgiving for this wonderful delivery; which shut +out, says Clarendon, all doubts whether there had been such a +deliverance, and whether the plot was real or fictitious. + +On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway were committed, one to +the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff; but their lands +and goods were not seized. + +Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The Earl of +Portland and Lord Conway denied the charge; and there was no evidence +against them but the confession of Waller, of which undoubtedly many +would be inclined to question the veracity. With these doubts he was so +much terrified, that he endeavoured to persuade Portland to a declaration +like his own, by a letter extant in Fenton’s edition. “But for me,” says +he, “you had never known anything of this business, which was prepared +for another; and therefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far +as to contract your own ruin by concealing it, and persisting +unreasonably to hide that truth, which, without you, already is, and will +every day be made more manifest. Can you imagine yourself bound in +honour to keep that secret, which is already revealed by another? or +possible it should still be a secret, which is known to one of the other +sex?—If you persist to be cruel to yourself for their sakes who deserve +it not, it will nevertheless be made appear, ere long, I fear, to your +ruin. Surely, if I had the happiness to wait on you, I could move you to +compassionate both yourself and me, who, desperate as my case is, am +desirous to die with the honour of being known to have declared the +truth. You have no reason to contend to hide what is already +revealed—inconsiderately to throw away yourself, for the interest of +others, to whom you are less obliged than you are aware of.” + +This persuasion seems to have had little effect. Portland sent (June 29) +a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he “is in custody, as he +conceives, without any charge; and that, by what Mr. Waller hath +threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very +cruel, long, and ruinous restraint:—He therefore prays, that he may not +find the effects of Mr. Waller’s threats, a long and close imprisonment; +but may be speedily brought to a legal trial, and then he is confident +the vanity and falsehood of those informations which have been given +against him will appear.” + +In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Waller to +be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the other his +denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1), Thinn, +usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having had a +conference with the Lord Portland in an upper room, Lord Portland said, +when he came down, “Do me the favour to tell my Lord Northumberland, that +Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save my own life and his, by +throwing the blame upon the Lord Conway and the Earl of Northumberland.” + +Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which he +could urge with resistless efficacy in a personal conference; but he +overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion or +entreaty, was returned with contempt. + +One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already known to +a woman. This woman was doubtless Lady Aubigny, who, upon this occasion, +was committed to custody; but who, in reality, when she delivered the +commission, knew not what it was. + +The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and committed +their trial to a council of war. Tomkyns and Chaloner were hanged near +their own doors. Tomkyns, when he came to die, said it was a “foolish +business;” and indeed there seems to have been no hope that it should +escape discovery; for, though never more than three met at a time, yet a +design so extensive must by necessity be communicated to many who could +not be expected to be all faithful and all prudent. Chaloner was +attended at his execution by Hugh Peters. His crime was, that he had +commission to raise money for the king; but it appears not that the money +was to be expended upon the advancement of either Crispe’s or Waller’s +plot. + +The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was only +once examined before the Lords. The Earl of Portland and Lord Conway +persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller’s yet +appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, admitted to +bail. Hassel, the king’s messenger, who carried the letters to Oxford, +died the night before his trial. Hampden [Alexander] escaped death, +perhaps by the interest of his family; but was kept in prison to the end +of his life. They whose names were inserted in the commission of array +were not capitally punished, as it could not be proved that they had +consented to their own nomination; but they were considered as +malignants, and their estates were seized. + +“Waller, though confessedly,” says Clarendon, “the most guilty, with +incredible dissimulation affected such a remorse of conscience, that his +trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, till he might recover his +understanding.” What use he made of this interval, with what liberality +and success he distributed flattery and money, and how, when he was +brought (July 4) before the House, he confessed and lamented, and +submitted and implored, may be read in the “History of the Rebellion” (B. +vii.). The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes the preservation of his +“dear-bought life,” is inserted in his works. The great historian, +however, seems to have been mistaken in relating that “he prevailed” in +the principal part of his supplication, “not to be tried by a council of +war;” for, according to Whitelock, he was by expulsion from the House +abandoned to the tribunal which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and +condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after a year’s imprisonment, in +which time resentment grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten +thousand pounds, he was permitted to “recollect himself in another +country.” + +Of his behaviour in this part of life, it is not necessary to direct the +reader’s opinion. “Let us not,” says his last ingenious biographer, +“condemn him with untempered severity, because he was not a prodigy which +the world hath seldom seen, because his character included not the poet, +the orator, and the hero.” + +For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time at Roan, +where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards his favourite, +and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where he lived with great +splendour and hospitality; and from time to time amused himself with +poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, +in the natural language of an honest man. + +At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife’s jewels; +and being reduced, as he said, at last “to the rump-jewel,” he solicited +from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it by the interest of +Colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. Upon the remains of a +fortune, which the danger of his life had very much diminished, he lived +at Hallbarn, a house built by himself very near to Beaconsfield, where +his mother resided. His mother, though related to Cromwell and Hampden, +was zealous for the royal cause, and, when Cromwell visited her, used to +reproach him; he, in return, would throw a napkin at her, and say he +would not dispute with his aunt; but finding in time that she acted for +the king, as well as talked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, +in her own house. If he would do anything, he could not do less. + +Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to familiar +conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently +versed in ancient history; and, when any of his enthusiastic friends came +to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the +cant of the times: but, when he returned, he would say, “Cousin Waller, I +must talk to these men in their own way;” and resumed the common style of +conversation. + +He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous Panegyric, +which has been always considered as the first of his poetical +productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is very judicious; for he +considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without inquiring how he attained +it; there is consequently no mention of the rebel or the regicide. All +the former part of his hero’s life is veiled with shades; and nothing is +brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England’s +honour, and the enlarger of her dominion. The act of violence by which +he obtained the supreme power is lightly treated, and decently justified. +It was certainly to be desired that the detestable band should be +dissolved, which had destroyed the Church, murdered the king, and filled +the nation with tumult and oppression; yet Cromwell had not the right of +dissolving them, for all that he had before done could be justified only +by supposing them invested with lawful authority. But combinations of +wickedness would overwhelm the world by the advantage which licentious +principles afford, did not those, who have long practised perfidy, grow +faithless to each other. + +In the poem on the War with Spain are some passages at least equal to the +best parts of the Panegyric; and, in the conclusion, the poet ventures +yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty to Cromwell and +the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears from his +conversation, related by Whitelock, of adding the title to the power of +monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from it partly by fear of +the army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, when he should govern by +the name of king, would have restrained his authority. When, therefore, +a deputation was solemnly sent to invite him to the crown, he, after a +long conference, refused it, but is said to have fainted in his coach +when he parted from them. + +The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been dictated by +real veneration for his memory. Dryden and Sprat wrote on the same +occasion; but they were young men, struggling into notice, and hoping for +some favour from the ruling party. Waller had little to expect; he had +received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and was not likely to ask +anything from those who should succeed him. + +Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him with another subject; and +he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his melody, with equal +alacrity, for Charles the Second. It is not possible to read, without +some contempt and indignation, poems of the same author, ascribing the +highest degree of “power and piety” to Charles the First, then +transferring the same “power and piety” to Oliver Cromwell; now inviting +Oliver to take the Crown, and then congratulating Charles the Second on +his recovered right. Neither Cromwell nor Charles could value his +testimony as the effect of conviction, or receive his praises as +effusions of reverence; they could consider them but as the labour of +invention, and the tribute of dependence. + +Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of fiction is the +conveyance of truth, and he that has flattery ready for all whom the +vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt must be scorned as a +prostituted mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lost the +dignity of virtue. + +The Congratulation was considered as inferior in poetical merit to the +Panegyric; and it is reported that, when the king told Waller of the +disparity, he answered, “Poets, Sir, succeed better in fiction than in +truth.” + +The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to the Panegyric, either by +decay of genius, or for want of diligence, but because Cromwell had done +much and Charles had done little. Cromwell wanted nothing to raise him +to heroic excellence but virtue, and virtue his poet thought himself at +liberty to supply. Charles had yet only the merit of struggling without +success, and suffering without despair. A life of escapes and indigence +could supply poetry with no splendid images. + +In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, 1661), +Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for different places in +all the Parliaments of that reign. In a time when fancy and gaiety were +the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is not likely that Waller +was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that was highest, both +in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude +him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to +heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that +“no man in England should keep him company without drinking but Ned +Waller.” + +The praise given him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; for it +was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a writer, to a man +who, though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English pension, +never consented to understand the language of the nation that maintained +him. + +In Parliament, “he was,” says Burnet, “the delight of the House, and +though old, said the liveliest things of any among them.” This, however, +is said in his account of the year seventy-five, when Waller was only +seventy. His name as a speaker occurs often in Grey’s Collections, but I +have found no extracts that can be more quoted as exhibiting sallies of +gaiety than cogency of argument. + +He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated and +recorded. When the Duke of York’s influence was high, both in Scotland +and England, it drew, says Burnet, a lively reflection from Waller, the +celebrated wit. He said, “The House of Commons had resolved that the +duke should not reign after the king’s death: but the king, in opposition +to them, had resolved that he should reign even in his life.” If there +appear no extraordinary “liveliness” in this “remark,” yet its reception +proves its speaker to have been a “celebrated wit,” to have had a name +which men of wit were proud of mentioning. + +He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may easily +happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to poetical distinction from +time to time, as occasions were offered, either by public events or +private incidents; and, contenting himself with the influence of his +Muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office +of magistracy. + +He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune, for he asked +from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton College, and obtained it; +but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that it +could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that Sir Henry Wotton +qualified himself for it by deacon’s orders. + +To this opposition, the Biographia imputes the violence and acrimony with +which Waller joined Buckingham’s faction in the prosecution of Clarendon. +The motive was illiberal and dishonest, and showed that more than sixty +years had not been able to teach him morality. His accusation is such as +conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate without the help of malice. +“We were to be governed by Janizaries instead of Parliaments, and are in +danger from a worse plot than that of the fifth of November; then, if the +Lords and Commons had been destroyed, there had been a succession; but +here both had been destroyed for ever.” This is the language of a man +who is glad of an opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice truth to +interest at one time, and to anger at another. + +A year after the chancellor’s banishment, another vacancy gave him +encouragement for another petition, which the king referred to the +Council, who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for three +days, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman, +according to the Act of Uniformity, since the provosts had always +received institution as for a parsonage from the Bishops of Lincoln. The +king then said he could not break the law which he had made; and Dr. +Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most for two sermons, was +chosen by the Fellows. + +That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that he obtained +nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court through the rest of +Charles’s reign. + +At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for Parliament, +being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of the +Downfall of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king on his +birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator Fenton, that in reading +Tasso he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the Holy War, +and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left him. James, however, +having soon after begun what he thought a holy war at home, made haste to +put all molestation of the Turks out of his power. + +James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instances are +given by the writer of his life. One day, taking him into the closet, +the king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: “My eyes,” said +Waller, “are dim, and I do not know it.” The king said it was the +Princess of Orange. “She is,” said Waller, “like the greatest woman in +the world.” The king asked who was that; and was answered, Queen +Elizabeth. “I wonder,” said the king, “you should think so; but I must +confess she had a wise council.” “And, Sir,” said Waller, “did you ever +know a fool choose a wise one?” Such is the story, which I once heard of +some other man. Pointed axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the +world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion +to celebrate. + +When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. Birch, +a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him that “the king +wondered he could think of marrying his daughter to a falling church.” +“The king,” said Waller, “does me great honour in taking notice of my +domestic affairs; but I have lived long enough to observe that this +falling church has got a trick of rising again.” + +He took notice to his friends of the king’s conduct; and said that “he +would be left like a whale upon the strand.” Whether he was privy to any +of the transactions that ended in the revolution is not known. His heir +joined the Prince of Orange. + +Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom suffer +life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, he seems to have +turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive hour, and therefore +consecrated his poetry to devotion. It is pleasing to discover that his +piety was without weakness; that his intellectual powers continued +vigorous; and that the lines which he composed when “he, for age, could +neither read nor write,” are not inferior to the effusions of his youth. + +Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a little land, +at Coleshill; and said “he should be glad to die, like the stag, where he +was roused.” This, however, did not happen. When he was at +Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid: he went to Windsor, where Sir +Charles Scarborough then attended the king, and requested him, as both a +friend and physician, to tell him “what that swelling meant.” “Sir,” +answered Scarborough, “your blood will run no longer.” Waller repeated +some lines of Virgil, and went home to die. + +As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure; +and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, he desired his +children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of his +faith in Christianity. It now appeared what part of his conversation +with the great could be remembered with delight. He related, that being +present when the Duke of Buckingham talked profanely before King Charles, +he said to him, “My lord, I am a great deal older than your grace and +have, I believe, heard more arguments for atheism than ever your grace +did; but I have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and +so, I hope, your grace will.” + +He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a monument +erected by his son’s executors, for which Rymer wrote the inscription, +and which I hope is now rescued from dilapidation. + +He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughter was +married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, was disinherited, and +sent to New Jersey as wanting common understanding. Edmund, the second +son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament, but +at last turned quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in London. +Stephen, the fourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, and one of the +commissioners for the union. There is said to have been a fifth, of whom +no account has descended. + +The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn by +Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which certainly +none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. It is therefore +inserted here, with such remarks as others have supplied; after which, +nothing remains but a critical examination of his poetry. + +“Edmund Waller,” says Clarendon, “was born to a very fair estate, by the +parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother; and he thought it +so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve it with his +utmost care, upon which in his nature he was too much intent; and in +order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarcely +ever heard of, till by his address and dexterity he had gotten a very +rich wife in the city, against all the recommendation and countenance and +authority of the court, which was thoroughly engaged on the behalf of Mr. +Crofts, and which used to be successful, in that age, against any +opposition. He had the good fortune to have an alliance and friendship +with Dr. Morley, who had assisted and instructed him in the reading many +good books, to which his natural parts and promptitude inclined him, +especially the poets; and at the age when other men used to give over +writing verses (for he was near thirty years when he first engaged +himself in that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he +surprised the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth +Muse had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The doctor at that +time brought him into that company which was most celebrated for good +conversation, where he was received and esteemed with great applause and +respect. He was a very pleasant discourser in earnest and in jest, and +therefore very grateful to all kind of company, where he was not the less +esteemed for being very rich. + +“He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was very +young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long intermission) +he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage; having a graceful +way of speaking, and by thinking much on several arguments (which his +temper and complexion, that had much of melancholic, inclined him to), he +seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when the occasion had only +administered the opportunity of saying what he had thoroughly considered, +which gave a great lustre to all he said; which yet was rather of delight +than weight. There needs no more be said to extol the excellence and +power of his wit, and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was +of magnitude enough to cover a world of very great faults; that is, so to +cover them, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, viz., a +narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness and want of +courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an insinuation and +servile flattery to the height, the vainest and most imperious nature +could be contented with; that it preserved and won his life from those +who most resolved to take it, and in an occasion in which he ought to +have been ambitious to have lost it; and then preserved him again from +the reproach and the contempt that was due to him for so preserving it, +and for vindicating it at such a price that it had power to reconcile him +to those whom he had most offended and provoked; and continued to his age +with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit +was odious; and he was at least pitied where he was most detested.” + +Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper to make +some remarks. + +“He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the city.” + +He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, before +which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He was now, +however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part of his time in +privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured the +improvement of his mind as well as his fortune. + +That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the more +probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of his +poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before thirty. As +his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the succession of his +compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to have +been very studious of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion by +consulting Waller’s book. + +Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by Dr. +Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was already among +them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the cause, they +found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, whom Waller +set free at the expense of one hundred pounds, took him into the country +as director of his studies, and then procured him admission into the +company of the friends of literature. Of this fact Clarendon had a +nearer knowledge than the biographer, and is therefore more to be +credited. + +The account of Waller’s parliamentary eloquence is seconded by Burnet, +who, though he calls him “the delight of the House,” adds, that “he was +only concerned to say that which should make him be applauded, he never +laid the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, though a +witty man.” + +Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe that +the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of those whom in +modern language we term wits, says, that they are “open flatterers, and +private mockers.” Waller showed a little of both, when, upon sight of +the Duchess of Newcastle’s verses on the Death of a Stag, he declared +that he would give all his own compositions to have written them, and +being charged with the exorbitance of his adulation, answered, that +“nothing was too much to be given, that a lady might be saved from the +disgrace of such a vile performance.” This, however, was no very +mischievous or very unusual deviation from truth; had his hypocrisy been +confined to such transactions, he might have been forgiven, though not +praised: for who forbears to flatter an author or a lady? + +Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his +resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem of +every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from Charles the +Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his +relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden’s son. + +As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and his +conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. His +deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connexion with Hampden, +for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the +invective which he pronounced on that occasion was so popular, that +twenty thousand copies are said by his biographer to have been sold in +one day. + +It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at least +many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is universally +acknowledged; but those who conversed with him intimately, found him not +only passionate, especially in his old age, but resentful; so that the +interposition of friends was sometimes necessary. + +His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers of +his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the translation of +Corneille’s Pompey; and is said to have added his help to that of Cowley +in the original draft of the Rehearsal. + +The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree +little less than criminal, was either not constant or not successful; for +having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred pounds a year +in the time of James the First, and augmented at least by one wealthy +marriage, he left, about the time of the Revolution, an income of not +more than twelve or thirteen hundred; which, when the different value of +money is reckoned, will be found perhaps not more than a fourth part of +what he once possessed. + +Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts which he was +forced to scatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the +detection of his plot; and if his estate, as is related in his life, was +sequestered, he had probably contracted debts when he lived in exile; for +we are told, that at Paris he lived in splendour, and was the only +Englishman, except the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table. + +His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the waste of +the rest there is no account, except that he is confessed by his +biographer to have been a bad economist. He seems to have deviated from +the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, and a +squanderer in his last. + +Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known more than +that he professed himself unable to read Chapman’s translation of Homer +without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a poet is contained +in his declaration, that “he would blot from his works any line that did +not contain some motive to virtue.” + +The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writing are +sprightliness and dignity; in his smallest pieces, he endeavours to be +gay; in the larger to be great. Of his airy and light productions, the +chief source is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence +which has descended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are +commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, he was not so liberally +supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more easily found +than magnanimity. + +The delicacy, which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicety and +caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He has, +therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldom anything +ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best; though his +subjects are often unworthy of his care. + +It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author, who is +growing illustrious in his own opinion by verses, at one time, “To a +Lady, who can do anything but sleep, when she pleases;” at another, “To a +Lady who can sleep when she pleases;” now, “To a Lady, on her passing +through a crowd of people;” then, “On a braid of divers colours woven by +four Ladies;” “On a tree cut in paper;” or, “To a Lady, from whom he +received the copy of verses on the paper-tree, which, for many years, had +been missing.” + +Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of +Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus: and a writer naturally pleases himself +with a performance, which owes nothing to the subject. But compositions +merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in +time for something useful; they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of +short duration; or they are blossoms to be valued only as they foretell +fruits. + +Among Waller’s little poems are some, which their excellency ought to +secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, comparing the different modes of +regard with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and the verses on Love, +that begin, “Anger in hasty words or blows.” + +In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts are +deficient, and sometimes his expression. + +The numbers are not always musical; as, + + Fair Venus, in thy soft arms + The god of rage confine: + For thy whispers are the charms + Which only can divert his fierce design. + What though he frown, and to tumult do incline; + Thou the flame + Kindled in his breast canst tame + With that snow which unmelted lies on thine. + +He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of science; +his thoughts are for the most part easily understood, and his images such +as the superfices of nature readily supplies; he has a just claim to +popularity, because he writes to common degrees of knowledge; and is free +at least from philosophical pedantry, unless perhaps the end of a song to +the Sun may be excepted, in which he is too much a Copernican. To which +may be added the simile of the “palm” in the verses “on her passing +through a crowd;” and a line in a more serious poem on the Restoration, +about vipers and treacle, which can only be understood by those who +happen to know the composition of the Theriaca. + +His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural + + The plants admire, + No less than those of old did Orpheus’ lyre; + If she sit down, with tops all tow’rds her bow’d, + They round about her into arbours crowd; + Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand, + Like some well-marshall’d and obsequious band. + +In another place: + + While in the park I sing, the listening deer + Attend my passion, and forget to fear: + When to the beeches I report my flame, + They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. + To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers + With loud complaints they answer me in showers. + To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, + More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven! + +On the head of a stag: + + O fertile head! which every year + Could such a crop of wonder bear! + The teeming earth did never bring, + So soon, so hard, so large a thing: + Which might it never have been cast, + Each year’s growth added to the last, + These lofty branches had supplied + The earth’s bold sons’ prodigious pride: + Heaven with these engines had been scaled, + When mountains heap’d on mountains fail’d. + +Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble +conclusion. In the song of “Sacharissa’s and Amoret’s Friendship,” the +two last stanzas ought to have been omitted. + +His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree delicate. + + Then shall my love this doubt displace + And gain such trust that I may come + And banquet sometimes on thy face, + But make my constant meals at home. + +Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; as in +the verses on the Lady Dancing: + + The sun in figures such as these + Joys with the moon to play: + To the sweet strains they advance, + Which do result from their own spheres; + As this nymph’s dance + Moves with the numbers which she hears. + +Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps fill a distich, is expanded and +attenuated till it grows weak and almost evanescent. + + Chloris! since first our calm of peace + Was frighted hence, this good we find, + Your favours with your fears increase, + And growing mischiefs make you kind. + So the fair tree, which still preserves + Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows, + In storms from that uprightness swerves; + And the glad earth about her strows + With treasure from her yielding boughs. + +His images are not always distinct; as in the following passage, he +confounds _Love_ as a person with _Love_ as a passion: + + Some other nymphs, with colours faint, + And pencil slow, may Cupid paint, + And a weak heart in time destroy; + She has a stamp, and prints the boy; + Can, with a single look, inflame + The coldest breast, the rudest tame. + +His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and happy, as that +in return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, as that +upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few lines written in the +Duchess’s Tasso, which he is said by Fenton to have kept a summer under +correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, that his success was +not always in proportion to his labour. + +Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults deserve +much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, that +they are less hyperbolical than those of some other poets. Waller is not +always at the last gasp; he does not die of a frown, nor live upon a +smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many trifles. Little +things are made too important: and the Empire of Beauty is represented as +exerting its influence further than can be allowed by the multiplicity of +human passions, and the variety of human wants. Such books, therefore, +may be considered as showing the world under a false appearance, and, so +far as they obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading +expectation, and misguiding practice. + +Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is +panegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by his +imitator, Lord Lansdowne: + + No satyr stalks within the hallow’d ground, + But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound; + Glory and arms and love are all the sound. + +In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of Spain, +there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the beginning; and +the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part ridiculously mean, and in +part ridiculously tumid. The poem, however, is such as may be justly +praised, without much allowance for the state of our poetry and language +at that time. + +The two next poems are upon the king’s behaviour at the death of +Buckingham, and upon his Navy. + +He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great propriety: + + ’Twas want of such a precedent as this + Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss. + +In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which suppose the +king’s power secure against a second deluge; so noble, that it were +almost criminal to remark the mistake of “centre” for “surface,” or to +say that the empire of the sea would be worth little if it were not that +the waters terminate in land. + +The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the conclusion is +feeble. That on the Repairs of St. Paul’s has something vulgar and +obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent and harsh: +as, + + So all our minds with his conspire to grace + The Gentiles’ great apostle and deface + Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain + Seem’d to confine, and fetter him again: + Which the glad saint shakes off at his command, + As once the viper from his sacred hand. + So joys the aged oak, when we divide + The creeping ivy from his injured side. + +Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second mean. + +His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that he +“saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured by lopping the +limb,” presents nothing to the mind but disgust and horror. + +Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say whether it +is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginning is too splendid +for jest, and the conclusion too light for seriousness. The +versification is studied, the scenes are diligently displayed, and the +images artfully amplified; but as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it +will scarcely be read a second time. + +The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very liberal +dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have been unjustly +lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in the +English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, and +all are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse; or a trifling +thought; but its great fault is the choice of its hero. + +The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and +striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts are +variegated with better passages and worse. There is something too +farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English on by +saluting St. Lucar with cannon, “to lambs awakening the lion by +bleating.” The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who were burnt in their +ship, would have moved more, had the poet not made him die like the +Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor expressed their affection +and their end by a conceit at once false and vulgar: + + Alive, in equal flames of love they burn’d, + And now together are to ashes turn’d. + +The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended to +counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been thought +inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its +deficience has been already remarked. + +The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They must be +supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with the rest. The +Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they were the work of +Waller’s declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the fame +and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his great +predecessor Petrarch bequeathed to posterity, upon his review of that +love and poetry which have given him immortality. + +That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much +excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the +mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced to +confess superior, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. By +delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the dead; +and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the +exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his +fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion. +Intellectual decay is doubtless not uncommon; but it seems not to be +universal. Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving his chronology, +a few days before his death; and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to +have lost at eighty-two any part of his poetical power. + +His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before +the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success +would hardly have been better. + +It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse has been too +little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have been +made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have very seldom +attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper to +inquire why they have miscarried. + +Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many +authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines +of religion may indeed be defended in a didactic poem; and he, who has +the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose it because his subject +is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty and the grandeur of nature, +the flowers of the spring, and the harvests of autumn, the vicissitudes +of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky, and praise the Maker for his +works, in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The subject of the +disputation is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the +description is not God, but the works of God. + +Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, +cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his Creator, +and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher state than +poetry can confer. + +The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as by producing +something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are +few, and being few are universally known; but, few as they are, they can +be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and +very little from novelty of expression. + +Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than +things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those +parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel, +the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and +addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already. + +From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always +obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy: +but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion. +Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of +the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be +amplified; Perfection cannot be improved. + +The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, +and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy +with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, +yet addressed to a Being without passions, is confined to a few modes, +and is to be felt rather then expressed. Repentance, trembling in the +presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets. +Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself through many topics of +persuasion; but supplication to God can only cry for mercy. + +Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple +expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, +because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than +itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory and delight +the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies +nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian Theology are too simple for +eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to +recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror +the sidereal hemisphere. + +As much of Waller’s reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness +of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to +which a versifier must attend. + +He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who +were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had +attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or +forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might +have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though merely +philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified. + +But he was rather smooth than strong; of “the full resounding line,” +which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The +critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of +sweetness to Waller. + +His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the +expletive “do” very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost +universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last +compositions than in his first. Praise had given him confidence; and +finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself. + +His rhymes are sometimes weak words: “so” is found to make the rhyme +twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book. + +His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips, +who was his rival in the translation of Corneille’s “Pompey;” and more +faults might be found were not the inquiry below attention. + +He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as “waxeth,” +“affecteth;” and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite, +as “amazed,” “supposed,” of which I know not whether it is not to the +detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them. + +Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an +Alexandrine he has given no example. + +The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He is never +pathetic, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind +much elevated by nature nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such +as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily +supply. They had however then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which they +are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found them in +later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This +treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators. + +Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of +Waller’s Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythræus and +some late critics call “Alliteration,” of using in the same verse many +words beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its +value, was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of +the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against affecting it; +Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” is supposed to ridicule +it; and in another play the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it. + +He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old +mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets; +the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were considered as +realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober +reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished +the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never +afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a +transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be +much exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his “club” he has his +“navy.” + +But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will +remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance +of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be +applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and +Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out, “If he had +not read Aminta, he had not excelled it.” + +As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from +Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work, +which, after Mr. Hoole’s translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted. +By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the reader may +judge how much he improved it. + + 1. + + Erminia’s steed (this while) his mistresse bore + Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene, + Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore, + Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene; + But her flit courser spared nere the more, + To beare her through the desart woods unseene + Of her strong foes, that chas’d her through the plaine + And still pursu’d, but still pursu’d in vaine. + + 2. + + Like as the wearie hounds at last retire, + Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace, + When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire, + No art nor paines can rowse out of his place: + The Christian knights so full of shame and ire + Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace! + Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde + Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde. + + 3. + + Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued, + Withouten comfort, companie, or guide, + Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued, + She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside. + But when the sunne his burning chariot diued + In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide, + On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid, + At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid + + 4. + + Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings, + This was her diet that vnhappie night; + But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings) + To ease the greefes of discontented wight, + Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings, + In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright; + And loue, his mother, and the graces kept + Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept + + 5. + + The birds awakte her with their morning song, + Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare, + The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among + The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare; + Her eies vnclos’d beheld the groues along + Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare; + And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent, + Prouokt again the virgin to lament. + + 6. + + Her plaints were interrupted with a sound, + That seem’d from thickest bushes to proceed, + Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round, + And to his voice had tun’d his oaten reed; + Thither she went, an old man there she found, + (At whose right hand his little flock did feed) + Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among + That learn’d their father’s art, and learn’d his song. + + 7. + + Beholding one in shining armes appeare + The seelie man and his were sore dismaid; + But sweet Erminia comforted their feare, + Her ventall vp, her visage open laid + You happie folke, of heau’n beloued deare, + Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid, + These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring + To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing. + + 8. + + But father, since this land, these townes and towres, + Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile, + How may it be unhurt, that you and yours + In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile? + My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours + Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile; + This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe, + No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe. + + 9. + + Haply iust heau’ns defence and shield of right, + Doth loue the innocence of simple swains, + The thunderbolts on highest mountains light, + And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines; + So kings have cause to feare _Bellonaes_ might, + Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines, + Nor ever greedie soldier was entised + By pouertie, neglected and despised. + + 10. + + O Pouertie, chefe of the heau’nly brood, + Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne! + No wish for honour, thirst of others good, + Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne: + We quench our thirst with water of this flood, + Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne; + These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates + Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates. + + 11. + + We little wish, we need but little wealth, + From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed; + These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth + Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need: + Amid these groues I walks oft for my health, + And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed, + How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake, + And their contentment for ensample take. + + 12. + + Time was (for each one hath his doting time, + These siluer locks were golden tresses than) + That countrie life I hated as a crime, + And from the forrests sweet contentment ran, + To Memphis’ stately pallace would I clime, + And there became the mightie Caliphes man + And though I but a simple gardner weare, + Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare. + + 13. + + Entised on with hope of future gaine, + I suffred long what did my soule displease; + But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine, + I felt my native strength at last decrease; + I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine, + And wisht I had enjoy’d the countries peace; + I bod the court farewell, and with content + My later age here have I quiet spent. + + 14. + + While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still + His wise discourses heard, with great attention, + His speeches graue those idle fancies kill, + Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention; + After much thought reformed was her will, + Within those woods to dwell was her intention, + Till fortune should occasion new afford, + To turne her home to her desired Lord. + + 15. + + She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate! + That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue. + Yet liuest now in this contented state, + Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue, + To entertaine me as a willing mate + In shepherds life, which I admire and loue; + Within these plessant groues perchance my hart, + Of her discomforts, may vnload some part. + + 16. + + If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare, + If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise, + Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen, + As to a greedie minde might well suffice: + With that downe trickled many a siluer teare, + Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies; + Part of her sad misfortunes then she told, + And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old. + + 17. + + With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare + Towards his cottage gently home to guide; + His aged wife there made her homely cheare, + Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side. + The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare, + A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide; + But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse) + Were such, as ill beseem’d a shepherdesse. + + 18. + + Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide + The heau’nly beautie of her angels face, + Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide, + Or ought disparag’de, by those labours bace; + Her little flocks to pasture would she guide, + And milke her goates, and in their folds them place, + Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame + Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame. + + + + +MILTON. + + +THE life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and with +such minute inquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented +myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton’s elegant +abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the +uniformity of this edition. + +John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors of +Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in +the times of York and Lancaster. Which side he took I know not; his +descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose. + +His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous +Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken the religion of +his ancestors. + +His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his +support to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent for his +skill in music, many of his compositions being still to be found; and his +reputation in his profession was such, that he grew rich, and retired to +an estate. He had probably more than common literature, as his son +addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a +gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom he had two +sons, John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied the law and adhered, +as the law taught him, to the king’s party, for which he was a while +persecuted; but having by his brother’s interest obtained permission to +live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, +that, soon after the accession of King James, he was knighted and made a +judge; but, his constitution being too weak for business, he retired +before any disreputable compliances became necessary. + +He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerable +fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the +Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward, +who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only +authentic account of his domestic manners. + +John the poet, was born in his father’s house, at the Spread Eagle, in +Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. His +father appears to have been very solicitous about his education; for he +was instructed at first by private tuition under the care of Thomas +Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, +and of whom we have reason to think well, since his scholar considered +him as worthy of an epistolary elegy. + +He was then sent to St. Paul’s school, under the care of Mr. Gill; and +removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ’s College, in +Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624. + +He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he +himself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of +which the learned Politian has given him an example, seems to commend the +earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity. + +But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by many, and +particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is +difficult to form an estimate: many have excelled Milton in their first +essays, who never rose to works like “Paradise Lost.” + +At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated or +versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the public +eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous +school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder. + +Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, +by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very +nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the translator of Polybius, +remark, what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman who, +after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance. +If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the +pride of Elizabeth’s reign, however they may have succeeded in prose, no +sooner attempt verse than they provoke derision. If we produced anything +worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster’s +“Roxana.” + +Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, some were +published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly +applauded; for they were such as few can form: yet there is reason to +suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That +he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he +was treated was not merely negative. I am ashamed to relate what I fear +is true, that Milton was one of the last students in either University +that suffered the public indignity of corporal correction. + +It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him, that +he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was apparently not true; +but it seems plain, from his own verses to “Diodati”, that he had +incurred “rustication,” a temporary dismission into the country, with +perhaps the loss of a term. + + Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamesis alluit undâ, + Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet. + Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum + Nec dudum _vetiti_ me _laris_ angit amor.— + Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri, + Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. + Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates, + Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi, + Non ego vel _profugi_ nomen sortemve recuso, + Lætus et _exilii_ conditione fruor. + +I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence can +give to the term, “vetiti laris,” “a habitation from which he is +excluded;” or how “exile” can be otherwise interpreted. He declares yet +more, that he is weary of enduring “the threats of a rigorous master, and +something else which a temper like his cannot undergo.” What was more +than threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his +“exile,” proves likewise that it was not perpetual; for it concludes with +a resolution of returning some time to Cambridge. And it may be +conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated the +memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame. + +He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and that of +master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness for its +institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his +governors, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now be +known, but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme of education, +inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical instruction, being +intended to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in +literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is +called Masters of Art. And in his discourse “on the likeliest Way to +remove Hirelings out of the Church,” he ingeniously proposes that the +profits of the lands forfeited by the act for superstitious uses should +be applied to such academies all over the land where languages and arts +may be taught together that youth may be at once brought up to a +competency of learning and an honest trade, by which means such of them +as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by +the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers. + +One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, +is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act +plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antic and +dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, and bawds, prostituting the +shame of that ministry which they had, or were near having, to the eyes +of courtiers and court-ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles. + +This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile +from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which +the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Plays were therefore only +criminal when they were acted by academics. + +He went to the university with a design of entering into the church, but +in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a +clergyman, must “subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless +he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straight perjure +himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the +office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.” + +These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the +Articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical +obedience. I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his +opinions: but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, +raise his indignation. + +His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to +a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his +friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems +to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastic luxury of +various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in +which he endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the +delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more +fitness for his task; and that he goes on, “not taking thought of being +late, so it gives advantage to be more fit.” + +When he left the University, he returned to his father, then residing at +Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in which time +he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. With what +limitations this universality is to be understood, who shall inform us? + +It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done nothing +else; but Milton found time to write the “Masque of Comus,” which was +presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord President of Wales, +in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater’s +sons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer’s “Circe;” but we +never can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer: + + —a quo ceu fonte perenni + Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. + +His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death +of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland in the time +of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite at +Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. +Milton’s acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a +mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of Tuscan +poetry, and his malignity to the church by some lines which are +interpreted as threatening its extermination. + +He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while he +lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few days, +which he spent at Harefield, the house of the Countess Dowager of Derby, +where the Arcades made part of a dramatic entertainment. + +He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of taking +chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother set him at +liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father’s consent, and Sir +Henry Wotton’s directions; with the celebrated precept of prudence, _i +pensieri stretti_, _ed il viso sciolto_; “thoughts close, and looks +loose.” + +In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour of +Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting Grotius, then residing +at the French court as ambassador from Christina of Sweden. From Paris +he hasted into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence studied +the language and literature; and, though he seems to have intended a very +quick perambulation of the country, stayed two months at Florence; where +he found his way into the academies, and produced his compositions with +such applause as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and +confirmed him in the hope, that, “by labour and intense study, which,” +says he, “I take to be my portion in this life, joined with a strong +propensity of nature,” he might “leave something so written to +after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.” + +It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant of +great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not +without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man ever wrote so much, +and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set its +value high, and considered his mention of a name as a security against +the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion. + +At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted +distinction. Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic inscription, +in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the +first stanza is only empty noise; the rest are perhaps too diffuse on +common topics: but the last is natural and beautiful. + +From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was +again received with kindness by the learned and the great. Holstenius, +the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided three years at Oxford, +introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a musical entertainment, +waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into the assembly. +Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a tetrastich: +neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by this +literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid Salsilli, +though not secure against a stern grammarian, turn the balance +indisputably in Milton’s favour. + +Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough to +publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be suspected but +to have known that they were said _non tam de se_, _quam supra se_. + +At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months: a time indeed +sufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer of its +antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too +short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners. + +From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a companion +from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owed his +introduction to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who had been before the patron +of Tasso. Manso was enough delighted with his accomplishments to honour +him with a sorry distich, in which he commends him for everything but his +religion: and Milton, in return, addressed him in a Latin poem, which +must have raised a high opinion of English elegance and literature. + +His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but hearing of the +differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper to +hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreign amusements while his +countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to +Rome, though the merchants informed him of plots laid against him by the +Jesuits, for the liberty of his conversations on religion. He had sense +enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, +and acted as before, neither obtruding nor shunning controversy. He had +perhaps given some offence by visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the +Inquisition for philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manse, +that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himself +from some distinctions which he should otherwise have paid him. But such +conduct, though it did not please, was yet sufficiently safe; and Milton +stayed two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence without +molestation. + +From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and, +having sent away a collection of music and other books, travelled to +Geneva, which he probably considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy. + +Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with +John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors of divinity. +From Geneva he passed through France; and came home, after an absence of +a year and three months. + +At his return he heard of the death of his friend, Charles Diodati; a man +whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, since he was thought by +Milton worthy of a poem, entitled “Epitaphium Damonis,” written with the +common but childish imitation of pastoral life. + +He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in St. Bride’s +Churchyard, and undertook the education of John and Edward Philips, his +sister’s sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a house and garden +in Aldersgate Street, which was not then so much out of the world as it +is now; and chose his dwelling at the upper end of a passage, that he +might avoid the noise of the street. Here he received more boys, to be +boarded and instructed. + +Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree of +merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who hastens +home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when +he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in a private +boarding-school. This is the period of his life from which all his +biographers seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton +should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but since it cannot be denied that +he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another +that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue; +and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act +which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was +alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by +an honest and useful employment. + +It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a +formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read +in Aldersgate Street by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of +age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that +nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman +must be limited by the power of his horse. Every man that has ever +undertaken to instruct others can tell what slow advances he has been +able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant +inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd +misapprehension. + +The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more solid +than the common literature of schools, by reading those authors that +treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, and astronomical +treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of improvement which seems +to have busied many literary projectors of that age. Cowley, who had +more means than Milton of knowing what was wanting to the embellishments +of life, formed the same plan of education in his imaginary college. + +But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences +which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the +frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or +conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first +requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the +next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those +examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the +reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and +excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, +but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with +intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are +voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare +emergence, that one may know another half his life without being able to +estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and +prudential character immediately appears. + +Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most +axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials +for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, +and historians. + +Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or paradoxical; +for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my side. It was his +labour to turn philosophy from the study of Nature to speculations upon +life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off attention from +life to nature. They seem to think that we are placed here to watch the +growth of plants, or the motions of the stars. Socrates was rather of +opinion that what we had to learn was how to do good and avoid evil. + + Οτι ποι ὲν μεγάροισι κακόντ’ άγαθόντε τέτυκται + +Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working +academy I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent for +knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a small History of +Poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which perhaps none of +my readers has ever heard. + +That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he laboured +with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One part of his +method deserves general imitation. He was careful to instruct his +scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology, of which he +dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that were then +fashionable in the Dutch universities. + +He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now and +then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence with +some gay gentlemen of Gray’s Inn. + +He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent his +breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 he published a treatise +of Reformation in two books, against the Established Church, being +willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says, “inferior to the +Prelates in learning.” + +Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in defence +of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, of whose names the +first letters made the celebrated word _Smectymnuus_, gave their answer. +Of this answer a confutation was attempted by the learned Usher; and to +the confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, “Of Prelatical +Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the Apostolical Times, by +virtue of those Testimonies which are alleged to that purpose in some +late Treatises, one whereof goes under the Name of James, Lord Bishop of +Armagh.” + +I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous 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 +ostentatious 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 that can +enrich with 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 measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this +expectation.” From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and +rational, might be expected the “Paradise Lost.” + +He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same question. +To one of his antagonists, who affirms that 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 approbation 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 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 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 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 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 +thumb-ring posies.—And thus ends this section, or rather dissection, 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 Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth +year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, 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 hard study; for, as Philips +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 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 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. + +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 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 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.” + +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 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 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 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 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 Philips, “his own generous +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 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 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 what civil authority +shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard of +truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his prospects, there +can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government may diffuse +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 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. + +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. + +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 Philips, “now looked like a house of +the Muses only, though the accession of scholars was not great. Possibly +his having proceeded so 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, but only was willing to impart his +learning and knowledge to his relations, and the sons of gentlemen who +were his intimate friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of +teaching savoured in the least of pedantry.” + +Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and +what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a man who could +become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmest friends +seem not to have found; they therefore shift and palliate. He did not +sell literature to all comers at an open shop; he was a chamber-milliner, +and measured his commodities only to his friends. + +Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of degradation, +tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his character +again, has a mind to invest him with military splendour: “He is much +mistaken,” he says, “if there was not about this time a design of making +him an adjutant-general in Sir William Waller’s army. But the +new-modelling of the army proved an obstruction to the design.” An event +cannot be set at a much greater distance than by having been only +“designed, about some time,” if a man “be not much mistaken.” Milton +shall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, +somebody at some time designed him for a soldier. + +About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed to a +smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln’s Inn +Fields. He is not known to have published anything afterwards till the +king’s death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Presbyterians, +he wrote a treatise to justify it, “and to compose the minds of the +people.” + +He made some remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the +Irish rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only +what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the +influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalence of opinions, +first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; if objections, by +being overlooked, were forgotten, and desire superinduced conviction, he +yet shared—only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no less +sincere than his opponents. But, as faction seldom leaves a man honest, +however it might find him, Milton is suspected of having interpolated the +book called “Icon Basilike,” which the council of state, to whom he was +now made Latin Secretary, employed him to censure, by inserting a prayer +taken from Sidney’s “Arcadia,” and imputing it to the king, whom he +charges, in his “Iconoclastes,” with the use of this prayer, as with a +heavy come, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldened +the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable or great: +“Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the true all-seeing +deity—as, immediately before his death, to pop into the hands of the +grave bishop that attended him, as a special relic of his saintly +exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen +woman praying to a heathen god?” + +The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the regicides +took away; so that they were at least the publishers of this prayer; and +Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great care, was inclined to +think them the forgers. The use of it by adaptation was innocent, and +they who could so noisily censure it, with a little extension of their +malice could contrive what they wanted to accuse. + +King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed +Salmasius, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of +his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was +reported, a hundred Jacobuses. Salmasius was a man of skill in +languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity of emendatory criticism, +almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by excessive +praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he +probably had not much considered the principles of society or the right +of government, undertook the employment without distrust of his own +qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 +published “Defensio Regis.” + +To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which he +performed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself unable to +decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were worst. In my +opinion, Milton’s periods are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he +delights himself with teasing his adversary as much as with confuting +him. He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, whose doctrine he +considers as servile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmasius, which, +whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. Salmasius was a +Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold. _Tu es Gallus_, says +Milton, _et_, _ut aiunt_, _nimium gallinaceus_. But his supreme pleasure +is to tax his adversary, so renowned for criticism, with vicious Latin. +He opens his book with telling that he has used _Persona_, which, +according to Milton, signifies only a _Mask_, in a sense not known to the +Romans, by applying it as we apply _Person_. But as Nemesis is always on +the watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a solecism +by an expression in itself grossly solecistical, when for one of those +supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think some one before him, has +remarked, “_propino te grammatistis tuis vapulandum_.” From _vapulo_, +which has a passive sense, _vapulandus_ can never be derived. No man +forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, sink +into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them. + +Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim of sight; +but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health was supplied by +zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and his book was much +read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, easily gains +attention; and he, who told every man that he was equal to his king, +could hardly want an audience. + +That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal rapidity, +or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. He taught only the stale +doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing duty of submission; and he had +been so long not only the monarch, but the tyrant of literature, that +almost all mankind were delighted to find him defied and insulted by a +new name, not yet considered as any one’s rival. If Christina, as is +said, commended the defence of the people, her purpose must be to torment +Salmasius, who was then at court; for neither her civil station, nor her +natural character, could dispose her to favour the doctrine, who was by +birth a queen, and by temper despotic. + +That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton’s book, treated with +neglect, there is not much proof; but to a man, so long accustomed to +admiration, a little praise of his antagonist would be sufficiently +offensive, and might incline him to leave Sweden, from which however he +was dismissed, not with any mark of contempt, but with a train of +attendants scarce less than regal. + +He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was published by +his son in the year of the Restoration. In the beginning, being probably +most in pain for his Latinity, he endeavours to defend his use of the +word _persona_; but, if I remember right, he misses a better authority +than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in his fourth satire: + + —Quid agis cum dira et fœdior omni + Crimine _persona_ est? + +As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the quarrel, +Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had shortened +Salmasius’s life, and both perhaps with more malignity than reason. +Salmasius died at the Spa, Sept. 3, 1653; and, as controvertists are +commonly said to be killed by their last dispute, Milton was flattered +with the credit of destroying him. + +Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of which he +had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the title of +Protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power. That his +authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself founded his right +only in necessity; but Milton, having now tasted the honey of public +employment, would not return to hunger and philosophy, but, continuing to +exercise his office under a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his power +that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be more just than that +rebellion should end in slavery; that he, who had justified the murder of +his king, for some acts which seemed to him unlawful, should now sell his +services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evident that he +could do nothing lawful. + +He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect was +such, that he was not disabled to discharge his office of Latin +secretary, or continue his controversies. His mind was too eager to be +diverted, and too strong to be subdued. + +About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him three +daughters. As he probably did not much love her, he did not long +continue the appearance of lamenting her; but after a short time married +Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, a woman +doubtless educated in opinions like his own. She died, within a year, of +childbirth, or some distemper that followed it; and her husband honoured +her memory with a poor sonnet. + +The first reply to Milton’s “Defensio Populi” was published in 1651, +called “Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, contra Johannis +Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis et Populi.” +Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his nephew Philips, +under whose name he published an answer so much corrected by him, that it +might be called his own, imputed it to Bramhal; and, knowing him no +friend to regicides, thought themselves at liberty to treat him as if +they had known what they only suspected. + +Next year appeared “Regii Sanguinis clamor ad Cœlum.” Of this the author +was Peter du Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary of Canterbury; but +Morus, or More, a French minister, having the care of its publication, +was treated as the writer by Milton, in his “Defensio Secunda,” and +overwhelmed by such violence of invective, that he began to shrink under +the tempest, and gave his persecutors the means of knowing the true +author. Du Moulin was now in great danger; but Milton’s pride operated +against his malignity; and both he and his friends were more willing that +Du Moulin should escape than that he should be convicted of mistake. + +In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely +satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the grossness of +his flattery, _Deserimur_, _Cromuelle tu solus superes_, _ad te summa +nostrarum rerum_, _rediit_, _in te solo consistit_, _insuperabili tuæ +virtuti cedimus cuncti_, _nemine vel obloquente_, _nisi qui æquales +inæqualis ipse honores sibi quærit_, _aut digniori concessos invidet_, +_aut non intelligit nihil esse in societate hominum magis vel Deo +gratum_, _vel rationi consentaneum_, _esse in civitate nihil æquius_, +_nihil utilius_, _quam potiri rerum dignissimum_. _Eum te agnoscunt +omnes_, _Cromuelle_, _ea tu civis maximus_, _et gloriosissimus_, _dux +publici consilii_, _exercituum fortissimorum imperator_, _pater patriæ +gessisti_. _Sic tu spontanea bonorum omnium et animitus missa voce +salutaris_. + +Cæsar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more servile +or more elegant flattery. A translation may show its servility; but its +elegance is less attainable. Having exposed the unskilfulness or +selfishness of the former government, “We were left,” says Milton, “to +ourselves: the whole national interest fell into our hands, and subsists +only in your abilities. To your virtue, overpowering and resistless, +every man gives way, except some who, without equal qualifications, +aspire to equal honours, who envy the distinctions of merit greater than +their own, or who have yet to learn, that in the coalition of human +society nothing is more pleasing to God, or more agreeable to reason, +than that the highest mind should have the sovereign power. Such, sir, +are you by general confession; such are the things achieved by you, the +greatest and most glorious of our countrymen, the director of our public +councils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of your country; +for by that title doss every good man hail you with sincere and voluntary +praise.” + +Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found leisure to +defend himself. He undertook his own vindication against More, whom he +declares in his title to be justly called the author of the “Regii +Sanguinis Clamor.” In this there is no want of vehemence nor eloquence, +nor does he forget his wonted wit. _Morus es_? _an Momus_? _an uterque +idem est_? He then remembers that Morus is Latin for a mulberry-tree, +and hints at the known transformation: + + —Poma alba ferebat + Quæ post nigra tulit Morus. + +With this piece ended his controversies; and he from this time gave +himself up to his private studies and his civil employment. + +As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written the +Declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain. His agency was +considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden was +artfully suspended, the delay was publicly imputed to Mr. Milton’s +indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to express his wonder +that only one man in England could write Latin, and that man blind. + +Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumbered from +external interruptions, he seems to have recollected his former purposes, +and to have resumed three great works which he had planned for his future +employment—an epic poem, the history of his country, and a dictionary of +the Latin tongue. + +To collect a dictionary seems a work of all others least practicable in a +state of blindness, because it depends upon perpetual and minute +inspection and collation. Nor would Milton probably have begun it, after +he had lost his eyes; but, having had it always before him, he continued +it, says Philips, “almost to his dying day; but the papers were so +discomposed and deficient, that they could not be fitted for the press.” +The compilers of the Latin dictionary, printed at Cambridge, had the use +of those collections in three folios; but what was their fate afterwards +is not known. + +To compile a history from various authors, when they can only be +consulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with more skilful +and attentive help than can be commonly obtained; and it was probably the +difficulty of consulting and comparing that stopped Milton’s narrative at +the Conquest—a period at which affairs were not very intricate, nor +authors very numerous. + +For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, long choosing, +and beginning late, he fixed upon “Paradise Lost,” a design so +comprehensive, that it could be justified only by success. He had once +designed to celebrate King Arthur, as he hints in his verses to Mansus; +but “Arthur was reserved,” says Fenton, “to another destiny.” + +It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in manuscript, and +to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had digested his thoughts +on this subject into one of those wild dramas which were anciently called +Mysteries; and Philips had seen what he terms part of a tragedy, +beginning with the first ten lines of Satan’s address to the Sun. These +mysteries consist of allegorical persons, such as Justice, Mercy, Faith. +Of the tragedy or mystery of “Paradise Lost” there are two plans + + _The Persons_. _The Persons_. + +Michael. Moses. + +Chorus of Angels. Divine Justice, Wisdom + +Heavenly Love. Heavenly Love. + +Lucifer. The Evening Star, Hesperus. + +Adam, Eve, with the Serpent Chorus of Angels. + +Conscience. Lucifer. + +Death. Adam. + +Labour, } Eve. + +Sickness, } Conscience. + +Discontent, } Mutes. Labour, } + +Ignorance, } Sickness, } + +with others; } Discontent, } Mutes + +Faith. Ignorance, } + +Hope. Fear, } + +Charity. Death, } + + Faith. + + Hope. + + Charity. + +PARADISE LOST. + + + _The Persons_. + +Moses, προλογίζει, recounting how he assumed his true body; that it +corrupts not, because it is with God in the mount; declares the like of +Enoch and Elijah; besides the purity of the place, that certain pure +winds, dews, and clouds, preserve it from corruption; whence exhorts to +the sight of God; tells they cannot see Adam in the state of innocence, +by reason of their sin. + +Justice, Mercy, Wisdom } debating what should become of man, if he fall. + +Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation. + + +ACT II. + + +Heavenly Love. + +Evening Star. + +Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise. + + +ACT III. + + +Lucifer contriving Adam’s ruin. + +Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer’s rebellion and fall. + + +ACT IV. + + +Adam, Eve } fallen. + +Conscience cites them to God’s examination. + +Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost. + + +ACT V. + + +Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise. + +— — presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, Envy, War, Famine, +Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, Ignorance, Fear, Death } Mutes. + +To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, Heat, Tempest, etc. + +Faith, Hope, Charity, comfort him and instruct him. + +Chorus briefly concludes. + + * * * * * + +Such was his first design, which could have produced only an allegory or +mystery. The following sketch seems to have attained more maturity. + + + +ADAM UNPARADISED. + + +The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, since this +globe was created, his frequency as much on earth as in heaven; describes +Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason of his coming to keep his +watch in Paradise, after Lucifer’s rebellion, by command from God; and +withal expressing his desire to see and know more concerning this +excellent new creature, man. The angel Gabriel, as by his name +signifying a prince of power, tracing Paradise with a more free office, +passes by the station of the Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what +he knew of man; as the creation of Eve, with their love and marriage. +After this, Lucifer appears; after his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks +revenge on man. The Chorus prepare resistance on his first approach. At +last, after discourse of enmity on either side, he departs: whereat the +Chorus sings of the battle and victory in Heaven, against him and his +accomplices: as before, after the first act, was sung a hymn of the +creation. Here again may appear Lucifer, relating and exulting in what +he had done to the destruction of man. Man next, and Eve, having by this +time been seduced by the serpent, appears confusedly covered with leaves. +Conscience in a shape accuses him; Justice cites him to the place whither +Jehovah called for him. In the meanwhile, the Chorus entertains the +stage, and is informed by some angel the manner of the fall. Here the +Chorus bewails Adam’s fall; Adam then and Eve return; accuse one another; +but especially Adam lays the blame to his wife; is stubborn in his +offence. Justice appears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus +admonishes Adam, and bids him beware of Lucifer’s example of impenitence. +The angel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but before causes to +pass before his eyes, in shapes, a mask of all the evils of this life and +world. He is humbled, relents, despairs; at last appears Mercy, comforts +him, promises the Messiah; then calls in Faith, Hope, and +Charity;—instructs him; he repents, gives God the glory, submits to his +penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. Compare this with the former +draft. + +These are very imperfect rudiments of “Paradise Lost;” but it is pleasant +to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with latent +possibilities of excellence; nor could there be any more delightful +entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and expansion, and to +observe how they are sometimes suddenly advanced by accidental hints, and +sometimes slowly improved by steady meditation. + +Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot +obstruct, and therefore he naturally solaced his solitude by the +indulgence of his fancy, and the melody of his numbers. He had done what +he knew to be necessarily previous to poetical excellence; he had made +himself acquainted with “seemly arts and affairs;” his comprehension was +extended by various knowledge, and his memory stored with intellectual +treasures. He was skilful in many languages, and had, by reading and +composition, attained the full mastery of his own. He would have wanted +little help from books, had he retained the power of perusing them. + +But while his greater designs were advancing, having now, like many other +authors, caught the love of publication, he amused himself, as he could, +with little productions. He sent to the press (1658) a manuscript of +Raleigh, called “The Cabinet Council;” and next year gratified his +malevolence to the clergy, by a “Treatise of Civil Power in +Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelings out of the +Church.” + +Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system of +extemporary government, which had been held together only by force, +naturally fell into fragments when that force was taken away; and Milton +saw himself and his cause in equal danger. But he had still hope of +doing something. He wrote letters, which Toland has published, to such +men as he thought friends to the new commonwealth; and even in the year +of the Restoration he “bated no jot of heart or hope,” but was +fantastical enough to think that the nation, agitated as it was, might be +settled by a pamphlet, called “A Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free +Commonwealth;” which was, however, enough considered to be both seriously +and ludicrously answered. + +The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very remarkable. +When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, with a few associates +as fantastical as himself, used to meet, with all the gravity of +political importance, to settle an equal government by rotation; and +Milton, kicking when he could strike no longer, was foolish enough to +publish, a few weeks before the Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached +by one Griffiths, entitled, “The Fear of God and the King.” To these +notes an answer was written by L’Estrange, in a pamphlet petulantly +called “No Blind Guides.” + +But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could do, the +king was now about to be restored with the irresistible approbation of +the people, he was therefore no longer secretary, and was consequently +obliged to quit the house which he held by his office; the importance of +his writings, thought it convenient to seek some shelter, and hid himself +for a time in Bartholomew Close, by West Smithfield. + +I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously paid to this +great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided is +historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming any +place that he honoured by his presence. + +The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other +example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his father’s +wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all except those +whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to +capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately co-operated in +the murder of the king. Milton was certainly not one of them; he had +only justified what they had done. + +This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and (June 16) an +order was issued to seize Milton’s “Defence,” and Goodwin’s “Obstructors +of Justice,” another book of the same tendency, and burn them by the +common hangman. The attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the +authors; but Milton was not seized, nor perhaps very diligently pursued. + +Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms was stilled +by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want no recommendation of +elegance, rather called an Act of Oblivion than of Grace. Goodwin was +named, with nineteen more, as incapacitated for any public trust; but of +Milton there was no exception. + +Of this tenderness shown to Milton the curiosity of mankind has not +forborne to inquire the reason. Burnet thinks he was forgotten; but this +is another instance which may confirm Dalrymple’s observation, who says, +“that whenever Burnet’s narrations are examined, he appears to be +mistaken.” + +Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must be +therefore by design that he was included in the general oblivion. He is +said to have had friends in the House, such as Marvel, Morrice, and Sir +Thomas Clarges: and undoubtedly a man like him must have had influence. +A very particular story of his escape is told by Richardson in his +Memoirs, which he received from Pope, as delivered by Betterton, who +might have heard it from Davenant. In the war between the King and +Parliament, Davenant was made prisoner and condemned to die; but was +spared at the request of Milton. When the turn of success brought Milton +into the like danger, Davenant repaid the benefit by appearing in his +favour. Here is a reciprocation of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, +that the tale makes its own way to credit. But if help were wanted, I +know not where to find it. The danger of Davenant is certain from his +own relation; but of his escape there is no account. Betterton’s +narration can be traced no higher; it is not known that he hid it from +Davenant. We are told that the benefit exchanged was life for life; but +it seems not certain that Milton’s life ever was in danger. Goodwin, who +had committed the same kind of crime, escaped with incapacitation; and, +as exclusion from public trust is a punishment which the power of +Government can commonly inflict without the help of a particular law, it +required no great interest to exempt Milton from a censure little more +than verbal. Something may be reasonably ascribed to veneration and +compassion; to veneration of his abilities, and compassion for his +distresses, which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning. He +was now poor and blind; and who would pursue with violence an illustrious +enemy, depressed by fortune and disarmed by nature? + +The publication of the “Act of Oblivion” put him in the same condition +with his fellow-subjects. He was, however, upon some pretence now not +known, in the custody of the serjeant in December; and when he was +released, upon his refusal of the fees demanded, he and the serjeant were +called before the House. He was now safe within the shade of oblivion, +and knew himself to be as much out of the power of a griping officer as +any other man. How the question was determined is not known. Milton +would hardly have contended but that he knew himself to have right on his +side. + +He then removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street, and, being blind +and by no means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion and attendant; and +therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget, married Elizabeth Minshul, +of a gentleman’s family in Cheshire, probably without a fortune. All his +wives were virgins; for he has declared that he thought it gross and +indelicate to be a second husband: upon what other principles his choice +was made cannot now be known; but marriage afforded not much of his +happiness. The first wife left him in disgust, and was brought back only +by terror; the second, indeed, seems to have been more a favourite, but +her life was short. The third, as Philips relates, oppressed his +children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death. + +Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was offered +the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by his wife to +accept it, answered, “You, like other women, want to ride in your coach; +my wish is to live and die an honest man.” If he considered the Latin +secretary as exercising any of the powers of government, he that had +shared authority, either with the Parliament or Cromwell, might have +forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty; and if he thought the office +purely ministerial, he certainly might have honestly retained it under +the King. But this tale has too little evidence to deserve a +disquisition; large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most +common topics of falsehood. + +He had so much either of prudence or gratitude, that he forbore to +disturb the new settlement with any of his political or ecclesiastical +opinions, and from this time devoted himself to poetry and literature. +Of his zeal for learning in all its parts, he gave a proof by publishing, +the next year (1661), “Accidence commenced Grammar;” a little book which +has nothing remarkable, but that its author, who had been lately +defending the supreme powers of his country, and was then writing +“Paradise Lost,” could descend from his elevation to rescue children from +the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons +unnecessarily repeated. + +About this time, Elwood the Quaker, being recommended to him as one who +would read Latin to him for the advantage of his conversation, attended +him every afternoon except on Sundays. Milton, who, in his letter to +Hartlib, had declared, that “to read Latin with an English mouth is as +ill a hearing as Law French,” required that Elwood should learn and +practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, was necessary, if he +would talk with foreigners. This seems to have been a task troublesome +without use. There is little reason for preferring the Italian +pronunciation to our own, except that it is more general; and to teach it +to an Englishman is only to make him a foreigner at home. He who +travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the sounds which every +native gives it, that he need make no provision before his journey; and +if strangers visit us, it is their business to practise such conformity +to our modes as they expect from us in their own countries. Elwood +complied with the directions, and improved himself by his attendance; for +he relates, that Milton, having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he +read what he did not understand, and would stop him, and “open the most +difficult passages.” + +In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill +Fields; the mention of which concludes the register of Milton’s removals +and habitations. He lived longer in this place than any other. + +He was now busied by “Paradise Lost.” Whence he drew the original design +has been variously conjectured by men who cannot bear to think themselves +ignorant of that which, at last, neither diligence nor sagacity can +discover. Some find the hint in an Italian tragedy. Voltaire tells a +wild and unauthorised story of a farce seen by Milton in Italy which +opened thus: “Let the Rainbow be the Fiddlestick of the Fiddle of +Heaven.” It has been already shown, that the first conception was a +tragedy or mystery, not of a narrative, but a dramatic work which he is +supposed to have began to reduce to its present form about the time +(1655) when he finished his dispute with the defenders of the king. + +He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great +performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was +stimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from the survey +of his attainments, and the consciousness of his powers. What he should +undertake it was difficult to determine. He was “long choosing, and +began late.” + +While he was obliged to divide his time between his private studies and +affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been often interrupted; +and perhaps he did little more in that busy time than construct the +narrative, adjust the episodes, proportion the parts, accumulate images +and sentiments, and treasure in his memory, or preserve in writing, such +hints as books or meditation would supply. Nothing particular is known +of his intellectual operations while he was a statesman; for, having +every help and accommodation at hand, he had no need of uncommon +expedients. + +Being driven from all public stations, he is yet too great not to be +traced by curiosity to his retirement; where he has been found by Mr. +Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sitting before his door in a +grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry weather, to enjoy the fresh +air; and so, as in his own room, receiving the visits of people of +distinguished parts as well as quality. His visitors of high quality +must now be imagined to be few; but men of parts might reasonably court +the conversation of a man so generally illustrious, that foreigners are +reported, by Wood, to have visited the house in Bread Street where he was +born. + +According to another account, he was seen in a small house, neatly enough +dressed in black clothes, sitting in a room hung with rusty green; pale +but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in his hands. He said that, if it +were not for the gout, his blindness would be tolerable. + +In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common +exercises, he used to swing in a chair, and sometimes played upon an +organ. + +He was now confessedly and visibly employed upon his poem, of which the +progress might be noted by those with whom he was familiar; for he was +obliged, when he had composed as many lines as his memory would +conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them, having, at +least for part of the time, no regular attendant. This gave opportunity +to observations and reports. + +Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very remarkable circumstance in +the composure of “Paradise Lost,” “which I have a particular reason,” +says he, “to remember; for whereas I had the perusal of it from the very +beginning, for some years, as I went from time to time to visit him, in +parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time (which, being written +by whatever hand came next, might possibly want correction as to the +orthography and pointing), having, as the Summer came on, not been showed +any for a considerable while, and desiring the reason thereof, was +answered, that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal +equinox to the vernal; and that whatever he attempted at other times was +never to his satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never so much; so +that, in all the years he was about this poem, he may be said to have +spent half his time therein.” + +Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in his opinion Philips has +mistaken the time of the year; for Milton, in his Elegies, declares, that +with the advance of the spring he feels the increase of his poetical +force, _redeunt in carmina vires_. To this it is answered, that Philips +could hardly mistake time so well marked; and it may be added, that +Milton might find different times of the year favourable to different +parts of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it impossible that “such a work +should be suspended for six months, or for one. It may go on faster or +slower, but it must go on.” By what necessity it must continually go on, +or why it might not be laid aside and resumed, it is not easy to +discover. + +This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and +periodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided +as the fumes of vain imagination. _Sapiens dominabitur astris_. The +author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help +from hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion +has possession of the head, it produces the inability which it supposes. +Our powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; _possunt quia posse +videntur_. When success seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but +when it is admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or +a cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who can contend +with the course of nature? + +From such prepossessions Milton seems not to have been free. There +prevailed in his time an opinion, that the world was in its decay, and +that we have had the misfortune to be produced in the decrepitude of +nature. It was suspected that the whole creation languished, that +neither trees nor animals had the height or bulk of their predecessors, +and that everything was daily sinking by gradual diminution. Milton +appears to suspect that souls partake of the general degeneracy, and is +not without some fear that his book is to be written in “an age too late” +for heroic poesy. + +Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds reception +among wise men; an opinion that restrains the operations of the mind to +particular regions, and supposes that a luckless mortal may be born in a +degree of latitude too high or too low for wisdom or for wit. From this +fancy, wild as it is, he had not wholly cleared his head, when he feared +lest the _climate_ of his country might be _too cold_ for flights of +imagination. + +Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not more +reasonable, might easily find its way. He that could fear lest his +genius had fallen upon too old a world, or too chill a climate, might +consistently magnify to himself the influence of the seasons, and believe +his faculties to be vigorous only half the year. + +His submission to the seasons was at least more reasonable than his dread +of decaying nature, or a frigid zone; for general causes must operate +uniformly in a general abatement of mental power; if less could be +performed by the writer, less likewise would content the judges of his +work. Among this lagging race of frosty grovellers he might still have +risen into eminence by producing something which “they should not +willingly let die.” However inferior to the heroes who were born in +better ages, he might still be great among his contemporaries, with the +hope of growing every day greater in the dwindle of posterity. He might +still be the giant of the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of the blind. + +Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, we have +little account, and there was perhaps little to be told. Richardson, who +seems to have been very diligent in his inquiries, but discovers always a +wish to find Milton discriminated from other men, relates that “he would +sometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; and on a +sudden his poetical faculty would rush upon him with an _impetus_ or +_æstrum_, and his daughter was immediately called to secure what came. +At other times he would dictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then +reduce them to half the number.” + +These bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these transient and +involuntary excursions and retrocessions of invention, having some +appearance of deviation from the common train of nature, are eagerly +caught by the lovers of a wonder. Yet something of this inequality +happens to every man in every mode of exertion, manual or mental. The +mechanic cannot handle his hammer and his file at all times with equal +dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, when _his hand is out_. By +Mr. Richardson’s relation, casually conveyed, much regard cannot be +claimed. That, in his intellectual hour, Milton called for his daughter +“to secure what came,” may be questioned; for unluckily it happens to be +known that his daughters were never taught to write; nor would he have +been obliged, as it is universally confessed, to have employed any casual +visitor in disburdening his memory, if his daughter could have performed +the office. + +The story of reducing his exuberance has been told of other authors; and, +though doubtless true of every fertile and copious mind, seems to have +been gratuitously transferred to Milton. + +What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he composed +much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose before his mind was +disturbed with common business; and that he poured out with great fluency +his “unpremeditated verse.” Versification, free, like this, from the +distresses of rhyme, must, by a work so long, be made prompt and +habitual; and, when his thoughts were once adjusted, the words would come +at his command. + +At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were written, +cannot often be known. The beginning of the third book shows that he had +lost his sight, and the introduction to the seventh, that the return of +the king had clouded him with discountenance; and that he was offended by +the licentious festivity of the Restoration. There are no other internal +notes of time. Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his +disloyalty, had nothing required from him but the common duty of living +in quiet, to be rewarded with the common right of protection; but this, +which, when he skulked from the approach of his king, was perhaps more +than he hoped, seems not to have satisfied him; for no sooner is he safe, +than he finds himself in danger, “fallen on evil days and evil tongues, +and with darkness and with danger compassed round.” This darkness, had +his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deserved compassion; but +to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen +indeed on “evil days;” the time was come in which regicides could no +longer boast their wickedness. But of “evil tongues” for Milton to +complain, required impudence at least equal to his other powers; Milton, +whose warmest advocates must allow that he never spared any asperity of +reproach or brutality of insolence. + +But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard to +recollect any reproach cast upon him, either serious or ludicrous, +through the whole remaining part of his life. He pursued his studies or +his amusements, without persecution, molestation, or insult. Such is the +reverence paid to great abilities, however misused; they, who +contemplated in Milton the scholar and the wit, were contented to forget +the reviler of his king. + +When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at Chalfont, +in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for him, first saw a +complete copy of “Paradise Lost,” and, having perused it, said to him, +“Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise Lost; what hast thou to say +upon Paradise Found?” + +Next year, when the danger of infection had ceased, he returned to +Bunhill Fields, and designed the publication of his poem. A licence was +necessary, and he could expect no great kindness from a chaplain of the +Archbishop of Canterbury. He seems, however, to have been treated with +tenderness; for, though objections were made to particular passages, and +among them to the simile of the sun eclipsed in the first book, yet the +licence was granted; and he sold his copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel +Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to +receive five pounds more when thirteen hundred should be sold of the +first edition; and again, five pounds after the sale of the same number +of the second edition; and another five pounds after the same sale of the +third. None of the three editions were to be extended beyond fifteen +hundred copies. + +The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The titles were +varied from year to year; and an advertisement and the arguments of the +books were omitted in some copies, and inserted in others. + +The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, for which +the receipt was signed April 26, 1669. The second edition was not given +till 1674; it was printed in small octave; and the number of books was +increased to twelve, by a division of the seventh and twelfth; and some +other small improvements were made. The third edition was published in +1678; and the widow, to whom the copy was then to devolve, sold all her +claims to Simmons for eight pounds, according to her receipt given +December 21, 1680. Simmons had already agreed to transfer the whole +right to Brabazon Aylmer for £25; and Aylmer sold to Jacob Tonson half, +August 17, 1683, and half, March 24, 1690, at a price considerably +enlarged. In the history of “Paradise Lost” a deduction thus minute will +rather gratify than fatigue. + +The slow sale and tardy reputation of this poem have been always +mentioned as evidences of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty of +literary fame; and inquiries have been made, and conjectures offered, +about the causes of its long obscurity and late reception. But has the +case been truly stated? Have not lamentation and wonder been lavished on +an evil that was never felt? + +That in the reigns of Charles and James the “Paradise Lost” received no +public acclamations is readily confessed. Wit and literature were on the +side of the court: and who that solicited favour or fashion would venture +to praise the defender of the regicides? All that he himself could think +his due, from “evil tongues” in “evil days,” was that reverential silence +which was generously preserved. But it cannot be inferred that his poem +was not read, or not, however unwillingly, admired. + +The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public. Those who have +no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt +their conclusions. The call for books was not, in Milton’s age, what it +is at present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither +traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. +The women had not then aspired to literature, nor was every house +supplied with a closet of knowledge. Those, indeed, who professed +learning, were not less learned than at any other time; but of that +middle race of students who read for pleasure or accomplishment, and who +buy the numerous products of modern typography, the number was then +comparatively small. To prove the paucity of readers, it may be +sufficient to remark, that the nation had been satisfied from 1623 to +1664—that is, forty-one years—with only two editions of the works of +Shakespeare, which probably did not together make one thousand copies. + +The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in opposition to so +much recent enmity, and to a style of versification new to all and +disgusting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius. +The demand did not immediately increase; for many more readers than were +supplied at first the nation did not afford. Only three thousand were +sold in eleven years; for it forced its way without assistance; its +admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the opportunities now +given of attracting notice by advertisements were then very few; the +means of proclaiming the publication of new books have been produced by +that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its +ranks. But the reputation and price of the copy still advanced, till the +Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and “Paradise Lost” broke +into open view with sufficient security of kind reception. + +Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed +the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation stealing its +way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and silence. I +cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at +all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and +waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the +impartiality of a future generation. + +In the meantime he continued his studies, and supplied the want of sight +by a very odd expedient, of which Phillips gives the following account:— + +Mr. Philips tells us, “that though our author had daily about him one or +other to read, some persons of man’s estate, who, of their own accord, +greedily catched at the opportunity of being his readers, that they might +as well reap the benefit of what they read to him, as oblige him by the +benefit of their reading; and others of younger years were sent by their +parents to the same end; yet excusing only the eldest daughter by reason +of her bodily infirmity and difficult utterance of speech (which, to say +truth, I doubt was the principal cause of excusing her), the other two +were condemned to the performance of reading and exactly pronouncing of +all the languages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, think +fit to peruse, viz., the Hebrew (and I think the Syriac), the Greek, the +Latin, the Italian, Spanish, and French. All which sorts of books to be +confined to read, without understanding one word, must needs be a trial +of patience almost beyond endurance. Yet it was endured by both for a +long time, though the irksomeness of this employment could not be always +concealed, but broke out more and more into expressions of uneasiness; so +that at length they were all, even the eldest also, sent out to learn +some curious and ingenious sorts of manufacture, that are proper for +women to learn, particularly embroideries in gold or silver.” + +In the scene of misery which this mode of intellectual labour sets before +our eyes, it is hard to determine whether the daughters or the father are +most to be lamented. A language not understood can never be so read as +to give pleasure, and very seldom so as to convey meaning. If few men +would have had resolution, to write books with such embarrassments, few +likewise would have wanted ability to find some better expedient. + +Three years after his “Paradise Lost” (1667) he published his “History of +England,” comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and +continued to the Norman Invasion. Why he should have given the first +part, which he seems not to believe, and which is universally rejected, +it is difficult to conjecture. The style is harsh; but it has something +of rough vigour, which perhaps may often strike, though it cannot please. + +On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he could +transmit it to the press tore out several parts. Some censures of the +Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be applied to the modern +clergy; and a character of the Long Parliament, and Assembly of Divines, +was excluded; of which the author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, +and which, being afterwards published, has been since inserted in its +proper place. + +The same year were printed “Paradise Regained;” and “Samson Agonistes,” a +tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, and never designed by the +author for the stage. As these poems were published by another +bookseller, it has been asked whether Simmons was discouraged from +receiving them by the slow sale of the former. Why a writer changed his +bookseller a hundred years ago, I am far from hoping to discover. +Certainly, he who in two years sells thirteen hundred copies of a volume +in quarto, bought for two payments of five pounds each, has no reason to +repent his purchase. + +When Milton showed “Paradise Regained” to Elwood, “This,” said he, “is +owing to you; for you put it in my head by the question you put to me at +Chalfont, which otherwise I had not thought of.” + +His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could not, as Elwood +relates, endure to hear “Paradise Lost” preferred to “Paradise Regained.” +Many causes may vitiate a writer’s judgment of his own works. On that +which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is +unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain; what has been +produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof +of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever +it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however it +happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself. + +To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension, that +entitled this great author to our veneration, may be added a kind of +humble dignity, which did not disdain the meanest services to literature. +The epic poet, the controvertist, the politician, having already +descended to accommodate children with a book of rudiments, now, in the +last years of his life, composed a book of logic for the initiation of +students in philosophy; and published (1672) “Artis Logicæ plenior +Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata;” that is, “A new Scheme of +Logic, according to the method of Ramus.” I know not whether, even in +this book, he did not intend an act of hostility against the +universities; for Ramus was one of the first oppugners of the old +philosophy, who disturbed with innovations the quiet of the schools. + +His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been safe so long +that he forgot his fears, and published a “Treatise of True Religion, +Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means to Prevent the Growth of +Popery.” + +But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful mention of the +Church of England and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. His +principle of toleration is, agreement in the sufficiency of the +Scriptures; and he extends it to all who, whatever their opinions are, +profess to derive them from the sacred books. The Papists appeal to +other testimonies, and are therefore, in his opinion, not to be permitted +the liberty of either public or private worship; for though they plead +conscience, “we have no warrant,” he says, “to regard conscience which is +not grounded in Scripture.” + +Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may perhaps be delighted with +his wit. The term “Roman Catholic is,” he says, “one of the Pope’s +Bulls; it is particular universal, or Catholic schismatic.” + +He has, however, something better. As the best preservative against +Popery, he recommends the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a duty from +which he warns the busy part of mankind not to think themselves excused. + +He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions. + +In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to take +delight in publication, a collection of “Familiar Epistles in Latin;” to +which, being too few to make a volume, he added some academical +exercises, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as they recalled to +his memory the days of youth; but for which nothing but veneration for +his name could now procure a reader. + +When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the gout, with which he had +been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers of nature. He +died by a quiet and silent expiration, about the 10th of November, 1674, +at his house in Bunhill Fields; and was buried next his father in the +chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate. His funeral was very splendidly and +numerously attended. + +Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but in our +time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey “To the Author of +‘Paradise Lost,’” by Mr. Benson, who has in the inscription bestowed more +words upon himself than upon Milton. + +When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was said to +be _soli Miltono secundus_, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, then Dean of +Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, in his +opinion, too detestable to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to +devotion. Atterbury, who succeeded him, being author of the inscription, +permitted its reception. “And such has been the change of public +opinion,” said Dr. Gregory, from whom I heard this account, “that I have +seen erected in the church a statue of that man, whose name I once knew +considered as a pollution of its walls.” + +Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently +beautiful, so as to have been called the lady of his college. His hair, +which was of a light brown, parted at the fore-top, and hung down upon +his shoulders, according to the picture which he has given of Adam. He +was, however, not of the heroic stature, but rather below the middle +size, according to Mr. Richardson, who mentions him as having narrowly +escaped from being “short and thick.” He was vigorous and active, and +delighted in the exercise of the sword, in which he is related to have +been eminently skilful. His weapon was, I believe, not the rapier, but +the back-sword, of which he recommends the use in his book on education. + +His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a dexterous +fencer, they must have been once quick. + +His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a severe +student. He drank little strong drink of any kind, and fed without +excess in quantity, and in his earlier years without delicacy of choice. +In his youth he studied late at night; but afterwards changed his hours, +and rested in bed from nine to four in the summer and five in the winter. +The course of his day was best known after he was blind. When he first +rose, he heard a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and then studied till +twelve; then took some exercise for an hour; then dined, then played on +the organ, and sang, or heard another sing, then studied till six; then +entertained his visitors till eight; then supped, and, after a pipe of +tobacco and a glass of water, went to bed. + +So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainable only in +colleges. He that lives in the world will sometimes have the succession +of his practice broken and confused. Visitors, of whom Milton is +represented to have had great numbers, will come and stay unseasonably; +business, of which every man has some, must be done when others will do +it. + +When he did not care to rise early, he had something read to him by his +bedside; perhaps at this time his daughters were employed. He composed +much in the morning, and dictated in the day, sitting obliquely in an +elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm. Fortune appears not to +have had much of his care. In the civil wars, he lent his personal +estate to the Parliament; but when, after the contest was decided, he +solicited repayment, he met not only with neglect, but “sharp rebuke;” +and, having tired both himself and his friends, was given up to poverty +and hopeless indignation, till he showed how able he was to do greater +service. He was then made Latin Secretary, with two hundred pounds a +year; and had a thousand pounds for his “Defence of the People.” His +widow, who, after his death, retired to Nantwich, in Cheshire, and died +about 1729, is said to have reported that he lost two thousand pounds by +entrusting it to a scrivener; and that, in the general depredation upon +the Church, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year +belonging to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of the plunder +of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Two thousand pounds +which he had placed in the Excise Office were also lost. There is yet no +reason to believe that he was ever reduced to indigence. His wants, +being few, were competently supplied. He sold his library before his +death, and left his family fifteen hundred pounds, on which his widow +laid hold, and only gave one hundred to each of his daughters. + +His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages which +are considered either as learned or polite: Hebrew, with its two +dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin his skill +was such as places him in the first rank of writers and critics; and he +appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommon diligence. The books in +which his daughter, who used to read to him, represented him as most +delighting, after Homer, which he could almost repeat, were Ovid’s +“Metamorphoses” and Euripides. His Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock’s +kindness, now in my hands: the margin is sometimes noted; but I have +found nothing remarkable. + +Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare, and +Cowley. Spenser was apparently his favourite; Shakespeare he may easily +be supposed to like, with every other skilful reader; but I should not +have expected that Cowley, whose ideas of excellence were different from +his own, would have had much of his approbation. His character of +Dryden, who sometimes visited him, was, that he was a good rhymist, but +no poet. + +His theological opinions are said to have been first Calvinistical; and +afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to have +tended towards Arminianism. In the mixed questions of theology and +government, he never thinks that he can recede far enough from Popery, or +Prelacy; but what Baudius says of Erasmus seems applicable to him, +“_Magis habuit quod fugeret_, _quam quod sequeretur_.” He had determined +rather what to condemn, than what to approve. He has not associated +himself with any denomination of Protestants: we know rather what he was +not than what he was. He was not of the Church of Rome; he was not of +the Church of England. + +To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are +distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by +degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by +external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary +influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had a full conviction +of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures +with the profoundest veneration, to have been untainted by any heretical +peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the +immediate and occasional agency of Providence, yet grew old without any +visible worship. In the distribution of his hours, there was no hour of +prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public prayers, +he omitted all. + +Of this omission the reason has been sought upon a supposition which +ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and +justify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not thought +superfluous by him, who represents our first parents as praying +acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously after their fall. +That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his studies and +meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was +probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to +correct; but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his +reformation. + +His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly Republican; +for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than that “a +popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy +would set up an ordinary commonwealth.” It is surely very shallow policy +that supposes money to be the chief good; and even this, without +considering that the support and expense of a court is, for the most +part, only a particular kind of traffic, for which money is circulated, +without any national impoverishment. + +Milton’s Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of +greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance impatient of +control, and pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the +State, and prelates in the Church; for he hated all whom he was required +to obey. It is to be suspected that his predominant desire was to +destroy rather than establish, and that he felt not so much the love of +liberty as repugnance to authority. + +It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not +most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton’s character, in domestic +relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His family consisted of +women; and there appears in his books something like a Turkish contempt +of females, as subordinate and inferior beings. That his own daughters +might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be depressed by a mean and +penurious education. He thought woman made only for obedience, and man +only for rebellion. + +Of his family some account may be expected. His sister, first married to +Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of her first husband, +who succeeded him in the Crown office. She had, by her first husband, +Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton educated; and by her second, +two daughters. + +His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catharine, and +a son, Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown office, and left a +daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenor Street. + +Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, and Deborah. +Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died of her first +child. Mary died single. Deborah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in +Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to August, 1727. This is the +daughter of whom public mention has been made. She could repeat the +first lines of Homer, the “Metamorphoses,” and some of Euripides, by +having often read them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. +Many repetitions are necessary to fix in memory lines not understood; and +why should Milton wish or want to hear them so often? These lines were +at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not +understood, the beginning raises no more attention than the end; and as +those that understand it know commonly the beginning best, its rehearsal +will seldom be necessary. It is not likely that Milton required any +passage to be so much repeated as that his daughter could learn it; nor +likely that he desired the initial lines to be read at all; nor that the +daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing unideal sounds, would +voluntarily commit them to memory. + +To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some +establishment, but died soon after. Queen Caroline sent her fifty +guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters; but none of them had +any children, except her son Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb +went to Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and had two sons, of whom +nothing now is known. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver in +Spitalfields, and had seven children, who all died. She kept a petty +grocer’s or chandler’s shop, first at Holloway, and afterwards in Cock +Lane, near Shoreditch Church. She knew little of her grandfather, and +that little was not good. She told of his harshness to his daughters, +and his refusal to have them taught to write; and, in opposition to other +accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate, in his diet. + +In 1750, April 5th, _Comus_ was played for her benefit. She had so +little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what +was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits of the night +were only one hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton brought a +large contribution; and twenty pounds were given by Tonson, a man who is +to be praised as often as he is named. Of this sum one hundred pounds +were placed in the stocks, after some debate between her and her husband +in whose name it should be entered; and the rest augmented their little +stock, with which they removed to Islington. This was the greatest +benefaction that “Paradise Lost” ever procured the author’s descendants; +and to this he who has now attempted to relate his Life, had the honour +of contributing a Prologue. + +In the examination of Milton’s poetical works, I shall pay so much regard +to time as to begin with his juvenile productions. For his early pieces +he seems to have had a degree of fondness not very laudable; what he has +once written he resolves to preserve, and gives to the public an +unfinished poem which he broke off because he was “nothing satisfied with +what he had done,” supposing his readers less nice than himself. These +preludes to his future labours are in Italian, Latin, and English. Of +the Italian I cannot pretend to speak as a critic; but I have heard them +commended by a man well qualified to decide their merit. The Latin +pieces are lusciously elegant: but the delight which they afford is +rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity +of the diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of +invention or vigour of sentiment. They are not all of equal value; the +elegies excel the odes; and some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason +might have been spared. + +The English poems, though they make no promises of “Paradise Lost,” have +this evidence of genius—that they have a cast original and unborrowed. +But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differ from the verses +of others, they differ for the worse; for they are too often +distinguished by repulsive harshness; the combinations of words are new, +but they are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithets seem to be laboriously +sought, and violently applied. + +That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care appears from +his manuscripts, happily preserved at Cambridge, in which many of his +smaller works are found as they were first written, with the subsequent +corrections. Such relics show how excellence is acquired; what we hope +ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. + +Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force their +own judgment into false approbation of his little pieces, and prevail +upon themselves to think that admirable which is only singular. All that +short compositions can commonly attain is neatness and elegance. Milton +never learned the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked +the milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a “Lion” that had +no skill in “dandling the Kid.” + +One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is “Lycidas;” of +which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek in the +sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the effusion of +real passion; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls +upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough “satyrs” and “fauns with +cloven heel.” Where there is leisure for fiction, there is little grief. + +In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no art, +for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral; easy, vulgar, +and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can supply are long ago +exhausted; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction +on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey, that they studied together, it +is easy to suppose how much he must miss the companion of his labours, +and the partner of his discoveries; but what image of tenderness can be +excited by these lines?— + + We drove afield, and both together heard + What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn, + Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. + +We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to +batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be +allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is +never sought, because it cannot be known when it is found. + +Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen deities; +Jove and Phœbus, Neptune and Æolus, with a long train of mythological +imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing can less display +knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell how a shepherd has +lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, without any judge +of his skill in piping; and how one god asks another god what is become +of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will +excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour. + +This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling fictions are +mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to be +polluted with such irreverent combinations. The shepherd likewise is now +a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a +superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always +unskilful; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, +of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been conscious. + +Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze drives +away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied +that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known the author. + +Of the two pieces, “L’Allegro” and “il Penseroso,” I believe, opinion is +uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The +author’s design is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to show how +objects derive their colours from the mind, by representing the operation +of the same things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the +same man as he is differently disposed; but rather how, among the +successive variety of appearances, every disposition of mind takes hold +on those by which it may be gratified. + +The _cheerful_ man hears the lark in the morning; the _pensive_ man hears +the nightingale in the evening. The _cheerful_ man sees the cock strut, +and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks, _not unseen_, +to observe the glory of the rising sun, or listen to the singing +milkmaid, and view the labours of the ploughman and the mower; then casts +his eyes about him over scenes of smiling plenty, and looks up to the +distant tower, the residence of some fair inhabitant; thus he pursues +real gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himself at +night with the fanciful narratives of superstitious ignorance. + +The _pensive_ man at one time walks _unseen_ to muse at midnight, and at +another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, he sits +in a room lighted only by “glowing embers;” or by a lonely lamp +outwatches the North Star, to discover the habitation of separate souls, +and varies the Shades of meditation by contemplating the magnificent or +pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When the morning comes—a +morning gloomy with rain and wind—he walks into the dark, trackless +woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, and with melancholy +enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, or some music played by +aërial performers. + +Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the breast, +that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore +made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant companion. The seriousness +does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from +the pleasures of the bottle. + +The man of _cheerfulness_, having exhausted the country, tries what +“towered cities” will afford, and mingles with scenes of splendour, gay +assemblies, and nuptial festivities; but he mingles a mere spectator, as, +when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild dramas of Shakespeare, +are exhibited, he attends the theatre. + +The _pensive_ man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the cloister, +or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet forsaken the +Church. + +Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that cheerful +notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismission of Eurydice, +of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditional release. + +For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: but Melancholy he +conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His Cheerfulness is +without levity, and his Pensiveness without asperity. + +Through these two poems the images are properly selected and nicely +distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently +discriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept sufficiently +apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid +that I always meet some melancholy in his mirth. They are two noble +efforts of imagination. + +The greatest of his juvenile performances is the “Mask of _Comus_,” in +which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of “Paradise +Lost.” Milton appears to have formed very early that system of diction, +and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment approved, and from which he +never endeavoured nor desired to deviate. + +Nor does _Comus_ afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits +likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, employed +in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is +rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive epithets, embellish +almost every period with lavish decoration. As a series of lines, +therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with +which the votaries have received it. + +As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A mask, in +those parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, must indeed be +given up to all the freaks of imagination, but so far as the action is +merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be said of the +conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister sinks with fatigue in +a pathless wilderness, wander both away together in search of berries too +far to find their way back, and leave a helpless lady to all the sadness +and danger of solitude. This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its +convenience. + +What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in the wild +wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience; a mode of +communication so contrary to the nature of dramatic representation, that +no precedents can support it. + +The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to +almost all the following speeches; they have not the sprightliness of a +dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but seem rather declamations +deliberately composed, and formally repeated, on a moral question. The +auditor therefore listens as to a lecture, without passion, without +anxiety. + +The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommend +Milton’s morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are so +general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and +take no dangerous hold on the fancy. + +The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but tedious. +The song must owe much to the voice if it ever can delight. At last the +Brothers enter with too much tranquillity; and, when they have feared +lest their Sister should be in danger, and hoped that she is not in +danger, the elder makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the younger +finds how fine it is to be a philosopher. + +Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother, instead +of being in haste to ask his help, praises his singing, and inquires his +business in that place. It is remarkable, that at this interview the +Brother is taken with a short fit of rhyming, The Spirit relates that the +Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother moralises again; and the +Spirit makes a long narration, of no use because it is false, and +therefore unsuitable to a good being. + +In all these parts the language is poetical, and the sentiments are +generous; but there is something wanting to allure attention. + +The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and affecting +scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker reciprocation of +objections and replies to invite attention, and detain it. + +The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in their +diction, and not very musical in their numbers. + +Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the language too +luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epic style, inelegantly +splendid, and tediously instructive. + +The sonnets were written in different parts of Milton’s life, upon +different occasions. They deserve not any particular criticism; for of +the best it can only be said, that they are not bad; and perhaps only the +eighth and twenty-first are truly entitled to this slender commendation. +The fabric of a sonnet, however adapted to the Italian language, has +never succeeded in ours, which, having greater variety of termination, +requires the rhymes to be often changed. + +Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a greater +work calls for greater care. I am now to examine “Paradise Lost;” a poem +which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and +with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the +human mind. + +By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius is due to +the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the +powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry is the +art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of +reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the +most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great event in the +most affecting manner. History must supply the writer with the rudiments +of narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must +animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and +anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different +shades, of vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has +to learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the +passions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply him with +illustrations and images. To put those materials to poetical use, is +required an imagination capable of painting nature and realising fiction. +Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the whole extension of his +language, distinguished all the delicacies of phrase, and all the colours +of words, and learned to adjust their different sounds to all the +varieties of metrical modulation. + +Bossu is of opinion, that the poet’s first work is to find a _moral_, +which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish. This seems to +have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other poems is +incidental and consequent; in Milton’s only it is essential and +intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the most arduous: “to +vindicate the ways of God to man;” to show the reasonableness of +religion, and the necessity of obedience to the Divine Law. + +To convey this moral there must be a _fable_, a narration artfully +constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expectation. In this +part of his work Milton must be confessed to have equalled every other +poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Man the events which +preceded and those that were to follow it: he has interwoven the whole +system of theology with such propriety, that every part appears to be +necessary; and scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the sake of +quickening the progress of the main action. + +The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great importance. +That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a colony, +or the foundation of an empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, the +revolutions of heaven and of earth; rebellion against the Supreme King, +raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of their +host, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new race of +reasonable creatures; their original happiness and innocence, their +forfeiture of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace. + +Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevated +dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton’s poem, all other +greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and +noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; with whose +actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude or deviation of will, +depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of all the +future inhabitants of the globe. + +Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is irreverence +to name on slight occasions. The rest were lower powers— + + Of which the least could wield + Those elements, and arm him with the force + Of all their regions; + +powers, which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from laying +creation waste, and filling the vast expanse of space with ruin and +confusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thus superior, +so far as human reason can examine them, or human imagination represent +them, is the task which this mighty poet has undertaken and performed. + +In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly employed +upon the _characters_. The characters in the “Paradise Lost,” which +admit of examination, are those of angels and of man; of angels good and +evil; of man in his innocent and sinful state. + +Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of easy +condescension and free communication; that of Michael is regal and lofty, +and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. Abdiel and +Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incident requires; the +solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably painted. + +Of the evil angels the characters are more diversified. To Satan, as +Addison observes, such sentiments are given as suit “the most exalted and +most depraved being.” Milton has been censured by Clarke, for the +impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan’s mouth; for there are +thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observation of character can +justify, because no good man would willingly permit them to pass, however +transiently, through his own mind. To make Satan speak as a rebel, +without any such expression as might taint the reader’s imagination, was +indeed one of the great difficulties in Milton’s undertaking; and I +cannot but think that he has extricated himself with great happiness. +There is in Satan’s speeches little that can give pain to a pious ear. +The language of rebellion cannot be the same with that of obedience. The +malignity of Satan foams in haughtiness and obstinacy; but his +expressions are commonly general, and no otherwise offensive than as they +are wicked. + +The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously +discriminated in the first and second books; and the ferocious character +of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council, with exact +consistency. + +To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such sentiments as +innocence can generate and utter. Their love is pure benevolence and +mutual veneration; their repasts are without luxury, and their diligence +without toil. Their addresses to their Maker have little more than the +voice of admiration and gratitude. Fruition left them nothing to ask; +and innocence left them nothing to fear. + +But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and +stubborn self-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, and +dread their Creator as the avenger of their transgression. At last they +seek shelter in His mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in +supplication. Both before and after the fall, the superiority of Adam is +diligently sustained. + +Of the _probable_ and the _marvellous_, two parts of a vulgar epic poem +which immerge the critic in deep consideration, the “Paradise Lost” +requires little to be said. It contains the history of a miracle, of +creation and redemption; it displays the power and the mercy of the +Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the marvellous +is probable. The substance of the narrative is truth; and, as truth +allows no choice, it is, like necessity, superior to rule. To the +accidental or adventitious parts, as to everything human, some slight +exceptions may be made; but the main fabric is immovably supported. + +It is justly remarked by Addison, that this poem has, by the nature of +its subject, the advantage above all others, that it is universally and +perpetually interesting. All mankind will, through all ages, bear the +same relation to Adam and to Eve, and must partake of that good and evil +which extend to themselves. + +Of the _machinery_, so called from Θεòς ὰπò μηχανης, by which is meant +the occasional interposition of supernatural power, another fertile topic +of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because everything is done +under the immediate and visible direction of Heaven; but the rule is so +far observed, that no part of the action could have been accomplished by +any other means. + +Of _episodes_, I think there are only two—contained in Raphael’s relation +of the war in Heaven, and Michael’s prophetic account of the changes to +happen in this world. Both are closely connected with the great action; +one was necessary to Adam as a warning, the other as a consolation. + +To the completeness or _integrity_ of the design nothing can be objected; +it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires—a beginning, a +middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of the same length, from +which so little can be taken without apparent mutilation. Here are no +funeral games, nor is there any long description of a shield. The short +digressions at the beginning of the third, seventh, and ninth books, +might doubtless be spared, but superfluities so beautiful who would take +away? or who does not wish that the author of the “Iliad” had gratified +succeeding ages with a little knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages +are more attentively read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since the +end of poetry is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which all are +pleased. + +The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly _one_, whether +the poem can be properly termed _heroic_, and who is the hero, are raised +by such readers as draw their principles of judgment rather from books +than from reason. Milton, though he entitled “Paradise Lost” only a +“poem,” yet calls it himself “heroic song.” Dryden petulantly and +indecently denies the heroism of Adam, because he was overcome; but there +is no reason why the hero should not be unfortunate, except established +practice, since success and virtue do not go necessarily together. Cato +is the hero of Lucan; but Lucan’s authority will not be suffered by +Quintilian to decide. However, if success be necessary, Adam’s deceiver +was at last crushed; Adam was restored to his Maker’s favour, and +therefore may securely resume his human rank. + +After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered its component +parts, the sentiments and the diction. + +The _sentiments_, as expressive of manners, or appropriated to +characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just. + +Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts of +prudence, occur seldom. Such is the original formation of this poem, +that, as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can give little +assistance to human conduct. Its end is to raise the thoughts above +sublunary cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of that fortitude, with +which Abdiel maintained his singularity of virtue against the scorn of +multitudes, may be accommodated to all times; and Raphael’s reproof of +Adam’s curiosity after the planetary motions, with the answer returned by +Adam, may be confidently opposed to any rule of life which any poet has +delivered. + +The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the progress are such +as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest degree fervid +and active, to which materials were supplied by incessant study and +unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton’s mind may be said to sublimate +his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled +with its grosser parts. + +He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions are +therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained +indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The +characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends +to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest +himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can +please when pleasure is required; but it is his peculiar power to +astonish. + +He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know +what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon +others—the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, +enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful; +he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be said, on +which he might tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance. + +The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not satiate +his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are requires a minute +attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. Milton’s +delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a +scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon discovery, +into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new +modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; +to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven. + +But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes revisit +earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannot raise wonder +by the sublimity of his mind, he gives delight by its fertility. + +Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. But his +images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of nature do not seem +to be always copied from original form, nor to have the freshness, +raciness, and energy of immediate observation. He saw nature, as Dryden +expresses it, “through the spectacles of books;” and on most occasions +calls learning to his assistance. The garden of Eden brings to his mind +the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering flowers. Satan makes +his way through fighting elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, +or Ulysses between the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis +on the larboard. The mythological allusions have been justly censured, +as not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they contribute +variety to the narration, and produce an alternate exercise of the memory +and the fancy. + +His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of his +predecessors. But he does not confine himself within the limits of +rigorous comparison: his great excellence is amplitude; and he expands +the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the occasion required. +Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to the orb of the moon, he crowds the +imagination with the discovery of the telescope, and all the wonders +which the telescope discovers. + +Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they excel +those of all other poets; for this superiority he was indebted to his +acquaintance with the sacred writings. The ancient epic poets, wanting +the light of Revelation, were very unskilful teachers of virtue; their +principal characters may be great, but they are not amiable. The reader +may rise from their works with a greater degree of active or passive +fortitude, and sometimes of prudence; but he will be able to carry away +few precepts of justice, and none of mercy. + +From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of even Christian +knowledge may be possessed in vain. Ariosto’s pravity is generally +known; and, though the “Deliverance of Jerusalem” may be considered as a +sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing of moral instruction. + +In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of manners, +except when the train of the narration requires the introduction of the +rebellious spirits; and even they are compelled to acknowledge their +subjection to God, in such a manner as excites reverence and confirms +piety. + +Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the parents of +mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and +amiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first state their +affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublime without +presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord begins in +mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance; how +confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by sin, and how hope of +pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. A state of innocence we +can only conceive, if indeed, in our present misery, it be possible to +conceive it; but the sentiments and worship proper to a fallen and +offending being, we have all to learn, as we have all to practise. + +The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors in their +first state conversed with angels; even when folly and sin had degraded +them, they had not in their humiliation “the port of mean suitors;” and +they rise again to reverential regard, when we find that their prayers +were heard. + +As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is in +the “Paradise Lost” little opportunity for the pathetic; but what little +there is has not been lost. That passion, which is peculiar to rational +nature, the anguish arising from the consciousness of transgression, and +the horrors attending the sense of the Divine displeasure, are very +justly described and forcibly impressed. But the passions are moved only +on one occasion; sublimity is the general and prevailing quality in this +poem; sublimity variously modified—sometimes descriptive, sometimes +argumentative. + +The defects and faults of “Paradise Lost”—for faults and defects every +work of man must have—it is the business of impartial criticism to +discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, I have not made +long quotations, because of selecting beauties there had been no end, I +shall in the same general manner mention that which seems to deserve +censure; for what Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages, +which, if they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish in some degree +the honour of our country? + +The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal +inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in grammar and +poetry, has often found, though he sometimes made them, and which he +imputed to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom the author’s blindness +obliged him to employ; a supposition rash and groundless, if he thought +it true; and vile and pernicious, if, as is said, he in private allowed +it to be false. + +The plan of “Paradise Lost” has this inconvenience, that it comprises +neither human actions nor human manners. The man and woman who act and +suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can ever know. The +reader finds no transaction in which he can be engaged—beholds no +condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place himself; he +has, therefore, little natural curiosity or sympathy. + +We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam’s disobedience; we all sin like +Adam, and like him must all bewail our offences; we have restless and +insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the blessed spirits we +have guardians and friends; in the redemption of mankind we hope to be +included; in the description of heaven and hell we are surely interested, +as we are all to reside hereafter either in the regions of horror or +bliss. + +But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to +our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and familiar +conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture of +life. Being therefore not new, they raise no unaccustomed emotion in the +mind; what we knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, +cannot surprise. + +Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recede with +reverence, except when stated hours require their association; and from +others we shrink with horror, or admit them only as salutary inflictions, +as counterpoises to our interests and passions. Such images rather +obstruct the career of fancy than incite it. + +Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; but +poetical pleasure must be such as human imagination can at least +conceive, and poetical terrors such as human strength and fortitude may +combat. The good and evil of eternity are too ponderous for the wings of +wit; the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm +belief and humble adoration. + +Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be conveyed +to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. This Milton has +undertaken and performed with pregnancy and vigour of mind peculiar to +himself. Whoever considers the few radical positions which the +Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what energetic operation he +expanded them to such extent, and ramified them to so much variety, +restrained as he was by religious reverence from licentiousness of +fiction. + +Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius—of a great +accumulation of materials, with judgment to digest and fancy to combine +them: Milton was able to select from nature or from story, from an +ancient fable or from modern science, whatever could illustrate or adorn +his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, +fermented by study and exalted by imagination. + +It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of his +encomiasts, that in reading “Paradise Lost” we read a book of universal +knowledge. + +But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of human interest +is always felt. “Paradise Lost” is one of the books which the reader +admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it +longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We +read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look +elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions. + +Another inconvenience of Milton’s design is, that it requires the +description of what cannot be described, the agency of spirits. He saw +that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could not show angels +acting but by instruments of action; he therefore invested them with form +and matter. This, being necessary, was therefore defensible; and he +should have secured the consistency of his system, by keeping +immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop it from his +thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy. +His infernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit, and +sometimes animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the +“burning marl,” he has a body; when, in his passage between hell and the +new world, he is in danger of sinking in the vacuity, and is supported by +a gust of rising vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he +seems to be more spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he +“starts up in his own shape,” he has at least a determined form; and when +he is brought before Gabriel, he has “a spear and a shield,” which he had +the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the contending angels +are evidently material. + +The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium, being “incorporeal spirits,” are +“at large, though without number,” in a limited space: yet in the battle, +when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them, “crushed +in upon their substance, now grown gross by sinning.” This likewise +happened to the uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the “sooner for +their arms, for unarmed they might easily as spirits have evaded by +contraction or remove.” Even as spirits they are hardly spiritual: for +“contraction” and “remove” are images of matter; but if they could have +escaped without their armour, they might have escaped from it, and left +only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, +is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of Adam. + +The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole narration of +the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the book in which it is +related is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually neglected +as knowledge is increased. + +After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, may +be considered that of allegorical persons which have no real existence. +To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas with form, and +animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. But +such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered only to do their +natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory hovers +over a general, or perches on a standard; but Fame and Victory can do no +more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to them any material +agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to shock the mind by +ascribing effects to nonentity. In the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, we see +Violence and Strength, and in the “Alcestis” of Euripides we see Death, +brought upon the stage, all as active persons of the drama; but no +precedents can justify absurdity. + +Milton’s allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. Sin is indeed +the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portress of hell; but +when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey described as real, and +when Death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That Sin and Death +should have shown the way to hell, might have been allowed; but they +cannot facilitate the passage by building a bridge, because the +difficulty of Satan’s passage is described as real and sensible, and the +bridge ought to be only figurative. The hell assigned to the rebellious +spirits is described as not less local than the residence of man. It is +placed in some distant part of space, separated from the regions of +harmony and order by a chaotic waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin +and Death worked up a “mole of aggravated soil” cemented with +_asphaltus_, a work too bulky for ideal architects. + +This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of the +poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author’s opinion of its +beauty. + +To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satan is +with great expectation brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and is +suffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is represented as +the consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of the +rebels; yet Satan mentions it as a report “rife in Heaven” before his +departure. + +To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult; and +something of anticipation perhaps is now and then discovered. Adam’s +discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of a new-created +being. I know not whether his answer to the angel’s reproof for +curiosity does not want something of propriety; it is the speech of a man +acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical notions, especially +when the philosophy is false, might have been better omitted. The angel, +in a comparison, speaks of “timorous deer,” before deer were yet +timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparison. + +Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. This is +only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every work, one part +must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; a poem must +have transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should always be +blazing, than that the sun should always stand at noon. In a great work +there is a vicissitude of luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the +world a succession of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in +the sky, may be allowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author +ever soared so high, or sustained his flight so long? + +Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed +often from them; and, as every man catches something from his companions, +his desire of imitating Ariosto’s levity has disgraced his work with the +Paradise of Fools; a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but too +ludicrous for its place. + +His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations, +which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of the ancients; his +unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; it is not necessary to +mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally censured; and at +last bear so little proportion to the whole, that they scarcely deserve +the attention of a critic. + +Such are the faults of that wonderful performance “Paradise Lost;” which +he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered not as +nice but as dull, as less to be censured for want of candour than pitied +for want of sensibility. + +Of “Paradise Regained,” the general judgment seems now to be right, that +it is in many parts elegant, and everywhere instructive. It was not to +be supposed that the writer of “Paradise Lost” could ever write without +great effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The basis of +“Paradise Regained” is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please +like a union of the narrative and dramatic powers. Had this poem been +written not by Milton, but by some imitator, it would have claimed and +received universal praise. + +If “Paradise Regained” has been too much depreciated, “Samson Agonistes” +has, in requital, been too much admired. It could only be by long +prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the +ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions +of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence in +the reputation of Milton that a drama can be praised in which the +intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence, neither hasten nor +retard the catastrophe. + +In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just +sentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the +attention which a well connected plan produces. + +Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human nature +only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor the +combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending passions. He +had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in +the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must +confer. + +Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of +_diction_, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance +to that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common +use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds +himself surprised by a new language. + +This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, +imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur +of his ideas. “Our language,” says Addison, “sank under him.” But the +truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a +perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use English words +with a foreign idiom. This, in all his prose, is discovered and +condemned; for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the +beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but such is the power of +his poetry, that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels +himself in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks +in admiration. + +Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with +greater extent in “Paradise Lost” may be found in “Comus.” One source of +his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the +disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps +sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be said what +Jonson says of Spenser, that “he wrote no language,” but has formed what +Butler calls a “Babylonish dialect,” in itself harsh and barbarous, but +made by exalted genius and extensive learning the vehicle of so much +instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we find grace +in its deformity. + +Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of +copiousness and variety. He was master of his language in its full +extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that +from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned. + +After his diction something must be said of his _versification_. The +_measure_, he says, “is the English heroic verse without rhyme.” Of this +mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his own +country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil’s +books without rhyme; and, beside our tragedies, a few short poems had +appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation +to Raleigh’s wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh +himself. These petty performances cannot be supposed to have much +influenced Milton, who more probably took his hint from Trissino’s +“Italia Liberata;” and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was +desirous of persuading himself that it is better. + +“Rhyme,” he says, and says truly, “is no necessary adjunct of true +poetry.” But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or music +is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the music of metre that +poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages +melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and short +syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot communicate its +rules to another; where metre is scanty and imperfect, some help is +necessary. The music of the English heroic lines strikes the ear so +faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every line +co-operate together; this co-operation can only be obtained by the +preservation of every verse unmingled with another as a distinct system +of sounds; and this distinctness is obtained and preserved by the +artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers +of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of +a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of +Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or +begin. “Blank verse,” said an ingenious critic, “seems to be verse only +to the eye.” + +Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not often +please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is able +to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that which is +called the “lapidary style;” has neither the easiness of prose, nor the +melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the +Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not one +is popular; what reason could urge in its defence has been confuted by +the ear. + +But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to +wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be +other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than +imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank +verse; but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme. + +The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be +said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and therefore owes +reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations +must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of +the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and +all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all the +borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was +naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and +disdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the +thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From +his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in +his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be +gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of +support. His great works were performed under discountenance and in +blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for +whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, +only because it is not the first. + + + + +COWLEY. + + +THE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, has +been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy of imagination and +elegance of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of +literature; but his zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has +produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the +character, not the life, of Cowley; for he writes with so little detail, +that scarcely anything is distinctly known, but all is shown confused and +enlarged through the mist of panegyric. + + * * * * * + +ABRAHAM COWLEY was born in the year one thousand sir hundred and +eighteen. His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals +under the general appellation of a citizen; and, what would probably not +have been less carefully suppressed, the omission of his name in the +register of St. Dunstan’s parish gives reason to suspect that his father +was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his son, and +consequently left him to the care of his mother: whom Wood represents as +struggling earnestly to procure him a literary education, and who, as she +lived to the age of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son +eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his +prosperity. We know at least, from Sprat’s account, that he always +acknowledged her care, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. + +In the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” in +which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling the charms of +verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the +accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes forgotten, +produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some +certain science or employment, which is commonly called Genius. The true +Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some +particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the +present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of +Richardson’s treatise. + +By his mother’s solicitation he was admitted into Westminster school, +where he was soon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to relate, +“that he had this defect in his memory at that time, that his teachers +never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar.” + +This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder. +It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it was heard, when Sprat +could not refrain from amplifying a commodious incident, though the book +to which he prefixed his narrative contained its confutation. A memory +admitting some things, and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion +that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the +appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by +nature for literary politeness. But in the author’s own honest relation, +the marvel vanishes: he was, he says, such “an enemy to all constraint, +that his master never could prevail on him to learn the rules without +book.” He does not tell that he could not learn the rules; but that, +being able to perform his exercises without them, and being an “enemy to +constraint,” he spared himself the labour. + +Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope might be said “to lisp +in numbers;” and have given such early proofs, not only of powers of +language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardy minds seems +scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities of Cowley there is no +doubt, since a volume of his poems was not only written, but printed in +his thirteenth year; containing, with other poetical compositions, “The +tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,” written when he was ten years +old; and “Constantia and Philetus,” written two years after. + +While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called “Love’s Riddle,” +though it was not published till he had been some time at Cambridge. +This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires no acquaintance with +the living world, and therefore the time at which it was composed adds +little to the wonders of Cowley’s minority. + +In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where he continued his studies with +great intenseness; for he is said to have written, while he was yet a +young student, the greater part of his “Davideis;” a work of which the +materials could not have been collected without the study of many years, +but by a mind of the greatest vigour and activity. + +Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published “Love’s +Riddle,” with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, of whose +acquaintance all his contemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and +“Naufragium Joculare,” a comedy written in Latin, but without due +attention to the ancient models; for it is not loose verse, but mere +prose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse to Dr. Comber, master +of the college; but having neither the facility of a popular, nor the +accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universally neglected. + +At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed through Cambridge +in his way to York, he was entertained with the representation of “The +Guardian,” a comedy which Cowley says was neither written nor acted, but +rough-drawn by him, and repeated by the scholars. That this comedy was +printed during his absence from his country he appears to have considered +as injurious to his reputation; though, during the suppression of the +theatres, it was sometimes privately acted with sufficient approbation. + +In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the +Parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John’s +College in Oxford; where, as is said by Wood, he published a satire, +called “The Puritan and Papist,” which was only inserted in the last +collection of his works; and so distinguished himself by the warmth of +his loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, that he gained the +kindness and confidence of those who attended the king, and amongst +others of Lord Falkland, whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom it was +extended. + +About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, he followed +the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord Jermyn, +afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in such correspondence as +the royal cause required, and particularly in ciphering and deciphering +the letters that passed between the king and queen; an employment of the +highest confidence and honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, +that for several years it filled all his days and two or three nights in +the week. + +In the year 1647, his “Mistress” was published; for he imagined, as he +declared in his preface to a subsequent edition, that “poets are scarcely +thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, or obliging +themselves to be true to love.” + +This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its original to the +fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful +homage to his Laura refined the manners of the lettered world, and filled +Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is truth: +he that professes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch was a real +lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, we are +told by Barnes, who had means enough of information, that, whatever he +may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by +which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then +never had resolution to tell his passion. + +This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the reader’s esteem +for the works and the author. To love excellence is natural; it is +natural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal regard by an +elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of pleasing has +in different men produced actions of heroism, and effusions of wit; but +it seems as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet of an airy +“nothing,” and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have learned +from his master Pindar to call “the dream of a shadow.” + +It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or in the +bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. No +man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it in voluntary +dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that sits down to suppose +himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an +elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never +within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of +his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw; complains of +jealousy which he never felt; supposes himself sometimes invited, and +sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory for +images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope or the gloominess of despair; +and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis sometimes in flowers fading +as her beauty, and sometimes in gems lasting as her virtues. + +At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting +things of real importance with real men and real women, and at that time +did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his +letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, from April to +December, in 1650, are preserved in “Miscellanea Aulica,” a collection of +papers published by Brown. These letters, being written like those of +other men whose minds are more on things than words, contribute no +otherwise to his reputation, than as they show him to have been above the +affectation of unseasonable elegance, and to have known that the business +of a statesman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. + +One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking of the +Scotch treaty then in agitation: + +“The Scotch treaty,” says he, “is the only thing now in which we are +vitally concerned; I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now +abstain from believing that an agreement will be made; all people upon +the place incline to that opinion. The Scotch will moderate something of +the rigour of their demands; the mutual necessity of an accord is +visible; the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which I +take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgil has told me something +to that purpose.” + +This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would be +considered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious display of +scholarship; but the manners of that time were so tinged with +superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of having consulted on +this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and to have given some credit to +the answer of his oracle. + +Some years afterwards, “business,” says Sprat, “passed of course into +other hands;” and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656 +sent back into England, that, “under pretence of privacy and retirement, +he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this +nation.” + +Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of the +usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of another man; and being +examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not dismissed +without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough. + +This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems to +have inserted something suppressed in subsequent editions, which was +interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this preface he +declares, that “his desire had been for some days past, and did still +very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of the American +plantations, and to forsake this world for ever.” + +From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpers +brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him, and +indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation. His wish for +retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; a man harassed in +one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a course of business +that employed all his days and half his nights, in ciphering and +deciphering, comes to his own country and steps into a prison, will be +willing enough to retire to some place of quiet and of safety. Yet let +neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose +us to forget, that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat was +cowardice. + +He then took upon him the character of physician, still, according to +Sprat, with intention “to dissemble the main design of his coming over;” +and, as Mr. Wood relates, “complying with the men then in power (which +was much taken notice of by the royal party), he obtained an order to be +created doctor of physic; which being done to his mind (whereby he gained +the ill-will of some of his friends), he went into France again, having +made a copy of verses on Oliver’s death.” + +This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not much wrong can +be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power is to be +inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that he told them any +secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other act. If he only +promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he was might free him from +confinement, he did what no law of society prohibits. + +The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of his +enemy, may, without any breach of his integrity, regain his liberty, or +preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality: for the stipulation gives +the enemy nothing which he had not before. The neutrality of a captive +may be always secured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the +disposal of another may not promise to aid him in any injurious act, +because no power can compel active obedience. He may engage to do +nothing, but not to do ill. + +There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It does not appear +that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be trusted without +security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor that it made +him think himself secure, for, at that dissolution of government which +followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he resumed +his former station, and stayed till the restoration. + +“He continued,” says his biographer, “under these bonds till the general +deliverance;” it is therefore to be supposed that he did not go to +France, and act again for the king, without the consent of his bondsman: +that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his +friend’s permission. + +Of the verses on Oliver’s death, in which Wood’s narrative seems to imply +something encomiastic, there has been no appearance. There is a +discourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses intermixed, but +such as certainly gained its author no friends among the abettors of +usurpation. + +A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in December, 1657; and +in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been +published by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the experimental +philosophers with the title of Doctor Cowley. + +There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice: but his +preparatory studies have contributed something to the honour of his +country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, he retired into +Kent to gather plants; and as the predominance of a favourite study +affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, botany in the mind +of Cowley turned into poetry. He composed, in Latin, several books on +plants, of which the first and second display the qualities of herbs, in +elegiac verse; the third and fourth, the beauties of flowers, in various +measures; and the fifth and sixth, the use of trees, in heroic numbers. + +At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two great +poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite principles, +but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry; in which the English, +till their works and May’s poem appeared, seemed unable to contest the +palm with any other of the lettered nations. + +If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared (for May I +hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to lie on the side of +Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the +ancients in their language; Cowley, without much loss of purity or +elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions. + +At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, and with +consciousness, not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of +great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; and, that he +might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a song of triumph. But +this was a time of such general hope, that great numbers were inevitably +disappointed; and Cowley found his reward very tediously delayed. He had +been promised, by both Charles the First and Second, the mastership of +the Savoy; “but he lost it,” says Wood, “by certain persons, enemies to +the Muses.” + +The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; having by such +alteration as he thought proper, fitted his old comedy of “The Guardian” +for the stage, he produced it under the title of “The Cutter of Coleman +Street.” It was treated on the stage with great severity, and was +afterwards censured as a satire on the king’s party. + +Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, related to +Mr. Dennis, “that, when they told Cowley how little favour had been shown +him, he received the news of his ill success, not with so much firmness +as might have been expected from so great a man.” + +What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered, cannot +be known. He that misses his end will never be as much pleased as he +that attains it, even when he can impute no part of his failure to +himself; and when the end is to please the multitude, no man perhaps has +a right, in things admitting of gradation and comparison, to throw the +whole blame upon his judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame, +by a haughty consciousness of his own excellence. + +For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find the reason: it +certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of fixing attention and +exciting merriment. From the charge of disaffection he exculpates +himself in his preface, by observing how unlikely it is, that, having +followed the royal family through all their distresses, “he should choose +the time of their restoration to begin a quarrel with them.” It appears, +however, from the theatrical register of Downes the prompter, to have +been popularly considered as a satire on the royalists. + +That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his pretensions +and his discontent in an ode called “The Complaint;” in which he styles +himself the _melancholy_ Cowley. This met with the usual fortune of +complaints, and seems to have excited more contempt than pity. + +These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in some +stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; a mode of +satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling, perhaps +every generation of poets has been teased. + + Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court, + Making apologies for his bad play; + Every one gave him so good a report, + That Apollo gave heed to all he could say: + + Nor would he have had, ’tis thought, a rebuke, + Unless he had done some notable folly; + Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke, + Or printed his pitiful Melancholy. + +His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him. “Not +finding,” says the morose Wood, “that preferment conferred upon him which +he expected, while others for their money carried away most places, he +retired discontented into Surrey.” + +“He was now,” says the courtly Sprat, “weary of the vexations and +formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long +compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of a court; +which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet +nothing could make it quiet. Those were the reasons that moved him to +follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which, in the greatest +throng of his former business, had still called upon him, and represented +to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and +a moderate revenue below the malice and flatteries of fortune.” + +So differently are things seen! and so differently are they shown! But +actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowley certainly +retired; first to Barn Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. He +seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of the _hum of men_. He +thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, without the defence of +mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking shelter in America, wisely +went only so far from the bustle of life as that he might easily find his +way back when solitude should grow tedious. His retreat was at first but +slenderly accommodated; yet he soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl +of St. Alban’s, and the Duke of Buckingham, such lease of the queen’s +lands as afforded him an ample income. + +By the lovers of virtue and of wit it will be solicitously asked, if he +now was happy. Let them peruse one of his letters accidentally preserved +by Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of all that may hereafter +pant for solitude. + + “TO DR. THOMAS SPRAT, + + “_Chertsey_, _May_ 21, 1665. + + “The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, with a + defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days. And, two + after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet unable + to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personal fortune here + to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and + have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my + neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; + if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging. Another + misfortune has been, and stranger than all the rest, that you have + broke your word with me and failed to come, even though you told Mr. + Bois that you would. This is what they call _monstri simile_. I do + hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days (though + it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) as to walk about + again. And then, methinks, you and I and the dean might be very + merry upon St. Ann’s Hill. You might very conveniently come hither + the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this in + pain, and can say no more: _verbum sapienti_.” + +He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of solitude; +for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 [28th July], in the +forty-ninth year of his age. + +He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King Charles +pronounced, “That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a better man in +England.” He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; +and this posthumous praise may safely be credited, as it has never been +contradicted by envy or by faction. + +Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to the +narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of civil war were yet +recent, and the minds of either party were easily irritated, was obliged +to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and to leave +curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell cannot, however, now +be known; I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to which my +narration can be considered only as a slender supplement. + +Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead +of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the minds of +men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too +much praised, and too much neglected at another. + +Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of man, +has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different +forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of +writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a +criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some +account. + +The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning +was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, +instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such +verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the +modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by +counting the syllables. + +If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry τéχνη μιμητικὴ, +_an imitative art_, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their +right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have imitated +anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms +of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect. + +Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden +confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne +in wit; but maintains that they surpass him in poetry. + +If wit be well described by Pope, as being “that which has been often +thought, but was never before so well expressed,” they certainly never +attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular in +their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope’s account +of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural +dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of +language. + +If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be considered as +wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, +upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that which +he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the +metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but +seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the +reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently +by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. + +But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more +rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of _discordia +concors_; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult +resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they +have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by +violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, +comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety +surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, +and though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. + +From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred that +they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. As +they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they +had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to +conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they +never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but +wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings +looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean +deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of +life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of +fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say +what they hoped had been never said before. + +Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; for they +never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once +fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden +astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced +by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always +general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in +descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety +that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, +is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those +writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of +greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. +Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into +fragments; and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and +laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, +than he who dissects a sunbeam with a prism can exhibit the wide +effulgence of a summer noon. + +What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to supply by +hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they left not only reason +but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused +magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be +imagined. + +Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; if +they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise +sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceits were far +fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it +was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a +metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions +copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by +traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and +volubility of syllables. + +In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised +either by recollection or inquiry; something already learned is to be +retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom +elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not +always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are +employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has +thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found +buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know +their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity and +polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety +though less copiousness of sentiment. + +This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his +followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very +extensive and various knowledge, and by Jonson, whose manner resembled +that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his +sentiments. + +When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than +time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any +remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, +Clieveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by +improving the harmony of our members. Milton tried the metaphysic style +only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and +excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and more music. +Suckling neither improved versification nor abounded in conceits. The +fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach +it, and Milton disdained it. + +Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have +therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this +species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their +admirers) was eminently distinguished. + +As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired +than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of +learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus, +Cowley on Knowledge: + + The sacred tree ’midst the fair orchard grew; + The phœnix truth did on it rest, + And built his perfumed nest, + That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show. + Each leaf did learned notions give, + And the apples were demonstrative; + So clear their colour and divine, + The very shads they cast did other lights outshine. + +On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age: + + Love was with thy life entwined, + Close as heat with fire is join’d; + A powerful brand prescribed the date + Of thine, like Meleager’s fate. + Th’ antiperistasis of age + More enflam’d thy amorous rage. + +In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion +concerning manna: + + Variety I ask not: give me one + To live perpetually upon. + The person Love does to us fit, + Like manna, has the taste of all in it. + +Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses: + + In everything there naturally grows + A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, + If ’twere not injured by extrinsic blows: + Your youth and beauty are this balm in you. + But you, of learning and religion, + And virtue and such ingredients, have made + A mithridate, whose operation + Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. + +Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have +something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant: + + This twilight of two years, not past nor next, + Some emblem is of me, or I of this, + Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, + Whose what and where in disputation is, + If I should call me anything, should miss. + I sum the years and me, and find me not + Debtor to th’ old, nor creditor to th’ new. + That cannot say, my thanks I have forget, + Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true + This bravery is, since these times show’d me you.—DONNE. + +Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne’s reflection upon man as a +microcosm: + + If men be worlds, there is in every one + Something to answer in some proportion; + All the world’s riches; and in good men, this + Virtue, our form’s form, and our soul’s soul, is + +Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, +all their books are full. + +To a lady, who wrote posies for rings: + + They, who above do various circles find, + Say, like a ring, th’ equator Heaven does bind + When Heaven shall be adorned by thee, + (Which then more Heaven than ’tis will be) + ’Tis thou must write the poesy there, + For it wanteth one as yet, + Then the sun pass through’t twice a year, + The sun, which is esteem’d the god of wit.—COWLEY. + +The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy are +by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love: + + Five years ago (says story) I loved you, + For which you call me most inconstant now; + Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; + For I am not the same that I was then: + No flesh is now the same ’twas then in me, + And that my mind is changed yourself may see. + The same thoughts to retain still, and intents + Were more inconstant far; for accidents + Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, + If from one subject they t’ another move; + My members then the father members were, + From whence these take their birth, which now are here + If then this body love what th’ other did, + ’Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. + +The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to +travels through different countries: + + Hast thou not found each woman’s breast + (The land where thou hast travelled) + Either by savages possest, + Or wild, and uninhabited? + What joy could’st take, or what repose, + In countries so uncivilis’d as those? + Lust, the scorching dog-star, here + Rages with immoderate heat; + Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear, + In others makes the cold too great. + And where these are temperate known, + The soil’s all barren sand, or rocky stone.—COWLEY. + +A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt: + + The fate of Egypt I sustain, + And never feel the dew of rain, + From clouds which in the head appear; + But all my too-much moisture ewe + To overflowings of the heart below.—COWLEY. + +The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury +and rites of sacrifice: + + And yet this death of mine, I fear, + Will ominous to her appear: + When, sound in every other part, + Her sacrifice is found without an heart. + For the last tempest of my death + Shall sigh out that too, with my breath. + +That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the +different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover: + + Th’ ungovern’d parts no correspondence knew; + An artless war from thwarting motions grew; + Till they to number and fixed rules were brought. + Water and air he for the tenor chose, + Earth made the base; the treble flame arose.—COWLEY. + +The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has +extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they +may be read again: + + On a round ball + A workman, that hath copies by, can lay + An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, + And quickly make that which was nothing, all. + So doth each tear, + Which thee doth wear, + A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, + Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow + This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. + +On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out “Confusion +worse confounded.” + + Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here, + She gives the best light to his sphere, + Or each is both, and all, and so, + They unto one another nothing owe.—DONNE. + +Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? + + Though God be our true glass through which we see + All, since the being of all things is He, + Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive + Things in proportion fit, by perspective + Deeds of good men; for by their living here, + Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. + +Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote +ideas could be brought together? + + Since ’tis my doom, love’s undershrieve, + Why this reprieve? + Why doth my she advowson fly + Incumbency? + To sell thyself dust thou intend + By candles end, + And hold the contract thus in doubt, + Life’s taper out? + Think but how soon the market fails, + Your sex lives faster than the males; + And if to measure age’s span, + The sober Julian were th’ account of man, + Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.—CLEVELAND. + +Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples: + + By every wind that comes this way, + Send me at least a sigh or two, + Such and so many I’ll repay + As shall themselves make winds to get to you.—COWLEY. + + In tears I’ll waste these eyes, + By love so vainly fed: + So lust of old the deluge punished.—COWLEY. + + All arm’d in brass, the richest dress of war, + (A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar. + The sun himself started with sudden fright, + To see his beams return so dismal bright.—COWLEY. + +A universal consternation: + + His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws + Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about, + Lashing his angry tail and roaring out. + Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; + Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; + Silence and horror fill the place around; + Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound.—COWLEY. + +Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. + +Of his mistress bathing: + + The fish around her crowded, as they do + To the false light that treacherous fishers show, + And all with as much ease might taken be, + As she at first took me; + For ne’er did light so clear + Among the waves appear, + Though every night the sun himself set there.—COWLEY. + +The poetical effect of a lover’s name upon glass: + + My name engraved herein + Both contribute my firmness to this glass: + Which, ever since that charm, hath been + As hard as that which graved it was.—DONNE. + +Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an inconstant +woman: + + He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, + And no breath stirring hears, + In the clear heaven of thy brow + No smallest cloud appears. + He sees thee gentle, fair and gay, + And trusts the faithless April of thy May.—COWLEY. + +Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire: + + Nothing yet in thee is seen, + But when a genial heat warms thee within, + A new-born wood of various lines there grows; + Hers buds an L, and there a B, + Here sprouts a V, and there a T, + And all the flourishing letters stand in rows.—COWLEY. + +As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their +allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; whether they +compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. + +Physic and chirurgery for a lover: + + Gently, ah gently, madam, touch + The wound, which you yourself have made; + That pain must needs be very much + Which makes me of your hand afraid. + Cordials of pity give me now, + For I too weak of purgings grow.—COWLEY. + +The world and a clock + + Mahol th’ inferior world’s fantastic face + Through all the turns of matter’s maze did trace; + Great Nature’s well-set clock in pieces took; + On all the springs and smallest wheels did look + Of life and motion, and with equal art + Made up the whole again of every part.—COWLEY. + +A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want its +due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the sun: + + The moderate value of our guiltless ore + Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore; + Yet why should hallow’d vestal’s sacred shrine + Deserve more honour than a flaming mine? + These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, + Than a few embers, for a deity. + Had he our pits, the Persian would admire + No sun, but warm’s devotion at our fire: + He’d leave the trotting whipster, and prefer + Our profound Vulcan ’bove that waggoner. + For wants he heat, or light? or would have store + Of both? ’tis here: and what can suns give more? + Nay, what’s the sun but, in a different name, + A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame? + Then let this truth reciprocally run, + The sun’s heaven’s coalery, and coals our sun. + +Death, a voyage: + + No family + E’er rigg’d a soul for Heaven’s discovery, + With whom more venturers might boldly dare + Venture their stakes with him in joy to share.—DONNE. + +Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as +no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding. + +A lover neither dead nor alive: + + Then down I laid my head + Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, + And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled. + + Ah, sottish soul, said I, + When back to its cage again I saw it fly; + Fool to resume her broken chain, + And row her galley here again! + Fool, to that body to return + Where it condemned and destined is to burn! + Once dead, how can it be, + Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, + That thou should’st come to live it o’er again in me?—COWLEY. + +A lover’s heart, a hand grenado: + + Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come + Into the self same room; + ’Twill tear and blow up all within, + Like a grenade shot into a magazine. + Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts, + Of both our broken hearts; + Shalt out of both one new one make; + From hers th’ allay, from mine the metal take.—COWLEY. + +The poetical propagation of light: + + The prince’s favour is diffused o’er all, + From which all fortunes names, and natures fall: + Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride’s bright eyes, + At every glance a constellation flies, + And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent + In light and power, the all-ey’d firmament: + First her eye kindles other ladies’ eyes, + Then from their beams their jewels’ lustres rise; + And from their jewels torches do take fire, + And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.—DONNE. + +They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of +dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often +gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their +thoughts. + +That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by Cowley +thus expressed: + + Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand + Than woman can be placed by Nature’s hand; + And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be, + To change thee as thou’rt there, for very thee. + +That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne: + + In none but us are such mix’d engines found, + As hands of double office; for the ground + We till with them; and them to heaven we raise + Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, + Doth but one half, that’s none. + +By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is +thus illustrated: + + That which I should have begun + In my youth’s morning, now late must be done; + And I, as giddy travellers must do, + Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost + Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post. + +All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is +comprehended by Donne in the following lines: + + Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie + After enabled but to suck and cry. + Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn, + A province pack’d up in two yards of skin, + And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage + Of sicknesses or their true mother, age. + But think that death hath now enfranchised thee; + Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty; + Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown + In pieces, and the bullet is his own, + And freely flies: this to thy soul allow, + Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now. + +They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises +beauty: + + Thou tyrant which leav’st no man free! + Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! + Thou murtherer, which has kill’d, and devil, which would’st damn me! + +Thus he addresses his mistress: + + Thou who, in many a propriety, + So truly art the sun to me, + Add one more likeness, which I’m sure you can, + And let me and my sun beget a man. + +Thus he represents the meditations of a lover: + + Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been + So much as of original sin, + Such charms thy beauty wears, as might + Desires in dying confest saints excite. + Thou with strange adultery + Dost in each breast a brothel keep; + Awake all men do lust for thee, + And some enjoy thee when they sleep. + +The true taste of tears: + + Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, + And take my tears, which are love’s wine, + And try your mistress’ tears at home; + For all are false, that taste not just like mine.—DONNE. + +This is yet more indelicate: + + As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, + As that which from chas’d musk-cat’s pores doth trill, + As th’ almighty balm of th’ early east; + Such are the sweet drops of my mistress’ breast. + And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, + They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets: + Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles.—DONNE. + +Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be +pathetic: + + As men in hell are from diseases free, + So from all other ills am I, + Free from their known formality: + But all pains eminently lie in thee.—COWLEY. + +They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from which +they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were +popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, +because they supply commodious allusions. + + It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke: + In vain it something would have spoke; + The love within too strong for’t was, + Like poison put into a Venice-glass.—COWLEY. + +In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for +conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to +adorn. Dryden’s Night is well known; Donne’s is as follows: + + Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest: + Time’s dead low-water; when all minds divest + To-morrow’s business; when the labourers have + Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, + Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this; + Now when the client, whose last hearing is + To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man, + Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the + Again by death, although sad watch he keep; + Doth practise dying by a little sleep: + Thou at this midnight seest me. + +It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are upon +common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle; yet, where +scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and +acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shows +an unequalled fertility of invention: + + Hops, whose weak being mind is, + Alike if it succeed and if it miss; + Whom good or ill does equally confound, + And both the horns of fate’s dilemma wound; + Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite, + Both at full noon and perfect night! + The stars have not a possibility + Of blessing thee; + If things then from their end we happy call + ’Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. + Hope, thou bold tester of delight, + Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour’st it quite! + Thou bring’st us an estate, yet leav’st us poor + By clogging it with legacies before! + The joys, which we entire should wed, + Come deflowr’d virgins to our bed; + Good fortunes without gain imported be, + Such mighty custom’s paid to thee: + For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste + If it take air before its spirits waste. + +To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that +stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether +absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim: + + Our two souls, therefore, which are one, + Though I must go, endure not yet + A breach, but an expansion, + Like gold to airy thinness beat. + If they be two, they are two so + As stiff twin compasses are two; + Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show + To move, but doth if th’ other do. + And, though it in the centre sit, + Yet, when the other far doth roam, + It leans and hearkens after it, + And grows erect as that comes home. + Such wilt thou be to me, who must + Like th’ other foot obliquely run. + Thy firmness makes my circle just, + And makes me end where I begun.—DONNE. + +In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or +vicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of +something new and strange; and that the writers fail to give delight, by +their desire of exciting admiration. + +Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style +and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine +particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race, +and undoubtedly the best. + +His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, written some +as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they were called +forth by different occasions; with great variety of style and sentiment, +from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an assemblage of +diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose +the best, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of +criticism. I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded many +readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite odes, +which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom. I will, +however, venture to recommend Cowley’s first piece, which ought to be +inscribed “To my Muse,” for want of which the second couplet is without +reference. When the title is added, there wills till remain a defect; +for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make +it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names; which are +therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the present, but hardly +appropriated. + +The “Ode on Wit” is almost without a rival. It was about the time of +Cowley that _wit_, which had been till then used for _intellection_, in +contradistinction to _will_, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it +now bears. + +Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, +none will easily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley +condemns exuberance of wit:— + + Yet ’tis not to adorn and gild each part, + That shows more cost than art. + Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; + Rather than all things wit, let none be there. + Several lights will not be seen, + If there be nothing else between. + Men doubt, because they stand so thick i’ th’ sky, + If those be stars which paint the galaxy. + +In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to +praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley’s compositions, some +striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His “Elegy on Sir +Henry Wotton” is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is easy and +natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of +Alexander, is elegant and forcible. + +It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his encomiastic +poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes. + +In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little +passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a studious +privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called +forth to action can display. He knew how to distinguish, and how to +commend, the qualities of his companion; but, when he wishes to make us +weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining how +his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the +odd fate of this thought to be the worse for being true. The bay-leaf +crackles remarkably as it burns; as therefore this property was not +assigned it by chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently at ease that +could attend to such minuteness of physiology. But the power of Cowley +is not so much to move the affections, as to exercise the understanding. + +The “Chronicle” is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of +fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a +succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to expect +except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his +volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic +mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the +politician, and the critic, mingle their influence even in this airy +frolic of genius. To such a performance Suckling could have brought the +gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, +but not the gaiety. + +The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily +concluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived and +happily expressed. Cowley’s critical abilities have not been +sufficiently observed: the few decisions and remarks, which his prefaces +and his notes on the “Davideis” supply, were at that time accessions to +English literature, and show such skill as raises our wish for more +examples. + +The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the +familiar descending to the burlesque. + +His two metrical disquisitions _for_ and _against_ Reason are no mean +specimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against knowledge produce +little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the human +faculties, Reason has its proper task assigned it; that of judging, not +of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses +_for_ Reason is a passage which Bentley, in the only English verses which +he is known to have written, seems to have copied, though with the +inferiority of an imitator. + + The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine + With thousand lights of truth divine, + So numberless the stars, that to our eye + It makes all but one galaxy. + Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas + So vast and dangerous as these, + Our course by stars above we cannot know + Without the compass too below. + +After this says Bentley: + + Who travels in religious jars, + Truth mix’d with error, shade with rays + Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars, + In ocean wide or sinks or strays. + +Cowley seems to have had what Milton is believed to have wanted, the +skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore +closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw, which apparently +excel all that have gone before them, and in which there are beauties +which common authors may justly think not only above their attainment, +but above their ambition. + +To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrastical +translations of some little poems, which pass, however justly, under the +name of Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated to festivity and gaiety, in +which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the +enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather a pleasing than a +faithful representation, having retained their sprightliness, but lost +their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has +admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly +made more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly +declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom +courtesy and ignorance are content to style the learned. + +These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than any +other of Cowley’s works. The diction shows nothing of the mould of time, +and the sentiments are at no great distance from our present habitudes of +thought. Real mirth must always be natural, and nature is uniform. Men +have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed the +same way. + +Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, and the +familiar part of language continues long the same; the dialogue of comedy +when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from +age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices of inversion by which the +established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new +words, or new meanings of words, are introduced, is practised, not by +those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired. + +The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasure which +they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more +than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar +and the festive. + +The next class of his poems is called “The Mistress,” of which it is not +necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or censure. They +have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the same proportion. +They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of +learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that the plenitude of the +writer’s knowledge flows in upon his page, so that the reader is commonly +surprised into some improvement. But, considered as the verses of a +lover, no man that has ever loved will much commend them. They are +neither courtly nor pathetic, have neither gallantry nor fondness. His +praises are too far sought, and too hyperbolical, either to express love, +or to excite it; every stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with +wounds and death, with mingled souls and with broken hearts. + +The principal artifice by which “The Mistress” is filled with conceits is +very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other +poets, expressed metaphorically by flame and fire; and that which is true +of real fire is said of love, or figurative fire, the same word in the +same sentence retaining both significations. Thus “observing the cold +regard of his mistress’s eyes, and at the same time their power of +producing love in him, he considers them as burning-glasses made of ice. +Finding himself able to live in the greatest extremities of love, he +concludes the torrid zone to be habitable. Upon the dying of a tree, on +which he had cut his loves, he observes that his flames had burnt up and +withered the tree.” + +These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists of +thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and false in the other. +Addison’s representation is sufficiently indulgent: that confusion of +images may entertain for a moment; but being unnatural it soon grows +wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as if he had invented it; +but, not to mention the ancients, he might have found it full-blown in +modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro: + + Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis! + Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor: + Sum Nilus, sumque Ætna simul; restringite flammas + O lacrimæ, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas. + +One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as having +published a book of profane and lascivious verses. From the charge of +profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, which seems to have been +eminently virtuous, and the general tendency of his opinions, which +discover no irreverence of religion, must defend him; but that the +accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the perusal of his works will +sufficiently evince. + +Cowley’s “Mistress” has no power of seduction: she “plays round the head, +but comes not at the heart.” Her beauty and absence, her kindness and +cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce no correspondence of +emotion. His poetical accounts of the virtues of plants, and colours of +flowers, is not perused with more sluggish frigidity. The compositions +are such as might have been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire +by a philosophical rhymer who had only heard of another sex; for they +turn the mind only on the writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but +as the subject for his task, we sometimes esteem as learned, and +sometimes despise as trifling, always admire as ingenious, and always +condemn as unnatural. + +The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species of composition, +which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in his list of the lost +inventions of antiquity, and which he has made a bold and vigorous +attempt to recover. + +The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympic and Nemæan Ode is by +himself sufficiently explained. His endeavour was, not to show precisely +what Pindar spoke, but his manner of speaking. He was therefore not at +all restrained to his expressions, nor much to his sentiments; nothing +was required of him, but not to write as Pindar would not have written. + +Of the Olympic Ode the beginning is, I think, above the original in +elegance, and the conclusion below it in strength. The connection is +supplied with great perspicuity; and the thoughts, which to a reader of +less skill seem thrown together by chance, are concatenated without any +abruption. Though the English ode cannot be called a translation, it may +be very properly consulted as a commentary. + +The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally preserved. The +following pretty lines are not such as his “deep mouth” was used to pour: + + Great Rhea’s son, + If in Olympus’ top, where thou + Sitt’st to behold thy sacred show, + If in Alpheus’ silver flight, + If in my verse thou take delight, + My verse, great Rhea’s son, which is + Lofty as that and smooth as this. + +In the Nemæan Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to Pindar, observe, +whatever is said of the original new moon, her tender forehead and her +horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, who has many other plays of words +and fancy unsuitable to the original, as, + + The table, free for ev’ry guest, + No doubt will thee admit, + And feast more upon thee, than thou on it + +He sometimes extends his author’s thoughts without improving them. In +the Olympionic an oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cowley spends +three lines in swearing by the Castalian Stream. We are told of Theron’s +bounty, with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley thus enlarges in +rhyming prose: + + But in this thankless world the giver + Is envied even by the receiver; + ’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion + Rather to hide than own the obligation: + Nay, ’tis much worse than so; + It now an artifice does grow + Wrongs and injuries to do, + Lest men should think we owe. + +It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in learning and wit, +when he was dealing out such minute morality in such feeble diction, +could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitated Pindar. + +In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, he +sometimes rises to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if some deficiencies of +language be forgiven, his strains are such as those of the Theban bard +were to his contemporaries: + + Begin the song, and strike the living lyre: + Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire, + All hand in hand do decently advance, + And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance; + While the dance lasts, how long soe’er it be, + My music’s voice shall bear it company; + Till all gentle notes be drown’d + In the last trumpet’s dreadful sound. + +After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to find the poet conclude with +lines like these: + + But stop, my Muse— + Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, + Which does to rage begin— + —’Tis an unruly and hard-mouth’d horse— + ’Twill no unskilful touch endure, + But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. + +The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphysical +race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last ramifications, by +which he loses the grandeur of generality; for of the greatest things the +parts are little; what is little can be but pretty, and by claiming +dignity becomes ridiculous. Thus all the power of description is +destroyed by a scrupulous enumeration, and the force of metaphors is +lost, when the mind by the mention of particulars is turned more upon the +original than the secondary sense, more upon that from which the +illustration is drawn than that to which it is applied. + +Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the “Muse,” +who goes to “take the air” in an intellectual chariot, to which he +harnesses Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and Invention; +how he distinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory could properly +contribute to Motion, he has not explained: we are however content to +suppose that he could have justified his own fiction, and wish to see the +Muse begin her career; but there is yet more to be done. + + Let the _postillion_ Nature mount, and let + The _coachman_ Art be set; + And let the airy _footmen_, running all beside, + Make a long row of goodly pride; + Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences, + In a well-worded dress, + And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies, + In all their gaudy _liveries_. + +Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I +cannot refuse myself the four next lines: + + Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, + And bid it to put on; + For long though cheerful is the way, + And life, alas! allows but one ill winter’s day. + +In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her +prescience, or, in poetical language, the foresight of events hatching in +futurity; but, once having an egg in his mind, he cannot forbear to show +us that he knows what an egg contains: + + Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, + And there with piercing eye + Through the firm shell and the thick white float spy + Years to come a-forming lie, + Close in their sacred fecundine asleep. + +The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically +expressed by Casimir, a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of +Cowley: + + Omnibus mundi Dominator horis + Aptat urgendas per inane pennas, + Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros + Crescit in annos. + +Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, by a kind +of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require +still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea “new dyes the +water’s name;” and England, during the Civil War, was “Albion no more, +nor to be named from white.” It is surely by some fascination not easily +surmounted, that a writer, professing to revive “the noblest and highest +writing in verse,” makes this address to the new year: + + Nay, if thou lov’st me, gentle year, + Let not so much as love be there, + Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year, + Although I fear + There’s of this caution little need, + Yet, gentle year, take heed + How thou dost make + Such a mistake; + Such love I mean alone + As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown: + For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, + I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it. + +The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior— + + Ye critics, say, + How poor to this was Pindar’s style! + +Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemæan songs what +Antiquity what disposed them to expect, will at least see that they are +ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determine that, if this +be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival. + +To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley’s sentiments must be added +the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the liberty of +using in any place a verse of any length, from two syllables to twelve. +The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little harmony to a +modern ear; yet by examining the syllables we perceive them to be +regular, and have reason enough for supposing that the ancient audiences +were delighted with the sound. The imitator ought therefore to have +adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to have +preserved a constant return of the same numbers, and to have supplied +smoothness of transition and continuity of thought. + +It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the “irregularity of numbers is the very +thing” which makes “that kind of poesy fit for all manner of subjects.” +But he should have remembered, that what is fit for everything can fit +nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arises from the known measure +of the lines, and uniform structure of the stanzas, by which the voice is +regulated, and the memory relieved. + +If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, “the highest and noblest +kind of writing in verse,” it can be adapted only to high and noble +subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the critic, +or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of writing in verse +which, according to Sprat, “is chiefly to be preferred for its near +affinity to prose.” + +This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the deficiencies of +the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately +overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the +pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like +Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to +break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all +kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the “Musæ +Anglicanæ.” Pindarism prevailed about half a century; but at last died +gradually away, and other imitations supply its place. + +The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical +reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with unabated censure; +and surely though the mode of their composition be erroneous, yet many +parts deserve at least that admiration which is due to great +comprehension of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts +are often new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is +disgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language +gives the noblest conceptions the appearance of a fabric august in the +plan, but mean in the materials. Yet surely those verses are not without +a just claim to praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no man +but Cowley could have written them. + +The “Davideis” now remains to be considered; a poem which the author +designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no scruple +of declaring, because the “Æneid” had that number; but he had leisure or +perseverance only to write the third part. Epic poems have been left +unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and Cowley. That we have not the +whole “Davideis” is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this +undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at least, confessed to have miscarried. +There are not many examples of so great a work produced by an author +generally read, and generally praised, that has crept through a century +with so little regard. Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other +works. Of the “Davideis” no mention is made; it never appears in books, +nor emerges in conversation. By the “Spectator” it has been once quoted; +by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, in “Mac Flecknoe,” it +has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice from its +publication till now in the whole succession of English literature. + +Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will be found +partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in the performance of the +work. + +Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence, and an +imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed to +acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentic narrative, and +to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as suppresses +curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with him when +he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that +which is already sufficient for the purposes of religion seems not only +useless, but in some degree profane. + +Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of Divine Power +are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle of creation, +however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffusion +of language: “He spake the word, and they were made.” + +We are told that Saul “was troubled with an evil spirit;” from this +Cowley takes an opportunity of describing hell, and telling the history +of Lucifer, who was, he says, + + Once general of a gilded host of sprites, + Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights; + But down like lightning, which him struck, he came + And roar’d at his first plunge into the flame. + +Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in which there +is something of heathenism, and therefore of impropriety; and, to give +efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing his breast with his long +tail: Envy, after a pause, steps out, and among other declarations of her +zeal utters these lines: + + Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, + And thunder echo to the trembling sky; + Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, + As shall the fire’s proud element affright, + Th’ old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way, + Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. + The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace, + And stubborn poles change their allotted place. + Heaven’s gilded troops shall flutter here and there, + Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere. + +Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an allegorical +being. + +It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, that fancy and +fiction lose their effect; the whole system of life, while the theocracy +was yet visible, has an appearance so different from all other scenes of +human action, that the reader of the sacred volume habitually considers +it as the peculiar mode of existence of a distinct species of mankind, +that lived and acted with manners uncommunicable; so that it is difficult +even for imagination to place us in the state of them whose story is +related, and by consequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, +nor can the attention be often interested in anything that befalls them. + +To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception of poetical +embellishments, the writer brought little that could reconcile +impatience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be more disgusting than a +narrative spangled with conceits; and conceits are all that the +“Davideis” supplies. + +One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or the power +of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences instead of +images, and shows not what may be supposed to have been seen, but what +thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgil describes the stone +which Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and +weight: + + Saxum circumspicit ingens, + Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat + Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. + +Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother, + + I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant + At once his murther and his monument. + +Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says, + + A sword so great, that it was only fit + To cut off his great head that came with it. + +Other poets describe Death by some of its common appearances. Cowley +says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real or fabulous, + + ’Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade, + And open’d wide those secret vessels where + Life’s light goes out, when first they let in air. + +But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionary succession +of kings: + + Joas at first does bright and glorious show, + In life’s fresh morn his fame does early crow. + +Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance, + + His forces seem’d no army, but a crowd + Heartless, unarm’d, disorderly, and loud, + +he gives them a fit of the ague. + +The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he offends by +exaggeration as much as by diminution: + + The king was placed alone, and o’er his head + A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. + +Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit: + + Where the sun’s fruitful beams give metals birth, + Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, + Gold, which alone more influence has than he. + +In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion of +philosophy: + + Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, + Why does that twining plant the oak embrace; + The oak for courtship most of all unfit, + And rough as are the winds that fight with it? + +His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses +expectation: + + Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you’re in, + The story of your gallant friend begin. + +In a simile descriptive of the morning: + + As glimmering stars just at th’ approach of day, + Cashier’d by troops, at last all drop away. + +The dress of Gabriel deserves attention: + + He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, + That e’er the mid-day sun pierced through with light; + Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, + Wash’d from the morning beauties’ deepest red: + An harmless flatt’ring meteor shone for hair, + And fell adown his shoulders with loose care; + He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, + Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes; + This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, + Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall; + Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade, + The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made. + +This is a just specimen of Cowley’s imagery; what might in general +expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by +branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the +softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and +been dismissed to improve the idea in our different proportions of +conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where +Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then +his scarf, and related it in the terms of the mercer and tailor. + +Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always conceived with his +natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued +till it is tedious: + + I’ th’ library a few choice authors stood, + Yet ’twas well stored, for that small store was good; + Writing, man’s spiritual physic, was not then + Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. + Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew; + The common prostitute she lately grew, + And with the spurious brood loads now the press; + Laborious effects of idleness. + +As the “Davideis” affords only four books, though intended to consist of +twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism as Epic poems commonly +supply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly shown by the +third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of +characters either not yet introduced, or shown but upon few occasions, +the full extent and the nice discriminations cannot be ascertained. The +fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the “Odyssey” than the +“Iliad;” and many artifices of diversification are employed, with the +skill of a man acquainted with the beet models. The past is recalled by +narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so +lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could +fill eight books more without practising again the same modes of +disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing +incumbrance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost more +instruction than delight. If the continuation of the “Davideis” can be +missed, it is for the learning that had been diffused over it, and the +notes in which it had been explained. + +Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by improper +decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives Saul +both the body and mind of a hero: + + His way once chose, he forward threat outright. + Nor turned aside for danger or delight. + +And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michal are +very justly conceived and strongly painted. + +Rymer has declared the “Davideis” superior to the “Jerusalem” of Tasso, +“which,” says he, “the poet, with all his care, has not totally purged +from pedantry.” If by pedantry is meant that minute knowledge which is +derived from particular sciences and studies, in opposition to the +general notions supplied by a wide survey of life and nature, Cowley +certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, far more frequently than Tasso. +I know not, indeed, why they should be compared; for the resemblance of +Cowley’s work to Tasso’s is only that they both exhibit the agency of +celestial and infernal spirits, in which, however, they differ widely; +for Cowley supposes them commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; +Tasso represents them as promoting or obstructing events by external +agency. + +Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember only the +description of Heaven, in which the different manner of the two writers +is sufficiently discernible. Cowley’s is scarcely description, unless it +be possible to describe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is +not in heaven. Tasso endeavours to represent the splendours and +pleasures of the regions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and Cowley +sentiments. It happens, however, that Tasso’s description affords some +reason for Rymer’s censure. He says of the Supreme Being: + + Hà sotto i piedi e fato e la natura + Ministri humili, e’l moto, e ch’il misura. + +The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be found in +any other stanza of the poem. + +In the perusal of the “Davideis,” as of all Cowley’s works, we find wit +and learning unprofitably squandered. Attention has no relief; the +affections are never moved; we are sometimes surprised, but never +delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still, +however, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by nature, and +replenished by study. + +In the general review of Cowley’s poetry it will be found that he wrote +with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection; with much +thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetic, and rarely +sublime; but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or +profound. + +It is said by Denham in his elegy, + + To him no author was unknown, + Yet what he writ was all his own. + +This wide position requires less limitation, when it is affirmed of +Cowley, than perhaps of any other poet.—He read much, and yet borrowed +little. + +His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappily adopted +that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and, +not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued to +delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself +with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright +and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows. + +He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled excellence. Clarendon +represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him; +and Milton is said to have declared that the three greatest English poets +were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley. + +His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments were his own. +Upon every subject he thought for himself; and such was his copiousness +of knowledge, that something at once remote and applicable rushed into +his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea +merely because another had used it: his known wealth was so great that be +might have borrowed without loss of credit, in his elegy on Sir Henry +Wotton, the last lines have such resemblance to the noble epigram of +Grotius on the death of Scaliger, that I cannot but think them copied +from it, though they are copied by no servile hand. + +One passage in his “Mistress” is so apparently borrowed from Donne, that +he probably would not have written it had it not mingled with his own +thoughts, so as that he did not perceive himself taking it from another: + + Although I think thou never found wilt be, + Yet I’m resolved to search for thee; + The search itself rewards the pains. + So, though the chymic his great secret miss + (For neither it in Art or Nature is), + Yet things well worth his toil he gains: + And does his charge and labour pay + With good unsought experiments by the way.—COWLEY. + + Some that have deeper digg’d Love’s mine than I, + Say, where his centric happiness doth lie: + I have loved, and got, and told; + But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, + I should not find that hidden mystery; + Oh, ’tis imposture all! + And as no chymic yet th’ elixir got, + But glorifies his pregnant pot, + If by the way to him befal + Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, + So lovers dream a rich and long delight, + But get a winter-seeming summer’s night. + +Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest esteem. + +It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his +obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have found no +traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to have been his +purpose.; and from Donne ~he may have learnt that familiarity with +religious images, and that light allusion to sacred things, by which +readers far short of sanctity are frequently offended; and which would +not be borne in the present age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, +is more delicate. + +Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will recompense +him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed from him. He says of +Goliath: + + His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, + Which Nature meant some tall ship’s mast should be. + +Milton of Satan: + + His spear, to equal which the tallest pine + Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast + Of some great ammiral, were but a wand, + He walked with. + +His diction was in his own time censured as negligent. He seems not to +have known, or not to have considered, that words being arbitrary must +owe their power to association, and have the influence, and that only, +which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought; and as +the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured +by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rustics or mechanics; +so the most heroic sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most +splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words +used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, +and contaminated by inelegant applications. + +Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an +intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold +which defies destruction; but gold may be so concealed in baser matter, +that only a chemist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined +and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and +both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their +extraction. + +The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to +the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, a further +knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes to benefit by +pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something +sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise. What is +perceived by slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness of +improvement, but will never strike with the sense of pleasure. + +Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without +care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of phrase: +he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate; as his endeavours were +rather to impress sentences upon the understanding, than images on the +fancy: he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar +propriety of nice adaptation. + +It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather than the +care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is less familiar +than that of his slightest writings. He has given not the same numbers, +but the same diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempestuous Pindar. + +His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and if what +he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only when they are +ill-read, the art of reading them is at present lost; for they are +commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed many noble lines, such as +the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts +sometimes swelled his verse to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but +his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he sinks willingly down +to his general carelessness, and avoids with very little care either +meanness or asperity. + +His contractions are often rugged and harsh: + + One flings a mountain, and its rivers too + Torn up with ’t. + +His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the like +unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the energy of +the line. + +His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and +unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not slide +easily into the latter. + +The words “do” and “did,” which so much degrade in present estimation the +line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley little censured or +avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad an effect, at least to +our ears, will appear by a passage, in which every reader will lament to +see just and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance of +language: + + Where honour or where conscience _does_ not bind + No other law shall shackle me; + Slave to myself I ne’er will be; + Nor shall my future actions be confined + By my own present mind. + Who by resolves and vows engaged _does_ stand + For days, that yet belong to fate, + _Does_ like an unthrift mortgage his estate, + Before it falls into his hand; + The bondman of the cloister so, + All that he _does_ receive _does_ always owe. + And still as Time comes in, it goes away, + Not to enjoy, but debts to pay! + Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell! + Which his hour’s work as well as hours _does_ tell: + Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. + +His heroic lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they are +sometimes sweet and sonorous. + +He says of the Messiah, + + Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound, + _And reach to worlds that must not yet be found_. + +In another place, of David, + + Yet bid him go securely, when he sends; + ’_Tis Saul that is his foe_, _and we his friends_. + _The man who has his God_, _no aid can lack_; + _And we who bid him go_, _will bring him back_. + +Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved and +scientific versification; of which it will be best to give his own +account subjoined to this line: + + Nor can the glory contain itself in th’ endless space. + + “I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of + readers, that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, + long, and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the nature + of the thing which it describes, which I would have observed in + divers other places of this poem, that else will pass as very + careless verses: as before, + + _And over-runs the neighb’ring fields with violent course_. + + “In the second book: + + _Down a precipice deep_, _dowse he casts them all_— + + “And, + + _And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care_. + + “In the third, + + _Brass was his helmet_, _his boots brass_, _and o’er_ + _His breast a thick plate strong brass he wore_. + + “In the fourth, + + _Like some fair pine o’er-looking all the ignobler wood_. + + “And, + + _Some from the rocks cast themselves down headlong_. + + “And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. The thing is, + that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, as that, + out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves may be + represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind + themselves to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught + I can find. The Latins (_qui musas colunt severiores_) sometimes did + it; and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples are + innumerable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it is + superfluous to collect them.” + +I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the +representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only +sound and motion. A “boundless” verse, a “headlong” verse, and a verse +of “brass” or of “strong brass,” seem to comprise very incongruous and +unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound of the line +expressing “loose care,” I cannot discover; nor why the “pine” is +“taller” in an Alexandrine than in ten syllables. + +But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of +representative versification, which perhaps no other English line can +equal: + + Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise: + He, who defers this work from day to day, + Does on a river’s bank expecting stay + Till the whole stream that stopp’d him shall be gone, + _Which runs_, _and_, _as it runs_, _for ever shall run on_. + +Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at +pleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables, and from him Dryden +borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He considered +the verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestic, and has therefore +deviated into that measure when he supposes the voice heard of the +Supreme Being. + +The author of the “Davideis” is commended by Dryden for having written it +in couplets, because he discovered that any staff was too lyrical for an +heroic poem; but this seems to have been known before by May and Sandys, +the translators of the “Pharsalia” and the “Metamorphoses.” + +In the “Davideis” are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect by the +author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intended to +complete them; that this opinion is erroneous, may be probably concluded, +because this truncation is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet; because +Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; +because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because all that can be +done by a broken verse, a line intersected by a _cœsura_, and a full +stop, will equally effect. + +Of triplets in his “Davideis” he makes no use, and perhaps did not at +first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changed his +mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell he inserts them +liberally with great happiness. + +After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany them +must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversation, that +no man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, may +be applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his verse and his +prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural, +and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet +obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured; +but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness. + +It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay on the Classics, that Cowley +was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that he has rivalled the +ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. + +It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he brought to +his poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are +embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that he was +the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greater +ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified for +sprightly sallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those who +freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his author at +a distance, walked by his side; and that, if he left versification yet +improvable, he left likewise from time to time such specimens of +excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: WALLER, +MILTON, COWLEY*** + + +******* This file should be named 5098-0.txt or 5098-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/9/5098 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Lives of the English Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley + + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: October 26, 2014 [eBook #5098] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: +WALLER, MILTON, COWLEY*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1891 Cassell and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY.</span></p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<h1>LIVES<br /> +<span class="smcap">of the</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">English Poets</span></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><b>Waller</b> +<b>Milton</b> <b>Cowley</b></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" + src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL & COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">, </span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS & +MELBOURNE</i></span><span class="GutSmall">.</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1891.</span></p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Samuel Johnson</span>, born at Lichfield +in the year 1709, on the 7th of September Old Style, 18th New +Style, was sixty-eight years old when he agreed with the +booksellers to write his “Lives of the English +Poets.” “I am engaged,” he said, +“to write little Lives, and little Prefaces, to a little +edition of the English Poets.” His conscience was +also a little hurt by the fact that the bargain was made on +Easter Eve. In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers +and meditations, was “29 March, Easter Eve, I treated with +booksellers on a bargain, but the time was not long.”</p> +<p>The history of the book as told to Boswell by Edward Dilly, +one of the contracting booksellers, was this. An edition of +Poets printed by the Martins in Edinburgh, and sold by Bell in +London, was regarded by the London publishers as an interference +with the honorary copyright which booksellers then respected +among themselves. They said also that it was inaccurately +printed and its type was small. A few booksellers agreed, +therefore, among themselves to call a meeting of proprietors of +honorary or actual copyright in the various Poets. In Poets +who had died before 1660 they had no trade interest at all. +About forty of the most respectable booksellers in London +accepted the invitation to this meeting. They determined to +proceed immediately with an elegant and uniform edition of Poets +in whose works they were interested, and they deputed three of +their number, William Strahan, Thomas Davies, and Cadell, to wait +on Johnson, asking him to write the series of prefatory Lives, +and name his own terms. Johnson agreed at once, and +suggested as his price two hundred guineas, when, as Malone says, +the booksellers would readily have given him a thousand. He +then contemplated only “little Lives.” His +energetic pleasure in the work expanded his Preface beyond the +limits of the first design; but when it was observed to Johnson +that he was underpaid by the booksellers, his reply was, +“No, sir; it was not that they gave me too little, but that +I gave them too much.” He gave them, in fact, his +masterpiece. His keen interest in Literature as the soul of +life, his sympathetic insight into human nature, enabled him to +put all that was best in himself into these studies of the lives +of men for whom he cared, and of the books that he was glad to +speak his mind about in his own shrewd independent way. +Boswell was somewhat disappointed at finding that the selection +of the Poets in this series would not be Johnson’s, but +that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any Poet the +booksellers pleased. “I asked him,” writes +Boswell, “if he would do this to any dunce’s works, +if they should ask him.” <span +class="smcap">Johnson</span>. “Yes, sir; and +<i>say</i> he was a dunce.”</p> +<p>The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of +Johnson’s intellectual power, appointed also a committee to +engage the best engravers, and another committee to give +directions about paper and printing. They made out at once +a list of the Poets they meant to give, “many of +which,” said Dilly, “are within the time of the Act +of Queen Anne, which Martin and Bell cannot give, as they have no +property in them. The proprietors are almost all the +booksellers in London, of consequence.”</p> +<p>In 1780 the booksellers published, in separate form, four +volumes of Johnson’s “Prefaces, Biographical and +Critical, to the most Eminent of the English Poets.” +The completion followed in 1781. “Sometime in +March,” Johnson writes in that year, “I finished the +Lives of the Poets.” The series of books to which +they actually served as prefaces extended to sixty volumes. +When his work was done, Johnson then being in his seventy-second +year, the booksellers added £100 to the price first +asked. Johnson’s own life was then near its +close. He died on the 13th of December, 1784, aged +seventy-five.</p> +<p>Of the Lives in this collection, Johnson himself liked best +his Life of Cowley, for the thoroughness with which he had +examined in it the style of what he called the metaphysical +Poets. In his Life of Milton, the sense of Milton’s +genius is not less evident than the difference in point of view +which made it difficult for Johnson to know Milton +thoroughly. They know each other now. For Johnson +sought as steadily as Milton to do all as “in his great +Taskmaster’s eye.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p> +<h2>WALLER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Edmund Waller</span> was born on the third +of March, 1605, at Coleshill, in Hertfordshire. His father +was Robert Waller, Esquire, of Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, +whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish Wallers; and +his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden, in the +same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.</p> +<p>His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a +yearly income of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, +rating together the value of money and the customs of life, we +may reckon more than equivalent to ten thousand at the present +time.</p> +<p>He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and +removed afterwards to King’s College, in Cambridge. +He was sent to Parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his +sixteenth year, and frequented the court of James the First, +where he heard a very remarkable conversation, which the writer +of the Life prefixed to his Works, who seems to have been well +informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, has +delivered as indubitably certain:</p> +<p>“He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. +Neale, Bishop of Durham, standing behind his Majesty’s +chair; and there happened something extraordinary,” +continues this writer, “in the conversation those prelates +had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. +His Majesty asked the bishops, ‘My Lords, cannot I take my +subject’s money, when I want it, without all this formality +of Parliament?’ The Bishop of Durham readily +answered, ‘God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the +breath of our nostrils.’ Whereupon the king turned +and said to the Bishop of Winchester, ‘Well, my Lord, what +say you?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the bishop, +‘I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases. The +king answered, ‘No put-offs, my Lord; answer me +presently.’ ‘Then, Sir,’ said he, +‘I think it is lawful for you to take my brother +Neale’s money; for he offers it.’ Mr. Waller +said the company was pleased with this answer, and the wit of it +seemed to affect the king; for a certain lord coming in soon +after, his Majesty cried out, ‘Oh, my lord, they say you +lig with my Lady.’ ‘No, Sir,’ says his +lordship in confusion; ‘but I like her company, because she +has so much wit.’ ‘Why, then,’ says the +king, ‘do you not lig with my Lord of Winchester +there?’”</p> +<p>Waller’s political and poetical life began nearly +together. In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that +appears first in his works, on “The Prince’s Escape +at St. Andero:” a piece which justifies the observation +made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a felicity like +instinct, a style which perhaps will never be obsolete; and that +“were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know +what was wrote at twenty, and what at’ +fourscore.” His versification was, in his first +essay, such as it appears in his last performance. By the +perusal of Fairfax’s translation of Tasso, to which, as +Dryden relates, he confessed himself indebted for the smoothness +of his numbers, and by his own nicety of observation, he had +already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never +afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. +Denham corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground +gradually upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired +by Denham was inherited by Waller.</p> +<p>The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is +supposed by Mr. Fenton to be the “Address to the +Queen,” which he considers as congratulating her arrival, +in Waller’s twentieth year. He is apparently +mistaken; for the mention of the nation’s obligations to +her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written when she had +brought many children. We have therefore no date of any +other poetical production before that which the murder of the +Duke of Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness with which the king +received the news in the chapel deserved indeed to be rescued +from oblivion.</p> +<p>Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates +could have been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses +on the prince’s escape, the prediction of his marriage with +the Princess of France must have been written after the event; in +the other, the promises of the king’s kindness to the +descendants of Buckingham, which could not be properly praised +till it had appeared by its effects, show that time was taken for +revision and improvement. It is not known that they were +published till they appeared long afterwards with other +poems.</p> +<p>Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate +their minds at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he +was by inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by +marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the +interest of the court was employed to obtain for Mr. +Crofts. Having brought him a son, who died young, and a +daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer, of +Oxfordshire, she died in childbed, and left him a widower of +about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself with +another marriage.</p> +<p>Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to +think himself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly +and half-ambitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest +daughter of the Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the +poetry in which Sacharissa is celebrated; the name is derived +from the Latin appellation of “sugar,” and implies, +if it means anything, a spiritless mildness, and dull +good-nature, such as excites rather tenderness and esteem, and +such as, though always treated with kindness, is never honoured +or admired.</p> +<p>Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, +of lofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with +amazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in +vain, to break, and whose presence is “wine” that +“inflames to madness.”</p> +<p>His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no +opportunity of boasting its influence; she was not to be subdued +by the powers of verse, but rejected his addresses, it is said, +with disdain, and drove him away to solace his disappointment +with Amoret or Phillis. She married in 1639 the Earl of +Sunderland, who died at Newbury in the king’s cause; and, +in her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, asked him, when he +would again write such verses upon her; “When you are as +young, Madam,” said he, “and as handsome as you were +then.”</p> +<p>In this part of his life it was that he was known to +Clarendon, among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age +for genius and literature; but known so little to his advantage, +that they who read his character will not much condemn +Sacharissa, that she did not descend from her rank to his +embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit.</p> +<p>The lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon comprised +in wit, qualifications, though they had no power upon her, +recommended him to the scholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly +many beauties of that time, however they might receive his love, +were proud of his praises. Who they were, whom he dignifies +with poetical names, cannot now be known. Amoret, according +to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. Perhaps by +traditions preserved in families more may be discovered.</p> +<p>From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected +that he diverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his +biographers, from his poem on the Whales, think it not improbable +that he visited the Bermudas; but it seems much more likely that +he should amuse himself with forming an imaginary scene, than +that so important an incident, as a visit to America, should have +been left floating in conjectural probability.</p> +<p>From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his +pieces on the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. +Paul’s; to the King on his Navy; the Panegyric on the Queen +Mother; the two poems to the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps +others, of which the time cannot be discovered.</p> +<p>When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him +for an easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of +Bresse, or Breaux. The time of his marriage is not exactly +known. It has not been discovered that his wife was won by +his poetry; nor is anything told of her, but that she brought him +many children. He doubtless praised some whom he would have +been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one whom he would have +been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to +domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; +and many airs and sallies may delight imagination, which he who +flatters them never can approve. There are charms made only +for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a +blaze.</p> +<p>Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him +five sons and eight daughters.</p> +<p>During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as +living among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, +and enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and +liberty of speech and conduct which wealth ought always to +produce. He was, however, considered as the kinsman of +Hampden, and was therefore supposed by the courtiers not to +favour them.</p> +<p>When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that +Waller’s political character had not been mistaken. +The king’s demand of a supply produced one of those noisy +speeches which disaffection and discontent regularly dictate; a +speech filled with hyperbolical complaints of imaginary +grievances: “They,” says he, “who think +themselves already undone, can never apprehend themselves in +danger; and they who have nothing left can never give +freely.” Political truth is equally in danger from +the praises of courtiers, and the exclamations of patriots.</p> +<p>He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that +time of a favourable audience. His topic is such as will +always serve its purpose; an accusation of acting and preaching +only for preferment: and he exhorts the Commons +“carefully” to “provide” for their +“protection against Pulpit Law.”</p> +<p>It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. +Waller has in his speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in +another has copied him, without quoting. +“Religion,” says Waller, “ought to be the first +thing in our purpose and desires; but that which is first in +dignity is not always to precede in order of time; for well-being +supposes a being; and the first impediment which men naturally +endeavour to remove, is the want of those things without which +they cannot subsist. God first assigned unto Adam +maintenance of life, and gave him a title to the rest of the +creatures before he appointed a law to observe.”</p> +<p>“God first assigned Adam,” says Hooker, +“maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to +observe. True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the +first thing in our purpose and desires; but inasmuch as a +righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live virtuously +it is impossible, except we live; therefore the first impediment +which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and want of +things without which we cannot live.”</p> +<p>The speech is vehement; but the great position, that +grievances ought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is +agreeable enough to law and reason: nor was Waller, if his +biographer may be credited, such an enemy to the king, as not to +wish his distresses lightened; for he relates, “that the +king sent particularly to Waller, to second his demand of some +subsidies to pay off the army, and Sir Henry Vane objecting +against first voting a supply, because the king would not accept +unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly +to Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the household, to save his +master from the effects of so bold a falsity; ‘for,’ +he said, ‘I am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend +to know the king’s mind:’ but Sir Thomas durst not +contradict the secretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, +afterwards told Mr. Waller, that his father’s cowardice +ruined the king.”</p> +<p>In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met +Nov. 3, 1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and +was considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently +trusty and acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution +of Judge Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship-money; and +his speech shows that he did not disappoint their +expectations. He was probably the more ardent, as his uncle +Hampden had been particularly engaged in the dispute, and, by a +sentence which seems generally to be thought unconstitutional, +particularly injured.</p> +<p>He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all +their opinions. When the great question, whether Episcopacy +ought to be abolished, was debated, he spoke against the +innovation so coolly, so reasonably, and so firmly, that it is +not without great injury to his name that his speech, which was +as follows, has been hitherto omitted in his works:</p> +<p>“There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had +suffered from the present bishops hath produced these complaints; +and the apprehensions men have of suffering the like, in time to +come, make so many desire the taking away of Episcopacy: but I +conceive it is possible that we may not, now, take a right +measure of the minds of the people by their petitions; for, when +they subscribed them, the bishops were armed with a dangerous +commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and the +like; but now we have disarmed them of that power. These +petitioners lately did look upon Episcopacy as a beast armed with +horns and claws; but now that we have cut and pared them (and +may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into narrower bounds), it +may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they be +still in passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use +and antiquity thereof; and not to comply further with a general +desire, than may stand with a general good.</p> +<p>“We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils +thereof are mingled like water and oil; we have also, in part, +severed them; but I believe you will find, that our laws and the +present government of the Church are mingled like wine and water; +so inseparable, that the abrogation of, at least, a hundred of +our laws is desired in these petitions. I have often heard +a noble answer of the Lords, commended in this House, to a +proposition of like nature, but of less consequence; they gave no +other reason of their refusal but this, ‘<i>Nolumus mutare +Leges Angliæ</i>:’ it was the bishops who so answered +them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this House to +answer the people, now, with a ‘<i>Nolumus +mutare</i>.’</p> +<p>“I see some are moved with a number of hands against the +bishops; which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; +for I look upon Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, +if it be taken by this assault of the people, and, withal, this +mystery once revealed, ‘that we must deny them nothing when +they ask it thus in troops,’ we may, in the next place, +have as hard a task to defend our property, as we have lately had +to recover it from the Prerogative. If, by multiplying +hands and petitions, they prevail for an equality in things +ecclesiastical, the next demand perhaps may be <i>Lex +Agraria</i>, the like equality in things temporal.</p> +<p>“The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to +flock about the Senate, and were more curious to direct and know +what was done, than to obey, that Commonwealth soon came to ruin; +their <i>Legem regare</i> grew quickly to be a <i>Legem +ferre</i>: and after, when their legions had found that they +could make a Dictator, they never suffered the Senate to have a +voice any more in such election.</p> +<p>“If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a +flat and level in learning too, as well as in Church preferments: +<i>Hones alit Artes</i>. And though it be true, that grave +and pious men do study for learning-sake, and embrace virtue for +itself; yet it is true, that youth, which is the season when +learning is gotten, is not without ambition; nor will ever take +pains to excel in anything, when there is not some hope of +excelling others in reward and dignity.</p> +<p>“There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our +Church government.</p> +<p>“First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out +another form.</p> +<p>“Second, the abuses of the present superiors.</p> +<p>“For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but +I am confident that, whenever an equal division of lands and +goods shall be desired, there will be as many places in Scripture +found out, which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged +against the prelacy or preferment of the Church. And, as +for abuses, when you are now in the remonstrance told what this +and that poor man hath suffered by the bishops, you may be +presented with a thousand instances of poor men that have +received hard measure from their landlords; and of worldly goods +abused, to the injury of others, and disadvantage of the +owners.</p> +<p>“And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is that we +may settle men’s minds herein; and by a question, declare +our resolution, ‘to reform,’ that is, ‘not to +abolish, Episcopacy.’”</p> +<p>It cannot but be wished that he, who could speak in this +manner, had been able to act with spirit and uniformity.</p> +<p>When the Commons begun to set the royal authority at open +defiance, Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to +have returned with the king’s permission; and, when the +king set up his standard, he sent him a thousand +broad-pieces. He continued, however, to sit in the +rebellious conventicle; but “spoke,” says Clarendon, +“with great sharpness and freedom, which, now there was no +danger of being out-voted, was not restrained; and therefore used +as an argument against those who were gone upon pretence that +they were not suffered to deliver their opinion freely in the +House, which could not be believed, when all men knew what +liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day with impunity +against the sense and proceedings of the House.”</p> +<p>Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners +nominated by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and +when they were presented, the king said to him, “Though you +are the last, you are not the lowest nor the least in my +favour.” Whitelock, who, being another of the +commissioners, was witness of this kindness, imputes it to the +king’s knowledge of the plot, in which Waller appeared +afterwards to have been engaged against the Parliament. +Fenton, with equal probability, believes that his attempt to +promote the royal cause arose from his sensibility of the +king’s tenderness. Whitelock says nothing of his +behaviour at Oxford: he was sent with several others to add pomp +to the commission, but was not one of those to whom the trust of +treating was imparted.</p> +<p>The engagement, known by the name of Waller’s plot, was +soon afterwards discovered. Waller had a brother-in-law, +Tomkyns, who was clerk of the queen’s council, and at the +same time had a very numerous acquaintance, and great influence, +in the city. Waller and he, conversing with great +confidence, told both their own secrets and those of their +friends; and, surveying the wide extent of their conversation, +imagined that they found in the majority of all ranks great +disapprobation of the violence of the Commons, and unwillingness +to continue the war. They knew that many favoured the king, +whose fear concealed their loyalty; and many desired peace, +though they durst not oppose the clamour for war; and they +imagined that, if those who had these good intentions should be +informed of their own strength, and enabled by intelligence to +act together, they might overpower the fury of sedition, by +refusing to comply with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and +the other taxes levied for the support of the rebel army, and by +uniting great numbers in a petition for peace. They +proceeded with great caution. Three only met in one place, +and no man was allowed to impart the plot to more than two +others; so that, if any should be suspected or seized, more than +three could not be endangered.</p> +<p>Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, +incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or +projects, which however were only mentioned, the main design +being to bring the loyal inhabitants to the knowledge of each +other; for which purpose there was to be appointed one in every +district, to distinguish the friends of the king, the adherents +to the Parliament, and the neutrals. How far they proceeded +does not appear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, +was, that within the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, +there were three against them; but that without the walls, for +one that was against them, there were five for them. +Whether this was said from knowledge or guess, was perhaps never +inquired.</p> +<p>It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller’s plan no +violence or sanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended +only to abate the confidence of the rebels by public +declarations, and to weaken their powers by an opposition to new +supplies. This, in calmer times, and more than this, is +done without fear; but such was the acrimony of the Commons, that +no method of obstructing them was safe.</p> +<p>About this time another design was formed by Sir Nicholas +Crispe, a man of loyalty, that deserves perpetual remembrance; +when he was a merchant in the city, he gave and procured the +king, in his exigencies, a hundred thousand pounds; and, when he +was driven from the Exchange, raised a regiment, and commanded +it.</p> +<p>Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some +provocation would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much +encourage, the king’s friends in the city, that they would +break out in open resistance, and would then want only a lawful +standard, and an authorised commander; and extorted from the +king, whose judgment too frequently yielded to importunity, a +commission of array, directed to such as he thought proper to +nominate, which was sent to London by the Lady Aubigny. She +knew not what she carried, but was to deliver it on the +communication of a certain token which Sir Nicholas imparted.</p> +<p>This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the +time should require it. To have attempted to raise any +forces would have been certain destruction; it could be of use +only when the forces should appear. This was, however, an +act preparatory to martial hostility.</p> +<p>Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of +Parliament, had his strength been equal to his zeal; and out of +the design of Crispe, which involved very little danger, and that +of Waller, which was an act purely civil, they compounded a +horrid and dreadful plot.</p> +<p>The discovery of Waller’s design is variously +related.</p> +<p>In “Clarendon’s History” it is told, that a +servant of Tomkyns, lurking behind the hangings when his master +was in conference with Waller, heard enough to qualify him for an +informer, and carried his intelligence to Pym.</p> +<p>A manuscript, quoted in the “Life of Waller,” +relates, that “he was betrayed by his sister Price, and her +Presbyterian chaplain Mr. Goode, who stole some of his papers; +and if he had not strangely dreamed the night before, that his +sister had betrayed him, and thereupon burnt the rest of his +papers by the fire that was in his chimney, he had certainly lost +his life by it.” The question cannot be +decided. It is not unreasonable to believe that the men in +power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the +servant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might +avoid an act so offensive as that of destroying the brother by +the sister’s testimony.</p> +<p>The plot was published in the most terrific manner.</p> +<p>On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were +listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and +communicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that +were placed near him, and then went with them out of the church, +leaving the rest in solicitude and amazement. They +immediately sent guards to proper places, and that night +apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; having yet traced nothing but +that letters had been intercepted, from which it appears that the +Parliament and the city were soon to be delivered into the hands +of the cavaliers.</p> +<p>They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general +and indistinct notices. “But Waller,” says +Clarendon, “was so confounded with fear, that he confessed +whatever he had heard, said, thought, or seen; all that he knew +of himself, and all that he suspected of others, without +concealing any person of what degree or quality soever, or any +discourse which he had ever upon any occasion entertained with +them; what such and such ladies of great honour, to whom, upon +the credit of his wit and great reputation, he had been admitted, +had spoken to him in their chambers upon the proceedings in the +Houses, and how they had encouraged him to oppose them; what +correspondence and intercourse they had with some Ministers of +State at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence +thither.” He accused the Earl of Portland and Lord +Conway as co-operating in the transaction; and testified that the +Earl of Northumberland had declared himself disposed in favour of +any attempt that might check the violence of the Parliament, and +reconcile them to the king.</p> +<p>He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have +discovered, and perhaps somewhat which they would wish to have +been suppressed; for it is inconvenient in the conflict of +factions, to have that disaffection known which cannot safely be +punished.</p> +<p>Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears +likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of +Crispe’s commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew +how it was discovered. Tomkyns had been sent with the token +appointed, to demand it from Lady Aubigny, and had buried it in +his garden, where, by his direction, it was dug up; and thus the +rebels obtained, what Clarendon confesses them to have had, the +original copy.</p> +<p>It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these +two designs, however remote from each other, when they saw the +same agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in +the hands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions and +affections of the people.</p> +<p>Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the +most. They sent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of +their imminent danger and happy escape; and inform them, that the +design was, “to seize the Lord Mayor and all the Committee +of Militia, and would not spare one of them.” They +drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by every member of either +House, by which he declared his detestation of all conspiracies +against the Parliament, and his resolution to detect and oppose +them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for this +wonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubts +whether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot +was real or fictitious.</p> +<p>On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway were +committed, one to the custody of the mayor, and the other of the +sheriff; but their lands and goods were not seized.</p> +<p>Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. +The Earl of Portland and Lord Conway denied the charge; and there +was no evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of +which undoubtedly many would be inclined to question the +veracity. With these doubts he was so much terrified, that +he endeavoured to persuade Portland to a declaration like his +own, by a letter extant in Fenton’s edition. +“But for me,” says he, “you had never known +anything of this business, which was prepared for another; and +therefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far as to +contract your own ruin by concealing it, and persisting +unreasonably to hide that truth, which, without you, already is, +and will every day be made more manifest. Can you imagine +yourself bound in honour to keep that secret, which is already +revealed by another? or possible it should still be a secret, +which is known to one of the other sex?—If you persist to +be cruel to yourself for their sakes who deserve it not, it will +nevertheless be made appear, ere long, I fear, to your +ruin. Surely, if I had the happiness to wait on you, I +could move you to compassionate both yourself and me, who, +desperate as my case is, am desirous to die with the honour of +being known to have declared the truth. You have no reason +to contend to hide what is already revealed—inconsiderately +to throw away yourself, for the interest of others, to whom you +are less obliged than you are aware of.”</p> +<p>This persuasion seems to have had little effect. +Portland sent (June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that +he “is in custody, as he conceives, without any charge; and +that, by what Mr. Waller hath threatened him with since he was +imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very cruel, long, and ruinous +restraint:—He therefore prays, that he may not find the +effects of Mr. Waller’s threats, a long and close +imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legal trial, and +then he is confident the vanity and falsehood of those +informations which have been given against him will +appear.”</p> +<p>In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and +Waller to be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and +the other his denial. The examination of the plot being +continued (July 1), Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, +that Mr. Waller having had a conference with the Lord Portland in +an upper room, Lord Portland said, when he came down, “Do +me the favour to tell my Lord Northumberland, that Mr. Waller has +extremely pressed me to save my own life and his, by throwing the +blame upon the Lord Conway and the Earl of +Northumberland.”</p> +<p>Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons +which he could urge with resistless efficacy in a personal +conference; but he overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, +whether of persuasion or entreaty, was returned with +contempt.</p> +<p>One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is +already known to a woman. This woman was doubtless Lady +Aubigny, who, upon this occasion, was committed to custody; but +who, in reality, when she delivered the commission, knew not what +it was.</p> +<p>The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and +committed their trial to a council of war. Tomkyns and +Chaloner were hanged near their own doors. Tomkyns, when he +came to die, said it was a “foolish business;” and +indeed there seems to have been no hope that it should escape +discovery; for, though never more than three met at a time, yet a +design so extensive must by necessity be communicated to many who +could not be expected to be all faithful and all prudent. +Chaloner was attended at his execution by Hugh Peters. His +crime was, that he had commission to raise money for the king; +but it appears not that the money was to be expended upon the +advancement of either Crispe’s or Waller’s plot.</p> +<p>The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, +was only once examined before the Lords. The Earl of +Portland and Lord Conway persisting to deny the charge, and no +testimony but Waller’s yet appearing against them, were, +after a long imprisonment, admitted to bail. Hassel, the +king’s messenger, who carried the letters to Oxford, died +the night before his trial. Hampden [Alexander] escaped +death, perhaps by the interest of his family; but was kept in +prison to the end of his life. They whose names were +inserted in the commission of array were not capitally punished, +as it could not be proved that they had consented to their own +nomination; but they were considered as malignants, and their +estates were seized.</p> +<p>“Waller, though confessedly,” says Clarendon, +“the most guilty, with incredible dissimulation affected +such a remorse of conscience, that his trial was put off, out of +Christian compassion, till he might recover his +understanding.” What use he made of this interval, +with what liberality and success he distributed flattery and +money, and how, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he +confessed and lamented, and submitted and implored, may be read +in the “History of the Rebellion” (B. vii.). +The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes the preservation of his +“dear-bought life,” is inserted in his works. +The great historian, however, seems to have been mistaken in +relating that “he prevailed” in the principal part of +his supplication, “not to be tried by a council of +war;” for, according to Whitelock, he was by expulsion from +the House abandoned to the tribunal which he so much dreaded, +and, being tried and condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after +a year’s imprisonment, in which time resentment grew less +acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thousand pounds, he was +permitted to “recollect himself in another +country.”</p> +<p>Of his behaviour in this part of life, it is not necessary to +direct the reader’s opinion. “Let us +not,” says his last ingenious biographer, “condemn +him with untempered severity, because he was not a prodigy which +the world hath seldom seen, because his character included not +the poet, the orator, and the hero.”</p> +<p>For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some +time at Roan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was +afterwards his favourite, and his amanuensis. He then +removed to Paris, where he lived with great splendour and +hospitality; and from time to time amused himself with poetry, in +which he sometimes speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, in +the natural language of an honest man.</p> +<p>At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his +wife’s jewels; and being reduced, as he said, at last +“to the rump-jewel,” he solicited from Cromwell +permission to return, and obtained it by the interest of Colonel +Scroop, to whom his sister was married. Upon the remains of +a fortune, which the danger of his life had very much diminished, +he lived at Hallbarn, a house built by himself very near to +Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, though +related to Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause, +and, when Cromwell visited her, used to reproach him; he, in +return, would throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute +with his aunt; but finding in time that she acted for the king, +as well as talked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, in +her own house. If he would do anything, he could not do +less.</p> +<p>Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to +familiar conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found +him sufficiently versed in ancient history; and, when any of his +enthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could +sometimes overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times: but, +when he returned, he would say, “Cousin Waller, I must talk +to these men in their own way;” and resumed the common +style of conversation.</p> +<p>He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous +Panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his +poetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is +very judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, +without inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no +mention of the rebel or the regicide. All the former part +of his hero’s life is veiled with shades; and nothing is +brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of +England’s honour, and the enlarger of her dominion. +The act of violence by which he obtained the supreme power is +lightly treated, and decently justified. It was certainly +to be desired that the detestable band should be dissolved, which +had destroyed the Church, murdered the king, and filled the +nation with tumult and oppression; yet Cromwell had not the right +of dissolving them, for all that he had before done could be +justified only by supposing them invested with lawful +authority. But combinations of wickedness would overwhelm +the world by the advantage which licentious principles afford, +did not those, who have long practised perfidy, grow faithless to +each other.</p> +<p>In the poem on the War with Spain are some passages at least +equal to the best parts of the Panegyric; and, in the conclusion, +the poet ventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by +recommending royalty to Cromwell and the nation. Cromwell +was very desirous, as appears from his conversation, related by +Whitelock, of adding the title to the power of monarchy, and is +supposed to have been withheld from it partly by fear of the +army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, when he should +govern by the name of king, would have restrained his +authority. When, therefore, a deputation was solemnly sent +to invite him to the crown, he, after a long conference, refused +it, but is said to have fainted in his coach when he parted from +them.</p> +<p>The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been +dictated by real veneration for his memory. Dryden and +Sprat wrote on the same occasion; but they were young men, +struggling into notice, and hoping for some favour from the +ruling party. Waller had little to expect; he had received +nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and was not likely to ask +anything from those who should succeed him.</p> +<p>Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him with another +subject; and he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his +melody, with equal alacrity, for Charles the Second. It is +not possible to read, without some contempt and indignation, +poems of the same author, ascribing the highest degree of +“power and piety” to Charles the First, then +transferring the same “power and piety” to Oliver +Cromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and then +congratulating Charles the Second on his recovered right. +Neither Cromwell nor Charles could value his testimony as the +effect of conviction, or receive his praises as effusions of +reverence; they could consider them but as the labour of +invention, and the tribute of dependence.</p> +<p>Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of +fiction is the conveyance of truth, and he that has flattery +ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt +must be scorned as a prostituted mind, that may retain the +glitter of wit, but has lost the dignity of virtue.</p> +<p>The Congratulation was considered as inferior in poetical +merit to the Panegyric; and it is reported that, when the king +told Waller of the disparity, he answered, “Poets, Sir, +succeed better in fiction than in truth.”</p> +<p>The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to the Panegyric, +either by decay of genius, or for want of diligence, but because +Cromwell had done much and Charles had done little. +Cromwell wanted nothing to raise him to heroic excellence but +virtue, and virtue his poet thought himself at liberty to +supply. Charles had yet only the merit of struggling +without success, and suffering without despair. A life of +escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid +images.</p> +<p>In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March +8, 1661), Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for +different places in all the Parliaments of that reign. In a +time when fancy and gaiety were the most powerful recommendations +to regard, it is not likely that Waller was forgotten. He +passed his time in the company that was highest, both in rank and +wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude +him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by his fertility +of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. +Saville said, that “no man in England should keep him +company without drinking but Ned Waller.”</p> +<p>The praise given him by St. Evremond is a proof of his +reputation; for it was only by his reputation that he could be +known, as a writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of +a long life upon an English pension, never consented to +understand the language of the nation that maintained him.</p> +<p>In Parliament, “he was,” says Burnet, “the +delight of the House, and though old, said the liveliest things +of any among them.” This, however, is said in his +account of the year seventy-five, when Waller was only +seventy. His name as a speaker occurs often in Grey’s +Collections, but I have found no extracts that can be more quoted +as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument.</p> +<p>He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated +and recorded. When the Duke of York’s influence was +high, both in Scotland and England, it drew, says Burnet, a +lively reflection from Waller, the celebrated wit. He said, +“The House of Commons had resolved that the duke should not +reign after the king’s death: but the king, in opposition +to them, had resolved that he should reign even in his +life.” If there appear no extraordinary +“liveliness” in this “remark,” yet its +reception proves its speaker to have been a “celebrated +wit,” to have had a name which men of wit were proud of +mentioning.</p> +<p>He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which +may easily happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to +poetical distinction from time to time, as occasions were +offered, either by public events or private incidents; and, +contenting himself with the influence of his Muse, or loving +quiet better than influence, he never accepted any office of +magistracy.</p> +<p>He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune, +for he asked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton +College, and obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal +to the grant, alleging that it could be held only by a +clergyman. It is known that Sir Henry Wotton qualified +himself for it by deacon’s orders.</p> +<p>To this opposition, the Biographia imputes the violence and +acrimony with which Waller joined Buckingham’s faction in +the prosecution of Clarendon. The motive was illiberal and +dishonest, and showed that more than sixty years had not been +able to teach him morality. His accusation is such as +conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate without the help of +malice. “We were to be governed by Janizaries instead +of Parliaments, and are in danger from a worse plot than that of +the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons had been +destroyed, there had been a succession; but here both had been +destroyed for ever.” This is the language of a man +who is glad of an opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice +truth to interest at one time, and to anger at another.</p> +<p>A year after the chancellor’s banishment, another +vacancy gave him encouragement for another petition, which the +king referred to the Council, who, after hearing the question +argued by lawyers for three days, determined that the office +could be held only by a clergyman, according to the Act of +Uniformity, since the provosts had always received institution as +for a parsonage from the Bishops of Lincoln. The king then +said he could not break the law which he had made; and Dr. +Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most for two +sermons, was chosen by the Fellows.</p> +<p>That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that +he obtained nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court +through the rest of Charles’s reign.</p> +<p>At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for +Parliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and +wrote a Presage of the Downfall of the Turkish Empire, which he +presented to the king on his birthday. It is remarked, by +his commentator Fenton, that in reading Tasso he had early +imbibed a veneration for the heroes of the Holy War, and a +zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left him. James, +however, having soon after begun what he thought a holy war at +home, made haste to put all molestation of the Turks out of his +power.</p> +<p>James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which +instances are given by the writer of his life. One day, +taking him into the closet, the king asked him how he liked one +of the pictures: “My eyes,” said Waller, “are +dim, and I do not know it.” The king said it was the +Princess of Orange. “She is,” said Waller, +“like the greatest woman in the world.” The +king asked who was that; and was answered, Queen Elizabeth. +“I wonder,” said the king, “you should think +so; but I must confess she had a wise council.” +“And, Sir,” said Waller, “did you ever know a +fool choose a wise one?” Such is the story, which I +once heard of some other man. Pointed axioms, and acute +replies, fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively +to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.</p> +<p>When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to +Dr. Birch, a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him +that “the king wondered he could think of marrying his +daughter to a falling church.” “The +king,” said Waller, “does me great honour in taking +notice of my domestic affairs; but I have lived long enough to +observe that this falling church has got a trick of rising +again.”</p> +<p>He took notice to his friends of the king’s conduct; and +said that “he would be left like a whale upon the +strand.” Whether he was privy to any of the +transactions that ended in the revolution is not known. His +heir joined the Prince of Orange.</p> +<p>Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature +seldom suffer life to be extended, otherwise than by a future +state, he seems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the +decisive hour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to +devotion. It is pleasing to discover that his piety was +without weakness; that his intellectual powers continued +vigorous; and that the lines which he composed when “he, +for age, could neither read nor write,” are not inferior to +the effusions of his youth.</p> +<p>Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a +little land, at Coleshill; and said “he should be glad to +die, like the stag, where he was roused.” This, +however, did not happen. When he was at Beaconsfield, he +found his legs grow tumid: he went to Windsor, where Sir Charles +Scarborough then attended the king, and requested him, as both a +friend and physician, to tell him “what that swelling +meant.” “Sir,” answered Scarborough, +“your blood will run no longer.” Waller +repeated some lines of Virgil, and went home to die.</p> +<p>As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his +departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy +sacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made +an earnest declaration of his faith in Christianity. It now +appeared what part of his conversation with the great could be +remembered with delight. He related, that being present +when the Duke of Buckingham talked profanely before King Charles, +he said to him, “My lord, I am a great deal older than your +grace and have, I believe, heard more arguments for atheism than +ever your grace did; but I have lived long enough to see there is +nothing in them; and so, I hope, your grace will.”</p> +<p>He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with +a monument erected by his son’s executors, for which Rymer +wrote the inscription, and which I hope is now rescued from +dilapidation.</p> +<p>He left several children by his second wife, of whom his +daughter was married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest +son, was disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common +understanding. Edmund, the second son, inherited the +estate, and represented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last +turned quaker. William, the third son, was a merchant in +London. Stephen, the fourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, +and one of the commissioners for the union. There is said +to have been a fifth, of whom no account has descended.</p> +<p>The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been +drawn by Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, +which certainly none to whom he was not known can presume to +emulate. It is therefore inserted here, with such remarks +as others have supplied; after which, nothing remains but a +critical examination of his poetry.</p> +<p>“Edmund Waller,” says Clarendon, “was born +to a very fair estate, by the parsimony, or frugality, of a wise +father and mother; and he thought it so commendable an advantage, +that he resolved to improve it with his utmost care, upon which +in his nature he was too much intent; and in order to that, he +was so much reserved and retired, that he was scarcely ever heard +of, till by his address and dexterity he had gotten a very rich +wife in the city, against all the recommendation and countenance +and authority of the court, which was thoroughly engaged on the +behalf of Mr. Crofts, and which used to be successful, in that +age, against any opposition. He had the good fortune to +have an alliance and friendship with Dr. Morley, who had assisted +and instructed him in the reading many good books, to which his +natural parts and promptitude inclined him, especially the poets; +and at the age when other men used to give over writing verses +(for he was near thirty years when he first engaged himself in +that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he surprised +the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth +Muse had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The +doctor at that time brought him into that company which was most +celebrated for good conversation, where he was received and +esteemed with great applause and respect. He was a very +pleasant discourser in earnest and in jest, and therefore very +grateful to all kind of company, where he was not the less +esteemed for being very rich.</p> +<p>“He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat +when he was very young; and so, when they were resumed again +(after a long intermission) he appeared in those assemblies with +great advantage; having a graceful way of speaking, and by +thinking much on several arguments (which his temper and +complexion, that had much of melancholic, inclined him to), he +seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when the occasion had only +administered the opportunity of saying what he had thoroughly +considered, which gave a great lustre to all he said; which yet +was rather of delight than weight. There needs no more be +said to extol the excellence and power of his wit, and +pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was of magnitude +enough to cover a world of very great faults; that is, so to +cover them, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, +viz., a narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an +abjectness and want of courage to support him in any virtuous +undertaking; an insinuation and servile flattery to the height, +the vainest and most imperious nature could be contented with; +that it preserved and won his life from those who most resolved +to take it, and in an occasion in which he ought to have been +ambitious to have lost it; and then preserved him again from the +reproach and the contempt that was due to him for so preserving +it, and for vindicating it at such a price that it had power to +reconcile him to those whom he had most offended and provoked; +and continued to his age with that rare felicity, that his +company was acceptable where his spirit was odious; and he was at +least pitied where he was most detested.”</p> +<p>Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be +improper to make some remarks.</p> +<p>“He was very little known till he had obtained a rich +wife in the city.”</p> +<p>He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an +age, before which few men are conspicuous much to their +advantage. He was now, however, in parliament and at court; +and, if he spent part of his time in privacy, it is not +unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured the improvement of +his mind as well as his fortune.</p> +<p>That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is +the more probable, because he has evidently mistaken the +commencement of his poetry, which he supposes him not to have +attempted before thirty. As his first pieces were perhaps +not printed, the succession of his compositions was not known; +and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to have been very studious +of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion by consulting +Waller’s book.</p> +<p>Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the +age by Dr. Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was +already among them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and +inquiring the cause, they found a son of Ben Jonson under an +arrest. This was Morley, whom Waller set free at the +expense of one hundred pounds, took him into the country as +director of his studies, and then procured him admission into the +company of the friends of literature. Of this fact +Clarendon had a nearer knowledge than the biographer, and is +therefore more to be credited.</p> +<p>The account of Waller’s parliamentary eloquence is +seconded by Burnet, who, though he calls him “the delight +of the House,” adds, that “he was only concerned to +say that which should make him be applauded, he never laid the +business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, though a +witty man.”</p> +<p>Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to +believe that the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant +description of those whom in modern language we term wits, says, +that they are “open flatterers, and private +mockers.” Waller showed a little of both, when, upon +sight of the Duchess of Newcastle’s verses on the Death of +a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compositions +to have written them, and being charged with the exorbitance of +his adulation, answered, that “nothing was too much to be +given, that a lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a +vile performance.” This, however, was no very +mischievous or very unusual deviation from truth; had his +hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, he might have been +forgiven, though not praised: for who forbears to flatter an +author or a lady?</p> +<p>Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of +his resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the +esteem of every party. From Cromwell he had only his +recall; and from Charles the Second, who delighted in his +company, he obtained only the pardon of his relation Hampden, and +the safety of Hampden’s son.</p> +<p>As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his +writing, and his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a +friend to monarchy. His deviation towards democracy +proceeded from his connexion with Hampden, for whose sake he +prosecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the invective which +he pronounced on that occasion was so popular, that twenty +thousand copies are said by his biographer to have been sold in +one day.</p> +<p>It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, +at least many companions. His convivial power of pleasing +is universally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him +intimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his old +age, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends was +sometimes necessary.</p> +<p>His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite +writers of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the +translation of Corneille’s Pompey; and is said to have +added his help to that of Cowley in the original draft of the +Rehearsal.</p> +<p>The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a +degree little less than criminal, was either not constant or not +successful; for having inherited a patrimony of three thousand +five hundred pounds a year in the time of James the First, and +augmented at least by one wealthy marriage, he left, about the +time of the Revolution, an income of not more than twelve or +thirteen hundred; which, when the different value of money is +reckoned, will be found perhaps not more than a fourth part of +what he once possessed.</p> +<p>Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts +which he was forced to scatter, and the fine which he was +condemned to pay at the detection of his plot; and if his estate, +as is related in his life, was sequestered, he had probably +contracted debts when he lived in exile; for we are told, that at +Paris he lived in splendour, and was the only Englishman, except +the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table.</p> +<p>His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of +the waste of the rest there is no account, except that he is +confessed by his biographer to have been a bad economist. +He seems to have deviated from the common practice; to have been +a hoarder in his first years, and a squanderer in his last.</p> +<p>Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known +more than that he professed himself unable to read +Chapman’s translation of Homer without rapture. His +opinion concerning the duty of a poet is contained in his +declaration, that “he would blot from his works any line +that did not contain some motive to virtue.”</p> +<p>The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his +writing are sprightliness and dignity; in his smallest pieces, he +endeavours to be gay; in the larger to be great. Of his +airy and light productions, the chief source is gallantry, that +attentive reverence of female excellence which has descended to +us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are commonly +occasional, and his addresses personal, he was not so liberally +supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more +easily found than magnanimity.</p> +<p>The delicacy, which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain +nicety and caution, even when he writes upon the slightest +matter. He has, therefore, in his whole volume, nothing +burlesque, and seldom anything ludicrous or familiar. He +seems always to do his best; though his subjects are often +unworthy of his care.</p> +<p>It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author, +who is growing illustrious in his own opinion by verses, at one +time, “To a Lady, who can do anything but sleep, when she +pleases;” at another, “To a Lady who can sleep when +she pleases;” now, “To a Lady, on her passing through +a crowd of people;” then, “On a braid of divers +colours woven by four Ladies;” “On a tree cut in +paper;” or, “To a Lady, from whom he received the +copy of verses on the paper-tree, which, for many years, had been +missing.”</p> +<p>Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still +read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus: and a writer +naturally pleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing +to the subject. But compositions merely pretty have the +fate of other pretty things, and are quitted in time for +something useful; they are flowers fragrant and fair, but of +short duration; or they are blossoms to be valued only as they +foretell fruits.</p> +<p>Among Waller’s little poems are some, which their +excellency ought to secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, +comparing the different modes of regard with which he looks on +her and Sacharissa; and the verses on Love, that begin, +“Anger in hasty words or blows.”</p> +<p>In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts +are deficient, and sometimes his expression.</p> +<p>The numbers are not always musical; as,</p> +<blockquote><p>Fair Venus, in thy soft arms<br /> + The god of rage confine:<br /> +For thy whispers are the charms<br /> + Which only can divert his fierce design.<br /> +What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;<br /> + Thou the flame<br /> +Kindled in his breast canst tame<br /> +With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths +of science; his thoughts are for the most part easily understood, +and his images such as the superfices of nature readily supplies; +he has a just claim to popularity, because he writes to common +degrees of knowledge; and is free at least from philosophical +pedantry, unless perhaps the end of a song to the Sun may be +excepted, in which he is too much a Copernican. To which +may be added the simile of the “palm” in the verses +“on her passing through a crowd;” and a line in a +more serious poem on the Restoration, about vipers and treacle, +which can only be understood by those who happen to know the +composition of the Theriaca.</p> +<p>His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images +unnatural</p> +<blockquote><p> The plants admire,<br /> +No less than those of old did Orpheus’ lyre;<br /> +If she sit down, with tops all tow’rds her bow’d,<br +/> +They round about her into arbours crowd;<br /> +Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand,<br /> +Like some well-marshall’d and obsequious band.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In another place:</p> +<blockquote><p>While in the park I sing, the listening deer<br /> +Attend my passion, and forget to fear:<br /> +When to the beeches I report my flame,<br /> +They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.<br /> +To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers<br /> +With loud complaints they answer me in showers.<br /> +To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,<br /> +More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On the head of a stag:</p> +<blockquote><p>O fertile head! which every year<br /> +Could such a crop of wonder bear!<br /> +The teeming earth did never bring,<br /> +So soon, so hard, so large a thing:<br /> +Which might it never have been cast,<br /> +Each year’s growth added to the last,<br /> +These lofty branches had supplied<br /> +The earth’s bold sons’ prodigious pride:<br /> +Heaven with these engines had been scaled,<br /> +When mountains heap’d on mountains fail’d.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a +feeble conclusion. In the song of “Sacharissa’s +and Amoret’s Friendship,” the two last stanzas ought +to have been omitted.</p> +<p>His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree +delicate.</p> +<blockquote><p>Then shall my love this doubt displace<br /> + And gain such trust that I may come<br /> +And banquet sometimes on thy face,<br /> + But make my constant meals at home.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Some applications may be thought too remote and +unconsequential; as in the verses on the Lady Dancing:</p> +<blockquote><p> The sun in figures such as +these<br /> +Joys with the moon to play:<br /> + To the sweet strains they advance,<br /> +Which do result from their own spheres;<br /> + As this nymph’s dance<br /> +Moves with the numbers which she hears.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps fill a distich, is +expanded and attenuated till it grows weak and almost +evanescent.</p> +<blockquote><p>Chloris! since first our calm of peace<br /> + Was frighted hence, this good we find,<br /> +Your favours with your fears increase,<br /> + And growing mischiefs make you kind.<br /> +So the fair tree, which still preserves<br /> + Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows,<br /> +In storms from that uprightness swerves;<br /> + And the glad earth about her strows<br /> + With treasure from her yielding boughs.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His images are not always distinct; as in the following +passage, he confounds <i>Love</i> as a person with <i>Love</i> as +a passion:</p> +<blockquote><p>Some other nymphs, with colours faint,<br /> +And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,<br /> +And a weak heart in time destroy;<br /> +She has a stamp, and prints the boy;<br /> +Can, with a single look, inflame<br /> +The coldest breast, the rudest tame.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and +happy, as that in return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty +and trifling, as that upon the Card torn by the Queen. +There are a few lines written in the Duchess’s Tasso, which +he is said by Fenton to have kept a summer under +correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, that his +success was not always in proportion to his labour.</p> +<p>Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the +faults deserve much attention. The amorous verses have this +to recommend them, that they are less hyperbolical than those of +some other poets. Waller is not always at the last gasp; he +does not die of a frown, nor live upon a smile. There is, +however, too much love, and too many trifles. Little things +are made too important: and the Empire of Beauty is represented +as exerting its influence further than can be allowed by the +multiplicity of human passions, and the variety of human +wants. Such books, therefore, may be considered as showing +the world under a false appearance, and, so far as they obtain +credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading +expectation, and misguiding practice.</p> +<p>Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part +is panegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed +by his imitator, Lord Lansdowne:</p> +<blockquote><p>No satyr stalks within the hallow’d +ground,<br /> +But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;<br /> +Glory and arms and love are all the sound.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of +Spain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the +beginning; and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part +ridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid. The +poem, however, is such as may be justly praised, without much +allowance for the state of our poetry and language at that +time.</p> +<p>The two next poems are upon the king’s behaviour at the +death of Buckingham, and upon his Navy.</p> +<p>He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great +propriety:</p> +<blockquote><p>’Twas want of such a precedent as this<br /> +Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which +suppose the king’s power secure against a second deluge; so +noble, that it were almost criminal to remark the mistake of +“centre” for “surface,” or to say that +the empire of the sea would be worth little if it were not that +the waters terminate in land.</p> +<p>The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the +conclusion is feeble. That on the Repairs of St. +Paul’s has something vulgar and obvious; such as the +mention of Amphion; and something violent and harsh: as,</p> +<blockquote><p>So all our minds with his conspire to grace<br /> +The Gentiles’ great apostle and deface<br /> +Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain<br /> +Seem’d to confine, and fetter him again:<br /> +Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,<br /> +As once the viper from his sacred hand.<br /> +So joys the aged oak, when we divide<br /> +The creeping ivy from his injured side.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the +second mean.</p> +<p>His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the +thought, that he “saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as +gangrenes are cured by lopping the limb,” presents nothing +to the mind but disgust and horror.</p> +<p>Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say +whether it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The +beginning is too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light +for seriousness. The versification is studied, the scenes +are diligently displayed, and the images artfully amplified; but +as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be read a +second time.</p> +<p>The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a +very liberal dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said +to have been unjustly lavished; for such a series of verses had +rarely appeared before in the English language. Of the +lines some are grand, some are graceful, and all are +musical. There is now and then a feeble verse; or a +trifling thought; but its great fault is the choice of its +hero.</p> +<p>The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous +and striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The +succeeding parts are variegated with better passages and +worse. There is something too farfetched in the comparison +of the Spaniards drawing the English on by saluting St. Lucar +with cannon, “to lambs awakening the lion by +bleating.” The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who +were burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet not +made him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, +nor expressed their affection and their end by a conceit at once +false and vulgar:</p> +<blockquote><p>Alive, in equal flames of love they +burn’d,<br /> +And now together are to ashes turn’d.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended +to counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been +thought inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the +cause of its deficience has been already remarked.</p> +<p>The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine +singly. They must be supposed to have faults and beauties +of the same kind with the rest. The Sacred Poems, however, +deserve particular regard; they were the work of Waller’s +declining life, of those hours in which he looked upon the fame +and the folly of the time past with the sentiments which his +great predecessor Petrarch bequeathed to posterity, upon his +review of that love and poetry which have given him +immortality.</p> +<p>That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow +much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to +believe that the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom +we are now forced to confess superior, is hastening daily to a +level with ourselves. By delighting to think this of the +living, we learn to think it of the dead; and Fenton, with all +his kindness for Waller, has the luck to mark the exact time when +his genius passed the zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth +year. This is to allot the mind but a small portion. +Intellectual decay is doubtless not uncommon; but it seems not to +be universal. Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving +his chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears +not, in my opinion, to have lost at eighty-two any part of his +poetical power.</p> +<p>His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; +but before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same +subjects, his success would hardly have been better.</p> +<p>It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse +has been too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many +attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious +poetry. That they have very seldom attained their end is +sufficiently known, and it may not be improper to inquire why +they have miscarried.</p> +<p>Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to +many authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often +please. The doctrines of religion may indeed be defended in +a didactic poem; and he, who has the happy power of arguing in +verse, will not lose it because his subject is sacred. A +poet may describe the beauty and the grandeur of nature, the +flowers of the spring, and the harvests of autumn, the +vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the sky, and +praise the Maker for his works, in lines which no reader shall +lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but +the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the +works of God.</p> +<p>Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the +human soul, cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore +the mercy of his Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, +is already in a higher state than poetry can confer.</p> +<p>The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as by +producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The +topics of devotion are few, and being few are universally known; +but, few as they are, they can be made no more; they can receive +no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty +of expression.</p> +<p>Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind +than things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from +the display of those parts of nature which attract, and the +concealment of those which repel, the imagination: but religion +must be shown as it is; suppression and addition equally corrupt +it; and such as it is, it is known already.</p> +<p>From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry +always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and +elevation of his fancy: but this is rarely to be hoped by +Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, +desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme +Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be +amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.</p> +<p>The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, +Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, +cannot be invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, +the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being +without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt +rather then expressed. Repentance, trembling in the +presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and +epithets. Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself +through many topics of persuasion; but supplication to God can +only cry for mercy.</p> +<p>Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most +simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its +lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of +something more excellent than itself. All that pious verse +can do is to help the memory and delight the ear, and for these +purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the +mind. The ideas of Christian Theology are too simple for +eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; +to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a +concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.</p> +<p>As much of Waller’s reputation was owing to the softness +and smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those +minute particulars to which a versifier must attend.</p> +<p>He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the +writers who were living when his poetry commenced. The +poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was +afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged +by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the +poem of Davies, which, though merely philosophical, yet seldom +leaves the ear ungratified.</p> +<p>But he was rather smooth than strong; of “the full +resounding line,” which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has +given very few examples. The critical decision has given +the praise of strength to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller.</p> +<p>His excellence of versification has some abatements. He +uses the expletive “do” very frequently; and, though +he lived to see it almost universally ejected, was not more +careful to avoid it in his last compositions than in his +first. Praise had given him confidence; and finding the +world satisfied, he satisfied himself.</p> +<p>His rhymes are sometimes weak words: “so” is found +to make the rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme +through his book.</p> +<p>His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. +Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of +Corneille’s “Pompey;” and more faults might be +found were not the inquiry below attention.</p> +<p>He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as +“waxeth,” “affecteth;” and sometimes +retains the final syllable of the preterite, as +“amazed,” “supposed,” of which I know not +whether it is not to the detriment of our language that we have +totally rejected them.</p> +<p>Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: +of an Alexandrine he has given no example.</p> +<p>The general character of his poetry is elegance and +gaiety. He is never pathetic, and very rarely +sublime. He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated +by nature nor amplified by learning. His thoughts are such +as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would +easily supply. They had however then, perhaps, that grace +of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by those +who, having already found them in later books, do not know or +inquire who produced them first. This treatment is +unjust. Let not the original author lose by his +imitators.</p> +<p>Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The +author of Waller’s Life ascribes to him the first practice +of what Erythræus and some late critics call +“Alliteration,” of using in the same verse many words +beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be +its value, was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a +writer of the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against +affecting it; Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer Night’s +Dream,” is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the +sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.</p> +<p>He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from +the old mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of +ancient poets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, +were considered as realities, so far as to be received by the +imagination, whatever sober reason might even then +determine. But of these images time has tarnished the +splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, can +never afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it +may furnish a transient allusion, or slight illustration. +No modern monarch can be much exalted by hearing that, as +Hercules had his “club” he has his +“navy.”</p> +<p>But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, +much will remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something +to our elegance of diction, and something to our propriety of +thought; and to him may be applied what Tasso said, with equal +spirit and justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused +the Pastor Fido, he cried out, “If he had not read Aminta, +he had not excelled it.”</p> +<p>As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of +versification from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin +a specimen of his work, which, after Mr. Hoole’s +translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted. By knowing +the state in which Waller found our poetry, the reader may judge +how much he improved it.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">1.</p> +<p> Erminia’s steed (this while) his +mistresse bore<br /> +Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,<br /> +Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,<br /> +Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;<br /> +But her flit courser spared nere the more,<br /> +To beare her through the desart woods unseene<br /> + Of her strong foes, that chas’d her through +the plaine<br /> + And still pursu’d, but still pursu’d in +vaine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">2.</p> +<p>Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,<br /> +Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,<br /> +When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,<br /> +No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:<br /> +The Christian knights so full of shame and ire<br /> +Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!<br /> +Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde<br /> +Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">3.</p> +<p>Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,<br +/> +Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,<br /> +Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,<br /> +She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.<br /> +But when the sunne his burning chariot diued<br /> +In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide,<br /> + On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid,<br /> + At last, there downe she light, and downe she +laid</p> +<p style="text-align: center">4.</p> +<p>Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,<br /> +This was her diet that vnhappie night;<br /> +But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)<br /> +To ease the greefes of discontented wight,<br /> +Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,<br /> +In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;<br /> + And loue, his mother, and the graces kept<br /> + Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie +slept</p> +<p style="text-align: center">5.</p> +<p>The birds awakte her with their morning song,<br /> +Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,<br /> +The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among<br /> +The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;<br /> +Her eies vnclos’d beheld the groues along<br /> +Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare;<br /> + And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters +sent,<br /> + Prouokt again the virgin to lament.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">6.</p> +<p>Her plaints were interrupted with a sound,<br /> +That seem’d from thickest bushes to proceed,<br /> +Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round,<br /> +And to his voice had tun’d his oaten reed;<br /> +Thither she went, an old man there she found,<br /> +(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)<br /> + Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among<br /> + That learn’d their father’s art, and +learn’d his song.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">7.</p> +<p>Beholding one in shining armes appeare<br /> +The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;<br /> +But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,<br /> +Her ventall vp, her visage open laid<br /> +You happie folke, of heau’n beloued deare,<br /> +Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid,<br /> + These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring<br /> + To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon +sing.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">8.</p> +<p>But father, since this land, these townes and towres,<br /> +Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,<br /> +How may it be unhurt, that you and yours<br /> +In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?<br /> +My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours<br /> +Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile;<br /> + This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe,<br /> + No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our +sleepe.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">9.</p> +<p>Haply iust heau’ns defence and shield of right,<br /> +Doth loue the innocence of simple swains,<br /> +The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,<br /> +And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;<br /> +So kings have cause to feare <i>Bellonaes</i> might,<br /> +Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,<br /> + Nor ever greedie soldier was entised<br /> + By pouertie, neglected and despised.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">10.</p> +<p>O Pouertie, chefe of the heau’nly brood,<br /> +Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!<br /> +No wish for honour, thirst of others good,<br /> +Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:<br /> +We quench our thirst with water of this flood,<br /> +Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne;<br /> + These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates<br +/> + Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">11.</p> +<p>We little wish, we need but little wealth,<br /> +From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;<br /> +These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth<br /> +Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:<br /> +Amid these groues I walks oft for my health,<br /> +And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed,<br /> + How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,<br /> + And their contentment for ensample take.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">12.</p> +<p>Time was (for each one hath his doting time,<br /> +These siluer locks were golden tresses than)<br /> +That countrie life I hated as a crime,<br /> +And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,<br /> +To Memphis’ stately pallace would I clime,<br /> +And there became the mightie Caliphes man<br /> + And though I but a simple gardner weare,<br /> + Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">13.</p> +<p>Entised on with hope of future gaine,<br /> +I suffred long what did my soule displease;<br /> +But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,<br /> +I felt my native strength at last decrease;<br /> +I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,<br /> +And wisht I had enjoy’d the countries peace;<br /> + I bod the court farewell, and with content<br /> + My later age here have I quiet spent.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">14.</p> +<p>While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still<br /> +His wise discourses heard, with great attention,<br /> +His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,<br /> +Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;<br /> +After much thought reformed was her will,<br /> +Within those woods to dwell was her intention,<br /> + Till fortune should occasion new afford,<br /> + To turne her home to her desired Lord.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">15.</p> +<p>She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!<br /> +That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue.<br /> +Yet liuest now in this contented state,<br /> +Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,<br /> +To entertaine me as a willing mate<br /> +In shepherds life, which I admire and loue;<br /> + Within these plessant groues perchance my hart,<br +/> + Of her discomforts, may vnload some part.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">16.</p> +<p>If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,<br /> +If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,<br /> +Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen,<br /> +As to a greedie minde might well suffice:<br /> +With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,<br /> +Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;<br /> + Part of her sad misfortunes then she told,<br /> + And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">17.</p> +<p>With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare<br /> +Towards his cottage gently home to guide;<br /> +His aged wife there made her homely cheare,<br /> +Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.<br /> +The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare,<br /> +A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;<br /> + But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)<br /> + Were such, as ill beseem’d a shepherdesse.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">18.</p> +<p>Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide<br /> +The heau’nly beautie of her angels face,<br /> +Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,<br /> +Or ought disparag’de, by those labours bace;<br /> +Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,<br /> +And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,<br /> + Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame<br +/> + Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>MILTON.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> life of Milton has been already +written in so many forms, and with such minute inquiry, that I +might perhaps more properly have contented myself with the +addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton’s elegant abridgment, +but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the uniformity +of this edition.</p> +<p>John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the +proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom +forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster. +Which side he took I know not; his descendant inherited no +veneration for the White Rose.</p> +<p>His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a +zealous Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken +the religion of his ancestors.</p> +<p>His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse +for his support to the profession of a scrivener. He was a +man eminent for his skill in music, many of his compositions +being still to be found; and his reputation in his profession was +such, that he grew rich, and retired to an estate. He had +probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in +one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a +gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom he had +two sons, John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied the law +and adhered, as the law taught him, to the king’s party, +for which he was a while persecuted; but having by his +brother’s interest obtained permission to live in quiet, he +supported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, that, soon +after the accession of King James, he was knighted and made a +judge; but, his constitution being too weak for business, he +retired before any disreputable compliances became necessary.</p> +<p>He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a +considerable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, +and rose in the Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two +sons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from +whom is derived the only authentic account of his domestic +manners.</p> +<p>John the poet, was born in his father’s house, at the +Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and +seven in the morning. His father appears to have been very +solicitous about his education; for he was instructed at first by +private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was +afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of +whom we have reason to think well, since his scholar considered +him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.</p> +<p>He was then sent to St. Paul’s school, under the care of +Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to +Christ’s College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, +Feb. 12, 1624.</p> +<p>He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and +he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a +boast of which the learned Politian has given him an example, +seems to commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the +notice of posterity.</p> +<p>But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed +by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of +the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an estimate: many +have excelled Milton in their first essays, who never rose to +works like “Paradise Lost.”</p> +<p>At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he +translated or versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought +worthy of the public eye; but they raise no great expectations: +they would in any numerous school have obtained praise, but not +excited wonder.</p> +<p>Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his +eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the +Roman authors with very nice discernment. I once heard Mr. +Hampton, the translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is +true, that Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival +of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance. If +any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, +the pride of Elizabeth’s reign, however they may have +succeeded in prose, no sooner attempt verse than they provoke +derision. If we produced anything worthy of notice before +the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster’s +“Roxana.”</p> +<p>Of these exercises, which the rules of the University +required, some were published by him in his maturer years. +They had been undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few +can form: yet there is reason to suspect that he was regarded in +his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no +fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he was +treated was not merely negative. I am ashamed to relate +what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the last students in +either University that suffered the public indignity of corporal +correction.</p> +<p>It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected +to him, that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was +apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to +“Diodati”, that he had incurred +“rustication,” a temporary dismission into the +country, with perhaps the loss of a term.</p> +<blockquote><p>Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamesis alluit +undâ,<br /> + Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.<br /> +Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum<br /> + Nec dudum <i>vetiti</i> me <i>laris</i> angit +amor.—<br /> +Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,<br /> + Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.<br /> +Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates,<br /> + Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi,<br /> +Non ego vel <i>profugi</i> nomen sortemve recuso,<br /> + Lætus et <i>exilii</i> conditione fruor.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and +reverence can give to the term, “vetiti laris,” +“a habitation from which he is excluded;” or how +“exile” can be otherwise interpreted. He +declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring “the +threats of a rigorous master, and something else which a temper +like his cannot undergo.” What was more than threat +was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his +“exile,” proves likewise that it was not perpetual; +for it concludes with a resolution of returning some time to +Cambridge. And it may be conjectured, from the willingness +with which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its +cause was such as gave him no shame.</p> +<p>He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and +that of master in 1632; but he left the University with no +kindness for its institution, alienated either by the injudicious +severity of his governors, or his own captious +perverseness. The cause cannot now be known, but the effect +appears in his writings. His scheme of education, inscribed +to Hartlib, supersedes all academical instruction, being intended +to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in literature, +from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is +called Masters of Art. And in his discourse “on the +likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church,” he +ingeniously proposes that the profits of the lands forfeited by +the act for superstitious uses should be applied to such +academies all over the land where languages and arts may be +taught together that youth may be at once brought up to a +competency of learning and an honest trade, by which means such +of them as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves +(without tithes) by the latter, may, by the help of the former, +become worthy preachers.</p> +<p>One of his objections to academical education, as it was then +conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were +permitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs +to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, +and bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they +had, or were near having, to the eyes of courtiers and +court-ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles.</p> +<p>This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions +his exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the +compensation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him. +Plays were therefore only criminal when they were acted by +academics.</p> +<p>He went to the university with a design of entering into the +church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that +whoever became a clergyman, must “subscribe slave, and take +an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that +could retch, he must straight perjure himself. He thought +it better to prefer a blameless silence before the office of +speaking, bought and begun with servitude and +forswearing.”</p> +<p>These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of +the Articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to +canonical obedience. I know not any of the Articles which +seem to thwart his opinions: but the thoughts of obedience, +whether canonical or civil, raise his indignation.</p> +<p>His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet +advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a +letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and +dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable +curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge. To +this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he +endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the +delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining +more fitness for his task; and that he goes on, “not taking +thought of being late, so it gives advantage to be more +fit.”</p> +<p>When he left the University, he returned to his father, then +residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five +years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and +Latin writers. With what limitations this universality is +to be understood, who shall inform us?</p> +<p>It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have +done nothing else; but Milton found time to write the +“Masque of Comus,” which was presented at Ludlow, +then the residence of the Lord President of Wales, in 1634; and +had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater’s +sons and daughter. The fiction is derived from +Homer’s “Circe;” but we never can refuse to any +modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:</p> +<blockquote><p> —a quo ceu fonte +perenni<br /> +Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on +the death of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for +Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King +was much a favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to +do honour to his memory. Milton’s acquaintance with +the Italian writers may be discovered by a mixture of longer and +shorter verses, according to the rules of Tuscan poetry, and his +malignity to the church by some lines which are interpreted as +threatening its extermination.</p> +<p>He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; +for while he lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his +studies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the +Countess Dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a +dramatic entertainment.</p> +<p>He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some +purpose of taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death +of his mother set him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained +his father’s consent, and Sir Henry Wotton’s +directions; with the celebrated precept of prudence, <i>i +pensieri stretti</i>, <i>ed il viso sciolto</i>; “thoughts +close, and looks loose.”</p> +<p>In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by +the favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting +Grotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador from +Christina of Sweden. From Paris he hasted into Italy, of +which he had with particular diligence studied the language and +literature; and, though he seems to have intended a very quick +perambulation of the country, stayed two months at Florence; +where he found his way into the academies, and produced his +compositions with such applause as appears to have exalted him in +his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, “by +labour and intense study, which,” says he, “I take to +be my portion in this life, joined with a strong propensity of +nature,” he might “leave something so written to +after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.”</p> +<p>It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual +concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in +himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others, for +scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of +his praise he was very frugal; as he set its value high, and +considered his mention of a name as a security against the waste +of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion.</p> +<p>At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted +distinction. Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic +inscription, in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him +an ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noise; the rest +are perhaps too diffuse on common topics: but the last is natural +and beautiful.</p> +<p>From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, +where he was again received with kindness by the learned and the +great. Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican library, who +had resided three years at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal +Barberini: and he, at a musical entertainment, waited for him at +the door, and led him by the hand into the assembly. Here +Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a tetrastich: +neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by +this literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton +repaid Salsilli, though not secure against a stern grammarian, +turn the balance indisputably in Milton’s favour.</p> +<p>Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud +enough to publish them before his poems; though he says, he +cannot be suspected but to have known that they were said <i>non +tam de se</i>, <i>quam supra se</i>.</p> +<p>At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months: a time +indeed sufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer +of its antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but +certainly too short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or +manners.</p> +<p>From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a +companion from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton +owed his introduction to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who had been +before the patron of Tasso. Manso was enough delighted with +his accomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which +he commends him for everything but his religion: and Milton, in +return, addressed him in a Latin poem, which must have raised a +high opinion of English elegance and literature.</p> +<p>His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but +hearing of the differences between the king and parliament, he +thought it proper to hasten home, rather than pass his life in +foreign amusements while his countrymen were contending for their +rights. He therefore came back to Rome, though the +merchants informed him of plots laid against him by the Jesuits, +for the liberty of his conversations on religion. He had +sense enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore +kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor +shunning controversy. He had perhaps given some offence by +visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the Inquisition for +philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manse, that, +by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded +himself from some distinctions which he should otherwise have +paid him. But such conduct, though it did not please, was +yet sufficiently safe; and Milton stayed two months more at Rome, +and went on to Florence without molestation.</p> +<p>From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to +Venice; and, having sent away a collection of music and other +books, travelled to Geneva, which he probably considered as the +metropolis of orthodoxy.</p> +<p>Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became +acquainted with John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned +professors of divinity. From Geneva he passed through +France; and came home, after an absence of a year and three +months.</p> +<p>At his return he heard of the death of his friend, Charles +Diodati; a man whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, +since he was thought by Milton worthy of a poem, entitled +“Epitaphium Damonis,” written with the common but +childish imitation of pastoral life.</p> +<p>He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in +St. Bride’s Churchyard, and undertook the education of John +and Edward Philips, his sister’s sons. Finding his +rooms too little, he took a house and garden in Aldersgate +Street, which was not then so much out of the world as it is now; +and chose his dwelling at the upper end of a passage, that he +might avoid the noise of the street. Here he received more +boys, to be boarded and instructed.</p> +<p>Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some +degree of merriment on great promises and small performance, on +the man who hastens home, because his countrymen are contending +for their liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, +vapours away his patriotism in a private boarding-school. +This is the period of his life from which all his biographers +seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton +should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but since it cannot be +denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for +nothing, and another that his motive was only zeal for the +propagation of learning and virtue; and all tell what they do not +know to be true, only to excuse an act which no wise man will +consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; +his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by +an honest and useful employment.</p> +<p>It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; +and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, +that were read in Aldersgate Street by youth between ten and +fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive +these stories should consider, that nobody can be taught faster +than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be +limited by the power of his horse. Every man that has ever +undertaken to instruct others can tell what slow advances he has +been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall +vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to +rectify absurd misapprehension.</p> +<p>The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something +more solid than the common literature of schools, by reading +those authors that treat of physical subjects, such as the +Georgic, and astronomical treatises of the ancients. This +was a scheme of improvement which seems to have busied many +literary projectors of that age. Cowley, who had more means +than Milton of knowing what was wanting to the embellishments of +life, formed the same plan of education in his imaginary +college.</p> +<p>But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and +the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not +the great or the frequent business of the human mind. +Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to +be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and +moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance +with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be +said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of +opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences +of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but +we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with +intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter +are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of +such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life +without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or +astronomy; but his moral and prudential character immediately +appears.</p> +<p>Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that +supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, +and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best +served by poets, orators, and historians.</p> +<p>Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or +paradoxical; for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on +my side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the +study of Nature to speculations upon life; but the innovators +whom I oppose are turning off attention from life to +nature. They seem to think that we are placed here to watch +the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars. Socrates +was rather of opinion that what we had to learn was how to do +good and avoid evil.</p> +<blockquote><p>Οτι ποι +ὲν +μεγάροισι +κακόντ’ +άγαθόντε +τέτυκται</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this +wonder-working academy I do not know that there ever proceeded +any man very eminent for knowledge: its only genuine product, I +believe, is a small History of Poetry, written in Latin by his +nephew Philips, of which perhaps none of my readers has ever +heard.</p> +<p>That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, +he laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for +doubting. One part of his method deserves general +imitation. He was careful to instruct his scholars in +religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology, of which he +dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that were then +fashionable in the Dutch universities.</p> +<p>He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; +only now and then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity +and indulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray’s Inn.</p> +<p>He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and +lent his breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 +he published a treatise of Reformation in two books, against the +Established Church, being willing to help the Puritans, who were, +he says, “inferior to the Prelates in learning.”</p> +<p>Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, +in defence of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, of +whose names the first letters made the celebrated word +<i>Smectymnuus</i>, gave their answer. Of this answer a +confutation was attempted by the learned Usher; and to the +confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, “Of +Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the +Apostolical Times, by virtue of those Testimonies which are +alleged to that purpose in some late Treatises, one whereof goes +under the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh.”</p> +<p>I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous +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 +ostentatious 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 that can +enrich with 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 +measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this +expectation.” From a promise like this, at once +fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected the +“Paradise Lost.”</p> +<p>He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same +question. To one of his antagonists, who affirms that 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 approbation 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 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.”</p> +<p>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 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.”</p> +<p>The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of +his antagonist. This roughness he justifies by great +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 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 thumb-ring posies.—And thus ends this +section, or rather dissection, 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.”</p> +<p>His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside +in his house, and his school increased. At Whitsuntide, in +his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. +Powel, 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 hard study; for, as +Philips 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.”</p> +<p>Milton was too busy to much miss his wife; he pursued 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 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.</p> +<p>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 +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.”</p> +<p>This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by 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.”</p> +<p>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 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.</p> +<p>From this time it is observed that he became an enemy 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.</p> +<p>His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not 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 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 Philips, “his own +generous 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 in his own house, when they were distressed, with +other Royalists.</p> +<p>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 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 what civil authority +shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard +of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his +prospects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at +government may diffuse 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 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.</p> +<p>But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic poetry +was never long out of his thoughts.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Philips, “now looked like a house of the +Muses only, though the accession of scholars was not great. +Possibly his having proceeded so 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, +but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to his +relations, and the sons of gentlemen who were his intimate +friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching +savoured in the least of pedantry.”</p> +<p>Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be +denied, and what might be confessed without disgrace. +Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean +employment. This, however, his warmest friends seem not to +have found; they therefore shift and palliate. He did not +sell literature to all comers at an open shop; he was a +chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his +friends.</p> +<p>Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of +degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to +raise his character again, has a mind to invest him with military +splendour: “He is much mistaken,” he says, “if +there was not about this time a design of making him an +adjutant-general in Sir William Waller’s army. But +the new-modelling of the army proved an obstruction to the +design.” An event cannot be set at a much greater +distance than by having been only “designed, about some +time,” if a man “be not much mistaken.” +Milton shall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not +much mistaken, somebody at some time designed him for a +soldier.</p> +<p>About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he +removed to a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into +Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He is not known to have +published anything afterwards till the king’s death, when, +finding his murderers condemned by the Presbyterians, he wrote a +treatise to justify it, “and to compose the minds of the +people.”</p> +<p>He made some remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond +and the Irish rebels. While he contented himself to write, +he perhaps did only what his conscience dictated; and if he did +not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own passions, and +the gradual prevalence of opinions, first willingly admitted, and +then habitually indulged; if objections, by being overlooked, +were forgotten, and desire superinduced conviction, he yet +shared—only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no +less sincere than his opponents. But, as faction seldom +leaves a man honest, however it might find him, Milton is +suspected of having interpolated the book called “Icon +Basilike,” which the council of state, to whom he was now +made Latin Secretary, employed him to censure, by inserting a +prayer taken from Sidney’s “Arcadia,” and +imputing it to the king, whom he charges, in his +“Iconoclastes,” with the use of this prayer, as with +a heavy come, in the indecent language with which prosperity had +emboldened the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is +venerable or great: “Who would have imagined so little fear +in him of the true all-seeing deity—as, immediately before +his death, to pop into the hands of the grave bishop that +attended him, as a special relic of his saintly exercises, a +prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen woman +praying to a heathen god?”</p> +<p>The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold +the regicides took away; so that they were at least the +publishers of this prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the +question with great care, was inclined to think them the +forgers. The use of it by adaptation was innocent, and they +who could so noisily censure it, with a little extension of their +malice could contrive what they wanted to accuse.</p> +<p>King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, +employed Salmasius, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to +write a defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his +industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobuses. +Salmasius was a man of skill in languages, knowledge of +antiquity, and sagacity of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding +all hope of human attainment; and having, by excessive praises, +been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably +had not much considered the principles of society or the right of +government, undertook the employment without distrust of his own +qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, +in 1649 published “Defensio Regis.”</p> +<p>To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; +which he performed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared +himself unable to decide whose language was best, or whose +arguments were worst. In my opinion, Milton’s periods +are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself +with teasing his adversary as much as with confuting him. +He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, whose doctrine he +considers as servile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmasius, +which, whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. +Salmasius was a Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a +scold. <i>Tu es Gallus</i>, says Milton, <i>et</i>, <i>ut +aiunt</i>, <i>nimium gallinaceus</i>. But his supreme +pleasure is to tax his adversary, so renowned for criticism, with +vicious Latin. He opens his book with telling that he has +used <i>Persona</i>, which, according to Milton, signifies only a +<i>Mask</i>, in a sense not known to the Romans, by applying it +as we apply <i>Person</i>. But as Nemesis is always on the +watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a +solecism by an expression in itself grossly solecistical, when +for one of those supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think +some one before him, has remarked, “<i>propino te +grammatistis tuis vapulandum</i>.” From +<i>vapulo</i>, which has a passive sense, <i>vapulandus</i> can +never be derived. No man forgets his original trade: the +rights of nations, and of kings, sink into questions of grammar, +if grammarians discuss them.</p> +<p>Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and +dim of sight; but his will was forward, and what was wanting of +health was supplied by zeal. He was rewarded with a +thousand pounds, and his book was much read; for paradox, +recommended by spirit and elegance, easily gains attention; and +he, who told every man that he was equal to his king, could +hardly want an audience.</p> +<p>That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal +rapidity, or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. +He taught only the stale doctrine of authority, and the +unpleasing duty of submission; and he had been so long not only +the monarch, but the tyrant of literature, that almost all +mankind were delighted to find him defied and insulted by a new +name, not yet considered as any one’s rival. If +Christina, as is said, commended the defence of the people, her +purpose must be to torment Salmasius, who was then at court; for +neither her civil station, nor her natural character, could +dispose her to favour the doctrine, who was by birth a queen, and +by temper despotic.</p> +<p>That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton’s +book, treated with neglect, there is not much proof; but to a +man, so long accustomed to admiration, a little praise of his +antagonist would be sufficiently offensive, and might incline him +to leave Sweden, from which however he was dismissed, not with +any mark of contempt, but with a train of attendants scarce less +than regal.</p> +<p>He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was +published by his son in the year of the Restoration. In the +beginning, being probably most in pain for his Latinity, he +endeavours to defend his use of the word <i>persona</i>; but, if +I remember right, he misses a better authority than any that he +has found, that of Juvenal in his fourth satire:</p> +<blockquote><p>—Quid agis cum dira et fœdior omni<br +/> +Crimine <i>persona</i> est?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the +quarrel, Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had +shortened Salmasius’s life, and both perhaps with more +malignity than reason. Salmasius died at the Spa, Sept. 3, +1653; and, as controvertists are commonly said to be killed by +their last dispute, Milton was flattered with the credit of +destroying him.</p> +<p>Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of +which he had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, +under the title of Protector, but with kingly and more than +kingly power. That his authority was lawful, never was +pretended; he himself founded his right only in necessity; but +Milton, having now tasted the honey of public employment, would +not return to hunger and philosophy, but, continuing to exercise +his office under a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his power +that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be more +just than that rebellion should end in slavery; that he, who had +justified the murder of his king, for some acts which seemed to +him unlawful, should now sell his services, and his flatteries, +to a tyrant, of whom it was evident that he could do nothing +lawful.</p> +<p>He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of +intellect was such, that he was not disabled to discharge his +office of Latin secretary, or continue his controversies. +His mind was too eager to be diverted, and too strong to be +subdued.</p> +<p>About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left +him three daughters. As he probably did not much love her, +he did not long continue the appearance of lamenting her; but +after a short time married Catharine, the daughter of one Captain +Woodcock, of Hackney, a woman doubtless educated in opinions like +his own. She died, within a year, of childbirth, or some +distemper that followed it; and her husband honoured her memory +with a poor sonnet.</p> +<p>The first reply to Milton’s “Defensio +Populi” was published in 1651, called “Apologia pro +Rege et Populo Anglicano, contra Johannis Polypragmatici (alias +Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis et Populi.” +Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his nephew +Philips, under whose name he published an answer so much +corrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it to +Bramhal; and, knowing him no friend to regicides, thought +themselves at liberty to treat him as if they had known what they +only suspected.</p> +<p>Next year appeared “Regii Sanguinis clamor ad +Cœlum.” Of this the author was Peter du Moulin, +who was afterwards prebendary of Canterbury; but Morus, or More, +a French minister, having the care of its publication, was +treated as the writer by Milton, in his “Defensio +Secunda,” and overwhelmed by such violence of invective, +that he began to shrink under the tempest, and gave his +persecutors the means of knowing the true author. Du Moulin +was now in great danger; but Milton’s pride operated +against his malignity; and both he and his friends were more +willing that Du Moulin should escape than that he should be +convicted of mistake.</p> +<p>In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not +merely satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by +the grossness of his flattery, <i>Deserimur</i>, <i>Cromuelle tu +solus superes</i>, <i>ad te summa nostrarum rerum</i>, +<i>rediit</i>, <i>in te solo consistit</i>, <i>insuperabili +tuæ virtuti cedimus cuncti</i>, <i>nemine vel +obloquente</i>, <i>nisi qui æquales inæqualis ipse +honores sibi quærit</i>, <i>aut digniori concessos +invidet</i>, <i>aut non intelligit nihil esse in societate +hominum magis vel Deo gratum</i>, <i>vel rationi +consentaneum</i>, <i>esse in civitate nihil æquius</i>, +<i>nihil utilius</i>, <i>quam potiri rerum +dignissimum</i>. <i>Eum te agnoscunt omnes</i>, +<i>Cromuelle</i>, <i>ea tu civis maximus</i>, <i>et +gloriosissimus</i>, <i>dux publici consilii</i>, <i>exercituum +fortissimorum imperator</i>, <i>pater patriæ +gessisti</i>. <i>Sic tu spontanea bonorum omnium et +animitus missa voce salutaris</i>.</p> +<p>Cæsar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had +not more servile or more elegant flattery. A translation +may show its servility; but its elegance is less +attainable. Having exposed the unskilfulness or selfishness +of the former government, “We were left,” says +Milton, “to ourselves: the whole national interest fell +into our hands, and subsists only in your abilities. To +your virtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, +except some who, without equal qualifications, aspire to equal +honours, who envy the distinctions of merit greater than their +own, or who have yet to learn, that in the coalition of human +society nothing is more pleasing to God, or more agreeable to +reason, than that the highest mind should have the sovereign +power. Such, sir, are you by general confession; such are +the things achieved by you, the greatest and most glorious of our +countrymen, the director of our public councils, the leader of +unconquered armies, the father of your country; for by that title +doss every good man hail you with sincere and voluntary +praise.”</p> +<p>Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found +leisure to defend himself. He undertook his own vindication +against More, whom he declares in his title to be justly called +the author of the “Regii Sanguinis Clamor.” In +this there is no want of vehemence nor eloquence, nor does he +forget his wonted wit. <i>Morus es</i>? <i>an Momus</i>? +<i>an uterque idem est</i>? He then remembers that Morus is +Latin for a mulberry-tree, and hints at the known +transformation:</p> +<blockquote><p>—Poma alba ferebat<br /> +Quæ post nigra tulit Morus.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>With this piece ended his controversies; and he from this time +gave himself up to his private studies and his civil +employment.</p> +<p>As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written +the Declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain. His +agency was considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty +with Sweden was artfully suspended, the delay was publicly +imputed to Mr. Milton’s indisposition; and the Swedish +agent was provoked to express his wonder that only one man in +England could write Latin, and that man blind.</p> +<p>Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself +disencumbered from external interruptions, he seems to have +recollected his former purposes, and to have resumed three great +works which he had planned for his future employment—an +epic poem, the history of his country, and a dictionary of the +Latin tongue.</p> +<p>To collect a dictionary seems a work of all others least +practicable in a state of blindness, because it depends upon +perpetual and minute inspection and collation. Nor would +Milton probably have begun it, after he had lost his eyes; but, +having had it always before him, he continued it, says Philips, +“almost to his dying day; but the papers were so +discomposed and deficient, that they could not be fitted for the +press.” The compilers of the Latin dictionary, +printed at Cambridge, had the use of those collections in three +folios; but what was their fate afterwards is not known.</p> +<p>To compile a history from various authors, when they can only +be consulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with +more skilful and attentive help than can be commonly obtained; +and it was probably the difficulty of consulting and comparing +that stopped Milton’s narrative at the Conquest—a +period at which affairs were not very intricate, nor authors very +numerous.</p> +<p>For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, +long choosing, and beginning late, he fixed upon “Paradise +Lost,” a design so comprehensive, that it could be +justified only by success. He had once designed to +celebrate King Arthur, as he hints in his verses to Mansus; but +“Arthur was reserved,” says Fenton, “to another +destiny.”</p> +<p>It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in +manuscript, and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had +digested his thoughts on this subject into one of those wild +dramas which were anciently called Mysteries; and Philips had +seen what he terms part of a tragedy, beginning with the first +ten lines of Satan’s address to the Sun. These +mysteries consist of allegorical persons, such as Justice, Mercy, +Faith. Of the tragedy or mystery of “Paradise +Lost” there are two plans</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>The Persons</i>.</p> +<p>Michael.</p> +<p>Chorus of Angels.</p> +<p>Heavenly Love.</p> +<p>Lucifer.</p> +<p>Adam, Eve, with the Serpent</p> +<p>Conscience.</p> +<p>Death.</p> +<p>Labour, }</p> +<p>Sickness, }</p> +<p>Discontent, } Mutes.</p> +<p>Ignorance, }</p> +<p>with others; }</p> +<p>Faith.</p> +<p>Hope.</p> +<p>Charity.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>The Persons</i>.</p> +<p>Moses.</p> +<p>Divine Justice, Wisdom</p> +<p>Heavenly Love.</p> +<p>The Evening Star, Hesperus.</p> +<p>Chorus of Angels.</p> +<p>Lucifer.</p> +<p>Adam.</p> +<p>Eve.</p> +<p>Conscience.</p> +<p>Labour, }</p> +<p>Sickness, }</p> +<p>Discontent, } Mutes</p> +<p>Ignorance, }</p> +<p>Fear, }</p> +<p>Death, }</p> +<p>Faith.</p> +<p>Hope.</p> +<p>Charity.</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h3><span class="smcap">Paradise Lost</span>.</h3> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>The Persons</i>.</p> +<p>Moses, +προλογίζει, +recounting how he assumed his true body; that it corrupts not, +because it is with God in the mount; declares the like of Enoch +and Elijah; besides the purity of the place, that certain pure +winds, dews, and clouds, preserve it from corruption; whence +exhorts to the sight of God; tells they cannot see Adam in the +state of innocence, by reason of their sin.</p> +<p>Justice, Mercy, Wisdom } debating what should become of man, +if he fall.</p> +<p>Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation.</p> +<h4>ACT II.</h4> +<p>Heavenly Love.</p> +<p>Evening Star.</p> +<p>Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise.</p> +<h4>ACT III.</h4> +<p>Lucifer contriving Adam’s ruin.</p> +<p>Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer’s rebellion +and fall.</p> +<h4>ACT IV.</h4> +<p>Adam, Eve } fallen.</p> +<p>Conscience cites them to God’s examination.</p> +<p>Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost.</p> +<h4>ACT V.</h4> +<p>Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise.</p> +<p>— — presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, +Hatred, Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, +Ignorance, Fear, Death } Mutes.</p> +<p>To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, Heat, +Tempest, etc.</p> +<p>Faith, Hope, Charity, comfort him and instruct him.</p> +<p>Chorus briefly concludes.</p> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p>Such was his first design, which could have produced only an +allegory or mystery. The following sketch seems to have +attained more maturity.</p> +<h3><span class="smcap">Adam Unparadised</span>.</h3> +<p>The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, +since this globe was created, his frequency as much on earth as +in heaven; describes Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the +reason of his coming to keep his watch in Paradise, after +Lucifer’s rebellion, by command from God; and withal +expressing his desire to see and know more concerning this +excellent new creature, man. The angel Gabriel, as by his +name signifying a prince of power, tracing Paradise with a more +free office, passes by the station of the Chorus, and, desired by +them, relates what he knew of man; as the creation of Eve, with +their love and marriage. After this, Lucifer appears; after +his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks revenge on man. The +Chorus prepare resistance on his first approach. At last, +after discourse of enmity on either side, he departs: whereat the +Chorus sings of the battle and victory in Heaven, against him and +his accomplices: as before, after the first act, was sung a hymn +of the creation. Here again may appear Lucifer, relating +and exulting in what he had done to the destruction of man. +Man next, and Eve, having by this time been seduced by the +serpent, appears confusedly covered with leaves. Conscience +in a shape accuses him; Justice cites him to the place whither +Jehovah called for him. In the meanwhile, the Chorus +entertains the stage, and is informed by some angel the manner of +the fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam’s fall; Adam +then and Eve return; accuse one another; but especially Adam lays +the blame to his wife; is stubborn in his offence. Justice +appears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus +admonishes Adam, and bids him beware of Lucifer’s example +of impenitence. The angel is sent to banish them out of +Paradise; but before causes to pass before his eyes, in shapes, a +mask of all the evils of this life and world. He is +humbled, relents, despairs; at last appears Mercy, comforts him, +promises the Messiah; then calls in Faith, Hope, and +Charity;—instructs him; he repents, gives God the glory, +submits to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. +Compare this with the former draft.</p> +<p>These are very imperfect rudiments of “Paradise +Lost;” but it is pleasant to see great works in their +seminal state, pregnant with latent possibilities of excellence; +nor could there be any more delightful entertainment than to +trace their gradual growth and expansion, and to observe how they +are sometimes suddenly advanced by accidental hints, and +sometimes slowly improved by steady meditation.</p> +<p>Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness +cannot obstruct, and therefore he naturally solaced his solitude +by the indulgence of his fancy, and the melody of his +numbers. He had done what he knew to be necessarily +previous to poetical excellence; he had made himself acquainted +with “seemly arts and affairs;” his comprehension was +extended by various knowledge, and his memory stored with +intellectual treasures. He was skilful in many languages, +and had, by reading and composition, attained the full mastery of +his own. He would have wanted little help from books, had +he retained the power of perusing them.</p> +<p>But while his greater designs were advancing, having now, like +many other authors, caught the love of publication, he amused +himself, as he could, with little productions. He sent to +the press (1658) a manuscript of Raleigh, called “The +Cabinet Council;” and next year gratified his malevolence +to the clergy, by a “Treatise of Civil Power in +Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelings out of +the Church.”</p> +<p>Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system +of extemporary government, which had been held together only by +force, naturally fell into fragments when that force was taken +away; and Milton saw himself and his cause in equal danger. +But he had still hope of doing something. He wrote letters, +which Toland has published, to such men as he thought friends to +the new commonwealth; and even in the year of the Restoration he +“bated no jot of heart or hope,” but was fantastical +enough to think that the nation, agitated as it was, might be +settled by a pamphlet, called “A Ready and Easy Way to +Establish a Free Commonwealth;” which was, however, enough +considered to be both seriously and ludicrously answered.</p> +<p>The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very +remarkable. When the king was apparently returning, +Harrington, with a few associates as fantastical as himself, used +to meet, with all the gravity of political importance, to settle +an equal government by rotation; and Milton, kicking when he +could strike no longer, was foolish enough to publish, a few +weeks before the Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one +Griffiths, entitled, “The Fear of God and the +King.” To these notes an answer was written by +L’Estrange, in a pamphlet petulantly called “No Blind +Guides.”</p> +<p>But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity +could do, the king was now about to be restored with the +irresistible approbation of the people, he was therefore no +longer secretary, and was consequently obliged to quit the house +which he held by his office; the importance of his writings, +thought it convenient to seek some shelter, and hid himself for a +time in Bartholomew Close, by West Smithfield.</p> +<p>I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously +paid to this great man by his biographers: every house in which +he resided is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to +neglect naming any place that he honoured by his presence.</p> +<p>The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no +other example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or +his father’s wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of +Oblivion all except those whom the Parliament should except; and +the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches +who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the king. +Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what +they had done.</p> +<p>This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and +(June 16) an order was issued to seize Milton’s +“Defence,” and Goodwin’s “Obstructors of +Justice,” another book of the same tendency, and burn them +by the common hangman. The attorney-general was ordered to +prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor perhaps +very diligently pursued.</p> +<p>Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms +was stilled by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want +no recommendation of elegance, rather called an Act of Oblivion +than of Grace. Goodwin was named, with nineteen more, as +incapacitated for any public trust; but of Milton there was no +exception.</p> +<p>Of this tenderness shown to Milton the curiosity of mankind +has not forborne to inquire the reason. Burnet thinks he +was forgotten; but this is another instance which may confirm +Dalrymple’s observation, who says, “that whenever +Burnet’s narrations are examined, he appears to be +mistaken.”</p> +<p>Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must +be therefore by design that he was included in the general +oblivion. He is said to have had friends in the House, such +as Marvel, Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges: and undoubtedly a man +like him must have had influence. A very particular story +of his escape is told by Richardson in his Memoirs, which he +received from Pope, as delivered by Betterton, who might have +heard it from Davenant. In the war between the King and +Parliament, Davenant was made prisoner and condemned to die; but +was spared at the request of Milton. When the turn of +success brought Milton into the like danger, Davenant repaid the +benefit by appearing in his favour. Here is a reciprocation +of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, that the tale makes its +own way to credit. But if help were wanted, I know not +where to find it. The danger of Davenant is certain from +his own relation; but of his escape there is no account. +Betterton’s narration can be traced no higher; it is not +known that he hid it from Davenant. We are told that the +benefit exchanged was life for life; but it seems not certain +that Milton’s life ever was in danger. Goodwin, who +had committed the same kind of crime, escaped with +incapacitation; and, as exclusion from public trust is a +punishment which the power of Government can commonly inflict +without the help of a particular law, it required no great +interest to exempt Milton from a censure little more than +verbal. Something may be reasonably ascribed to veneration +and compassion; to veneration of his abilities, and compassion +for his distresses, which made it fit to forgive his malice for +his learning. He was now poor and blind; and who would +pursue with violence an illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune +and disarmed by nature?</p> +<p>The publication of the “Act of Oblivion” put him +in the same condition with his fellow-subjects. He was, +however, upon some pretence now not known, in the custody of the +serjeant in December; and when he was released, upon his refusal +of the fees demanded, he and the serjeant were called before the +House. He was now safe within the shade of oblivion, and +knew himself to be as much out of the power of a griping officer +as any other man. How the question was determined is not +known. Milton would hardly have contended but that he knew +himself to have right on his side.</p> +<p>He then removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street, and, +being blind and by no means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion +and attendant; and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget, +married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman’s family in +Cheshire, probably without a fortune. All his wives were +virgins; for he has declared that he thought it gross and +indelicate to be a second husband: upon what other principles his +choice was made cannot now be known; but marriage afforded not +much of his happiness. The first wife left him in disgust, +and was brought back only by terror; the second, indeed, seems to +have been more a favourite, but her life was short. The +third, as Philips relates, oppressed his children in his +lifetime, and cheated them at his death.</p> +<p>Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was +offered the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by +his wife to accept it, answered, “You, like other women, +want to ride in your coach; my wish is to live and die an honest +man.” If he considered the Latin secretary as +exercising any of the powers of government, he that had shared +authority, either with the Parliament or Cromwell, might have +forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty; and if he thought +the office purely ministerial, he certainly might have honestly +retained it under the King. But this tale has too little +evidence to deserve a disquisition; large offers and sturdy +rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.</p> +<p>He had so much either of prudence or gratitude, that he +forbore to disturb the new settlement with any of his political +or ecclesiastical opinions, and from this time devoted himself to +poetry and literature. Of his zeal for learning in all its +parts, he gave a proof by publishing, the next year (1661), +“Accidence commenced Grammar;” a little book which +has nothing remarkable, but that its author, who had been lately +defending the supreme powers of his country, and was then writing +“Paradise Lost,” could descend from his elevation to +rescue children from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and +the trouble of lessons unnecessarily repeated.</p> +<p>About this time, Elwood the Quaker, being recommended to him +as one who would read Latin to him for the advantage of his +conversation, attended him every afternoon except on +Sundays. Milton, who, in his letter to Hartlib, had +declared, that “to read Latin with an English mouth is as +ill a hearing as Law French,” required that Elwood should +learn and practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, was +necessary, if he would talk with foreigners. This seems to +have been a task troublesome without use. There is little +reason for preferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, +except that it is more general; and to teach it to an Englishman +is only to make him a foreigner at home. He who travels, if +he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the sounds which every native +gives it, that he need make no provision before his journey; and +if strangers visit us, it is their business to practise such +conformity to our modes as they expect from us in their own +countries. Elwood complied with the directions, and +improved himself by his attendance; for he relates, that Milton, +having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he read what he did +not understand, and would stop him, and “open the most +difficult passages.”</p> +<p>In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading +to Bunhill Fields; the mention of which concludes the register of +Milton’s removals and habitations. He lived longer in +this place than any other.</p> +<p>He was now busied by “Paradise Lost.” Whence +he drew the original design has been variously conjectured by men +who cannot bear to think themselves ignorant of that which, at +last, neither diligence nor sagacity can discover. Some +find the hint in an Italian tragedy. Voltaire tells a wild +and unauthorised story of a farce seen by Milton in Italy which +opened thus: “Let the Rainbow be the Fiddlestick of the +Fiddle of Heaven.” It has been already shown, that +the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, not of a +narrative, but a dramatic work which he is supposed to have began +to reduce to its present form about the time (1655) when he +finished his dispute with the defenders of the king.</p> +<p>He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great +performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was +stimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from the +survey of his attainments, and the consciousness of his +powers. What he should undertake it was difficult to +determine. He was “long choosing, and began +late.”</p> +<p>While he was obliged to divide his time between his private +studies and affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been +often interrupted; and perhaps he did little more in that busy +time than construct the narrative, adjust the episodes, +proportion the parts, accumulate images and sentiments, and +treasure in his memory, or preserve in writing, such hints as +books or meditation would supply. Nothing particular is +known of his intellectual operations while he was a statesman; +for, having every help and accommodation at hand, he had no need +of uncommon expedients.</p> +<p>Being driven from all public stations, he is yet too great not +to be traced by curiosity to his retirement; where he has been +found by Mr. Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sitting +before his door in a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry +weather, to enjoy the fresh air; and so, as in his own room, +receiving the visits of people of distinguished parts as well as +quality. His visitors of high quality must now be imagined +to be few; but men of parts might reasonably court the +conversation of a man so generally illustrious, that foreigners +are reported, by Wood, to have visited the house in Bread Street +where he was born.</p> +<p>According to another account, he was seen in a small house, +neatly enough dressed in black clothes, sitting in a room hung +with rusty green; pale but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in +his hands. He said that, if it were not for the gout, his +blindness would be tolerable.</p> +<p>In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the +common exercises, he used to swing in a chair, and sometimes +played upon an organ.</p> +<p>He was now confessedly and visibly employed upon his poem, of +which the progress might be noted by those with whom he was +familiar; for he was obliged, when he had composed as many lines +as his memory would conveniently retain, to employ some friend in +writing them, having, at least for part of the time, no regular +attendant. This gave opportunity to observations and +reports.</p> +<p>Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very remarkable +circumstance in the composure of “Paradise Lost,” +“which I have a particular reason,” says he, +“to remember; for whereas I had the perusal of it from the +very beginning, for some years, as I went from time to time to +visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time +(which, being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly +want correction as to the orthography and pointing), having, as +the Summer came on, not been showed any for a considerable while, +and desiring the reason thereof, was answered, that his vein +never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal; +and that whatever he attempted at other times was never to his +satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never so much; so that, +in all the years he was about this poem, he may be said to have +spent half his time therein.”</p> +<p>Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in his opinion Philips +has mistaken the time of the year; for Milton, in his Elegies, +declares, that with the advance of the spring he feels the +increase of his poetical force, <i>redeunt in carmina +vires</i>. To this it is answered, that Philips could +hardly mistake time so well marked; and it may be added, that +Milton might find different times of the year favourable to +different parts of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it +impossible that “such a work should be suspended for six +months, or for one. It may go on faster or slower, but it +must go on.” By what necessity it must continually go +on, or why it might not be laid aside and resumed, it is not easy +to discover.</p> +<p>This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary +and periodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, +justly be derided as the fumes of vain imagination. +<i>Sapiens dominabitur astris</i>. The author that thinks +himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from +hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while +this notion has possession of the head, it produces the inability +which it supposes. Our powers owe much of their energy to +our hopes; <i>possunt quia posse videntur</i>. When success +seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it is admitted +that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a cloudy +sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who can contend +with the course of nature?</p> +<p>From such prepossessions Milton seems not to have been +free. There prevailed in his time an opinion, that the +world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be +produced in the decrepitude of nature. It was suspected +that the whole creation languished, that neither trees nor +animals had the height or bulk of their predecessors, and that +everything was daily sinking by gradual diminution. Milton +appears to suspect that souls partake of the general degeneracy, +and is not without some fear that his book is to be written in +“an age too late” for heroic poesy.</p> +<p>Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds +reception among wise men; an opinion that restrains the +operations of the mind to particular regions, and supposes that a +luckless mortal may be born in a degree of latitude too high or +too low for wisdom or for wit. From this fancy, wild as it +is, he had not wholly cleared his head, when he feared lest the +<i>climate</i> of his country might be <i>too cold</i> for +flights of imagination.</p> +<p>Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not +more reasonable, might easily find its way. He that could +fear lest his genius had fallen upon too old a world, or too +chill a climate, might consistently magnify to himself the +influence of the seasons, and believe his faculties to be +vigorous only half the year.</p> +<p>His submission to the seasons was at least more reasonable +than his dread of decaying nature, or a frigid zone; for general +causes must operate uniformly in a general abatement of mental +power; if less could be performed by the writer, less likewise +would content the judges of his work. Among this lagging +race of frosty grovellers he might still have risen into eminence +by producing something which “they should not willingly let +die.” However inferior to the heroes who were born in +better ages, he might still be great among his contemporaries, +with the hope of growing every day greater in the dwindle of +posterity. He might still be the giant of the pigmies, the +one-eyed monarch of the blind.</p> +<p>Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, +we have little account, and there was perhaps little to be +told. Richardson, who seems to have been very diligent in +his inquiries, but discovers always a wish to find Milton +discriminated from other men, relates that “he would +sometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; +and on a sudden his poetical faculty would rush upon him with an +<i>impetus</i> or <i>æstrum</i>, and his daughter was +immediately called to secure what came. At other times he +would dictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then reduce +them to half the number.”</p> +<p>These bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these +transient and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of +invention, having some appearance of deviation from the common +train of nature, are eagerly caught by the lovers of a +wonder. Yet something of this inequality happens to every +man in every mode of exertion, manual or mental. The +mechanic cannot handle his hammer and his file at all times with +equal dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, when <i>his +hand is out</i>. By Mr. Richardson’s relation, +casually conveyed, much regard cannot be claimed. That, in +his intellectual hour, Milton called for his daughter “to +secure what came,” may be questioned; for unluckily it +happens to be known that his daughters were never taught to +write; nor would he have been obliged, as it is universally +confessed, to have employed any casual visitor in disburdening +his memory, if his daughter could have performed the office.</p> +<p>The story of reducing his exuberance has been told of other +authors; and, though doubtless true of every fertile and copious +mind, seems to have been gratuitously transferred to Milton.</p> +<p>What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he +composed much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose +before his mind was disturbed with common business; and that he +poured out with great fluency his “unpremeditated +verse.” Versification, free, like this, from the +distresses of rhyme, must, by a work so long, be made prompt and +habitual; and, when his thoughts were once adjusted, the words +would come at his command.</p> +<p>At what particular times of his life the parts of his work +were written, cannot often be known. The beginning of the +third book shows that he had lost his sight, and the introduction +to the seventh, that the return of the king had clouded him with +discountenance; and that he was offended by the licentious +festivity of the Restoration. There are no other internal +notes of time. Milton, being now cleared from all effects +of his disloyalty, had nothing required from him but the common +duty of living in quiet, to be rewarded with the common right of +protection; but this, which, when he skulked from the approach of +his king, was perhaps more than he hoped, seems not to have +satisfied him; for no sooner is he safe, than he finds himself in +danger, “fallen on evil days and evil tongues, and with +darkness and with danger compassed round.” This +darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly +deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger was +ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen indeed on “evil +days;” the time was come in which regicides could no longer +boast their wickedness. But of “evil tongues” +for Milton to complain, required impudence at least equal to his +other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow that he +never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality of +insolence.</p> +<p>But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard +to recollect any reproach cast upon him, either serious or +ludicrous, through the whole remaining part of his life. He +pursued his studies or his amusements, without persecution, +molestation, or insult. Such is the reverence paid to great +abilities, however misused; they, who contemplated in Milton the +scholar and the wit, were contented to forget the reviler of his +king.</p> +<p>When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at +Chalfont, in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for +him, first saw a complete copy of “Paradise Lost,” +and, having perused it, said to him, “Thou hast said a +great deal upon Paradise Lost; what hast thou to say upon +Paradise Found?”</p> +<p>Next year, when the danger of infection had ceased, he +returned to Bunhill Fields, and designed the publication of his +poem. A licence was necessary, and he could expect no great +kindness from a chaplain of the Archbishop of Canterbury. +He seems, however, to have been treated with tenderness; for, +though objections were made to particular passages, and among +them to the simile of the sun eclipsed in the first book, yet the +licence was granted; and he sold his copy, April 27, 1667, to +Samuel Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a +stipulation to receive five pounds more when thirteen hundred +should be sold of the first edition; and again, five pounds after +the sale of the same number of the second edition; and another +five pounds after the same sale of the third. None of the +three editions were to be extended beyond fifteen hundred +copies.</p> +<p>The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The +titles were varied from year to year; and an advertisement and +the arguments of the books were omitted in some copies, and +inserted in others.</p> +<p>The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, +for which the receipt was signed April 26, 1669. The second +edition was not given till 1674; it was printed in small octave; +and the number of books was increased to twelve, by a division of +the seventh and twelfth; and some other small improvements were +made. The third edition was published in 1678; and the +widow, to whom the copy was then to devolve, sold all her claims +to Simmons for eight pounds, according to her receipt given +December 21, 1680. Simmons had already agreed to transfer +the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer for £25; and Aylmer sold +to Jacob Tonson half, August 17, 1683, and half, March 24, 1690, +at a price considerably enlarged. In the history of +“Paradise Lost” a deduction thus minute will rather +gratify than fatigue.</p> +<p>The slow sale and tardy reputation of this poem have been +always mentioned as evidences of neglected merit, and of the +uncertainty of literary fame; and inquiries have been made, and +conjectures offered, about the causes of its long obscurity and +late reception. But has the case been truly stated? +Have not lamentation and wonder been lavished on an evil that was +never felt?</p> +<p>That in the reigns of Charles and James the “Paradise +Lost” received no public acclamations is readily +confessed. Wit and literature were on the side of the +court: and who that solicited favour or fashion would venture to +praise the defender of the regicides? All that he himself +could think his due, from “evil tongues” in +“evil days,” was that reverential silence which was +generously preserved. But it cannot be inferred that his +poem was not read, or not, however unwillingly, admired.</p> +<p>The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public. +Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, +should always doubt their conclusions. The call for books +was not, in Milton’s age, what it is at present. To +read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor often +gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The +women had not then aspired to literature, nor was every house +supplied with a closet of knowledge. Those, indeed, who +professed learning, were not less learned than at any other time; +but of that middle race of students who read for pleasure or +accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of modern +typography, the number was then comparatively small. To +prove the paucity of readers, it may be sufficient to remark, +that the nation had been satisfied from 1623 to 1664—that +is, forty-one years—with only two editions of the works of +Shakespeare, which probably did not together make one thousand +copies.</p> +<p>The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in +opposition to so much recent enmity, and to a style of +versification new to all and disgusting to many, was an uncommon +example of the prevalence of genius. The demand did not +immediately increase; for many more readers than were supplied at +first the nation did not afford. Only three thousand were +sold in eleven years; for it forced its way without assistance; +its admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the +opportunities now given of attracting notice by advertisements +were then very few; the means of proclaiming the publication of +new books have been produced by that general literature which now +pervades the nation through all its ranks. But the +reputation and price of the copy still advanced, till the +Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and “Paradise +Lost” broke into open view with sufficient security of kind +reception.</p> +<p>Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton +surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its +reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current +through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm +and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying +on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without +impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a +future generation.</p> +<p>In the meantime he continued his studies, and supplied the +want of sight by a very odd expedient, of which Phillips gives +the following account:—</p> +<p>Mr. Philips tells us, “that though our author had daily +about him one or other to read, some persons of man’s +estate, who, of their own accord, greedily catched at the +opportunity of being his readers, that they might as well reap +the benefit of what they read to him, as oblige him by the +benefit of their reading; and others of younger years were sent +by their parents to the same end; yet excusing only the eldest +daughter by reason of her bodily infirmity and difficult +utterance of speech (which, to say truth, I doubt was the +principal cause of excusing her), the other two were condemned to +the performance of reading and exactly pronouncing of all the +languages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, think +fit to peruse, viz., the Hebrew (and I think the Syriac), the +Greek, the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, and French. All +which sorts of books to be confined to read, without +understanding one word, must needs be a trial of patience almost +beyond endurance. Yet it was endured by both for a long +time, though the irksomeness of this employment could not be +always concealed, but broke out more and more into expressions of +uneasiness; so that at length they were all, even the eldest +also, sent out to learn some curious and ingenious sorts of +manufacture, that are proper for women to learn, particularly +embroideries in gold or silver.”</p> +<p>In the scene of misery which this mode of intellectual labour +sets before our eyes, it is hard to determine whether the +daughters or the father are most to be lamented. A language +not understood can never be so read as to give pleasure, and very +seldom so as to convey meaning. If few men would have had +resolution, to write books with such embarrassments, few likewise +would have wanted ability to find some better expedient.</p> +<p>Three years after his “Paradise Lost” (1667) he +published his “History of England,” comprising the +whole fable of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and continued to the Norman +Invasion. Why he should have given the first part, which he +seems not to believe, and which is universally rejected, it is +difficult to conjecture. The style is harsh; but it has +something of rough vigour, which perhaps may often strike, though +it cannot please.</p> +<p>On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before +he could transmit it to the press tore out several parts. +Some censures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they +should be applied to the modern clergy; and a character of the +Long Parliament, and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which +the author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, being +afterwards published, has been since inserted in its proper +place.</p> +<p>The same year were printed “Paradise Regained;” +and “Samson Agonistes,” a tragedy written in +imitation of the ancients, and never designed by the author for +the stage. As these poems were published by another +bookseller, it has been asked whether Simmons was discouraged +from receiving them by the slow sale of the former. Why a +writer changed his bookseller a hundred years ago, I am far from +hoping to discover. Certainly, he who in two years sells +thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for two +payments of five pounds each, has no reason to repent his +purchase.</p> +<p>When Milton showed “Paradise Regained” to Elwood, +“This,” said he, “is owing to you; for you put +it in my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which +otherwise I had not thought of.”</p> +<p>His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could +not, as Elwood relates, endure to hear “Paradise +Lost” preferred to “Paradise Regained.” +Many causes may vitiate a writer’s judgment of his own +works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a +high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been +diligent in vain; what has been produced without toilsome efforts +is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and +fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has +necessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however +it happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself.</p> +<p>To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of +comprehension, that entitled this great author to our veneration, +may be added a kind of humble dignity, which did not disdain the +meanest services to literature. The epic poet, the +controvertist, the politician, having already descended to +accommodate children with a book of rudiments, now, in the last +years of his life, composed a book of logic for the initiation of +students in philosophy; and published (1672) “Artis +Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodum +concinnata;” that is, “A new Scheme of Logic, +according to the method of Ramus.” I know not +whether, even in this book, he did not intend an act of hostility +against the universities; for Ramus was one of the first +oppugners of the old philosophy, who disturbed with innovations +the quiet of the schools.</p> +<p>His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been +safe so long that he forgot his fears, and published a +“Treatise of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and +the Best Means to Prevent the Growth of Popery.”</p> +<p>But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful +mention of the Church of England and an appeal to the Thirty-nine +Articles. His principle of toleration is, agreement in the +sufficiency of the Scriptures; and he extends it to all who, +whatever their opinions are, profess to derive them from the +sacred books. The Papists appeal to other testimonies, and +are therefore, in his opinion, not to be permitted the liberty of +either public or private worship; for though they plead +conscience, “we have no warrant,” he says, “to +regard conscience which is not grounded in Scripture.”</p> +<p>Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may perhaps be +delighted with his wit. The term “Roman Catholic +is,” he says, “one of the Pope’s Bulls; it is +particular universal, or Catholic schismatic.”</p> +<p>He has, however, something better. As the best +preservative against Popery, he recommends the diligent perusal +of the Scriptures, a duty from which he warns the busy part of +mankind not to think themselves excused.</p> +<p>He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions.</p> +<p>In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to +take delight in publication, a collection of “Familiar +Epistles in Latin;” to which, being too few to make a +volume, he added some academical exercises, which perhaps he +perused with pleasure, as they recalled to his memory the days of +youth; but for which nothing but veneration for his name could +now procure a reader.</p> +<p>When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the gout, with +which he had been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled +powers of nature. He died by a quiet and silent expiration, +about the 10th of November, 1674, at his house in Bunhill Fields; +and was buried next his father in the chancel of St. Giles at +Cripplegate. His funeral was very splendidly and numerously +attended.</p> +<p>Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but +in our time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey +“To the Author of ‘Paradise Lost,’” by +Mr. Benson, who has in the inscription bestowed more words upon +himself than upon Milton.</p> +<p>When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he +was said to be <i>soli Miltono secundus</i>, was exhibited to Dr. +Sprat, then Dean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name +of Milton was, in his opinion, too detestable to be read on the +wall of a building dedicated to devotion. Atterbury, who +succeeded him, being author of the inscription, permitted its +reception. “And such has been the change of public +opinion,” said Dr. Gregory, from whom I heard this account, +“that I have seen erected in the church a statue of that +man, whose name I once knew considered as a pollution of its +walls.”</p> +<p>Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth +eminently beautiful, so as to have been called the lady of his +college. His hair, which was of a light brown, parted at +the fore-top, and hung down upon his shoulders, according to the +picture which he has given of Adam. He was, however, not of +the heroic stature, but rather below the middle size, according +to Mr. Richardson, who mentions him as having narrowly escaped +from being “short and thick.” He was vigorous +and active, and delighted in the exercise of the sword, in which +he is related to have been eminently skilful. His weapon +was, I believe, not the rapier, but the back-sword, of which he +recommends the use in his book on education.</p> +<p>His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a +dexterous fencer, they must have been once quick.</p> +<p>His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a +severe student. He drank little strong drink of any kind, +and fed without excess in quantity, and in his earlier years +without delicacy of choice. In his youth he studied late at +night; but afterwards changed his hours, and rested in bed from +nine to four in the summer and five in the winter. The +course of his day was best known after he was blind. When +he first rose, he heard a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and then +studied till twelve; then took some exercise for an hour; then +dined, then played on the organ, and sang, or heard another sing, +then studied till six; then entertained his visitors till eight; +then supped, and, after a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water, +went to bed.</p> +<p>So is his life described; but this even tenour appears +attainable only in colleges. He that lives in the world +will sometimes have the succession of his practice broken and +confused. Visitors, of whom Milton is represented to have +had great numbers, will come and stay unseasonably; business, of +which every man has some, must be done when others will do +it.</p> +<p>When he did not care to rise early, he had something read to +him by his bedside; perhaps at this time his daughters were +employed. He composed much in the morning, and dictated in +the day, sitting obliquely in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown +over the arm. Fortune appears not to have had much of his +care. In the civil wars, he lent his personal estate to the +Parliament; but when, after the contest was decided, he solicited +repayment, he met not only with neglect, but “sharp +rebuke;” and, having tired both himself and his friends, +was given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, till he showed +how able he was to do greater service. He was then made +Latin Secretary, with two hundred pounds a year; and had a +thousand pounds for his “Defence of the +People.” His widow, who, after his death, retired to +Nantwich, in Cheshire, and died about 1729, is said to have +reported that he lost two thousand pounds by entrusting it to a +scrivener; and that, in the general depredation upon the Church, +he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year belonging +to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of the plunder of +rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Two +thousand pounds which he had placed in the Excise Office were +also lost. There is yet no reason to believe that he was +ever reduced to indigence. His wants, being few, were +competently supplied. He sold his library before his death, +and left his family fifteen hundred pounds, on which his widow +laid hold, and only gave one hundred to each of his +daughters.</p> +<p>His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the +languages which are considered either as learned or polite: +Hebrew, with its two dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and +Spanish. In Latin his skill was such as places him in the +first rank of writers and critics; and he appears to have +cultivated Italian with uncommon diligence. The books in +which his daughter, who used to read to him, represented him as +most delighting, after Homer, which he could almost repeat, were +Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and Euripides. His +Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock’s kindness, now in my hands: +the margin is sometimes noted; but I have found nothing +remarkable.</p> +<p>Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, +Shakespeare, and Cowley. Spenser was apparently his +favourite; Shakespeare he may easily be supposed to like, with +every other skilful reader; but I should not have expected that +Cowley, whose ideas of excellence were different from his own, +would have had much of his approbation. His character of +Dryden, who sometimes visited him, was, that he was a good +rhymist, but no poet.</p> +<p>His theological opinions are said to have been first +Calvinistical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the +Presbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianism. In the +mixed questions of theology and government, he never thinks that +he can recede far enough from Popery, or Prelacy; but what +Baudius says of Erasmus seems applicable to him, “<i>Magis +habuit quod fugeret</i>, <i>quam quod +sequeretur</i>.” He had determined rather what to +condemn, than what to approve. He has not associated +himself with any denomination of Protestants: we know rather what +he was not than what he was. He was not of the Church of +Rome; he was not of the Church of England.</p> +<p>To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the +rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and +hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be +invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated +calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example. +Milton, who appears to have had a full conviction of the truth of +Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with the +profoundest veneration, to have been untainted by any heretical +peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief +of the immediate and occasional agency of Providence, yet grew +old without any visible worship. In the distribution of his +hours, there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his +household; omitting public prayers, he omitted all.</p> +<p>Of this omission the reason has been sought upon a supposition +which ought never to be made, that men live with their own +approbation, and justify their conduct to themselves. +Prayer certainly was not thought superfluous by him, who +represents our first parents as praying acceptably in the state +of innocence, and efficaciously after their fall. That he +lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his studies and +meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in +his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, +and which he intended to correct; but that death, as too often +happens, intercepted his reformation.</p> +<p>His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly +Republican; for which it is not known that he gave any better +reason than that “a popular government was the most frugal; +for the trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary +commonwealth.” It is surely very shallow policy that +supposes money to be the chief good; and even this, without +considering that the support and expense of a court is, for the +most part, only a particular kind of traffic, for which money is +circulated, without any national impoverishment.</p> +<p>Milton’s Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an +envious hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; +in petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of +superiority. He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates +in the Church; for he hated all whom he was required to +obey. It is to be suspected that his predominant desire was +to destroy rather than establish, and that he felt not so much +the love of liberty as repugnance to authority.</p> +<p>It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for +liberty do not most liberally grant it. What we know of +Milton’s character, in domestic relations, is, that he was +severe and arbitrary. His family consisted of women; and +there appears in his books something like a Turkish contempt of +females, as subordinate and inferior beings. That his own +daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be +depressed by a mean and penurious education. He thought +woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion.</p> +<p>Of his family some account may be expected. His sister, +first married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a +friend of her first husband, who succeeded him in the Crown +office. She had, by her first husband, Edward and John, the +two nephews whom Milton educated; and by her second, two +daughters.</p> +<p>His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and +Catharine, and a son, Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown +office, and left a daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenor +Street.</p> +<p>Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, and +Deborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, +and died of her first child. Mary died single. +Deborah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and +lived seventy-six years, to August, 1727. This is the +daughter of whom public mention has been made. She could +repeat the first lines of Homer, the “Metamorphoses,” +and some of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here +incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are +necessary to fix in memory lines not understood; and why should +Milton wish or want to hear them so often? These lines were +at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a +language not understood, the beginning raises no more attention +than the end; and as those that understand it know commonly the +beginning best, its rehearsal will seldom be necessary. It +is not likely that Milton required any passage to be so much +repeated as that his daughter could learn it; nor likely that he +desired the initial lines to be read at all; nor that the +daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing unideal sounds, +would voluntarily commit them to memory.</p> +<p>To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some +establishment, but died soon after. Queen Caroline sent her +fifty guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters; but +none of them had any children, except her son Caleb and her +daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went to Fort St. George, in the +East Indies, and had two sons, of whom nothing now is +known. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver in +Spitalfields, and had seven children, who all died. She +kept a petty grocer’s or chandler’s shop, first at +Holloway, and afterwards in Cock Lane, near Shoreditch +Church. She knew little of her grandfather, and that little +was not good. She told of his harshness to his daughters, +and his refusal to have them taught to write; and, in opposition +to other accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate, +in his diet.</p> +<p>In 1750, April 5th, <i>Comus</i> was played for her +benefit. She had so little acquaintance with diversion or +gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit +was offered her. The profits of the night were only one +hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton brought a large +contribution; and twenty pounds were given by Tonson, a man who +is to be praised as often as he is named. Of this sum one +hundred pounds were placed in the stocks, after some debate +between her and her husband in whose name it should be entered; +and the rest augmented their little stock, with which they +removed to Islington. This was the greatest benefaction +that “Paradise Lost” ever procured the author’s +descendants; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his +Life, had the honour of contributing a Prologue.</p> +<p>In the examination of Milton’s poetical works, I shall +pay so much regard to time as to begin with his juvenile +productions. For his early pieces he seems to have had a +degree of fondness not very laudable; what he has once written he +resolves to preserve, and gives to the public an unfinished poem +which he broke off because he was “nothing satisfied with +what he had done,” supposing his readers less nice than +himself. These preludes to his future labours are in +Italian, Latin, and English. Of the Italian I cannot +pretend to speak as a critic; but I have heard them commended by +a man well qualified to decide their merit. The Latin +pieces are lusciously elegant: but the delight which they afford +is rather by the exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by +the purity of the diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than +by any power of invention or vigour of sentiment. They are +not all of equal value; the elegies excel the odes; and some of +the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been spared.</p> +<p>The English poems, though they make no promises of +“Paradise Lost,” have this evidence of +genius—that they have a cast original and unborrowed. +But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differ from the +verses of others, they differ for the worse; for they are too +often distinguished by repulsive harshness; the combinations of +words are new, but they are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithets +seem to be laboriously sought, and violently applied.</p> +<p>That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care +appears from his manuscripts, happily preserved at Cambridge, in +which many of his smaller works are found as they were first +written, with the subsequent corrections. Such relics show +how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we +must learn first to do with diligence.</p> +<p>Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes +force their own judgment into false approbation of his little +pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which +is only singular. All that short compositions can commonly +attain is neatness and elegance. Milton never learned the +art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder +excellence of suavity and softness; he was a “Lion” +that had no skill in “dandling the Kid.”</p> +<p>One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is +“Lycidas;” of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes +uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is +we must therefore seek in the sentiments and images. It is +not to be considered as the effusion of real passion; for passion +runs not after remote allusions and obscure opinions. +Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon +Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough “satyrs” and +“fauns with cloven heel.” Where there is +leisure for fiction, there is little grief.</p> +<p>In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there +is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a +pastoral; easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images +it can supply are long ago exhausted; and its inherent +improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind. +When Cowley tells of Hervey, that they studied together, it is +easy to suppose how much he must miss the companion of his +labours, and the partner of his discoveries; but what image of +tenderness can be excited by these lines?—</p> +<blockquote><p>We drove afield, and both together heard<br /> +What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn,<br /> +Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no +flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the +representation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so +uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, because it cannot +be known when it is found.</p> +<p>Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phœbus, Neptune and Æolus, with a +long train of mythological imagery, such as a college easily +supplies. Nothing can less display knowledge, or less +exercise invention, than to tell how a shepherd has lost his +companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, without any judge +of his skill in piping; and how one god asks another god what is +become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who +thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will +confer no honour.</p> +<p>This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling +fictions are mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as +ought never to be polluted with such irreverent +combinations. The shepherd likewise is now a feeder of +sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a superintendent +of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always +unskilful; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to +impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been +conscious.</p> +<p>Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its +blaze drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no +man could have fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he +not known the author.</p> +<p>Of the two pieces, “L’Allegro” and “il +Penseroso,” I believe, opinion is uniform; every man that +reads them, reads them with pleasure. The author’s +design is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to show how +objects derive their colours from the mind, by representing the +operation of the same things upon the gay and the melancholy +temper, or upon the same man as he is differently disposed; but +rather how, among the successive variety of appearances, every +disposition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be +gratified.</p> +<p>The <i>cheerful</i> man hears the lark in the morning; the +<i>pensive</i> man hears the nightingale in the evening. +The <i>cheerful</i> man sees the cock strut, and hears the horn +and hounds echo in the wood; then walks, <i>not unseen</i>, to +observe the glory of the rising sun, or listen to the singing +milkmaid, and view the labours of the ploughman and the mower; +then casts his eyes about him over scenes of smiling plenty, and +looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some fair +inhabitant; thus he pursues real gaiety through a day of labour +or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful +narratives of superstitious ignorance.</p> +<p>The <i>pensive</i> man at one time walks <i>unseen</i> to muse +at midnight, and at another hears the sullen curfew. If the +weather drives him home, he sits in a room lighted only by +“glowing embers;” or by a lonely lamp outwatches the +North Star, to discover the habitation of separate souls, and +varies the Shades of meditation by contemplating the magnificent +or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When the +morning comes—a morning gloomy with rain and wind—he +walks into the dark, trackless woods, falls asleep by some +murmuring water, and with melancholy enthusiasm expects some +dream of prognostication, or some music played by aërial +performers.</p> +<p>Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of +the breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no +mention is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or a +pleasant companion. The seriousness does not arise from any +participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of +the bottle.</p> +<p>The man of <i>cheerfulness</i>, having exhausted the country, +tries what “towered cities” will afford, and mingles +with scenes of splendour, gay assemblies, and nuptial +festivities; but he mingles a mere spectator, as, when the +learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild dramas of Shakespeare, +are exhibited, he attends the theatre.</p> +<p>The <i>pensive</i> man never loses himself in crowds, but +walks the cloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton +probably had not yet forsaken the Church.</p> +<p>Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think +that cheerful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete +dismission of Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds procured only a +conditional release.</p> +<p>For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: but +Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of +life. His Cheerfulness is without levity, and his +Pensiveness without asperity.</p> +<p>Through these two poems the images are properly selected and +nicely distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not +sufficiently discriminated. I know not whether the +characters are kept sufficiently apart. No mirth can, +indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always +meet some melancholy in his mirth. They are two noble +efforts of imagination.</p> +<p>The greatest of his juvenile performances is the “Mask +of <i>Comus</i>,” in which may very plainly be discovered +the dawn or twilight of “Paradise Lost.” Milton +appears to have formed very early that system of diction, and +mode of verse, which his maturer judgment approved, and from +which he never endeavoured nor desired to deviate.</p> +<p>Nor does <i>Comus</i> afford only a specimen of his language; +it exhibits likewise his power of description and his vigour of +sentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A +work more truly poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and +descriptive epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish +decoration. As a series of lines, therefore, it may be +considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the +votaries have received it.</p> +<p>As a drama it is deficient. The action is not +probable. A mask, in those parts where supernatural +intervention is admitted, must indeed be given up to all the +freaks of imagination, but so far as the action is merely human, +it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be said of the +conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister sinks with +fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both away together in +search of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a +helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. +This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its convenience.</p> +<p>What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken +in the wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the +audience; a mode of communication so contrary to the nature of +dramatic representation, that no precedents can support it.</p> +<p>The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may +be made to almost all the following speeches; they have not the +sprightliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, +but seem rather declamations deliberately composed, and formally +repeated, on a moral question. The auditor therefore +listens as to a lecture, without passion, without anxiety.</p> +<p>The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may +recommend Milton’s morals as well as his poetry, the +invitations to pleasure are so general, that they excite no +distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold +on the fancy.</p> +<p>The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant +but tedious. The song must owe much to the voice if it ever +can delight. At last the Brothers enter with too much +tranquillity; and, when they have feared lest their Sister should +be in danger, and hoped that she is not in danger, the elder +makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the younger finds how +fine it is to be a philosopher.</p> +<p>Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the +Brother, instead of being in haste to ask his help, praises his +singing, and inquires his business in that place. It is +remarkable, that at this interview the Brother is taken with a +short fit of rhyming, The Spirit relates that the Lady is in the +power of Comus; the Brother moralises again; and the Spirit makes +a long narration, of no use because it is false, and therefore +unsuitable to a good being.</p> +<p>In all these parts the language is poetical, and the +sentiments are generous; but there is something wanting to allure +attention.</p> +<p>The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated +and affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker +reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, and +detain it.</p> +<p>The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh +in their diction, and not very musical in their numbers.</p> +<p>Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the +language too luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the +epic style, inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive.</p> +<p>The sonnets were written in different parts of Milton’s +life, upon different occasions. They deserve not any +particular criticism; for of the best it can only be said, that +they are not bad; and perhaps only the eighth and twenty-first +are truly entitled to this slender commendation. The fabric +of a sonnet, however adapted to the Italian language, has never +succeeded in ours, which, having greater variety of termination, +requires the rhymes to be often changed.</p> +<p>Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a +greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine +“Paradise Lost;” a poem which, considered with +respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect to +performance, the second, among the productions of the human +mind.</p> +<p>By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius +is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an +assemblage of all the powers which are singly sufficient for +other compositions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure +with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason. +Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important truths by the +most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great event in +the most affecting manner. History must supply the writer +with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt +by a nobler art, must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify +by retrospection and anticipation; morality must teach him the +exact bounds, and different shades, of vice and virtue; from +policy, and the practice of life, he has to learn the +discriminations of character, and the tendency of the passions, +either single or combined; and physiology must supply him with +illustrations and images. To put those materials to +poetical use, is required an imagination capable of painting +nature and realising fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he +has attained the whole extension of his language, distinguished +all the delicacies of phrase, and all the colours of words, and +learned to adjust their different sounds to all the varieties of +metrical modulation.</p> +<p>Bossu is of opinion, that the poet’s first work is to +find a <i>moral</i>, which his fable is afterwards to illustrate +and establish. This seems to have been the process only of +Milton; the moral of other poems is incidental and consequent; in +Milton’s only it is essential and intrinsic. His +purpose was the most useful and the most arduous: “to +vindicate the ways of God to man;” to show the +reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the +Divine Law.</p> +<p>To convey this moral there must be a <i>fable</i>, a narration +artfully constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise +expectation. In this part of his work Milton must be +confessed to have equalled every other poet. He has +involved in his account of the Fall of Man the events which +preceded and those that were to follow it: he has interwoven the +whole system of theology with such propriety, that every part +appears to be necessary; and scarcely any recital is wished +shorter for the sake of quickening the progress of the main +action.</p> +<p>The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great +importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a +city, the conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an +empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions +of heaven and of earth; rebellion against the Supreme King, +raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of +their host, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a +new race of reasonable creatures; their original happiness and +innocence, their forfeiture of immortality, and their restoration +to hope and peace.</p> +<p>Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of +elevated dignity. Before the greatness displayed in +Milton’s poem, all other greatness shrinks away. The +weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human +beings, the original parents of mankind; with whose actions the +elements consented; on whose rectitude or deviation of will, +depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition of +all the future inhabitants of the globe.</p> +<p>Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is +irreverence to name on slight occasions. The rest were +lower powers—</p> +<blockquote><p> Of which the least could +wield<br /> +Those elements, and arm him with the force<br /> +Of all their regions;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>powers, which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from +laying creation waste, and filling the vast expanse of space with +ruin and confusion. To display the motives and actions of +beings thus superior, so far as human reason can examine them, or +human imagination represent them, is the task which this mighty +poet has undertaken and performed.</p> +<p>In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly +employed upon the <i>characters</i>. The characters in the +“Paradise Lost,” which admit of examination, are +those of angels and of man; of angels good and evil; of man in +his innocent and sinful state.</p> +<p>Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of +easy condescension and free communication; that of Michael is +regal and lofty, and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity of +his own nature. Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and +act as every incident requires; the solitary fidelity of Abdiel +is very amiably painted.</p> +<p>Of the evil angels the characters are more diversified. +To Satan, as Addison observes, such sentiments are given as suit +“the most exalted and most depraved being.” +Milton has been censured by Clarke, for the impiety which +sometimes breaks from Satan’s mouth; for there are +thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observation of character +can justify, because no good man would willingly permit them to +pass, however transiently, through his own mind. To make +Satan speak as a rebel, without any such expression as might +taint the reader’s imagination, was indeed one of the great +difficulties in Milton’s undertaking; and I cannot but +think that he has extricated himself with great happiness. +There is in Satan’s speeches little that can give pain to a +pious ear. The language of rebellion cannot be the same +with that of obedience. The malignity of Satan foams in +haughtiness and obstinacy; but his expressions are commonly +general, and no otherwise offensive than as they are wicked.</p> +<p>The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very +judiciously discriminated in the first and second books; and the +ferocious character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the +council, with exact consistency.</p> +<p>To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such +sentiments as innocence can generate and utter. Their love +is pure benevolence and mutual veneration; their repasts are +without luxury, and their diligence without toil. Their +addresses to their Maker have little more than the voice of +admiration and gratitude. Fruition left them nothing to +ask; and innocence left them nothing to fear.</p> +<p>But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, +and stubborn self-defence; they regard each other with alienated +minds, and dread their Creator as the avenger of their +transgression. At last they seek shelter in His mercy, +soften to repentance, and melt in supplication. Both before +and after the fall, the superiority of Adam is diligently +sustained.</p> +<p>Of the <i>probable</i> and the <i>marvellous</i>, two parts of +a vulgar epic poem which immerge the critic in deep +consideration, the “Paradise Lost” requires little to +be said. It contains the history of a miracle, of creation +and redemption; it displays the power and the mercy of the +Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the +marvellous is probable. The substance of the narrative is +truth; and, as truth allows no choice, it is, like necessity, +superior to rule. To the accidental or adventitious parts, +as to everything human, some slight exceptions may be made; but +the main fabric is immovably supported.</p> +<p>It is justly remarked by Addison, that this poem has, by the +nature of its subject, the advantage above all others, that it is +universally and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, +through all ages, bear the same relation to Adam and to Eve, and +must partake of that good and evil which extend to +themselves.</p> +<p>Of the <i>machinery</i>, so called from +Θεòς ὰπò +μηχανης, by which is meant the +occasional interposition of supernatural power, another fertile +topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because +everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of +Heaven; but the rule is so far observed, that no part of the +action could have been accomplished by any other means.</p> +<p>Of <i>episodes</i>, I think there are only two—contained +in Raphael’s relation of the war in Heaven, and +Michael’s prophetic account of the changes to happen in +this world. Both are closely connected with the great +action; one was necessary to Adam as a warning, the other as a +consolation.</p> +<p>To the completeness or <i>integrity</i> of the design nothing +can be objected; it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle +requires—a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is +perhaps no poem, of the same length, from which so little can be +taken without apparent mutilation. Here are no funeral +games, nor is there any long description of a shield. The +short digressions at the beginning of the third, seventh, and +ninth books, might doubtless be spared, but superfluities so +beautiful who would take away? or who does not wish that the +author of the “Iliad” had gratified succeeding ages +with a little knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages are +more attentively read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since +the end of poetry is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with +which all are pleased.</p> +<p>The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly +<i>one</i>, whether the poem can be properly termed +<i>heroic</i>, and who is the hero, are raised by such readers as +draw their principles of judgment rather from books than from +reason. Milton, though he entitled “Paradise +Lost” only a “poem,” yet calls it himself +“heroic song.” Dryden petulantly and indecently +denies the heroism of Adam, because he was overcome; but there is +no reason why the hero should not be unfortunate, except +established practice, since success and virtue do not go +necessarily together. Cato is the hero of Lucan; but +Lucan’s authority will not be suffered by Quintilian to +decide. However, if success be necessary, Adam’s +deceiver was at last crushed; Adam was restored to his +Maker’s favour, and therefore may securely resume his human +rank.</p> +<p>After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered +its component parts, the sentiments and the diction.</p> +<p>The <i>sentiments</i>, as expressive of manners, or +appropriated to characters, are, for the greater part, +unexceptionably just.</p> +<p>Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts +of prudence, occur seldom. Such is the original formation +of this poem, that, as it admits no human manners till the Fall, +it can give little assistance to human conduct. Its end is +to raise the thoughts above sublunary cares or pleasures. +Yet the praise of that fortitude, with which Abdiel maintained +his singularity of virtue against the scorn of multitudes, may be +accommodated to all times; and Raphael’s reproof of +Adam’s curiosity after the planetary motions, with the +answer returned by Adam, may be confidently opposed to any rule +of life which any poet has delivered.</p> +<p>The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the +progress are such as could only be produced by an imagination in +the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were +supplied by incessant study and unlimited curiosity. The +heat of Milton’s mind may be said to sublimate his +learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, +unmingled with its grosser parts.</p> +<p>He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his +descriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his +imagination to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions +therefore were extensive. The characteristic quality of his +poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, +but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest +himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic +loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it +is his peculiar power to astonish.</p> +<p>He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and +to know what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more +bountifully than upon others—the power of displaying the +vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening +the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful; he therefore chose a +subject on which too much could not be said, on which he might +tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance.</p> +<p>The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did +not satiate his appetite of greatness. To paint things as +they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory +rather than the fancy. Milton’s delight was to sport +in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too +narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon +discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and +delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment +and action to superior beings; to trace the counsels of hell, or +accompany the choirs of heaven.</p> +<p>But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes +revisit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When +he cannot raise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives +delight by its fertility.</p> +<p>Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the +imagination. But his images and descriptions of the scenes +or operations of nature do not seem to be always copied from +original form, nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy of +immediate observation. He saw nature, as Dryden expresses +it, “through the spectacles of books;” and on most +occasions calls learning to his assistance. The garden of +Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was +gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting +elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between +the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on the +larboard. The mythological allusions have been justly +censured, as not being always used with notice of their vanity; +but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an +alternate exercise of the memory and the fancy.</p> +<p>His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of +his predecessors. But he does not confine himself within +the limits of rigorous comparison: his great excellence is +amplitude; and he expands the adventitious image beyond the +dimensions which the occasion required. Thus, comparing the +shield of Satan to the orb of the moon, he crowds the imagination +with the discovery of the telescope, and all the wonders which +the telescope discovers.</p> +<p>Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that +they excel those of all other poets; for this superiority he was +indebted to his acquaintance with the sacred writings. The +ancient epic poets, wanting the light of Revelation, were very +unskilful teachers of virtue; their principal characters may be +great, but they are not amiable. The reader may rise from +their works with a greater degree of active or passive fortitude, +and sometimes of prudence; but he will be able to carry away few +precepts of justice, and none of mercy.</p> +<p>From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of +even Christian knowledge may be possessed in vain. +Ariosto’s pravity is generally known; and, though the +“Deliverance of Jerusalem” may be considered as a +sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing of moral +instruction.</p> +<p>In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity +of manners, except when the train of the narration requires the +introduction of the rebellious spirits; and even they are +compelled to acknowledge their subjection to God, in such a +manner as excites reverence and confirms piety.</p> +<p>Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the +parents of mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and +innocence, and amiable after it for repentance and +submission. In the first state their affection is tender +without weakness, and their piety sublime without +presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord +begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual +forbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by +sin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and +prayer. A state of innocence we can only conceive, if +indeed, in our present misery, it be possible to conceive it; but +the sentiments and worship proper to a fallen and offending +being, we have all to learn, as we have all to practise.</p> +<p>The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our +progenitors in their first state conversed with angels; even when +folly and sin had degraded them, they had not in their +humiliation “the port of mean suitors;” and they rise +again to reverential regard, when we find that their prayers were +heard.</p> +<p>As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, +there is in the “Paradise Lost” little opportunity +for the pathetic; but what little there is has not been +lost. That passion, which is peculiar to rational nature, +the anguish arising from the consciousness of transgression, and +the horrors attending the sense of the Divine displeasure, are +very justly described and forcibly impressed. But the +passions are moved only on one occasion; sublimity is the general +and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously +modified—sometimes descriptive, sometimes +argumentative.</p> +<p>The defects and faults of “Paradise +Lost”—for faults and defects every work of man must +have—it is the business of impartial criticism to +discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, I +have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties +there had been no end, I shall in the same general manner mention +that which seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take +delight in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the +reputation of Milton, diminish in some degree the honour of our +country?</p> +<p>The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice +of verbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in +grammar and poetry, has often found, though he sometimes made +them, and which he imputed to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom +the author’s blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition +rash and groundless, if he thought it true; and vile and +pernicious, if, as is said, he in private allowed it to be +false.</p> +<p>The plan of “Paradise Lost” has this +inconvenience, that it comprises neither human actions nor human +manners. The man and woman who act and suffer are in a +state which no other man or woman can ever know. The reader +finds no transaction in which he can be engaged—beholds no +condition in which he can by any effort of imagination place +himself; he has, therefore, little natural curiosity or +sympathy.</p> +<p>We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam’s disobedience; +we all sin like Adam, and like him must all bewail our offences; +we have restless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and +in the blessed spirits we have guardians and friends; in the +redemption of mankind we hope to be included; in the description +of heaven and hell we are surely interested, as we are all to +reside hereafter either in the regions of horror or bliss.</p> +<p>But these truths are too important to be new; they have been +taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary +thoughts and familiar conversations, and are habitually +interwoven with the whole texture of life. Being therefore +not new, they raise no unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we +knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot +surprise.</p> +<p>Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we +recede with reverence, except when stated hours require their +association; and from others we shrink with horror, or admit them +only as salutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests +and passions. Such images rather obstruct the career of +fancy than incite it.</p> +<p>Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; +but poetical pleasure must be such as human imagination can at +least conceive, and poetical terrors such as human strength and +fortitude may combat. The good and evil of eternity are too +ponderous for the wings of wit; the mind sinks under them in +passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble +adoration.</p> +<p>Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be +conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. +This Milton has undertaken and performed with pregnancy and +vigour of mind peculiar to himself. Whoever considers the +few radical positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will +wonder by what energetic operation he expanded them to such +extent, and ramified them to so much variety, restrained as he +was by religious reverence from licentiousness of fiction.</p> +<p>Here is a full display of the united force of study and +genius—of a great accumulation of materials, with judgment +to digest and fancy to combine them: Milton was able to select +from nature or from story, from an ancient fable or from modern +science, whatever could illustrate or adorn his thoughts. +An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by +study and exalted by imagination.</p> +<p>It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by +one of his encomiasts, that in reading “Paradise +Lost” we read a book of universal knowledge.</p> +<p>But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of +human interest is always felt. “Paradise Lost” +is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and +forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than +it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. +We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, +and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our master, and seek +for companions.</p> +<p>Another inconvenience of Milton’s design is, that it +requires the description of what cannot be described, the agency +of spirits. He saw that immateriality supplied no images, +and that he could not show angels acting but by instruments of +action; he therefore invested them with form and matter. +This, being necessary, was therefore defensible; and he should +have secured the consistency of his system, by keeping +immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop it +from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his +poetry with his philosophy. His infernal and celestial +powers are sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated +body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the +“burning marl,” he has a body; when, in his passage +between hell and the new world, he is in danger of sinking in the +vacuity, and is supported by a gust of rising vapours, he has a +body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be more spirit, that +can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he “starts up in his +own shape,” he has at least a determined form; and when he +is brought before Gabriel, he has “a spear and a +shield,” which he had the power of hiding in the toad, +though the arms of the contending angels are evidently +material.</p> +<p>The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium, being +“incorporeal spirits,” are “at large, though +without number,” in a limited space: yet in the battle, +when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them, +“crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross by +sinning.” This likewise happened to the uncorrupted +angels, who were overthrown the “sooner for their arms, for +unarmed they might easily as spirits have evaded by contraction +or remove.” Even as spirits they are hardly +spiritual: for “contraction” and “remove” +are images of matter; but if they could have escaped without +their armour, they might have escaped from it, and left only the +empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a +sunbeam, is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the +prowess of Adam.</p> +<p>The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole +narration of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and +the book in which it is related is, I believe, the favourite of +children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.</p> +<p>After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be +explained, may be considered that of allegorical persons which +have no real existence. To exalt causes into agents, to +invest abstract ideas with form, and animate them with activity, +has always been the right of poetry. But such airy beings +are, for the most part, suffered only to do their natural office, +and retire. Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory hovers over +a general, or perches on a standard; but Fame and Victory can do +no more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to +them any material agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, +but to shock the mind by ascribing effects to nonentity. In +the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, we see Violence +and Strength, and in the “Alcestis” of Euripides we +see Death, brought upon the stage, all as active persons of the +drama; but no precedents can justify absurdity.</p> +<p>Milton’s allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly +faulty. Sin is indeed the mother of Death, and may be +allowed to be the portress of hell; but when they stop the +journey of Satan, a journey described as real, and when Death +offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That Sin and +Death should have shown the way to hell, might have been allowed; +but they cannot facilitate the passage by building a bridge, +because the difficulty of Satan’s passage is described as +real and sensible, and the bridge ought to be only +figurative. The hell assigned to the rebellious spirits is +described as not less local than the residence of man. It +is placed in some distant part of space, separated from the +regions of harmony and order by a chaotic waste and an unoccupied +vacuity; but Sin and Death worked up a “mole of aggravated +soil” cemented with <i>asphaltus</i>, a work too bulky for +ideal architects.</p> +<p>This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest +faults of the poem; and to this there was no temptation but the +author’s opinion of its beauty.</p> +<p>To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be +made. Satan is with great expectation brought before +Gabriel in Paradise, and is suffered to go away unmolested. +The creation of man is represented as the consequence of the +vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of the rebels; yet Satan +mentions it as a report “rife in Heaven” before his +departure.</p> +<p>To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very +difficult; and something of anticipation perhaps is now and then +discovered. Adam’s discourse of dreams seems not to +be the speculation of a new-created being. I know not +whether his answer to the angel’s reproof for curiosity +does not want something of propriety; it is the speech of a man +acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical notions, +especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better +omitted. The angel, in a comparison, speaks of +“timorous deer,” before deer were yet timorous, and +before Adam could understand the comparison.</p> +<p>Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his +elevations. This is only to say, that all the parts are not +equal. In every work, one part must be for the sake of +others; a palace must have passages; a poem must have +transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should +always be blazing, than that the sun should always stand at +noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude of luminous +and opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession of day +and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may +be allowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author ever +soared so high, or sustained his flight so long?</p> +<p>Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to +have borrowed often from them; and, as every man catches +something from his companions, his desire of imitating +Ariosto’s levity has disgraced his work with the Paradise +of Fools; a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous +for its place.</p> +<p>His play on words, in which he delights too often; his +equivocations, which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example +of the ancients; his unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of +art; it is not necessary to mention, because they are easily +remarked, and generally censured; and at last bear so little +proportion to the whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention +of a critic.</p> +<p>Such are the faults of that wonderful performance +“Paradise Lost;” which he who can put in balance with +its beauties must be considered not as nice but as dull, as less +to be censured for want of candour than pitied for want of +sensibility.</p> +<p>Of “Paradise Regained,” the general judgment seems +now to be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and everywhere +instructive. It was not to be supposed that the writer of +“Paradise Lost” could ever write without great +effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The +basis of “Paradise Regained” is narrow; a dialogue +without action can never please like a union of the narrative and +dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, +but by some imitator, it would have claimed and received +universal praise.</p> +<p>If “Paradise Regained” has been too much +depreciated, “Samson Agonistes” has, in requital, +been too much admired. It could only be by long prejudice, +and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the ancient +tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions +of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind +confidence in the reputation of Milton that a drama can be +praised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor +consequence, neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe.</p> +<p>In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many +just sentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of +attracting the attention which a well connected plan +produces.</p> +<p>Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew +human nature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades +of character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the +perplexity of contending passions. He had read much, and +knew what books could teach; but had mingled little in the world, +and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must +confer.</p> +<p>Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform +peculiarity of <i>diction</i>, a mode and cast of expression +which bears little resemblance to that of any former writer; and +which is so far removed from common use, that an unlearned +reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself surprised by +a new language.</p> +<p>This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in +Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable +to the grandeur of his ideas. “Our language,” +says Addison, “sank under him.” But the truth +is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a +perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use +English words with a foreign idiom. This, in all his prose, +is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates freely, +neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his +thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is +obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity +to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in +admiration.</p> +<p>Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is +shown with greater extent in “Paradise Lost” may be +found in “Comus.” One source of his peculiarity +was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of his +words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps sometimes combined +with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be said what +Jonson says of Spenser, that “he wrote no language,” +but has formed what Butler calls a “Babylonish +dialect,” in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by +exalted genius and extensive learning the vehicle of so much +instruction and so much pleasure, that, like other lovers, we +find grace in its deformity.</p> +<p>Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the +praise of copiousness and variety. He was master of his +language in its full extent; and has selected the melodious words +with such diligence, that from his book alone the Art of English +Poetry might be learned.</p> +<p>After his diction something must be said of his +<i>versification</i>. The <i>measure</i>, he says, +“is the English heroic verse without rhyme.” Of +this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in +his own country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have +translated one of Virgil’s books without rhyme; and, beside +our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared in blank verse, +particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to +Raleigh’s wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by +Raleigh himself. These petty performances cannot be +supposed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably took +his hint from Trissino’s “Italia Liberata;” +and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was desirous of +persuading himself that it is better.</p> +<p>“Rhyme,” he says, and says truly, “is no +necessary adjunct of true poetry.” But, perhaps, of +poetry, as a mental operation, metre or music is no necessary +adjunct: it is, however, by the music of metre that poetry has +been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages +melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and short +syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot +communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and +imperfect, some help is necessary. The music of the English +heroic lines strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, +unless all the syllables of every line co-operate together; this +co-operation can only be obtained by the preservation of every +verse unmingled with another as a distinct system of sounds; and +this distinctness is obtained and preserved by the artifice of +rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers +of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the +periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and +happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive +where the lines end or begin. “Blank verse,” +said an ingenious critic, “seems to be verse only to the +eye.”</p> +<p>Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not +often please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the +subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some +approach to that which is called the “lapidary +style;” has neither the easiness of prose, nor the melody +of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the +Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, +not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence has +been confuted by the ear.</p> +<p>But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on +myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish +his work to be other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to +be admired rather than imitated. He that thinks himself +capable of astonishing may write blank verse; but those that hope +only to please must condescend to rhyme.</p> +<p>The highest praise of genius is original invention. +Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epic +poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude +of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of +poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation +of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and all the +stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all +the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least +indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident +of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hindrance: he did +not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of his +predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his +contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is +in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might +be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor +solicitation of support. His great works were performed +under discountenance and in blindness; but difficulties vanished +at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work +is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the +first.</p> +<h2>COWLEY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Life of Cowley, notwithstanding +the penury of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, +an author whose pregnancy of imagination and elegance of language +have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature; but his +zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a +funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the +character, not the life, of Cowley; for he writes with so little +detail, that scarcely anything is distinctly known, but all is +shown confused and enlarged through the mist of panegyric.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Abraham Cowley</span> was born in the year +one thousand sir hundred and eighteen. His father was a +grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals under the general +appellation of a citizen; and, what would probably not have been +less carefully suppressed, the omission of his name in the +register of St. Dunstan’s parish gives reason to suspect +that his father was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died +before the birth of his son, and consequently left him to the +care of his mother: whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly +to procure him a literary education, and who, as she lived to the +age of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son +eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his +prosperity. We know at least, from Sprat’s account, +that he always acknowledged her care, and justly paid the dues of +filial gratitude.</p> +<p>In the window of his mother’s apartment lay +Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” in which he very early +took delight to read, till by feeling the charms of verse, he +became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the +accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes +forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and +propensity for some certain science or employment, which is +commonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind of large +general powers, accidentally determined to some particular +direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the +present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the +perusal of Richardson’s treatise.</p> +<p>By his mother’s solicitation he was admitted into +Westminster school, where he was soon distinguished. He was +wont, says Sprat, to relate, “that he had this defect in +his memory at that time, that his teachers never could bring it +to retain the ordinary rules of grammar.”</p> +<p>This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate +a wonder. It is surely very difficult to tell anything as +it was heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a +commodious incident, though the book to which he prefixed his +narrative contained its confutation. A memory admitting +some things, and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that +concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the +appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision +made by nature for literary politeness. But in the +author’s own honest relation, the marvel vanishes: he was, +he says, such “an enemy to all constraint, that his master +never could prevail on him to learn the rules without +book.” He does not tell that he could not learn the +rules; but that, being able to perform his exercises without +them, and being an “enemy to constraint,” he spared +himself the labour.</p> +<p>Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope might be +said “to lisp in numbers;” and have given such early +proofs, not only of powers of language, but of comprehension of +things, as to more tardy minds seems scarcely credible. But +of the learned puerilities of Cowley there is no doubt, since a +volume of his poems was not only written, but printed in his +thirteenth year; containing, with other poetical compositions, +“The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,” written +when he was ten years old; and “Constantia and +Philetus,” written two years after.</p> +<p>While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called +“Love’s Riddle,” though it was not published +till he had been some time at Cambridge. This comedy is of +the pastoral kind, which requires no acquaintance with the living +world, and therefore the time at which it was composed adds +little to the wonders of Cowley’s minority.</p> +<p>In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where he continued his +studies with great intenseness; for he is said to have written, +while he was yet a young student, the greater part of his +“Davideis;” a work of which the materials could not +have been collected without the study of many years, but by a +mind of the greatest vigour and activity.</p> +<p>Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published +“Love’s Riddle,” with a poetical dedication to +Sir Kenelm Digby, of whose acquaintance all his contemporaries +seem to have been ambitious; and “Naufragium +Joculare,” a comedy written in Latin, but without due +attention to the ancient models; for it is not loose verse, but +mere prose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse to +Dr. Comber, master of the college; but having neither the +facility of a popular, nor the accuracy of a learned work, it +seems to be now universally neglected.</p> +<p>At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed +through Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with the +representation of “The Guardian,” a comedy which +Cowley says was neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by +him, and repeated by the scholars. That this comedy was +printed during his absence from his country he appears to have +considered as injurious to his reputation; though, during the +suppression of the theatres, it was sometimes privately acted +with sufficient approbation.</p> +<p>In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence +of the Parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself +at St. John’s College in Oxford; where, as is said by Wood, +he published a satire, called “The Puritan and +Papist,” which was only inserted in the last collection of +his works; and so distinguished himself by the warmth of his +loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, that he gained the +kindness and confidence of those who attended the king, and +amongst others of Lord Falkland, whose notice cast a lustre on +all to whom it was extended.</p> +<p>About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, +he followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the +Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in +such correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly +in ciphering and deciphering the letters that passed between the +king and queen; an employment of the highest confidence and +honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, that for +several years it filled all his days and two or three nights in +the week.</p> +<p>In the year 1647, his “Mistress” was published; +for he imagined, as he declared in his preface to a subsequent +edition, that “poets are scarcely thought freemen of their +company, without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be +true to love.”</p> +<p>This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its +original to the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and +uncultivated, by his tuneful homage to his Laura refined the +manners of the lettered world, and filled Europe with love and +poetry. But the basis of all excellence is truth: he that +professes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch was a real +lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of +Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enough of +information, that, whatever he may talk of his own +inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart +was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never +had resolution to tell his passion.</p> +<p>This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the +reader’s esteem for the works and the author. To love +excellence is natural; it is natural likewise for the lover to +solicit reciprocal regard by an elaborate display of his own +qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in different men +produced actions of heroism, and effusions of wit; but it seems +as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet of an airy +“nothing,” and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley +might have learned from his master Pindar to call “the +dream of a shadow.”</p> +<p>It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or +in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious +employment. No man needs to be so burdened with life as to +squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious occurrences. +The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or +peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his +character from crimes which he was never within the possibility +of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from +him who praises beauty which he never saw; complains of jealousy +which he never felt; supposes himself sometimes invited, and +sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory +for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope or the gloominess +of despair; and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis +sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes in gems +lasting as her virtues.</p> +<p>At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in +transacting things of real importance with real men and real +women, and at that time did not much employ his thoughts upon +phantoms of gallantry. Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, +afterwards Earl of Arlington, from April to December, in 1650, +are preserved in “Miscellanea Aulica,” a collection +of papers published by Brown. These letters, being written +like those of other men whose minds are more on things than +words, contribute no otherwise to his reputation, than as they +show him to have been above the affectation of unseasonable +elegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can +be little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric.</p> +<p>One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. +Speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation:</p> +<p>“The Scotch treaty,” says he, “is the only +thing now in which we are vitally concerned; I am one of the last +hopers, and yet cannot now abstain from believing that an +agreement will be made; all people upon the place incline to that +opinion. The Scotch will moderate something of the rigour +of their demands; the mutual necessity of an accord is visible; +the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you the truth +(which I take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgil has +told me something to that purpose.”</p> +<p>This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would +be considered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious +display of scholarship; but the manners of that time were so +tinged with superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of +having consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and +to have given some credit to the answer of his oracle.</p> +<p>Some years afterwards, “business,” says Sprat, +“passed of course into other hands;” and Cowley, +being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656 sent back into +England, that, “under pretence of privacy and retirement, +he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things +in this nation.”</p> +<p>Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some +messengers of the usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of +another man; and being examined, was put into confinement, from +which he was not dismissed without the security of a thousand +pounds given by Dr. Scarborough.</p> +<p>This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he +seems to have inserted something suppressed in subsequent +editions, which was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his +loyalty. In this preface he declares, that “his +desire had been for some days past, and did still very vehemently +continue, to retire himself to some of the American plantations, +and to forsake this world for ever.”</p> +<p>From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the +usurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent +to clear him, and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his +reputation. His wish for retirement we can easily believe +to be undissembled; a man harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted +in another, who, after a course of business that employed all his +days and half his nights, in ciphering and deciphering, comes to +his own country and steps into a prison, will be willing enough +to retire to some place of quiet and of safety. Yet let +neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, +dispose us to forget, that, if his activity was virtue, his +retreat was cowardice.</p> +<p>He then took upon him the character of physician, still, +according to Sprat, with intention “to dissemble the main +design of his coming over;” and, as Mr. Wood relates, +“complying with the men then in power (which was much taken +notice of by the royal party), he obtained an order to be created +doctor of physic; which being done to his mind (whereby he gained +the ill-will of some of his friends), he went into France again, +having made a copy of verses on Oliver’s death.”</p> +<p>This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not +much wrong can be discovered. How far he complied with the +men in power is to be inquired before he can be blamed. It +is not said that he told them any secrets, or assisted them by +intelligence or any other act. If he only promised to be +quiet, that they in whose hands he was might free him from +confinement, he did what no law of society prohibits.</p> +<p>The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the +power of his enemy, may, without any breach of his integrity, +regain his liberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of +neutrality: for the stipulation gives the enemy nothing which he +had not before. The neutrality of a captive may be always +secured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the +disposal of another may not promise to aid him in any injurious +act, because no power can compel active obedience. He may +engage to do nothing, but not to do ill.</p> +<p>There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It +does not appear that his compliance gained him confidence enough +to be trusted without security, for the bond of his bail was +never cancelled; nor that it made him think himself secure, for, +at that dissolution of government which followed the death of +Oliver, he returned into France, where he resumed his former +station, and stayed till the restoration.</p> +<p>“He continued,” says his biographer, “under +these bonds till the general deliverance;” it is therefore +to be supposed that he did not go to France, and act again for +the king, without the consent of his bondsman: that he did not +show his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his +friend’s permission.</p> +<p>Of the verses on Oliver’s death, in which Wood’s +narrative seems to imply something encomiastic, there has been no +appearance. There is a discourse concerning his government, +indeed, with verses intermixed, but such as certainly gained its +author no friends among the abettors of usurpation.</p> +<p>A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in +December, 1657; and in the commencement of the Royal Society, of +which an account has been published by Dr. Birch, he appears busy +among the experimental philosophers with the title of Doctor +Cowley.</p> +<p>There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted +practice: but his preparatory studies have contributed something +to the honour of his country. Considering botany as +necessary to a physician, he retired into Kent to gather plants; +and as the predominance of a favourite study affects all +subordinate operations of the intellect, botany in the mind of +Cowley turned into poetry. He composed, in Latin, several +books on plants, of which the first and second display the +qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse; the third and fourth, the +beauties of flowers, in various measures; and the fifth and +sixth, the use of trees, in heroic numbers.</p> +<p>At the same time were produced, from the same university, the +two great poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of +opposite principles, but concurring in the cultivation of Latin +poetry; in which the English, till their works and May’s +poem appeared, seemed unable to contest the palm with any other +of the lettered nations.</p> +<p>If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared +(for May I hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to +lie on the side of Cowley. Milton is generally content to +express the thoughts of the ancients in their language; Cowley, +without much loss of purity or elegance, accommodates the diction +of Rome to his own conceptions.</p> +<p>At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long +service, and with consciousness, not only of the merit of +fidelity, but of the dignity of great abilities, he naturally +expected ample preferments; and, that he might not be forgotten +by his own fault, wrote a song of triumph. But this was a +time of such general hope, that great numbers were inevitably +disappointed; and Cowley found his reward very tediously +delayed. He had been promised, by both Charles the First +and Second, the mastership of the Savoy; “but he lost +it,” says Wood, “by certain persons, enemies to the +Muses.”</p> +<p>The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; +having by such alteration as he thought proper, fitted his old +comedy of “The Guardian” for the stage, he produced +it under the title of “The Cutter of Coleman +Street.” It was treated on the stage with great +severity, and was afterwards censured as a satire on the +king’s party.</p> +<p>Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, +related to Mr. Dennis, “that, when they told Cowley how +little favour had been shown him, he received the news of his ill +success, not with so much firmness as might have been expected +from so great a man.”</p> +<p>What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley +discovered, cannot be known. He that misses his end will +never be as much pleased as he that attains it, even when he can +impute no part of his failure to himself; and when the end is to +please the multitude, no man perhaps has a right, in things +admitting of gradation and comparison, to throw the whole blame +upon his judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame, by +a haughty consciousness of his own excellence.</p> +<p>For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find the +reason: it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of +fixing attention and exciting merriment. From the charge of +disaffection he exculpates himself in his preface, by observing +how unlikely it is, that, having followed the royal family +through all their distresses, “he should choose the time of +their restoration to begin a quarrel with them.” It +appears, however, from the theatrical register of Downes the +prompter, to have been popularly considered as a satire on the +royalists.</p> +<p>That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his +pretensions and his discontent in an ode called “The +Complaint;” in which he styles himself the +<i>melancholy</i> Cowley. This met with the usual fortune +of complaints, and seems to have excited more contempt than +pity.</p> +<p>These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, +together in some stanzas, written about that time on the choice +of a laureate; a mode of satire, by which, since it was first +introduced by Suckling, perhaps every generation of poets has +been teased.</p> +<blockquote><p>Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court,<br /> + Making apologies for his bad play;<br /> +Every one gave him so good a report,<br /> + That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:<br /> +<br /> +Nor would he have had, ’tis thought, a rebuke,<br /> + Unless he had done some notable folly;<br /> +Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,<br /> + Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon +him. “Not finding,” says the morose Wood, +“that preferment conferred upon him which he expected, +while others for their money carried away most places, he retired +discontented into Surrey.”</p> +<p>“He was now,” says the courtly Sprat, “weary +of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He +had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign +manners. He was satiated with the arts of a court; which +sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet +nothing could make it quiet. Those were the reasons that +moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, +which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had still +called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of +solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue +below the malice and flatteries of fortune.”</p> +<p>So differently are things seen! and so differently are they +shown! But actions are visible, though motives are +secret. Cowley certainly retired; first to Barn Elms, and +afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. He seems, however, to +have lost part of his dread of the <i>hum of men</i>. He +thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, without the +defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking shelter +in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of life as +that he might easily find his way back when solitude should grow +tedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly +accommodated; yet he soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl +of St. Alban’s, and the Duke of Buckingham, such lease of +the queen’s lands as afforded him an ample income.</p> +<p>By the lovers of virtue and of wit it will be solicitously +asked, if he now was happy. Let them peruse one of his +letters accidentally preserved by Peck, which I recommend to the +consideration of all that may hereafter pant for solitude.</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“<span +class="smcap">To Dr. Thomas Sprat</span>,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<i>Chertsey</i>, <i>May</i> +21, 1665.</p> +<p>“The first night that I came hither I caught so great a +cold, with a defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten +days. And, two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a +fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn myself in my +bed. This is my personal fortune here to begin with. +And, besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my +meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my +neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, +God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than +hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all +the rest, that you have broke your word with me and failed to +come, even though you told Mr. Bois that you would. This is +what they call <i>monstri simile</i>. I do hope to recover +my late hurt so far within five or six days (though it be +uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) as to walk about +again. And then, methinks, you and I and the dean might be +very merry upon St. Ann’s Hill. You might very +conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one +night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: <i>verbum +sapienti</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of +solitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 +[28th July], in the forty-ninth year of his age.</p> +<p>He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and +King Charles pronounced, “That Mr. Cowley had not left +behind him a better man in England.” He is +represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this +posthumous praise may safely be credited, as it has never been +contradicted by envy or by faction.</p> +<p>Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to +add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of +civil war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were +easily irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in +general expressions, and to leave curiosity often +unsatisfied. What he did not tell cannot, however, now be +known; I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to +which my narration can be considered only as a slender +supplement.</p> +<p>Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, +and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural +sources in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary +prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much +neglected at another.</p> +<p>Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the +choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different +times takes different forms. About the beginning of the +seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed +the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of +Cowley, it is not improper to give some account.</p> +<p>The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their +learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to +show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote +verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the +finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so +imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the +syllables.</p> +<p>If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry +τéχνη +μιμητικὴ, <i>an imitative +art</i>, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their +right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have +imitated anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neither +painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of +intellect.</p> +<p>Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be +wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, +that they fall below Donne in wit; but maintains that they +surpass him in poetry.</p> +<p>If wit be well described by Pope, as being “that which +has been often thought, but was never before so well +expressed,” they certainly never attained, nor ever sought +it; for they endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and +were careless of their diction. But Pope’s account of +wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural +dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of +language.</p> +<p>If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be +considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, +though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged +to be just; if it be that which he that never found it, wonders +how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have +seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom +natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the +reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more +frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever +found.</p> +<p>But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be +more rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of +<i>discordia concors</i>; a combination of dissimilar images, or +discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently +unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than +enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence +together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, +comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their +subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his +improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, is +seldom pleased.</p> +<p>From this account of their compositions it will be readily +inferred that they were not successful in representing or moving +the affections. As they were wholly employed on something +unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity +of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains +and the pleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any +occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as +beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon +good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, +making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of +life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship +was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. +Their wish was only to say what they hoped had been never said +before.</p> +<p>Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; +for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of +thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the +first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational +admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and +littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always +general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and +in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is with +great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means +exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for +nicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch +for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great +things cannot have escaped former observation. Their +attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into +fragments; and could no more represent, by their slender conceits +and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the +scenes of life, than he who dissects a sunbeam with a prism can +exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer noon.</p> +<p>What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to +supply by hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they +left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced +combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could not be +credited, but could not be imagined.</p> +<p>Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly +lost; if they frequently threw away their wit upon false +conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if +their conceits were far fetched, they were often worth the +carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least necessary +to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical +poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied +from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by +traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of +rhyme, and volubility of syllables.</p> +<p>In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is +exercised either by recollection or inquiry; something already +learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be +examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their +acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always +gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are +employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity +has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be +sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but +useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are +expanded to perspicuity and polished to elegance, may give lustre +to works which have more propriety though less copiousness of +sentiment.</p> +<p>This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from +Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of +Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge, and by +Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the +ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments.</p> +<p>When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more +imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate +successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were +Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Clieveland, and Milton. +Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the +harmony of our members. Milton tried the metaphysic style +only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. Cowley adopted +it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and +more music. Suckling neither improved versification nor +abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained +chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton +disdained it.</p> +<p>Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; +and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing +by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by +themselves and their admirers) was eminently distinguished.</p> +<p>As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of +being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits +from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common +readers of poetry. Thus, Cowley on Knowledge:</p> +<blockquote><p>The sacred tree ’midst the fair orchard +grew;<br /> + The phœnix truth did on it rest,<br /> + And built his perfumed nest,<br /> +That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show.<br /> + Each leaf did learned notions give,<br /> + And the apples were demonstrative;<br /> +So clear their colour and divine,<br /> +The very shads they cast did other lights outshine.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:</p> +<blockquote><p>Love was with thy life entwined,<br /> +Close as heat with fire is join’d;<br /> +A powerful brand prescribed the date<br /> +Of thine, like Meleager’s fate.<br /> +Th’ antiperistasis of age<br /> +More enflam’d thy amorous rage.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical +opinion concerning manna:</p> +<blockquote><p>Variety I ask not: give me one<br /> +To live perpetually upon.<br /> +The person Love does to us fit,<br /> +Like manna, has the taste of all in it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic +verses:</p> +<blockquote><p> In everything there naturally +grows<br /> +A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,<br /> + If ’twere not injured by extrinsic blows:<br +/> +Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.<br /> + But you, of learning and religion,<br /> +And virtue and such ingredients, have made<br /> + A mithridate, whose operation<br /> +Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the +year, have something in them too scholastic, they are not +inelegant:</p> +<blockquote><p>This twilight of two years, not past nor next,<br +/> + Some emblem is of me, or I of this,<br /> +Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,<br /> + Whose what and where in disputation is,<br /> + If I should call me anything, should miss.<br /> +I sum the years and me, and find me not<br /> + Debtor to th’ old, nor creditor to th’ +new.<br /> +That cannot say, my thanks I have forget,<br /> + Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true<br +/> + This bravery is, since these times show’d me +you.—<span class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne’s reflection +upon man as a microcosm:</p> +<blockquote><p>If men be worlds, there is in every one<br /> +Something to answer in some proportion;<br /> +All the world’s riches; and in good men, this<br /> +Virtue, our form’s form, and our soul’s soul, is</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but +unnatural, all their books are full.</p> +<p>To a lady, who wrote posies for rings:</p> +<blockquote><p>They, who above do various circles find,<br /> +Say, like a ring, th’ equator Heaven does bind<br /> +When Heaven shall be adorned by thee,<br /> +(Which then more Heaven than ’tis will be)<br /> +’Tis thou must write the poesy there,<br /> + For it wanteth one as yet,<br /> +Then the sun pass through’t twice a year,<br /> + The sun, which is esteem’d the god of +wit.—<span class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The difficulties which have been raised about identity in +philosophy are by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to +love:</p> +<blockquote><p>Five years ago (says story) I loved you,<br /> +For which you call me most inconstant now;<br /> +Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;<br /> +For I am not the same that I was then:<br /> +No flesh is now the same ’twas then in me,<br /> +And that my mind is changed yourself may see.<br /> +The same thoughts to retain still, and intents<br /> +Were more inconstant far; for accidents<br /> +Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove,<br /> +If from one subject they t’ another move;<br /> +My members then the father members were,<br /> +From whence these take their birth, which now are here<br /> +If then this body love what th’ other did,<br /> +’Twere incest, which by nature is forbid.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, +compared to travels through different countries:</p> +<blockquote><p>Hast thou not found each woman’s breast<br +/> + (The land where thou hast travelled)<br /> +Either by savages possest,<br /> + Or wild, and uninhabited?<br /> +What joy could’st take, or what repose,<br /> +In countries so uncivilis’d as those?<br /> +Lust, the scorching dog-star, here<br /> + Rages with immoderate heat;<br /> +Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear,<br /> + In others makes the cold too great.<br /> +And where these are temperate known,<br /> +The soil’s all barren sand, or rocky stone.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:</p> +<blockquote><p>The fate of Egypt I sustain,<br /> +And never feel the dew of rain,<br /> +From clouds which in the head appear;<br /> +But all my too-much moisture ewe<br /> +To overflowings of the heart below.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws +of augury and rites of sacrifice:</p> +<blockquote><p>And yet this death of mine, I fear,<br /> +Will ominous to her appear:<br /> + When, sound in every other part,<br /> +Her sacrifice is found without an heart.<br /> + For the last tempest of my death<br /> +Shall sigh out that too, with my breath.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but +whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to +discover:</p> +<blockquote><p>Th’ ungovern’d parts no correspondence +knew;<br /> +An artless war from thwarting motions grew;<br /> +Till they to number and fixed rules were brought.<br /> +Water and air he for the tenor chose,<br /> +Earth made the base; the treble flame arose.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but +Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not +easily understood, they may be read again:</p> + +<blockquote><p> On +a round ball<br /> + A workman, that hath copies by, can lay<br /> + An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,<br /> +And quickly make that which was nothing, all.<br /> + So doth each tear,<br /> + Which thee doth wear,<br /> +A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,<br /> +Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow<br /> +This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out +“Confusion worse confounded.”</p> +<blockquote><p>Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here,<br /> + She gives the best light to his sphere,<br /> + Or each is both, and all, and so,<br /> +They unto one another nothing owe.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a +telescope?</p> +<blockquote><p>Though God be our true glass through which we +see<br /> +All, since the being of all things is He,<br /> +Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive<br /> +Things in proportion fit, by perspective<br /> +Deeds of good men; for by their living here,<br /> +Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many +remote ideas could be brought together?</p> +<blockquote><p>Since ’tis my doom, love’s +undershrieve,<br /> + Why this reprieve?<br /> +Why doth my she advowson fly<br /> + Incumbency?<br /> +To sell thyself dust thou intend<br /> + By candles end,<br /> +And hold the contract thus in doubt,<br /> + Life’s taper out?<br /> +Think but how soon the market fails,<br /> +Your sex lives faster than the males;<br /> +And if to measure age’s span,<br /> +The sober Julian were th’ account of man,<br /> +Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.—<span +class="smcap">Cleveland</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be +examples:</p> +<blockquote><p>By every wind that comes this way,<br /> + Send me at least a sigh or two,<br /> +Such and so many I’ll repay<br /> + As shall themselves make winds to get to +you.—<span class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +<p>In tears I’ll waste these eyes,<br /> +By love so vainly fed:<br /> +So lust of old the deluge punished.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +<p>All arm’d in brass, the richest dress of war,<br /> +(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.<br /> +The sun himself started with sudden fright,<br /> +To see his beams return so dismal bright.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A universal consternation:</p> +<blockquote><p>His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws<br +/> +Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,<br /> +Lashing his angry tail and roaring out.<br /> +Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;<br /> +Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;<br /> +Silence and horror fill the place around;<br /> +Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Their fictions were often violent and unnatural.</p> +<p>Of his mistress bathing:</p> +<blockquote><p>The fish around her crowded, as they do<br /> +To the false light that treacherous fishers show,<br /> +And all with as much ease might taken be,<br /> + As she at first took me;<br /> + For ne’er did light so clear<br /> + Among the waves appear,<br /> +Though every night the sun himself set there.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poetical effect of a lover’s name upon glass:</p> +<blockquote><p> My name engraved herein<br /> +Both contribute my firmness to this glass:<br /> + Which, ever since that charm, hath been<br /> +As hard as that which graved it was.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an +inconstant woman:</p> +<blockquote><p>He enjoys the calmy sunshine now,<br /> + And no breath stirring hears,<br /> +In the clear heaven of thy brow<br /> + No smallest cloud appears.<br /> +He sees thee gentle, fair and gay,<br /> + And trusts the faithless April of thy +May.—<span class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the +fire:</p> +<blockquote><p> Nothing yet in thee is seen,<br +/> + But when a genial heat warms thee within,<br /> + A new-born wood of various lines there grows;<br /> + Hers buds an L, and there a B,<br /> + Here sprouts a V, and there a T,<br /> +And all the flourishing letters stand in rows.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire +whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or +gross; whether they compared the little to the great, or the +great to the little.</p> +<p>Physic and chirurgery for a lover:</p> +<blockquote><p> Gently, ah gently, madam, +touch<br /> +The wound, which you yourself have made;<br /> + That pain must needs be very much<br /> +Which makes me of your hand afraid.<br /> + Cordials of pity give me now,<br /> +For I too weak of purgings grow.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The world and a clock</p> +<blockquote><p>Mahol th’ inferior world’s fantastic +face<br /> +Through all the turns of matter’s maze did trace;<br /> +Great Nature’s well-set clock in pieces took;<br /> +On all the springs and smallest wheels did look<br /> +Of life and motion, and with equal art<br /> +Made up the whole again of every part.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not +want its due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the +sun:</p> +<blockquote><p>The moderate value of our guiltless ore<br /> +Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore;<br /> +Yet why should hallow’d vestal’s sacred shrine<br /> +Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?<br /> +These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,<br /> +Than a few embers, for a deity.<br /> +Had he our pits, the Persian would admire<br /> +No sun, but warm’s devotion at our fire:<br /> +He’d leave the trotting whipster, and prefer<br /> +Our profound Vulcan ’bove that waggoner.<br /> +For wants he heat, or light? or would have store<br /> +Of both? ’tis here: and what can suns give more?<br /> +Nay, what’s the sun but, in a different name,<br /> +A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame?<br /> +Then let this truth reciprocally run,<br /> +The sun’s heaven’s coalery, and coals our sun.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Death, a voyage:</p> +<blockquote><p> No family<br +/> +E’er rigg’d a soul for Heaven’s discovery,<br +/> +With whom more venturers might boldly dare<br /> +Venture their stakes with him in joy to share.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, +and such as no figures or licence can reconcile to the +understanding.</p> +<p>A lover neither dead nor alive:</p> +<blockquote><p>Then down I laid my head<br /> +Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,<br /> +And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.<br /> +<br /> + Ah, sottish soul, said I,<br /> + When back to its cage again I saw it fly;<br /> + Fool to resume her broken chain,<br /> + And row her galley here again!<br /> + Fool, to that body to return<br /> +Where it condemned and destined is to burn!<br /> +Once dead, how can it be,<br /> +Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,<br /> +That thou should’st come to live it o’er again in +me?—<span class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A lover’s heart, a hand grenado:</p> +<blockquote><p>Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come<br /> + Into the self same room;<br /> + ’Twill tear and blow up all within,<br /> +Like a grenade shot into a magazine.<br /> +Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts,<br /> + Of both our broken hearts;<br /> + Shalt out of both one new one make;<br /> +From hers th’ allay, from mine the metal take.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poetical propagation of light:</p> +<blockquote><p>The prince’s favour is diffused o’er +all,<br /> +From which all fortunes names, and natures fall:<br /> +Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride’s bright eyes,<br +/> + At every glance a constellation flies,<br /> +And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent<br /> + In light and power, the all-ey’d firmament:<br +/> +First her eye kindles other ladies’ eyes,<br /> + Then from their beams their jewels’ lustres +rise;<br /> +And from their jewels torches do take fire,<br /> +And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They were in very little care to clothe their notions with +elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise +which are often gained by those who think less, but are more +diligent to adorn their thoughts.</p> +<p>That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is +by Cowley thus expressed:</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand<br /> +Than woman can be placed by Nature’s hand;<br /> +And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be,<br /> +To change thee as thou’rt there, for very thee.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by +Donne:</p> +<blockquote><p>In none but us are such mix’d engines +found,<br /> +As hands of double office; for the ground<br /> +We till with them; and them to heaven we raise<br /> +Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,<br /> +Doth but one half, that’s none.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>By the same author, a common topic, the danger of +procrastination, is thus illustrated:</p> +<blockquote><p> That which I should have +begun<br /> +In my youth’s morning, now late must be done;<br /> +And I, as giddy travellers must do,<br /> +Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost<br /> +Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity +is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie<br /> +After enabled but to suck and cry.<br /> +Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,<br +/> +A province pack’d up in two yards of skin,<br /> +And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage<br /> +Of sicknesses or their true mother, age.<br /> +But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;<br /> +Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;<br /> +Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown<br /> +In pieces, and the bullet is his own,<br /> +And freely flies: this to thy soul allow,<br /> +Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley +thus apostrophises beauty:</p> +<blockquote><p> Thou tyrant which leav’st +no man free!<br /> +Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!<br /> +Thou murtherer, which has kill’d, and devil, which +would’st damn me!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus he addresses his mistress:</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou who, in many a propriety,<br /> +So truly art the sun to me,<br /> +Add one more likeness, which I’m sure you can,<br /> +And let me and my sun beget a man.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:</p> +<blockquote><p>Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have +been<br /> +So much as of original sin,<br /> +Such charms thy beauty wears, as might<br /> +Desires in dying confest saints excite.<br /> + Thou with strange adultery<br /> +Dost in each breast a brothel keep;<br /> + Awake all men do lust for thee,<br /> +And some enjoy thee when they sleep.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The true taste of tears:</p> +<blockquote><p>Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come,<br /> + And take my tears, which are love’s wine,<br +/> +And try your mistress’ tears at home;<br /> + For all are false, that taste not just like +mine.—<span class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is yet more indelicate:</p> +<blockquote><p>As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,<br /> +As that which from chas’d musk-cat’s pores doth +trill,<br /> +As th’ almighty balm of th’ early east;<br /> +Such are the sweet drops of my mistress’ breast.<br /> +And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,<br /> +They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:<br /> +Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend +perhaps to be pathetic:</p> +<blockquote><p>As men in hell are from diseases free,<br /> +So from all other ills am I,<br /> +Free from their known formality:<br /> +But all pains eminently lie in thee.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions +from which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough +that they were popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods +are continued by tradition, because they supply commodious +allusions.</p> +<blockquote><p>It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:<br /> +In vain it something would have spoke;<br /> +The love within too strong for’t was,<br /> +Like poison put into a Venice-glass.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but +for conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets +have contended to adorn. Dryden’s Night is well +known; Donne’s is as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest:<br +/> +Time’s dead low-water; when all minds divest<br /> +To-morrow’s business; when the labourers have<br /> +Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave,<br /> +Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;<br /> +Now when the client, whose last hearing is<br /> +To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,<br /> +Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the<br /> +Again by death, although sad watch he keep;<br /> +Doth practise dying by a little sleep:<br /> +Thou at this midnight seest me.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they +are upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically +subtle; yet, where scholastic speculation can be properly +admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be +admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shows an +unequalled fertility of invention:</p> +<blockquote><p> Hops, whose weak being mind +is,<br /> + Alike if it succeed and if it miss;<br /> +Whom good or ill does equally confound,<br /> +And both the horns of fate’s dilemma wound;<br /> + Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite,<br /> + Both at full noon and perfect night!<br /> + The stars have not a possibility<br /> + Of blessing thee;<br /> +If things then from their end we happy call<br /> +’Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.<br /> + Hope, thou bold tester of delight,<br /> + Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour’st +it quite!<br /> + Thou bring’st us an estate, yet leav’st +us poor<br /> + By clogging it with legacies before!<br /> + The joys, which we entire should wed,<br /> + Come deflowr’d virgins to our bed;<br /> +Good fortunes without gain imported be,<br /> + Such mighty custom’s paid to thee:<br /> +For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste<br /> +If it take air before its spirits waste.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his +wife that stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be +doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim:</p> +<blockquote><p>Our two souls, therefore, which are one,<br /> + Though I must go, endure not yet<br /> +A breach, but an expansion,<br /> + Like gold to airy thinness beat.<br /> +If they be two, they are two so<br /> + As stiff twin compasses are two;<br /> +Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show<br /> + To move, but doth if th’ other do.<br /> +And, though it in the centre sit,<br /> + Yet, when the other far doth roam,<br /> +It leans and hearkens after it,<br /> + And grows erect as that comes home.<br /> +Such wilt thou be to me, who must<br /> + Like th’ other foot obliquely run.<br /> +Thy firmness makes my circle just,<br /> + And makes me end where I begun.—<span +class="smcap">Donne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is +improper or vicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from +nature in pursuit of something new and strange; and that the +writers fail to give delight, by their desire of exciting +admiration.</p> +<p>Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of +the style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now +proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was +almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best.</p> +<p>His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, +written some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some +as they were called forth by different occasions; with great +variety of style and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful +grandeur. Such an assemblage of diversified excellence no +other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose the best, among +many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of +criticism. I know not whether Scaliger himself has +persuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the +two favourite odes, which he estimates in his raptures at the +value of a kingdom. I will, however, venture to recommend +Cowley’s first piece, which ought to be inscribed “To +my Muse,” for want of which the second couplet is without +reference. When the title is added, there wills till remain +a defect; for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is +necessary to make it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs +without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied +indeed for the present, but hardly appropriated.</p> +<p>The “Ode on Wit” is almost without a rival. +It was about the time of Cowley that <i>wit</i>, which had been +till then used for <i>intellection</i>, in contradistinction to +<i>will</i>, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now +bears.</p> +<p>Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own +precepts, none will easily be found of greater excellence than +that in which Cowley condemns exuberance of wit:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Yet ’tis not to adorn and gild each part,<br +/> + That shows more cost than art.<br /> +Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;<br /> + Rather than all things wit, let none be there.<br /> +Several lights will not be seen,<br /> + If there be nothing else between.<br /> +Men doubt, because they stand so thick i’ th’ sky,<br +/> +If those be stars which paint the galaxy.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was +proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all +Cowley’s compositions, some striking thoughts, but they are +not well wrought. His “Elegy on Sir Henry +Wotton” is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is +easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by +the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.</p> +<p>It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his +encomiastic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his +heroes.</p> +<p>In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but +little passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues +as a studious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as +a mind not yet called forth to action can display. He knew +how to distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his +companion; but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to +weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining how his crown +of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the +odd fate of this thought to be the worse for being true. +The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as therefore this +property was not assigned it by chance, the mind must be thought +sufficiently at ease that could attend to such minuteness of +physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so much to move +the affections, as to exercise the understanding.</p> +<p>The “Chronicle” is a composition unrivalled and +alone: such gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such +varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance +of words, it is in vain to expect except from Cowley. His +strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the +flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic mind. His +levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the +politician, and the critic, mingle their influence even in this +airy frolic of genius. To such a performance Suckling could +have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have +supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.</p> +<p>The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and +happily concluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly +conceived and happily expressed. Cowley’s critical +abilities have not been sufficiently observed: the few decisions +and remarks, which his prefaces and his notes on the +“Davideis” supply, were at that time accessions to +English literature, and show such skill as raises our wish for +more examples.</p> +<p>The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen +of the familiar descending to the burlesque.</p> +<p>His two metrical disquisitions <i>for</i> and <i>against</i> +Reason are no mean specimens of metaphysical poetry. The +stanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In +those which are intended to exalt the human faculties, Reason has +its proper task assigned it; that of judging, not of things +revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses +<i>for</i> Reason is a passage which Bentley, in the only English +verses which he is known to have written, seems to have copied, +though with the inferiority of an imitator.</p> +<blockquote><p>The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine<br +/> + With thousand lights of truth divine,<br /> +So numberless the stars, that to our eye<br /> + It makes all but one galaxy.<br /> +Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas<br /> + So vast and dangerous as these,<br /> +Our course by stars above we cannot know<br /> + Without the compass too below.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After this says Bentley:</p> +<blockquote><p>Who travels in religious jars,<br /> + Truth mix’d with error, shade with rays<br /> +Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars,<br /> + In ocean wide or sinks or strays.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Cowley seems to have had what Milton is believed to have +wanted, the skill to rate his own performances by their just +value, and has therefore closed his Miscellanies with the verses +upon Crashaw, which apparently excel all that have gone before +them, and in which there are beauties which common authors may +justly think not only above their attainment, but above their +ambition.</p> +<p>To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or +paraphrastical translations of some little poems, which pass, +however justly, under the name of Anacreon. Of those songs +dedicated to festivity and gaiety, in which even the morality is +voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment of the +present day, he has given rather a pleasing than a faithful +representation, having retained their sprightliness, but lost +their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of +Pope, has admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which +he is undoubtedly made more amiable to common readers, and +perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own perceptions, to +far the greater part of those whom courtesy and ignorance are +content to style the learned.</p> +<p>These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind +than any other of Cowley’s works. The diction shows +nothing of the mould of time, and the sentiments are at no great +distance from our present habitudes of thought. Real mirth +must always be natural, and nature is uniform. Men have +been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed +the same way.</p> +<p>Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, +and the familiar part of language continues long the same; the +dialogue of comedy when it is transcribed from popular manners +and real life, is read from age to age with equal pleasure. +The artifices of inversion by which the established order of +words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words, or new +meanings of words, are introduced, is practised, not by those who +talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired.</p> +<p>The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the +pleasure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature +for one kind of writing more than for another, his power seems to +have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.</p> +<p>The next class of his poems is called “The +Mistress,” of which it is not necessary to select any +particular pieces for praise or censure. They have all the +same beauties and faults, and nearly in the same +proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and +with copiousness of learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, +that the plenitude of the writer’s knowledge flows in upon +his page, so that the reader is commonly surprised into some +improvement. But, considered as the verses of a lover, no +man that has ever loved will much commend them. They are +neither courtly nor pathetic, have neither gallantry nor +fondness. His praises are too far sought, and too +hyperbolical, either to express love, or to excite it; every +stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, +with mingled souls and with broken hearts.</p> +<p>The principal artifice by which “The Mistress” is +filled with conceits is very copiously displayed by +Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, expressed +metaphorically by flame and fire; and that which is true of real +fire is said of love, or figurative fire, the same word in the +same sentence retaining both significations. Thus +“observing the cold regard of his mistress’s eyes, +and at the same time their power of producing love in him, he +considers them as burning-glasses made of ice. Finding +himself able to live in the greatest extremities of love, he +concludes the torrid zone to be habitable. Upon the dying +of a tree, on which he had cut his loves, he observes that his +flames had burnt up and withered the tree.”</p> +<p>These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which +consists of thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and +false in the other. Addison’s representation is +sufficiently indulgent: that confusion of images may entertain +for a moment; but being unnatural it soon grows wearisome. +Cowley delighted in it, as much as if he had invented it; but, +not to mention the ancients, he might have found it full-blown in +modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro:</p> +<blockquote><p>Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis!<br /> + Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor:<br /> +Sum Nilus, sumque Ætna simul; restringite flammas<br /> + O lacrimæ, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as +having published a book of profane and lascivious verses. +From the charge of profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, +which seems to have been eminently virtuous, and the general +tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence of +religion, must defend him; but that the accusation of +lasciviousness is unjust, the perusal of his works will +sufficiently evince.</p> +<p>Cowley’s “Mistress” has no power of +seduction: she “plays round the head, but comes not at the +heart.” Her beauty and absence, her kindness and +cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce no correspondence +of emotion. His poetical accounts of the virtues of plants, +and colours of flowers, is not perused with more sluggish +frigidity. The compositions are such as might have been +written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical +rhymer who had only heard of another sex; for they turn the mind +only on the writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but as the +subject for his task, we sometimes esteem as learned, and +sometimes despise as trifling, always admire as ingenious, and +always condemn as unnatural.</p> +<p>The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species of +composition, which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in +his list of the lost inventions of antiquity, and which he has +made a bold and vigorous attempt to recover.</p> +<p>The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympic and +Nemæan Ode is by himself sufficiently explained. His +endeavour was, not to show precisely what Pindar spoke, but his +manner of speaking. He was therefore not at all restrained +to his expressions, nor much to his sentiments; nothing was +required of him, but not to write as Pindar would not have +written.</p> +<p>Of the Olympic Ode the beginning is, I think, above the +original in elegance, and the conclusion below it in +strength. The connection is supplied with great +perspicuity; and the thoughts, which to a reader of less skill +seem thrown together by chance, are concatenated without any +abruption. Though the English ode cannot be called a +translation, it may be very properly consulted as a +commentary.</p> +<p>The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally +preserved. The following pretty lines are not such as his +“deep mouth” was used to pour:</p> +<blockquote><p> Great Rhea’s son,<br /> +If in Olympus’ top, where thou<br /> +Sitt’st to behold thy sacred show,<br /> +If in Alpheus’ silver flight,<br /> +If in my verse thou take delight,<br /> +My verse, great Rhea’s son, which is<br /> +Lofty as that and smooth as this.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the Nemæan Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to +Pindar, observe, whatever is said of the original new moon, her +tender forehead and her horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, +who has many other plays of words and fancy unsuitable to the +original, as,</p> +<blockquote><p> The table, free for ev’ry +guest,<br /> + No doubt will thee admit,<br /> +And feast more upon thee, than thou on it</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He sometimes extends his author’s thoughts without +improving them. In the Olympionic an oath is mentioned in a +single word, and Cowley spends three lines in swearing by the +Castalian Stream. We are told of Theron’s bounty, +with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley thus enlarges in +rhyming prose:</p> +<blockquote><p>But in this thankless world the giver<br /> +Is envied even by the receiver;<br /> +’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion<br /> +Rather to hide than own the obligation:<br /> +Nay, ’tis much worse than so;<br /> +It now an artifice does grow<br /> +Wrongs and injuries to do,<br /> +Lest men should think we owe.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in +learning and wit, when he was dealing out such minute morality in +such feeble diction, could imagine, either waking or dreaming, +that he imitated Pindar.</p> +<p>In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, +he sometimes rises to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if some +deficiencies of language be forgiven, his strains are such as +those of the Theban bard were to his contemporaries:</p> +<blockquote><p> Begin the song, and strike the +living lyre:<br /> +Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,<br /> + All hand in hand do decently advance,<br /> +And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance;<br /> +While the dance lasts, how long soe’er it be,<br /> +My music’s voice shall bear it company;<br /> + Till all gentle notes be drown’d<br /> +In the last trumpet’s dreadful sound.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to find the poet +conclude with lines like these:</p> +<blockquote><p> But stop, my Muse—<br /> +Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,<br /> +Which does to rage begin—<br /> +—’Tis an unruly and hard-mouth’d +horse—<br /> +’Twill no unskilful touch endure,<br /> +But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the +metaphysical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last +ramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality; for +of the greatest things the parts are little; what is little can +be but pretty, and by claiming dignity becomes ridiculous. +Thus all the power of description is destroyed by a scrupulous +enumeration, and the force of metaphors is lost, when the mind by +the mention of particulars is turned more upon the original than +the secondary sense, more upon that from which the illustration +is drawn than that to which it is applied.</p> +<p>Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the +“Muse,” who goes to “take the air” in an +intellectual chariot, to which he harnesses Fancy and Judgment, +Wit and Eloquence, Memory and Invention; how he distinguished Wit +from Fancy, or how Memory could properly contribute to Motion, he +has not explained: we are however content to suppose that he +could have justified his own fiction, and wish to see the Muse +begin her career; but there is yet more to be done.</p> +<blockquote><p>Let the <i>postillion</i> Nature mount, and let<br +/> +The <i>coachman</i> Art be set;<br /> +And let the airy <i>footmen</i>, running all beside,<br /> +Make a long row of goodly pride;<br /> +Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences,<br /> +In a well-worded dress,<br /> +And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies,<br /> +In all their gaudy <i>liveries</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber of magnificence; +yet I cannot refuse myself the four next lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,<br +/> + And bid it to put on;<br /> + For long though cheerful is the way,<br /> +And life, alas! allows but one ill winter’s day.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives +her prescience, or, in poetical language, the foresight of events +hatching in futurity; but, once having an egg in his mind, he +cannot forbear to show us that he knows what an egg contains:</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep,<br /> + And there with piercing eye<br /> +Through the firm shell and the thick white float spy<br /> + Years to come a-forming lie,<br /> +Close in their sacred fecundine asleep.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The same thought is more generally, and therefore more +poetically expressed by Casimir, a writer who has many of the +beauties and faults of Cowley:</p> +<blockquote><p>Omnibus mundi Dominator horis<br /> +Aptat urgendas per inane pennas,<br /> +Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros<br /> + Crescit in annos.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, +by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to +conceits which require still more ignoble epithets. A +slaughter in the Red Sea “new dyes the water’s +name;” and England, during the Civil War, was “Albion +no more, nor to be named from white.” It is surely by +some fascination not easily surmounted, that a writer, professing +to revive “the noblest and highest writing in verse,” +makes this address to the new year:</p> +<blockquote><p>Nay, if thou lov’st me, gentle year,<br /> +Let not so much as love be there,<br /> +Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,<br /> + Although I fear<br /> +There’s of this caution little need,<br /> + Yet, gentle year, take heed<br /> + How thou dost make<br /> + Such a mistake;<br /> +Such love I mean alone<br /> +As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown:<br /> +For, though I have too much cause to doubt it,<br /> +I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with +Prior—</p> +<blockquote><p> Ye critics, say,<br /> +How poor to this was Pindar’s style!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or +Nemæan songs what Antiquity what disposed them to expect, +will at least see that they are ill represented by such puny +poetry; and all will determine that, if this be the old Theban +strain, it is not worthy of revival.</p> +<p>To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley’s +sentiments must be added the uncertainty and looseness of his +measures. He takes the liberty of using in any place a +verse of any length, from two syllables to twelve. The +verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little harmony to a +modern ear; yet by examining the syllables we perceive them to be +regular, and have reason enough for supposing that the ancient +audiences were delighted with the sound. The imitator ought +therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what +was wanting; to have preserved a constant return of the same +numbers, and to have supplied smoothness of transition and +continuity of thought.</p> +<p>It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the “irregularity of +numbers is the very thing” which makes “that kind of +poesy fit for all manner of subjects.” But he should +have remembered, that what is fit for everything can fit nothing +well. The great pleasure of verse arises from the known +measure of the lines, and uniform structure of the stanzas, by +which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved.</p> +<p>If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, “the +highest and noblest kind of writing in verse,” it can be +adapted only to high and noble subjects; and it will not be easy +to reconcile the poet with the critic, or to conceive how that +can be the highest kind of writing in verse which, according to +Sprat, “is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to +prose.”</p> +<p>This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the +deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the +idle, that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the +boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could +do nothing else could write like Pindar. The rights of +antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to break into the +Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of +verse are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the +“Musæ Anglicanæ.” Pindarism +prevailed about half a century; but at last died gradually away, +and other imitations supply its place.</p> +<p>The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of +poetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with +unabated censure; and surely though the mode of their composition +be erroneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration +which is due to great comprehension of knowledge, and great +fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often +striking; but the greatness of one part is disgraced by the +littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the +noblest conceptions the appearance of a fabric august in the +plan, but mean in the materials. Yet surely those verses +are not without a just claim to praise; of which it may be said +with truth, that no man but Cowley could have written them.</p> +<p>The “Davideis” now remains to be considered; a +poem which the author designed to have extended to twelve books, +merely, as he makes no scruple of declaring, because the +“Æneid” had that number; but he had leisure or +perseverance only to write the third part. Epic poems have +been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and +Cowley. That we have not the whole “Davideis” +is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking +Cowley is, tacitly at least, confessed to have miscarried. +There are not many examples of so great a work produced by an +author generally read, and generally praised, that has crept +through a century with so little regard. Whatever is said +of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the +“Davideis” no mention is made; it never appears in +books, nor emerges in conversation. By the +“Spectator” it has been once quoted; by Rymer it has +once been praised; and by Dryden, in “Mac Flecknoe,” +it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice +from its publication till now in the whole succession of English +literature.</p> +<p>Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it +will be found partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in +the performance of the work.</p> +<p>Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence, +and an imagination overawed and controlled. We have been +accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the +authentic narrative, and to repose on its veracity with such +humble confidence as suppresses curiosity. We go with the +historian as he goes, and stop with him when he stops. All +amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which +is already sufficient for the purposes of religion seems not only +useless, but in some degree profane.</p> +<p>Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of +Divine Power are above the power of human genius to +dignify. The miracle of creation, however it may teem with +images, is best described with little diffusion of language: +“He spake the word, and they were made.”</p> +<p>We are told that Saul “was troubled with an evil +spirit;” from this Cowley takes an opportunity of +describing hell, and telling the history of Lucifer, who was, he +says,</p> +<blockquote><p>Once general of a gilded host of sprites,<br /> +Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights;<br /> +But down like lightning, which him struck, he came<br /> +And roar’d at his first plunge into the flame.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in +which there is something of heathenism, and therefore of +impropriety; and, to give efficacy to his words, concludes by +lashing his breast with his long tail: Envy, after a pause, steps +out, and among other declarations of her zeal utters these +lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make +reply,<br /> +And thunder echo to the trembling sky;<br /> +Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height,<br /> +As shall the fire’s proud element affright,<br /> +Th’ old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way,<br /> +Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day.<br /> +The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace,<br /> +And stubborn poles change their allotted place.<br /> +Heaven’s gilded troops shall flutter here and there,<br /> +Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an +allegorical being.</p> +<p>It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, +that fancy and fiction lose their effect; the whole system of +life, while the theocracy was yet visible, has an appearance so +different from all other scenes of human action, that the reader +of the sacred volume habitually considers it as the peculiar mode +of existence of a distinct species of mankind, that lived and +acted with manners uncommunicable; so that it is difficult even +for imagination to place us in the state of them whose story is +related, and by consequence their joys and griefs are not easily +adopted, nor can the attention be often interested in anything +that befalls them.</p> +<p>To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception of +poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could +reconcile impatience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be +more disgusting than a narrative spangled with conceits; and +conceits are all that the “Davideis” supplies.</p> +<p>One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, +or the power of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley +gives inferences instead of images, and shows not what may be +supposed to have been seen, but what thoughts the sight might +have suggested. When Virgil describes the stone which +Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes the attention on its +bulk and weight:</p> +<blockquote><p>Saxum circumspicit ingens,<br /> +Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat<br /> +Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother,</p> +<blockquote><p>I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant<br /> +At once his murther and his monument.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says,</p> +<blockquote><p>A sword so great, that it was only fit<br /> +To cut off his great head that came with it.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Other poets describe Death by some of its common +appearances. Cowley says, with a learned allusion to +sepulchral lamps real or fabulous,</p> +<blockquote><p>’Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the +furious blade,<br /> +And open’d wide those secret vessels where<br /> +Life’s light goes out, when first they let in air.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionary +succession of kings:</p> +<blockquote><p>Joas at first does bright and glorious show,<br /> +In life’s fresh morn his fame does early crow.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with +elegance,</p> +<blockquote><p>His forces seem’d no army, but a crowd<br /> +Heartless, unarm’d, disorderly, and loud,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>he gives them a fit of the ague.</p> +<p>The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he +offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution:</p> +<blockquote><p>The king was placed alone, and o’er his +head<br /> +A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:</p> +<blockquote><p>Where the sun’s fruitful beams give metals +birth,<br /> +Where he the growth of fatal gold does see,<br /> +Gold, which alone more influence has than he.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion of +philosophy:</p> +<blockquote><p>Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,<br /> +Why does that twining plant the oak embrace;<br /> +The oak for courtship most of all unfit,<br /> +And rough as are the winds that fight with it?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that +surpasses expectation:</p> +<blockquote><p>Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now +you’re in,<br /> +The story of your gallant friend begin.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In a simile descriptive of the morning:</p> +<blockquote><p>As glimmering stars just at th’ approach of +day,<br /> +Cashier’d by troops, at last all drop away.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The dress of Gabriel deserves attention:</p> +<blockquote><p>He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright,<br +/> +That e’er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;<br /> +Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,<br /> +Wash’d from the morning beauties’ deepest red:<br /> +An harmless flatt’ring meteor shone for hair,<br /> +And fell adown his shoulders with loose care;<br /> +He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies,<br /> +Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes;<br /> +This he with starry vapours sprinkles all,<br /> +Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;<br /> +Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade,<br /> +The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is a just specimen of Cowley’s imagery; what might +in general expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and +makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That +Gabriel was invested with the softest or brightest colours of the +sky, we might have been told, and been dismissed to improve the +idea in our different proportions of conception; but Cowley could +not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got first his +skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarf, and +related it in the terms of the mercer and tailor.</p> +<p>Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always +conceived with his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where +it is not long, continued till it is tedious:</p> +<blockquote><p>I’ th’ library a few choice authors +stood,<br /> +Yet ’twas well stored, for that small store was good;<br /> +Writing, man’s spiritual physic, was not then<br /> +Itself, as now, grown a disease of men.<br /> +Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew;<br /> +The common prostitute she lately grew,<br /> +And with the spurious brood loads now the press;<br /> +Laborious effects of idleness.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As the “Davideis” affords only four books, though +intended to consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such +criticism as Epic poems commonly supply. The plan of the +whole work is very imperfectly shown by the third part. The +duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of +characters either not yet introduced, or shown but upon few +occasions, the full extent and the nice discriminations cannot be +ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather +from the “Odyssey” than the “Iliad;” and +many artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of +a man acquainted with the beet models. The past is recalled +by narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has +been so lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to +imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising +again the same modes of disposing his matter; and perhaps the +perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to +stop. By this abruption, posterity lost more instruction +than delight. If the continuation of the +“Davideis” can be missed, it is for the learning that +had been diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been +explained.</p> +<p>Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by +improper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon +praise. He gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero:</p> +<blockquote><p>His way once chose, he forward threat outright.<br +/> +Nor turned aside for danger or delight.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle +Michal are very justly conceived and strongly painted.</p> +<p>Rymer has declared the “Davideis” superior to the +“Jerusalem” of Tasso, “which,” says he, +“the poet, with all his care, has not totally purged from +pedantry.” If by pedantry is meant that minute +knowledge which is derived from particular sciences and studies, +in opposition to the general notions supplied by a wide survey of +life and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, +far more frequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why +they should be compared; for the resemblance of Cowley’s +work to Tasso’s is only that they both exhibit the agency +of celestial and infernal spirits, in which, however, they differ +widely; for Cowley supposes them commonly to operate upon the +mind by suggestion; Tasso represents them as promoting or +obstructing events by external agency.</p> +<p>Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I +remember only the description of Heaven, in which the different +manner of the two writers is sufficiently discernible. +Cowley’s is scarcely description, unless it be possible to +describe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is not in +heaven. Tasso endeavours to represent the splendours and +pleasures of the regions of happiness. Tasso affords +images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that +Tasso’s description affords some reason for Rymer’s +censure. He says of the Supreme Being:</p> +<blockquote><p>Hà sotto i piedi e fato e la natura<br /> +Ministri humili, e’l moto, e ch’il misura.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be +found in any other stanza of the poem.</p> +<p>In the perusal of the “Davideis,” as of all +Cowley’s works, we find wit and learning unprofitably +squandered. Attention has no relief; the affections are +never moved; we are sometimes surprised, but never delighted; and +find much to admire, but little to approve. Still, however, +it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by nature, and +replenished by study.</p> +<p>In the general review of Cowley’s poetry it will be +found that he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or +unskilful selection; with much thought, but with little imagery; +that he is never pathetic, and rarely sublime; but always either +ingenious or learned, either acute or profound.</p> +<p>It is said by Denham in his elegy,</p> +<blockquote><p>To him no author was unknown,<br /> +Yet what he writ was all his own.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This wide position requires less limitation, when it is +affirmed of Cowley, than perhaps of any other poet.—He read +much, and yet borrowed little.</p> +<p>His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappily +adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to +present praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the +ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of +human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of +which the verdure in its spring was bright and gay, but which +time has been continually stealing from his brows.</p> +<p>He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled +excellence. Clarendon represents him as having taken a +flight beyond all that went before him; and Milton is said to +have declared that the three greatest English poets were Spenser, +Shakespeare, and Cowley.</p> +<p>His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments +were his own. Upon every subject he thought for himself; +and such was his copiousness of knowledge, that something at once +remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely +that he always rejected a commodious idea merely because another +had used it: his known wealth was so great that be might have +borrowed without loss of credit, in his elegy on Sir Henry +Wotton, the last lines have such resemblance to the noble epigram +of Grotius on the death of Scaliger, that I cannot but think them +copied from it, though they are copied by no servile hand.</p> +<p>One passage in his “Mistress” is so apparently +borrowed from Donne, that he probably would not have written it +had it not mingled with his own thoughts, so as that he did not +perceive himself taking it from another:</p> +<blockquote><p>Although I think thou never found wilt be,<br /> + Yet I’m resolved to search for thee;<br /> + The search itself rewards the pains.<br /> +So, though the chymic his great secret miss<br /> +(For neither it in Art or Nature is),<br /> + Yet things well worth his toil he gains:<br /> + And does his charge and labour pay<br /> +With good unsought experiments by the way.—<span +class="smcap">Cowley</span>.</p> +<p>Some that have deeper digg’d Love’s mine than +I,<br /> +Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:<br /> + I have loved, and got, and told;<br /> +But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,<br /> +I should not find that hidden mystery;<br /> + Oh, ’tis imposture all!<br /> +And as no chymic yet th’ elixir got,<br /> + But glorifies his pregnant pot,<br /> + If by the way to him befal<br /> +Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,<br /> + So lovers dream a rich and long delight,<br /> + But get a winter-seeming summer’s night.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the +highest esteem.</p> +<p>It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged +his obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have +found no traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears +to have been his purpose.; and from Donne ~he may have learnt +that familiarity with religious images, and that light allusion +to sacred things, by which readers far short of sanctity are +frequently offended; and which would not be borne in the present +age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more +delicate.</p> +<p>Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will +recompense him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed +from him. He says of Goliath:</p> +<blockquote><p>His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,<br /> +Which Nature meant some tall ship’s mast should be.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Milton of Satan:</p> +<blockquote><p>His spear, to equal which the tallest pine<br /> +Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast<br /> +Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,<br /> +He walked with.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His diction was in his own time censured as negligent. +He seems not to have known, or not to have considered, that words +being arbitrary must owe their power to association, and have the +influence, and that only, which custom has given them. +Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien, or +most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured by a garb +appropriated to the gross employments of rustics or mechanics; so +the most heroic sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most +splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by +words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by +vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.</p> +<p>Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; +they have an intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that +intellectual gold which defies destruction; but gold may be so +concealed in baser matter, that only a chemist can recover it; +sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none +but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in +impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction.</p> +<p>The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents +itself to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance +offends, a further knowledge is not often sought. Whatever +professes to benefit by pleasing, must please at once. The +pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that +which elevates must always surprise. What is perceived by +slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness of +improvement, but will never strike with the sense of +pleasure.</p> +<p>Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or +without care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any +neatness of phrase: he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate; +as his endeavours were rather to impress sentences upon the +understanding, than images on the fancy: he has few epithets, and +those scattered without peculiar propriety of nice +adaptation.</p> +<p>It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather +than the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem +is less familiar than that of his slightest writings. He +has given not the same numbers, but the same diction, to the +gentle Anacreon and the tempestuous Pindar.</p> +<p>His versification seems to have had very little of his care; +and if what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical +only when they are ill-read, the art of reading them is at +present lost; for they are commonly harsh to modern ears. +He has indeed many noble lines, such as the feeble care of Waller +never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts sometimes +swelled his verse to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but his +excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he sinks willingly +down to his general carelessness, and avoids with very little +care either meanness or asperity.</p> +<p>His contractions are often rugged and harsh:</p> +<blockquote><p>One flings a mountain, and its rivers too<br /> +Torn up with ’t.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or +the like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy +the energy of the line.</p> +<p>His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant +and unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former +does not slide easily into the latter.</p> +<p>The words “do” and “did,” which so +much degrade in present estimation the line that admits them, +were in the time of Cowley little censured or avoided; how often +he used them, and with how bad an effect, at least to our ears, +will appear by a passage, in which every reader will lament to +see just and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by +inelegance of language:</p> +<blockquote><p>Where honour or where conscience <i>does</i> not +bind<br /> + No other law shall shackle me;<br /> + Slave to myself I ne’er will be;<br /> +Nor shall my future actions be confined<br /> + By my own present mind.<br /> +Who by resolves and vows engaged <i>does</i> stand<br /> + For days, that yet belong to fate,<br /> +<i>Does</i> like an unthrift mortgage his estate,<br /> + Before it falls into his hand;<br /> + The bondman of the cloister so,<br /> +All that he <i>does</i> receive <i>does</i> always owe.<br /> +And still as Time comes in, it goes away,<br /> + Not to enjoy, but debts to pay!<br /> + Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell!<br /> +Which his hour’s work as well as hours <i>does</i> tell:<br +/> +Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His heroic lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet +they are sometimes sweet and sonorous.</p> +<p>He says of the Messiah,</p> +<blockquote><p>Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall +sound,<br /> +<i>And reach to worlds that must not yet be found</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In another place, of David,</p> +<blockquote><p>Yet bid him go securely, when he sends;<br /> +’<i>Tis Saul that is his foe</i>, <i>and we his +friends</i>.<br /> +<i>The man who has his God</i>, <i>no aid can lack</i>;<br /> +<i>And we who bid him go</i>, <i>will bring him back</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved +and scientific versification; of which it will be best to give +his own account subjoined to this line:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Nor can the glory +contain itself in th’ endless space.</p> +<p>“I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most +part of readers, that it is not by negligence that this verse is +so loose, long, and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the +number the nature of the thing which it describes, which I would +have observed in divers other places of this poem, that else will +pass as very careless verses: as before,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>And over-runs the +neighb’ring fields with violent course</i>.</p> +<p>“In the second book:</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Down a precipice deep</i>, +<i>dowse he casts them all</i>—</p> +<p>“And,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>And fell a-down his shoulders +with loose care</i>.</p> +<p>“In the third,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Brass was his helmet</i>, <i>his +boots brass</i>, <i>and o’er</i><br /> +<i>His breast a thick plate strong brass he wore</i>.</p> +<p>“In the fourth,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Like some fair pine +o’er-looking all the ignobler wood</i>.</p> +<p>“And,</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Some from the rocks cast +themselves down headlong</i>.</p> +<p>“And many more: but it is enough to instance in a +few. The thing is, that the disposition of words and +numbers should be such, as that, out of the order and sound of +them, the things themselves may be represented. This the +Greeks were not so accurate as to bind themselves to; neither +have our English poets observed it, for aught I can find. +The Latins (<i>qui musas colunt severiores</i>) sometimes did it; +and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples are +innumerable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it +is superfluous to collect them.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, +attained the representation or resemblance that he +purposes. Verse can imitate only sound and motion. A +“boundless” verse, a “headlong” verse, +and a verse of “brass” or of “strong +brass,” seem to comprise very incongruous and unsociable +ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound of the line +expressing “loose care,” I cannot discover; nor why +the “pine” is “taller” in an Alexandrine +than in ten syllables.</p> +<p>But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one +example of representative versification, which perhaps no other +English line can equal:</p> +<blockquote><p>Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:<br /> +He, who defers this work from day to day,<br /> +Does on a river’s bank expecting stay<br /> +Till the whole stream that stopp’d him shall be gone,<br /> +<i>Which runs</i>, <i>and</i>, <i>as it runs</i>, <i>for ever +shall run on</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled +Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables, +and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or +licentious. He considered the verse of twelve syllables as +elevated and majestic, and has therefore deviated into that +measure when he supposes the voice heard of the Supreme +Being.</p> +<p>The author of the “Davideis” is commended by +Dryden for having written it in couplets, because he discovered +that any staff was too lyrical for an heroic poem; but this seems +to have been known before by May and Sandys, the translators of +the “Pharsalia” and the +“Metamorphoses.”</p> +<p>In the “Davideis” are some hemistichs, or verses +left imperfect by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he +supposes not to have intended to complete them; that this opinion +is erroneous, may be probably concluded, because this truncation +is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself +filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; because in +one the sense is now unfinished; and because all that can be done +by a broken verse, a line intersected by a <i>cœsura</i>, +and a full stop, will equally effect.</p> +<p>Of triplets in his “Davideis” he makes no use, and +perhaps did not at first think them allowable; but he appears +afterwards to have changed his mind, for in the verses on the +government of Cromwell he inserts them liberally with great +happiness.</p> +<p>After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which +accompany them must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat +of his conversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion +of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to these +compositions. No author ever kept his verse and his prose +at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are +natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which +has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is +far-sought, or hard-laboured; but all is easy without feebleness, +and familiar without grossness.</p> +<p>It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay on the Classics, +that Cowley was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that +he has rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but +tragedy.</p> +<p>It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he +brought to his poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and +that his pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books +could supply; that he was the first who imparted to English +numbers the enthusiasm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the +less; that he was equally qualified for sprightly sallies, and +for lofty flights; that he was among those who freed translation +from servility, and, instead of following his author at a +distance, walked by his side; and that, if he left versification +yet improvable, he left likewise from time to time such specimens +of excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: WALLER, +MILTON, COWLEY***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 5098-h.htm or 5098-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/0/9/5098 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Lives of the Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5098] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LIVES OF THE POETS: WALLER, ETC *** + + + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the +1891 Cassell and Co. edition. + + + +LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: WALLER, MILTON, COWLEY + + + + +Contents: + Introduction + Waller + Milton + Cowley + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + + +Samuel Johnson, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th of +September Old Style, 18th New Style, was sixty-eight years old when +he agreed with the booksellers to write his "Lives of the English +Poets." "I am engaged," he said, "to write little Lives, and little +Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets." His conscience +was also a little hurt by the fact that the bargain was made on +Easter Eve. In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers and +meditations, was "29 March, Easter Eve, I treated with booksellers +on a bargain, but the time was not long." + +The history of the book as told to Boswell by Edward Dilly, one of +the contracting booksellers, was this. An edition of Poets printed +by the Martins in Edinburgh, and sold by Bell in London, was +regarded by the London publishers as an interference with the +honorary copyright which booksellers then respected among +themselves. They said also that it was inaccurately printed and its +type was small. A few booksellers agreed, therefore, among +themselves to call a meeting of proprietors of honorary or actual +copyright in the various Poets. In Poets who had died before 1660 +they had no trade interest at all. About forty of the most +respectable booksellers in London accepted the invitation to this +meeting. They determined to proceed immediately with an elegant and +uniform edition of Poets in whose works they were interested, and +they deputed three of their number, William Strahan, Thomas Davies, +and Cadell, to wait on Johnson, asking him to write the series of +prefatory Lives, and name his own terms. Johnson agreed at once, +and suggested as his price two hundred guineas, when, as Malone +says, the booksellers would readily have given him a thousand. He +then contemplated only "little Lives." His energetic pleasure in +the work expanded his Preface beyond the limits of the first design; +but when it was observed to Johnson that he was underpaid by the +booksellers, his reply was, "No, sir; it was not that they gave me +too little, but that I gave them too much." He gave them, in fact, +his masterpiece. His keen interest in Literature as the soul of +life, his sympathetic insight into human nature, enabled him to put +all that was best in himself into these studies of the lives of men +for whom he cared, and of the books that he was glad to speak his +mind about in his own shrewd independent way. Boswell was somewhat +disappointed at finding that the selection of the Poets in this +series would not be Johnson's, but that he was to furnish a Preface +and Life to any Poet the booksellers pleased. "I asked him," writes +Boswell, "if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should +ask him. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; and SAY he was a dunce." + +The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson's +intellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the best +engravers, and another committee to give directions about paper and +printing. They made out at once a list of the Poets they meant to +give, "many of which," said Dilly, "are within the time of the Act +of Queen Anne, which Martin and Bell cannot give, as they have no +property in them. The proprietors are almost all the booksellers in +London, of consequence." + +In 1780 the booksellers published, in separate form, four volumes of +Johnson's "Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the most Eminent +of the English Poets." The completion followed in 1781. "Sometime +in March," Johnson writes in that year, "I finished the Lives of the +Poets." The series of books to which they actually served as +prefaces extended to sixty volumes. When his work was done, Johnson +then being in his seventy-second year, the booksellers added 100 +pounds to the price first asked. Johnson's own life was then near +its close. He died on the 13th of December, 1784, aged seventy- +five. + +Of the Lives in this collection, Johnson himself liked best his Life +of Cowley, for the thoroughness with which he had examined in it the +style of what he called the metaphysical Poets. In his Life of +Milton, the sense of Milton's genius is not less evident than the +difference in point of view which made it difficult for Johnson to +know Milton thoroughly. They know each other now. For Johnson +sought as steadily as Milton to do all as "in his great Taskmaster's +eye." + +H. M. + + + +WALLER. + + + +Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill, in +Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Esquire, of +Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a +branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of +John Hampden, of Hampden, in the same county, and sister to Hampden, +the zealot of rebellion. + +His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly +income of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together +the value of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than +equivalent to ten thousand at the present time. + +He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed +afterwards to King's College, in Cambridge. He was sent to +Parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and +frequented the court of James the First, where he heard a very +remarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to +his Works, who seems to have been well informed of facts, though he +may sometimes err in chronology, has delivered as indubitably +certain: + +"He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, Bishop +of Durham, standing behind his Majesty's chair; and there happened +something extraordinary," continues this writer, "in the +conversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller +did often reflect. His Majesty asked the bishops, 'My Lords, cannot +I take my subject's money, when I want it, without all this +formality of Parliament?' The Bishop of Durham readily answered, +'God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the breath of our +nostrils.' Whereupon the king turned and said to the Bishop of +Winchester, 'Well, my Lord, what say you?' 'Sir,' replied the +bishop, 'I have no skill to judge of Parliamentary cases. The king +answered, 'No put-offs, my Lord; answer me presently.' 'Then, Sir,' +said he, 'I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale's +money; for he offers it.' Mr. Waller said the company was pleased +with this answer, and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; for a +certain lord coming in soon after, his Majesty cried out, 'Oh, my +lord, they say you lig with my Lady.' 'No, Sir,' says his lordship +in confusion; 'but I like her company, because she has so much wit.' +'Why, then,' says the king, 'do you not lig with my Lord of +Winchester there?'" + +Waller's political and poetical life began nearly together. In his +eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, +on "The Prince's Escape at St. Andero:" a piece which justifies the +observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, by a +felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be +obsolete; and that "were we to judge only by the wording, we could +not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at' fourscore." His +versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his +last performance. By the perusal of Fairfax's translation of Tasso, +to which, as Dryden relates, he confessed himself indebted for the +smoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of observation, he +had already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never +afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. Denham +corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually +upon the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham was +inherited by Waller. + +The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is +supposed by Mr. Fenton to be the "Address to the Queen," which he +considers as congratulating her arrival, in Waller's twentieth year. +He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation's +obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written +when she had brought many children. We have therefore no date of +any other poetical production before that which the murder of the +Duke of Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness with which the king +received the news in the chapel deserved indeed to be rescued from +oblivion. + +Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could +have been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on the +prince's escape, the prediction of his marriage with the Princess of +France must have been written after the event; in the other, the +promises of the king's kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, +which could not be properly praised till it had appeared by its +effects, show that time was taken for revision and improvement. It +is not known that they were published till they appeared long +afterwards with other poems. + +Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their +minds at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he was by +inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. +Banks, a great heiress in the city, whom the interest of the court +was employed to obtain for Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a son, +who died young, and a daughter, who was afterwards married to Mr. +Dormer, of Oxfordshire, she died in childbed, and left him a widower +of about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, to please himself with +another marriage. + +Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think +himself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly and +half-ambitiously, upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of +the Earl of Leicester, whom he courted by all the poetry in which +Sacharissa is celebrated; the name is derived from the Latin +appellation of "sugar," and implies, if it means anything, a +spiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, such as excites rather +tenderness and esteem, and such as, though always treated with +kindness, is never honoured or admired. + +Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, of +lofty charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with +amazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in +vain, to break, and whose presence is "wine" that "inflames to +madness." + +His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of +boasting its influence; she was not to be subdued by the powers of +verse, but rejected his addresses, it is said, with disdain, and +drove him away to solace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. +She married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newbury in +the king's cause; and, in her old age, meeting somewhere with +Waller, asked him, when he would again write such verses upon her; +"When you are as young, Madam," said he, "and as handsome as you +were then." + +In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, +among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius +and literature; but known so little to his advantage, that they who +read his character will not much condemn Sacharissa, that she did +not descend from her rank to his embraces, nor think every +excellence comprised in wit. + +The lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon comprised in wit, +qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him +to the scholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of that +time, however they might receive his love, were proud of his +praises. Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, +cannot now be known. Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady +Sophia Murray. Perhaps by traditions preserved in families more may +be discovered. + +From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected that he +diverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his biographers, from +his poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited the +Bermudas; but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himself +with forming an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, +as a visit to America, should have been left floating in conjectural +probability. + +From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieces +on the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. Paul's; to the +King on his Navy; the Panegyric on the Queen Mother; the two poems +to the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the time +cannot be discovered. + +When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him for an +easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or +Breaux. The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has not +been discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is anything +told of her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtless +praised some whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps +married one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many +qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no +colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight +imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve. There +are charms made only for distant admiration. No spectacle is nobler +than a blaze. + +Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him five +sons and eight daughters. + +During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as living +among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and +enjoying an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of +speech and conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was, +however, considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was therefore +supposed by the courtiers not to favour them. + +When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller's +political character had not been mistaken. The king's demand of a +supply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection and +discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical +complaints of imaginary grievances: "They," says he, "who think +themselves already undone, can never apprehend themselves in danger; +and they who have nothing left can never give freely." Political +truth is equally in danger from the praises of courtiers, and the +exclamations of patriots. + +He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time of a +favourable audience. His topic is such as will always serve its +purpose; an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment: +and he exhorts the Commons "carefully" to "provide" for their +"protection against Pulpit Law." + +It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has in +his speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in another has copied +him, without quoting. "Religion," says Waller, "ought to be the +first thing in our purpose and desires; but that which is first in +dignity is not always to precede in order of time; for well-being +supposes a being; and the first impediment which men naturally +endeavour to remove, is the want of those things without which they +cannot subsist. God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life, +and gave him a title to the rest of the creatures before he +appointed a law to observe." + +"God first assigned Adam," says Hooker, "maintenance of life, and +then appointed him a law to observe. True it is, that the kingdom +of God must be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but +inasmuch as a righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live +virtuously it is impossible, except we live; therefore the first +impediment which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and +want of things without which we cannot live." + +The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances +ought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable +enough to law and reason: nor was Waller, if his biographer may be +credited, such an enemy to the king, as not to wish his distresses +lightened; for he relates, "that the king sent particularly to +Waller, to second his demand of some subsidies to pay off the army, +and Sir Henry Vane objecting against first voting a supply, because +the king would not accept unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. +Waller spoke earnestly to Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the +household, to save his master from the effects of so bold a falsity; +'for,' he said, 'I am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend to +know the king's mind:' but Sir Thomas durst not contradict the +secretary; and his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr. +Waller, that his father's cowardice ruined the king." + +In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3, +1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and was +considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty +and acrimonious to be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge +Crawley, for his opinion in favour of ship-money; and his speech +shows that he did not disappoint their expectations. He was +probably the more ardent, as his uncle Hampden had been particularly +engaged in the dispute, and, by a sentence which seems generally to +be thought unconstitutional, particularly injured. + +He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their +opinions. When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to be +abolished, was debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, +so reasonably, and so firmly, that it is not without great injury to +his name that his speech, which was as follows, has been hitherto +omitted in his works: + +"There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered +from the present bishops hath produced these complaints; and the +apprehensions men have of suffering the like, in time to come, make +so many desire the taking away of Episcopacy: but I conceive it is +possible that we may not, now, take a right measure of the minds of +the people by their petitions; for, when they subscribed them, the +bishops were armed with a dangerous commission of making new canons, +imposing new oaths, and the like; but now we have disarmed them of +that power. These petitioners lately did look upon Episcopacy as a +beast armed with horns and claws; but now that we have cut and pared +them (and may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into narrower bounds), +it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they be still in +passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use and +antiquity thereof; and not to comply further with a general desire, +than may stand with a general good. + +"We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof are +mingled like water and oil; we have also, in part, severed them; but +I believe you will find, that our laws and the present government of +the Church are mingled like wine and water; so inseparable, that the +abrogation of, at least, a hundred of our laws is desired in these +petitions. I have often heard a noble answer of the Lords, +commended in this House, to a proposition of like nature, but of +less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but +this, 'Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae:' it was the bishops who so +answered them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this +House to answer the people, now, with a 'Nolumus mutare.' + +"I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops; +which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I look +upon Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, if it be taken +by this assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once +revealed, 'that we must deny them nothing when they ask it thus in +troops,' we may, in the next place, have as hard a task to defend +our property, as we have lately had to recover it from the +Prerogative. If, by multiplying hands and petitions, they prevail +for an equality in things ecclesiastical, the next demand perhaps +may be Lex Agraria, the like equality in things temporal. + +"The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to flock about +the Senate, and were more curious to direct and know what was done, +than to obey, that Commonwealth soon came to ruin; their Legem +regare grew quickly to be a Legem ferre: and after, when their +legions had found that they could make a Dictator, they never +suffered the Senate to have a voice any more in such election. + +"If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a flat and level +in learning too, as well as in Church preferments: Hones alit +Artes. And though it be true, that grave and pious men do study for +learning-sake, and embrace virtue for itself; yet it is true, that +youth, which is the season when learning is gotten, is not without +ambition; nor will ever take pains to excel in anything, when there +is not some hope of excelling others in reward and dignity. + +"There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Church +government. + +"First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out another +form. + +"Second, the abuses of the present superiors. + +"For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am +confident that, whenever an equal division of lands and goods shall +be desired, there will be as many places in Scripture found out, +which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against the +prelacy or preferment of the Church. And, as for abuses, when you +are now in the remonstrance told what this and that poor man hath +suffered by the bishops, you may be presented with a thousand +instances of poor men that have received hard measure from their +landlords; and of worldly goods abused, to the injury of others, and +disadvantage of the owners. + +"And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is that we may settle +men's minds herein; and by a question, declare our resolution, 'to +reform,' that is, 'not to abolish, Episcopacy.'" + +It cannot but be wished that he, who could speak in this manner, had +been able to act with spirit and uniformity. + +When the Commons begun to set the royal authority at open defiance, +Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to have +returned with the king's permission; and, when the king set up his +standard, he sent him a thousand broad-pieces. He continued, +however, to sit in the rebellious conventicle; but "spoke," says +Clarendon, "with great sharpness and freedom, which, now there was +no danger of being out-voted, was not restrained; and therefore used +as an argument against those who were gone upon pretence that they +were not suffered to deliver their opinion freely in the House, +which could not be believed, when all men knew what liberty Mr. +Waller took, and spoke every day with impunity against the sense and +proceedings of the House." + +Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners +nominated by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and +when they were presented, the king said to him, "Though you are the +last, you are not the lowest nor the least in my favour." +Whitelock, who, being another of the commissioners, was witness of +this kindness, imputes it to the king's knowledge of the plot, in +which Waller appeared afterwards to have been engaged against the +Parliament. Fenton, with equal probability, believes that his +attempt to promote the royal cause arose from his sensibility of the +king's tenderness. Whitelock says nothing of his behaviour at +Oxford: he was sent with several others to add pomp to the +commission, but was not one of those to whom the trust of treating +was imparted. + +The engagement, known by the name of Waller's plot, was soon +afterwards discovered. Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who +was clerk of the queen's council, and at the same time had a very +numerous acquaintance, and great influence, in the city. Waller and +he, conversing with great confidence, told both their own secrets +and those of their friends; and, surveying the wide extent of their +conversation, imagined that they found in the majority of all ranks +great disapprobation of the violence of the Commons, and +unwillingness to continue the war. They knew that many favoured the +king, whose fear concealed their loyalty; and many desired peace, +though they durst not oppose the clamour for war; and they imagined +that, if those who had these good intentions should be informed of +their own strength, and enabled by intelligence to act together, +they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to comply +with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes +levied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting great +numbers in a petition for peace. They proceeded with great caution. +Three only met in one place, and no man was allowed to impart the +plot to more than two others; so that, if any should be suspected or +seized, more than three could not be endangered. + +Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, +incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or +projects, which however were only mentioned, the main design being +to bring the loyal inhabitants to the knowledge of each other; for +which purpose there was to be appointed one in every district, to +distinguish the friends of the king, the adherents to the +Parliament, and the neutrals. How far they proceeded does not +appear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, was, that +within the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, there were +three against them; but that without the walls, for one that was +against them, there were five for them. Whether this was said from +knowledge or guess, was perhaps never inquired. + +It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller's plan no violence or +sanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended only to abate +the confidence of the rebels by public declarations, and to weaken +their powers by an opposition to new supplies. This, in calmer +times, and more than this, is done without fear; but such was the +acrimony of the Commons, that no method of obstructing them was +safe. + +About this time another design was formed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, a +man of loyalty, that deserves perpetual remembrance; when he was a +merchant in the city, he gave and procured the king, in his +exigencies, a hundred thousand pounds; and, when he was driven from +the Exchange, raised a regiment, and commanded it. + +Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some +provocation would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much +encourage, the king's friends in the city, that they would break out +in open resistance, and would then want only a lawful standard, and +an authorised commander; and extorted from the king, whose judgment +too frequently yielded to importunity, a commission of array, +directed to such as he thought proper to nominate, which was sent to +London by the Lady Aubigny. She knew not what she carried, but was +to deliver it on the communication of a certain token which Sir +Nicholas imparted. + +This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the time +should require it. To have attempted to raise any forces would have +been certain destruction; it could be of use only when the forces +should appear. This was, however, an act preparatory to martial +hostility. + +Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of +Parliament, had his strength been equal to his zeal; and out of the +design of Crispe, which involved very little danger, and that of +Waller, which was an act purely civil, they compounded a horrid and +dreadful plot. + +The discovery of Waller's design is variously related. + +In "Clarendon's History" it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns, +lurking behind the hangings when his master was in conference with +Waller, heard enough to qualify him for an informer, and carried his +intelligence to Pym. + +A manuscript, quoted in the "Life of Waller," relates, that "he was +betrayed by his sister Price, and her Presbyterian chaplain Mr. +Goode, who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangely +dreamed the night before, that his sister had betrayed him, and +thereupon burnt the rest of his papers by the fire that was in his +chimney, he had certainly lost his life by it." The question cannot +be decided. It is not unreasonable to believe that the men in +power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the +servant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might +avoid an act so offensive as that of destroying the brother by the +sister's testimony. + +The plot was published in the most terrific manner. + +On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were +listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and +communicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that were +placed near him, and then went with them out of the church, leaving +the rest in solicitude and amazement. They immediately sent guards +to proper places, and that night apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; +having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted, +from which it appears that the Parliament and the city were soon to +be delivered into the hands of the cavaliers. + +They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and +indistinct notices. "But Waller," says Clarendon, "was so +confounded with fear, that he confessed whatever he had heard, said, +thought, or seen; all that he knew of himself, and all that he +suspected of others, without concealing any person of what degree or +quality soever, or any discourse which he had ever upon any occasion +entertained with them; what such and such ladies of great honour, to +whom, upon the credit of his wit and great reputation, he had been +admitted, had spoken to him in their chambers upon the proceedings +in the Houses, and how they had encouraged him to oppose them; what +correspondence and intercourse they had with some Ministers of State +at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence thither." He +accused the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway as co-operating in the +transaction; and testified that the Earl of Northumberland had +declared himself disposed in favour of any attempt that might check +the violence of the Parliament, and reconcile them to the king. + +He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have +discovered, and perhaps somewhat which they would wish to have been +suppressed; for it is inconvenient in the conflict of factions, to +have that disaffection known which cannot safely be punished. + +Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears +likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of +Crispe's commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew how it +was discovered. Tomkyns had been sent with the token appointed, to +demand it from Lady Aubigny, and had buried it in his garden, where, +by his direction, it was dug up; and thus the rebels obtained, what +Clarendon confesses them to have had, the original copy. + +It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two +designs, however remote from each other, when they saw the same +agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in the +hands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions and +affections of the people. + +Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. They +sent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent danger +and happy escape; and inform them, that the design was, "to seize +the Lord Mayor and all the Committee of Militia, and would not spare +one of them." They drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by every +member of either House, by which he declared his detestation of all +conspiracies against the Parliament, and his resolution to detect +and oppose them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for this +wonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubts +whether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot was +real or fictitious. + +On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway were committed, one +to the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff; but their +lands and goods were not seized. + +Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The Earl of +Portland and Lord Conway denied the charge; and there was no +evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of which +undoubtedly many would be inclined to question the veracity. With +these doubts he was so much terrified, that he endeavoured to +persuade Portland to a declaration like his own, by a letter extant +in Fenton's edition. "But for me," says he, "you had never known +anything of this business, which was prepared for another; and +therefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far as to +contract your own ruin by concealing it, and persisting unreasonably +to hide that truth, which, without you, already is, and will every +day be made more manifest. Can you imagine yourself bound in honour +to keep that secret, which is already revealed by another? or +possible it should still be a secret, which is known to one of the +other sex?--If you persist to be cruel to yourself for their sakes +who deserve it not, it will nevertheless be made appear, ere long, I +fear, to your ruin. Surely, if I had the happiness to wait on you, +I could move you to compassionate both yourself and me, who, +desperate as my case is, am desirous to die with the honour of being +known to have declared the truth. You have no reason to contend to +hide what is already revealed--inconsiderately to throw away +yourself, for the interest of others, to whom you are less obliged +than you are aware of." + +This persuasion seems to have had little effect. Portland sent +(June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he "is in +custody, as he conceives, without any charge; and that, by what Mr. +Waller hath threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he doth +apprehend a very cruel, long, and ruinous restraint:- He therefore +prays, that he may not find the effects of Mr. Waller's threats, a +long and close imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legal +trial, and then he is confident the vanity and falsehood of those +informations which have been given against him will appear." + +In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Waller +to be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the other +his denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1), +Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having +had a conference with the Lord Portland in an upper room, Lord +Portland said, when he came down, "Do me the favour to tell my Lord +Northumberland, that Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save my +own life and his, by throwing the blame upon the Lord Conway and the +Earl of Northumberland." + +Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which he +could urge with resistless efficacy in a personal conference; but he +overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion or +entreaty, was returned with contempt. + +One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already +known to a woman. This woman was doubtless Lady Aubigny, who, upon +this occasion, was committed to custody; but who, in reality, when +she delivered the commission, knew not what it was. + +The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and +committed their trial to a council of war. Tomkyns and Chaloner +were hanged near their own doors. Tomkyns, when he came to die, +said it was a "foolish business;" and indeed there seems to have +been no hope that it should escape discovery; for, though never more +than three met at a time, yet a design so extensive must by +necessity be communicated to many who could not be expected to be +all faithful and all prudent. Chaloner was attended at his +execution by Hugh Peters. His crime was, that he had commission to +raise money for the king; but it appears not that the money was to +be expended upon the advancement of either Crispe's or Waller's +plot. + +The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was +only once examined before the Lords. The Earl of Portland and Lord +Conway persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller's +yet appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, +admitted to bail. Hassel, the king's messenger, who carried the +letters to Oxford, died the night before his trial. Hampden +[Alexander] escaped death, perhaps by the interest of his family; +but was kept in prison to the end of his life. They whose names +were inserted in the commission of array were not capitally +punished, as it could not be proved that they had consented to their +own nomination; but they were considered as malignants, and their +estates were seized. + +"Waller, though confessedly," says Clarendon, "the most guilty, with +incredible dissimulation affected such a remorse of conscience, that +his trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, till he might +recover his understanding." What use he made of this interval, with +what liberality and success he distributed flattery and money, and +how, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he confessed and +lamented, and submitted and implored, may be read in the "History of +the Rebellion" (B. vii.). The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes +the preservation of his "dear-bought life," is inserted in his +works. The great historian, however, seems to have been mistaken in +relating that "he prevailed" in the principal part of his +supplication, "not to be tried by a council of war;" for, according +to Whitelock, he was by expulsion from the House abandoned to the +tribunal which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and condemned, +was reprieved by Essex; but after a year's imprisonment, in which +time resentment grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thousand +pounds, he was permitted to "recollect himself in another country." + +Of his behaviour in this part of life, it is not necessary to direct +the reader's opinion. "Let us not," says his last ingenious +biographer, "condemn him with untempered severity, because he was +not a prodigy which the world hath seldom seen, because his +character included not the poet, the orator, and the hero." + +For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time at +Roan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards his +favourite, and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where he +lived with great splendour and hospitality; and from time to time +amused himself with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of the +rebels, and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honest +man. + +At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife's +jewels; and being reduced, as he said, at last "to the rump-jewel," +he solicited from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it by +the interest of Colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. +Upon the remains of a fortune, which the danger of his life had very +much diminished, he lived at Hallbarn, a house built by himself very +near to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, though +related to Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause, +and, when Cromwell visited her, used to reproach him; he, in return, +would throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute with his +aunt; but finding in time that she acted for the king, as well as +talked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, in her own +house. If he would do anything, he could not do less. + +Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to +familiar conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found him +sufficiently versed in ancient history; and, when any of his +enthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimes +overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times: but, when he +returned, he would say, "Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in +their own way;" and resumed the common style of conversation. + +He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous +Panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his +poetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is very +judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without +inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no mention of +the rebel or the regicide. All the former part of his hero's life +is veiled with shades; and nothing is brought to view but the chief, +the governor, the defender of England's honour, and the enlarger of +her dominion. The act of violence by which he obtained the supreme +power is lightly treated, and decently justified. It was certainly +to be desired that the detestable band should be dissolved, which +had destroyed the Church, murdered the king, and filled the nation +with tumult and oppression; yet Cromwell had not the right of +dissolving them, for all that he had before done could be justified +only by supposing them invested with lawful authority. But +combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the +advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those, who +have long practised perfidy, grow faithless to each other. + +In the poem on the War with Spain are some passages at least equal +to the best parts of the Panegyric; and, in the conclusion, the poet +ventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty to +Cromwell and the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears +from his conversation, related by Whitelock, of adding the title to +the power of monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from it +partly by fear of the army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, +when he should govern by the name of king, would have restrained his +authority. When, therefore, a deputation was solemnly sent to +invite him to the crown, he, after a long conference, refused it, +but is said to have fainted in his coach when he parted from them. + +The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been dictated +by real veneration for his memory. Dryden and Sprat wrote on the +same occasion; but they were young men, struggling into notice, and +hoping for some favour from the ruling party. Waller had little to +expect; he had received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and +was not likely to ask anything from those who should succeed him. + +Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him with another subject; +and he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his melody, with +equal alacrity, for Charles the Second. It is not possible to read, +without some contempt and indignation, poems of the same author, +ascribing the highest degree of "power and piety" to Charles the +First, then transferring the same "power and piety" to Oliver +Cromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and then +congratulating Charles the Second on his recovered right. Neither +Cromwell nor Charles could value his testimony as the effect of +conviction, or receive his praises as effusions of reverence; they +could consider them but as the labour of invention, and the tribute +of dependence. + +Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of fiction is +the conveyance of truth, and he that has flattery ready for all whom +the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt must be scorned as a +prostituted mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lost +the dignity of virtue. + +The Congratulation was considered as inferior in poetical merit to +the Panegyric; and it is reported that, when the king told Waller of +the disparity, he answered, "Poets, Sir, succeed better in fiction +than in truth." + +The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to the Panegyric, either +by decay of genius, or for want of diligence, but because Cromwell +had done much and Charles had done little. Cromwell wanted nothing +to raise him to heroic excellence but virtue, and virtue his poet +thought himself at liberty to supply. Charles had yet only the +merit of struggling without success, and suffering without despair. +A life of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid +images. + +In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, +1661), Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for different +places in all the Parliaments of that reign. In a time when fancy +and gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is +not likely that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the +company that was highest, both in rank and wit, from which even his +obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he +was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of +Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that "no man in +England should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller." + +The praise given him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; +for it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a +writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life +upon an English pension, never consented to understand the language +of the nation that maintained him. + +In Parliament, "he was," says Burnet, "the delight of the House, and +though old, said the liveliest things of any among them." This, +however, is said in his account of the year seventy-five, when +Waller was only seventy. His name as a speaker occurs often in +Grey's Collections, but I have found no extracts that can be more +quoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency of argument. + +He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated and +recorded. When the Duke of York's influence was high, both in +Scotland and England, it drew, says Burnet, a lively reflection from +Waller, the celebrated wit. He said, "The House of Commons had +resolved that the duke should not reign after the king's death: but +the king, in opposition to them, had resolved that he should reign +even in his life." If there appear no extraordinary "liveliness" in +this "remark," yet its reception proves its speaker to have been a +"celebrated wit," to have had a name which men of wit were proud of +mentioning. + +He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may +easily happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to poetical +distinction from time to time, as occasions were offered, either by +public events or private incidents; and, contenting himself with the +influence of his Muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he +never accepted any office of magistracy. + +He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune, for he +asked from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton College, and +obtained it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, +alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known +that Sir Henry Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon's orders. + +To this opposition, the Biographia imputes the violence and acrimony +with which Waller joined Buckingham's faction in the prosecution of +Clarendon. The motive was illiberal and dishonest, and showed that +more than sixty years had not been able to teach him morality. His +accusation is such as conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate +without the help of malice. "We were to be governed by Janizaries +instead of Parliaments, and are in danger from a worse plot than +that of the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons had +been destroyed, there had been a succession; but here both had been +destroyed for ever." This is the language of a man who is glad of +an opportunity to rail, and ready to sacrifice truth to interest at +one time, and to anger at another. + +A year after the chancellor's banishment, another vacancy gave him +encouragement for another petition, which the king referred to the +Council, who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for three +days, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman, +according to the Act of Uniformity, since the provosts had always +received institution as for a parsonage from the Bishops of Lincoln. +The king then said he could not break the law which he had made; and +Dr. Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most for two +sermons, was chosen by the Fellows. + +That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that he +obtained nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court +through the rest of Charles's reign. + +At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for +Parliament, being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote +a Presage of the Downfall of the Turkish Empire, which he presented +to the king on his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator +Fenton, that in reading Tasso he had early imbibed a veneration for +the heroes of the Holy War, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which +never left him. James, however, having soon after begun what he +thought a holy war at home, made haste to put all molestation of the +Turks out of his power. + +James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instances +are given by the writer of his life. One day, taking him into the +closet, the king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: "My +eyes," said Waller, "are dim, and I do not know it." The king said +it was the Princess of Orange. "She is," said Waller, "like the +greatest woman in the world." The king asked who was that; and was +answered, Queen Elizabeth. "I wonder," said the king, "you should +think so; but I must confess she had a wise council." "And, Sir," +said Waller, "did you ever know a fool choose a wise one?" Such is +the story, which I once heard of some other man. Pointed axioms, +and acute replies, fly loose about the world, and are assigned +successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate. + +When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. +Birch, a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him that +"the king wondered he could think of marrying his daughter to a +falling church." "The king," said Waller, "does me great honour in +taking notice of my domestic affairs; but I have lived long enough +to observe that this falling church has got a trick of rising +again." + +He took notice to his friends of the king's conduct; and said that +"he would be left like a whale upon the strand." Whether he was +privy to any of the transactions that ended in the revolution is not +known. His heir joined the Prince of Orange. + +Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom +suffer life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, he +seems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive +hour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to devotion. It is +pleasing to discover that his piety was without weakness; that his +intellectual powers continued vigorous; and that the lines which he +composed when "he, for age, could neither read nor write," are not +inferior to the effusions of his youth. + +Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a little +land, at Coleshill; and said "he should be glad to die, like the +stag, where he was roused." This, however, did not happen. When he +was at Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid: he went to +Windsor, where Sir Charles Scarborough then attended the king, and +requested him, as both a friend and physician, to tell him "what +that swelling meant." "Sir," answered Scarborough, "your blood will +run no longer." Waller repeated some lines of Virgil, and went home +to die. + +As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his +departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy +sacrament, he desired his children to take it with him, and made an +earnest declaration of his faith in Christianity. It now appeared +what part of his conversation with the great could be remembered +with delight. He related, that being present when the Duke of +Buckingham talked profanely before King Charles, he said to him, "My +lord, I am a great deal older than your grace and have, I believe, +heard more arguments for atheism than ever your grace did; but I +have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and so, I +hope, your grace will." + +He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a +monument erected by his son's executors, for which Rymer wrote the +inscription, and which I hope is now rescued from dilapidation. + +He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughter +was married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, was +disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common +understanding. Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and +represented Agmondesham in parliament, but at last turned quaker. +William, the third son, was a merchant in London. Stephen, the +fourth, was an eminent doctor of laws, and one of the commissioners +for the union. There is said to have been a fifth, of whom no +account has descended. + +The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn +by Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which +certainly none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. It +is therefore inserted here, with such remarks as others have +supplied; after which, nothing remains but a critical examination of +his poetry. + +"Edmund Waller," says Clarendon, "was born to a very fair estate, by +the parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother; and he +thought it so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve +it with his utmost care, upon which in his nature he was too much +intent; and in order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, +that he was scarcely ever heard of, till by his address and +dexterity he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, against all +the recommendation and countenance and authority of the court, which +was thoroughly engaged on the behalf of Mr. Crofts, and which used +to be successful, in that age, against any opposition. He had the +good fortune to have an alliance and friendship with Dr. Morley, who +had assisted and instructed him in the reading many good books, to +which his natural parts and promptitude inclined him, especially the +poets; and at the age when other men used to give over writing +verses (for he was near thirty years when he first engaged himself +in that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), he surprised +the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a tenth Muse +had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The doctor at that +time brought him into that company which was most celebrated for +good conversation, where he was received and esteemed with great +applause and respect. He was a very pleasant discourser in earnest +and in jest, and therefore very grateful to all kind of company, +where he was not the less esteemed for being very rich. + +He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was +very young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long +intermission) he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage; +having a graceful way of speaking, and by thinking much on several +arguments (which his temper and complexion, that had much of +melancholic, inclined him to), he seemed often to speak upon the +sudden, when the occasion had only administered the opportunity of +saying what he had thoroughly considered, which gave a great lustre +to all he said; which yet was rather of delight than weight. There +needs no more be said to extol the excellence and power of his wit, +and pleasantness of his conversation, than that it was of magnitude +enough to cover a world of very great faults; that is, so to cover +them, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, viz., a +narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness and +want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an +insinuation and servile flattery to the height, the vainest and most +imperious nature could be contented with; that it preserved and won +his life from those who most resolved to take it, and in an occasion +in which he ought to have been ambitious to have lost it; and then +preserved him again from the reproach and the contempt that was due +to him for so preserving it, and for vindicating it at such a price +that it had power to reconcile him to those whom he had most +offended and provoked; and continued to his age with that rare +felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit was +odious; and he was at least pitied where he was most detested." + +Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper to +make some remarks. + +"He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the +city." + +He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, +before which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He +was now, however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part +of his time in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he +endeavoured the improvement of his mind as well as his fortune. + +That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the +more probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of +his poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before +thirty. As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the +succession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who +cannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did not +rectify his first opinion by consulting Waller's book. + +Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by +Dr. Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was already +among them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the +cause, they found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was +Morley, whom Waller set free at the expense of one hundred pounds, +took him into the country as director of his studies, and then +procured him admission into the company of the friends of +literature. Of this fact Clarendon had a nearer knowledge than the +biographer, and is therefore more to be credited. + +The account of Waller's parliamentary eloquence is seconded by +Burnet, who, though he calls him "the delight of the House," adds, +that "he was only concerned to say that which should make him be +applauded, he never laid the business of the House to heart, being a +vain and empty, though a witty man." + +Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe +that the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of those +whom in modern language we term wits, says, that they are "open +flatterers, and private mockers." Waller showed a little of both, +when, upon sight of the Duchess of Newcastle's verses on the Death +of a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compositions +to have written them, and being charged with the exorbitance of his +adulation, answered, that "nothing was too much to be given, that a +lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance." +This, however, was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation +from truth; had his hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, he +might have been forgiven, though not praised: for who forbears to +flatter an author or a lady? + +Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his +resolution, he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem +of every party. From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from +Charles the Second, who delighted in his company, he obtained only +the pardon of his relation Hampden, and the safety of Hampden's son. + +As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and +his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to +monarchy. His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his +connexion with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with +great bitterness; and the invective which he pronounced on that +occasion was so popular, that twenty thousand copies are said by his +biographer to have been sold in one day. + +It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at +least many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is +universally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him +intimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his old +age, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends was +sometimes necessary. + +His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite +writers of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the +translation of Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added his +help to that of Cowley in the original draft of the Rehearsal. + +The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree +little less than criminal, was either not constant or not +successful; for having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five +hundred pounds a year in the time of James the First, and augmented +at least by one wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of the +Revolution, an income of not more than twelve or thirteen hundred; +which, when the different value of money is reckoned, will be found +perhaps not more than a fourth part of what he once possessed. + +Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts which he +was forced to scatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at +the detection of his plot; and if his estate, as is related in his +life, was sequestered, he had probably contracted debts when he +lived in exile; for we are told, that at Paris he lived in +splendour, and was the only Englishman, except the Lord St. Albans, +that kept a table. + +His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the +waste of the rest there is no account, except that he is confessed +by his biographer to have been a bad economist. He seems to have +deviated from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his +first years, and a squanderer in his last. + +Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known more +than that he professed himself unable to read Chapman's translation +of Homer without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a poet +is contained in his declaration, that "he would blot from his works +any line that did not contain some motive to virtue." + +The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writing +are sprightliness and dignity; in his smallest pieces, he endeavours +to be gay; in the larger to be great. Of his airy and light +productions, the chief source is gallantry, that attentive reverence +of female excellence which has descended to us from the Gothic ages. +As his poems are commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, he +was not so liberally supplied with grand as with soft images; for +beauty is more easily found than magnanimity. + +The delicacy, which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicety +and caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He has, +therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldom +anything ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best; +though his subjects are often unworthy of his care. + +It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author, who is +growing illustrious in his own opinion by verses, at one time, "To a +Lady, who can do anything but sleep, when she pleases;" at another, +"To a Lady who can sleep when she pleases;" now, "To a Lady, on her +passing through a crowd of people;" then, "On a braid of divers +colours woven by four Ladies;" "On a tree cut in paper;" or, "To a +Lady, from whom he received the copy of verses on the paper-tree, +which, for many years, had been missing." + +Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove +of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus: and a writer naturally +pleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the +subject. But compositions merely pretty have the fate of other +pretty things, and are quitted in time for something useful; they +are flowers fragrant and fair, but of short duration; or they are +blossoms to be valued only as they foretell fruits. + +Among Waller's little poems are some, which their excellency ought +to secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, comparing the different +modes of regard with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and the +verses on Love, that begin, "Anger in hasty words or blows." + +In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts are +deficient, and sometimes his expression. + +The numbers are not always musical; as, + + +Fair Venus, in thy soft arms + The god of rage confine: +For thy whispers are the charms + Which only can divert his fierce design. +What though he frown, and to tumult do incline; + Thou the flame +Kindled in his breast canst tame +With that snow which unmelted lies on thine. + + +He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of +science; his thoughts are for the most part easily understood, and +his images such as the superfices of nature readily supplies; he has +a just claim to popularity, because he writes to common degrees of +knowledge; and is free at least from philosophical pedantry, unless +perhaps the end of a song to the Sun may be excepted, in which he is +too much a Copernican. To which may be added the simile of the +"palm" in the verses "on her passing through a crowd;" and a line in +a more serious poem on the Restoration, about vipers and treacle, +which can only be understood by those who happen to know the +composition of the Theriaca. + +His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural + + + The plants admire, +No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre; +If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, +They round about her into arbours crowd; +Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand, +Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band. + + +In another place: + + +While in the park I sing, the listening deer +Attend my passion, and forget to fear: +When to the beeches I report my flame, +They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. +To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers +With loud complaints they answer me in showers. +To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, +More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven! + + +On the head of a stag: + + +O fertile head! which every year +Could such a crop of wonder bear! +The teeming earth did never bring, +So soon, so hard, so large a thing: +Which might it never have been cast, +Each year's growth added to the last, +These lofty branches had supplied +The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride: +Heaven with these engines had been scaled, +When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd. + + +Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble +conclusion. In the song of "Sacharissa's and Amoret's Friendship," +the two last stanzas ought to have been omitted. + +His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree +delicate. + + +Then shall my love this doubt displace + And gain such trust that I may come +And banquet sometimes on thy face, + But make my constant meals at home. + + +Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; as +in the verses on the Lady Dancing: + + + The sun in figures such as these +Joys with the moon to play: + To the sweet strains they advance, +Which do result from their own spheres; + As this nymph's dance +Moves with the numbers which she hears. + + +Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps fill a distich, is expanded +and attenuated till it grows weak and almost evanescent. + + +Chloris! since first our calm of peace + Was frighted hence, this good we find, +Your favours with your fears increase, + And growing mischiefs make you kind. +So the fair tree, which still preserves + Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows, +In storms from that uprightness swerves; + And the glad earth about her strows + With treasure from her yielding boughs. + + +His images are not always distinct; as in the following passage, he +confounds LOVE as a person with LOVE as a passion: + + +Some other nymphs, with colours faint, +And pencil slow, may Cupid paint, +And a weak heart in time destroy; +She has a stamp, and prints the boy; +Can, with a single look, inflame +The coldest breast, the rudest tame. + + +His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and happy, as +that in return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, +as that upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few lines +written in the Duchess's Tasso, which he is said by Fenton to have +kept a summer under correction. It happened to Waller, as to +others, that his success was not always in proportion to his labour. + +Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults +deserve much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend +them, that they are less hyperbolical than those of some other +poets. Waller is not always at the last gasp; he does not die of a +frown, nor live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, and +too many trifles. Little things are made too important: and the +Empire of Beauty is represented as exerting its influence further +than can be allowed by the multiplicity of human passions, and the +variety of human wants. Such books, therefore, may be considered as +showing the world under a false appearance, and, so far as they +obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading +expectation, and misguiding practice. + +Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is +panegyrical: for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by +his imitator, Lord Lansdowne: + + +No satyr stalks within the hallow'd ground, +But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound; +Glory and arms and love are all the sound. + + +In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of +Spain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the +beginning; and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part +ridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid. The poem, +however, is such as may be justly praised, without much allowance +for the state of our poetry and language at that time. + +The two next poems are upon the king's behaviour at the death of +Buckingham, and upon his Navy. + +He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great propriety: + + +'Twas want of such a precedent as this +Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss. + + +In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which suppose +the king's power secure against a second deluge; so noble, that it +were almost criminal to remark the mistake of "centre" for +"surface," or to say that the empire of the sea would be worth +little if it were not that the waters terminate in land. + +The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the conclusion is +feeble. That on the Repairs of St. Paul's has something vulgar and +obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent and +harsh: as, + + +So all our minds with his conspire to grace +The Gentiles' great apostle and deface +Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain +Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again: +Which the glad saint shakes off at his command, +As once the viper from his sacred hand. +So joys the aged oak, when we divide +The creeping ivy from his injured side. + + +Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second +mean. + +His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, +that he "saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured +by lopping the limb," presents nothing to the mind but disgust and +horror. + +Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say +whether it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginning +is too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light for +seriousness. The versification is studied, the scenes are +diligently displayed, and the images artfully amplified; but as it +ends neither in joy nor sorrow, it will scarcely be read a second +time. + +The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very +liberal dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have +been unjustly lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely +appeared before in the English language. Of the lines some are +grand, some are graceful, and all are musical. There is now and +then a feeble verse; or a trifling thought; but its great fault is +the choice of its hero. + +The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and +striking than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts +are variegated with better passages and worse. There is something +too farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the +English on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening +the lion by bleating." The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, who +were burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet not +made him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor +expressed their affection and their end by a conceit at once false +and vulgar: + + +Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd, +And now together are to ashes turn'd. + + +The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended to +counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been thought +inferior to that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of +its deficience has been already remarked. + +The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They +must be supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with +the rest. The Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; +they were the work of Waller's declining life, of those hours in +which he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past with +the sentiments which his great predecessor Petrarch bequeathed to +posterity, upon his review of that love and poetry which have given +him immortality. + +That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much +excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that +the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now +forced to confess superior, is hastening daily to a level with +ourselves. By delighting to think this of the living, we learn to +think it of the dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, +has the luck to mark the exact time when his genius passed the +zenith, which he places at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allot +the mind but a small portion. Intellectual decay is doubtless not +uncommon; but it seems not to be universal. Newton was in his +eighty-fifth year improving his chronology, a few days before his +death; and Waller appears not, in my opinion, to have lost at +eighty-two any part of his poetical power. + +His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but +before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, +his success would hardly have been better. + +It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse has been +too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts +have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have +very seldom attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not +be improper to inquire why they have miscarried. + +Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many +authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please. The +doctrines of religion may indeed be defended in a didactic poem; and +he, who has the happy power of arguing in verse, will not lose it +because his subject is sacred. A poet may describe the beauty and +the grandeur of nature, the flowers of the spring, and the harvests +of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, and the revolutions of the +sky, and praise the Maker for his works, in lines which no reader +shall lay aside. The subject of the disputation is not piety, but +the motives to piety; that of the description is not God, but the +works of God. + +Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human +soul, cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his +Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a +higher state than poetry can confer. + +The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as by producing +something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of +devotion are few, and being few are universally known; but, few as +they are, they can be made no more; they can receive no grace from +novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression. + +Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than +things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of +those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those +which repel, the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; +suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it +is known already. + +From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always +obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his +fancy: but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical +devotion. Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised +in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; +Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved. + +The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, +Repentance, and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be +invested by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful +of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, is +confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather then expressed. +Repentance, trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at +leisure for cadences and epithets. Supplication of man to man may +diffuse itself through many topics of persuasion; but supplication +to God can only cry for mercy. + +Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most +simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and +its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more +excellent than itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the +memory and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very +useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian +Theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and +too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, +is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere. + +As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and +smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute +particulars to which a versifier must attend. + +He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers +who were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth +had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or +forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he +might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though +merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified. + +But he was rather smooth than strong; of "the full resounding line," +which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. +The critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, +and of sweetness to Waller. + +His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the +expletive "do" very frequently; and, though he lived to see it +almost universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his +last compositions than in his first. Praise had given him +confidence; and finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself. + +His rhymes are sometimes weak words: "so" is found to make the +rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his +book. + +His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. +Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's +"Pompey;" and more faults might be found were not the inquiry below +attention. + +He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as "waxeth," +"affecteth;" and sometimes retains the final syllable of the +preterite, as "amazed," "supposed," of which I know not whether it +is not to the detriment of our language that we have totally +rejected them. + +Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of +an Alexandrine he has given no example. + +The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He is +never pathetic, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to have +had a mind much elevated by nature nor amplified by learning. His +thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance +with life would easily supply. They had however then, perhaps, that +grace of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by those +who, having already found them in later books, do not know or +inquire who produced them first. This treatment is unjust. Let not +the original author lose by his imitators. + +Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of +Waller's Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythraeus +and some late critics call "Alliteration," of using in the same +verse many words beginning with the same letter. But this knack, +whatever be its value, was so frequent among early writers, that +Gascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth century, warns the young poet +against affecting it; Shakespeare, in the "Midsummer Night's Dream," +is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the sonnet of +Holofernes fully displays it. + +He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old +mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient +poets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were +considered as realities, so far as to be received by the +imagination, whatever sober reason might even then determine. But +of these images time has tarnished the splendour. A fiction, not +only detected but despised, can never afford a solid basis to any +position, though sometimes it may furnish a transient allusion, or +slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much exalted by +hearing that, as Hercules had his "club" he has his "navy." + +But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much +will remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our +elegance of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and +to him may be applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and +justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor +Fido, he cried out, "If he had not read Aminta, he had not excelled +it." + +As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification +from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of +his work, which, after Mr. Hoole's translation, will perhaps not be +soon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our +poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it. + +1. + + Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore +Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene, +Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore, +Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene; +But her flit courser spared nere the more, +To beare her through the desart woods unseene + Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine + And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine. + +2. + +Like as the wearie hounds at last retire, +Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace, +When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire, +No art nor paines can rowse out of his place: +The Christian knights so full of shame and ire +Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace! +Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde +Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde. + +3. + +Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued, +Withouten comfort, companie, or guide, +Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued, +She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside. +But when the sunne his burning chariot diued +In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide, + On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid, + At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid + +4 + +Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings, +This was her diet that vnhappie night; +But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings) +To ease the greefes of discontented wight, +Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings, +In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright; + And loue, his mother, and the graces kept + Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept + +5. + +The birds awakte her with their morning song, +Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare, +The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among +The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare; +Her eies vnclos'd beheld the groues along +Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare; + And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent, + Prouokt again the virgin to lament. + +6. + +Her plaints were interrupted with a sound, +That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed, +Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round, +And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed; +Thither she went, an old man there she found, +(At whose right hand his little flock did feed) + Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among + That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song. + +7. + +Beholding one in shining armes appeare +The seelie man and his were sore dismaid; +But sweet Erminia comforted their feare, +Her ventall vp, her visage open laid +You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare, +Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid, + These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring + To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing. + +8. + +But father, since this land, these townes and towres, +Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile, +How may it be unhurt, that you and yours +In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile? +My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours +Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile; + This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe, + No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe. + +9. + +Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right, +Doth loue the innocence of simple swains, +The thunderbolts on highest mountains light, +And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines; +So kings have cause to feare Bellonaes might, +Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines, + Nor ever greedie soldier was entised + By pouertie, neglected and despised. + +10. + +O Pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood, +Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne! +No wish for honour, thirst of others good, +Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne: +We quench our thirst with water of this flood, +Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne; + These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates + Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates. + +11. + +We little wish, we need but little wealth, +From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed; +These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth +Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need: +Amid these groues I walks oft for my health, +And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed, + How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake, + And their contentment for ensample take. + +12. + +Time was (for each one hath his doting time, +These siluer locks were golden tresses than) +That countrie life I hated as a crime, +And from the forrests sweet contentment ran, +To Memphis' stately pallace would I clime, +And there became the mightie Caliphes man + And though I but a simple gardner weare, + Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare. + +13. + +Entised on with hope of future gaine, +I suffred long what did my soule displease; +But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine, +I felt my native strength at last decrease; +I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine, +And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace; + I bod the court farewell, and with content + My later age here have I quiet spent. + +14. + +While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still +His wise discourses heard, with great attention, +His speeches graue those idle fancies kill, +Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention; +After much thought reformed was her will, +Within those woods to dwell was her intention, + Till fortune should occasion new afford, + To turne her home to her desired Lord. + +15. + +She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate! +That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue. +Yet liuest now in this contented state, +Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue, +To entertaine me as a willing mate +In shepherds life, which I admire and loue; + Within these plessant groues perchance my hart, + Of her discomforts, may vnload some part. + +16. + +If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare, +If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise, +Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen, +As to a greedie minde might well suffice: +With that downe trickled many a siluer teare, +Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies; + Part of her sad misfortunes then she told, + And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old. + +17. + +With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare +Towards his cottage gently home to guide; +His aged wife there made her homely cheare, +Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side. +The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare, +A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide; + But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse) + Were such, as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse. + +18. + +Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide +The heau'nly beautie of her angels face, +Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide, +Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace; +Her little flocks to pasture would she guide, +And milke her goates, and in their folds them place, + Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame + Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame. + + + +MILTON. + + + +The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and +with such minute inquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have +contented myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton's +elegant abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessary +to the uniformity of this edition. + +John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors +of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his +estate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which side he took I +know not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose. + +His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a +zealous Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken the +religion of his ancestors. + +His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his +support to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent for +his skill in music, many of his compositions being still to be +found; and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grew +rich, and retired to an estate. He had probably more than common +literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate +Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a +Welsh family, by whom he had two sons, John, the poet, and +Christopher, who studied the law and adhered, as the law taught him, +to the king's party, for which he was a while persecuted; but having +by his brother's interest obtained permission to live in quiet, he +supported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, that, soon +after the accession of King James, he was knighted and made a judge; +but, his constitution being too weak for business, he retired before +any disreputable compliances became necessary. + +He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerable +fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the +Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and +Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the +only authentic account of his domestic manners. + +John the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread Eagle, +in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. +His father appears to have been very solicitous about his education; +for he was instructed at first by private tuition under the care of +Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants +at Hamburgh, and of whom we have reason to think well, since his +scholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy. + +He was then sent to St. Paul's school, under the care of Mr. Gill; +and removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ's +College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624. + +He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he +himself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of +which the learned Politian has given him an example, seems to +commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of +posterity. + +But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by +many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of +the mind it is difficult to form an estimate: many have excelled +Milton in their first essays, who never rose to works like "Paradise +Lost." + +At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated +or versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the +public eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any +numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder. + +Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth +year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors +with very nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the +translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton +was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote +Latin verses with classic elegance. If any exceptions can be made, +they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth's +reign, however they may have succeeded in prose, no sooner attempt +verse than they provoke derision. If we produced anything worthy of +notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster's +"Roxana." + +Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, some +were published by him in his maturer years. They had been +undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form: yet +there is reason to suspect that he was regarded in his college with +no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but +the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative. I +am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the +last students in either University that suffered the public +indignity of corporal correction. + +It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him, +that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was +apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to +"Diodati", that he had incurred "rustication," a temporary +dismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term. + + +Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda, + Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet. +Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum + Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor. - +Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri, + Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. +Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates, + Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi, +Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso, + Laetus et exilii conditione fruor. + + +I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and +reverence can give to the term, "vetiti laris," "a habitation from +which he is excluded;" or how "exile" can be otherwise interpreted. +He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring "the threats of a +rigorous master, and something else which a temper like his cannot +undergo." What was more than threat was probably punishment. This +poem, which mentions his "exile," proves likewise that it was not +perpetual; for it concludes with a resolution of returning some time +to Cambridge. And it may be conjectured, from the willingness with +which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was +such as gave him no shame. + +He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and that +of master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness for +its institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his +governors, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now +be known, but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme of +education, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical +instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men +usually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till +they proceed, as it is called Masters of Art. And in his discourse +"on the likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church," he +ingeniously proposes that the profits of the lands forfeited by the +act for superstitious uses should be applied to such academies all +over the land where languages and arts may be taught together that +youth may be at once brought up to a competency of learning and an +honest trade, by which means such of them as had the gift, being +enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, +by the help of the former, become worthy preachers. + +One of his objections to academical education, as it was then +conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were +permitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to +all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, and +bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, or +were near having, to the eyes of courtiers and court-ladies, their +grooms and mademoiselles. + +This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his +exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the +compensation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Plays +were therefore only criminal when they were acted by academics. + +He went to the university with a design of entering into the church, +but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a +clergyman, must "subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, +unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straight +perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence +before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and +forswearing." + +These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the +Articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical +obedience. I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his +opinions: but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or +civil, raise his indignation. + +His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet +advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a +letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and +dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable +curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge. To this he +writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours to +persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights of +desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more fitness for +his task; and that he goes on, "not taking thought of being late, so +it gives advantage to be more fit." + +When he left the University, he returned to his father, then +residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five +years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin +writers. With what limitations this universality is to be +understood, who shall inform us? + +It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done +nothing else; but Milton found time to write the "Masque of Comus," +which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord +President of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by +the Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. The fiction is derived +from Homer's "Circe;" but we never can refuse to any modern the +liberty of borrowing from Homer: + + + --a quo ceu fonte perenni +Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. + + +His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the +death of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland +in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a +favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to +his memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be +discovered by a mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to +the rules of Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the church by some +lines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination. + +He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for +while he lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his studies +a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the Countess +Dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatic +entertainment. + +He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of +taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother +set him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's +consent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebrated +precept of prudence, i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto; +"thoughts close, and looks loose." + +In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the +favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting +Grotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador from +Christina of Sweden. From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which he +had with particular diligence studied the language and literature; +and, though he seems to have intended a very quick perambulation of +the country, stayed two months at Florence; where he found his way +into the academies, and produced his compositions with such applause +as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him +in the hope, that, "by labour and intense study, which," says he, "I +take to be my portion in this life, joined with a strong propensity +of nature," he might "leave something so written to after-times, as +they should not willingly let it die." + +It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant +of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, +perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man +ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very +frugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of a +name as a security against the waste of time, and a certain +preservative from oblivion. + +At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted +distinction. Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic +inscription, in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him an +ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noise; the rest are +perhaps too diffuse on common topics: but the last is natural and +beautiful. + +From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he +was again received with kindness by the learned and the great. +Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided three +years at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a +musical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by +the hand into the assembly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, +and Salsilli in a tetrastich: neither of them of much value. The +Italians were gainers by this literary commerce; for the encomiums +with which Milton repaid Salsilli, though not secure against a stern +grammarian, turn the balance indisputably in Milton's favour. + +Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough +to publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be +suspected but to have known that they were said non tam de se, quam +supra se. + +At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months: a time indeed +sufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer of its +antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly +too short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners. + +From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a +companion from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owed +his introduction to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who had been before the +patron of Tasso. Manso was enough delighted with his +accomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which he +commends him for everything but his religion: and Milton, in +return, addressed him in a Latin poem, which must have raised a high +opinion of English elegance and literature. + +His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but hearing +of the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it +proper to hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreign +amusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights. +He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchants informed him of +plots laid against him by the Jesuits, for the liberty of his +conversations on religion. He had sense enough to judge that there +was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, and acted as before, +neither obtruding nor shunning controversy. He had perhaps given +some offence by visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the Inquisition +for philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manse, that, +by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himself +from some distinctions which he should otherwise have paid him. But +such conduct, though it did not please, was yet sufficiently safe; +and Milton stayed two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence +without molestation. + +From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and, +having sent away a collection of music and other books, travelled to +Geneva, which he probably considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy. + +Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted +with John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors of +divinity. From Geneva he passed through France; and came home, +after an absence of a year and three months. + +At his return he heard of the death of his friend, Charles Diodati; +a man whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, since he was +thought by Milton worthy of a poem, entitled "Epitaphium Damonis," +written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life. + + He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in St. +Bride's Churchyard, and undertook the education of John and Edward +Philips, his sister's sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a +house and garden in Aldersgate Street, which was not then so much +out of the world as it is now; and chose his dwelling at the upper +end of a passage, that he might avoid the noise of the street. Here +he received more boys, to be boarded and instructed. + +Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree +of merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who +hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their +liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his +patriotism in a private boarding-school. This is the period of his +life from which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They +are unwilling that Milton should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but +since it cannot be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he +taught for nothing, and another that his motive was only zeal for +the propagation of learning and virtue; and all tell what they do +not know to be true, only to excuse an act which no wise man will +consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; his +allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by an +honest and useful employment + +It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a +formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were +read in Aldersgate Street by youth between ten and fifteen or +sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories +should consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. +The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of his horse. +Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what +slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it +requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish +indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension. + +The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more +solid than the common literature of schools, by reading those +authors that treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, and +astronomical treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of +improvement which seems to have busied many literary projectors of +that age. Cowley, who had more means than Milton of knowing what +was wanting to the embellishments of life, formed the same plan of +education in his imaginary college. + +But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the +sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the +great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we +provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or +pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge +of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of +mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, +and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and +justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; +we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by +chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our +speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. +Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know +another half his life without being able to estimate his skill in +hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character +immediately appears. + +Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most +axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most +materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by +poets, orators, and historians. + +Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or +paradoxical; for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my +side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of Nature +to speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are +turning off attention from life to nature. They seem to think that +we are placed here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of +the stars. Socrates was rather of opinion that what we had to learn +was how to do good and avoid evil. + + +[Greek text] + + +Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder- +working academy I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very +eminent for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a +small History of Poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of +which perhaps none of my readers has ever heard. + +That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he +laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One +part of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful to +instruct his scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon +theology, of which he dictated a short system, gathered from the +writers that were then fashionable in the Dutch universities. + +He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now +and then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and +indulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn. + +He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent +his breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 he published a +treatise of Reformation in two books, against the Established +Church, being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says, +"inferior to the Prelates in learning." + +Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in +defence of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, of whose +names the first letters made the celebrated word Smectymnuus, gave +their answer. Of this answer a confutation was attempted by the +learned Usher; and to the confutation Milton published a reply, +entitled, "Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced +from the Apostolical Times, by virtue of those Testimonies which are +alleged to that purpose in some late Treatises, one whereof goes +under the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh." + +I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous 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 ostentatious 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 that can enrich with 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 measure be compassed, I refuse not to +sustain this expectation." From a promise like this, at once +fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected the "Paradise Lost." + +He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same +question. To one of his antagonists, who affirms that 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 approbation 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 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 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 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 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 thumb-ring posies.--And +thus ends this section, or rather dissection, 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 Whitsuntide, in his thirty- +fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, 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 +hard study; for, as Philips 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 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 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. + +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 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 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." + +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 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 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 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 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 Philips, "his own generous 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 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 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 +what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must +always be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may +propagate his prospects, there can be no settlement; if every +murmurer at government may diffuse 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 +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. + +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. + +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 Philips, "now +looked like a house of the Muses only, though the accession of +scholars was not great. Possibly his having proceeded so 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, but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to +his relations, and the sons of gentlemen who were his intimate +friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching +savoured in the least of pedantry." + +Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, +and what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a man +who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his +warmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift and +palliate. He did not sell literature to all comers at an open shop; +he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his +friends. + +Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of +degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise +his character again, has a mind to invest him with military +splendour: "He is much mistaken," he says, "if there was not about +this time a design of making him an adjutant-general in Sir William +Waller's army. But the new-modelling of the army proved an +obstruction to the design." An event cannot be set at a much +greater distance than by having been only "designed, about some +time," if a man "be not much mistaken." Milton shall be a pedagogue +no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, somebody at some +time designed him for a soldier. + +About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed to +a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn +Fields. He is not known to have published anything afterwards till +the king's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the +Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, "and to compose +the minds of the people." + +He made some remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the +Irish rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did +only what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly +watch the influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalence +of opinions, first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; +if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and desire +superinduced conviction, he yet shared--only the common weakness of +mankind, and might be no less sincere than his opponents. But, as +faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him, +Milton is suspected of having interpolated the book called "Icon +Basilike," which the council of state, to whom he was now made Latin +Secretary, employed him to censure, by inserting a prayer taken from +Sidney's "Arcadia," and imputing it to the king, whom he charges, in +his "Iconoclastes," with the use of this prayer, as with a heavy +come, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldened +the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable or +great: "Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the true +all-seeing deity--as, immediately before his death, to pop into the +hands of the grave bishop that attended him, as a special relic of +his saintly exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth +of a heathen woman praying to a heathen god?" + +The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the +regicides took away; so that they were at least the publishers of +this prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great +care, was inclined to think them the forgers. The use of it by +adaptation was innocent, and they who could so noisily censure it, +with a little extension of their malice could contrive what they +wanted to accuse. + +King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed +Salmasius, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a +defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, +gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobuses. Salmasius was a man +of skill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity of +emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; +and having, by excessive praises, been confirmed in great confidence +of himself, though he probably had not much considered the +principles of society or the right of government, undertook the +employment without distrust of his own qualifications; and, as his +expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published "Defensio +Regis." + +To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which he +performed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself +unable to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were +worst. In my opinion, Milton's periods are smoother, neater, and +more pointed; but he delights himself with teasing his adversary as +much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allusion of +Salmasius, whose doctrine he considers as servile and unmanly, to +the stream of Salmasius, which, whoever entered, left half his +virility behind him. Salmasius was a Frenchman, and was unhappily +married to a scold. Tu es Gallus, says Milton, et, ut aiunt, nimium +gallinaceus. But his supreme pleasure is to tax his adversary, so +renowned for criticism, with vicious Latin. He opens his book with +telling that he has used Persona, which, according to Milton, +signifies only a MASK, in a sense not known to the Romans, by +applying it as we apply PERSON. But as Nemesis is always on the +watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a solecism +by an expression in itself grossly solecistical, when for one of +those supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think some one +before him, has remarked, propino te grammatistis tuis vapulandum." +From vapulo, which has a passive sense, vapulandus can never be +derived. No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, +and of kings, sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss +them. + +Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim of +sight; but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health was +supplied by zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and his +book was much read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, +easily gains attention; and he, who told every man that he was equal +to his king, could hardly want an audience. + +That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal +rapidity, or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. He taught +only the stale doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing duty of +submission; and he had been so long not only the monarch, but the +tyrant of literature, that almost all mankind were delighted to find +him defied and insulted by a new name, not yet considered as any +one's rival. If Christina, as is said, commended the defence of the +people, her purpose must be to torment Salmasius, who was then at +court; for neither her civil station, nor her natural character, +could dispose her to favour the doctrine, who was by birth a queen, +and by temper despotic. + +That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton's book, treated +with neglect, there is not much proof; but to a man, so long +accustomed to admiration, a little praise of his antagonist would be +sufficiently offensive, and might incline him to leave Sweden, from +which however he was dismissed, not with any mark of contempt, but +with a train of attendants scarce less than regal. + +He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was published +by his son in the year of the Restoration. In the beginning, being +probably most in pain for his Latinity, he endeavours to defend his +use of the word persona; but, if I remember right, he misses a +better authority than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in his +fourth satire: + + +- Quid agis cum dira et foedior omni +Crimine persona est? + + +As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the quarrel, +Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had shortened +Salmasius's life, and both perhaps with more malignity than reason. +Salmasius died at the Spa, Sept. 3, 1653; and, as controvertists are +commonly said to be killed by their last dispute, Milton was +flattered with the credit of destroying him. + +Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of which +he had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the +title of Protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power. +That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself +founded his right only in necessity; but Milton, having now tasted +the honey of public employment, would not return to hunger and +philosophy, but, continuing to exercise his office under a manifest +usurpation, betrayed to his power that liberty which he had +defended. Nothing can be more just than that rebellion should end +in slavery; that he, who had justified the murder of his king, for +some acts which seemed to him unlawful, should now sell his +services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evident +that he could do nothing lawful. + +He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect +was such, that he was not disabled to discharge his office of Latin +secretary, or continue his controversies. His mind was too eager to +be diverted, and too strong to be subdued. + +About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him +three daughters. As he probably did not much love her, he did not +long continue the appearance of lamenting her; but after a short +time married Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, of +Hackney, a woman doubtless educated in opinions like his own. She +died, within a year, of childbirth, or some distemper that followed +it; and her husband honoured her memory with a poor sonnet. + +The first reply to Milton's "Defensio Populi" was published in 1651, +called "Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, contra Johannis +Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis et +Populi." Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his +nephew Philips, under whose name he published an answer so much +corrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it to +Bramhal; and, knowing him no friend to regicides, thought themselves +at liberty to treat him as if they had known what they only +suspected. + +Next year appeared "Regii Sanguinis clamor ad Coelum." Of this the +author was Peter du Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary of +Canterbury; but Morus, or More, a French minister, having the care +of its publication, was treated as the writer by Milton, in his +"Defensio Secunda," and overwhelmed by such violence of invective, +that he began to shrink under the tempest, and gave his persecutors +the means of knowing the true author. Du Moulin was now in great +danger; but Milton's pride operated against his malignity; and both +he and his friends were more willing that Du Moulin should escape +than that he should be convicted of mistake. + +In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely +satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the +grossness of his flattery, Deserimur, Cromuelle tu solus superes, ad +te summa nostrarum rerum, rediit, in te solo consistit, insuperabili +tuae virtuti cedimus cuncti, nemine vel obloquente, nisi qui +aequales inaequalis ipse honores sibi quaerit, aut digniori +concessos invidet, aut non intelligit nihil esse in societate +hominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel rationi consentaneum, esse in +civitate nihil aequius, nihil utilius, quam potiri rerum +dignissimum. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, Cromuelle, ea tu civis +maximus, et gloriosissimus, dux publici consilii, exercituum +fortissimorum imperator, pater patriae gessisti. Sic tu spontanea +bonorum omnium et animitus missa voce salutaris. + +Caesar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more +servile or more elegant flattery. A translation may show its +servility; but its elegance is less attainable. Having exposed the +unskilfulness or selfishness of the former government, "We were +left," says Milton, "to ourselves: the whole national interest fell +into our hands, and subsists only in your abilities. To your +virtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, except +some who, without equal qualifications, aspire to equal honours, who +envy the distinctions of merit greater than their own, or who have +yet to learn, that in the coalition of human society nothing is more +pleasing to God, or more agreeable to reason, than that the highest +mind should have the sovereign power. Such, sir, are you by general +confession; such are the things achieved by you, the greatest and +most glorious of our countrymen, the director of our public +councils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of your +country; for by that title doss every good man hail you with sincere +and voluntary praise." + +Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found leisure +to defend himself. He undertook his own vindication against More, +whom he declares in his title to be justly called the author of the +"Regii Sanguinis Clamor." In this there is no want of vehemence nor +eloquence, nor does he forget his wonted wit. Morus es? an Momus? +an uterque idem est? He then remembers that Morus is Latin for a +mulberry-tree, and hints at the known transformation: + + +- Poma alba ferebat +Quae post nigra tulit Morus. + + +With this piece ended his controversies; and he from this time gave +himself up to his private studies and his civil employment. + +As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written the +Declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain. His agency was +considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden +was artfully suspended, the delay was publicly imputed to Mr. +Milton's indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to +express his wonder that only one man in England could write Latin, +and that man blind. + +Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumbered +from external interruptions, he seems to have recollected his former +purposes, and to have resumed three great works which he had planned +for his future employment--an epic poem, the history of his country, +and a dictionary of the Latin tongue. + +To collect a dictionary seems a work of all others least practicable +in a state of blindness, because it depends upon perpetual and +minute inspection and collation. Nor would Milton probably have +begun it, after he had lost his eyes; but, having had it always +before him, he continued it, says Philips, "almost to his dying day; +but the papers were so discomposed and deficient, that they could +not be fitted for the press." The compilers of the Latin +dictionary, printed at Cambridge, had the use of those collections +in three folios; but what was their fate afterwards is not known. + +To compile a history from various authors, when they can only be +consulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with more +skilful and attentive help than can be commonly obtained; and it was +probably the difficulty of consulting and comparing that stopped +Milton's narrative at the Conquest--a period at which affairs were +not very intricate, nor authors very numerous. + +For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, long +choosing, and beginning late, he fixed upon "Paradise Lost," a +design so comprehensive, that it could be justified only by success. +He had once designed to celebrate King Arthur, as he hints in his +verses to Mansus; but "Arthur was reserved," says Fenton, "to +another destiny." + +It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in +manuscript, and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had +digested his thoughts on this subject into one of those wild dramas +which were anciently called Mysteries; and Philips had seen what he +terms part of a tragedy, beginning with the first ten lines of +Satan's address to the Sun. These mysteries consist of allegorical +persons, such as Justice, Mercy, Faith. Of the tragedy or mystery +of "Paradise Lost" there are two plans + + +The Persons. The Persons. +Michael. Moses. +Chorus of Angels. Divine Justice, Wisdom +Heavenly Love. Heavenly Love. +Lucifer. The Evening Star, Hesperus. +Adam, } with the Serpent Chorus of Angels. +Eve, } Lucifer. +Conscience. Adam. +Death. Eve. +Labour, } Conscience. +Sickness, } Labour, } +Discontent, } Mutes. Sickness, } +Ignorance, } Discontent, } Mutes +with others;} Ignorance, } +Faith. Fear, } +Hope. Death, } +Charity. Faith. + Hope. + Charity. + +PARADISE LOST. + +The Persons. + +Moses, [Greek text], recounting how he assumed his true body; that +it corrupts not, because it is with God in the mount; declares the +like of Enoch and Elijah; besides the purity of the place, that +certain pure winds, dews, and clouds, preserve it from corruption; +whence exhorts to the sight of God; tells they cannot see Adam in +the state of innocence, by reason of their sin. + +Justice, } +Mercy, } debating what should become of man, if he fall. +Wisdom, } +Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation. + +ACT II. + +Heavenly Love. +Evening Star. +Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise. + +ACT III. + +Lucifer contriving Adam's ruin. +Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer's rebellion and fall. + +ACT IV. + +Adam, } +Eve, } fallen. +Conscience cites them to God's examination. +Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost. + +ACT V. + +Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise. +-- -- presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, } +Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, } +Ignorance, Fear, Death } Mutes. +To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, Heat, Tempest, etc. +Faith, } +Hope, } comfort him and instruct him. +Charity, } +Chorus briefly concludes. + + +Such was his first design, which could have produced only an +allegory or mystery. The following sketch seems to have attained +more maturity. + + +ADAM UNPARADISED. + +The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, since +this globe was created, his frequency as much on earth as in heaven; +describes Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason of his +coming to keep his watch in Paradise, after Lucifer's rebellion, by +command from God; and withal expressing his desire to see and know +more concerning this excellent new creature, man. The angel +Gabriel, as by his name signifying a prince of power, tracing +Paradise with a more free office, passes by the station of the +Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what he knew of man; as the +creation of Eve, with their love and marriage. After this, Lucifer +appears; after his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks revenge on man. +The Chorus prepare resistance on his first approach. At last, after +discourse of enmity on either side, he departs: whereat the Chorus +sings of the battle and victory in Heaven, against him and his +accomplices: as before, after the first act, was sung a hymn of the +creation. Here again may appear Lucifer, relating and exulting in +what he had done to the destruction of man. Man next, and Eve, +having by this time been seduced by the serpent, appears confusedly +covered with leaves. Conscience in a shape accuses him; Justice +cites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him. In the +meanwhile, the Chorus entertains the stage, and is informed by some +angel the manner of the fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam's fall; +Adam then and Eve return; accuse one another; but especially Adam +lays the blame to his wife; is stubborn in his offence. Justice +appears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus admonishes +Adam, and bids him beware of Lucifer's example of impenitence. The +angel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but before causes to +pass before his eyes, in shapes, a mask of all the evils of this +life and world. He is humbled, relents, despairs; at last appears +Mercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah; then calls in Faith, +Hope, and Charity;--instructs him; he repents, gives God the glory, +submits to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. Compare this +with the former draft. + +These are very imperfect rudiments of "Paradise Lost;" but it is +pleasant to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with +latent possibilities of excellence; nor could there be any more +delightful entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and +expansion, and to observe how they are sometimes suddenly advanced +by accidental hints, and sometimes slowly improved by steady +meditation. + +Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot +obstruct, and therefore he naturally solaced his solitude by the +indulgence of his fancy, and the melody of his numbers. He had done +what he knew to be necessarily previous to poetical excellence; he +had made himself acquainted with "seemly arts and affairs;" his +comprehension was extended by various knowledge, and his memory +stored with intellectual treasures. He was skilful in many +languages, and had, by reading and composition, attained the full +mastery of his own. He would have wanted little help from books, +had he retained the power of perusing them. + +But while his greater designs were advancing, having now, like many +other authors, caught the love of publication, he amused himself, as +he could, with little productions. He sent to the press (1658) a +manuscript of Raleigh, called "The Cabinet Council;" and next year +gratified his malevolence to the clergy, by a "Treatise of Civil +Power in Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelings +out of the Church." + +Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system of +extemporary government, which had been held together only by force, +naturally fell into fragments when that force was taken away; and +Milton saw himself and his cause in equal danger. But he had still +hope of doing something. He wrote letters, which Toland has +published, to such men as he thought friends to the new +commonwealth; and even in the year of the Restoration he "bated no +jot of heart or hope," but was fantastical enough to think that the +nation, agitated as it was, might be settled by a pamphlet, called +"A Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth;" which was, +however, enough considered to be both seriously and ludicrously +answered. + +The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very +remarkable. When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, +with a few associates as fantastical as himself, used to meet, with +all the gravity of political importance, to settle an equal +government by rotation; and Milton, kicking when he could strike no +longer, was foolish enough to publish, a few weeks before the +Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one Griffiths, +entitled, "The Fear of God and the King." To these notes an answer +was written by L'Estrange, in a pamphlet petulantly called "No Blind +Guides." + +But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could +do, the king was now about to be restored with the irresistible +approbation of the people, he was therefore no longer secretary, and +was consequently obliged to quit the house which he held by his +office; the importance of his writings, thought it convenient to +seek some shelter, and hid himself for a time in Bartholomew Close, +by West Smithfield. + +I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously paid to +this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided +is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming +any place that he honoured by his presence. + +The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other +example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his +father's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all +except those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament +doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who had +immediately co-operated in the murder of the king. Milton was +certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done. + +This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and (June 16) +an order was issued to seize Milton's "Defence," and Goodwin's +"Obstructors of Justice," another book of the same tendency, and +burn them by the common hangman. The attorney-general was ordered +to prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor perhaps +very diligently pursued. + +Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms was +stilled by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want no +recommendation of elegance, rather called an Act of Oblivion than of +Grace. Goodwin was named, with nineteen more, as incapacitated for +any public trust; but of Milton there was no exception. + +Of this tenderness shown to Milton the curiosity of mankind has not +forborne to inquire the reason. Burnet thinks he was forgotten; but +this is another instance which may confirm Dalrymple's observation, +who says, "that whenever Burnet's narrations are examined, he +appears to be mistaken." + +Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must be +therefore by design that he was included in the general oblivion. +He is said to have had friends in the House, such as Marvel, +Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges: and undoubtedly a man like him +must have had influence. A very particular story of his escape is +told by Richardson in his Memoirs, which he received from Pope, as +delivered by Betterton, who might have heard it from Davenant. In +the war between the King and Parliament, Davenant was made prisoner +and condemned to die; but was spared at the request of Milton. When +the turn of success brought Milton into the like danger, Davenant +repaid the benefit by appearing in his favour. Here is a +reciprocation of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, that the tale +makes its own way to credit. But if help were wanted, I know not +where to find it. The danger of Davenant is certain from his own +relation; but of his escape there is no account. Betterton's +narration can be traced no higher; it is not known that he hid it +from Davenant. We are told that the benefit exchanged was life for +life; but it seems not certain that Milton's life ever was in +danger. Goodwin, who had committed the same kind of crime, escaped +with incapacitation; and, as exclusion from public trust is a +punishment which the power of Government can commonly inflict +without the help of a particular law, it required no great interest +to exempt Milton from a censure little more than verbal. Something +may be reasonably ascribed to veneration and compassion; to +veneration of his abilities, and compassion for his distresses, +which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning. He was +now poor and blind; and who would pursue with violence an +illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune and disarmed by nature? + +The publication of the "Act of Oblivion" put him in the same +condition with his fellow-subjects. He was, however, upon some +pretence now not known, in the custody of the serjeant in December; +and when he was released, upon his refusal of the fees demanded, he +and the serjeant were called before the House. He was now safe +within the shade of oblivion, and knew himself to be as much out of +the power of a griping officer as any other man. How the question +was determined is not known. Milton would hardly have contended but +that he knew himself to have right on his side. + +He then removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street, and, being +blind and by no means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion and +attendant; and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget, +married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire, +probably without a fortune. All his wives were virgins; for he has +declared that he thought it gross and indelicate to be a second +husband: upon what other principles his choice was made cannot now +be known; but marriage afforded not much of his happiness. The +first wife left him in disgust, and was brought back only by terror; +the second, indeed, seems to have been more a favourite, but her +life was short. The third, as Philips relates, oppressed his +children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death. + +Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was +offered the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by his +wife to accept it, answered, "You, like other women, want to ride in +your coach; my wish is to live and die an honest man." If he +considered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers of +government, he that had shared authority, either with the Parliament +or Cromwell, might have forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty; +and if he thought the office purely ministerial, he certainly might +have honestly retained it under the King. But this tale has too +little evidence to deserve a disquisition; large offers and sturdy +rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood. + +He had so much either of prudence or gratitude, that he forbore to +disturb the new settlement with any of his political or +ecclesiastical opinions, and from this time devoted himself to +poetry and literature. Of his zeal for learning in all its parts, +he gave a proof by publishing, the next year (1661), "Accidence +commenced Grammar;" a little book which has nothing remarkable, but +that its author, who had been lately defending the supreme powers of +his country, and was then writing "Paradise Lost," could descend +from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of +grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily +repeated. + +About this time, Elwood the Quaker, being recommended to him as one +who would read Latin to him for the advantage of his conversation, +attended him every afternoon except on Sundays. Milton, who, in his +letter to Hartlib, had declared, that "to read Latin with an English +mouth is as ill a hearing as Law French," required that Elwood +should learn and practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, +was necessary, if he would talk with foreigners. This seems to have +been a task troublesome without use. There is little reason for +preferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, except that it is +more general; and to teach it to an Englishman is only to make him a +foreigner at home. He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon +learn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make no +provision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is their +business to practise such conformity to our modes as they expect +from us in their own countries. Elwood complied with the +directions, and improved himself by his attendance; for he relates, +that Milton, having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he read +what he did not understand, and would stop him, and "open the most +difficult passages." + +In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to +Bunhill Fields; the mention of which concludes the register of +Milton's removals and habitations. He lived longer in this place +than any other. + +He was now busied by "Paradise Lost." Whence he drew the original +design has been variously conjectured by men who cannot bear to +think themselves ignorant of that which, at last, neither diligence +nor sagacity can discover. Some find the hint in an Italian +tragedy. Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farce +seen by Milton in Italy which opened thus: "Let the Rainbow be the +Fiddlestick of the Fiddle of Heaven." It has been already shown, +that the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, not of a +narrative, but a dramatic work which he is supposed to have began to +reduce to its present form about the time (1655) when he finished +his dispute with the defenders of the king. + +He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great +performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was +stimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from the +survey of his attainments, and the consciousness of his powers. +What he should undertake it was difficult to determine. He was +"long choosing, and began late." + +While he was obliged to divide his time between his private studies +and affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been often +interrupted; and perhaps he did little more in that busy time than +construct the narrative, adjust the episodes, proportion the parts, +accumulate images and sentiments, and treasure in his memory, or +preserve in writing, such hints as books or meditation would supply. +Nothing particular is known of his intellectual operations while he +was a statesman; for, having every help and accommodation at hand, +he had no need of uncommon expedients. + +Being driven from all public stations, he is yet too great not to be +traced by curiosity to his retirement; where he has been found by +Mr. Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sitting before his door +in a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry weather, to enjoy the +fresh air; and so, as in his own room, receiving the visits of +people of distinguished parts as well as quality. His visitors of +high quality must now be imagined to be few; but men of parts might +reasonably court the conversation of a man so generally illustrious, +that foreigners are reported, by Wood, to have visited the house in +Bread Street where he was born. + +According to another account, he was seen in a small house, neatly +enough dressed in black clothes, sitting in a room hung with rusty +green; pale but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in his hands. He +said that, if it were not for the gout, his blindness would be +tolerable. + +In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common +exercises, he used to swing in a chair, and sometimes played upon an +organ. + +He was now confessedly and visibly employed upon his poem, of which +the progress might be noted by those with whom he was familiar; for +he was obliged, when he had composed as many lines as his memory +would conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them, +having, at least for part of the time, no regular attendant. This +gave opportunity to observations and reports. + +Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very remarkable circumstance +in the composure of "Paradise Lost," "which I have a particular +reason," says he, "to remember; for whereas I had the perusal of it +from the very beginning, for some years, as I went from time to time +to visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time +(which, being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly +want correction as to the orthography and pointing), having, as the +Summer came on, not been showed any for a considerable while, and +desiring the reason thereof, was answered, that his vein never +happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal; and that +whatever he attempted at other times was never to his satisfaction, +though he courted his fancy never so much; so that, in all the years +he was about this poem, he may be said to have spent half his time +therein." + +Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in his opinion Philips has +mistaken the time of the year; for Milton, in his Elegies, declares, +that with the advance of the spring he feels the increase of his +poetical force, redeunt in carmina vires. To this it is answered, +that Philips could hardly mistake time so well marked; and it may be +added, that Milton might find different times of the year favourable +to different parts of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it impossible +that "such a work should be suspended for six months, or for one. +It may go on faster or slower, but it must go on." By what +necessity it must continually go on, or why it might not be laid +aside and resumed, it is not easy to discover. + +This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and +periodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be +derided as the fumes of vain imagination. Sapiens dominabitur +astris. The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, +with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or +exhausted. But while this notion has possession of the head, it +produces the inability which it supposes. Our powers owe much of +their energy to our hopes; possunt quia posse videntur. When +success seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it is +admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a +cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who can +contend with the course of nature? + +From such prepossessions Milton seems not to have been free. There +prevailed in his time an opinion, that the world was in its decay, +and that we have had the misfortune to be produced in the +decrepitude of nature. It was suspected that the whole creation +languished, that neither trees nor animals had the height or bulk of +their predecessors, and that everything was daily sinking by gradual +diminution. Milton appears to suspect that souls partake of the +general degeneracy, and is not without some fear that his book is to +be written in "an age too late" for heroic poesy. + +Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds +reception among wise men; an opinion that restrains the operations +of the mind to particular regions, and supposes that a luckless +mortal may be born in a degree of latitude too high or too low for +wisdom or for wit. From this fancy, wild as it is, he had not +wholly cleared his head, when he feared lest the CLIMATE of his +country might be TOO COLD for flights of imagination. + +Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not more +reasonable, might easily find its way. He that could fear lest his +genius had fallen upon too old a world, or too chill a climate, +might consistently magnify to himself the influence of the seasons, +and believe his faculties to be vigorous only half the year. + +His submission to the seasons was at least more reasonable than his +dread of decaying nature, or a frigid zone; for general causes must +operate uniformly in a general abatement of mental power; if less +could be performed by the writer, less likewise would content the +judges of his work. Among this lagging race of frosty grovellers he +might still have risen into eminence by producing something which +"they should not willingly let die." However inferior to the heroes +who were born in better ages, he might still be great among his +contemporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in the +dwindle of posterity. He might still be the giant of the pigmies, +the one-eyed monarch of the blind. + +Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, we +have little account, and there was perhaps little to be told. +Richardson, who seems to have been very diligent in his inquiries, +but discovers always a wish to find Milton discriminated from other +men, relates that "he would sometimes lie awake whole nights, but +not a verse could he make; and on a sudden his poetical faculty +would rush upon him with an impetus or aestrum, and his daughter was +immediately called to secure what came. At other times he would +dictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to +half the number." + +These bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these transient +and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of invention, having +some appearance of deviation from the common train of nature, are +eagerly caught by the lovers of a wonder. Yet something of this +inequality happens to every man in every mode of exertion, manual or +mental. The mechanic cannot handle his hammer and his file at all +times with equal dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, when +HIS HAND IS OUT. By Mr. Richardson's relation, casually conveyed, +much regard cannot be claimed. That, in his intellectual hour, +Milton called for his daughter "to secure what came," may be +questioned; for unluckily it happens to be known that his daughters +were never taught to write; nor would he have been obliged, as it is +universally confessed, to have employed any casual visitor in +disburdening his memory, if his daughter could have performed the +office. + +The story of reducing his exuberance has been told of other authors; +and, though doubtless true of every fertile and copious mind, seems +to have been gratuitously transferred to Milton. + +What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he +composed much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose +before his mind was disturbed with common business; and that he +poured out with great fluency his "unpremeditated verse." +Versification, free, like this, from the distresses of rhyme, must, +by a work so long, be made prompt and habitual; and, when his +thoughts were once adjusted, the words would come at his command. + +At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were +written, cannot often be known. The beginning of the third book +shows that he had lost his sight, and the introduction to the +seventh, that the return of the king had clouded him with +discountenance; and that he was offended by the licentious festivity +of the Restoration. There are no other internal notes of time. +Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his disloyalty, had +nothing required from him but the common duty of living in quiet, to +be rewarded with the common right of protection; but this, which, +when he skulked from the approach of his king, was perhaps more than +he hoped, seems not to have satisfied him; for no sooner is he safe, +than he finds himself in danger, "fallen on evil days and evil +tongues, and with darkness and with danger compassed round." This +darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly +deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful +and unjust. He was fallen indeed on "evil days;" the time was come +in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But of +"evil tongues" for Milton to complain, required impudence at least +equal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must +allow that he never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality of +insolence. + +But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard to +recollect any reproach cast upon him, either serious or ludicrous, +through the whole remaining part of his life. He pursued his +studies or his amusements, without persecution, molestation, or +insult. Such is the reverence paid to great abilities, however +misused; they, who contemplated in Milton the scholar and the wit, +were contented to forget the reviler of his king. + +When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at +Chalfont, in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for him, +first saw a complete copy of "Paradise Lost," and, having perused +it, said to him, "Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise Lost; +what hast thou to say upon Paradise Found?" + +Next year, when the danger of infection had ceased, he returned to +Bunhill Fields, and designed the publication of his poem. A licence +was necessary, and he could expect no great kindness from a chaplain +of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He seems, however, to have been +treated with tenderness; for, though objections were made to +particular passages, and among them to the simile of the sun +eclipsed in the first book, yet the licence was granted; and he sold +his copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel Simmons, for an immediate +payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five pounds +more when thirteen hundred should be sold of the first edition; and +again, five pounds after the sale of the same number of the second +edition; and another five pounds after the same sale of the third. +None of the three editions were to be extended beyond fifteen +hundred copies. + +The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The titles were +varied from year to year; and an advertisement and the arguments of +the books were omitted in some copies, and inserted in others. + +The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, for +which the receipt was signed April 26, 1669. The second edition was +not given till 1674; it was printed in small octave; and the number +of books was increased to twelve, by a division of the seventh and +twelfth; and some other small improvements were made. The third +edition was published in 1678; and the widow, to whom the copy was +then to devolve, sold all her claims to Simmons for eight pounds, +according to her receipt given December 21, 1680. Simmons had +already agreed to transfer the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer for 25 +pounds; and Aylmer sold to Jacob Tonson half, August 17, 1683, and +half, March 24, 1690, at a price considerably enlarged. In the +history of "Paradise Lost" a deduction thus minute will rather +gratify than fatigue. + +The slow sale and tardy reputation of this poem have been always +mentioned as evidences of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty of +literary fame; and inquiries have been made, and conjectures +offered, about the causes of its long obscurity and late reception. +But has the case been truly stated? Have not lamentation and wonder +been lavished on an evil that was never felt? + +That in the reigns of Charles and James the "Paradise Lost " +received no public acclamations is readily confessed. Wit and +literature were on the side of the court: and who that solicited +favour or fashion would venture to praise the defender of the +regicides? All that he himself could think his due, from "evil +tongues" in "evil days," was that reverential silence which was +generously preserved. But it cannot be inferred that his poem was +not read, or not, however unwillingly, admired. + +The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public. Those who +have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always +doubt their conclusions. The call for books was not, in Milton's +age, what it is at present. To read was not then a general +amusement; neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves +disgraced by ignorance. The women had not then aspired to +literature, nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge. +Those, indeed, who professed learning, were not less learned than at +any other time; but of that middle race of students who read for +pleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of +modern typography, the number was then comparatively small. To +prove the paucity of readers, it may be sufficient to remark, that +the nation had been satisfied from 1623 to 1664--that is, forty-one +years--with only two editions of the works of Shakespeare, which +probably did not together make one thousand copies. + +The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in opposition to +so much recent enmity, and to a style of versification new to all +and disgusting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of +genius. The demand did not immediately increase; for many more +readers than were supplied at first the nation did not afford. Only +three thousand were sold in eleven years; for it forced its way +without assistance; its admirers did not dare to publish their +opinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice by +advertisements were then very few; the means of proclaiming the +publication of new books have been produced by that general +literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks. But +the reputation and price of the copy still advanced, till the +Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and "Paradise Lost" +broke into open view with sufficient security of kind reception. + +Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton +surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation +stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and +silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little +disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with +steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the +vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future +generation. + +In the meantime he continued his studies, and supplied the want of +sight by a very odd expedient, of which Phillips gives the following +account:- + +Mr. Philips tells us, "that though our author had daily about him +one or other to read, some persons of man's estate, who, of their +own accord, greedily catched at the opportunity of being his +readers, that they might as well reap the benefit of what they read +to him, as oblige him by the benefit of their reading; and others of +younger years were sent by their parents to the same end; yet +excusing only the eldest daughter by reason of her bodily infirmity +and difficult utterance of speech (which, to say truth, I doubt was +the principal cause of excusing her), the other two were condemned +to the performance of reading and exactly pronouncing of all the +languages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, think +fit to peruse, viz., the Hebrew (and I think the Syriac), the Greek, +the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, and French. All which sorts of +books to be confined to read, without understanding one word, must +needs be a trial of patience almost beyond endurance. Yet it was +endured by both for a long time, though the irksomeness of this +employment could not be always concealed, but broke out more and +more into expressions of uneasiness; so that at length they were +all, even the eldest also, sent out to learn some curious and +ingenious sorts of manufacture, that are proper for women to learn, +particularly embroideries in gold or silver." + +In the scene of misery which this mode of intellectual labour sets +before our eyes, it is hard to determine whether the daughters or +the father are most to be lamented. A language not understood can +never be so read as to give pleasure, and very seldom so as to +convey meaning. If few men would have had resolution, to write +books with such embarrassments, few likewise would have wanted +ability to find some better expedient. + +Three years after his "Paradise Lost" (1667) he published his +"History of England," comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey of +Monmouth, and continued to the Norman Invasion. Why he should have +given the first part, which he seems not to believe, and which is +universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. The style is +harsh; but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps may often +strike, though it cannot please. + +On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he +could transmit it to the press tore out several parts. Some +censures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be +applied to the modern clergy; and a character of the Long +Parliament, and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which the +author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, being +afterwards published, has been since inserted in its proper place. + +The same year were printed "Paradise Regained;" and "Samson +Agonistes," a tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, and +never designed by the author for the stage. As these poems were +published by another bookseller, it has been asked whether Simmons +was discouraged from receiving them by the slow sale of the former. +Why a writer changed his bookseller a hundred years ago, I am far +from hoping to discover. Certainly, he who in two years sells +thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for two +payments of five pounds each, has no reason to repent his purchase. + +When Milton showed "Paradise Regained" to Elwood, "This," said he, +"is owing to you; for you put it in my head by the question you put +to me at Chalfont, which otherwise I had not thought of." + +His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could not, as +Elwood relates, endure to hear "Paradise Lost" preferred to +"Paradise Regained." Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgment of +his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a +high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been +diligent in vain; what has been produced without toilsome efforts is +considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and +fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has +necessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however it +happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself. + +To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension, +that entitled this great author to our veneration, may be added a +kind of humble dignity, which did not disdain the meanest services +to literature. The epic poet, the controvertist, the politician, +having already descended to accommodate children with a book of +rudiments, now, in the last years of his life, composed a book of +logic for the initiation of students in philosophy; and published +(1672) "Artis Logicae plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodum +concinnata;" that is, "A new Scheme of Logic, according to the +method of Ramus." I know not whether, even in this book, he did not +intend an act of hostility against the universities; for Ramus was +one of the first oppugners of the old philosophy, who disturbed with +innovations the quiet of the schools. + +His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been safe so +long that he forgot his fears, and published a "Treatise of True +Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means to Prevent +the Growth of Popery." + +But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful mention +of the Church of England and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. +His principle of toleration is, agreement in the sufficiency of the +Scriptures; and he extends it to all who, whatever their opinions +are, profess to derive them from the sacred books. The Papists +appeal to other testimonies, and are therefore, in his opinion, not +to be permitted the liberty of either public or private worship; for +though they plead conscience, "we have no warrant," he says, "to +regard conscience which is not grounded in Scripture." + +Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may perhaps be delighted +with his wit. The term "Roman Catholic is," he says, "one of the +Pope's Bulls; it is particular universal, or Catholic schismatic." + +He has, however, something better. As the best preservative against +Popery, he recommends the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a duty +from which he warns the busy part of mankind not to think themselves +excused. + +He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions. + +In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to take +delight in publication, a collection of "Familiar Epistles in +Latin;" to which, being too few to make a volume, he added some +academical exercises, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as +they recalled to his memory the days of youth; but for which nothing +but veneration for his name could now procure a reader. + +When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the gout, with which he +had been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers of +nature. He died by a quiet and silent expiration, about the 10th of +November, 1674, at his house in Bunhill Fields; and was buried next +his father in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate. His funeral +was very splendidly and numerously attended. + +Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but in +our time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey "To the +Author of 'Paradise Lost,'" by Mr. Benson, who has in the +inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton. + +When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was +said to be soli Miltono secundus, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, then +Dean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, +in his opinion, too detestable to be read on the wall of a building +dedicated to devotion. Atterbury, who succeeded him, being author +of the inscription, permitted its reception. "And such has been the +change of public opinion," said Dr. Gregory, from whom I heard this +account, "that I have seen erected in the church a statue of that +man, whose name I once knew considered as a pollution of its walls." + +Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently +beautiful, so as to have been called the lady of his college. His +hair, which was of a light brown, parted at the fore-top, and hung +down upon his shoulders, according to the picture which he has given +of Adam. He was, however, not of the heroic stature, but rather +below the middle size, according to Mr. Richardson, who mentions him +as having narrowly escaped from being "short and thick." He was +vigorous and active, and delighted in the exercise of the sword, in +which he is related to have been eminently skilful. His weapon was, +I believe, not the rapier, but the back-sword, of which he +recommends the use in his book on education. + +His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a +dexterous fencer, they must have been once quick. + +His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a +severe student. He drank little strong drink of any kind, and fed +without excess in quantity, and in his earlier years without +delicacy of choice. In his youth he studied late at night; but +afterwards changed his hours, and rested in bed from nine to four in +the summer and five in the winter. The course of his day was best +known after he was blind. When he first rose, he heard a chapter in +the Hebrew Bible, and then studied till twelve; then took some +exercise for an hour; then dined, then played on the organ, and +sang, or heard another sing, then studied till six; then entertained +his visitors till eight; then supped, and, after a pipe of tobacco +and a glass of water, went to bed. + +So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainable +only in colleges. He that lives in the world will sometimes have +the succession of his practice broken and confused. Visitors, of +whom Milton is represented to have had great numbers, will come and +stay unseasonably; business, of which every man has some, must be +done when others will do it. + +When he did not care to rise early, he had something read to him by +his bedside; perhaps at this time his daughters were employed. He +composed much in the morning, and dictated in the day, sitting +obliquely in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm. +Fortune appears not to have had much of his care. In the civil +wars, he lent his personal estate to the Parliament; but when, after +the contest was decided, he solicited repayment, he met not only +with neglect, but "sharp rebuke;" and, having tired both himself and +his friends, was given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, till +he showed how able he was to do greater service. He was then made +Latin Secretary, with two hundred pounds a year; and had a thousand +pounds for his "Defence of the People." His widow, who, after his +death, retired to Nantwich, in Cheshire, and died about 1729, is +said to have reported that he lost two thousand pounds by entrusting +it to a scrivener; and that, in the general depredation upon the +Church, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year +belonging to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of the +plunder of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Two +thousand pounds which he had placed in the Excise Office were also +lost. There is yet no reason to believe that he was ever reduced to +indigence. His wants, being few, were competently supplied. He +sold his library before his death, and left his family fifteen +hundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, and only gave one +hundred to each of his daughters. + +His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages +which are considered either as learned or polite: Hebrew, with its +two dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin +his skill was such as places him in the first rank of writers and +critics; and he appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommon +diligence. The books in which his daughter, who used to read to +him, represented him as most delighting, after Homer, which he could +almost repeat, were Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and Euripides. His +Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands: the +margin is sometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable. + +Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare, +and Cowley. Spenser was apparently his favourite; Shakespeare he +may easily be supposed to like, with every other skilful reader; but +I should not have expected that Cowley, whose ideas of excellence +were different from his own, would have had much of his approbation. +His character of Dryden, who sometimes visited him, was, that he was +a good rhymist, but no poet. + +His theological opinions are said to have been first Calvinistical; +and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to +have tended towards Arminianism. In the mixed questions of theology +and government, he never thinks that he can recede far enough from +Popery, or Prelacy; but what Baudius says of Erasmus seems +applicable to him, "Magis habuit quod fugeret, quam quod +sequeretur." He had determined rather what to condemn, than what to +approve. He has not associated himself with any denomination of +Protestants: we know rather what he was not than what he was. He +was not of the Church of Rome; he was not of the Church of England. + +To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are +distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by +degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by +external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary +influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had a full +conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the +Holy Scriptures with the profoundest veneration, to have been +untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived +in a confirmed belief of the immediate and occasional agency of +Providence, yet grew old without any visible worship. In the +distribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either +solitary or with his household; omitting public prayers, he omitted +all. + +Of this omission the reason has been sought upon a supposition which +ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, +and justify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not +thought superfluous by him, who represents our first parents as +praying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously +after their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be +affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The +neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he +condemned himself, and which he intended to correct; but that death, +as too often happens, intercepted his reformation. + +His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly +Republican; for which it is not known that he gave any better reason +than that "a popular government was the most frugal; for the +trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth." It +is surely very shallow policy that supposes money to be the chief +good; and even this, without considering that the support and +expense of a court is, for the most part, only a particular kind of +traffic, for which money is circulated, without any national +impoverishment. + +Milton's Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious +hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in +petulance impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority. +He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for he +hated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be suspected that +his predominant desire was to destroy rather than establish, and +that he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to +authority. + +It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for liberty +do not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character, +in domestic relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His +family consisted of women; and there appears in his books something +like a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferior +beings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he +suffered them to be depressed by a mean and penurious education. He +thought woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion. + +Of his family some account may be expected. His sister, first +married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of her +first husband, who succeeded him in the Crown office. She had, by +her first husband, Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton +educated; and by her second, two daughters. + +His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catharine, +and a son, Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown office, and left +a daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenor Street. + +Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, and +Deborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died +of her first child. Mary died single. Deborah married Abraham +Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to +August, 1727. This is the daughter of whom public mention has been +made. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, the +"Metamorphoses," and some of Euripides, by having often read them. +Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are +necessary to fix in memory lines not understood; and why should +Milton wish or want to hear them so often? These lines were at the +beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not +understood, the beginning raises no more attention than the end; and +as those that understand it know commonly the beginning best, its +rehearsal will seldom be necessary. It is not likely that Milton +required any passage to be so much repeated as that his daughter +could learn it; nor likely that he desired the initial lines to be +read at all; nor that the daughter, weary of the drudgery of +pronouncing unideal sounds, would voluntarily commit them to memory. + +To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some +establishment, but died soon after. Queen Caroline sent her fifty +guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters; but none of them +had any children, except her son Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. +Caleb went to Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and had two sons, +of whom nothing now is known. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a +weaver in Spitalfields, and had seven children, who all died. She +kept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first at Holloway, and +afterwards in Cock Lane, near Shoreditch Church. She knew little of +her grandfather, and that little was not good. She told of his +harshness to his daughters, and his refusal to have them taught to +write; and, in opposition to other accounts, represented him as +delicate, though temperate, in his diet. + +In 1750, April 5th, Comus was played for her benefit. She had so +little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know +what was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits of +the night were only one hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton +brought a large contribution; and twenty pounds were given by +Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. Of this +sum one hundred pounds were placed in the stocks, after some debate +between her and her husband in whose name it should be entered; and +the rest augmented their little stock, with which they removed to +Islington. This was the greatest benefaction that "Paradise Lost" +ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has now +attempted to relate his Life, had the honour of contributing a +Prologue. + +In the examination of Milton's poetical works, I shall pay so much +regard to time as to begin with his juvenile productions. For his +early pieces he seems to have had a degree of fondness not very +laudable; what he has once written he resolves to preserve, and +gives to the public an unfinished poem which he broke off because he +was "nothing satisfied with what he had done," supposing his readers +less nice than himself. These preludes to his future labours are in +Italian, Latin, and English. Of the Italian I cannot pretend to +speak as a critic; but I have heard them commended by a man well +qualified to decide their merit. The Latin pieces are lusciously +elegant: but the delight which they afford is rather by the +exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the +diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of +invention or vigour of sentiment. They are not all of equal value; +the elegies excel the odes; and some of the exercises on Gunpowder +Treason might have been spared. + +The English poems, though they make no promises of "Paradise Lost," +have this evidence of genius--that they have a cast original and +unborrowed. But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differ +from the verses of others, they differ for the worse; for they are +too often distinguished by repulsive harshness; the combinations of +words are new, but they are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithets +seem to be laboriously sought, and violently applied. + +That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care appears +from his manuscripts, happily preserved at Cambridge, in which many +of his smaller works are found as they were first written, with the +subsequent corrections. Such relics show how excellence is +acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to +do with diligence. + +Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force +their own judgment into false approbation of his little pieces, and +prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only +singular. All that short compositions can commonly attain is +neatness and elegance. Milton never learned the art of doing little +things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity +and softness; he was a "Lion" that had no skill in "dandling the +Kid." + +One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is +"Lycidas;" of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and +the numbers unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek +in the sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the +effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remote +allusions and obscure opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the +myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of +rough "satyrs" and "fauns with cloven heel." Where there is leisure +for fiction, there is little grief. + +In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no +art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral; +easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can +supply are long ago exhausted; and its inherent improbability always +forces dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey, +that they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he must +miss the companion of his labours, and the partner of his +discoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by these +lines? - + + +We drove afield, and both together heard +What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn, +Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. + + +We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to +batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be +allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is +never sought, because it cannot be known when it is found. + +Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen +deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and AEolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing +can less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell +how a shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks +alone, without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one god +asks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can +tell. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus +praises will confer no honour. + +This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling fictions are +mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to be +polluted with such irreverent combinations. The shepherd likewise +is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a +superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always +unskilful; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to +impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been +conscious. + +Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze +drives away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have +fancied that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known the +author. + +Of the two pieces, "L'Allegro" and "il Penseroso," I believe, +opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with +pleasure. The author's design is not, what Theobald has remarked, +merely to show how objects derive their colours from the mind, by +representing the operation of the same things upon the gay and the +melancholy temper, or upon the same man as he is differently +disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of +appearances, every disposition of mind takes hold on those by which +it may be gratified. + +The CHEERFUL man hears the lark in the morning; the PENSIVE man +hears the nightingale in the evening. The CHEERFUL man sees the +cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then +walks, NOT UNSEEN, to observe the glory of the rising sun, or listen +to the singing milkmaid, and view the labours of the ploughman and +the mower; then casts his eyes about him over scenes of smiling +plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some +fair inhabitant; thus he pursues real gaiety through a day of labour +or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful +narratives of superstitious ignorance. + +The PENSIVE man at one time walks UNSEEN to muse at midnight, and at +another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives him home, he +sits in a room lighted only by "glowing embers;" or by a lonely lamp +outwatches the North Star, to discover the habitation of separate +souls, and varies the Shades of meditation by contemplating the +magnificent or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When the +morning comes--a morning gloomy with rain and wind--he walks into +the dark, trackless woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, and +with melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, or +some music played by aerial performers. + +Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the +breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention +is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant +companion. The seriousness does not arise from any participation of +calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle. + +The man of CHEERFULNESS, having exhausted the country, tries what +"towered cities" will afford, and mingles with scenes of splendour, +gay assemblies, and nuptial festivities; but he mingles a mere +spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild +dramas of Shakespeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre. + +The PENSIVE man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the +cloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not yet +forsaken the Church. + +Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that +cheerful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismission +of Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditional +release. + +For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: but +Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His +Cheerfulness is without levity, and his Pensiveness without +asperity. + +Through these two poems the images are properly selected and nicely +distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently +discriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept +sufficiently apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his +melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in +his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination. + +The greatest of his juvenile performances is the "Mask of Comus," in +which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of +"Paradise Lost." Milton appears to have formed very early that +system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment +approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to +deviate. + +Nor does Comus afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits +likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, +employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly +poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive +epithets, embellish almost every period with lavish decoration. As +a series of lines, therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all +the admiration with which the votaries have received it. + +As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A mask, in +those parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, must indeed +be given up to all the freaks of imagination, but so far as the +action is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly +be said of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister +sinks with fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both away +together in search of berries too far to find their way back, and +leave a helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. +This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its convenience. + +What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in the +wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience; a +mode of communication so contrary to the nature of dramatic +representation, that no precedents can support it. + +The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be +made to almost all the following speeches; they have not the +sprightliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but +seem rather declamations deliberately composed, and formally +repeated, on a moral question. The auditor therefore listens as to +a lecture, without passion, without anxiety. + +The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommend +Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure +are so general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt +enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy. + +The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but +tedious. The song must owe much to the voice if it ever can +delight. At last the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity; +and, when they have feared lest their Sister should be in danger, +and hoped that she is not in danger, the elder makes a speech in +praise of chastity, and the younger finds how fine it is to be a +philosopher. + +Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother, +instead of being in haste to ask his help, praises his singing, and +inquires his business in that place. It is remarkable, that at this +interview the Brother is taken with a short fit of rhyming, The +Spirit relates that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother +moralises again; and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no use +because it is false, and therefore unsuitable to a good being. + +In all these parts the language is poetical, and the sentiments are +generous; but there is something wanting to allure attention. + +The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and +affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker +reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, and +detain it. + +The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in +their diction, and not very musical in their numbers. + +Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the language too +luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epic style, +inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive. + +The sonnets were written in different parts of Milton's life, upon +different occasions. They deserve not any particular criticism; for +of the best it can only be said, that they are not bad; and perhaps +only the eighth and twenty-first are truly entitled to this slender +commendation. The fabric of a sonnet, however adapted to the +Italian language, has never succeeded in ours, which, having greater +variety of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed. + +Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a +greater work calls for greater care. I am now to examine "Paradise +Lost;" a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim +the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among +the productions of the human mind. + +By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius is due +to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all +the powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. +Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling +imagination to the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach +the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts, and +therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner. +History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration, +which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by +dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation; +morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different shades, of +vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he has to +learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the +passions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply him +with illustrations and images. To put those materials to poetical +use, is required an imagination capable of painting nature and +realising fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the +whole extension of his language, distinguished all the delicacies of +phrase, and all the colours of words, and learned to adjust their +different sounds to all the varieties of metrical modulation. + +Bossu is of opinion, that the poet's first work is to find a MORAL, +which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish. This +seems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other +poems is incidental and consequent; in Milton's only it is essential +and intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the most +arduous: "to vindicate the ways of God to man;" to show the +reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the +Divine Law. + +To convey this moral there must be a FABLE, a narration artfully +constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expectation. In +this part of his work Milton must be confessed to have equalled +every other poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Man +the events which preceded and those that were to follow it: he has +interwoven the whole system of theology with such propriety, that +every part appears to be necessary; and scarcely any recital is +wished shorter for the sake of quickening the progress of the main +action. + +The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great +importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the +conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His subject is +the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth; +rebellion against the Supreme King, raised by the highest order of +created beings; the overthrow of their host, and the punishment of +their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable creatures; +their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of +immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace. + +Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevated +dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all other +greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest +and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; with +whose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude or +deviation of will, depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the +condition of all the future inhabitants of the globe. + +Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is +irreverence to name on slight occasions. The rest were lower powers +- + + + Of which the least could wield +Those elements, and arm him with the force +Of all their regions; + + +powers, which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from laying +creation waste, and filling the vast expanse of space with ruin and +confusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thus +superior, so far as human reason can examine them, or human +imagination represent them, is the task which this mighty poet has +undertaken and performed. + +In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly +employed upon the CHARACTERS. The characters in the "Paradise +Lost," which admit of examination, are those of angels and of man; +of angels good and evil; of man in his innocent and sinful state. + +Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of easy +condescension and free communication; that of Michael is regal and +lofty, and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. +Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incident +requires; the solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably painted. + +Of the evil angels the characters are more diversified. To Satan, +as Addison observes, such sentiments are given as suit "the most +exalted and most depraved being." Milton has been censured by +Clarke, for the impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan's mouth; +for there are thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observation +of character can justify, because no good man would willingly permit +them to pass, however transiently, through his own mind. To make +Satan speak as a rebel, without any such expression as might taint +the reader's imagination, was indeed one of the great difficulties +in Milton's undertaking; and I cannot but think that he has +extricated himself with great happiness. There is in Satan's +speeches little that can give pain to a pious ear. The language of +rebellion cannot be the same with that of obedience. The malignity +of Satan foams in haughtiness and obstinacy; but his expressions are +commonly general, and no otherwise offensive than as they are +wicked. + +The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously +discriminated in the first and second books; and the ferocious +character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council, +with exact consistency. + +To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such +sentiments as innocence can generate and utter. Their love is pure +benevolence and mutual veneration; their repasts are without luxury, +and their diligence without toil. Their addresses to their Maker +have little more than the voice of admiration and gratitude. +Fruition left them nothing to ask; and innocence left them nothing +to fear. + +But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and +stubborn self-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, +and dread their Creator as the avenger of their transgression. At +last they seek shelter in His mercy, soften to repentance, and melt +in supplication. Both before and after the fall, the superiority of +Adam is diligently sustained. + +Of the PROBABLE and the MARVELLOUS, two parts of a vulgar epic poem +which immerge the critic in deep consideration, the "Paradise Lost" +requires little to be said. It contains the history of a miracle, +of creation and redemption; it displays the power and the mercy of +the Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the +marvellous is probable. The substance of the narrative is truth; +and, as truth allows no choice, it is, like necessity, superior to +rule. To the accidental or adventitious parts, as to everything +human, some slight exceptions may be made; but the main fabric is +immovably supported. + +It is justly remarked by Addison, that this poem has, by the nature +of its subject, the advantage above all others, that it is +universally and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, through +all ages, bear the same relation to Adam and to Eve, and must +partake of that good and evil which extend to themselves. + +Of the MACHINERY, so called from [Greek text], by which is meant the +occasional interposition of supernatural power, another fertile +topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because +everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of +Heaven; but the rule is so far observed, that no part of the action +could have been accomplished by any other means. + +Of EPISODES, I think there are only two--contained in Raphael's +relation of the war in Heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of +the changes to happen in this world. Both are closely connected +with the great action; one was necessary to Adam as a warning, the +other as a consolation. + +To the completeness or INTEGRITY of the design nothing can be +objected; it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires--a +beginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of the +same length, from which so little can be taken without apparent +mutilation. Here are no funeral games, nor is there any long +description of a shield. The short digressions at the beginning of +the third, seventh, and ninth books, might doubtless be spared, but +superfluities so beautiful who would take away? or who does not wish +that the author of the "Iliad" had gratified succeeding ages with a +little knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages are more +attentively read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since the end +of poetry is pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which all are +pleased. + +The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly ONE, +whether the poem can be properly termed HEROIC, and who is the hero, +are raised by such readers as draw their principles of judgment +rather from books than from reason. Milton, though he entitled +"Paradise Lost" only a "poem," yet calls it himself "heroic song." +Dryden petulantly and indecently denies the heroism of Adam, because +he was overcome; but there is no reason why the hero should not be +unfortunate, except established practice, since success and virtue +do not go necessarily together. Cato is the hero of Lucan; but +Lucan's authority will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide. +However, if success be necessary, Adam's deceiver was at last +crushed; Adam was restored to his Maker's favour, and therefore may +securely resume his human rank. + +After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered its +component parts, the sentiments and the diction. + +The SENTIMENTS, as expressive of manners, or appropriated to +characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just. + +Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts of +prudence, occur seldom. Such is the original formation of this +poem, that, as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can give +little assistance to human conduct. Its end is to raise the +thoughts above sublunary cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of that +fortitude, with which Abdiel maintained his singularity of virtue +against the scorn of multitudes, may be accommodated to all times; +and Raphael's reproof of Adam's curiosity after the planetary +motions, with the answer returned by Adam, may be confidently +opposed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered. + +The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the progress are +such as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest +degree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by +incessant study and unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton's mind +may be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his work +the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts. + +He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions +are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to +unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were +extensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. He +sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He +can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is +gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it +is his peculiar power to astonish. + +He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to +know what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully +than upon others--the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the +splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating +the dreadful; he therefore chose a subject on which too much could +not be said, on which he might tire his fancy without the censure of +extravagance. + +The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not +satiate his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are +requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the +fancy. Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions of +possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent +his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination +can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and +furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace the +counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven. + +But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes +revisit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannot +raise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives delight by its +fertility. + +Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. +But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of +nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to +have the freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation. +He saw nature, as Dryden expresses it, "through the spectacles of +books;" and on most occasions calls learning to his assistance. The +garden of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine +was gathering flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting +elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between +the two Sicilian whirlpools, when he shunned Charybdis on the +larboard. The mythological allusions have been justly censured, as +not being always used with notice of their vanity; but they +contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate +exercise of the memory and the fancy. + +His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of his +predecessors. But he does not confine himself within the limits of +rigorous comparison: his great excellence is amplitude; and he +expands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the +occasion required. Thus, comparing the shield of Satan to the orb +of the moon, he crowds the imagination with the discovery of the +telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers. + +Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they +excel those of all other poets; for this superiority he was indebted +to his acquaintance with the sacred writings. The ancient epic +poets, wanting the light of Revelation, were very unskilful teachers +of virtue; their principal characters may be great, but they are not +amiable. The reader may rise from their works with a greater degree +of active or passive fortitude, and sometimes of prudence; but he +will be able to carry away few precepts of justice, and none of +mercy. + +From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of even +Christian knowledge may be possessed in vain. Ariosto's pravity is +generally known; and, though the "Deliverance of Jerusalem" may be +considered as a sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing of +moral instruction. + +In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of +manners, except when the train of the narration requires the +introduction of the rebellious spirits; and even they are compelled +to acknowledge their subjection to God, in such a manner as excites +reverence and confirms piety. + +Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the parents of +mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and +amiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first state +their affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublime +without presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord +begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual +forbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by +sin, and how hope of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. +A state of innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our present +misery, it be possible to conceive it; but the sentiments and +worship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all to +learn, as we have all to practise. + +The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors in +their first state conversed with angels; even when folly and sin had +degraded them, they had not in their humiliation "the port of mean +suitors;" and they rise again to reverential regard, when we find +that their prayers were heard. + +As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is +in the "Paradise Lost" little opportunity for the pathetic; but what +little there is has not been lost. That passion, which is peculiar +to rational nature, the anguish arising from the consciousness of +transgression, and the horrors attending the sense of the Divine +displeasure, are very justly described and forcibly impressed. But +the passions are moved only on one occasion; sublimity is the +general and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously +modified--sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative. + +The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"--for faults and defects +every work of man must have--it is the business of impartial +criticism to discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, +I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties there +had been no end, I shall in the same general manner mention that +which seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delight +in transcribing passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of +Milton, diminish in some degree the honour of our country? + +The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of +verbal inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in +grammar and poetry, has often found, though he sometimes made them, +and which he imputed to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom the +author's blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition rash and +groundless, if he thought it true; and vile and pernicious, if, as +is said, he in private allowed it to be false. + +The plan of "Paradise Lost" has this inconvenience, that it +comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man and +woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman +can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can be +engaged--beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of +imagination place himself; he has, therefore, little natural +curiosity or sympathy. + +We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam's disobedience; we all sin +like Adam, and like him must all bewail our offences; we have +restless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the +blessed spirits we have guardians and friends; in the redemption of +mankind we hope to be included; in the description of heaven and +hell we are surely interested, as we are all to reside hereafter +either in the regions of horror or bliss. + +But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught +to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and +familiar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole +texture of life. Being therefore not new, they raise no +unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot +learn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise. + +Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recede +with reverence, except when stated hours require their association; +and from others we shrink with horror, or admit them only as +salutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests and +passions. Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy than +incite it. + +Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; but +poetical pleasure must be such as human imagination can at least +conceive, and poetical terrors such as human strength and fortitude +may combat. The good and evil of eternity are too ponderous for the +wings of wit; the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, +content with calm belief and humble adoration. + +Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be +conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. This +Milton has undertaken and performed with pregnancy and vigour of +mind peculiar to himself. Whoever considers the few radical +positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what +energetic operation he expanded them to such extent, and ramified +them to so much variety, restrained as he was by religious reverence +from licentiousness of fiction. + +Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius--of a +great accumulation of materials, with judgment to digest and fancy +to combine them: Milton was able to select from nature or from +story, from an ancient fable or from modern science, whatever could +illustrate or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge +impregnated his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination. + +It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of +his encomiasts, that in reading "Paradise Lost" we read a book of +universal knowledge. + +But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of human +interest is always felt. "Paradise Lost" is one of the books which +the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. +None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather +than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed +and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; we desert our +master, and seek for companions. + +Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires the +description of what cannot be described, the agency of spirits. He +saw that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could not +show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore +invested them with form and matter. This, being necessary, was +therefore defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of +his system, by keeping immateriality out of sight, and enticing his +reader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed +his poetry with his philosophy. His infernal and celestial powers +are sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated body. When Satan +walks with his lance upon the "burning marl," he has a body; when, +in his passage between hell and the new world, he is in danger of +sinking in the vacuity, and is supported by a gust of rising +vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be +more spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he "starts +up in his own shape," he has at least a determined form; and when he +is brought before Gabriel, he has "a spear and a shield," which he +had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the +contending angels are evidently material. + +The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, being "incorporeal spirits," +are "at large, though without number," in a limited space: yet in +the battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour +hurt them, "crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross by +sinning." This likewise happened to the uncorrupted angels, who +were overthrown the "sooner for their arms, for unarmed they might +easily as spirits have evaded by contraction or remove." Even as +spirits they are hardly spiritual: for "contraction" and "remove" +are images of matter; but if they could have escaped without their +armour, they might have escaped from it, and left only the empty +cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, is +material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of +Adam. + +The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole +narration of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the +book in which it is related is, I believe, the favourite of +children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased. + +After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, +may be considered that of allegorical persons which have no real +existence. To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas +with form, and animate them with activity, has always been the right +of poetry. But such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered +only to do their natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a +tale, and Victory hovers over a general, or perches on a standard; +but Fame and Victory can do no more. To give them any real +employment, or ascribe to them any material agency, is to make them +allegorical no longer, but to shock the mind by ascribing effects to +nonentity. In the "Prometheus" of AEschylus, we see Violence and +Strength, and in the "Alcestis" of Euripides we see Death, brought +upon the stage, all as active persons of the drama; but no +precedents can justify absurdity. + +Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. Sin is +indeed the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portress of +hell; but when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey described +as real, and when Death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. +That Sin and Death should have shown the way to hell, might have +been allowed; but they cannot facilitate the passage by building a +bridge, because the difficulty of Satan's passage is described as +real and sensible, and the bridge ought to be only figurative. The +hell assigned to the rebellious spirits is described as not less +local than the residence of man. It is placed in some distant part +of space, separated from the regions of harmony and order by a +chaotic waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin and Death worked up +a "mole of aggravated soil" cemented with asphaltus, a work too +bulky for ideal architects. + +This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of +the poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author's +opinion of its beauty. + +To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satan +is with great expectation brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and is +suffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is represented +as the consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of +the rebels; yet Satan mentions it as a report "rife in Heaven" +before his departure. + +To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult; +and something of anticipation perhaps is now and then discovered. +Adam's discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of a new- +created being. I know not whether his answer to the angel's reproof +for curiosity does not want something of propriety; it is the speech +of a man acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical +notions, especially when the philosophy is false, might have been +better omitted. The angel, in a comparison, speaks of "timorous +deer," before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could +understand the comparison. + +Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. +This is only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every +work, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have +passages; a poem must have transitions. It is no more to be +required that wit should always be blazing, than that the sun should +always stand at noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude of +luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession of +day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may be +allowed sometimes to revisit earth; for what other author ever +soared so high, or sustained his flight so long? + +Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have +borrowed often from them; and, as every man catches something from +his companions, his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity has +disgraced his work with the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not in +itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place. + +His play on words, in which he delights too often; his +equivocations, which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of +the ancients; his unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; it +is not necessary to mention, because they are easily remarked, and +generally censured; and at last bear so little proportion to the +whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critic. + +Such are the faults of that wonderful performance "Paradise Lost;" +which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered +not as nice but as dull, as less to be censured for want of candour +than pitied for want of sensibility. + +Of "Paradise Regained," the general judgment seems now to be right, +that it is in many parts elegant, and everywhere instructive. It +was not to be supposed that the writer of "Paradise Lost" could ever +write without great effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of +wisdom. The basis of "Paradise Regained" is narrow; a dialogue +without action can never please like a union of the narrative and +dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, but by +some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise. + +If "Paradise Regained" has been too much depreciated, "Samson +Agonistes" has, in requital, been too much admired. It could only +be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could +prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to +the exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only by +a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton that a drama can be +praised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor +consequence, neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe. + +In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just +sentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting +the attention which a well connected plan produces. + +Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human +nature only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of +character, nor the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of +contending passions. He had read much, and knew what books could +teach; but had mingled little in the world, and was deficient in the +knowledge which experience must confer. + +Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity +of DICTION, a mode and cast of expression which bears little +resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far +removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first +opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language. + +This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in +Milton, imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to +the grandeur of his ideas. "Our language," says Addison, "sank +under him." But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had +formed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He was +desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This, in all +his prose, is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates +freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of +his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is +obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to +a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration. + +Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with +greater extent in "Paradise Lost" may be found in "Comus." One +source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; +the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; +perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may +be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote no language," +but has formed what Butler calls a "Babylonish dialect," in itself +harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive +learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, +that, like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity. + +Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of +copiousness and variety. He was master of his language in its full +extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, +that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned. + +After his diction something must be said of his VERSIFICATION. The +MEASURE, he says, "is the English heroic verse without rhyme." Of +this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his +own country. The Earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of +Virgil's books without rhyme; and, beside our tragedies, a few short +poems had appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to +reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and +probably written by Raleigh himself. These petty performances +cannot be supposed to have much influenced Milton, who more probably +took his hint from Trissino's "Italia Liberata;" and, finding blank +verse easier than rhyme, was desirous of persuading himself that it +is better. + +"Rhyme," he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of true +poetry." But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or +music is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the music of +metre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in +languages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and +short syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot +communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and +imperfect, some help is necessary. The music of the English heroic +lines strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all +the syllables of every line co-operate together; this co-operation +can only be obtained by the preservation of every verse unmingled +with another as a distinct system of sounds; and this distinctness +is obtained and preserved by the artifice of rhyme. The variety of +pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the +measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there +are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their +audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse," +said an ingenious critic, "seems to be verse only to the eye." + +Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not often +please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is +able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that +which is called the "lapidary style;" has neither the easiness of +prose, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long +continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton +alleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in +its defence has been confuted by the ear. + +But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself +to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to +be other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to be admired +rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing +may write blank verse; but those that hope only to please must +condescend to rhyme. + +The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot +be said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and +therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to +which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical +narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, +the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise +and enchain attention. But, of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton +is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for +himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or +hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of +his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries +he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings +nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or +favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support. +His great works were performed under discountenance and in +blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for +whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic +poems, only because it is not the first. + + + +COWLEY. + + + +The Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, +has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy of +imagination and elegance of language have deservedly set him high in +the ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendship, or ambition of +eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he +has given the character, not the life, of Cowley; for he writes with +so little detail, that scarcely anything is distinctly known, but +all is shown confused and enlarged through the mist of panegyric. + + +Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand sir hundred and +eighteen. His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat +conceals under the general appellation of a citizen; and, what would +probably not have been less carefully suppressed, the omission of +his name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to +suspect that his father was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died +before the birth of his son, and consequently left him to the care +of his mother: whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly to +procure him a literary education, and who, as she lived to the age +of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son eminent, +and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. +We know at least, from Sprat's account, that he always acknowledged +her care, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. + +In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's "Fairy Queen," +in which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling the +charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. +Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps +sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, +and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is +commonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind of large general +powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir +Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the first +fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's +treatise. + +By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminster +school, where he was soon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, +to relate, "that he had this defect in his memory at that time, that +his teachers never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules of +grammar." + +This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a +wonder. It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it was +heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a commodious +incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative +contained its confutation. A memory admitting some things, and +rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp +of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an +instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by nature for +literary politeness. But in the author's own honest relation, the +marvel vanishes: he was, he says, such "an enemy to all constraint, +that his master never could prevail on him to learn the rules +without book." He does not tell that he could not learn the rules; +but that, being able to perform his exercises without them, and +being an "enemy to constraint," he spared himself the labour. + +Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope might be said "to +lisp in numbers;" and have given such early proofs, not only of +powers of language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardy +minds seems scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities of +Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not only +written, but printed in his thirteenth year; containing, with other +poetical compositions, "The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe," +written when he was ten years old; and "Constantia and Philetus," +written two years after. + +While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called "Love's +Riddle," though it was not published till he had been some time at +Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires no +acquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at which +it was composed adds little to the wonders of Cowley's minority. + +In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where he continued his studies +with great intenseness; for he is said to have written, while he was +yet a young student, the greater part of his "Davideis;" a work of +which the materials could not have been collected without the study +of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vigour and activity. + +Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published "Love's +Riddle," with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, of whose +acquaintance all his contemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and +"Naufragium Joculare," a comedy written in Latin, but without due +attention to the ancient models; for it is not loose verse, but mere +prose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse to Dr. Comber, +master of the college; but having neither the facility of a popular, +nor the accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universally +neglected. + +At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed through +Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with the +representation of "The Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says was +neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by +the scholars. That this comedy was printed during his absence from +his country he appears to have considered as injurious to his +reputation; though, during the suppression of the theatres, it was +sometimes privately acted with sufficient approbation. + +In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the +Parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. +John's College in Oxford; where, as is said by Wood, he published a +satire, called "The Puritan and Papist," which was only inserted in +the last collection of his works; and so distinguished himself by +the warmth of his loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, +that he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended the +king, and amongst others of Lord Falkland, whose notice cast a +lustre on all to whom it was extended. + +About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, he +followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord +Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in such +correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in +ciphering and deciphering the letters that passed between the king +and queen; an employment of the highest confidence and honour. So +wide was his province of intelligence, that for several years it +filled all his days and two or three nights in the week. + +In the year 1647, his "Mistress" was published; for he imagined, as +he declared in his preface to a subsequent edition, that "poets are +scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some +duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love." + +This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its original to +the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his +tuneful homage to his Laura refined the manners of the lettered +world, and filled Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of all +excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its +power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his +tenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enough +of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own +inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was +divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never had +resolution to tell his passion. + +This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the reader's +esteem for the works and the author. To love excellence is natural; +it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal regard by +an elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of +pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and +effusions of wit; but it seems as reasonable to appear the champion +as the poet of an airy "nothing," and to quarrel as to write for +what Cowley might have learned from his master Pindar to call "the +dream of a shadow." + +It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or in the +bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. +No man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it in +voluntary dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that sits down +to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his +mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he +was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the +infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never +saw; complains of jealousy which he never felt; supposes himself +sometimes invited, and sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, and +ransacks his memory for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope +or the gloominess of despair; and dresses his imaginary Chloris or +Phyllis sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and sometimes in +gems lasting as her virtues. + +At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting +things of real importance with real men and real women, and at that +time did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. +Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, +from April to December, in 1650, are preserved in "Miscellanea +Aulica," a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, +being written like those of other men whose minds are more on things +than words, contribute no otherwise to his reputation, than as they +show him to have been above the affectation of unseasonable +elegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can be +little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. + +One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking +of the Scotch treaty then in agitation: + +"The Scotch treaty," says he, "is the only thing now in which we are +vitally concerned; I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now +abstain from believing that an agreement will be made; all people +upon the place incline to that opinion. The Scotch will moderate +something of the rigour of their demands; the mutual necessity of an +accord is visible; the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you the +truth (which I take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgil +has told me something to that purpose." + +This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would be +considered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious +display of scholarship; but the manners of that time were so tinged +with superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of having +consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and to have +given some credit to the answer of his oracle. + +Some years afterwards, "business," says Sprat, "passed of course +into other hands;" and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was +in 1656 sent back into England, that, "under pretence of privacy and +retirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture +of things in this nation." + +Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of +the usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of another man; and +being examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not +dismissed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. +Scarborough. + +This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems +to have inserted something suppressed in subsequent editions, which +was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this +preface he declares, that "his desire had been for some days past, +and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of +the American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever." + +From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpers +brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear +him, and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation. +His wish for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; a +man harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a +course of business that employed all his days and half his nights, +in ciphering and deciphering, comes to his own country and steps +into a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place of +quiet and of safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, +nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose us to forget, that, if his +activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice. + +He then took upon him the character of physician, still, according +to Sprat, with intention "to dissemble the main design of his coming +over;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the men then in +power (which was much taken notice of by the royal party), he +obtained an order to be created doctor of physic; which being done +to his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of some of his friends), +he went into France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver's +death." + +This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not much +wrong can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power +is to be inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that he +told them any secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other +act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he +was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of society +prohibits. + +The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power +of his enemy, may, without any breach of his integrity, regain his +liberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality: for the +stipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before. The +neutrality of a captive may be always secured by his imprisonment or +death. He that is at the disposal of another may not promise to aid +him in any injurious act, because no power can compel active +obedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. + +There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It does not +appear that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be +trusted without security, for the bond of his bail was never +cancelled; nor that it made him think himself secure, for, at that +dissolution of government which followed the death of Oliver, he +returned into France, where he resumed his former station, and +stayed till the restoration. + +"He continued," says his biographer, "under these bonds till the +general deliverance;" it is therefore to be supposed that he did not +go to France, and act again for the king, without the consent of his +bondsman: that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard of his +friend, but by his friend's permission. + +Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative seems to +imply something encomiastic, there has been no appearance. There is +a discourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses +intermixed, but such as certainly gained its author no friends among +the abettors of usurpation. + +A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in December, +1657; and in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which an +account has been published by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the +experimental philosophers with the title of Doctor Cowley. + +There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice: +but his preparatory studies have contributed something to the honour +of his country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, he +retired into Kent to gather plants; and as the predominance of a +favourite study affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, +botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poetry. He composed, in +Latin, several books on plants, of which the first and second +display the qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse; the third and +fourth, the beauties of flowers, in various measures; and the fifth +and sixth, the use of trees, in heroic numbers. + +At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two +great poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite +principles, but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry; in +which the English, till their works and May's poem appeared, seemed +unable to contest the palm with any other of the lettered nations. + +If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared (for May +I hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to lie on the +side of Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts +of the ancients in their language; Cowley, without much loss of +purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own +conceptions. + +At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, and +with consciousness, not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the +dignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; +and, that he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a song +of triumph. But this was a time of such general hope, that great +numbers were inevitably disappointed; and Cowley found his reward +very tediously delayed. He had been promised, by both Charles the +First and Second, the mastership of the Savoy; "but he lost it," +says Wood, "by certain persons, enemies to the Muses." + +The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; having by +such alteration as he thought proper, fitted his old comedy of "The +Guardian" for the stage, he produced it under the title of "The +Cutter of Coleman Street." It was treated on the stage with great +severity, and was afterwards censured as a satire on the king's +party. + +Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, related +to Mr. Dennis, "that, when they told Cowley how little favour had +been shown him, he received the news of his ill success, not with so +much firmness as might have been expected from so great a man." + +What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered, +cannot be known. He that misses his end will never be as much +pleased as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part of +his failure to himself; and when the end is to please the multitude, +no man perhaps has a right, in things admitting of gradation and +comparison, to throw the whole blame upon his judges, and totally to +exclude diffidence and shame, by a haughty consciousness of his own +excellence. + +For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find the +reason: it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of +fixing attention and exciting merriment. From the charge of +disaffection he exculpates himself in his preface, by observing how +unlikely it is, that, having followed the royal family through all +their distresses, "he should choose the time of their restoration to +begin a quarrel with them." It appears, however, from the +theatrical register of Downes the prompter, to have been popularly +considered as a satire on the royalists. + +That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his +pretensions and his discontent in an ode called "The Complaint;" in +which he styles himself the MELANCHOLY Cowley. This met with the +usual fortune of complaints, and seems to have excited more contempt +than pity. + +These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in +some stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; a +mode of satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling, +perhaps every generation of poets has been teased. + + +Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court, + Making apologies for his bad play; +Every one gave him so good a report, + That Apollo gave heed to all he could say: + +Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke, + Unless he had done some notable folly; +Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke, + Or printed his pitiful Melancholy. + + +His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him. "Not +finding," says the morose Wood, "that preferment conferred upon him +which he expected, while others for their money carried away most +places, he retired discontented into Surrey." + +"He was now," says the courtly Sprat, "weary of the vexations and +formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a +long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts +of a court; which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent +to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were the reasons +that moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, +which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had still +called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of +solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue +below the malice and flatteries of fortune." + +So differently are things seen! and so differently are they shown! +But actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowley +certainly retired; first to Barn Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, +in Surrey. He seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of the +HUM OF MEN. He thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, +without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking +shelter in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of life +as that he might easily find his way back when solitude should grow +tedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly accommodated; yet +he soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl of St. Alban's, and +the Duke of Buckingham, such lease of the queen's lands as afforded +him an ample income. + +By the lovers of virtue and of wit it will be solicitously asked, if +he now was happy. Let them peruse one of his letters accidentally +preserved by Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of all +that may hereafter pant for solitude. + + +"TO DR. THOMAS SPRAT, +"Chertsey, May 21, 1665. + +"The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, with a +defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days. And, two +after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet +unable to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personal +fortune here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from +my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put +in by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, +God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than +hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the +rest, that you have broke your word with me and failed to come, even +though you told Mr. Bois that you would. This is what they call +monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within +five or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever +recover it) as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I +and the dean might be very merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You might +very conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there +one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: verbum +sapienti." + + +He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of +solitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 [28th +July], in the forty-ninth year of his age. + +He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King +Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a +better man in England." He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most +amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely be +credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction. + +Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to +the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of civil war +were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily +irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general +expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did +not tell cannot, however, now be known; I must therefore recommend +the perusal of his work, to which my narration can be considered +only as a slender supplement. + +Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, +instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in +the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been +at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. + +Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of +man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes +different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century +appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical +poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not +improper to give some account. + +The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their +learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to show +it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and +very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than +of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only +found to be verses by counting the syllables. + +If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry [Greek +text], AN IMITATIVE ART, these writers will, without great wrong, +lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to +have imitated anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neither +painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of +intellect. + +Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. +Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall +below Donne in wit; but maintains that they surpass him in poetry. + +If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been +often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they +certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured +to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their +diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he +depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength +of thought to happiness of language. + +If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be considered +as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not +obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if +it be that which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to +wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their +thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, +but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that +he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of +industry they were ever found. + +But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more +rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia +concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult +resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, +they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked +by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for +illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, +and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his +improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, is +seldom pleased. + +From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred +that they were not successful in representing or moving the +affections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected +and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment +which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the +pleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any occasion, +they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than +partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, +impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, making remarks on +the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest +and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and +their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they +hoped had been never said before. + +Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; for +they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which +at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is +sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity +is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great +thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by +exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is +with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import +means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for +nicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for +novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things +cannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were always +analytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more +represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, +the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he who dissects +a sunbeam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer +noon. + +What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to supply +by hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they left not only +reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused +magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be +imagined. + +Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; +if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they +likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceits +were far fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on +their plan, it was at least necessary to read and think. No man +could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a +writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations +borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary +similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. + +In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised +either by recollection or inquiry; something already learned is to +be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their +greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the +imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of +reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials +which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and +useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness +of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such +as, when they are expanded to perspicuity and polished to elegance, +may give lustre to works which have more propriety though less +copiousness of sentiment. + +This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and +his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man +of very extensive and various knowledge, and by Jonson, whose manner +resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in +the cast of his sentiments. + +When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators +than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any +remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, +Cowley, Clieveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another +way to fame, by improving the harmony of our members. Milton tried +the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. +Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much +sentiment and more music. Suckling neither improved versification +nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly +with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it. + +Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I +have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which +this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and +their admirers) was eminently distinguished. + +As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being +admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from +recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of +poetry. Thus, Cowley on Knowledge: + + +The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; + The phoenix truth did on it rest, + And built his perfumed nest, +That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show. + Each leaf did learned notions give, + And the apples were demonstrative; +So clear their colour and divine, +The very shads they cast did other lights outshine. + + +On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age: + + +Love was with thy life entwined, +Close as heat with fire is join'd; +A powerful brand prescribed the date +Of thine, like Meleager's fate. +Th' antiperistasis of age +More enflam'd thy amorous rage. + + +In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion +concerning manna: + + +Variety I ask not: give me one +To live perpetually upon. +The person Love does to us fit, +Like manna, has the taste of all in it. + + +Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses: + + + In everything there naturally grows +A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, + If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows: +Your youth and beauty are this balm in you. + But you, of learning and religion, +And virtue and such ingredients, have made + A mithridate, whose operation +Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. + + +Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, +have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant: + + +This twilight of two years, not past nor next, + Some emblem is of me, or I of this, +Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, + Whose what and where in disputation is, + If I should call me anything, should miss. +I sum the years and me, and find me not + Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new. +That cannot say, my thanks I have forget, + Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true + This bravery is, since these times show'd me you--DONNE. + + +Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as a +microcosm: + + +If men be worlds, there is in every one +Something to answer in some proportion; +All the world's riches; and in good men, this +Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is + + +Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but +unnatural, all their books are full. + +To a lady, who wrote posies for rings: + + +They, who above do various circles find, +Say, like a ring, th' equator Heaven does bind +When Heaven shall be adorned by thee, +(Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be) +'Tis thou must write the poesy there, + For it wanteth one as yet, +Then the sun pass through't twice a year, + The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit.--COWLEY. + + +The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy +are by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love: + + +Five years ago (says story) I loved you, +For which you call me most inconstant now; +Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; +For I am not the same that I was then: +No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, +And that my mind is changed yourself may see. +The same thoughts to retain still, and intents +Were more inconstant far; for accidents +Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, +If from one subject they t' another move; +My members then the father members were, +From whence these take their birth, which now are here +If then this body love what th' other did, +'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. + + +The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to +travels through different countries: + + +Hast thou not found each woman's breast + (The land where thou hast travelled) +Either by savages possest, + Or wild, and uninhabited? +What joy could'st take, or what repose, +In countries so uncivilis'd as those? +Lust, the scorching dog-star, here + Rages with immoderate heat; +Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear, + In others makes the cold too great. +And where these are temperate known, +The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone.--COWLEY. + + +A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt: + + +The fate of Egypt I sustain, +And never feel the dew of rain, +From clouds which in the head appear; +But all my too-much moisture ewe +To overflowings of the heart below.--COWLEY. + + +The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of +augury and rites of sacrifice: + + +And yet this death of mine, I fear, +Will ominous to her appear: + When, sound in every other part, +Her sacrifice is found without an heart. + For the last tempest of my death +Shall sigh out that too, with my breath. + + +That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence +the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover: + + +Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew; +An artless war from thwarting motions grew; +Till they to number and fixed rules were brought. +Water and air he for the tenor chose, +Earth made the base; the treble flame arose.--COWLEY. + + +The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne +has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily +understood, they may be read again: + + + On a round ball + A workman, that bath copies by, can lay + An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, +And quickly make that which was nothing, all. + So doth each tear, + Which thee doth wear, +A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, +Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow +This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. + + +On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out +"Confusion worse confounded." + + +Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here, + She gives the best light to his sphere, + Or each is both, and all, and so, +They unto one another nothing owe.--DONNE. + + +Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? + + +Though God be our true glass through which we see +All, since the being of all things is He, +Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive +Things in proportion fit, by perspective +Deeds of good men; for by their living here, +Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. + + +Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many +remote ideas could be brought together? + + +Since 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve, + Why this reprieve? +Why doth my she advowson fly + Incumbency? +To sell thyself dust thou intend + By candles end, +And hold the contract thus in doubt, + Life's taper out? +Think but how soon the market fails, +Your sex lives faster than the males; +And if to measure age's span, +The sober Julian were th' account of man, +Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.--CLEVELAND. + + +Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples: + + +By every wind that comes this way, + Send me at least a sigh or two, +Such and so many I'll repay + As shall themselves make winds to get to you.--COWLEY. + +In tears I'll waste these eyes, +By love so vainly fed: +So lust of old the deluge punished.--COWLEY. + +All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war, +(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar. +The sun himself started with sudden fright, +To see his beams return so dismal bright.--COWLEY. + + +A universal consternation: + + +His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws +Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about, +Lashing his angry tail and roaring out. +Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; +Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; +Silence and horror fill the place around; +Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound.--COWLEY. + + +Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. + +Of his mistress bathing: + + +The fish around her crowded, as they do +To the false light that treacherous fishers show, +And all with as much ease might taken be, + As she at first took me; + For ne'er did light so clear + Among the waves appear, +Though every night the sun himself set there.--COWLEY. + + +The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass: + + + My name engraved herein +Both contribute my firmness to this glass: + Which, ever since that charm, hath been +As hard as that which graved it was.--DONNE. + + +Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an inconstant +woman: + + +He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, + And no breath stirring hears, +In the clear heaven of thy brow + No smallest cloud appears. +He sees thee gentle, fair and gay, + And trusts the faithless April of thy May.--COWLEY. + + +Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire: + + + Nothing yet in thee is seen, + But when a genial heat warms thee within, + A new-born wood of various lines there grows; + Hers buds an L, and there a B, + Here sprouts a V, and there a T, +And all the flourishing letters stand in rows.--COWLEY. + + +As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether +their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; +whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the +little. + +Physic and chirurgery for a lover: + + + Gently, ah gently, madam, touch +The wound, which you yourself have made; + That pain must needs be very much +Which makes me of your hand afraid. + Cordials of pity give me now, +For I too weak of purgings grow.--COWLEY. + + +The world and a clock + + +Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face +Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace; +Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took; +On all the springs and smallest wheels did look +Of life and motion, and with equal art +Made up the whole again of every part.--COWLEY. + + +A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want +its due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the sun: + + +The moderate value of our guiltless ore +Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore; +Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine +Deserve more honour than a flaming mine? +These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, +Than a few embers, for a deity. +Had he our pits, the Persian would admire +No sun, but warm's devotion at our fire: +He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer +Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner. +For wants he heat, or light? or would have store +Of both? 'tis here: and what can suns give more? +Nay, what's the sun but, in a different name, +A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame? +Then let this truth reciprocally run, +The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. + + +Death, a voyage: + + + No family +E'er rigg'd a soul for Heaven's discovery, +With whom more venturers might boldly dare +Venture their stakes with him in joy to share.--DONNE. + + +Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and +such as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding. + +A lover neither dead nor alive: + + +Then down I laid my head +Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, +And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled. + + Ah, sottish soul, said I, + When back to its cage again I saw it fly; + Fool to resume her broken chain, + And row her galley here again! + Fool, to that body to return +Where it condemned and destined is to burn! +Once dead, how can it be, +Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, +That thou should'st come to live it o'er again in me?--COWLEY. + + +A lover's heart, a hand grenado: + +Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come + Into the self same room; + 'Twill tear and blow up all within, +Like a grenade shot into a magazine. +Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts, + Of both our broken hearts; + Shalt out of both one new one make; +From hers th' allay, from mine the metal take.--COWLEY + + +The poetical propagation of light: + + +The prince's favour is diffused o'er all, +From which all fortunes names, and natures fall: +Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride's bright eyes, + At every glance a constellation flies, +And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent + In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament: +First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes, + Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise; +And from their jewels torches do take fire, +And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.--DONNE. + + +They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance +of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are +often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn +their thoughts. + +That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by +Cowley thus expressed: + + +Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand +Than woman can be placed by Nature's hand; +And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be, +To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee. + + +That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne: + + +In none but us are such mix'd engines found, +As hands of double office; for the ground +We till with them; and them to heaven we raise +Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, +Doth but one half, that's none. + + +By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, +is thus illustrated: + + + That which I should have begun +In my youth's morning, now late must be done; +And I, as giddy travellers must do, +Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost +Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post. + + +All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is +comprehended by Donne in the following lines: + + +Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie +After enabled but to suck and cry. +Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn, +A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, +And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage +Of sicknesses or their true mother, age. +But think that death hath now enfranchised thee; +Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty; +Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown +In pieces, and the bullet is his own, +And freely flies: this to thy soul allow, +Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but now. + + +They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus +apostrophises beauty: + + + Thou tyrant which leav'st no man free! +Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! +Thou murtherer, which has kill'd, and devil, which would'st damn me! + + +Thus he addresses his mistress: + + +Thou who, in many a propriety, +So truly art the sun to me, +Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, +And let me and my sun beget a man. + + +Thus he represents the meditations of a lover: + + +Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been +So much as of original sin, +Such charms thy beauty wears, as might +Desires in dying confest saints excite. + Thou with strange adultery +Dost in each breast a brothel keep; + Awake all men do lust for thee, +And some enjoy thee when they sleep. + + +The true taste of tears: + + +Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, + And take my tears, which are love's wine, +And try your mistress' tears at home; + For all are false, that taste not just like mine.--DONNE. + + +This is yet more indelicate: + + +As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, +As that which from chas'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, +As th' almighty balm of th' early east; +Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. +And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, +They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets: +Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.--DONNE. + + +Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps +to be pathetic: + + +As men in hell are from diseases free, +So from all other ills am I, +Free from their known formality: +But all pains eminently lie in thee.--COWLEY. + + +They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from +which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that +they were popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are +continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions. + + +It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke: +In vain it something would have spoke; +The love within too strong for't was, +Like poison put into a Venice-glass.--COWLEY. + + +In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for +conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets have +contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as +follows: + + +Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest: +Time's dead low-water; when all minds divest +To-morrow's business; when the labourers have +Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, +Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this; +Now when the client, whose last hearing is +To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man, +Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the +Again by death, although sad watch he keep; +Doth practise dying by a little sleep: +Thou at this midnight seest me. + + +It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are +upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle; +yet, where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their +copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has +written upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention: + + + Hops, whose weak being mind is, + Alike if it succeed and if it miss; +Whom good or ill does equally confound, +And both the horns of fate's dilemma wound; + Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite, + Both at full noon and perfect night! + The stars have not a possibility + Of blessing thee; +If things then from their end we happy call +'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. + Hope, thou bold tester of delight, + Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour'st it quite! + Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor + By clogging it with legacies before! + The joys, which we entire should wed, + Come deflowr'd virgins to our bed; +Good fortunes without gain imported be, + Such mighty custom's paid to thee: +For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste +If it take air before its spirits waste. + + +To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that +stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether +absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim: + + +Our two souls, therefore, which are one, + Though I must go, endure not yet +A breach, but an expansion, + Like gold to airy thinness beat. +If they be two, they are two so + As stiff twin compasses are two; +Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show + To move, but doth if th' other do. +And, though it in the centre sit, + Yet, when the other far doth roam, +It leans and hearkens after it, + And grows erect as that comes home. +Such wilt thou be to me, who must + Like th' other foot obliquely run. +Thy firmness makes my circle just, + And makes me end where I begun.--DONNE. + + +In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or +vicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit +of something new and strange; and that the writers fail to give +delight, by their desire of exciting admiration. + +Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the +style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to +examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of +that race, and undoubtedly the best. + +His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, written +some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they +were called forth by different occasions; with great variety of +style and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such +an assemblage of diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto +afforded. To choose the best, among many good, is one of the most +hazardous attempts of criticism. I know not whether Scaliger +himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his +preference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in his +raptures at the value of a kingdom. I will, however, venture to +recommend Cowley's first piece, which ought to be inscribed "To my +Muse," for want of which the second couplet is without reference. +When the title is added, there wills till remain a defect; for every +piece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make it +intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names; which are +therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the present, but +hardly appropriated. + +The "Ode on Wit" is almost without a rival. It was about the time +of Cowley that WIT, which had been till then used for INTELLECTION, +in contradistinction to WILL, took the meaning, whatever it be, +which it now bears. + +Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own +precepts, none will easily be found of greater excellence than that +in which Cowley condemns exuberance of wit:- + + +Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part, + That shows more cost than art. +Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; + Rather than all things wit, let none be there. +Several lights will not be seen, + If there be nothing else between. +Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky, +If those be stars which paint the galaxy. + + +In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud +to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compositions, +some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His "Elegy +on Sir Henry Wotton" is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts +is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by +the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible. + +It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his +encomiastic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes. + +In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little +passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a +studious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind +not yet called forth to action can display. He knew how to +distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion; +but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and +diverts his sorrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, +would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be +the worse for being true. The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it +burns; as therefore this property was not assigned it by chance, the +mind must be thought sufficiently at ease that could attend to such +minuteness of physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so much to +move the affections, as to exercise the understanding. + +The "Chronicle" is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety +of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such +a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to +expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his +agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound +of an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; +the moralist, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influence +even in this airy frolic of genius. To such a performance Suckling +could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could +have supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety. + +The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily +concluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived and +happily expressed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been +sufficiently observed: the few decisions and remarks, which his +prefaces and his notes on the "Davideis" supply, were at that time +accessions to English literature, and show such skill as raises our +wish for more examples. + +The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of +the familiar descending to the burlesque. + +His two metrical disquisitions FOR and AGAINST Reason are no mean +specimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against knowledge +produce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the +human faculties, Reason has its proper task assigned it; that of +judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. +In the verses FOR Reason is a passage which Bentley, in the only +English verses which he is known to have written, seems to have +copied, though with the inferiority of an imitator. + + +The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine + With thousand lights of truth divine, +So numberless the stars, that to our eye + It makes all but one galaxy. +Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas + So vast and dangerous as these, +Our course by stars above we cannot know + Without the compass too below. + + +After this says Bentley: + + +Who travels in religious jars, + Truth mix'd with error, shade with rays +Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars, + In ocean wide or sinks or strays. + + +Cowley seems to have had what Milton is believed to have wanted, the +skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has +therefore closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw, +which apparently excel all that have gone before them, and in which +there are beauties which common authors may justly think not only +above their attainment, but above their ambition. + +To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrastical +translations of some little poems, which pass, however justly, under +the name of Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated to festivity and +gaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach +nothing but the enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather a +pleasing than a faithful representation, having retained their +sprightliness, but lost their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, +like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of some modern +graces, by which he is undoubtedly made more amiable to common +readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own +perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy and +ignorance are content to style the learned. + +These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than +any other of Cowley's works. The diction shows nothing of the mould +of time, and the sentiments are at no great distance from our +present habitudes of thought. Real mirth must always be natural, +and nature is uniform. Men have been wise in very different modes; +but they have always laughed the same way. + +Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, and +the familiar part of language continues long the same; the dialogue +of comedy when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, +is read from age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices of +inversion by which the established order of words is changed, or of +innovation, by which new words, or new meanings of words, are +introduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood, +but by those who write to be admired. + +The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasure +which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of +writing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest +in the familiar and the festive. + +The next class of his poems is called "The Mistress," of which it is +not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or censure. +They have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the same +proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with +copiousness of learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that the +plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, so that +the reader is commonly surprised into some improvement. But, +considered as the verses of a lover, no man that has ever loved will +much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetic, have +neither gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too far sought, and +too hyperbolical, either to express love, or to excite it; every +stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, with +mingled souls and with broken hearts. + +The principal artifice by which "The Mistress" is filled with +conceits is very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is by Cowley, +as by other poets, expressed metaphorically by flame and fire; and +that which is true of real fire is said of love, or figurative fire, +the same word in the same sentence retaining both significations. +Thus "observing the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at the +same time their power of producing love in him, he considers them as +burning-glasses made of ice. Finding himself able to live in the +greatest extremities of love, he concludes the torrid zone to be +habitable. Upon the dying of a tree, on which he had cut his loves, +he observes that his flames had burnt up and withered the tree." + +These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists +of thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and false in the +other. Addison's representation is sufficiently indulgent: that +confusion of images may entertain for a moment; but being unnatural +it soon grows wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as if he +had invented it; but, not to mention the ancients, he might have +found it full-blown in modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro: + + +Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis! + Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor: +Sum Nilus, sumque AEtna simul; restringite flammas + O lacrimae, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas. + + +One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as having +published a book of profane and lascivious verses. From the charge +of profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, which seems to have +been eminently virtuous, and the general tendency of his opinions, +which discover no irreverence of religion, must defend him; but that +the accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the perusal of his works +will sufficiently evince. + +Cowley's "Mistress" has no power of seduction: she "plays round the +head, but comes not at the heart." Her beauty and absence, her +kindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce no +correspondence of emotion. His poetical accounts of the virtues of +plants, and colours of flowers, is not perused with more sluggish +frigidity. The compositions are such as might have been written for +penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer who had +only heard of another sex; for they turn the mind only on the +writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but as the subject for his +task, we sometimes esteem as learned, and sometimes despise as +trifling, always admire as ingenious, and always condemn as +unnatural. + +The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species of +composition, which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in +his list of the lost inventions of antiquity, and which he has made +a bold and vigorous attempt to recover. + +The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympic and Nemaean Ode +is by himself sufficiently explained. His endeavour was, not to +show precisely what Pindar spoke, but his manner of speaking. He +was therefore not at all restrained to his expressions, nor much to +his sentiments; nothing was required of him, but not to write as +Pindar would not have written. + +Of the Olympic Ode the beginning is, I think, above the original in +elegance, and the conclusion below it in strength. The connection +is supplied with great perspicuity; and the thoughts, which to a +reader of less skill seem thrown together by chance, are +concatenated without any abruption. Though the English ode cannot +be called a translation, it may be very properly consulted as a +commentary. + +The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally preserved. +The following pretty lines are not such as his "deep mouth" was used +to pour: + + + Great Rhea's son, +If in Olympus' top, where thou +Sitt'st to behold thy sacred show, +If in Alpheus' silver flight, +If in my verse thou take delight, +My verse, great Rhea's son, which is +Lofty as that and smooth as this. + + +In the Nemaean Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to Pindar, +observe, whatever is said of the original new moon, her tender +forehead and her horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, who has +many other plays of words and fancy unsuitable to the original, as, + + + The table, free for ev'ry guest, + No doubt will thee admit, +And feast more upon thee, than thou on it + + +He sometimes extends his author's thoughts without improving them. +In the Olympionic an oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cowley +spends three lines in swearing by the Castalian Stream. We are told +of Theron's bounty, with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley +thus enlarges in rhyming prose: + + +But in this thankless world the giver +Is envied even by the receiver; +'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion +Rather to hide than own the obligation: +Nay, 'tis much worse than so; +It now an artifice does grow +Wrongs and injuries to do, +Lest men should think we owe. + + +It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in learning and +wit, when he was dealing out such minute morality in such feeble +diction, could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitated +Pindar. + +In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, he +sometimes rises to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if some deficiencies +of language be forgiven, his strains are such as those of the Theban +bard were to his contemporaries: + + + Begin the song, and strike the living lyre: +Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire, + All hand in hand do decently advance, +And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance; +While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be, +My music's voice shall bear it company; + Till all gentle notes be drown'd +In the last trumpet's dreadful sound. + + +After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to find the poet conclude +with lines like these: + + + But stop, my Muse - +Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, +Which does to rage begin - +- 'Tis an unruly and hard-mouth'd horse - +'Twill no unskilful touch endure, +But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. + + +The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the +metaphysical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last +ramifications, by which he loses the grandeur of generality; for of +the greatest things the parts are little; what is little can be but +pretty, and by claiming dignity becomes ridiculous. Thus all the +power of description is destroyed by a scrupulous enumeration, and +the force of metaphors is lost, when the mind by the mention of +particulars is turned more upon the original than the secondary +sense, more upon that from which the illustration is drawn than that +to which it is applied. + +Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the +"Muse," who goes to "take the air" in an intellectual chariot, to +which he harnesses Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and +Invention; how he distinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory could +properly contribute to Motion, he has not explained: we are however +content to suppose that he could have justified his own fiction, and +wish to see the Muse begin her career; but there is yet more to be +done. + + +Let the POSTILLION Nature mount, and let +The COACHMAN Art be set; +And let the airy FOOTMEN, running all beside, +Make a long row of goodly pride; +Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences, +In a well-worded dress, +And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies, +In all their gaudy LIVERIES. + + +Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I +cannot refuse myself the four next lines: + + +Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, + And bid it to put on; + For long though cheerful is the way, +And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day. + + +In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her +prescience, or, in poetical language, the foresight of events +hatching in futurity; but, once having an egg in his mind, he cannot +forbear to show us that he knows what an egg contains: + + +Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, + And there with piercing eye +Through the firm shell and the thick white float spy + Years to come a-forming lie, +Close in their sacred fecundine asleep. + + +The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically +expressed by Casimir, a writer who has many of the beauties and +faults of Cowley: + + +Omnibus mundi Dominator horis +Aptat urgendas psr inane pennas, +Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros + Crescit in annos. + + +Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, by a +kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which +require still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea +"new dyes the water's name;" and England, during the Civil War, was +"Albion no more, nor to be named from white." It is surely by some +fascination not easily surmounted, that a writer, professing to +revive "the noblest and highest writing in verse," makes this +address to the new year: + + +Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year, +Let not so much as love be there, +Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year, + Although I fear +There's of this caution little need, + Yet, gentle year, take heed + How thou dost make + Such a mistake; +Such love I mean alone +As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown: +For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, +I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it. + + +The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior - + + + Ye critics, say, +How poor to this was Pindar's style! + + +Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemaean songs +what Antiquity what disposed them to expect, will at least see that +they are ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determine +that, if this be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival. + +To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley's sentiments must be +added the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the +liberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from two +syllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, +very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the syllables +we perceive them to be regular, and have reason enough for supposing +that the ancient audiences were delighted with the sound. The +imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have +added what was wanting; to have preserved a constant return of the +same numbers, and to have supplied smoothness of transition and +continuity of thought. + +It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the "irregularity of numbers is the +very thing" which makes "that kind of poesy fit for all manner of +subjects." But he should have remembered, that what is fit for +everything can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arises +from the known measure of the lines, and uniform structure of the +stanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved. + +If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, "the highest and +noblest kind of writing in verse," it can be adapted only to high +and noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet +with the critic, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of +writing in verse which, according to Sprat, "is chiefly to be +preferred for its near affinity to prose." + +This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the +deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, +that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and +girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing +else could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, +and disorder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the +Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, +is unhappily inserted in the "Musae Anglicanae." Pindarism +prevailed about half a century; but at last died gradually away, and +other imitations supply its place. + +The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of +poetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with +unabated censure; and surely though the mode of their composition be +erroneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration which is +due to great comprehension of knowledge, and great fertility of +fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the +greatness of one part is disgraced by the littleness of another; and +total negligence of language gives the noblest conceptions the +appearance of a fabric august in the plan, but mean in the +materials. Yet surely those verses are not without a just claim to +praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no man but Cowley +could have written them. + +The "Davideis" now remains to be considered; a poem which the author +designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no +scruple of declaring, because the "AEneid" had that number; but he +had leisure or perseverance only to write the third part. Epic +poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and +Cowley. That we have not the whole "Davideis" is, however, not much +to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at +least, confessed to have miscarried. There are not many examples of +so great a work produced by an author generally read, and generally +praised, that has crept through a century with so little regard. +Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the +"Davideis" no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor +emerges in conversation. By the "Spectator" it has been once +quoted; by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, in "Mac +Flecknoe," it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other +notice from its publication till now in the whole succession of +English literature. + +Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will be +found partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in the +performance of the work. + +Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence, and +an imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed to +acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentic +narrative, and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence +as suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and +stop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and +vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the +purposes of religion seems not only useless, but in some degree +profane. + +Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of Divine +Power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle +of creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with +little diffusion of language: "He spake the word, and they were +made." + +We are told that Saul "was troubled with an evil spirit;" from this +Cowley takes an opportunity of describing hell, and telling the +history of Lucifer, who was, he says, + + +Once general of a gilded host of sprites, +Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights; +But down like lightning, which him struck, he came +And roar'd at his first plunge into the flame. + + +Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in which +there is something of heathenism, and therefore of impropriety; and, +to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing his breast with +his long tail: Envy, after a pause, steps out, and among other +declarations of her zeal utters these lines: + + +Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, +And thunder echo to the trembling sky; +Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, +As shall the fire's proud element affright, +Th' old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way, +Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. +The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace, +And stubborn poles change their allotted place. +Heaven's gilded troops shall flutter here and there, +Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere. + + +Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an +allegorical being. + +It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, that +fancy and fiction lose their effect; the whole system of life, while +the theocracy was yet visible, has an appearance so different from +all other scenes of human action, that the reader of the sacred +volume habitually considers it as the peculiar mode of existence of +a distinct species of mankind, that lived and acted with manners +uncommunicable; so that it is difficult even for imagination to +place us in the state of them whose story is related, and by +consequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, nor can +the attention be often interested in anything that befalls them. + +To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception of +poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could +reconcile impatience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be more +disgusting than a narrative spangled with conceits; and conceits are +all that the "Davideis" supplies. + +One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or the +power of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences +instead of images, and shows not what may be supposed to have been +seen, but what thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgil +describes the stone which Turnus lifted against AEneas, he fixes the +attention on its bulk and weight: + + +Saxum circumspicit ingens, +Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat +Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. + + +Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother, + + +I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant +At once his murther and his monument. + + +Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says, + + +A sword so great, that it was only fit +To cut off his great head that came with it. + + +Other poets describe Death by some of its common appearances. +Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real or +fabulous, + + +'Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade, +And open'd wide those secret vessels where +Life's light goes out, when first they let in air. + + +But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionary +succession of kings: + + +Joas at first does bright and glorious show, +In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow. + + +Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance, + + +His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd +Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud, + + +he gives them a fit of the ague. + +The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he offends +by exaggeration as much as by diminution: + + +The king was placed alone, and o'er his head +A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. + + +Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit: + + +Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, +Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, +Gold, which alone more influence has than he. + + +In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion of +philosophy: + + +Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, +Why does that twining plant the oak embrace; +The oak for courtship most of all unfit, +And rough as are the winds that fight with it? + + +His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses +expectation; + + +Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you're in, +The story of your gallant friend begin. + + +In a simile descriptive of the morning: + + +As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day, +Cashier'd by troops, at last all drop away. + + +The dress of Gabriel deserves attention: + + +He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, +That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light; +Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, +Wash'd from the morning beauties' deepest red: +An harmless flatt'ring meteor shone for hair, +And fell adown his shoulders with loose care; +He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, +Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes; +This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, +Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall; +Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade, +The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made. + + +This is a just specimen of Cowley's imagery; what might in general +expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous +by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with +the softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been +told, and been dismissed to improve the idea in our different +proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he +had related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, +then his lace, and then his scarf, and related it in the terms of +the mercer and tailor. + +Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always conceived with +his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, +continued till it is tedious: + + +I' th' library a few choice authors stood, +Yet 'twas well stored, for that small store was good; +Writing, man's spiritual physic, was not then +Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. +Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew; +The common prostitute she lately grew, +And with the spurious brood loads now the press; +Laborious effects of idleness. + + +As the "Davideis" affords only four books, though intended to +consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism as +Epic poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is very +imperfectly shown by the third part. The duration of an unfinished +action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or +shown but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nice +discriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, +formed rather from the "Odyssey" than the "Iliad;" and many +artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man +acquainted with the beet models. The past is recalled by narration, +and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish of +his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill +eight books more without practising again the same modes of +disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing +incumbrance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost +more instruction than delight. If the continuation of the +"Davideis" can be missed, it is for the learning that had been +diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained. + +Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by +improper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He +gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero: + + +His way once chose, he forward threat outright. +Nor turned aside for danger or delight. + + +And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michal +are very justly conceived and strongly painted. + +Rymer has declared the "Davideis" superior to the "Jerusalem" of +Tasso, "which," says he, "the poet, with all his care, has not +totally purged from pedantry." If by pedantry is meant that minute +knowledge which is derived from particular sciences and studies, in +opposition to the general notions supplied by a wide survey of life +and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, far more +frequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why they should be +compared; for the resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is only +that they both exhibit the agency of celestial and infernal spirits, +in which, however, they differ widely; for Cowley supposes them +commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso represents +them as promoting or obstructing events by external agency. + +Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember +only the description of Heaven, in which the different manner of the +two writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowley's is scarcely +description, unless it be possible to describe by negatives; for he +tells us only what there is not in heaven. Tasso endeavours to +represent the splendours and pleasures of the regions of happiness. +Tasso affords images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, +that Tasso's description affords some reason for Rymer's censure. +He says of the Supreme Being: + + +Ha sotto i piedi e fato e la natura +Ministri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il misura. + + +The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be found +in any other stanza of the poem. + +In the perusal of the "Davideis," as of all Cowley's works, we find +wit and learning unprofitably squandered. Attention has no relief; +the affections are never moved; we are sometimes surprised, but +never delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve. +Still, however, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by +nature, and replenished by study. + +In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found that he +wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection; +with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never +pathetic, and rarely sublime; but always either ingenious or +learned, either acute or profound. + +It is said by Denham in his elegy, + + +To him no author was unknown, +Yet what he writ was all his own. + + +This wide position requires less limitation, when it is affirmed of +Cowley, than perhaps of any other poet.--He read much, and yet +borrowed little. + +His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappily +adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present +praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients +have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, +he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure +in its spring was bright and gay, but which time has been +continually stealing from his brows. + +He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled excellence. +Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that +went before him; and Milton is said to have declared that the three +greatest English poets were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley. + +His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments were his +own. Upon every subject he thought for himself; and such was his +copiousness of knowledge, that something at once remote and +applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always +rejected a commodious idea merely because another had used it: his +known wealth was so great that be might have borrowed without loss +of credit, in his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last lines have +such resemblance to the noble epigram of Grotius on the death of +Scaliger, that I cannot but think them copied from it, though they +are copied by no servile hand. + +One passage in his "Mistress" is so apparently borrowed from Donne, +that he probably would not have written it had it not mingled with +his own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive himself taking it +from another: + + +Although I think thou never found wilt be, + Yet I'm resolved to search for thee; + The search itself rewards the pains. +So, though the chymic his great secret miss +(For neither it in Art or Nature is), + Yet things well worth his toil he gains: + And does his charge and labour pay +With good unsought experiments by the way.--COWLEY. + +Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I, +Say, where his centric happiness doth lie: + I have loved, and got, and told; +But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, +I should not find that hidden mystery; + Oh, 'tis imposture all! +And as no chymic yet th' elixir got, + But glorifies his pregnant pot, + If by the way to him befal +Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, + So lovers dream a rich and long delight, + But get a winter-seeming summer's night. + + +Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest +esteem. + +It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his +obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have found +no traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to have +been his purpose.; and from Donne ~he may have learnt that +familiarity with religious images, and that light allusion to sacred +things, by which readers far short of sanctity are frequently +offended; and which would not be borne in the present age, when +devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate. + +Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will +recompense him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed from +him. He says of Goliath: + + +His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, +Which Nature meant some tall ship's mast should be. + + +Milton of Satan: + + +His spear, to equal which the tallest pine +Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast +Of some great ammiral, were but a wand, +He walked with. + + +His diction was in his own time censured as negligent. He seems not +to have known, or not to have considered, that words being arbitrary +must owe their power to association, and have the influence, and +that only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of +thought; and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be +degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross +employments of rustics or mechanics; so the most heroic sentiments +will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their +magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low +and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by +inelegant applications. + +Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have +an intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual +gold which defies destruction; but gold may be so concealed in baser +matter, that only a chemist can recover it; sense may be so hidden +in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can +distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to +pay the cost of their extraction. + +The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents +itself to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, +a further knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes to +benefit by pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind +imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must +always surprise. What is perceived by slow degrees may gratify us +with the consciousness of improvement, but will never strike with +the sense of pleasure. + +Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or +without care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any +neatness of phrase: he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate; +as his endeavours were rather to impress sentences upon the +understanding, than images on the fancy: he has few epithets, and +those scattered without peculiar propriety of nice adaptation. + +It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather than +the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is less +familiar than that of his slightest writings. He has given not the +same numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the +tempestuous Pindar. + +His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and if +what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only when +they are ill-read, the art of reading them is at present lost; for +they are commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed many noble +lines, such as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The +bulk of his thoughts sometimes swelled his verse to unexpected and +inevitable grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merely +fortuitous: he sinks willingly down to his general carelessness, +and avoids with very little care either meanness or asperity. + +His contractions are often rugged and harsh: + + +One flings a mountain, and its rivers too +Torn up with 't. + + +His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the +like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the +energy of the line. + +His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and +unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not +slide easily into the latter. + +The words "do" and "did," which so much degrade in present +estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley +little censured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad +an effect, at least to our ears, will appear by a passage, in which +every reader will lament to see just and noble thoughts defrauded of +their praise by inelegance of language: + + +Where honour or where conscience DOES not bind + No other law shall shackle me; + Slave to myself I ne'er will be; +Nor shall my future actions be confined + By my own present mind. +Who by resolves and vows engaged DOES stand + For days, that yet belong to fate, +DOES like an unthrift mortgage his estate, + Before it falls into his hand; + The bondman of the cloister so, +All that he DOES receive DOES always owe. +And still as Time comes in, it goes away, + Not to enjoy, but debts to pay! + Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell! +Which his hour's work as well as hours DOES tell: +Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. + + +His heroic lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they are +sometimes sweet and sonorous. + +He says of the Messiah, + + +Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound, +AND REACH TO WORLDS THAT MUST NOT YET BE FOUND. + + +In another place, of David, + + +Yet bid him go securely, when he sends; +'TIS SAUL THAT IS HIS FOE, AND WE HIS FRIENDS. +THE MAN WHO HAS HIS GOD, NO AID CAN LACK; +AND WE WHO BID HIM GO, WILL BRING HIM BACK. + + +Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved and +scientific versification; of which it will be best to give his own +account subjoined to this line: + + +Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space. + + +"I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of +readers, that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, +long, and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the nature +of the thing which it describes, which I would have observed in +divers other places of this poem, that else will pass as very +careless verses: as before, + +AND OVER-RUNS THE NEIGHB'RING FIELDS WITH VIOLENT COURSE. + +"In the second book: + +DOWN A PRECIPICE DEEP, DOWSE HE CASTS THEM ALL - + +"And, + +AND FELL A-DOWN HIS SHOULDERS WITH LOOSE CARE. + +"In the third, + +BRASS WAS HIS HELMET, HIS BOOTS BRASS, AND O'ER +HIS BREAST A THICK PLATE STRONG BRASS HE WORE. + +"In the fourth, + +LIKE SOME FAIR PINE O'ER-LOOKING ALL THE IGNOBLER WOOD. + +"And, + +SOME FROM THE ROCKS CAST THEMSELVES DOWN HEADLONG. + +"And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. The thing +is, that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, as +that, out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves may +be represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind +themselves to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught +I can find. The Latins (qui musas colunt severiores) sometimes did +it; and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples are +innumerable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it is +superfluous to collect them." + + +I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the +representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate +only sound and motion. A "boundless" verse, a "headlong" verse, and +a verse of "brass" or of "strong brass," seem to comprise very +incongruous and unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the +sound of the line expressing "loose care," I cannot discover; nor +why the "pine" is "taller" in an Alexandrine than in ten syllables. + +But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example +of representative versification, which perhaps no other English line +can equal: + + +Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise: +He, who defers this work from day to day, +Does on a river's bank expecting stay +Till the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone, +WHICH RUNS, AND, AS IT RUNS, FOR EVER SHALL RUN ON. + + +Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at +pleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables, and from him +Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He +considered the verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestic, +and has therefore deviated into that measure when he supposes the +voice heard of the Supreme Being. + +The author of the "Davideis" is commended by Dryden for having +written it in couplets, because he discovered that any staff was too +lyrical for an heroic poem; but this seems to have been known before +by May and Sandys, the translators of the "Pharsalia" and the +"Metamorphoses." + +In the "Davideis" are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect by +the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have +intended to complete them; that this opinion is erroneous, may be +probably concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no +subsequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken +line in the heat of recitation; because in one the sense is now +unfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verse, a +line intersected by a coesura, and a full stop, will equally effect. + +Of triplets in his "Davideis" he makes no use, and perhaps did not +at first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have +changed his mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell he +inserts them liberally with great happiness. + +After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany +them must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of his +conversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion of his +excellence in poetry, may be applied to these compositions. No +author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from +each other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth +and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due +commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured; but all is +easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness. + +It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay on the Classics, that +Cowley was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that he has +rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. + +It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he brought +to his poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and that his +pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could +supply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers the +enthusiasm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he +was equally qualified for sprightly sallies, and for lofty flights; +that he was among those who freed translation from servility, and, +instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his side; +and that, if he left versification yet improvable, he left likewise +from time to time such specimens of excellence as enabled succeeding +poets to improve it. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LIVES OF THE POETS: WALLER, ETC. *** + +This file should be named lvwal10.txt or lvwal10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, lvwal11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lvwal10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/lvwal10.zip b/old/lvwal10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c0f858 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lvwal10.zip diff --git a/old/lvwal10h.htm b/old/lvwal10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37a391e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/lvwal10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6988 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Lives of the Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Lives of the Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley, by Samuel Johnson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lives of the Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley +by Samuel Johnson +(#6 in our series by Samuel Johnson) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Lives of the Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5098] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002] +[Most recently updated: April 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the 1891 +Cassell and Co. edition.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: WALLER, MILTON, COWLEY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents:<br> + Introduction<br> + Waller<br> + Milton<br> + Cowley<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +INTRODUCTION.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Samuel Johnson, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th of September +Old Style, 18th New Style, was sixty-eight years old when he agreed +with the booksellers to write his “Lives of the English Poets.” +“I am engaged,” he said, “to write little Lives, and +little Prefaces, to a little edition of the English Poets.” +His conscience was also a little hurt by the fact that the bargain was +made on Easter Eve. In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers +and meditations, was “29 March, Easter Eve, I treated with booksellers +on a bargain, but the time was not long.”<br> +<br> +The history of the book as told to Boswell by Edward Dilly, one of the +contracting booksellers, was this. An edition of Poets printed +by the Martins in Edinburgh, and sold by Bell in London, was regarded +by the London publishers as an interference with the honorary copyright +which booksellers then respected among themselves. They said also +that it was inaccurately printed and its type was small. A few +booksellers agreed, therefore, among themselves to call a meeting of +proprietors of honorary or actual copyright in the various Poets. +In Poets who had died before 1660 they had no trade interest at all. +About forty of the most respectable booksellers in London accepted the +invitation to this meeting. They determined to proceed immediately +with an elegant and uniform edition of Poets in whose works they were +interested, and they deputed three of their number, William Strahan, +Thomas Davies, and Cadell, to wait on Johnson, asking him to write the +series of prefatory Lives, and name his own terms. Johnson agreed +at once, and suggested as his price two hundred guineas, when, as Malone +says, the booksellers would readily have given him a thousand. +He then contemplated only “little Lives.” His energetic +pleasure in the work expanded his Preface beyond the limits of the first +design; but when it was observed to Johnson that he was underpaid by +the booksellers, his reply was, “No, sir; it was not that they +gave me too little, but that I gave them too much.” He gave +them, in fact, his masterpiece. His keen interest in Literature +as the soul of life, his sympathetic insight into human nature, enabled +him to put all that was best in himself into these studies of the lives +of men for whom he cared, and of the books that he was glad to speak +his mind about in his own shrewd independent way. Boswell was +somewhat disappointed at finding that the selection of the Poets in +this series would not be Johnson’s, but that he was to furnish +a Preface and Life to any Poet the booksellers pleased. “I +asked him,” writes Boswell, “if he would do this to any +dunce’s works, if they should ask him. JOHNSON. “Yes, +sir; and <i>say</i> he was a dunce.”<br> +<br> +The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson’s +intellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the best engravers, +and another committee to give directions about paper and printing. +They made out at once a list of the Poets they meant to give, “many +of which,” said Dilly, “are within the time of the Act of +Queen Anne, which Martin and Bell cannot give, as they have no property +in them. The proprietors are almost all the booksellers in London, +of consequence.”<br> +<br> +In 1780 the booksellers published, in separate form, four volumes of +Johnson’s “Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the most +Eminent of the English Poets.” The completion followed in +1781. “Sometime in March,” Johnson writes in that +year, “I finished the Lives of the Poets.” The series +of books to which they actually served as prefaces extended to sixty +volumes. When his work was done, Johnson then being in his seventy-second +year, the booksellers added £100 to the price first asked. +Johnson’s own life was then near its close. He died on the +13th of December, 1784, aged seventy-five.<br> +<br> +Of the Lives in this collection, Johnson himself liked best his Life +of Cowley, for the thoroughness with which he had examined in it the +style of what he called the metaphysical Poets. In his Life of +Milton, the sense of Milton’s genius is not less evident than +the difference in point of view which made it difficult for Johnson +to know Milton thoroughly. They know each other now. For +Johnson sought as steadily as Milton to do all as “in his great +Taskmaster’s eye.”<br> +<br> +H. M.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +WALLER.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Edmund Waller was born on the third of March, 1605, at Coleshill, in +Hertfordshire. His father was Robert Waller, Esquire, of Agmondesham, +in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a branch of the Kentish +Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of John Hampden, of Hampden, +in the same county, and sister to Hampden, the zealot of rebellion.<br> +<br> +His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly income +of three thousand five hundred pounds; which, rating together the value +of money and the customs of life, we may reckon more than equivalent +to ten thousand at the present time.<br> +<br> +He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed afterwards +to King’s College, in Cambridge. He was sent to Parliament +in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and frequented the +court of James the First, where he heard a very remarkable conversation, +which the writer of the Life prefixed to his Works, who seems to have +been well informed of facts, though he may sometimes err in chronology, +has delivered as indubitably certain:<br> +<br> +“He found Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neale, Bishop +of Durham, standing behind his Majesty’s chair; and there happened +something extraordinary,” continues this writer, “in the +conversation those prelates had with the king, on which Mr. Waller did +often reflect. His Majesty asked the bishops, ‘My Lords, +cannot I take my subject’s money, when I want it, without all +this formality of Parliament?’ The Bishop of Durham readily +answered, ‘God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the breath +of our nostrils.’ Whereupon the king turned and said to +the Bishop of Winchester, ‘Well, my Lord, what say you?’ +‘Sir,’ replied the bishop, ‘I have no skill to judge +of Parliamentary cases. The king answered, ‘No put-offs, +my Lord; answer me presently.’ ‘Then, Sir,’ +said he, ‘I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale’s +money; for he offers it.’ Mr. Waller said the company was +pleased with this answer, and the wit of it seemed to affect the king; +for a certain lord coming in soon after, his Majesty cried out, ‘Oh, +my lord, they say you lig with my Lady.’ ‘No, Sir,’ +says his lordship in confusion; ‘but I like her company, because +she has so much wit.’ ‘Why, then,’ says the +king, ‘do you not lig with my Lord of Winchester there?’”<br> +<br> +Waller’s political and poetical life began nearly together. +In his eighteenth year he wrote the poem that appears first in his works, +on “The Prince’s Escape at St. Andero:” a piece which +justifies the observation made by one of his editors, that he attained, +by a felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be obsolete; +and that “were we to judge only by the wording, we could not know +what was wrote at twenty, and what at’ fourscore.” +His versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his +last performance. By the perusal of Fairfax’s translation +of Tasso, to which, as Dryden relates, he confessed himself indebted +for the smoothness of his numbers, and by his own nicety of observation, +he had already formed such a system of metrical harmony as he never +afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve. Denham +corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually upon +the ruggedness of his age; but what was acquired by Denham was inherited +by Waller.<br> +<br> +The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is supposed +by Mr. Fenton to be the “Address to the Queen,” which he +considers as congratulating her arrival, in Waller’s twentieth +year. He is apparently mistaken; for the mention of the nation’s +obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written when +she had brought many children. We have therefore no date of any +other poetical production before that which the murder of the Duke of +Buckingham occasioned; the steadiness with which the king received the +news in the chapel deserved indeed to be rescued from oblivion.<br> +<br> +Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could have +been the sudden effusion of fancy. In the verses on the prince’s +escape, the prediction of his marriage with the Princess of France must +have been written after the event; in the other, the promises of the +king’s kindness to the descendants of Buckingham, which could +not be properly praised till it had appeared by its effects, show that +time was taken for revision and improvement. It is not known that +they were published till they appeared long afterwards with other poems.<br> +<br> +Waller was not one of those idolaters of praise who cultivate their +minds at the expense of their fortunes. Rich as he was by inheritance, +he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs. Banks, a great heiress +in the city, whom the interest of the court was employed to obtain for +Mr. Crofts. Having brought him a son, who died young, and a daughter, +who was afterwards married to Mr. Dormer, of Oxfordshire, she died in +childbed, and left him a widower of about five-and-twenty, gay and wealthy, +to please himself with another marriage.<br> +<br> +Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think himself +resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly and half-ambitiously, +upon the Lady Dorothea Sidney, eldest daughter of the Earl of Leicester, +whom he courted by all the poetry in which Sacharissa is celebrated; +the name is derived from the Latin appellation of “sugar,” +and implies, if it means anything, a spiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, +such as excites rather tenderness and esteem, and such as, though always +treated with kindness, is never honoured or admired.<br> +<br> +Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, of lofty +charms, and imperious influence, on whom he looks with amazement rather +than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in vain, to break, and +whose presence is “wine” that “inflames to madness.”<br> +<br> +His acquaintance with this high-born dame gave wit no opportunity of +boasting its influence; she was not to be subdued by the powers of verse, +but rejected his addresses, it is said, with disdain, and drove him +away to solace his disappointment with Amoret or Phillis. She +married in 1639 the Earl of Sunderland, who died at Newbury in the king’s +cause; and, in her old age, meeting somewhere with Waller, asked him, +when he would again write such verses upon her; “When you are +as young, Madam,” said he, “and as handsome as you were +then.”<br> +<br> +In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon, among +the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius and literature; +but known so little to his advantage, that they who read his character +will not much condemn Sacharissa, that she did not descend from her +rank to his embraces, nor think every excellence comprised in wit.<br> +<br> +The lady was, indeed, inexorable; but his uncommon comprised in wit, +qualifications, though they had no power upon her, recommended him to +the scholars and statesmen; and undoubtedly many beauties of that time, +however they might receive his love, were proud of his praises. +Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names, cannot now be +known. Amoret, according to Mr. Fenton, was the Lady Sophia Murray. +Perhaps by traditions preserved in families more may be discovered.<br> +<br> +From the verses written at Penshurst, it has been collected that he +diverted his disappointment by a voyage; and his biographers, from his +poem on the Whales, think it not improbable that he visited the Bermudas; +but it seems much more likely that he should amuse himself with forming +an imaginary scene, than that so important an incident, as a visit to +America, should have been left floating in conjectural probability.<br> +<br> +From his twenty-eighth to his thirty-fifth year, he wrote his pieces +on the Reduction of Sallee; on the Reparation of St. Paul’s; to +the King on his Navy; the Panegyric on the Queen Mother; the two poems +to the Earl of Northumberland; and perhaps others, of which the time +cannot be discovered.<br> +<br> +When he had lost all hopes of Sacharissa, he looked round him for an +easier conquest, and gained a lady of the family of Bresse, or Breaux. +The time of his marriage is not exactly known. It has not been +discovered that his wife was won by his poetry; nor is anything told +of her, but that she brought him many children. He doubtless praised +some whom he would have been afraid to marry, and perhaps married one +whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute +to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and +many airs and sallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters +them never can approve. There are charms made only for distant +admiration. No spectacle is nobler than a blaze.<br> +<br> +Of this wife, his biographers have recorded that she gave him five sons +and eight daughters.<br> +<br> +During the long interval of Parliament, he is represented as living +among those with whom it was most honourable to converse, and enjoying +an exuberant fortune with that independence and liberty of speech and +conduct which wealth ought always to produce. He was, however, +considered as the kinsman of Hampden, and was therefore supposed by +the courtiers not to favour them.<br> +<br> +When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller’s +political character had not been mistaken. The king’s demand +of a supply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection +and discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical +complaints of imaginary grievances: “They,” says he, “who +think themselves already undone, can never apprehend themselves in danger; +and they who have nothing left can never give freely.” Political +truth is equally in danger from the praises of courtiers, and the exclamations +of patriots.<br> +<br> +He then proceeds to rail at the clergy, being sure at that time of a +favourable audience. His topic is such as will always serve its +purpose; an accusation of acting and preaching only for preferment: +and he exhorts the Commons “carefully” to “provide” +for their “protection against Pulpit Law.”<br> +<br> +It always gratifies curiosity to trace a sentiment. Waller has +in his speech quoted Hooker in one passage; and in another has copied +him, without quoting. “Religion,” says Waller, “ought +to be the first thing in our purpose and desires; but that which is +first in dignity is not always to precede in order of time; for well-being +supposes a being; and the first impediment which men naturally endeavour +to remove, is the want of those things without which they cannot subsist. +God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life, and gave him a title +to the rest of the creatures before he appointed a law to observe.”<br> +<br> +“God first assigned Adam,” says Hooker, “maintenance +of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. True it is, +that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purpose and desires; +but inasmuch as a righteous life presupposeth life, inasmuch as to live +virtuously it is impossible, except we live; therefore the first impediment +which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and want of things +without which we cannot live.”<br> +<br> +The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances ought +to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to +law and reason: nor was Waller, if his biographer may be credited, such +an enemy to the king, as not to wish his distresses lightened; for he +relates, “that the king sent particularly to Waller, to second +his demand of some subsidies to pay off the army, and Sir Henry Vane +objecting against first voting a supply, because the king would not +accept unless it came up to his proportion, Mr. Waller spoke earnestly +to Sir Thomas Jermyn, comptroller of the household, to save his master +from the effects of so bold a falsity; ‘for,’ he said, ‘I +am but a country gentleman, and cannot pretend to know the king’s +mind:’ but Sir Thomas durst not contradict the secretary; and +his son, the Earl of St. Albans, afterwards told Mr. Waller, that his +father’s cowardice ruined the king.”<br> +<br> +In the Long Parliament, which, unhappily for the nation, met Nov. 3, +1640, Waller represented Agmondesham the third time; and was considered +by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty and acrimonious +to be employed in managing the prosecution of Judge Crawley, for his +opinion in favour of ship-money; and his speech shows that he did not +disappoint their expectations. He was probably the more ardent, +as his uncle Hampden had been particularly engaged in the dispute, and, +by a sentence which seems generally to be thought unconstitutional, +particularly injured.<br> +<br> +He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their opinions. +When the great question, whether Episcopacy ought to be abolished, was +debated, he spoke against the innovation so coolly, so reasonably, and +so firmly, that it is not without great injury to his name that his +speech, which was as follows, has been hitherto omitted in his works:<br> +<br> +“There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered +from the present bishops hath produced these complaints; and the apprehensions +men have of suffering the like, in time to come, make so many desire +the taking away of Episcopacy: but I conceive it is possible that we +may not, now, take a right measure of the minds of the people by their +petitions; for, when they subscribed them, the bishops were armed with +a dangerous commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and +the like; but now we have disarmed them of that power. These petitioners +lately did look upon Episcopacy as a beast armed with horns and claws; +but now that we have cut and pared them (and may, if we see cause, yet +reduce it into narrower bounds), it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. +Howsoever, if they be still in passion, it becomes us soberly to consider +the right use and antiquity thereof; and not to comply further with +a general desire, than may stand with a general good.<br> +<br> +“We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof +are mingled like water and oil; we have also, in part, severed them; +but I believe you will find, that our laws and the present government +of the Church are mingled like wine and water; so inseparable, that +the abrogation of, at least, a hundred of our laws is desired in these +petitions. I have often heard a noble answer of the Lords, commended +in this House, to a proposition of like nature, but of less consequence; +they gave no other reason of their refusal but this, ‘<i>Nolumus +mutare Leges Angliæ</i>:’ it was the bishops who so answered +them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this House to answer +the people, now, with a <i>‘Nolumus mutare.</i>’<br> +<br> +“I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops; +which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence; for I look upon +Episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which, if it be taken by this +assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once revealed, ‘that +we must deny them nothing when they ask it thus in troops,’ we +may, in the next place, have as hard a task to defend our property, +as we have lately had to recover it from the Prerogative. If, +by multiplying hands and petitions, they prevail for an equality in +things ecclesiastical, the next demand perhaps may be <i>Lex Agraria, +</i>the like equality in things temporal.<br> +<br> +“The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to flock +about the Senate, and were more curious to direct and know what was +done, than to obey, that Commonwealth soon came to ruin; their <i>Legem +regare </i>grew quickly to be a <i>Legem ferre: </i>and after, when +their legions had found that they could make a Dictator, they never +suffered the Senate to have a voice any more in such election.<br> +<br> +“If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a flat and +level in learning too, as well as in Church preferments:<i> Hones alit +Artes</i>. And though it be true, that grave and pious men do +study for learning-sake, and embrace virtue for itself; yet it is true, +that youth, which is the season when learning is gotten, is not without +ambition; nor will ever take pains to excel in anything, when there +is not some hope of excelling others in reward and dignity.<br> +<br> +“There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Church government.<br> +<br> +“First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out another +form.<br> +<br> +“Second, the abuses of the present superiors.<br> +<br> +“For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am +confident that, whenever an equal division of lands and goods shall +be desired, there will be as many places in Scripture found out, which +seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against the prelacy or +preferment of the Church. And, as for abuses, when you are now +in the remonstrance told what this and that poor man hath suffered by +the bishops, you may be presented with a thousand instances of poor +men that have received hard measure from their landlords; and of worldly +goods abused, to the injury of others, and disadvantage of the owners.<br> +<br> +“And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is that we may settle +men’s minds herein; and by a question, declare our resolution, +‘to reform,’ that is, ‘not to abolish, Episcopacy.’”<br> +<br> +It cannot but be wished that he, who could speak in this manner, had +been able to act with spirit and uniformity.<br> +<br> +When the Commons begun to set the royal authority at open defiance, +Waller is said to have withdrawn from the House, and to have returned +with the king’s permission; and, when the king set up his standard, +he sent him a thousand broad-pieces. He continued, however, to +sit in the rebellious conventicle; but “spoke,” says Clarendon, +“with great sharpness and freedom, which, now there was no danger +of being out-voted, was not restrained; and therefore used as an argument +against those who were gone upon pretence that they were not suffered +to deliver their opinion freely in the House, which could not be believed, +when all men knew what liberty Mr. Waller took, and spoke every day +with impunity against the sense and proceedings of the House.”<br> +<br> +Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners nominated +by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and when they were +presented, the king said to him, “Though you are the last, you +are not the lowest nor the least in my favour.” Whitelock, +who, being another of the commissioners, was witness of this kindness, +imputes it to the king’s knowledge of the plot, in which Waller +appeared afterwards to have been engaged against the Parliament. +Fenton, with equal probability, believes that his attempt to promote +the royal cause arose from his sensibility of the king’s tenderness. +Whitelock says nothing of his behaviour at Oxford: he was sent with +several others to add pomp to the commission, but was not one of those +to whom the trust of treating was imparted.<br> +<br> +The engagement, known by the name of Waller’s plot, was soon afterwards +discovered. Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who was clerk +of the queen’s council, and at the same time had a very numerous +acquaintance, and great influence, in the city. Waller and he, +conversing with great confidence, told both their own secrets and those +of their friends; and, surveying the wide extent of their conversation, +imagined that they found in the majority of all ranks great disapprobation +of the violence of the Commons, and unwillingness to continue the war. +They knew that many favoured the king, whose fear concealed their loyalty; +and many desired peace, though they durst not oppose the clamour for +war; and they imagined that, if those who had these good intentions +should be informed of their own strength, and enabled by intelligence +to act together, they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing +to comply with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes +levied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting great numbers +in a petition for peace. They proceeded with great caution. +Three only met in one place, and no man was allowed to impart the plot +to more than two others; so that, if any should be suspected or seized, +more than three could not be endangered.<br> +<br> +Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines, incidentally +mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or projects, which +however were only mentioned, the main design being to bring the loyal +inhabitants to the knowledge of each other; for which purpose there +was to be appointed one in every district, to distinguish the friends +of the king, the adherents to the Parliament, and the neutrals. +How far they proceeded does not appear; the result of their inquiry, +as Pym declared, was, that within the walls, for one that was for the +Royalists, there were three against them; but that without the walls, +for one that was against them, there were five for them. Whether +this was said from knowledge or guess, was perhaps never inquired.<br> +<br> +It is the opinion of Clarendon, that in Waller’s plan no violence +or sanguinary resistance was comprised; that he intended only to abate +the confidence of the rebels by public declarations, and to weaken their +powers by an opposition to new supplies. This, in calmer times, +and more than this, is done without fear; but such was the acrimony +of the Commons, that no method of obstructing them was safe.<br> +<br> +About this time another design was formed by Sir Nicholas Crispe, a +man of loyalty, that deserves perpetual remembrance; when he was a merchant +in the city, he gave and procured the king, in his exigencies, a hundred +thousand pounds; and, when he was driven from the Exchange, raised a +regiment, and commanded it.<br> +<br> +Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some provocation +would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much encourage, the +king’s friends in the city, that they would break out in open +resistance, and would then want only a lawful standard, and an authorised +commander; and extorted from the king, whose judgment too frequently +yielded to importunity, a commission of array, directed to such as he +thought proper to nominate, which was sent to London by the Lady Aubigny. +She knew not what she carried, but was to deliver it on the communication +of a certain token which Sir Nicholas imparted.<br> +<br> +This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the time should +require it. To have attempted to raise any forces would have been +certain destruction; it could be of use only when the forces should +appear. This was, however, an act preparatory to martial hostility.<br> +<br> +Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of Parliament, +had his strength been equal to his zeal; and out of the design of Crispe, +which involved very little danger, and that of Waller, which was an +act purely civil, they compounded a horrid and dreadful plot.<br> +<br> +The discovery of Waller’s design is variously related.<br> +<br> +In “Clarendon’s History” it is told, that a servant +of Tomkyns, lurking behind the hangings when his master was in conference +with Waller, heard enough to qualify him for an informer, and carried +his intelligence to Pym.<br> +<br> +A manuscript, quoted in the “Life of Waller,” relates, that +“he was betrayed by his sister Price, and her Presbyterian chaplain +Mr. Goode, who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangely +dreamed the night before, that his sister had betrayed him, and thereupon +burnt the rest of his papers by the fire that was in his chimney, he +had certainly lost his life by it.” The question cannot +be decided. It is not unreasonable to believe that the men in +power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the servant +of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might avoid an act +so offensive as that of destroying the brother by the sister’s +testimony.<br> +<br> +The plot was published in the most terrific manner.<br> +<br> +On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were listening +to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and communicated his +errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that were placed near him, +and then went with them out of the church, leaving the rest in solicitude +and amazement. They immediately sent guards to proper places, +and that night apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; having yet traced nothing +but that letters had been intercepted, from which it appears that the +Parliament and the city were soon to be delivered into the hands of +the cavaliers.<br> +<br> +They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and indistinct +notices. “But Waller,” says Clarendon, “was +so confounded with fear, that he confessed whatever he had heard, said, +thought, or seen; all that he knew of himself, and all that he suspected +of others, without concealing any person of what degree or quality soever, +or any discourse which he had ever upon any occasion entertained with +them; what such and such ladies of great honour, to whom, upon the credit +of his wit and great reputation, he had been admitted, had spoken to +him in their chambers upon the proceedings in the Houses, and how they +had encouraged him to oppose them; what correspondence and intercourse +they had with some Ministers of State at Oxford, and how they had conveyed +all intelligence thither.” He accused the Earl of Portland +and Lord Conway as co-operating in the transaction; and testified that +the Earl of Northumberland had declared himself disposed in favour of +any attempt that might check the violence of the Parliament, and reconcile +them to the king.<br> +<br> +He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have discovered, +and perhaps somewhat which they would wish to have been suppressed; +for it is inconvenient in the conflict of factions, to have that disaffection +known which cannot safely be punished.<br> +<br> +Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears likewise +to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of Crispe’s +commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew how it was discovered. +Tomkyns had been sent with the token appointed, to demand it from Lady +Aubigny, and had buried it in his garden, where, by his direction, it +was dug up; and thus the rebels obtained, what Clarendon confesses them +to have had, the original copy.<br> +<br> +It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two designs, +however remote from each other, when they saw the same agent employed +in both, and found the commission of array in the hands of him who was +employed in collecting the opinions and affections of the people.<br> +<br> +Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. They +sent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent danger and +happy escape; and inform them, that the design was, “to seize +the Lord Mayor and all the Committee of Militia, and would not spare +one of them.” They drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken +by every member of either House, by which he declared his detestation +of all conspiracies against the Parliament, and his resolution to detect +and oppose them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for +this wonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubts +whether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot was +real or fictitious.<br> +<br> +On June 11, the Earl of Portland and Lord Conway were committed, one +to the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff; but their +lands and goods were not seized.<br> +<br> +Waller was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The Earl +of Portland and Lord Conway denied the charge; and there was no evidence +against them but the confession of Waller, of which undoubtedly many +would be inclined to question the veracity. With these doubts +he was so much terrified, that he endeavoured to persuade Portland to +a declaration like his own, by a letter extant in Fenton’s edition. +“But for me,” says he, “you had never known anything +of this business, which was prepared for another; and therefore I cannot +imagine why you should hide it so far as to contract your own ruin by +concealing it, and persisting unreasonably to hide that truth, which, +without you, already is, and will every day be made more manifest. +Can you imagine yourself bound in honour to keep that secret, which +is already revealed by another? or possible it should still be a secret, +which is known to one of the other sex? - If you persist to be cruel +to yourself for their sakes who deserve it not, it will nevertheless +be made appear, ere long, I fear, to your ruin. Surely, if I had +the happiness to wait on you, I could move you to compassionate both +yourself and me, who, desperate as my case is, am desirous to die with +the honour of being known to have declared the truth. You have +no reason to contend to hide what is already revealed - inconsiderately +to throw away yourself, for the interest of others, to whom you are +less obliged than you are aware of.”<br> +<br> +This persuasion seems to have had little effect. Portland sent +(June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he “is in custody, +as he conceives, without any charge; and that, by what Mr. Waller hath +threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very +cruel, long, and ruinous restraint:- He therefore prays, that he may +not find the effects of Mr. Waller’s threats, a long and close +imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legal trial, and then +he is confident the vanity and falsehood of those informations which +have been given against him will appear.”<br> +<br> +In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Waller +to be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the other his +denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1), +Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having +had a conference with the Lord Portland in an upper room, Lord Portland +said, when he came down, “Do me the favour to tell my Lord Northumberland, +that Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save my own life and his, +by throwing the blame upon the Lord Conway and the Earl of Northumberland.”<br> +<br> +Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which he +could urge with resistless efficacy in a personal conference; but he +overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion or entreaty, +was returned with contempt.<br> +<br> +One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already known +to a woman. This woman was doubtless Lady Aubigny, who, upon this +occasion, was committed to custody; but who, in reality, when she delivered +the commission, knew not what it was.<br> +<br> +The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and committed +their trial to a council of war. Tomkyns and Chaloner were hanged +near their own doors. Tomkyns, when he came to die, said it was +a “foolish business;” and indeed there seems to have been +no hope that it should escape discovery; for, though never more than +three met at a time, yet a design so extensive must by necessity be +communicated to many who could not be expected to be all faithful and +all prudent. Chaloner was attended at his execution by Hugh Peters. +His crime was, that he had commission to raise money for the king; but +it appears not that the money was to be expended upon the advancement +of either Crispe’s or Waller’s plot.<br> +<br> +The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was only +once examined before the Lords. The Earl of Portland and Lord +Conway persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller’s +yet appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, admitted +to bail. Hassel, the king’s messenger, who carried the letters +to Oxford, died the night before his trial. Hampden [Alexander] +escaped death, perhaps by the interest of his family; but was kept in +prison to the end of his life. They whose names were inserted +in the commission of array were not capitally punished, as it could +not be proved that they had consented to their own nomination; but they +were considered as malignants, and their estates were seized.<br> +<br> +“Waller, though confessedly,” says Clarendon, “the +most guilty, with incredible dissimulation affected such a remorse of +conscience, that his trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, +till he might recover his understanding.” What use he made +of this interval, with what liberality and success he distributed flattery +and money, and how, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he +confessed and lamented, and submitted and implored, may be read in the +“History of the Rebellion” (B. vii.). The speech, +to which Clarendon ascribes the preservation of his “dear-bought +life,” is inserted in his works. The great historian, however, +seems to have been mistaken in relating that “he prevailed” +in the principal part of his supplication, “not to be tried by +a council of war;” for, according to Whitelock, he was by expulsion +from the House abandoned to the tribunal which he so much dreaded, and, +being tried and condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after a year’s +imprisonment, in which time resentment grew less acrimonious, paying +a fine of ten thousand pounds, he was permitted to “recollect +himself in another country.”<br> +<br> +Of his behaviour in this part of life, it is not necessary to direct +the reader’s opinion. “Let us not,” says his +last ingenious biographer, “condemn him with untempered severity, +because he was not a prodigy which the world hath seldom seen, because +his character included not the poet, the orator, and the hero.”<br> +<br> +For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time at +Roan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards his favourite, +and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where he lived with +great splendour and hospitality; and from time to time amused himself +with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, +in the natural language of an honest man.<br> +<br> +At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife’s +jewels; and being reduced, as he said, at last “to the rump-jewel,” +he solicited from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it by +the interest of Colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. +Upon the remains of a fortune, which the danger of his life had very +much diminished, he lived at Hallbarn, a house built by himself very +near to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, though +related to Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause, and, +when Cromwell visited her, used to reproach him; he, in return, would +throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute with his aunt; but +finding in time that she acted for the king, as well as talked, he made +her a prisoner to her own daughter, in her own house. If he would +do anything, he could not do less.<br> +<br> +Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to familiar +conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently +versed in ancient history; and, when any of his enthusiastic friends +came to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing +in the cant of the times: but, when he returned, he would say, “Cousin +Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way;” and resumed +the common style of conversation.<br> +<br> +He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous Panegyric, +which has been always considered as the first of his poetical productions. +His choice of encomiastic topics is very judicious; for he considers +Cromwell in his exaltation, without inquiring how he attained it; there +is consequently no mention of the rebel or the regicide. All the +former part of his hero’s life is veiled with shades; and nothing +is brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England’s +honour, and the enlarger of her dominion. The act of violence +by which he obtained the supreme power is lightly treated, and decently +justified. It was certainly to be desired that the detestable +band should be dissolved, which had destroyed the Church, murdered the +king, and filled the nation with tumult and oppression; yet Cromwell +had not the right of dissolving them, for all that he had before done +could be justified only by supposing them invested with lawful authority. +But combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the advantage +which licentious principles afford, did not those, who have long practised +perfidy, grow faithless to each other.<br> +<br> +In the poem on the War with Spain are some passages at least equal to +the best parts of the Panegyric; and, in the conclusion, the poet ventures +yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty to Cromwell +and the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears from his +conversation, related by Whitelock, of adding the title to the power +of monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from it partly by +fear of the army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, when he should +govern by the name of king, would have restrained his authority. +When, therefore, a deputation was solemnly sent to invite him to the +crown, he, after a long conference, refused it, but is said to have +fainted in his coach when he parted from them.<br> +<br> +The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been dictated by +real veneration for his memory. Dryden and Sprat wrote on the +same occasion; but they were young men, struggling into notice, and +hoping for some favour from the ruling party. Waller had little +to expect; he had received nothing but his pardon from Cromwell, and +was not likely to ask anything from those who should succeed him.<br> +<br> +Soon afterwards, the Restoration supplied him with another subject; +and he exerted his imagination, his elegance, and his melody, with equal +alacrity, for Charles the Second. It is not possible to read, +without some contempt and indignation, poems of the same author, ascribing +the highest degree of “power and piety” to Charles the First, +then transferring the same “power and piety” to Oliver Cromwell; +now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and then congratulating Charles +the Second on his recovered right. Neither Cromwell nor Charles +could value his testimony as the effect of conviction, or receive his +praises as effusions of reverence; they could consider them but as the +labour of invention, and the tribute of dependence.<br> +<br> +Poets, indeed, profess fiction; but the legitimate end of fiction is +the conveyance of truth, and he that has flattery ready for all whom +the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt must be scorned as a prostituted +mind, that may retain the glitter of wit, but has lost the dignity of +virtue.<br> +<br> +The Congratulation was considered as inferior in poetical merit to the +Panegyric; and it is reported that, when the king told Waller of the +disparity, he answered, “Poets, Sir, succeed better in fiction +than in truth.”<br> +<br> +The Congratulation is indeed not inferior to the Panegyric, either by +decay of genius, or for want of diligence, but because Cromwell had +done much and Charles had done little. Cromwell wanted nothing +to raise him to heroic excellence but virtue, and virtue his poet thought +himself at liberty to supply. Charles had yet only the merit of +struggling without success, and suffering without despair. A life +of escapes and indigence could supply poetry with no splendid images.<br> +<br> +In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, 1661), +Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for different places +in all the Parliaments of that reign. In a time when fancy and +gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is not likely +that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that +was highest, both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety +did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by +his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; +and Mr. Saville said, that “no man in England should keep him +company without drinking but Ned Waller.”<br> +<br> +The praise given him by St. Evremond is a proof of his reputation; for +it was only by his reputation that he could be known, as a writer, to +a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life upon an English +pension, never consented to understand the language of the nation that +maintained him.<br> +<br> +In Parliament, “he was,” says Burnet, “the delight +of the House, and though old, said the liveliest things of any among +them.” This, however, is said in his account of the year +seventy-five, when Waller was only seventy. His name as a speaker +occurs often in Grey’s Collections, but I have found no extracts +that can be more quoted as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency +of argument.<br> +<br> +He was of such consideration, that his remarks were circulated and recorded. +When the Duke of York’s influence was high, both in Scotland and +England, it drew, says Burnet, a lively reflection from Waller, the +celebrated wit. He said, “The House of Commons had resolved +that the duke should not reign after the king’s death: but the +king, in opposition to them, had resolved that he should reign even +in his life.” If there appear no extraordinary “liveliness” +in this “remark,” yet its reception proves its speaker to +have been a “celebrated wit,” to have had a name which men +of wit were proud of mentioning.<br> +<br> +He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may easily +happen in a long life, but renewed his claim to poetical distinction +from time to time, as occasions were offered, either by public events +or private incidents; and, contenting himself with the influence of +his Muse, or loving quiet better than influence, he never accepted any +office of magistracy.<br> +<br> +He was not, however, without some attention to his fortune, for he asked +from the king (in 1665) the provostship of Eton College, and obtained +it; but Clarendon refused to put the seal to the grant, alleging that +it could be held only by a clergyman. It is known that Sir Henry +Wotton qualified himself for it by deacon’s orders.<br> +<br> +To this opposition, the Biographia imputes the violence and acrimony +with which Waller joined Buckingham’s faction in the prosecution +of Clarendon. The motive was illiberal and dishonest, and showed +that more than sixty years had not been able to teach him morality. +His accusation is such as conscience can hardly be supposed to dictate +without the help of malice. “We were to be governed by Janizaries +instead of Parliaments, and are in danger from a worse plot than that +of the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons had been destroyed, +there had been a succession; but here both had been destroyed for ever.” +This is the language of a man who is glad of an opportunity to rail, +and ready to sacrifice truth to interest at one time, and to anger at +another.<br> +<br> +A year after the chancellor’s banishment, another vacancy gave +him encouragement for another petition, which the king referred to the +Council, who, after hearing the question argued by lawyers for three +days, determined that the office could be held only by a clergyman, +according to the Act of Uniformity, since the provosts had always received +institution as for a parsonage from the Bishops of Lincoln. The +king then said he could not break the law which he had made; and Dr. +Zachary Cradock, famous for a single sermon, at most for two sermons, +was chosen by the Fellows.<br> +<br> +That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that he obtained +nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court through the rest +of Charles’s reign.<br> +<br> +At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for Parliament, +being then fourscore, at Saltash, in Cornwall; and wrote a Presage of +the Downfall of the Turkish Empire, which he presented to the king on +his birthday. It is remarked, by his commentator Fenton, that +in reading Tasso he had early imbibed a veneration for the heroes of +the Holy War, and a zealous enmity to the Turks, which never left him. +James, however, having soon after begun what he thought a holy war at +home, made haste to put all molestation of the Turks out of his power.<br> +<br> +James treated him with kindness and familiarity, of which instances +are given by the writer of his life. One day, taking him into +the closet, the king asked him how he liked one of the pictures: “My +eyes,” said Waller, “are dim, and I do not know it.” +The king said it was the Princess of Orange. “She is,” +said Waller, “like the greatest woman in the world.” +The king asked who was that; and was answered, Queen Elizabeth. +“I wonder,” said the king, “you should think so; but +I must confess she had a wise council.” “And, Sir,” +said Waller, “did you ever know a fool choose a wise one?” +Such is the story, which I once heard of some other man. Pointed +axioms, and acute replies, fly loose about the world, and are assigned +successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.<br> +<br> +When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr. Birch, +a clergyman, he ordered a French gentleman to tell him that “the +king wondered he could think of marrying his daughter to a falling church.” +“The king,” said Waller, “does me great honour in +taking notice of my domestic affairs; but I have lived long enough to +observe that this falling church has got a trick of rising again.”<br> +<br> +He took notice to his friends of the king’s conduct; and said +that “he would be left like a whale upon the strand.” +Whether he was privy to any of the transactions that ended in the revolution +is not known. His heir joined the Prince of Orange.<br> +<br> +Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom suffer +life to be extended, otherwise than by a future state, he seems to have +turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive hour, and therefore +consecrated his poetry to devotion. It is pleasing to discover +that his piety was without weakness; that his intellectual powers continued +vigorous; and that the lines which he composed when “he, for age, +could neither read nor write,” are not inferior to the effusions +of his youth.<br> +<br> +Towards the decline of life he bought a small house, with a little land, +at Coleshill; and said “he should be glad to die, like the stag, +where he was roused.” This, however, did not happen. +When he was at Beaconsfield, he found his legs grow tumid: he went to +Windsor, where Sir Charles Scarborough then attended the king, and requested +him, as both a friend and physician, to tell him “what that swelling +meant.” “Sir,” answered Scarborough, “your +blood will run no longer.” Waller repeated some lines of +Virgil, and went home to die.<br> +<br> +As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his departure; +and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy sacrament, he desired +his children to take it with him, and made an earnest declaration of +his faith in Christianity. It now appeared what part of his conversation +with the great could be remembered with delight. He related, that +being present when the Duke of Buckingham talked profanely before King +Charles, he said to him, “My lord, I am a great deal older than +your grace and have, I believe, heard more arguments for atheism than +ever your grace did; but I have lived long enough to see there is nothing +in them; and so, I hope, your grace will.”<br> +<br> +He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a monument +erected by his son’s executors, for which Rymer wrote the inscription, +and which I hope is now rescued from dilapidation.<br> +<br> +He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughter was +married to Dr. Birch. Benjamin, the eldest son, was disinherited, +and sent to New Jersey as wanting common understanding. Edmund, +the second son, inherited the estate, and represented Agmondesham in +parliament, but at last turned quaker. William, the third son, +was a merchant in London. Stephen, the fourth, was an eminent +doctor of laws, and one of the commissioners for the union. There +is said to have been a fifth, of whom no account has descended.<br> +<br> +The character of Waller, both moral and intellectual, has been drawn +by Clarendon, to whom he was familiarly known, with nicety, which certainly +none to whom he was not known can presume to emulate. It is therefore +inserted here, with such remarks as others have supplied; after which, +nothing remains but a critical examination of his poetry.<br> +<br> +“Edmund Waller,” says Clarendon, “was born to a very +fair estate, by the parsimony, or frugality, of a wise father and mother; +and he thought it so commendable an advantage, that he resolved to improve +it with his utmost care, upon which in his nature he was too much intent; +and in order to that, he was so much reserved and retired, that he was +scarcely ever heard of, till by his address and dexterity he had gotten +a very rich wife in the city, against all the recommendation and countenance +and authority of the court, which was thoroughly engaged on the behalf +of Mr. Crofts, and which used to be successful, in that age, against +any opposition. He had the good fortune to have an alliance and +friendship with Dr. Morley, who had assisted and instructed him in the +reading many good books, to which his natural parts and promptitude +inclined him, especially the poets; and at the age when other men used +to give over writing verses (for he was near thirty years when he first +engaged himself in that exercise, at least that he was known to do so), +he surprised the town with two or three pieces of that kind; as if a +tenth Muse had been newly born to cherish drooping poetry. The +doctor at that time brought him into that company which was most celebrated +for good conversation, where he was received and esteemed with great +applause and respect. He was a very pleasant discourser in earnest +and in jest, and therefore very grateful to all kind of company, where +he was not the less esteemed for being very rich.<br> +<br> +He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was very +young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long intermission) +he appeared in those assemblies with great advantage; having a graceful +way of speaking, and by thinking much on several arguments (which his +temper and complexion, that had much of melancholic, inclined him to), +he seemed often to speak upon the sudden, when the occasion had only +administered the opportunity of saying what he had thoroughly considered, +which gave a great lustre to all he said; which yet was rather of delight +than weight. There needs no more be said to extol the excellence +and power of his wit, and pleasantness of his conversation, than that +it was of magnitude enough to cover a world of very great faults; that +is, so to cover them, that they were not taken notice of to his reproach, +viz., a narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree; an abjectness +and want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an insinuation +and servile flattery to the height, the vainest and most imperious nature +could be contented with; that it preserved and won his life from those +who most resolved to take it, and in an occasion in which he ought to +have been ambitious to have lost it; and then preserved him again from +the reproach and the contempt that was due to him for so preserving +it, and for vindicating it at such a price that it had power to reconcile +him to those whom he had most offended and provoked; and continued to +his age with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable where +his spirit was odious; and he was at least pitied where he was most +detested.”<br> +<br> +Such is the account of Clarendon; on which it may not be improper to +make some remarks.<br> +<br> +“He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in +the city.”<br> +<br> +He obtained a rich wife about the age of three-and-twenty; an age, before +which few men are conspicuous much to their advantage. He was +now, however, in parliament and at court; and, if he spent part of his +time in privacy, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he endeavoured +the improvement of his mind as well as his fortune.<br> +<br> +That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the more +probable, because he has evidently mistaken the commencement of his +poetry, which he supposes him not to have attempted before thirty. +As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the succession of his +compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who cannot be imagined to +have been very studious of poetry, did not rectify his first opinion +by consulting Waller’s book.<br> +<br> +Clarendon observes, that he was introduced to the wits of the age by +Dr. Morley; but the writer of his life relates that he was already among +them, when, hearing a noise in the street, and inquiring the cause, +they found a son of Ben Jonson under an arrest. This was Morley, +whom Waller set free at the expense of one hundred pounds, took him +into the country as director of his studies, and then procured him admission +into the company of the friends of literature. Of this fact Clarendon +had a nearer knowledge than the biographer, and is therefore more to +be credited.<br> +<br> +The account of Waller’s parliamentary eloquence is seconded by +Burnet, who, though he calls him “the delight of the House,” +adds, that “he was only concerned to say that which should make +him be applauded, he never laid the business of the House to heart, +being a vain and empty, though a witty man.”<br> +<br> +Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe that +the truth is told. Ascham, in his elegant description of those +whom in modern language we term wits, says, that they are “open +flatterers, and private mockers.” Waller showed a little +of both, when, upon sight of the Duchess of Newcastle’s verses +on the Death of a Stag, he declared that he would give all his own compositions +to have written them, and being charged with the exorbitance of his +adulation, answered, that “nothing was too much to be given, that +a lady might be saved from the disgrace of such a vile performance.” +This, however, was no very mischievous or very unusual deviation from +truth; had his hypocrisy been confined to such transactions, he might +have been forgiven, though not praised: for who forbears to flatter +an author or a lady?<br> +<br> +Of the laxity of his political principles, and the weakness of his resolution, +he experienced the natural effect, by losing the esteem of every party. +From Cromwell he had only his recall; and from Charles the Second, who +delighted in his company, he obtained only the pardon of his relation +Hampden, and the safety of Hampden’s son.<br> +<br> +As far as conjecture can be made from the whole of his writing, and +his conduct, he was habitually and deliberately a friend to monarchy. +His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his connexion with Hampden, +for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with great bitterness; and the +invective which he pronounced on that occasion was so popular, that +twenty thousand copies are said by his biographer to have been sold +in one day.<br> +<br> +It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at least +many companions. His convivial power of pleasing is universally +acknowledged; but those who conversed with him intimately, found him +not only passionate, especially in his old age, but resentful; so that +the interposition of friends was sometimes necessary.<br> +<br> +His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite writers +of his time: he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the translation of +Corneille’s Pompey; and is said to have added his help to that +of Cowley in the original draft of the Rehearsal.<br> +<br> +The care of his fortune, which Clarendon imputes to him in a degree +little less than criminal, was either not constant or not successful; +for having inherited a patrimony of three thousand five hundred pounds +a year in the time of James the First, and augmented at least by one +wealthy marriage, he left, about the time of the Revolution, an income +of not more than twelve or thirteen hundred; which, when the different +value of money is reckoned, will be found perhaps not more than a fourth +part of what he once possessed.<br> +<br> +Of this diminution, part was the consequence of the gifts which he was +forced to scatter, and the fine which he was condemned to pay at the +detection of his plot; and if his estate, as is related in his life, +was sequestered, he had probably contracted debts when he lived in exile; +for we are told, that at Paris he lived in splendour, and was the only +Englishman, except the Lord St. Albans, that kept a table.<br> +<br> +His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the waste +of the rest there is no account, except that he is confessed by his +biographer to have been a bad economist. He seems to have deviated +from the common practice; to have been a hoarder in his first years, +and a squanderer in his last.<br> +<br> +Of his course of studies, or choice of books, nothing is known more +than that he professed himself unable to read Chapman’s translation +of Homer without rapture. His opinion concerning the duty of a +poet is contained in his declaration, that “he would blot from +his works any line that did not contain some motive to virtue.”<br> +<br> +The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writing are +sprightliness and dignity; in his smallest pieces, he endeavours to +be gay; in the larger to be great. Of his airy and light productions, +the chief source is gallantry, that attentive reverence of female excellence +which has descended to us from the Gothic ages. As his poems are +commonly occasional, and his addresses personal, he was not so liberally +supplied with grand as with soft images; for beauty is more easily found +than magnanimity.<br> +<br> +The delicacy, which he cultivated, restrains him to a certain nicety +and caution, even when he writes upon the slightest matter. He +has, therefore, in his whole volume, nothing burlesque, and seldom anything +ludicrous or familiar. He seems always to do his best; though +his subjects are often unworthy of his care.<br> +<br> +It is not easy to think without some contempt on an author, who is growing +illustrious in his own opinion by verses, at one time, “To a Lady, +who can do anything but sleep, when she pleases;” at another, +“To a Lady who can sleep when she pleases;” now, “To +a Lady, on her passing through a crowd of people;” then, “On +a braid of divers colours woven by four Ladies;” “On a tree +cut in paper;” or, “To a Lady, from whom he received the +copy of verses on the paper-tree, which, for many years, had been missing.”<br> +<br> +Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the +Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus: and a writer naturally pleases +himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the subject. +But compositions merely pretty have the fate of other pretty things, +and are quitted in time for something useful; they are flowers fragrant +and fair, but of short duration; or they are blossoms to be valued only +as they foretell fruits.<br> +<br> +Among Waller’s little poems are some, which their excellency ought +to secure from oblivion; as, To Amoret, comparing the different modes +of regard with which he looks on her and Sacharissa; and the verses +on Love, that begin, “Anger in hasty words or blows.”<br> +<br> +In others he is not equally successful; sometimes his thoughts are deficient, +and sometimes his expression.<br> +<br> +The numbers are not always musical; as,<br> +<br> +<br> +Fair Venus, in thy soft arms<br> + The god of rage confine:<br> +For thy whispers are the charms<br> + Which only can divert his fierce design.<br> +What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;<br> + Thou the flame<br> +Kindled in his breast canst tame<br> +With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.<br> +<br> +<br> +He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of science; +his thoughts are for the most part easily understood, and his images +such as the superfices of nature readily supplies; he has a just claim +to popularity, because he writes to common degrees of knowledge; and +is free at least from philosophical pedantry, unless perhaps the end +of a song to the Sun may be excepted, in which he is too much a Copernican. +To which may be added the simile of the “palm” in the verses +“on her passing through a crowd;” and a line in a more serious +poem on the Restoration, about vipers and treacle, which can only be +understood by those who happen to know the composition of the Theriaca.<br> +<br> +His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural<br> +<br> +<br> + The plants admire,<br> +No less than those of old did Orpheus’ lyre;<br> +If she sit down, with tops all tow’rds her bow’d,<br> +They round about her into arbours crowd;<br> +Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand,<br> +Like some well-marshall’d and obsequious band.<br> +<br> +<br> +In another place:<br> +<br> +<br> +While in the park I sing, the listening deer<br> +Attend my passion, and forget to fear:<br> +When to the beeches I report my flame,<br> +They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.<br> +To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers<br> +With loud complaints they answer me in showers.<br> +To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,<br> +More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven!<br> +<br> +<br> +On the head of a stag:<br> +<br> +<br> +O fertile head! which every year<br> +Could such a crop of wonder bear!<br> +The teeming earth did never bring,<br> +So soon, so hard, so large a thing:<br> +Which might it never have been cast,<br> +Each year’s growth added to the last,<br> +These lofty branches had supplied<br> +The earth’s bold sons’ prodigious pride:<br> +Heaven with these engines had been scaled,<br> +When mountains heap’d on mountains fail’d.<br> +<br> +<br> +Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble conclusion. +In the song of “Sacharissa’s and Amoret’s Friendship,” +the two last stanzas ought to have been omitted.<br> +<br> +His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree delicate.<br> +<br> +<br> +Then shall my love this doubt displace<br> + And gain such trust that I may come<br> +And banquet sometimes on thy face,<br> + But make my constant meals at home.<br> +<br> +<br> +Some applications may be thought too remote and unconsequential; as +in the verses on the Lady Dancing:<br> +<br> +<br> + The sun in figures such as these<br> +Joys with the moon to play:<br> + To the sweet strains they advance,<br> +Which do result from their own spheres;<br> + As this nymph’s dance<br> +Moves with the numbers which she hears.<br> +<br> +<br> +Sometimes a thought, which might perhaps fill a distich, is expanded +and attenuated till it grows weak and almost evanescent.<br> +<br> +<br> +Chloris! since first our calm of peace<br> + Was frighted hence, this good we find,<br> +Your favours with your fears increase,<br> + And growing mischiefs make you kind.<br> +So the fair tree, which still preserves<br> + Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows,<br> +In storms from that uprightness swerves;<br> + And the glad earth about her strows<br> + With treasure from her yielding boughs.<br> +<br> +<br> +His images are not always distinct; as in the following passage, he +confounds <i>Love </i>as a person with <i>Love </i>as a passion:<br> +<br> +<br> +Some other nymphs, with colours faint,<br> +And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,<br> +And a weak heart in time destroy;<br> +She has a stamp, and prints the boy;<br> +Can, with a single look, inflame<br> +The coldest breast, the rudest tame.<br> +<br> +<br> +His sallies of casual flattery are sometimes elegant and happy, as that +in return for the Silver Pen; and sometimes empty and trifling, as that +upon the Card torn by the Queen. There are a few lines written +in the Duchess’s Tasso, which he is said by Fenton to have kept +a summer under correction. It happened to Waller, as to others, +that his success was not always in proportion to his labour.<br> +<br> +Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults deserve +much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, +that they are less hyperbolical than those of some other poets. +Waller is not always at the last gasp; he does not die of a frown, nor +live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many +trifles. Little things are made too important: and the Empire +of Beauty is represented as exerting its influence further than can +be allowed by the multiplicity of human passions, and the variety of +human wants. Such books, therefore, may be considered as showing +the world under a false appearance, and, so far as they obtain credit +from the young and unexperienced, as misleading expectation, and misguiding +practice.<br> +<br> +Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is panegyrical: +for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by his imitator, Lord +Lansdowne:<br> +<br> +<br> +No satyr stalks within the hallow’d ground,<br> +But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;<br> +Glory and arms and love are all the sound.<br> +<br> +<br> +In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of Spain, +there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the beginning; +and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part ridiculously mean, +and in part ridiculously tumid. The poem, however, is such as +may be justly praised, without much allowance for the state of our poetry +and language at that time.<br> +<br> +The two next poems are upon the king’s behaviour at the death +of Buckingham, and upon his Navy.<br> +<br> +He has, in the first, used the pagan deities with great propriety:<br> +<br> +<br> +’Twas want of such a precedent as this<br> +Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss.<br> +<br> +<br> +In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which suppose the +king’s power secure against a second deluge; so noble, that it +were almost criminal to remark the mistake of “centre” for +“surface,” or to say that the empire of the sea would be +worth little if it were not that the waters terminate in land.<br> +<br> +The poem upon Sallee has forcible sentiments; but the conclusion is +feeble. That on the Repairs of St. Paul’s has something +vulgar and obvious; such as the mention of Amphion; and something violent +and harsh: as,<br> +<br> +<br> +So all our minds with his conspire to grace<br> +The Gentiles’ great apostle and deface<br> +Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain<br> +Seem’d to confine, and fetter him again:<br> +Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,<br> +As once the viper from his sacred hand.<br> +So joys the aged oak, when we divide<br> +The creeping ivy from his injured side.<br> +<br> +<br> +Of the two last couplets, the first is extravagant, and the second mean.<br> +<br> +His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought, that +he “saves lovers, by cutting off hope, as gangrenes are cured +by lopping the limb,” presents nothing to the mind but disgust +and horror.<br> +<br> +Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say whether +it is intended to raise terror or merriment. The beginning is +too splendid for jest, and the conclusion too light for seriousness. +The versification is studied, the scenes are diligently displayed, and +the images artfully amplified; but as it ends neither in joy nor sorrow, +it will scarcely be read a second time.<br> +<br> +The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very liberal +dividend of praise, which, however, cannot be said to have been unjustly +lavished; for such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in +the English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, +and all are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse; or +a trifling thought; but its great fault is the choice of its hero.<br> +<br> +The poem of the War with Spain begins with lines more vigorous and striking +than Waller is accustomed to produce. The succeeding parts are +variegated with better passages and worse. There is something +too farfetched in the comparison of the Spaniards drawing the English +on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, “to lambs awakening the +lion by bleating.” The fate of the Marquis and his Lady, +who were burnt in their ship, would have moved more, had the poet not +made him die like the Phoenix, because he had spices about him, nor +expressed their affection and their end by a conceit at once false and +vulgar:<br> +<br> +<br> +Alive, in equal flames of love they burn’d,<br> +And now together are to ashes turn’d.<br> +<br> +<br> +The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended to counterbalance +the panegyric on Cromwell. If it has been thought inferior to +that with which it is naturally compared, the cause of its deficience +has been already remarked.<br> +<br> +The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly. They +must be supposed to have faults and beauties of the same kind with the +rest. The Sacred Poems, however, deserve particular regard; they +were the work of Waller’s declining life, of those hours in which +he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past with the sentiments +which his great predecessor Petrarch bequeathed to posterity, upon his +review of that love and poetry which have given him immortality.<br> +<br> +That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much +excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that +the mind grows old with the body; and that he, whom we are now forced +to confess superior, is hastening daily to a level with ourselves. +By delighting to think this of the living, we learn to think it of the +dead; and Fenton, with all his kindness for Waller, has the luck to +mark the exact time when his genius passed the zenith, which he places +at his fifty-fifth year. This is to allot the mind but a small +portion. Intellectual decay is doubtless not uncommon; but it +seems not to be universal. Newton was in his eighty-fifth year +improving his chronology, a few days before his death; and Waller appears +not, in my opinion, to have lost at eighty-two any part of his poetical +power.<br> +<br> +His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but before +the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects, his success +would hardly have been better.<br> +<br> +It has been the frequent lamentation of good men that verse has been +too little applied to the purposes of worship, and many attempts have +been made to animate devotion by pious poetry. That they have +very seldom attained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not +be improper to inquire why they have miscarried.<br> +<br> +Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many authorities, +that poetical devotion cannot often please. The doctrines of religion +may indeed be defended in a didactic poem; and he, who has the happy +power of arguing in verse, will not lose it because his subject is sacred. +A poet may describe the beauty and the grandeur of nature, the flowers +of the spring, and the harvests of autumn, the vicissitudes of the tide, +and the revolutions of the sky, and praise the Maker for his works, +in lines which no reader shall lay aside. The subject of the disputation +is not piety, but the motives to piety; that of the description is not +God, but the works of God.<br> +<br> +Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human soul, +cannot be poetical. Man, admitted to implore the mercy of his +Creator, and plead the merits of his Redeemer, is already in a higher +state than poetry can confer.<br> +<br> +The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as by producing something +unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are +few, and being few are universally known; but, few as they are, they +can be made no more; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, +and very little from novelty of expression.<br> +<br> +Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than +things themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display +of those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those +which repel, the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression +and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.<br> +<br> +From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, +the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy: but +this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion. +Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name +of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity +cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.<br> +<br> +The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, +and Supplication. Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested +by fancy with decorations. Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all +holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, is confined +to a few modes, and is to be felt rather then expressed. Repentance, +trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences +and epithets. Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself through +many topics of persuasion; but supplication to God can only cry for +mercy.<br> +<br> +Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple +expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its +power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent +than itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory +and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but +it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian Theology +are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic +for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify +by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.<br> +<br> +As much of Waller’s reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness +of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to +which a versifier must attend.<br> +<br> +He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who +were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth +had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or +forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he +might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though +merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.<br> +<br> +But he was rather smooth than strong; of “the full resounding +line,” which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few +examples. The critical decision has given the praise of strength +to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller.<br> +<br> +His excellence of versification has some abatements. He uses the +expletive “do” very frequently; and, though he lived to +see it almost universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it +in his last compositions than in his first. Praise had given him +confidence; and finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.<br> +<br> +His rhymes are sometimes weak words: “so” is found to make +the rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his +book.<br> +<br> +His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips, +who was his rival in the translation of Corneille’s “Pompey;” +and more faults might be found were not the inquiry below attention.<br> +<br> +He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as “waxeth,” +“affecteth;” and sometimes retains the final syllable of +the preterite, as “amazed,” “supposed,” of which +I know not whether it is not to the detriment of our language that we +have totally rejected them.<br> +<br> +Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an +Alexandrine he has given no example.<br> +<br> +The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He +is never pathetic, and very rarely sublime. He seems neither to +have had a mind much elevated by nature nor amplified by learning. +His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance +with life would easily supply. They had however then, perhaps, +that grace of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by those +who, having already found them in later books, do not know or inquire +who produced them first. This treatment is unjust. Let not +the original author lose by his imitators.<br> +<br> +Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author +of Waller’s Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythræus +and some late critics call “Alliteration,” of using in the +same verse many words beginning with the same letter. But this +knack, whatever be its value, was so frequent among early writers, that +Gascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against +affecting it; Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” +is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the sonnet of Holofernes +fully displays it.<br> +<br> +He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old +mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets; +the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were considered as +realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober +reason might even then determine. But of these images time has +tarnished the splendour. A fiction, not only detected but despised, +can never afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it +may furnish a transient allusion, or slight illustration. No modern +monarch can be much exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his “club” +he has his “navy.”<br> +<br> +But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will +remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance +of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may +be applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself +and Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out, “If +he had not read Aminta, he had not excelled it.”<br> +<br> +As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification +from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his +work, which, after Mr. Hoole’s translation, will perhaps not be +soon reprinted. By knowing the state in which Waller found our +poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it.<br> +<br> +1.<br> +<br> + Erminia’s steed (this while) his mistresse bore<br> +Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,<br> +Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,<br> +Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;<br> +But her flit courser spared nere the more,<br> +To beare her through the desart woods unseene<br> + Of her strong foes, that chas’d her through +the plaine<br> + And still pursu’d, but still pursu’d in +vaine.<br> +<br> +2.<br> +<br> +Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,<br> +Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,<br> +When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,<br> +No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:<br> +The Christian knights so full of shame and ire<br> +Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!<br> +Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde<br> +Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde.<br> +<br> +3.<br> +<br> +Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,<br> +Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,<br> +Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,<br> +She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.<br> +But when the sunne his burning chariot diued<br> +In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide,<br> + On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid,<br> + At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid<br> +<br> +4<br> +<br> +Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,<br> +This was her diet that vnhappie night;<br> +But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)<br> +To ease the greefes of discontented wight,<br> +Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,<br> +In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;<br> + And loue, his mother, and the graces kept<br> + Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept<br> +<br> +5.<br> +<br> +The birds awakte her with their morning song,<br> +Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,<br> +The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among<br> +The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;<br> +Her eies vnclos’d beheld the groues along<br> +Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare;<br> + And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,<br> + Prouokt again the virgin to lament.<br> +<br> +6.<br> +<br> +Her plaints were interrupted with a sound,<br> +That seem’d from thickest bushes to proceed,<br> +Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round,<br> +And to his voice had tun’d his oaten reed;<br> +Thither she went, an old man there she found,<br> +(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)<br> + Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among<br> + That learn’d their father’s art, and learn’d +his song.<br> +<br> +7.<br> +<br> +Beholding one in shining armes appeare<br> +The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;<br> +But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,<br> +Her ventall vp, her visage open laid<br> +You happie folke, of heau’n beloued deare,<br> +Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid,<br> + These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring<br> + To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing.<br> +<br> +8.<br> +<br> +But father, since this land, these townes and towres,<br> +Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,<br> +How may it be unhurt, that you and yours<br> +In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?<br> +My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours<br> +Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile;<br> + This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe,<br> + No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.<br> +<br> +9.<br> +<br> +Haply iust heau’ns defence and shield of right,<br> +Doth loue the innocence of simple swains,<br> +The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,<br> +And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;<br> +So kings have cause to feare <i>Bellonaes</i> might,<br> +Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,<br> + Nor ever greedie soldier was entised<br> + By pouertie, neglected and despised.<br> +<br> +10.<br> +<br> +O Pouertie, chefe of the heau’nly brood,<br> +Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!<br> +No wish for honour, thirst of others good,<br> +Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:<br> +We quench our thirst with water of this flood,<br> +Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne;<br> + These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates<br> + Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates.<br> +<br> +11.<br> +<br> +We little wish, we need but little wealth,<br> +From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;<br> +These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth<br> +Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:<br> +Amid these groues I walks oft for my health,<br> +And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed,<br> + How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,<br> + And their contentment for ensample take.<br> +<br> +12.<br> +<br> +Time was (for each one hath his doting time,<br> +These siluer locks were golden tresses than)<br> +That countrie life I hated as a crime,<br> +And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,<br> +To Memphis’ stately pallace would I clime,<br> +And there became the mightie Caliphes man<br> + And though I but a simple gardner weare,<br> + Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.<br> +<br> +13.<br> +<br> +Entised on with hope of future gaine,<br> +I suffred long what did my soule displease;<br> +But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,<br> +I felt my native strength at last decrease;<br> +I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,<br> +And wisht I had enjoy’d the countries peace;<br> + I bod the court farewell, and with content<br> + My later age here have I quiet spent.<br> +<br> +14.<br> +<br> +While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still<br> +His wise discourses heard, with great attention,<br> +His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,<br> +Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;<br> +After much thought reformed was her will,<br> +Within those woods to dwell was her intention,<br> + Till fortune should occasion new afford,<br> + To turne her home to her desired Lord.<br> +<br> +15.<br> +<br> +She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!<br> +That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue.<br> +Yet liuest now in this contented state,<br> +Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,<br> +To entertaine me as a willing mate<br> +In shepherds life, which I admire and loue;<br> + Within these plessant groues perchance my hart,<br> + Of her discomforts, may vnload some part.<br> +<br> +16.<br> +<br> +If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,<br> +If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,<br> +Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen,<br> +As to a greedie minde might well suffice:<br> +With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,<br> +Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;<br> + Part of her sad misfortunes then she told,<br> + And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.<br> +<br> +17.<br> +<br> +With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare<br> +Towards his cottage gently home to guide;<br> +His aged wife there made her homely cheare,<br> +Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.<br> +The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare,<br> +A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;<br> + But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)<br> + Were such, as ill beseem’d a shepherdesse.<br> +<br> +18.<br> +<br> +Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide<br> +The heau’nly beautie of her angels face,<br> +Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,<br> +Or ought disparag’de, by those labours bace;<br> +Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,<br> +And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,<br> + Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame<br> + Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +MILTON.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and with +such minute inquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented +myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton’s elegant +abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the uniformity +of this edition.<br> +<br> +John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors +of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate +in the times of York and Lancaster. Which side he took I know +not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose.<br> +<br> +His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous +Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken the religion +of his ancestors.<br> +<br> +His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his +support to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent +for his skill in music, many of his compositions being still to be found; +and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grew rich, and +retired to an estate. He had probably more than common literature, +as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. +He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom +he had two sons, John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied the law +and adhered, as the law taught him, to the king’s party, for which +he was a while persecuted; but having by his brother’s interest +obtained permission to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably +by chamber-practice, that, soon after the accession of King James, he +was knighted and made a judge; but, his constitution being too weak +for business, he retired before any disreputable compliances became +necessary.<br> +<br> +He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerable +fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the +Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward, +who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic +account of his domestic manners.<br> +<br> +John the poet, was born in his father’s house, at the Spread Eagle, +in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. +His father appears to have been very solicitous about his education; +for he was instructed at first by private tuition under the care of +Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at +Hamburgh, and of whom we have reason to think well, since his scholar +considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.<br> +<br> +He was then sent to St. Paul’s school, under the care of Mr. Gill; +and removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ’s +College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624.<br> +<br> +He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, +by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the +learned Politian has given him an example, seems to commend the earliness +of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity.<br> +<br> +But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by many, +and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of +the mind it is difficult to form an estimate: many have excelled Milton +in their first essays, who never rose to works like “Paradise +Lost.”<br> +<br> +At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated or +versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the public +eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous +school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder.<br> +<br> +Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, +by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very +nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the translator of +Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman +who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance. +If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, +the pride of Elizabeth’s reign, however they may have succeeded +in prose, no sooner attempt verse than they provoke derision. +If we produced anything worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, +it was perhaps Alabaster’s “Roxana.”<br> +<br> +Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, some +were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly +applauded; for they were such as few can form: yet there is reason to +suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. +That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which +he was treated was not merely negative. I am ashamed to relate +what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the last students in either +University that suffered the public indignity of corporal correction.<br> +<br> +It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him, +that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was apparently +not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to “Diodati”, +that he had incurred “rustication,” a temporary dismission +into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term.<br> +<br> +<br> +Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamesis alluit undâ,<br> + Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.<br> +Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum<br> + Nec dudum <i>vetiti</i> me <i>laris</i> angit amor. +-<br> +Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,<br> + Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.<br> +Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates,<br> + Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi,<br> +Non ego vel <i>profugi</i> nomen sortemve recuso,<br> + Lætus et <i>exilii</i> conditione fruor.<br> +<br> +<br> +I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence +can give to the term, “vetiti laris,” “a habitation +from which he is excluded;” or how “exile” can be +otherwise interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary +of enduring “the threats of a rigorous master, and something else +which a temper like his cannot undergo.” What was more than +threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his +“exile,” proves likewise that it was not perpetual; for +it concludes with a resolution of returning some time to Cambridge. +And it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated +the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.<br> +<br> +He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and that of +master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness for its +institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his governors, +or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now be known, +but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme of education, +inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical instruction, being intended +to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in literature, from +their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is called Masters +of Art. And in his discourse “on the likeliest Way to remove +Hirelings out of the Church,” he ingeniously proposes that the +profits of the lands forfeited by the act for superstitious uses should +be applied to such academies all over the land where languages and arts +may be taught together that youth may be at once brought up to a competency +of learning and an honest trade, by which means such of them as had +the gift, being enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the +latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers.<br> +<br> +One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, +is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act +plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antic and +dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, and bawds, prostituting the +shame of that ministry which they had, or were near having, to the eyes +of courtiers and court-ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles.<br> +<br> +This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile +from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which +the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Plays were therefore +only criminal when they were acted by academics.<br> +<br> +He went to the university with a design of entering into the church, +but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a +clergyman, must “subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, +unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straight +perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence +before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.”<br> +<br> +These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the Articles; +but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical obedience. +I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his opinions: but +the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, raise his indignation.<br> +<br> +His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced +to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one +of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which +he seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastic luxury +of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, +in which he endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not +from the delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining +more fitness for his task; and that he goes on, “not taking thought +of being late, so it gives advantage to be more fit.”<br> +<br> +When he left the University, he returned to his father, then residing +at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in which +time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. +With what limitations this universality is to be understood, who shall +inform us?<br> +<br> +It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done nothing +else; but Milton found time to write the “Masque of Comus,” +which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord President +of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of +Bridgewater’s sons and daughter. The fiction is derived +from Homer’s “Circe;” but we never can refuse to any +modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:<br> +<br> +<br> + - a quo ceu fonte perenni<br> +Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.<br> +<br> +<br> +His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death +of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland in the +time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite +at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. +Milton’s acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered +by a mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of +Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the church by some lines which are +interpreted as threatening its extermination.<br> +<br> +He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while +he lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few +days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the Countess Dowager +of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatic entertainment.<br> +<br> +He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of taking +chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother set him +at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father’s consent, +and Sir Henry Wotton’s directions; with the celebrated precept +of prudence, <i>i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto; </i>“thoughts +close, and looks loose.”<br> +<br> +In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour +of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting Grotius, then +residing at the French court as ambassador from Christina of Sweden. +From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence +studied the language and literature; and, though he seems to have intended +a very quick perambulation of the country, stayed two months at Florence; +where he found his way into the academies, and produced his compositions +with such applause as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, +and confirmed him in the hope, that, “by labour and intense study, +which,” says he, “I take to be my portion in this life, +joined with a strong propensity of nature,” he might “leave +something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let +it die.”<br> +<br> +It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant of +great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not +without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man ever wrote so +much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as +he set its value high, and considered his mention of a name as a security +against the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion.<br> +<br> +At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted distinction. +Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic inscription, in the tumid +lapidary style; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the first stanza +is only empty noise; the rest are perhaps too diffuse on common topics: +but the last is natural and beautiful.<br> +<br> +From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was +again received with kindness by the learned and the great. Holstenius, +the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided three years at Oxford, +introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a musical entertainment, +waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into the assembly. +Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a tetrastich: +neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by this +literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid Salsilli, +though not secure against a stern grammarian, turn the balance indisputably +in Milton’s favour.<br> +<br> +Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough +to publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be suspected +but to have known that they were said <i>non</i> <i>tam de se, quam +supra se.<br> +<br> +</i>At Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months: a time indeed +sufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer of its antiquities, +or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too short for the +contemplation of learning, policy, or manners.<br> +<br> +From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a companion +from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owed his introduction +to Manso, Marquis of Villa, who had been before the patron of Tasso. +Manso was enough delighted with his accomplishments to honour him with +a sorry distich, in which he commends him for everything but his religion: +and Milton, in return, addressed him in a Latin poem, which must have +raised a high opinion of English elegance and literature.<br> +<br> +His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but hearing of +the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper +to hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreign amusements while +his countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore +came back to Rome, though the merchants informed him of plots laid against +him by the Jesuits, for the liberty of his conversations on religion. +He had sense enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore +kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor shunning +controversy. He had perhaps given some offence by visiting Galileo, +then a prisoner in the Inquisition for philosophical heresy; and at +Naples he was told by Manse, that, by his declarations on religious +questions, he had excluded himself from some distinctions which he should +otherwise have paid him. But such conduct, though it did not please, +was yet sufficiently safe; and Milton stayed two months more at Rome, +and went on to Florence without molestation.<br> +<br> +From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; +and, having sent away a collection of music and other books, travelled +to Geneva, which he probably considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy.<br> +<br> +Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with +John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors of divinity. +From Geneva he passed through France; and came home, after an absence +of a year and three months.<br> +<br> +At his return he heard of the death of his friend, Charles Diodati; +a man whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, since he was +thought by Milton worthy of a poem, entitled “Epitaphium Damonis,” +written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life.<br> +<br> + He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in +St. Bride’s Churchyard, and undertook the education of John and +Edward Philips, his sister’s sons. Finding his rooms too +little, he took a house and garden in Aldersgate Street, which was not +then so much out of the world as it is now; and chose his dwelling at +the upper end of a passage, that he might avoid the noise of the street. +Here he received more boys, to be boarded and instructed.<br> +<br> +Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree +of merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who +hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, +and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism +in a private boarding-school. This is the period of his life from +which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling +that Milton should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but since it cannot +be denied that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, +and another that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning +and virtue; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse +an act which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. +His father was alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its +deficiencies by an honest and useful employment<br> +<br> +It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a +formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were +read in Aldersgate Street by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen +years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, +that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed +of the horseman must be limited by the power of his horse. Every +man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell what slow advances +he has been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall +vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify +absurd misapprehension.<br> +<br> +The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more solid +than the common literature of schools, by reading those authors that +treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, and astronomical treatises +of the ancients. This was a scheme of improvement which seems +to have busied many literary projectors of that age. Cowley, who +had more means than Milton of knowing what was wanting to the embellishments +of life, formed the same plan of education in his imaginary college.<br> +<br> +But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences +which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the +frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action +or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first +requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the +next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those +examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the +reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and +excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, +but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with +intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, +and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, +that one may know another half his life without being able to estimate +his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential +character immediately appears.<br> +<br> +Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most +axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials +for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, +and historians.<br> +<br> +Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or paradoxical; +for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my side. +It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of Nature to speculations +upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off attention +from life to nature. They seem to think that we are placed here +to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars. Socrates +was rather of opinion that what we had to learn was how to do good and +avoid evil.<br> +<br> +<br> +Οτι ποι εν μεγαροισι +κακοντ' αγαθοντε +τετυκται<br> +<br> +<br> +Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working +academy I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent +for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a small History +of Poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which perhaps +none of my readers has ever heard.<br> +<br> +That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he laboured +with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One part +of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful to instruct +his scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology, +of which he dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that +were then fashionable in the Dutch universities.<br> +<br> +He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now +and then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence +with some gay gentlemen of Gray’s Inn.<br> +<br> +He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent his +breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 he published +a treatise of Reformation in two books, against the Established Church, +being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says, “inferior +to the Prelates in learning.”<br> +<br> +Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in defence +of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers, of whose names the +first letters made the celebrated word <i>Smectymnuus, </i>gave their +answer. Of this answer a confutation was attempted by the learned +Usher; and to the confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, “Of +Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the Apostolical +Times, by virtue of those Testimonies which are alleged to that purpose +in some late Treatises, one whereof goes under the Name of James, Lord +Bishop of Armagh.”<br> +<br> +I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous 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 ostentatious 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 that can enrich with 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 measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expectation.” +From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might +be expected the “Paradise Lost.”<br> +<br> +He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same question. +To one of his antagonists, who affirms that 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 approbation +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 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.”<br> +<br> +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 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.”<br> +<br> +The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of his antagonist. +This roughness he justifies by great 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 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 thumb-ring +posies. - And thus ends this section, or rather dissection, 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.”<br> +<br> +His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside in his +house, and his school increased. At Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth +year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, 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 hard study; +for, as Philips 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.”<br> +<br> +Milton was too busy to much miss his wife; he pursued 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 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.<br> +<br> +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 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.”<br> +<br> +This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by 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.”<br> +<br> +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 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.<br> +<br> +From this time it is observed that he became an enemy 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.<br> +<br> +His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not 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 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 Philips, +“his own generous 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 in his own house, +when they were distressed, with other Royalists.<br> +<br> +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 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 +what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must always +be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate +his prospects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government +may diffuse 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 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.<br> +<br> +But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic poetry was never +long out of his thoughts.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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 Philips, “now +looked like a house of the Muses only, though the accession of scholars +was not great. Possibly his having proceeded so 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, but only was willing +to impart his learning and knowledge to his relations, and the sons +of gentlemen who were his intimate friends, and that neither his writings +nor his way of teaching savoured in the least of pedantry.”<br> +<br> +Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and +what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a man +who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his +warmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift and palliate. +He did not sell literature to all comers at an open shop; he was a chamber-milliner, +and measured his commodities only to his friends.<br> +<br> +Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of degradation, +tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his character +again, has a mind to invest him with military splendour: “He is +much mistaken,” he says, “if there was not about this time +a design of making him an adjutant-general in Sir William Waller’s +army. But the new-modelling of the army proved an obstruction +to the design.” An event cannot be set at a much greater +distance than by having been only “designed, about some time,” +if a man “be not much mistaken.” Milton shall be a +pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, somebody +at some time designed him for a soldier.<br> +<br> +About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed to +a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln’s +Inn Fields. He is not known to have published anything afterwards +till the king’s death, when, finding his murderers condemned by +the Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, “and to +compose the minds of the people.”<br> +<br> +He made some remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the +Irish rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps +did only what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly +watch the influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalence +of opinions, first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; +if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and desire superinduced +conviction, he yet shared - only the common weakness of mankind, and +might be no less sincere than his opponents. But, as faction seldom +leaves a man honest, however it might find him, Milton is suspected +of having interpolated the book called “Icon Basilike,” +which the council of state, to whom he was now made Latin Secretary, +employed him to censure, by inserting a prayer taken from Sidney’s +“Arcadia,” and imputing it to the king, whom he charges, +in his “Iconoclastes,” with the use of this prayer, as with +a heavy come, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldened +the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is venerable or great: +“Who would have imagined so little fear in him of the true all-seeing +deity - as, immediately before his death, to pop into the hands of the +grave bishop that attended him, as a special relic of his saintly exercises, +a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen woman praying +to a heathen god?”<br> +<br> +The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the regicides +took away; so that they were at least the publishers of this prayer; +and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great care, was inclined +to think them the forgers. The use of it by adaptation was innocent, +and they who could so noisily censure it, with a little extension of +their malice could contrive what they wanted to accuse.<br> +<br> +King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed Salmasius, +professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his father +and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, +a hundred Jacobuses. Salmasius was a man of skill in languages, +knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity of emendatory criticism, almost +exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by excessive praises, +been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had +not much considered the principles of society or the right of government, +undertook the employment without distrust of his own qualifications; +and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published “Defensio +Regis.”<br> +<br> +To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which he performed +(1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself unable to decide +whose language was best, or whose arguments were worst. In my +opinion, Milton’s periods are smoother, neater, and more pointed; +but he delights himself with teasing his adversary as much as with confuting +him. He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, whose doctrine +he considers as servile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmasius, which, +whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. Salmasius +was a Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold. <i>Tu es +Gallus, </i>says Milton, <i>et, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus</i>. +But his supreme pleasure is to tax his adversary, so renowned for criticism, +with vicious Latin. He opens his book with telling that he has +used <i>Persona, </i>which, according to Milton, signifies only a <i>Mask, +</i>in a sense not known to the Romans, by applying it as we apply <i>Person. +</i>But as Nemesis is always on the watch, it is memorable that he has +enforced the charge of a solecism by an expression in itself grossly +solecistical, when for one of those supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, +and I think some one before him, has remarked, <i>propino te</i> <i>grammatistis +tuis vapulandum</i>.” From <i>vapulo</i>, which has a passive +sense, <i>vapulandus</i> can never be derived. No man forgets +his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, sink into questions +of grammar, if grammarians discuss them.<br> +<br> +Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim of sight; +but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health was supplied +by zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and his book +was much read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, easily +gains attention; and he, who told every man that he was equal to his +king, could hardly want an audience.<br> +<br> +That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal rapidity, +or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. He taught only +the stale doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing duty of submission; +and he had been so long not only the monarch, but the tyrant of literature, +that almost all mankind were delighted to find him defied and insulted +by a new name, not yet considered as any one’s rival. If +Christina, as is said, commended the defence of the people, her purpose +must be to torment Salmasius, who was then at court; for neither her +civil station, nor her natural character, could dispose her to favour +the doctrine, who was by birth a queen, and by temper despotic.<br> +<br> +That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton’s book, treated +with neglect, there is not much proof; but to a man, so long accustomed +to admiration, a little praise of his antagonist would be sufficiently +offensive, and might incline him to leave Sweden, from which however +he was dismissed, not with any mark of contempt, but with a train of +attendants scarce less than regal.<br> +<br> +He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was published +by his son in the year of the Restoration. In the beginning, being +probably most in pain for his Latinity, he endeavours to defend his +use of the word <i>persona; </i>but, if I remember right, he misses +a better authority than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in his +fourth satire:<br> +<br> +<br> +- Quid agis cum dira et fœdior omni<br> +Crimine <i>persona</i> est?<br> +<br> +<br> +As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the quarrel, +Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had shortened Salmasius’s +life, and both perhaps with more malignity than reason. Salmasius +died at the Spa, Sept. 3, 1653; and, as controvertists are commonly +said to be killed by their last dispute, Milton was flattered with the +credit of destroying him.<br> +<br> +Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of which +he had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the +title of Protector, but with kingly and more than kingly power. +That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself founded +his right only in necessity; but Milton, having now tasted the honey +of public employment, would not return to hunger and philosophy, but, +continuing to exercise his office under a manifest usurpation, betrayed +to his power that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be +more just than that rebellion should end in slavery; that he, who had +justified the murder of his king, for some acts which seemed to him +unlawful, should now sell his services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, +of whom it was evident that he could do nothing lawful.<br> +<br> +He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect was +such, that he was not disabled to discharge his office of Latin secretary, +or continue his controversies. His mind was too eager to be diverted, +and too strong to be subdued.<br> +<br> +About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him three +daughters. As he probably did not much love her, he did not long +continue the appearance of lamenting her; but after a short time married +Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, a woman +doubtless educated in opinions like his own. She died, within +a year, of childbirth, or some distemper that followed it; and her husband +honoured her memory with a poor sonnet.<br> +<br> +The first reply to Milton’s “Defensio Populi” was +published in 1651, called “Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, +contra Johannis Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam +Regis et Populi.” Of this the author was not known; but +Milton and his nephew Philips, under whose name he published an answer +so much corrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it +to Bramhal; and, knowing him no friend to regicides, thought themselves +at liberty to treat him as if they had known what they only suspected.<br> +<br> +Next year appeared “Regii Sanguinis clamor ad Cœlum.” +Of this the author was Peter du Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary +of Canterbury; but Morus, or More, a French minister, having the care +of its publication, was treated as the writer by Milton, in his “Defensio +Secunda,” and overwhelmed by such violence of invective, that +he began to shrink under the tempest, and gave his persecutors the means +of knowing the true author. Du Moulin was now in great danger; +but Milton’s pride operated against his malignity; and both he +and his friends were more willing that Du Moulin should escape than +that he should be convicted of mistake.<br> +<br> +In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely satirical; +the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the grossness of his flattery, +<i>Deserimur, Cromuelle tu solus superes, ad te summa nostrarum rerum, +rediit, in te solo consistit, insuperabili tuæ virtuti cedimus +cuncti, nemine vel obloquente, nisi qui æquales inæqualis +ipse honores sibi quærit, aut digniori concessos invidet, aut +non intelligit nihil esse in societate hominum magis vel Deo gratum, +vel rationi consentaneum, esse in civitate nihil æquius, nihil +utilius, quam potiri rerum dignissimum. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, +Cromuelle, ea tu civis maximus, et gloriosissimus, dux publici consilii, +exercituum fortissimorum imperator, pater patriæ gessisti. +Sic tu spontanea bonorum omnium et animitus missa voce salutaris.<br> +<br> +</i>Cæsar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not +more servile or more elegant flattery. A translation may show +its servility; but its elegance is less attainable. Having exposed +the unskilfulness or selfishness of the former government, “We +were left,” says Milton, “to ourselves: the whole national +interest fell into our hands, and subsists only in your abilities. +To your virtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, except +some who, without equal qualifications, aspire to equal honours, who +envy the distinctions of merit greater than their own, or who have yet +to learn, that in the coalition of human society nothing is more pleasing +to God, or more agreeable to reason, than that the highest mind should +have the sovereign power. Such, sir, are you by general confession; +such are the things achieved by you, the greatest and most glorious +of our countrymen, the director of our public councils, the leader of +unconquered armies, the father of your country; for by that title doss +every good man hail you with sincere and voluntary praise.”<br> +<br> +Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found leisure +to defend himself. He undertook his own vindication against More, +whom he declares in his title to be justly called the author of the +“Regii Sanguinis Clamor.” In this there is no want +of vehemence nor eloquence, nor does he forget his wonted wit. +<i>Morus es? an Momus? an uterque idem est</i>? He then remembers +that Morus is Latin for a mulberry-tree, and hints at the known transformation:<br> +<br> +<br> +- Poma alba ferebat<br> +Quæ post nigra tulit Morus.<br> +<br> +<br> +With this piece ended his controversies; and he from this time gave +himself up to his private studies and his civil employment.<br> +<br> +As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written the Declaration +of the reasons for a war with Spain. His agency was considered +as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden was artfully +suspended, the delay was publicly imputed to Mr. Milton’s indisposition; +and the Swedish agent was provoked to express his wonder that only one +man in England could write Latin, and that man blind.<br> +<br> +Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumbered from +external interruptions, he seems to have recollected his former purposes, +and to have resumed three great works which he had planned for his future +employment - an epic poem, the history of his country, and a dictionary +of the Latin tongue.<br> +<br> +To collect a dictionary seems a work of all others least practicable +in a state of blindness, because it depends upon perpetual and minute +inspection and collation. Nor would Milton probably have begun +it, after he had lost his eyes; but, having had it always before him, +he continued it, says Philips, “almost to his dying day; but the +papers were so discomposed and deficient, that they could not be fitted +for the press.” The compilers of the Latin dictionary, printed +at Cambridge, had the use of those collections in three folios; but +what was their fate afterwards is not known.<br> +<br> +To compile a history from various authors, when they can only be consulted +by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with more skilful and +attentive help than can be commonly obtained; and it was probably the +difficulty of consulting and comparing that stopped Milton’s narrative +at the Conquest - a period at which affairs were not very intricate, +nor authors very numerous.<br> +<br> +For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, long choosing, +and beginning late, he fixed upon “Paradise Lost,” a design +so comprehensive, that it could be justified only by success. +He had once designed to celebrate King Arthur, as he hints in his verses +to Mansus; but “Arthur was reserved,” says Fenton, “to +another destiny.”<br> +<br> +It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in manuscript, +and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had digested his thoughts +on this subject into one of those wild dramas which were anciently called +Mysteries; and Philips had seen what he terms part of a tragedy, beginning +with the first ten lines of Satan’s address to the Sun. +These mysteries consist of allegorical persons, such as Justice, Mercy, +Faith. Of the tragedy or mystery of “Paradise Lost” +there are two plans<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>The Persons. + The Persons.<br> +</i>Michael. + Moses.<br> +Chorus of Angels. Divine Justice, +Wisdom<br> +Heavenly Love. + Heavenly Love.<br> +Lucifer. + The Evening Star, Hesperus.<br> +Adam, } with the Serpent Chorus of Angels.<br> +Eve, } + Lucifer.<br> +Conscience. +Adam.<br> +Death. + Eve.<br> +Labour, } + Conscience.<br> +Sickness, } +Labour, }<br> +Discontent, } Mutes. Sickness, }<br> +Ignorance, } +Discontent, } Mutes<br> +with others;} +Ignorance, }<br> +Faith. + Fear, }<br> +Hope. + Death, }<br> +Charity. + Faith.<br> + Hope.<br> + Charity.<br> +<br> +PARADISE LOST.<br> +<br> +<i>The Persons.<br> +<br> +</i>Moses, προλογιζει<i>, +</i>recounting how he assumed his true body; that it corrupts not, because +it is with God in the mount; declares the like of Enoch and Elijah; +besides the purity of the place, that certain pure winds, dews, and +clouds, preserve it from corruption; whence exhorts to the sight of +God; tells they cannot see Adam in the state of innocence, by reason +of their sin.<br> +<br> +Justice, }<br> +Mercy, } debating what should become of man, if he fall.<br> +Wisdom, }<br> +Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation.<br> +<br> +ACT II.<br> +<br> +Heavenly Love.<br> +Evening Star.<br> +Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise.<br> +<br> +ACT III.<br> +<br> +Lucifer contriving Adam’s ruin.<br> +Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer’s rebellion and fall.<br> +<br> +ACT IV.<br> +<br> +Adam, }<br> +Eve, } fallen.<br> +Conscience cites them to God’s examination.<br> +Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost.<br> +<br> +ACT V.<br> +<br> +Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise.<br> +-- -- presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, }<br> +Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Discontent, }<br> +Ignorance, Fear, Death + +} Mutes.<br> +To whom he gives their names. Likewise Winter, Heat, Tempest, +etc.<br> +Faith, }<br> +Hope, } comfort him and instruct him.<br> +Charity, }<br> +Chorus briefly concludes.<br> +<br> +<br> +Such was his first design, which could have produced only an allegory +or mystery. The following sketch seems to have attained more maturity.<br> +<br> +<br> +ADAM UNPARADISED.<br> +<br> +The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, since this +globe was created, his frequency as much on earth as in heaven; describes +Paradise. Next the Chorus, showing the reason of his coming to +keep his watch in Paradise, after Lucifer’s rebellion, by command +from God; and withal expressing his desire to see and know more concerning +this excellent new creature, man. The angel Gabriel, as by his +name signifying a prince of power, tracing Paradise with a more free +office, passes by the station of the Chorus, and, desired by them, relates +what he knew of man; as the creation of Eve, with their love and marriage. +After this, Lucifer appears; after his overthrow, bemoans himself, seeks +revenge on man. The Chorus prepare resistance on his first approach. +At last, after discourse of enmity on either side, he departs: whereat +the Chorus sings of the battle and victory in Heaven, against him and +his accomplices: as before, after the first act, was sung a hymn of +the creation. Here again may appear Lucifer, relating and exulting +in what he had done to the destruction of man. Man next, and Eve, +having by this time been seduced by the serpent, appears confusedly +covered with leaves. Conscience in a shape accuses him; Justice +cites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him. In the +meanwhile, the Chorus entertains the stage, and is informed by some +angel the manner of the fall. Here the Chorus bewails Adam’s +fall; Adam then and Eve return; accuse one another; but especially Adam +lays the blame to his wife; is stubborn in his offence. Justice +appears, reasons with him, convinces him. The Chorus admonishes +Adam, and bids him beware of Lucifer’s example of impenitence. +The angel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but before causes +to pass before his eyes, in shapes, a mask of all the evils of this +life and world. He is humbled, relents, despairs; at last appears +Mercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah; then calls in Faith, Hope, +and Charity; - instructs him; he repents, gives God the glory, submits +to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes. Compare this +with the former draft.<br> +<br> +These are very imperfect rudiments of “Paradise Lost;” but +it is pleasant to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with +latent possibilities of excellence; nor could there be any more delightful +entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and expansion, and +to observe how they are sometimes suddenly advanced by accidental hints, +and sometimes slowly improved by steady meditation.<br> +<br> +Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot +obstruct, and therefore he naturally solaced his solitude by the indulgence +of his fancy, and the melody of his numbers. He had done what +he knew to be necessarily previous to poetical excellence; he had made +himself acquainted with “seemly arts and affairs;” his comprehension +was extended by various knowledge, and his memory stored with intellectual +treasures. He was skilful in many languages, and had, by reading +and composition, attained the full mastery of his own. He would +have wanted little help from books, had he retained the power of perusing +them.<br> +<br> +But while his greater designs were advancing, having now, like many +other authors, caught the love of publication, he amused himself, as +he could, with little productions. He sent to the press (1658) +a manuscript of Raleigh, called “The Cabinet Council;” and +next year gratified his malevolence to the clergy, by a “Treatise +of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Cases, and the Means of removing Hirelings +out of the Church.”<br> +<br> +Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system of extemporary +government, which had been held together only by force, naturally fell +into fragments when that force was taken away; and Milton saw himself +and his cause in equal danger. But he had still hope of doing +something. He wrote letters, which Toland has published, to such +men as he thought friends to the new commonwealth; and even in the year +of the Restoration he “bated no jot of heart or hope,” but +was fantastical enough to think that the nation, agitated as it was, +might be settled by a pamphlet, called “A Ready and Easy Way to +Establish a Free Commonwealth;” which was, however, enough considered +to be both seriously and ludicrously answered.<br> +<br> +The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very remarkable. +When the king was apparently returning, Harrington, with a few associates +as fantastical as himself, used to meet, with all the gravity of political +importance, to settle an equal government by rotation; and Milton, kicking +when he could strike no longer, was foolish enough to publish, a few +weeks before the Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one Griffiths, +entitled, “The Fear of God and the King.” To these +notes an answer was written by L’Estrange, in a pamphlet petulantly +called “No Blind Guides.”<br> +<br> +But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could do, +the king was now about to be restored with the irresistible approbation +of the people, he was therefore no longer secretary, and was consequently +obliged to quit the house which he held by his office; the importance +of his writings, thought it convenient to seek some shelter, and hid +himself for a time in Bartholomew Close, by West Smithfield.<br> +<br> +I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously paid to +this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided is +historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming any +place that he honoured by his presence.<br> +<br> +The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other example, +declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his father’s +wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all except those +whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to +capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately co-operated +in the murder of the king. Milton was certainly not one of them; +he had only justified what they had done.<br> +<br> +This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and (June 16) +an order was issued to seize Milton’s “Defence,” and +Goodwin’s “Obstructors of Justice,” another book of +the same tendency, and burn them by the common hangman. The attorney-general +was ordered to prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor +perhaps very diligently pursued.<br> +<br> +Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms was stilled +by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want no recommendation +of elegance, rather called an Act of Oblivion than of Grace. Goodwin +was named, with nineteen more, as incapacitated for any public trust; +but of Milton there was no exception.<br> +<br> +Of this tenderness shown to Milton the curiosity of mankind has not +forborne to inquire the reason. Burnet thinks he was forgotten; +but this is another instance which may confirm Dalrymple’s observation, +who says, “that whenever Burnet’s narrations are examined, +he appears to be mistaken.”<br> +<br> +Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must be therefore +by design that he was included in the general oblivion. He is +said to have had friends in the House, such as Marvel, Morrice, and +Sir Thomas Clarges: and undoubtedly a man like him must have had influence. +A very particular story of his escape is told by Richardson in his Memoirs, +which he received from Pope, as delivered by Betterton, who might have +heard it from Davenant. In the war between the King and Parliament, +Davenant was made prisoner and condemned to die; but was spared at the +request of Milton. When the turn of success brought Milton into +the like danger, Davenant repaid the benefit by appearing in his favour. +Here is a reciprocation of generosity and gratitude so pleasing, that +the tale makes its own way to credit. But if help were wanted, +I know not where to find it. The danger of Davenant is certain +from his own relation; but of his escape there is no account. +Betterton’s narration can be traced no higher; it is not known +that he hid it from Davenant. We are told that the benefit exchanged +was life for life; but it seems not certain that Milton’s life +ever was in danger. Goodwin, who had committed the same kind of +crime, escaped with incapacitation; and, as exclusion from public trust +is a punishment which the power of Government can commonly inflict without +the help of a particular law, it required no great interest to exempt +Milton from a censure little more than verbal. Something may be +reasonably ascribed to veneration and compassion; to veneration of his +abilities, and compassion for his distresses, which made it fit to forgive +his malice for his learning. He was now poor and blind; and who +would pursue with violence an illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune +and disarmed by nature?<br> +<br> +The publication of the “Act of Oblivion” put him in the +same condition with his fellow-subjects. He was, however, upon +some pretence now not known, in the custody of the serjeant in December; +and when he was released, upon his refusal of the fees demanded, he +and the serjeant were called before the House. He was now safe +within the shade of oblivion, and knew himself to be as much out of +the power of a griping officer as any other man. How the question +was determined is not known. Milton would hardly have contended +but that he knew himself to have right on his side.<br> +<br> +He then removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate Street, and, being +blind and by no means wealthy, wanted a domestic companion and attendant; +and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget, married Elizabeth +Minshul, of a gentleman’s family in Cheshire, probably without +a fortune. All his wives were virgins; for he has declared that +he thought it gross and indelicate to be a second husband: upon what +other principles his choice was made cannot now be known; but marriage +afforded not much of his happiness. The first wife left him in +disgust, and was brought back only by terror; the second, indeed, seems +to have been more a favourite, but her life was short. The third, +as Philips relates, oppressed his children in his lifetime, and cheated +them at his death.<br> +<br> +Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was offered +the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by his wife to +accept it, answered, “You, like other women, want to ride in your +coach; my wish is to live and die an honest man.” If he +considered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers of government, +he that had shared authority, either with the Parliament or Cromwell, +might have forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty; and if he thought +the office purely ministerial, he certainly might have honestly retained +it under the King. But this tale has too little evidence to deserve +a disquisition; large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most +common topics of falsehood.<br> +<br> +He had so much either of prudence or gratitude, that he forbore to disturb +the new settlement with any of his political or ecclesiastical opinions, +and from this time devoted himself to poetry and literature. Of +his zeal for learning in all its parts, he gave a proof by publishing, +the next year (1661), “Accidence commenced Grammar;” a little +book which has nothing remarkable, but that its author, who had been +lately defending the supreme powers of his country, and was then writing +“Paradise Lost,” could descend from his elevation to rescue +children from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and the trouble +of lessons unnecessarily repeated.<br> +<br> +About this time, Elwood the Quaker, being recommended to him as one +who would read Latin to him for the advantage of his conversation, attended +him every afternoon except on Sundays. Milton, who, in his letter +to Hartlib, had declared, that “to read Latin with an English +mouth is as ill a hearing as Law French,” required that Elwood +should learn and practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, +was necessary, if he would talk with foreigners. This seems to +have been a task troublesome without use. There is little reason +for preferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, except that it +is more general; and to teach it to an Englishman is only to make him +a foreigner at home. He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so +soon learn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make +no provision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is their +business to practise such conformity to our modes as they expect from +us in their own countries. Elwood complied with the directions, +and improved himself by his attendance; for he relates, that Milton, +having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he read what he did not +understand, and would stop him, and “open the most difficult passages.”<br> +<br> +In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill +Fields; the mention of which concludes the register of Milton’s +removals and habitations. He lived longer in this place than any +other.<br> +<br> +He was now busied by “Paradise Lost.” Whence he drew +the original design has been variously conjectured by men who cannot +bear to think themselves ignorant of that which, at last, neither diligence +nor sagacity can discover. Some find the hint in an Italian tragedy. +Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farce seen by Milton +in Italy which opened thus: “Let the Rainbow be the Fiddlestick +of the Fiddle of Heaven.” It has been already shown, that +the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, not of a narrative, but +a dramatic work which he is supposed to have began to reduce to its +present form about the time (1655) when he finished his dispute with +the defenders of the king.<br> +<br> +He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great performance, +while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was stimulated only +by such expectations as naturally arose from the survey of his attainments, +and the consciousness of his powers. What he should undertake +it was difficult to determine. He was “long choosing, and +began late.”<br> +<br> +While he was obliged to divide his time between his private studies +and affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been often interrupted; +and perhaps he did little more in that busy time than construct the +narrative, adjust the episodes, proportion the parts, accumulate images +and sentiments, and treasure in his memory, or preserve in writing, +such hints as books or meditation would supply. Nothing particular +is known of his intellectual operations while he was a statesman; for, +having every help and accommodation at hand, he had no need of uncommon +expedients.<br> +<br> +Being driven from all public stations, he is yet too great not to be +traced by curiosity to his retirement; where he has been found by Mr. +Richardson, the fondest of his admirers, sitting before his door in +a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm sultry weather, to enjoy the fresh +air; and so, as in his own room, receiving the visits of people of distinguished +parts as well as quality. His visitors of high quality must now +be imagined to be few; but men of parts might reasonably court the conversation +of a man so generally illustrious, that foreigners are reported, by +Wood, to have visited the house in Bread Street where he was born.<br> +<br> +According to another account, he was seen in a small house, neatly enough +dressed in black clothes, sitting in a room hung with rusty green; pale +but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in his hands. He said that, +if it were not for the gout, his blindness would be tolerable.<br> +<br> +In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common exercises, +he used to swing in a chair, and sometimes played upon an organ.<br> +<br> +He was now confessedly and visibly employed upon his poem, of which +the progress might be noted by those with whom he was familiar; for +he was obliged, when he had composed as many lines as his memory would +conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them, having, +at least for part of the time, no regular attendant. This gave +opportunity to observations and reports.<br> +<br> +Mr. Philips observes, that there was a very remarkable circumstance +in the composure of “Paradise Lost,” “which I have +a particular reason,” says he, “to remember; for whereas +I had the perusal of it from the very beginning, for some years, as +I went from time to time to visit him, in parcels of ten, twenty, or +thirty verses at a time (which, being written by whatever hand came +next, might possibly want correction as to the orthography and pointing), +having, as the Summer came on, not been showed any for a considerable +while, and desiring the reason thereof, was answered, that his vein +never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal; and +that whatever he attempted at other times was never to his satisfaction, +though he courted his fancy never so much; so that, in all the years +he was about this poem, he may be said to have spent half his time therein.”<br> +<br> +Upon this relation Toland remarks, that in his opinion Philips has mistaken +the time of the year; for Milton, in his Elegies, declares, that with +the advance of the spring he feels the increase of his poetical force, +<i>redeunt in carmina vires</i>. To this it is answered, that +Philips could hardly mistake time so well marked; and it may be added, +that Milton might find different times of the year favourable to different +parts of life. Mr. Richardson conceives it impossible that “such +a work should be suspended for six months, or for one. It may +go on faster or slower, but it must go on.” By what necessity +it must continually go on, or why it might not be laid aside and resumed, +it is not easy to discover.<br> +<br> +This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and periodical +ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided as the +fumes of vain imagination. <i>Sapiens dominabitur astris</i>. +The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little +help from hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while +this notion has possession of the head, it produces the inability which +it supposes. Our powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; +<i>possunt quia posse videntur</i>. When success seems attainable, +diligence is enforced; but when it is admitted that the faculties are +suppressed by a cross wind, or a cloudy sky, the day is given up without +resistance; for who can contend with the course of nature?<br> +<br> +From such prepossessions Milton seems not to have been free. There +prevailed in his time an opinion, that the world was in its decay, and +that we have had the misfortune to be produced in the decrepitude of +nature. It was suspected that the whole creation languished, that +neither trees nor animals had the height or bulk of their predecessors, +and that everything was daily sinking by gradual diminution. Milton +appears to suspect that souls partake of the general degeneracy, and +is not without some fear that his book is to be written in “an +age too late” for heroic poesy.<br> +<br> +Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds reception +among wise men; an opinion that restrains the operations of the mind +to particular regions, and supposes that a luckless mortal may be born +in a degree of latitude too high or too low for wisdom or for wit. +From this fancy, wild as it is, he had not wholly cleared his head, +when he feared lest the <i>climate </i>of his country might be <i>too +cold </i>for flights of imagination.<br> +<br> +Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not more reasonable, +might easily find its way. He that could fear lest his genius +had fallen upon too old a world, or too chill a climate, might consistently +magnify to himself the influence of the seasons, and believe his faculties +to be vigorous only half the year.<br> +<br> +His submission to the seasons was at least more reasonable than his +dread of decaying nature, or a frigid zone; for general causes must +operate uniformly in a general abatement of mental power; if less could +be performed by the writer, less likewise would content the judges of +his work. Among this lagging race of frosty grovellers he might +still have risen into eminence by producing something which “they +should not willingly let die.” However inferior to the heroes +who were born in better ages, he might still be great among his contemporaries, +with the hope of growing every day greater in the dwindle of posterity. +He might still be the giant of the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of +the blind.<br> +<br> +Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, we have +little account, and there was perhaps little to be told. Richardson, +who seems to have been very diligent in his inquiries, but discovers +always a wish to find Milton discriminated from other men, relates that +“he would sometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could +he make; and on a sudden his poetical faculty would rush upon him with +an <i>impetus</i> or <i>æstrum</i>, and his daughter was immediately +called to secure what came. At other times he would dictate perhaps +forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to half the number.”<br> +<br> +These bursts of light, and involutions of darkness, these transient +and involuntary excursions and retrocessions of invention, having some +appearance of deviation from the common train of nature, are eagerly +caught by the lovers of a wonder. Yet something of this inequality +happens to every man in every mode of exertion, manual or mental. +The mechanic cannot handle his hammer and his file at all times with +equal dexterity; there are hours, he knows not why, when <i>his hand +is out</i>. By Mr. Richardson’s relation, casually conveyed, +much regard cannot be claimed. That, in his intellectual hour, +Milton called for his daughter “to secure what came,” may +be questioned; for unluckily it happens to be known that his daughters +were never taught to write; nor would he have been obliged, as it is +universally confessed, to have employed any casual visitor in disburdening +his memory, if his daughter could have performed the office.<br> +<br> +The story of reducing his exuberance has been told of other authors; +and, though doubtless true of every fertile and copious mind, seems +to have been gratuitously transferred to Milton.<br> +<br> +What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he composed +much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose before his mind +was disturbed with common business; and that he poured out with great +fluency his “unpremeditated verse.” Versification, +free, like this, from the distresses of rhyme, must, by a work so long, +be made prompt and habitual; and, when his thoughts were once adjusted, +the words would come at his command.<br> +<br> +At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were written, +cannot often be known. The beginning of the third book shows that +he had lost his sight, and the introduction to the seventh, that the +return of the king had clouded him with discountenance; and that he +was offended by the licentious festivity of the Restoration. There +are no other internal notes of time. Milton, being now cleared +from all effects of his disloyalty, had nothing required from him but +the common duty of living in quiet, to be rewarded with the common right +of protection; but this, which, when he skulked from the approach of +his king, was perhaps more than he hoped, seems not to have satisfied +him; for no sooner is he safe, than he finds himself in danger, “fallen +on evil days and evil tongues, and with darkness and with danger compassed +round.” This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, +had undoubtedly deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger +was ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen indeed on “evil +days;” the time was come in which regicides could no longer boast +their wickedness. But of “evil tongues” for Milton +to complain, required impudence at least equal to his other powers; +Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow that he never spared any +asperity of reproach or brutality of insolence.<br> +<br> +But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard to recollect +any reproach cast upon him, either serious or ludicrous, through the +whole remaining part of his life. He pursued his studies or his +amusements, without persecution, molestation, or insult. Such +is the reverence paid to great abilities, however misused; they, who +contemplated in Milton the scholar and the wit, were contented to forget +the reviler of his king.<br> +<br> +When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at Chalfont, +in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for him, first saw a +complete copy of “Paradise Lost,” and, having perused it, +said to him, “Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise Lost; +what hast thou to say upon Paradise Found?”<br> +<br> +Next year, when the danger of infection had ceased, he returned to Bunhill +Fields, and designed the publication of his poem. A licence was +necessary, and he could expect no great kindness from a chaplain of +the Archbishop of Canterbury. He seems, however, to have been +treated with tenderness; for, though objections were made to particular +passages, and among them to the simile of the sun eclipsed in the first +book, yet the licence was granted; and he sold his copy, April 27, 1667, +to Samuel Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a stipulation +to receive five pounds more when thirteen hundred should be sold of +the first edition; and again, five pounds after the sale of the same +number of the second edition; and another five pounds after the same +sale of the third. None of the three editions were to be extended +beyond fifteen hundred copies.<br> +<br> +The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The titles +were varied from year to year; and an advertisement and the arguments +of the books were omitted in some copies, and inserted in others.<br> +<br> +The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, for which +the receipt was signed April 26, 1669. The second edition was +not given till 1674; it was printed in small octave; and the number +of books was increased to twelve, by a division of the seventh and twelfth; +and some other small improvements were made. The third edition +was published in 1678; and the widow, to whom the copy was then to devolve, +sold all her claims to Simmons for eight pounds, according to her receipt +given December 21, 1680. Simmons had already agreed to transfer +the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer for £25; and Aylmer sold to +Jacob Tonson half, August 17, 1683, and half, March 24, 1690, at a price +considerably enlarged. In the history of “Paradise Lost” +a deduction thus minute will rather gratify than fatigue.<br> +<br> +The slow sale and tardy reputation of this poem have been always mentioned +as evidences of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty of literary +fame; and inquiries have been made, and conjectures offered, about the +causes of its long obscurity and late reception. But has the case +been truly stated? Have not lamentation and wonder been lavished +on an evil that was never felt?<br> +<br> +That in the reigns of Charles and James the “Paradise Lost “ +received no public acclamations is readily confessed. Wit and +literature were on the side of the court: and who that solicited favour +or fashion would venture to praise the defender of the regicides? +All that he himself could think his due, from “evil tongues” +in “evil days,” was that reverential silence which was generously +preserved. But it cannot be inferred that his poem was not read, +or not, however unwillingly, admired.<br> +<br> +The sale, if it be considered, will justify the public. Those +who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always +doubt their conclusions. The call for books was not, in Milton’s +age, what it is at present. To read was not then a general amusement; +neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by +ignorance. The women had not then aspired to literature, nor was +every house supplied with a closet of knowledge. Those, indeed, +who professed learning, were not less learned than at any other time; +but of that middle race of students who read for pleasure or accomplishment, +and who buy the numerous products of modern typography, the number was +then comparatively small. To prove the paucity of readers, it +may be sufficient to remark, that the nation had been satisfied from +1623 to 1664 - that is, forty-one years - with only two editions of +the works of Shakespeare, which probably did not together make one thousand +copies.<br> +<br> +The sale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in opposition to so +much recent enmity, and to a style of versification new to all and disgusting +to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius. +The demand did not immediately increase; for many more readers than +were supplied at first the nation did not afford. Only three thousand +were sold in eleven years; for it forced its way without assistance; +its admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the opportunities +now given of attracting notice by advertisements were then very few; +the means of proclaiming the publication of new books have been produced +by that general literature which now pervades the nation through all +its ranks. But the reputation and price of the copy still advanced, +till the Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and “Paradise +Lost” broke into open view with sufficient security of kind reception.<br> +<br> +Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed +the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation stealing +its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and silence. +I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not +at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, +and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the +impartiality of a future generation.<br> +<br> +In the meantime he continued his studies, and supplied the want of sight +by a very odd expedient, of which Phillips gives the following account:-<br> +<br> +Mr. Philips tells us, “that though our author had daily about +him one or other to read, some persons of man’s estate, who, of +their own accord, greedily catched at the opportunity of being his readers, +that they might as well reap the benefit of what they read to him, as +oblige him by the benefit of their reading; and others of younger years +were sent by their parents to the same end; yet excusing only the eldest +daughter by reason of her bodily infirmity and difficult utterance of +speech (which, to say truth, I doubt was the principal cause of excusing +her), the other two were condemned to the performance of reading and +exactly pronouncing of all the languages of whatever book he should, +at one time or other, think fit to peruse, viz., the Hebrew (and I think +the Syriac), the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, Spanish, and French. +All which sorts of books to be confined to read, without understanding +one word, must needs be a trial of patience almost beyond endurance. +Yet it was endured by both for a long time, though the irksomeness of +this employment could not be always concealed, but broke out more and +more into expressions of uneasiness; so that at length they were all, +even the eldest also, sent out to learn some curious and ingenious sorts +of manufacture, that are proper for women to learn, particularly embroideries +in gold or silver.”<br> +<br> +In the scene of misery which this mode of intellectual labour sets before +our eyes, it is hard to determine whether the daughters or the father +are most to be lamented. A language not understood can never be +so read as to give pleasure, and very seldom so as to convey meaning. +If few men would have had resolution, to write books with such embarrassments, +few likewise would have wanted ability to find some better expedient.<br> +<br> +Three years after his “Paradise Lost” (1667) he published +his “History of England,” comprising the whole fable of +Geoffrey of Monmouth, and continued to the Norman Invasion. Why +he should have given the first part, which he seems not to believe, +and which is universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. +The style is harsh; but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps +may often strike, though it cannot please.<br> +<br> +On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he could +transmit it to the press tore out several parts. Some censures +of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be applied to the +modern clergy; and a character of the Long Parliament, and Assembly +of Divines, was excluded; of which the author gave a copy to the Earl +of Anglesea, and which, being afterwards published, has been since inserted +in its proper place.<br> +<br> +The same year were printed “Paradise Regained;” and “Samson +Agonistes,” a tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, and +never designed by the author for the stage. As these poems were +published by another bookseller, it has been asked whether Simmons was +discouraged from receiving them by the slow sale of the former. +Why a writer changed his bookseller a hundred years ago, I am far from +hoping to discover. Certainly, he who in two years sells thirteen +hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for two payments of five +pounds each, has no reason to repent his purchase.<br> +<br> +When Milton showed “Paradise Regained” to Elwood, “This,” +said he, “is owing to you; for you put it in my head by the question +you put to me at Chalfont, which otherwise I had not thought of.”<br> +<br> +His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could not, as +Elwood relates, endure to hear “Paradise Lost” preferred +to “Paradise Regained.” Many causes may vitiate a +writer’s judgment of his own works. On that which has cost +him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think +that he has been diligent in vain; what has been produced without toilsome +efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties +and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily +most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however it happened, had +this prejudice, and had it to himself.<br> +<br> +To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension, that +entitled this great author to our veneration, may be added a kind of +humble dignity, which did not disdain the meanest services to literature. +The epic poet, the controvertist, the politician, having already descended +to accommodate children with a book of rudiments, now, in the last years +of his life, composed a book of logic for the initiation of students +in philosophy; and published (1672) “Artis Logicæ plenior +Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata;” that is, “A +new Scheme of Logic, according to the method of Ramus.” +I know not whether, even in this book, he did not intend an act of hostility +against the universities; for Ramus was one of the first oppugners of +the old philosophy, who disturbed with innovations the quiet of the +schools.<br> +<br> +His polemical disposition again revived. He had now been safe +so long that he forgot his fears, and published a “Treatise of +True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means to Prevent +the Growth of Popery.”<br> +<br> +But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful mention of +the Church of England and an appeal to the Thirty-nine Articles. +His principle of toleration is, agreement in the sufficiency of the +Scriptures; and he extends it to all who, whatever their opinions are, +profess to derive them from the sacred books. The Papists appeal +to other testimonies, and are therefore, in his opinion, not to be permitted +the liberty of either public or private worship; for though they plead +conscience, “we have no warrant,” he says, “to regard +conscience which is not grounded in Scripture.”<br> +<br> +Those who are not convinced by his reasons, may perhaps be delighted +with his wit. The term “Roman Catholic is,” he says, +“one of the Pope’s Bulls; it is particular universal, or +Catholic schismatic.”<br> +<br> +He has, however, something better. As the best preservative against +Popery, he recommends the diligent perusal of the Scriptures, a duty +from which he warns the busy part of mankind not to think themselves +excused.<br> +<br> +He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions.<br> +<br> +In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to take delight +in publication, a collection of “Familiar Epistles in Latin;” +to which, being too few to make a volume, he added some academical exercises, +which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as they recalled to his memory +the days of youth; but for which nothing but veneration for his name +could now procure a reader.<br> +<br> +When he had attained his sixty-sixth year, the gout, with which he had +been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers of nature. +He died by a quiet and silent expiration, about the 10th of November, +1674, at his house in Bunhill Fields; and was buried next his father +in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate. His funeral was very +splendidly and numerously attended.<br> +<br> +Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but in our +time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey “To the +Author of ‘Paradise Lost,’” by Mr. Benson, who has +in the inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton.<br> +<br> +When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was said +to be <i>soli Miltono secundus</i>, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, then +Dean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, +in his opinion, too detestable to be read on the wall of a building +dedicated to devotion. Atterbury, who succeeded him, being author +of the inscription, permitted its reception. “And such has +been the change of public opinion,” said Dr. Gregory, from whom +I heard this account, “that I have seen erected in the church +a statue of that man, whose name I once knew considered as a pollution +of its walls.”<br> +<br> +Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently beautiful, +so as to have been called the lady of his college. His hair, which +was of a light brown, parted at the fore-top, and hung down upon his +shoulders, according to the picture which he has given of Adam. +He was, however, not of the heroic stature, but rather below the middle +size, according to Mr. Richardson, who mentions him as having narrowly +escaped from being “short and thick.” He was vigorous +and active, and delighted in the exercise of the sword, in which he +is related to have been eminently skilful. His weapon was, I believe, +not the rapier, but the back-sword, of which he recommends the use in +his book on education.<br> +<br> +His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a dexterous +fencer, they must have been once quick.<br> +<br> +His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a severe +student. He drank little strong drink of any kind, and fed without +excess in quantity, and in his earlier years without delicacy of choice. +In his youth he studied late at night; but afterwards changed his hours, +and rested in bed from nine to four in the summer and five in the winter. +The course of his day was best known after he was blind. When +he first rose, he heard a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and then studied +till twelve; then took some exercise for an hour; then dined, then played +on the organ, and sang, or heard another sing, then studied till six; +then entertained his visitors till eight; then supped, and, after a +pipe of tobacco and a glass of water, went to bed.<br> +<br> +So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainable only +in colleges. He that lives in the world will sometimes have the +succession of his practice broken and confused. Visitors, of whom +Milton is represented to have had great numbers, will come and stay +unseasonably; business, of which every man has some, must be done when +others will do it.<br> +<br> +When he did not care to rise early, he had something read to him by +his bedside; perhaps at this time his daughters were employed. +He composed much in the morning, and dictated in the day, sitting obliquely +in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm. Fortune appears +not to have had much of his care. In the civil wars, he lent his +personal estate to the Parliament; but when, after the contest was decided, +he solicited repayment, he met not only with neglect, but “sharp +rebuke;” and, having tired both himself and his friends, was given +up to poverty and hopeless indignation, till he showed how able he was +to do greater service. He was then made Latin Secretary, with +two hundred pounds a year; and had a thousand pounds for his “Defence +of the People.” His widow, who, after his death, retired +to Nantwich, in Cheshire, and died about 1729, is said to have reported +that he lost two thousand pounds by entrusting it to a scrivener; and +that, in the general depredation upon the Church, he had grasped an +estate of about sixty pounds a year belonging to Westminster Abbey, +which, like other sharers of the plunder of rebellion, he was afterwards +obliged to return. Two thousand pounds which he had placed in +the Excise Office were also lost. There is yet no reason to believe +that he was ever reduced to indigence. His wants, being few, were +competently supplied. He sold his library before his death, and +left his family fifteen hundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, +and only gave one hundred to each of his daughters.<br> +<br> +His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages +which are considered either as learned or polite: Hebrew, with its two +dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin +his skill was such as places him in the first rank of writers and critics; +and he appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommon diligence. +The books in which his daughter, who used to read to him, represented +him as most delighting, after Homer, which he could almost repeat, were +Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and Euripides. His Euripides +is, by Mr. Cradock’s kindness, now in my hands: the margin is +sometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable.<br> +<br> +Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare, and +Cowley. Spenser was apparently his favourite; Shakespeare he may<i> +</i>easily be supposed to like, with every other skilful reader; but +I should not have expected that Cowley, whose ideas of excellence were +different from his own, would have had much of his approbation. +His character of Dryden, who sometimes visited him, was, that he was +a good rhymist, but no poet.<br> +<br> +His theological opinions are said to have been first Calvinistical; +and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to +have tended towards Arminianism. In the mixed questions of theology +and government, he never thinks that he can recede far enough from Popery, +or Prelacy; but what Baudius says of Erasmus seems applicable to him, +“<i>Magis habuit quod fugeret, quam quod sequeretur</i>.” +He had determined rather what to condemn, than what to approve. +He has not associated himself with any denomination of Protestants: +we know rather what he was not than what he was. He was not of +the Church of Rome; he was not of the Church of England.<br> +<br> +To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards +are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide +by degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed +by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary +influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had a full conviction +of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures +with the profoundest veneration, to have been untainted by any heretical +peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the +immediate and occasional agency of Providence, yet grew old without +any visible worship. In the distribution of his hours, there was +no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public +prayers, he omitted all.<br> +<br> +Of this omission the reason has been sought upon a supposition which +ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and +justify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not +thought superfluous by him, who represents our first parents as praying +acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously after their +fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his +studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of +it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, +and which he intended to correct; but that death, as too often happens, +intercepted his reformation.<br> +<br> +His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly Republican; +for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than that “a +popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy +would set up an ordinary commonwealth.” It is surely very +shallow policy that supposes money to be the chief good; and even this, +without considering that the support and expense of a court is, for +the most part, only a particular kind of traffic, for which money is +circulated, without any national impoverishment.<br> +<br> +Milton’s Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious +hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance +impatient of control, and pride disdainful of superiority. He +hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for he hated +all whom he was required to obey. It is to be suspected that his +predominant desire was to destroy rather than establish, and that he +felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to authority.<br> +<br> +It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do +not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton’s character, +in domestic relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His +family consisted of women; and there appears in his books something +like a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferior beings. +That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to +be depressed by a mean and penurious education. He thought woman +made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion.<br> +<br> +Of his family some account may be expected. His sister, first +married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of her +first husband, who succeeded him in the Crown office. She had, +by her first husband, Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton educated; +and by her second, two daughters.<br> +<br> +His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catharine, +and a son, Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown office, and left +a daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenor Street.<br> +<br> +Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, and Deborah. +Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died of her first +child. Mary died single. Deborah married Abraham Clark, +a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to August, 1727. +This is the daughter of whom public mention has been made. She +could repeat the first lines of Homer, the “Metamorphoses,” +and some of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here incredulity +is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are necessary to fix +in memory lines not understood; and why should Milton wish or want to +hear them so often? These lines were at the beginning of the poems. +Of a book written in a language not understood, the beginning raises +no more attention than the end; and as those that understand it know +commonly the beginning best, its rehearsal will seldom be necessary. +It is not likely that Milton required any passage to be so much repeated +as that his daughter could learn it; nor likely that he desired the +initial lines to be read at all; nor that the daughter, weary of the +drudgery of pronouncing unideal sounds, would voluntarily commit them +to memory.<br> +<br> +To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some establishment, +but died soon after. Queen Caroline sent her fifty guineas. +She had seven sons and three daughters; but none of them had any children, +except her son Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went to +Fort St. George, in the East Indies, and had two sons, of whom nothing +now is known. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver in Spitalfields, +and had seven children, who all died. She kept a petty grocer’s +or chandler’s shop, first at Holloway, and afterwards in Cock +Lane, near Shoreditch Church. She knew little of her grandfather, +and that little was not good. She told of his harshness to his +daughters, and his refusal to have them taught to write; and, in opposition +to other accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate, in +his diet.<br> +<br> +In 1750, April 5th, <i>Comus </i>was played for her benefit. She +had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not +know what was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits +of the night were only one hundred and thirty pounds, though Dr. Newton +brought a large contribution; and twenty pounds were given by Tonson, +a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. Of this sum +one hundred pounds were placed in the stocks, after some debate between +her and her husband in whose name it should be entered; and the rest +augmented their little stock, with which they removed to Islington. +This was the greatest benefaction that “Paradise Lost” ever +procured the author’s descendants; and to this he who has now +attempted to relate his Life, had the honour of contributing a Prologue.<br> +<br> +In the examination of Milton’s poetical works, I shall pay so +much regard to time as to begin with his juvenile productions. +For his early pieces he seems to have had a degree of fondness not very +laudable; what he has once written he resolves to preserve, and gives +to the public an unfinished poem which he broke off because he was “nothing +satisfied with what he had done,” supposing his readers less nice +than himself. These preludes to his future labours are in Italian, +Latin, and English. Of the Italian I cannot pretend to speak as +a critic; but I have heard them commended by a man well qualified to +decide their merit. The Latin pieces are lusciously elegant: but +the delight which they afford is rather by the exquisite imitation of +the ancient writers, by the purity of the diction, and the harmony of +the numbers, than by any power of invention or vigour of sentiment. +They are not all of equal value; the elegies excel the odes; and some +of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been spared.<br> +<br> +The English poems, though they make no promises of “Paradise Lost,” +have this evidence of genius - that they have a cast original and unborrowed. +But their peculiarity is not excellence; if they differ from the verses +of others, they differ for the worse; for they are too often distinguished +by repulsive harshness; the combinations of words are new, but they +are not pleasing; the rhymes and epithets seem to be laboriously sought, +and violently applied.<br> +<br> +That in the early parts of his life he wrote with much care appears +from his manuscripts, happily preserved at Cambridge, in which many +of his smaller works are found as they were first written, with the +subsequent corrections. Such relics show how excellence is acquired; +what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.<br> +<br> +Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force their +own judgment into false approbation of his little pieces, and prevail +upon themselves to think that admirable which is only singular. +All that short compositions can commonly attain is neatness and elegance. +Milton never learned the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked +the milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a “Lion” +that had no skill in “dandling the Kid.”<br> +<br> +One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is “Lycidas;” +of which the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers +unpleasing. What beauty there is we must therefore seek in the +sentiments and images. It is not to be considered as the effusion +of real passion; for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions. Passion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor +calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough “satyrs” +and “fauns with cloven heel.” Where there is leisure +for fiction, there is little grief.<br> +<br> +In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth; there is no +art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral; +easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can supply +are long ago exhausted; and its inherent improbability always forces +dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey, that +they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he must miss the +companion of his labours, and the partner of his discoveries; but what +image of tenderness can be excited by these lines? -<br> +<br> +<br> +We drove afield, and both together heard<br> +What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn,<br> +Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.<br> +<br> +<br> +We know that they never drove afield, and that they had no flocks to +batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, +the true meaning is so uncertain and remote, that it is never sought, +because it cannot be known when it is found.<br> +<br> +Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen deities; +Jove and Phœbus, Neptune and Æolus, with a long train of +mythological imagery, such as a college easily supplies. Nothing +can less display knowledge, or less exercise invention, than to tell +how a shepherd has lost his companion, and must now feed his flocks +alone, without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one god asks +another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. +He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will +confer no honour.<br> +<br> +This poem has yet a grosser fault. With these trifling fictions +are mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to +be polluted with such irreverent combinations. The shepherd likewise +is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a +superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always +unskilful; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, +of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been conscious.<br> +<br> +Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze drives +away the eye from nice examination. Surely no man could have fancied +that he read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known the author.<br> +<br> +Of the two pieces, “L’Allegro” and “il Penseroso,” +I believe, opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them +with pleasure. The author’s design is not, what Theobald +has remarked, merely to show how objects derive their colours from the +mind, by representing the operation of the same things upon the gay +and the melancholy temper, or upon the same man as he is differently +disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of appearances, +every disposition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be gratified.<br> +<br> +The <i>cheerful </i>man hears the lark in the morning; the<i> pensive +</i>man hears the nightingale in the evening. The <i>cheerful +</i>man sees the cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the +wood; then walks, <i>not unseen</i>,<i> </i>to observe the glory of +the rising sun, or listen to the singing milkmaid, and view the labours +of the ploughman and the mower; then casts his eyes about him over scenes +of smiling plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence +of some fair inhabitant; thus he pursues real gaiety through a day of +labour or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful narratives +of superstitious ignorance.<br> +<br> +The <i>pensive </i>man at one time walks <i>unseen </i>to muse at midnight, +and at another hears the sullen curfew. If the weather drives +him home, he sits in a room lighted only by “glowing embers;” +or by a lonely lamp outwatches the North Star, to discover the habitation +of separate souls, and varies the Shades of meditation by contemplating +the magnificent or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. +When the morning comes - a morning gloomy with rain and wind - he walks +into the dark, trackless woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, +and with melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, +or some music played by aërial performers.<br> +<br> +Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the breast, +that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore +made of a philosophical friend, or a pleasant companion. The seriousness +does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from +the pleasures of the bottle.<br> +<br> +The man of <i>cheerfulness</i>,<i> </i>having exhausted the country, +tries what “towered cities” will afford, and mingles with +scenes of splendour, gay assemblies, and nuptial festivities; but he +mingles a mere spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or +the wild dramas of Shakespeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre.<br> +<br> +The <i>pensive </i>man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the +cloister, or frequents the cathedral. Milton probably had not +yet forsaken the Church.<br> +<br> +Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that cheerful +notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismission of Eurydice, +of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditional release.<br> +<br> +For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision: but Melancholy +he conducts with great dignity to the close of life. His Cheerfulness +is without levity, and his Pensiveness without asperity.<br> +<br> +Through these two poems the images are properly selected and nicely +distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently +discriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept sufficiently +apart. No mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I +am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in his mirth. They +are two noble efforts of imagination.<br> +<br> +The greatest of his juvenile performances is the “Mask of <i>Comus,</i>”<i> +</i>in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of +“Paradise Lost.” Milton appears to have formed very +early that system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment +approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to deviate.<br> +<br> +Nor does <i>Comus </i>afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits +likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, employed +in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical +is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive epithets, embellish +almost every period with lavish decoration. As a series of lines, +therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with +which the votaries have received it.<br> +<br> +As a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. +A mask, in those parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, +must indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagination, but so far +as the action is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can +hardly be said of the conduct of the two brothers; who, when their sister +sinks with fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both away together +in search of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helpless +lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. This, however, +is a defect over-balanced by its convenience.<br> +<br> +What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in the +wild wood by the attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience; a mode +of communication so contrary to the nature of dramatic representation, +that no precedents can support it.<br> +<br> +The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made +to almost all the following speeches; they have not the sprightliness +of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but seem rather declamations +deliberately composed, and formally repeated, on a moral question. +The auditor therefore listens as to a lecture, without passion, without +anxiety.<br> +<br> +The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommend +Milton’s morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure +are so general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, +and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.<br> +<br> +The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but tedious. +The song must owe much to the voice if it ever can delight. At +last the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity; and, when they have +feared lest their Sister should be in danger, and hoped that she is +not in danger, the elder makes a speech in praise of chastity, and the +younger finds how fine it is to be a philosopher.<br> +<br> +Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother, instead +of being in haste to ask his help, praises his singing, and inquires +his business in that place. It is remarkable, that at this interview +the Brother is taken with a short fit of rhyming, The Spirit relates +that the Lady is in the power of Comus; the Brother moralises again; +and the Spirit makes a long narration, of no use because it is false, +and therefore unsuitable to a good being.<br> +<br> +In all these parts the language is poetical, and the sentiments are +generous; but there is something wanting to allure attention.<br> +<br> +The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and affecting +scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker reciprocation of +objections and replies to invite attention, and detain it.<br> +<br> +The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in their +diction, and not very musical in their numbers.<br> +<br> +Throughout the whole the figures are too bold, and the language too +luxuriant for dialogue. It is a drama in the epic style, inelegantly +splendid, and tediously instructive.<br> +<br> +The sonnets were written in different parts of Milton’s life, +upon different occasions. They deserve not any particular criticism; +for of the best it can only be said, that they are not bad; and perhaps +only the eighth and twenty-first are truly entitled to this slender +commendation. The fabric of a sonnet, however adapted to the Italian +language, has never succeeded in ours, which, having greater variety +of termination, requires the rhymes to be often changed.<br> +<br> +Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a greater +work calls for greater care. I am now to examine “Paradise +Lost;” a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim +the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among +the productions of the human mind.<br> +<br> +By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius is due +to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the +powers which are singly sufficient for other compositions. Poetry +is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to +the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to teach the most important +truths by the most pleasing precepts, and therefore relates some great +event in the most affecting manner. History must supply the writer +with the rudiments of narration, which he must improve and exalt by +a nobler art, must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection +and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds, and different +shades, of vice and virtue; from policy, and the practice of life, he +has to learn the discriminations of character, and the tendency of the +passions, either single or combined; and physiology must supply him +with illustrations and images. To put those materials to poetical +use, is required an imagination capable of painting nature and realising +fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the whole extension +of his language, distinguished all the delicacies of phrase, and all +the colours of words, and learned to adjust their different sounds to +all the varieties of metrical modulation.<br> +<br> +Bossu is of opinion, that the poet’s first work is to find a <i>moral</i>,<i> +</i>which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish. +This seems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other +poems is incidental and consequent; in Milton’s only it is essential +and intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful and the most arduous: +“to vindicate the ways of God to man;” to show the reasonableness +of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the Divine Law.<br> +<br> +To convey this moral there must be a <i>fable</i>,<i> </i>a narration +artfully constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expectation. +In this part of his work Milton must be confessed to have equalled every +other poet. He has involved in his account of the Fall of Man +the events which preceded and those that were to follow it: he has interwoven +the whole system of theology with such propriety, that every part appears +to be necessary; and scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the +sake of quickening the progress of the main action.<br> +<br> +The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great importance. +That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the conduct of a colony, +or the foundation of an empire. His subject is the fate of worlds, +the revolutions of heaven and of earth; rebellion against the Supreme +King, raised by the highest order of created beings; the overthrow of +their host, and the punishment of their crime; the creation of a new +race of reasonable creatures; their original happiness and innocence, +their forfeiture of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.<br> +<br> +Great events can be hastened or retarded only by persons of elevated +dignity. Before the greatness displayed in Milton’s poem, +all other greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are +the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind; +with whose actions the elements consented; on whose rectitude or deviation +of will, depended the state of terrestrial nature, and the condition +of all the future inhabitants of the globe.<br> +<br> +Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is irreverence +to name on slight occasions. The rest were lower powers -<br> +<br> +<br> + Of which the least could wield<br> +Those elements, and arm him with the force<br> +Of all their regions;<br> +<br> +<br> +powers, which only the control of Omnipotence restrains from laying +creation waste, and filling the vast expanse of space with ruin and +confusion. To display the motives and actions of beings thus superior, +so far as human reason can examine them, or human imagination represent +them, is the task which this mighty poet has undertaken and performed.<br> +<br> +In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly employed +upon the <i>characters</i>. The characters in the “Paradise +Lost,” which admit of examination, are those of angels and of +man; of angels good and evil; of man in his innocent and sinful state.<br> +<br> +Among the angels, the virtue of Raphael is mild and placid, of easy +condescension and free communication; that of Michael is regal and lofty, +and, as may seem, attentive to the dignity of his own nature. +Abdiel and Gabriel appear occasionally, and act as every incident requires; +the solitary fidelity of Abdiel is very amiably painted.<br> +<br> +Of the evil angels the characters are more diversified. To Satan, +as Addison observes, such sentiments are given as suit “the most +exalted and most depraved being.” Milton has been censured +by Clarke, for the impiety which sometimes breaks from Satan’s +mouth; for there are thoughts, as he justly remarks, which no observation +of character can justify, because no good man would willingly permit +them to pass, however transiently, through his own mind. To make +Satan speak as a rebel, without any such expression as might taint the +reader’s imagination, was indeed one of the great difficulties +in Milton’s undertaking; and I cannot but think that he has extricated +himself with great happiness. There is in Satan’s speeches +little that can give pain to a pious ear. The language of rebellion +cannot be the same with that of obedience. The malignity of Satan +foams in haughtiness and obstinacy; but his expressions are commonly +general, and no otherwise offensive than as they are wicked.<br> +<br> +The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously discriminated +in the first and second books; and the ferocious character of Moloch +appears, both in the battle and the council, with exact consistency.<br> +<br> +To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such sentiments +as innocence can generate and utter. Their love is pure benevolence +and mutual veneration; their repasts are without luxury, and their diligence +without toil. Their addresses to their Maker have little more +than the voice of admiration and gratitude. Fruition left them +nothing to ask; and innocence left them nothing to fear.<br> +<br> +But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and stubborn +self-defence; they regard each other with alienated minds, and dread +their Creator as the avenger of their transgression. At last they +seek shelter in His mercy, soften to repentance, and melt in supplication. +Both before and after the fall, the superiority of Adam is diligently +sustained.<br> +<br> +Of the <i>probable </i>and the <i>marvellous</i>,<i> </i>two parts of +a vulgar epic poem which immerge the critic in deep consideration, the +“Paradise Lost” requires little to be said. It contains +the history of a miracle, of creation and redemption; it displays the +power and the mercy of the Supreme Being; the probable therefore is +marvellous, and the marvellous is probable. The substance of the +narrative is truth; and, as truth allows no choice, it is, like necessity, +superior to rule. To the accidental or adventitious parts, as +to everything human, some slight exceptions may be made; but the main +fabric is immovably supported.<br> +<br> +It is justly remarked by Addison, that this poem has, by the nature +of its subject, the advantage above all others, that it is universally +and perpetually interesting. All mankind will, through all ages, +bear the same relation to Adam and to Eve, and must partake of that +good and evil which extend to themselves.<br> +<br> +Of the <i>machinery</i>,<i> </i>so called from Θεòς +απò μηχανης, by which +is meant the occasional interposition of supernatural power, another +fertile topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because +everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of Heaven; +but the rule is so far observed, that no part of the action could have +been accomplished by any other means.<br> +<br> +Of <i>episodes</i>,<i> </i>I think there are only two - contained in +Raphael’s relation of the war in Heaven, and Michael’s prophetic +account of the changes to happen in this world. Both are closely +connected with the great action; one was necessary to Adam as a warning, +the other as a consolation.<br> +<br> +To the completeness or <i>integrity </i>of the design nothing can be +objected; it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires - a +beginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem, of +the same length, from which so little can be taken without apparent +mutilation. Here are no funeral games, nor is there any long description +of a shield. The short digressions at the beginning of the third, +seventh, and ninth books, might doubtless be spared, but superfluities +so beautiful who would take away? or who does not wish that the author +of the “Iliad” had gratified succeeding ages with a little +knowledge of himself? Perhaps no passages are more attentively +read than those extrinsic paragraphs; and, since the end of poetry is +pleasure, that cannot be unpoetical with which all are pleased.<br> +<br> +The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly <i>one</i>,<i> +</i>whether the poem can be properly termed <i>heroic</i>,<i> </i>and +who is the hero, are raised by such readers as draw their principles +of judgment rather from books than from reason. Milton, though +he entitled “Paradise Lost” only a “poem,” yet +calls it himself “heroic song.” Dryden petulantly +and indecently denies the heroism of Adam, because he was overcome; +but there is no reason why the hero should not be unfortunate, except +established practice, since success and virtue do not go necessarily +together. Cato is the hero of Lucan; but Lucan’s authority +will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide. However, if success +be necessary, Adam’s deceiver was at last crushed; Adam was restored +to his Maker’s favour, and therefore may securely resume his human +rank.<br> +<br> +After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered its component +parts, the sentiments and the diction.<br> +<br> +The <i>sentiments</i>,<i> </i>as expressive of manners, or appropriated +to characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just.<br> +<br> +Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts of prudence, +occur seldom. Such is the original formation of this poem, that, +as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can give little assistance +to human conduct. Its end is to raise the thoughts above sublunary +cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of that fortitude, with which +Abdiel maintained his singularity of virtue against the scorn of multitudes, +may be accommodated to all times; and Raphael’s reproof of Adam’s +curiosity after the planetary motions, with the answer returned by Adam, +may be confidently opposed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered.<br> +<br> +The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the progress are +such as could only be produced by an imagination in the highest degree +fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by incessant study +and unlimited curiosity. The heat of Milton’s mind may be +said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit +of science, unmingled with its grosser parts.<br> +<br> +He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his descriptions +are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagination to unrestrained +indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were extensive. The +characteristic quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes +descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can +occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantic +loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required; but it is +his peculiar power to astonish.<br> +<br> +He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know +what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than +upon others - the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, +enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful; +he therefore chose a subject on which too much could not be said, on +which he might tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance.<br> +<br> +The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not satiate +his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are requires +a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy. +Milton’s delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; +reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties +out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and +delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and +action to superior beings; to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany +the choirs of heaven.<br> +<br> +But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes revisit +earth, and tell of things visible and known. When he cannot raise +wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives delight by its fertility.<br> +<br> +Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination. +But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of nature +do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to have the +freshness, raciness, and energy of immediate observation. He saw +nature, as Dryden expresses it, “through the spectacles of books;” +and on most occasions calls learning to his assistance. The garden +of Eden brings to his mind the vale of Enna, where Proserpine was gathering +flowers. Satan makes his way through fighting elements, like Argo +between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between the two Sicilian whirlpools, +when he shunned Charybdis on the larboard. The mythological allusions +have been justly censured, as not being always used with notice of their +vanity; but they contribute variety to the narration, and produce an +alternate exercise of the memory and the fancy.<br> +<br> +His similes are less numerous, and more various, than those of his predecessors. +But he does not confine himself within the limits of rigorous comparison: +his great excellence is amplitude; and he expands the adventitious image +beyond the dimensions which the occasion required. Thus, comparing +the shield of Satan to the orb of the moon, he crowds the imagination +with the discovery of the telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope +discovers.<br> +<br> +Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they excel +those of all other poets; for this superiority he was indebted to his +acquaintance with the sacred writings. The ancient epic poets, +wanting the light of Revelation, were very unskilful teachers of virtue; +their principal characters may be great, but they are not amiable. +The reader may rise from their works with a greater degree of active +or passive fortitude, and sometimes of prudence; but he will be able +to carry away few precepts of justice, and none of mercy.<br> +<br> +From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of even Christian +knowledge may be possessed in vain. Ariosto’s pravity is +generally known; and, though the “Deliverance of Jerusalem” +may be considered as a sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing +of moral instruction.<br> +<br> +In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of manners, +except when the train of the narration requires the introduction of +the rebellious spirits; and even they are compelled to acknowledge their +subjection to God, in such a manner as excites reverence and confirms +piety.<br> +<br> +Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the parents of +mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and innocence, and +amiable after it for repentance and submission. In the first state +their affection is tender without weakness, and their piety sublime +without presumption. When they have sinned, they show how discord +begins in mutual frailty, and how it ought to cease in mutual forbearance; +how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by sin, and how hope +of pardon may be obtained by penitence and prayer. A state of +innocence we can only conceive, if indeed, in our present misery, it +be possible to conceive it; but the sentiments and worship proper to +a fallen and offending being, we have all to learn, as we have all to +practise.<br> +<br> +The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progenitors in +their first state conversed with angels; even when folly and sin had +degraded them, they had not in their humiliation “the port of +mean suitors;” and they rise again to reverential regard, when +we find that their prayers were heard.<br> +<br> +As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall, there is +in the “Paradise Lost” little opportunity for the pathetic; +but what little there is has not been lost. That passion, which +is peculiar to rational nature, the anguish arising from the consciousness +of transgression, and the horrors attending the sense of the Divine +displeasure, are very justly described and forcibly impressed. +But the passions are moved only on one occasion; sublimity is the general +and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously modified - +sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative.<br> +<br> +The defects and faults of “Paradise Lost” - for faults and +defects every work of man must have - it is the business of impartial +criticism to discover. As, in displaying the excellence of Milton, +I have not made long quotations, because of selecting beauties there +had been no end, I shall in the same general manner mention that which +seems to deserve censure; for what Englishman can take delight in transcribing +passages, which, if they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish in +some degree the honour of our country?<br> +<br> +The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of verbal +inaccuracies; which Bentley, perhaps better skilled in grammar and poetry, +has often found, though he sometimes made them, and which he imputed +to the obtrusions of a reviser, whom the author’s blindness obliged +him to employ; a supposition rash and groundless, if he thought it true; +and vile and pernicious, if, as is said, he in private allowed it to +be false.<br> +<br> +The plan of “Paradise Lost” has this inconvenience, that +it comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man +and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman +can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in which he can +be engaged - beholds no condition in which he can by any effort of imagination +place himself; he has, therefore, little natural curiosity or sympathy.<br> +<br> +We all, indeed, feel the effects of Adam’s disobedience; we all +sin like Adam, and like him must all bewail our offences; we have restless +and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the blessed spirits +we have guardians and friends; in the redemption of mankind we hope +to be included; in the description of heaven and hell we are surely +interested, as we are all to reside hereafter either in the regions +of horror or bliss.<br> +<br> +But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught +to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and familiar +conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture +of life. Being therefore not new, they raise no unaccustomed emotion +in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, +cannot surprise.<br> +<br> +Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recede with +reverence, except when stated hours require their association; and from +others we shrink with horror, or admit them only as salutary inflictions, +as counterpoises to our interests and passions. Such images rather +obstruct the career of fancy than incite it.<br> +<br> +Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; but poetical +pleasure must be such as human imagination can at least conceive, and +poetical terrors such as human strength and fortitude may combat. +The good and evil of eternity are too ponderous for the wings of wit; +the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm +belief and humble adoration.<br> +<br> +Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be conveyed +to the mind by a new train of intermediate images. This Milton +has undertaken and performed with pregnancy and vigour of mind peculiar +to himself. Whoever considers the few radical positions which +the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what energetic operation +he expanded them to such extent, and ramified them to so much variety, +restrained as he was by religious reverence from licentiousness of fiction.<br> +<br> +Here is a full display of the united force of study and genius - of +a great accumulation of materials, with judgment to digest and fancy +to combine them: Milton was able to select from nature or from story, +from an ancient fable or from modern science, whatever could illustrate +or adorn his thoughts. An accumulation of knowledge impregnated +his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination.<br> +<br> +It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by one of +his encomiasts, that in reading “Paradise Lost” we read +a book of universal knowledge.<br> +<br> +But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of human +interest is always felt. “Paradise Lost” is one of +the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take +up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal +is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, +retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation; +we desert our master, and seek for companions.<br> +<br> +Another inconvenience of Milton’s design is, that it requires +the description of what cannot be described, the agency of spirits. +He saw that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could not +show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore invested +them with form and matter. This, being necessary, was therefore +defensible; and he should have secured the consistency of his system, +by keeping immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop +it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry +with his philosophy. His infernal and celestial powers are sometimes +pure spirit, and sometimes animated body. When Satan walks with +his lance upon the “burning marl,” he has a body; when, +in his passage between hell and the new world, he is in danger of sinking +in the vacuity, and is supported by a gust of rising vapours, he has +a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be more spirit, that +can penetrate matter at pleasure; when he “starts up in his own +shape,” he has at least a determined form; and when he is brought +before Gabriel, he has “a spear and a shield,” which he +had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the contending +angels are evidently material.<br> +<br> +The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium, being “incorporeal +spirits,” are “at large, though without number,” in +a limited space: yet in the battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, +their armour hurt them, “crushed in upon their substance, now +grown gross by sinning.” This likewise happened to the uncorrupted +angels, who were overthrown the “sooner for their arms, for unarmed +they might easily as spirits have evaded by contraction or remove.” +Even as spirits they are hardly spiritual: for “contraction” +and “remove” are images of matter; but if they could have +escaped without their armour, they might have escaped from it, and left +only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he rides on a +sunbeam, is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess +of Adam.<br> +<br> +The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole narration +of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the book in which +it is related is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually +neglected as knowledge is increased.<br> +<br> +After the operation of immaterial agents, which cannot be explained, +may be considered that of allegorical persons which have no real existence. +To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas with form, and +animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. +But such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered only to do their +natural office, and retire. Thus Fame tells a tale, and Victory +hovers over a general, or perches on a standard; but Fame and Victory +can do no more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to +them any material agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but +to shock the mind by ascribing effects to nonentity. In the “Prometheus” +of Æschylus, we see Violence and Strength, and in the “Alcestis” +of Euripides we see Death, brought upon the stage, all as active persons +of the drama; but no precedents can justify absurdity.<br> +<br> +Milton’s allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty. +Sin is indeed the mother of Death, and may be allowed to be the portress +of hell; but when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey described +as real, and when Death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. +That Sin and Death should have shown the way to hell, might have been +allowed; but they cannot facilitate the passage by building a bridge, +because the difficulty of Satan’s passage is described as real +and sensible, and the bridge ought to be only figurative. The +hell assigned to the rebellious spirits is described as not less local +than the residence of man. It is placed in some distant part of +space, separated from the regions of harmony and order by a chaotic +waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but Sin and Death worked up a “mole +of aggravated soil” cemented with <i>asphaltus</i>,<i> </i>a work +too bulky for ideal architects.<br> +<br> +This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of +the poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author’s +opinion of its beauty.<br> +<br> +To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satan +is with great expectation brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and is +suffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is represented +as the consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of +the rebels; yet Satan mentions it as a report “rife in Heaven” +before his departure.<br> +<br> +To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult; and +something of anticipation perhaps is now and then discovered. +Adam’s discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of +a new-created being. I know not whether his answer to the angel’s +reproof for curiosity does not want something of propriety; it is the +speech of a man acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical +notions, especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better +omitted. The angel, in a comparison, speaks of “timorous +deer,” before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could understand +the comparison.<br> +<br> +Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. +This is only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every +work, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; +a poem must have transitions. It is no more to be required that +wit should always be blazing, than that the sun should always stand +at noon. In a great work there is a vicissitude of luminous and +opaque parts, as there is in the world a succession of day and night. +Milton, when he has expatiated in the sky, may be allowed sometimes +to revisit earth; for what other author ever soared so high, or sustained +his flight so long?<br> +<br> +Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed +often from them; and, as every man catches something from his companions, +his desire of imitating Ariosto’s levity has disgraced his work +with the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not in itself ill-imagined, but +too ludicrous for its place.<br> +<br> +His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations, +which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of the ancients; his +unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; it is not necessary +to mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally censured; +and at last bear so little proportion to the whole, that they scarcely +deserve the attention of a critic.<br> +<br> +Such are the faults of that wonderful performance “Paradise Lost;” +which he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered +not as nice but as dull, as less to be censured for want of candour +than pitied for want of sensibility.<br> +<br> +Of “Paradise Regained,” the general judgment seems now to +be right, that it is in many parts elegant, and everywhere instructive. +It was not to be supposed that the writer of “Paradise Lost” +could ever write without great effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts +of wisdom. The basis of “Paradise Regained” is narrow; +a dialogue without action can never please like a union of the narrative +and dramatic powers. Had this poem been written not by Milton, +but by some imitator, it would have claimed and received universal praise.<br> +<br> +If “Paradise Regained” has been too much depreciated, “Samson +Agonistes” has, in requital, been too much admired. It could +only be by long prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton +could prefer the ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, +to the exhibitions of the French and English stages; and it is only +by a blind confidence in the reputation of Milton that a drama can be +praised in which the intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence, +neither hasten nor retard the catastrophe.<br> +<br> +In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just sentiments +and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the attention +which a well connected plan produces.<br> +<br> +Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human nature +only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor +the combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending passions. +He had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little +in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must +confer.<br> +<br> +Through all his greater works there prevails a uniform peculiarity of +<i>diction</i>,<i> </i>a mode and cast of expression which bears little +resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far removed +from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, +finds himself surprised by a new language.<br> +<br> +This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton, +imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur +of his ideas. “Our language,” says Addison, “sank +under him.” But the truth is, that, both in prose and verse, +he had formed his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. +He was desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom. This, +in all his prose, is discovered and condemned; for there judgment operates +freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor awed by the dignity of his +thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry, that his call is obeyed +without resistance, the reader feels himself in captivity to a higher +and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in admiration.<br> +<br> +Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is shown +with greater extent in “Paradise Lost” may be found in “Comus.” +One source of his peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; +the disposition of his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps +sometimes combined with other tongues. Of him, at last, may be +said what Jonson says of Spenser, that “he wrote no language,” +but has formed what Butler calls a “Babylonish dialect,” +in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive +learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure, that, +like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.<br> +<br> +Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of +copiousness and variety. He was master of his language in its +full extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, +that from his book alone the Art of English Poetry might be learned.<br> +<br> +After his diction something must be said of his <i>versification</i>. +The <i>measure</i>,<i> </i>he says, “is the English heroic verse +without rhyme.” Of this mode he had many examples among +the Italians, and some in his own country. The Earl of Surrey +is said to have translated one of Virgil’s books without rhyme; +and, beside our tragedies, a few short poems had appeared in blank verse, +particularly one tending to reconcile the nation to Raleigh’s +wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh himself. +These petty performances cannot be supposed to have much influenced +Milton, who more probably took his hint from Trissino’s “Italia +Liberata;” and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was desirous +of persuading himself that it is better.<br> +<br> +“Rhyme,” he says, and says truly, “is no necessary +adjunct of true poetry.” But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental +operation, metre or music is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by +the music of metre that poetry has been discriminated in all languages; +and, in languages melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long +and short syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot +communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and imperfect, +some help is necessary. The music of the English heroic lines +strikes the ear so faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all the syllables +of every line co-operate together; this co-operation can only be obtained +by the preservation of every verse unmingled with another as a distinct +system of sounds; and this distinctness is obtained and preserved by +the artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted +by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet +to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and +happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where +the lines end or begin. “Blank verse,” said an ingenious +critic, “seems to be verse only to the eye.”<br> +<br> +Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will not often +please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is +able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that +which is called the “lapidary style;” has neither the easiness +of prose, nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. +Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, +not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence has been confuted +by the ear.<br> +<br> +But, whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself +to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to +be other than it is; yet like other heroes, he is to be admired rather +than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may +write blank verse; but those that hope only to please must condescend +to rhyme.<br> +<br> +The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot +be said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and therefore +owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations +must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture +of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, +and all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, +of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. +He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, +and disdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refuse admission to +the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. +From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there +is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might +be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation +of support. His great works were performed under discountenance +and in blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born +for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic +poems, only because it is not the first.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, +has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy of imagination +and elegance of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of +literature; but his zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has +produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, +not the life, of Cowley; for he writes with so little detail, that scarcely +anything is distinctly known, but all is shown confused and enlarged +through the mist of panegyric.<br> +<br> +<br> +Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand sir hundred and eighteen. +His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals under the +general appellation of a citizen; and, what would probably not have +been less carefully suppressed, the omission of his name in the register +of St. Dunstan’s parish gives reason to suspect that his father +was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his +son, and consequently left him to the care of his mother: whom Wood +represents as struggling earnestly to procure him a literary education, +and who, as she lived to the age of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded +by seeing her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and +partaking his prosperity. We know at least, from Sprat’s +account, that he always acknowledged her care, and justly paid the dues +of filial gratitude.<br> +<br> +In the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s “Fairy +Queen,” in which he very early took delight to read, till by feeling +the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. +Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes +forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity +for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called Genius. +The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined +to some particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter +of the present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the +perusal of Richardson’s treatise.<br> +<br> +By his mother’s solicitation he was admitted into Westminster +school, where he was soon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, +to relate, “that he had this defect in his memory at that time, +that his teachers never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules +of grammar.”<br> +<br> +This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder. +It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it was heard, when Sprat +could not refrain from amplifying a commodious incident, though the +book to which he prefixed his narrative contained its confutation. +A memory admitting some things, and rejecting others, an intellectual +digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, +had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision +made by nature for literary politeness. But in the author’s +own honest relation, the marvel vanishes: he was, he says, such “an +enemy to all constraint, that his master never could prevail on him +to learn the rules without book.” He does not tell that +he could not learn the rules; but that, being able to perform his exercises +without them, and being an “enemy to constraint,” he spared +himself the labour.<br> +<br> +Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope might be said “to +lisp in numbers;” and have given such early proofs, not only of +powers of language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardy +minds seems scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities +of Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not only +written, but printed in his thirteenth year; containing, with other +poetical compositions, “The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe,” +written when he was ten years old; and “Constantia and Philetus,” +written two years after.<br> +<br> +While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called “Love’s +Riddle,” though it was not published till he had been some time +at Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires +no acquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at which +it was composed adds little to the wonders of Cowley’s minority.<br> +<br> +In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where he continued his studies +with great intenseness; for he is said to have written, while he was +yet a young student, the greater part of his “Davideis;” +a work of which the materials could not have been collected without +the study of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vigour and activity.<br> +<br> +Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published “Love’s +Riddle,” with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, of whose +acquaintance all his contemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and +“Naufragium Joculare,” a comedy written in Latin, but without +due attention to the ancient models; for it is not loose verse, but +mere prose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse to Dr. +Comber, master of the college; but having neither the facility of a +popular, nor the accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universally +neglected.<br> +<br> +At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed through Cambridge +in his way to York, he was entertained with the representation of “The +Guardian,” a comedy which Cowley says was neither written nor +acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by the scholars. That +this comedy was printed during his absence from his country he appears +to have considered as injurious to his reputation; though, during the +suppression of the theatres, it was sometimes privately acted with sufficient +approbation.<br> +<br> +In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the +Parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John’s +College in Oxford; where, as is said by Wood, he published a satire, +called “The Puritan and Papist,” which was only inserted +in the last collection of his works; and so distinguished himself by +the warmth of his loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, that +he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended the king, +and amongst others of Lord Falkland, whose notice cast a lustre on all +to whom it was extended.<br> +<br> +About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, he followed +the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord Jermyn, afterwards +Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in such correspondence as the royal +cause required, and particularly in ciphering and deciphering the letters +that passed between the king and queen; an employment of the highest +confidence and honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, +that for several years it filled all his days and two or three nights +in the week.<br> +<br> +In the year 1647, his “Mistress” was published; for he imagined, +as he declared in his preface to a subsequent edition, that “poets +are scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, +or obliging themselves to be true to love.”<br> +<br> +This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its original to +the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful +homage to his Laura refined the manners of the lettered world, and filled +Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is +truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch +was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. +Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes, who had means enough of information, +that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety +of characters by which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love +but once, and then never had resolution to tell his passion.<br> +<br> +This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the reader’s +esteem for the works and the author. To love excellence is natural; +it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal regard by +an elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of +pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and effusions +of wit; but it seems as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet +of an airy “nothing,” and to quarrel as to write for what +Cowley might have learned from his master Pindar to call “the +dream of a shadow.”<br> +<br> +It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or in the +bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. +No man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it in voluntary +dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that sits down to suppose +himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an +elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never +within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency +of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw; complains +of jealousy which he never felt; supposes himself sometimes invited, +and sometimes forsaken; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his memory +for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope or the gloominess of +despair; and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis sometimes in flowers +fading as her beauty, and sometimes in gems lasting as her virtues.<br> +<br> +At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting +things of real importance with real men and real women, and at that +time did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. +Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, from +April to December, in 1650, are preserved in “Miscellanea Aulica,” +a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, being +written like those of other men whose minds are more on things than +words, contribute no otherwise to his reputation, than as they show +him to have been above the affectation of unseasonable elegance, and +to have known that the business of a statesman can be little forwarded +by flowers of rhetoric.<br> +<br> +One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking +of the Scotch treaty then in agitation:<br> +<br> +“The Scotch treaty,” says he, “is the only thing now +in which we are vitally concerned; I am one of the last hopers, and +yet cannot now abstain from believing that an agreement will be made; +all people upon the place incline to that opinion. The Scotch +will moderate something of the rigour of their demands; the mutual necessity +of an accord is visible; the king is persuaded of it. And to tell +you the truth (which I take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgil +has told me something to that purpose.”<br> +<br> +This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would be considered +as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious display of scholarship; +but the manners of that time were so tinged with superstition, that +I cannot but suspect Cowley of having consulted on this great occasion +the Virgilian lots, and to have given some credit to the answer of his +oracle.<br> +<br> +Some years afterwards, “business,” says Sprat, “passed +of course into other hands;” and Cowley, being no longer useful +at Paris, was in 1656 sent back into England, that, “under pretence +of privacy and retirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of +the posture of things in this nation.”<br> +<br> +Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of +the usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of another man; and +being examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not dismissed +without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough.<br> +<br> +This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems +to have inserted something suppressed in subsequent editions, which +was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this +preface he declares, that “his desire had been for some days past, +and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of +the American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever.”<br> +<br> +From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpers +brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him, +and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation. His +wish for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; a man +harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a course +of business that employed all his days and half his nights, in ciphering +and deciphering, comes to his own country and steps into a prison, will +be willing enough to retire to some place of quiet and of safety. +Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, +dispose us to forget, that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat +was cowardice.<br> +<br> +He then took upon him the character of physician, still, according to +Sprat, with intention “to dissemble the main design of his coming +over;” and, as Mr. Wood relates, “complying with the men +then in power (which was much taken notice of by the royal party), he +obtained an order to be created doctor of physic; which being done to +his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of some of his friends), he +went into France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver’s +death.”<br> +<br> +This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not much wrong +can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power is +to be inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that he +told them any secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other +act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands +he was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of society +prohibits.<br> +<br> +The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of +his enemy, may, without any breach of his integrity, regain his liberty, +or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality: for the stipulation +gives the enemy nothing which he had not before. The neutrality +of a captive may be always secured by his imprisonment or death. +He that is at the disposal of another may not promise to aid him in +any injurious act, because no power can compel active obedience. +He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill.<br> +<br> +There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It does +not appear that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be trusted +without security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor +that it made him think himself secure, for, at that dissolution of government +which followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he +resumed his former station, and stayed till the restoration.<br> +<br> +“He continued,” says his biographer, “under these +bonds till the general deliverance;” it is therefore to be supposed +that he did not go to France, and act again for the king, without the +consent of his bondsman: that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard +of his friend, but by his friend’s permission.<br> +<br> +Of the verses on Oliver’s death, in which Wood’s narrative +seems to imply something encomiastic, there has been no appearance. +There is a discourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses +intermixed, but such as certainly gained its author no friends among +the abettors of usurpation.<br> +<br> +A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in December, 1657; +and in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has +been published by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the experimental +philosophers with the title of Doctor Cowley.<br> +<br> +There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice: but +his preparatory studies have contributed something to the honour of +his country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, he +retired into Kent to gather plants; and as the predominance of a favourite +study affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, botany in +the mind of Cowley turned into poetry. He composed, in Latin, +several books on plants, of which the first and second display the qualities +of herbs, in elegiac verse; the third and fourth, the beauties of flowers, +in various measures; and the fifth and sixth, the use of trees, in heroic +numbers.<br> +<br> +At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two great +poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite principles, +but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry; in which the English, +till their works and May’s poem appeared, seemed unable to contest +the palm with any other of the lettered nations.<br> +<br> +If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared (for May +I hold to be superior to both), the advantage seems to lie on the side +of Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts +of the ancients in their language; Cowley, without much loss of purity +or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions.<br> +<br> +At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, and +with consciousness, not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity +of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; and, that +he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a song of triumph. +But this was a time of such general hope, that great numbers were inevitably +disappointed; and Cowley found his reward very tediously delayed. +He had been promised, by both Charles the First and Second, the mastership +of the Savoy; “but he lost it,” says Wood, “by certain +persons, enemies to the Muses.”<br> +<br> +The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; having by such +alteration as he thought proper, fitted his old comedy of “The +Guardian” for the stage, he produced it under the title of “The +Cutter of Coleman Street.” It was treated on the stage with +great severity, and was afterwards censured as a satire on the king’s +party.<br> +<br> +Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, related +to Mr. Dennis, “that, when they told Cowley how little favour +had been shown him, he received the news of his ill success, not with +so much firmness as might have been expected from so great a man.”<br> +<br> +What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered, cannot +be known. He that misses his end will never be as much pleased +as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part of his failure +to himself; and when the end is to please the multitude, no man perhaps +has a right, in things admitting of gradation and comparison, to throw +the whole blame upon his judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and +shame, by a haughty consciousness of his own excellence.<br> +<br> +For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find the reason: +it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of fixing attention +and exciting merriment. From the charge of disaffection he exculpates +himself in his preface, by observing how unlikely it is, that, having +followed the royal family through all their distresses, “he should +choose the time of their restoration to begin a quarrel with them.” +It appears, however, from the theatrical register of Downes the prompter, +to have been popularly considered as a satire on the royalists.<br> +<br> +That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his pretensions +and his discontent in an ode called “The Complaint;” in +which he styles himself the <i>melancholy </i>Cowley. This met +with the usual fortune of complaints, and seems to have excited more +contempt than pity.<br> +<br> +These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in +some stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; a +mode of satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling, +perhaps every generation of poets has been teased.<br> +<br> +<br> +Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court,<br> + Making apologies for his bad play;<br> +Every one gave him so good a report,<br> + That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:<br> +<br> +Nor would he have had, ‘tis thought, a rebuke,<br> + Unless he had done some notable folly;<br> +Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,<br> + Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.<br> +<br> +<br> +His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him. “Not +finding,” says the morose Wood, “that preferment conferred +upon him which he expected, while others for their money carried away +most places, he retired discontented into Surrey.”<br> +<br> +“He was now,” says the courtly Sprat, “weary of the +vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been +perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated +with the arts of a court; which sort of life, though his virtue made +it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were +the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclination of his +own mind, which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had +still called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of solitary +studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue below the malice +and flatteries of fortune.”<br> +<br> +So differently are things seen! and so differently are they shown! +But actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowley certainly +retired; first to Barn Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. +He seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of the <i>hum</i> +<i>of men</i>. He thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, +without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking +shelter in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of life +as that he might easily find his way back when solitude should grow +tedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly accommodated; +yet he soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl of St. Alban’s, +and the Duke of Buckingham, such lease of the queen’s lands as +afforded him an ample income.<br> +<br> +By the lovers of virtue and of wit it will be solicitously asked, if +he now was happy. Let them peruse one of his letters accidentally +preserved by Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of all that +may hereafter pant for solitude.<br> +<br> +<br> +“TO DR. THOMAS SPRAT,<br> +“<i>Chertsey</i>,<i> May </i>21, 1665.<br> +<br> +“The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, +with a defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days. +And, two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am +yet unable to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personal +fortune here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from +my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in +by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, +God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging. +Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the rest, that you +have broke your word with me and failed to come, even though you told +Mr. Bois that you would. This is what they call <i>monstri simile</i>. +I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days (though +it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) as to walk about +again. And then, methinks, you and I and the dean might be very +merry upon St. Ann’s Hill. You might very conveniently come +hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write +this in pain, and can say no more: <i>verbum sapienti.</i>”<br> +<br> +<br> +He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of solitude; +for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 [28th July], in +the forty-ninth year of his age.<br> +<br> +He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King Charles +pronounced, “That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a better +man in England.” He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most +amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely be credited, +as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction.<br> +<br> +Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to +the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of civil war +were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily irritated, +was obliged to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and +to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell cannot, +however, now be known; I must therefore recommend the perusal of his +work, to which my narration can be considered only as a slender supplement.<br> +<br> +Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead +of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the minds +of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time +too much praised, and too much neglected at another.<br> +<br> +Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of +man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different +forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared +a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, +in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some +account.<br> +<br> +The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning +was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, +instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such +verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for +the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses +by counting the syllables.<br> +<br> +If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry τéχνη +μιμητικη, <i>an imitative art</i>,<i> +</i>these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the +name of poets; for they cannot be said to have imitated anything; they +neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, +nor represented the operations of intellect.<br> +<br> +Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. +Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below +Donne in wit; but maintains that they surpass him in poetry.<br> +<br> +If wit be well described by Pope, as being “that which has been +often thought, but was never before so well expressed,” they certainly +never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular +in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope’s +account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural +dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.<br> +<br> +If by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be considered +as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, +is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that +which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to wit of this +kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts +are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither +are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, +wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever +found.<br> +<br> +But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously +and philosophically considered as a kind of <i>discordia concors; </i>a +combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances +in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more +than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence +together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, +and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; +but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though +he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.<br> +<br> +From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred +that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. +As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, +they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us +to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: +they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or +done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; +as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as epicurean +deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes +of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship +was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish +was only to say what they hoped had been never said before.<br> +<br> +Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; for they +never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once +fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, +and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, +and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, +and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions +not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that +subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is +taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those +writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of +greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. +Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into fragments; +and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured +particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than +he who dissects a sunbeam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulgence +of a summer noon.<br> +<br> +What they wanted, however, of the sublime they endeavoured to supply +by hyperbole; their amplifications had no limits; they left not only +reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused +magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be +imagined.<br> +<br> +Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; +if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise +sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceits were far fetched, +they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it +was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born +a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions +copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by +traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, +and volubility of syllables.<br> +<br> +In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised +either by recollection or inquiry; something already learned is to be +retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness +seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination +is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison +are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity +has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes +found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those +who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity +and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety +though less copiousness of sentiment.<br> +<br> +This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and +his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of +very extensive and various knowledge, and by Jonson, whose manner resembled +that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of +his sentiments.<br> +<br> +When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators +than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom +any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, +Cowley, Clieveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another +way to fame, by improving the harmony of our members. Milton tried +the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. +Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment +and more music. Suckling neither improved versification nor abounded +in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; +Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.<br> +<br> +Critical remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have +therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this +species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their +admirers) was eminently distinguished.<br> +<br> +As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired +than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of +learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. +Thus, Cowley on Knowledge:<br> +<br> +<br> +The sacred tree ‘midst the fair orchard grew;<br> + The phœnix truth did on it rest,<br> + And built his perfumed nest,<br> +That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show.<br> + Each leaf did learned notions give,<br> + And the apples were demonstrative;<br> +So clear their colour and divine,<br> +The very shads they cast did other lights outshine.<br> +<br> +<br> +On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:<br> +<br> +<br> +Love was with thy life entwined,<br> +Close as heat with fire is join’d;<br> +A powerful brand prescribed the date<br> +Of thine, like Meleager’s fate.<br> +Th’ antiperistasis of age<br> +More enflam’d thy amorous rage.<br> +<br> +<br> +In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion +concerning manna:<br> +<br> +<br> +Variety I ask not: give me one<br> +To live perpetually upon.<br> +The person Love does to us fit,<br> +Like manna, has the taste of all in it.<br> +<br> +<br> +Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses:<br> +<br> +<br> + In everything there naturally grows<br> +A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,<br> + If ’twere not injured by extrinsic blows:<br> +Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.<br> + But you, of learning and religion,<br> +And virtue and such ingredients, have made<br> + A mithridate, whose operation<br> +Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.<br> +<br> +<br> +Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, +have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant:<br> +<br> +<br> +This twilight of two years, not past nor next,<br> + Some emblem is of me, or I of this,<br> +Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,<br> + Whose what and where in disputation is,<br> + If I should call me anything, should miss.<br> +I sum the years and me, and find me not<br> + Debtor to th’ old, nor creditor to th’ +new.<br> +That cannot say, my thanks I have forget,<br> + Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true<br> + This bravery is, since these times show’d me +you - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne’s reflection upon man +as a microcosm:<br> +<br> +<br> +If men be worlds, there is in every one<br> +Something to answer in some proportion;<br> +All the world’s riches; and in good men, this<br> +Virtue, our form’s form, and our soul’s soul, is<br> +<br> +<br> +Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, +all their books are full.<br> +<br> +To a lady, who wrote posies for rings:<br> +<br> +<br> +They, who above do various circles find,<br> +Say, like a ring, th’ equator Heaven does bind<br> +When Heaven shall be adorned by thee,<br> +(Which then more Heaven than ‘tis will be)<br> +’Tis thou must write the poesy there,<br> + For it wanteth one as yet,<br> +Then the sun pass through’t twice a year,<br> + The sun, which is esteem’d the god of wit. - +COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy +are by Cowley, with still more perplexity applied to love:<br> +<br> +<br> +Five years ago (says story) I loved you,<br> +For which you call me most inconstant now;<br> +Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;<br> +For I am not the same that I was then:<br> +No flesh is now the same ‘twas then in me,<br> +And that my mind is changed yourself may see.<br> +The same thoughts to retain still, and intents<br> +Were more inconstant far; for accidents<br> +Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove,<br> +If from one subject they t’ another move;<br> +My members then the father members were,<br> +From whence these take their birth, which now are here<br> +If then this body love what th’ other did,<br> +’Twere incest, which by nature is forbid.<br> +<br> +<br> +The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to +travels through different countries:<br> +<br> +<br> +Hast thou not found each woman’s breast<br> + (The land where thou hast travelled)<br> +Either by savages possest,<br> + Or wild, and uninhabited?<br> +What joy could’st take, or what repose,<br> +In countries so uncivilis’d as those?<br> +Lust, the scorching dog-star, here<br> + Rages with immoderate heat;<br> +Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear,<br> + In others makes the cold too great.<br> +And where these are temperate known,<br> +The soil’s all barren sand, or rocky stone. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:<br> +<br> +<br> +The fate of Egypt I sustain,<br> +And never feel the dew of rain,<br> +From clouds which in the head appear;<br> +But all my too-much moisture ewe<br> +To overflowings of the heart below. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury +and rites of sacrifice:<br> +<br> +<br> +And yet this death of mine, I fear,<br> +Will ominous to her appear:<br> + When, sound in every other part,<br> +Her sacrifice is found without an heart.<br> + For the last tempest of my death<br> +Shall sigh out that too, with my breath.<br> +<br> +<br> +That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the +different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover:<br> +<br> +<br> +Th’ ungovern’d parts no correspondence knew;<br> +An artless war from thwarting motions grew;<br> +Till they to number and fixed rules were brought.<br> +Water and air he for the tenor chose,<br> +Earth made the base; the treble flame arose. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne +has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, +they may be read again:<br> +<br> +<br> + On a round ball<br> + A workman, that bath copies by, can lay<br> + An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,<br> +And quickly make that which was nothing, all.<br> + So doth each tear,<br> + Which thee doth wear,<br> +A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,<br> +Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow<br> +This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so.<br> +<br> +<br> +On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out “Confusion +worse confounded.”<br> +<br> +<br> +Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here,<br> + She gives the best light to his sphere,<br> + Or each is both, and all, and so,<br> +They unto one another nothing owe. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope?<br> +<br> +<br> +Though God be our true glass through which we see<br> +All, since the being of all things is He,<br> +Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive<br> +Things in proportion fit, by perspective<br> +Deeds of good men; for by their living here,<br> +Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.<br> +<br> +<br> +Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote +ideas could be brought together?<br> +<br> +<br> +Since ‘tis my doom, love’s undershrieve,<br> + Why this reprieve?<br> +Why doth my she advowson fly<br> + Incumbency?<br> +To sell thyself dust thou intend<br> + By candles end,<br> +And hold the contract thus in doubt,<br> + Life’s taper out?<br> +Think but how soon the market fails,<br> +Your sex lives faster than the males;<br> +And if to measure age’s span,<br> +The sober Julian were th’ account of man,<br> +Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. - CLEVELAND.<br> +<br> +<br> +Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples:<br> +<br> +<br> +By every wind that comes this way,<br> + Send me at least a sigh or two,<br> +Such and so many I’ll repay<br> + As shall themselves make winds to get to you. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +In tears I’ll waste these eyes,<br> +By love so vainly fed:<br> +So lust of old the deluge punished. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +All arm’d in brass, the richest dress of war,<br> +(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.<br> +The sun himself started with sudden fright,<br> +To see his beams return so dismal bright. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +A universal consternation:<br> +<br> +<br> +His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws<br> +Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,<br> +Lashing his angry tail and roaring out.<br> +Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;<br> +Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;<br> +Silence and horror fill the place around;<br> +Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +Their fictions were often violent and unnatural.<br> +<br> +Of his mistress bathing:<br> +<br> +<br> +The fish around her crowded, as they do<br> +To the false light that treacherous fishers show,<br> +And all with as much ease might taken be,<br> + As she at first took me;<br> + For ne’er did light so clear<br> + Among the waves appear,<br> +Though every night the sun himself set there. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +The poetical effect of a lover’s name upon glass:<br> +<br> +<br> + My name engraved herein<br> +Both contribute my firmness to this glass:<br> + Which, ever since that charm, hath been<br> +As hard as that which graved it was. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. On an inconstant +woman:<br> +<br> +<br> +He enjoys the calmy sunshine now,<br> + And no breath stirring hears,<br> +In the clear heaven of thy brow<br> + No smallest cloud appears.<br> +He sees thee gentle, fair and gay,<br> + And trusts the faithless April of thy May. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire:<br> +<br> +<br> + Nothing yet in thee is seen,<br> + But when a genial heat warms thee within,<br> + A new-born wood of various lines there grows;<br> + Hers buds an L, and there a B,<br> + Here sprouts a V, and there a T,<br> +And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their +allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; whether they +compared the little to the great, or the great to the little.<br> +<br> +Physic and chirurgery for a lover:<br> +<br> +<br> + Gently, ah gently, madam, touch<br> +The wound, which you yourself have made;<br> + That pain must needs be very much<br> +Which makes me of your hand afraid.<br> + Cordials of pity give me now,<br> +For I too weak of purgings grow. - COWLEY<i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>The world and a clock<br> +<br> +<br> +Mahol th’ inferior world’s fantastic face<br> +Through all the turns of matter’s maze did trace;<br> +Great Nature’s well-set clock in pieces took;<br> +On all the springs and smallest wheels did look<br> +Of life and motion, and with equal art<br> +Made up the whole again of every part. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want its +due honour, Cleveland has paralleled it with the sun:<br> +<br> +<br> +The moderate value of our guiltless ore<br> +Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore;<br> +Yet why should hallow’d vestal’s sacred shrine<br> +Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?<br> +These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,<br> +Than a few embers, for a deity.<br> +Had he our pits, the Persian would admire<br> +No sun, but warm’s devotion at our fire:<br> +He’d leave the trotting whipster, and prefer<br> +Our profound Vulcan ’bove that waggoner.<br> +For wants he heat, or light? or would have store<br> +Of both? ‘tis here: and what can suns give more?<br> +Nay, what’s the sun but, in a different name,<br> +A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame?<br> +Then let this truth reciprocally run,<br> +The sun’s heaven’s coalery, and coals our sun.<br> +<br> +<br> +Death, a voyage:<br> +<br> +<br> + No family<br> +E’er rigg’d a soul for Heaven’s discovery,<br> +With whom more venturers might boldly dare<br> +Venture their stakes with him in joy to share. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such +as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding.<br> +<br> +A lover neither dead nor alive:<br> +<br> +<br> +Then down I laid my head<br> +Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,<br> +And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.<br> +<br> + Ah, sottish soul, said I,<br> + When back to its cage again I saw it fly;<br> + Fool to resume her broken chain,<br> + And row her galley here again!<br> + Fool, to that body to return<br> +Where it condemned and destined is to burn!<br> +Once dead, how can it be,<br> +Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,<br> +That thou should’st come to live it o’er again in me? - +COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +A lover’s heart, a hand grenado:<br> +<br> +Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come<br> + Into the self same room;<br> + ‘Twill tear and blow up all within,<br> +Like a grenade shot into a magazine.<br> +Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts,<br> + Of both our broken hearts;<br> + Shalt out of both one new one make;<br> +From hers th’ allay, from mine the metal take. - COWLEY<br> +<br> +<br> +The poetical propagation of light:<br> +<br> +<br> +The prince’s favour is diffused o’er all,<br> +From which all fortunes names, and natures fall:<br> +Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride’s bright eyes,<br> + At every glance a constellation flies,<br> +And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent<br> + In light and power, the all-ey’d firmament:<br> +First her eye kindles other ladies’ eyes,<br> + Then from their beams their jewels’ lustres +rise;<br> +And from their jewels torches do take fire,<br> +And all is warmth, and light, and good desire. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance +of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often +gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their +thoughts.<br> +<br> +That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by Cowley +thus expressed:<br> +<br> +<br> +Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand<br> +Than woman can be placed by Nature’s hand;<br> +And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be,<br> +To change thee as thou’rt there, for very thee.<br> +<br> +<br> +That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught by Donne:<br> +<br> +<br> +In none but us are such mix’d engines found,<br> +As hands of double office; for the ground<br> +We till with them; and them to heaven we raise<br> +Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,<br> +Doth but one half, that’s none.<br> +<br> +<br> +By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is +thus illustrated:<br> +<br> +<br> + That which I should have begun<br> +In my youth’s morning, now late must be done;<br> +And I, as giddy travellers must do,<br> +Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost<br> +Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post.<br> +<br> +<br> +All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is comprehended +by Donne in the following lines:<br> +<br> +<br> +Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie<br> +After enabled but to suck and cry.<br> +Think, when ‘twas grown to most, ‘twas a poor inn,<br> +A province pack’d up in two yards of skin,<br> +And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage<br> +Of sicknesses or their true mother, age.<br> +But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;<br> +Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;<br> +Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown<br> +In pieces, and the bullet is his own,<br> +And freely flies: this to thy soul allow,<br> +Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.<br> +<br> +<br> +They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises +beauty:<br> +<br> +<br> + Thou tyrant which leav’st no man free!<br> +Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!<br> +Thou murtherer, which has kill’d, and devil, which would’st +damn me!<br> +<br> +<br> +Thus he addresses his mistress:<br> +<br> +<br> +Thou who, in many a propriety,<br> +So truly art the sun to me,<br> +Add one more likeness, which I’m sure you can,<br> +And let me and my sun beget a man.<br> +<br> +<br> +Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:<br> +<br> +<br> +Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been<br> +So much as of original sin,<br> +Such charms thy beauty wears, as might<br> +Desires in dying confest saints excite.<br> + Thou with strange adultery<br> +Dost in each breast a brothel keep;<br> + Awake all men do lust for thee,<br> +And some enjoy thee when they sleep.<br> +<br> +<br> +The true taste of tears:<br> +<br> +<br> +Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come,<br> + And take my tears, which are love’s wine,<br> +And try your mistress’ tears at home;<br> + For all are false, that taste not just like mine. +- DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +This is yet more indelicate:<br> +<br> +<br> +As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,<br> +As that which from chas’d musk-cat’s pores doth trill,<br> +As th’ almighty balm of th’ early east;<br> +Such are the sweet drops of my mistress’ breast.<br> +And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,<br> +They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:<br> +Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to +be pathetic:<br> +<br> +<br> +As men in hell are from diseases free,<br> +So from all other ills am I,<br> +Free from their known formality:<br> +But all pains eminently lie in thee. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from which +they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were +popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by +tradition, because they supply commodious allusions.<br> +<br> +<br> +It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:<br> +In vain it something would have spoke;<br> +The love within too strong for’t was,<br> +Like poison put into a Venice-glass. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +<br> +In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for conceits. +Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to adorn. +Dryden’s Night is well known; Donne’s is as follows:<br> +<br> +<br> +Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest:<br> +Time’s dead low-water; when all minds divest<br> +To-morrow’s business; when the labourers have<br> +Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave,<br> +Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;<br> +Now when the client, whose last hearing is<br> +To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,<br> +Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the<br> +Again by death, although sad watch he keep;<br> +Doth practise dying by a little sleep:<br> +Thou at this midnight seest me.<br> +<br> +<br> +It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are upon +common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle; yet, where +scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and +acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon +Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention:<br> +<br> +<br> + Hops, whose weak being mind is,<br> + Alike if it succeed and if it miss;<br> +Whom good or ill does equally confound,<br> +And both the horns of fate’s dilemma wound;<br> + Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite,<br> + Both at full noon and perfect night!<br> + The stars have not a possibility<br> + Of blessing thee;<br> +If things then from their end we happy call<br> +’Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.<br> + Hope, thou bold tester of delight,<br> + Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour’st +it quite!<br> + Thou bring’st us an estate, yet leav’st +us poor<br> + By clogging it with legacies before!<br> + The joys, which we entire should wed,<br> + Come deflowr’d virgins to our bed;<br> +Good fortunes without gain imported be,<br> + Such mighty custom’s paid to thee:<br> +For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste<br> +If it take air before its spirits waste.<br> +<br> +<br> +To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that +stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether absurdity +or ingenuity has the better claim:<br> +<br> +<br> +Our two souls, therefore, which are one,<br> + Though I must go, endure not yet<br> +A breach, but an expansion,<br> + Like gold to airy thinness beat.<br> +If they be two, they are two so<br> + As stiff twin compasses are two;<br> +Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show<br> + To move, but doth if th’ other do.<br> +And, though it in the centre sit,<br> + Yet, when the other far doth roam,<br> +It leans and hearkens after it,<br> + And grows erect as that comes home.<br> +Such wilt thou be to me, who must<br> + Like th’ other foot obliquely run.<br> +Thy firmness makes my circle just,<br> + And makes me end where I begun. - DONNE.<br> +<br> +<br> +In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or vicious, +is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something +new and strange; and that the writers fail to give delight, by their +desire of exciting admiration.<br> +<br> +Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style +and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine +particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race, +and undoubtedly the best.<br> +<br> +His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, written +some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they were +called forth by different occasions; with great variety of style and +sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an assemblage +of diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. +To choose the best, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts +of criticism. I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded +many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite +odes, which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom. +I will, however, venture to recommend Cowley’s first piece, which +ought to be inscribed “To my Muse,” for want of which the +second couplet is without reference. When the title is added, +there wills till remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain in +itself whatever is necessary to make it intelligible. Pope has +some epitaphs without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be let, +occupied indeed for the present, but hardly appropriated.<br> +<br> +The “Ode on Wit” is almost without a rival. It was +about the time of Cowley that <i>wit</i>,<i> </i>which had been till +then used for <i>intellection</i>,<i> </i>in contradistinction to <i>will</i>,<i> +</i>took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears.<br> +<br> +Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, +none will easily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley +condemns exuberance of wit:-<br> +<br> +<br> +Yet ‘tis not to adorn and gild each part,<br> + That shows more cost than art.<br> +Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;<br> + Rather than all things wit, let none be there.<br> +Several lights will not be seen,<br> + If there be nothing else between.<br> +Men doubt, because they stand so thick i’ th’ sky,<br> +If those be stars which paint the galaxy.<br> +<br> +<br> +In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud +to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley’s compositions, +some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His “Elegy +on Sir Henry Wotton” is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts +is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by +the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.<br> +<br> +It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his encomiastic +poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes.<br> +<br> +In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little +passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a studious +privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called +forth to action can display. He knew how to distinguish, and how +to commend, the qualities of his companion; but, when he wishes to make +us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining +how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. +It is the odd fate of this thought to be the worse for being true. +The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as therefore this property +was not assigned it by chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently +at ease that could attend to such minuteness of physiology. But +the power of Cowley is not so much to move the affections, as to exercise +the understanding.<br> +<br> +The “Chronicle” is a composition unrivalled and alone: such +gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, +such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain +to expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his +agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound +of an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind +it; the moralist, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influence +even in this airy frolic of genius. To such a performance Suckling +could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have +supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.<br> +<br> +The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily concluded, +contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived and happily expressed. +Cowley’s critical abilities have not been sufficiently observed: +the few decisions and remarks, which his prefaces and his notes on the +“Davideis” supply, were at that time accessions to English +literature, and show such skill as raises our wish for more examples.<br> +<br> +The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the +familiar descending to the burlesque.<br> +<br> +His two metrical disquisitions <i>for </i>and <i>against </i>Reason +are no mean specimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against +knowledge produce little conviction. In those which are intended +to exalt the human faculties, Reason has its proper task assigned it; +that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. +In the verses <i>for </i>Reason is a passage which Bentley, in the only +English verses which he is known to have written, seems to have copied, +though with the inferiority of an imitator.<br> +<br> +<br> +The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine<br> + With thousand lights of truth divine,<br> +So numberless the stars, that to our eye<br> + It makes all but one galaxy.<br> +Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas<br> + So vast and dangerous as these,<br> +Our course by stars above we cannot know<br> + Without the compass too below.<br> +<br> +<br> +After this says Bentley:<br> +<br> +<br> +Who travels in religious jars,<br> + Truth mix’d with error, shade with rays<br> +Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars,<br> + In ocean wide or sinks or strays.<br> +<br> +<br> +Cowley seems to have had what Milton is believed to have wanted, the +skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore +closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw, which apparently +excel all that have gone before them, and in which there are beauties +which common authors may justly think not only above their attainment, +but above their ambition.<br> +<br> +To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrastical translations +of some little poems, which pass, however justly, under the name of +Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated to festivity and gaiety, in +which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the +enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather a pleasing than a +faithful representation, having retained their sprightliness, but lost +their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, +has admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly +made more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly +declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom +courtesy and ignorance are content to style the learned.<br> +<br> +These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than any +other of Cowley’s works. The diction shows nothing of the +mould of time, and the sentiments are at no great distance from our +present habitudes of thought. Real mirth must always be natural, +and nature is uniform. Men have been wise in very different modes; +but they have always laughed the same way.<br> +<br> +Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, and the +familiar part of language continues long the same; the dialogue of comedy +when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from +age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices of inversion by +which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by +which new words, or new meanings of words, are introduced, is practised, +not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be +admired.<br> +<br> +The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasure which +they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing +more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the +familiar and the festive.<br> +<br> +The next class of his poems is called “The Mistress,” of +which it is not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise +or censure. They have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly +in the same proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, +and with copiousness of learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, +that the plenitude of the writer’s knowledge flows in upon his +page, so that the reader is commonly surprised into some improvement. +But, considered as the verses of a lover, no man that has ever loved +will much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetic, +have neither gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too far sought, +and too hyperbolical, either to express love, or to excite it; every +stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, with +mingled souls and with broken hearts.<br> +<br> +The principal artifice by which “The Mistress” is filled +with conceits is very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is +by Cowley, as by other poets, expressed metaphorically by flame and +fire; and that which is true of real fire is said of love, or figurative +fire, the same word in the same sentence retaining both significations. +Thus “observing the cold regard of his mistress’s eyes, +and at the same time their power of producing love in him, he considers +them as burning-glasses made of ice. Finding himself able to live +in the greatest extremities of love, he concludes the torrid zone to +be habitable. Upon the dying of a tree, on which he had cut his +loves, he observes that his flames had burnt up and withered the tree.”<br> +<br> +These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists +of thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and false in the other. +Addison’s representation is sufficiently indulgent: that confusion +of images may entertain for a moment; but being unnatural it soon grows +wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as if he had invented +it; but, not to mention the ancients, he might have found it full-blown +in modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro:<br> +<br> +<br> +Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis!<br> + Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor:<br> +Sum Nilus, sumque Ætna simul; restringite flammas<br> + O lacrimæ, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas.<br> +<br> +<br> +One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as having published +a book of profane and lascivious verses. From the charge of profaneness, +the constant tenor of his life, which seems to have been eminently virtuous, +and the general tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence +of religion, must defend him; but that the accusation of lasciviousness +is unjust, the perusal of his works will sufficiently evince.<br> +<br> +Cowley’s “Mistress” has no power of seduction: she +“plays round the head, but comes not at the heart.” +Her beauty and absence, her kindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, +produce no correspondence of emotion. His poetical accounts of +the virtues of plants, and colours of flowers, is not perused with more +sluggish frigidity. The compositions are such as might have been +written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer +who had only heard of another sex; for they turn the mind only on the +writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but as the subject for his +task, we sometimes esteem as learned, and sometimes despise as trifling, +always admire as ingenious, and always condemn as unnatural.<br> +<br> +The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species of composition, +which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in his list of the +lost inventions of antiquity, and which he has made a bold and vigorous +attempt to recover.<br> +<br> +The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympic and Nemæan +Ode is by himself sufficiently explained. His endeavour was, not +to show precisely what Pindar spoke, but his manner of speaking. +He was therefore not at all restrained to his expressions, nor much +to his sentiments; nothing was required of him, but not to write as +Pindar would not have written.<br> +<br> +Of the Olympic Ode the beginning is, I think, above the original in +elegance, and the conclusion below it in strength. The connection +is supplied with great perspicuity; and the thoughts, which to a reader +of less skill seem thrown together by chance, are concatenated without +any abruption. Though the English ode cannot be called a translation, +it may be very properly consulted as a commentary.<br> +<br> +The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally preserved. +The following pretty lines are not such as his “deep mouth” +was used to pour:<br> +<br> +<br> + Great Rhea’s son,<br> +If in Olympus’ top, where thou<br> +Sitt’st to behold thy sacred show,<br> +If in Alpheus’ silver flight,<br> +If in my verse thou take delight,<br> +My verse, great Rhea’s son, which is<br> +Lofty as that and smooth as this.<br> +<br> +<br> +In the Nemæan Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to Pindar, +observe, whatever is said of the original new moon, her tender forehead +and her horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, who has many other plays +of words and fancy unsuitable to the original, as,<br> +<br> +<br> + The table, free for ev’ry guest,<br> + No doubt will thee admit,<br> +And feast more upon thee, than thou on it<br> +<br> +<br> +He sometimes extends his author’s thoughts without improving them. +In the Olympionic an oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cowley +spends three lines in swearing by the Castalian Stream. We are +told of Theron’s bounty, with a hint that he had enemies, which +Cowley thus enlarges in rhyming prose:<br> +<br> +<br> +But in this thankless world the giver<br> +Is envied even by the receiver;<br> +’Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion<br> +Rather to hide than own the obligation:<br> +Nay, ‘tis much worse than so;<br> +It now an artifice does grow<br> +Wrongs and injuries to do,<br> +Lest men should think we owe.<br> +<br> +<br> +It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in learning and +wit, when he was dealing out such minute morality in such feeble diction, +could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitated Pindar.<br> +<br> +In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, he sometimes +rises to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if some deficiencies of language +be forgiven, his strains are such as those of the Theban bard were to +his contemporaries:<br> +<br> +<br> + Begin the song, and strike the living lyre:<br> +Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,<br> + All hand in hand do decently advance,<br> +And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance;<br> +While the dance lasts, how long soe’er it be,<br> +My music’s voice shall bear it company;<br> + Till all gentle notes be drown’d<br> +In the last trumpet’s dreadful sound.<br> +<br> +<br> +After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to find the poet conclude +with lines like these:<br> +<br> +<br> + But stop, my Muse -<br> +Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,<br> +Which does to rage begin -<br> +- ’Tis an unruly and hard-mouth’d horse -<br> +‘Twill no unskilful touch endure,<br> +But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure.<br> +<br> +<br> +The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphysical +race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last ramifications, +by which he loses the grandeur of generality; for of the greatest things +the parts are little; what is little can be but pretty, and by claiming +dignity becomes ridiculous. Thus all the power of description +is destroyed by a scrupulous enumeration, and the force of metaphors +is lost, when the mind by the mention of particulars is turned more +upon the original than the secondary sense, more upon that from which +the illustration is drawn than that to which it is applied.<br> +<br> +Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the “Muse,” +who goes to “take the air” in an intellectual chariot, to +which he harnesses Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and +Invention; how he distinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory could +properly contribute to Motion, he has not explained: we are however +content to suppose that he could have justified his own fiction, and +wish to see the Muse begin her career; but there is yet more to be done.<br> +<br> +<br> +Let the <i>postillion</i> Nature mount, and let<br> +The <i>coachman </i>Art be set;<br> +And let the airy <i>footmen</i>, running all beside,<br> +Make a long row of goodly pride;<br> +Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences,<br> +In a well-worded dress,<br> +And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies,<br> +In all their gaudy <i>liveries</i>.<br> +<br> +<br> +Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I +cannot refuse myself the four next lines:<br> +<br> +<br> +Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,<br> + And bid it to put on;<br> + For long though cheerful is the way,<br> +And life, alas! allows but one ill winter’s day.<br> +<br> +<br> +In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prescience, +or, in poetical language, the foresight of events hatching in futurity; +but, once having an egg in his mind, he cannot forbear to show us that +he knows what an egg contains:<br> +<br> +<br> +Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep,<br> + And there with piercing eye<br> +Through the firm shell and the thick white float spy<br> + Years to come a-forming lie,<br> +Close in their sacred fecundine asleep.<br> +<br> +<br> +The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically expressed +by Casimir, a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley:<br> +<br> +<br> +Omnibus mundi Dominator horis<br> +Aptat urgendas psr inane pennas,<br> +Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros<br> + Crescit in annos.<br> +<br> +<br> +Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried, by a kind +of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require +still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea “new +dyes the water’s name;” and England, during the Civil War, +was “Albion no more, nor to be named from white.” +It is surely by some fascination not easily surmounted, that a writer, +professing to revive “the noblest and highest writing in verse,” +makes this address to the new year:<br> +<br> +<br> +Nay, if thou lov’st me, gentle year,<br> +Let not so much as love be there,<br> +Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,<br> + Although I fear<br> +There’s of this caution little need,<br> + Yet, gentle year, take heed<br> + How thou dost make<br> + Such a mistake;<br> +Such love I mean alone<br> +As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown:<br> +For, though I have too much cause to doubt it,<br> +I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.<br> +<br> +<br> +The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior -<br> +<br> +<br> + Ye critics, say,<br> +How poor to this was Pindar’s style!<br> +<br> +<br> +Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemæan songs +what Antiquity what disposed them to expect, will at least see that +they are ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determine +that, if this be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival.<br> +<br> +To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley’s sentiments must +be added the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes +the liberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from two syllables +to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little +harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the syllables we perceive +them to be regular, and have reason enough for supposing that the ancient +audiences were delighted with the sound. The imitator ought therefore +to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to +have preserved a constant return of the same numbers, and to have supplied +smoothness of transition and continuity of thought.<br> +<br> +It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the “irregularity of numbers is +the very thing” which makes “that kind of poesy fit for +all manner of subjects.” But he should have remembered, +that what is fit for everything can fit nothing well. The great +pleasure of verse arises from the known measure of the lines, and uniform +structure of the stanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory +relieved.<br> +<br> +If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, “the highest +and noblest kind of writing in verse,” it can be adapted only +to high and noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the +poet with the critic, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind +of writing in verse which, according to Sprat, “is chiefly to +be preferred for its near affinity to prose.”<br> +<br> +This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the deficiencies +of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately +overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing +fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like Pindar. +The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to break into +the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse +are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the “Musæ +Anglicanæ.” Pindarism prevailed about half a century; +but at last died gradually away, and other imitations supply its place.<br> +<br> +The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical +reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with unabated censure; +and surely though the mode of their composition be erroneous, yet many +parts deserve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehension +of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often +new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is disgraced +by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives +the noblest conceptions the appearance of a fabric august in the plan, +but mean in the materials. Yet surely those verses are not without +a just claim to praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no +man but Cowley could have written them.<br> +<br> +The “Davideis” now remains to be considered; a poem which +the author designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he +makes no scruple of declaring, because the “Æneid” +had that number; but he had leisure or perseverance only to write the +third part. Epic poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, +Spenser, and Cowley. That we have not the whole “Davideis” +is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley +is, tacitly at least, confessed to have miscarried. There are +not many examples of so great a work produced by an author generally +read, and generally praised, that has crept through a century with so +little regard. Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other +works. Of the “Davideis” no mention is made; it never +appears in books, nor emerges in conversation. By the “Spectator” +it has been once quoted; by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, +in “Mac Flecknoe,” it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect +much other notice from its publication till now in the whole succession +of English literature.<br> +<br> +Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will be found +partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in the performance of +the work.<br> +<br> +Sacred history has been always read with submissive reverence, and an +imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed to +acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentic narrative, +and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as suppresses +curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with +him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all +addition to that which is already sufficient for the purposes of religion +seems not only useless, but in some degree profane.<br> +<br> +Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of Divine +Power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle +of creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with +little diffusion of language: “He spake the word, and they were +made.”<br> +<br> +We are told that Saul “was troubled with an evil spirit;” +from this Cowley takes an opportunity of describing hell, and telling +the history of Lucifer, who was, he says,<br> +<br> +<br> +Once general of a gilded host of sprites,<br> +Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights;<br> +But down like lightning, which him struck, he came<br> +And roar’d at his first plunge into the flame.<br> +<br> +<br> +Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in which +there is something of heathenism, and therefore of impropriety; and, +to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing his breast with +his long tail: Envy, after a pause, steps out, and among other declarations +of her zeal utters these lines:<br> +<br> +<br> +Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply,<br> +And thunder echo to the trembling sky;<br> +Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height,<br> +As shall the fire’s proud element affright,<br> +Th’ old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way,<br> +Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day.<br> +The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace,<br> +And stubborn poles change their allotted place.<br> +Heaven’s gilded troops shall flutter here and there,<br> +Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere.<br> +<br> +<br> +Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an allegorical +being.<br> +<br> +It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, that fancy +and fiction lose their effect; the whole system of life, while the theocracy +was yet visible, has an appearance so different from all other scenes +of human action, that the reader of the sacred volume habitually considers +it as the peculiar mode of existence of a distinct species of mankind, +that lived and acted with manners uncommunicable; so that it is difficult +even for imagination to place us in the state of them whose story is +related, and by consequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, +nor can the attention be often interested in anything that befalls them.<br> +<br> +To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception of poetical +embellishments, the writer brought little that could reconcile impatience, +or attract curiosity. Nothing can be more disgusting than a narrative +spangled with conceits; and conceits are all that the “Davideis” +supplies.<br> +<br> +One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or the +power of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences +instead of images, and shows not what may be supposed to have been seen, +but what thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgil +describes the stone which Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes +the attention on its bulk and weight:<br> +<br> +<br> +Saxum circumspicit ingens,<br> +Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat<br> +Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.<br> +<br> +<br> +Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother,<br> +<br> +<br> +I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant<br> +At once his murther and his monument.<br> +<br> +<br> +Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says,<br> +<br> +<br> +A sword so great, that it was only fit<br> +To cut off his great head that came with it.<br> +<br> +<br> +Other poets describe Death by some of its common appearances. +Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real or fabulous,<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade,<br> +And open’d wide those secret vessels where<br> +Life’s light goes out, when first they let in air.<br> +<br> +<br> +But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionary succession +of kings:<br> +<br> +<br> +Joas at first does bright and glorious show,<br> +In life’s fresh morn his fame does early crow.<br> +<br> +<br> +Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance,<br> +<br> +<br> +His forces seem’d no army, but a crowd<br> +Heartless, unarm’d, disorderly, and loud,<br> +<br> +<br> +he gives them a fit of the ague.<br> +<br> +The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he offends +by exaggeration as much as by diminution:<br> +<br> +<br> +The king was placed alone, and o’er his head<br> +A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread.<br> +<br> +<br> +Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:<br> +<br> +<br> +Where the sun’s fruitful beams give metals birth,<br> +Where he the growth of fatal gold does see,<br> +Gold, which alone more influence has than he.<br> +<br> +<br> +In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion of philosophy:<br> +<br> +<br> +Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,<br> +Why does that twining plant the oak embrace;<br> +The oak for courtship most of all unfit,<br> +And rough as are the winds that fight with it?<br> +<br> +<br> +His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses expectation;<br> +<br> +<br> +Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you’re in,<br> +The story of your gallant friend begin.<br> +<br> +<br> +In a simile descriptive of the morning:<br> +<br> +<br> +As glimmering stars just at th’ approach of day,<br> +Cashier’d by troops, at last all drop away.<br> +<br> +<br> +The dress of Gabriel deserves attention:<br> +<br> +<br> +He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright,<br> +That e’er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;<br> +Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,<br> +Wash’d from the morning beauties’ deepest red:<br> +An harmless flatt’ring meteor shone for hair,<br> +And fell adown his shoulders with loose care;<br> +He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies,<br> +Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes;<br> +This he with starry vapours sprinkles all,<br> +Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;<br> +Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade,<br> +The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made.<br> +<br> +<br> +This is a just specimen of Cowley’s imagery; what might in general +expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by +branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with +the softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, +and been dismissed to improve the idea in our different proportions +of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where +Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and +then his scarf, and related it in the terms of the mercer and tailor.<br> +<br> +Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always conceived with +his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued +till it is tedious:<br> +<br> +<br> +I’ th’ library a few choice authors stood,<br> +Yet ‘twas well stored, for that small store was good;<br> +Writing, man’s spiritual physic, was not then<br> +Itself, as now, grown a disease of men.<br> +Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew;<br> +The common prostitute she lately grew,<br> +And with the spurious brood loads now the press;<br> +Laborious effects of idleness.<br> +<br> +<br> +As the “Davideis” affords only four books, though intended +to consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism as +Epic poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is very +imperfectly shown by the third part. The duration of an unfinished +action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, +or shown but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nice discriminations +cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather +from the “Odyssey” than the “Iliad;” and many +artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted +with the beet models. The past is recalled by narration, and the +future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish of his poetical +art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more +without practising again the same modes of disposing his matter; and +perhaps the perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to stop. +By this abruption, posterity lost more instruction than delight. +If the continuation of the “Davideis” can be missed, it +is for the learning that had been diffused over it, and the notes in +which it had been explained.<br> +<br> +Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by improper +decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives +Saul both the body and mind of a hero:<br> +<br> +<br> +His way once chose, he forward threat outright.<br> +Nor turned aside for danger or delight.<br> +<br> +<br> +And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michal +are very justly conceived and strongly painted.<br> +<br> +Rymer has declared the “Davideis” superior to the “Jerusalem” +of Tasso, “which,” says he, “the poet, with all his +care, has not totally purged from pedantry.” If by pedantry +is meant that minute knowledge which is derived from particular sciences +and studies, in opposition to the general notions supplied by a wide +survey of life and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, +far more frequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why they should +be compared; for the resemblance of Cowley’s work to Tasso’s +is only that they both exhibit the agency of celestial and infernal +spirits, in which, however, they differ widely; for Cowley supposes +them commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso represents +them as promoting or obstructing events by external agency.<br> +<br> +Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember only +the description of Heaven, in which the different manner of the two +writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowley’s is scarcely +description, unless it be possible to describe by negatives; for he +tells us only what there is not in heaven. Tasso endeavours to +represent the splendours and pleasures of the regions of happiness. +Tasso affords images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, +that Tasso’s description affords some reason for Rymer’s +censure. He says of the Supreme Being:<br> +<br> +<br> +Hà sotto i piedi e fato e la natura<br> +Ministri humili, e’l moto, e ch’il misura.<br> +<br> +<br> +The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be found +in any other stanza of the poem.<br> +<br> +In the perusal of the “Davideis,” as of all Cowley’s +works, we find wit and learning unprofitably squandered. Attention +has no relief; the affections are never moved; we are sometimes surprised, +but never delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve. +Still, however, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by nature, +and replenished by study.<br> +<br> +In the general review of Cowley’s poetry it will be found that +he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection; +with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetic, +and rarely sublime; but always either ingenious or learned, either acute +or profound.<br> +<br> +It is said by Denham in his elegy,<br> +<br> +<br> +To him no author was unknown,<br> +Yet what he writ was all his own.<br> +<br> +<br> +This wide position requires less limitation, when it is affirmed of +Cowley, than perhaps of any other poet. - He read much, and yet borrowed +little.<br> +<br> +His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappily adopted +that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; +and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued +to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself +with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright +and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows.<br> +<br> +He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled excellence. +Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that went +before him; and Milton is said to have declared that the three greatest +English poets were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley.<br> +<br> +His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments were his +own. Upon every subject he thought for himself; and such was his +copiousness of knowledge, that something at once remote and applicable +rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a +commodious idea merely because another had used it: his known wealth +was so great that be might have borrowed without loss of credit, in +his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last lines have such resemblance +to the noble epigram of Grotius on the death of Scaliger, that I cannot +but think them copied from it, though they are copied by no servile +hand.<br> +<br> +One passage in his “Mistress” is so apparently borrowed +from Donne, that he probably would not have written it had it not mingled +with his own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive himself taking +it from another:<br> +<br> +<br> +Although I think thou never found wilt be,<br> + Yet I’m resolved to search for thee;<br> + The search itself rewards the pains.<br> +So, though the chymic his great secret miss<br> +(For neither it in Art or Nature is),<br> + Yet things well worth his toil he gains:<br> + And does his charge and labour pay<br> +With good unsought experiments by the way. - COWLEY.<br> +<br> +Some that have deeper digg’d Love’s mine than I,<br> +Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:<br> + I have loved, and got, and told;<br> +But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,<br> +I should not find that hidden mystery;<br> + Oh, ‘tis imposture all!<br> +And as no chymic yet th’ elixir got,<br> + But glorifies his pregnant pot,<br> + If by the way to him befal<br> +Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,<br> + So lovers dream a rich and long delight,<br> + But get a winter-seeming summer’s night.<br> +<br> +<br> +Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest esteem.<br> +<br> +It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his obligation +to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have found no traces of +Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to have been his purpose.; +and from Donne ~he may have learnt that familiarity with religious images, +and that light allusion to sacred things, by which readers far short +of sanctity are frequently offended; and which would not be borne in +the present age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate.<br> +<br> +Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will recompense +him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed from him. He +says of Goliath:<br> +<br> +<br> +His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,<br> +Which Nature meant some tall ship’s mast should be.<br> +<br> +<br> +Milton of Satan:<br> +<br> +<br> +His spear, to equal which the tallest pine<br> +Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast<br> +Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,<br> +He walked with.<br> +<br> +<br> +His diction was in his own time censured as negligent. He seems +not to have known, or not to have considered, that words being arbitrary +must owe their power to association, and have the influence, and that +only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought; +and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded +and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rustics +or mechanics; so the most heroic sentiments will lose their efficacy, +and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed +by words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar +mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.<br> +<br> +Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have +an intrinsic and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual +gold which defies destruction; but gold may be so concealed in baser +matter, that only a chemist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in +unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish +it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost +of their extraction.<br> +<br> +The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself +to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, a further +knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes to benefit by +pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply +something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise. +What is perceived by slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness +of improvement, but will never strike with the sense of pleasure.<br> +<br> +Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without +care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of +phrase: he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate; as his endeavours +were rather to impress sentences upon the understanding, than images +on the fancy: he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar +propriety of nice adaptation.<br> +<br> +It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather than the +care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is less familiar +than that of his slightest writings. He has given not the same +numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempestuous +Pindar.<br> +<br> +His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and if +what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only when they +are ill-read, the art of reading them is at present lost; for they are +commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed many noble lines, +such as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk +of his thoughts sometimes swelled his verse to unexpected and inevitable +grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he sinks +willingly down to his general carelessness, and avoids with very little +care either meanness or asperity.<br> +<br> +His contractions are often rugged and harsh:<br> +<br> +<br> +One flings a mountain, and its rivers too<br> +Torn up with ‘t.<br> +<br> +<br> +His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the like +unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the energy +of the line.<br> +<br> +His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and unpleasing; +he joins verses together, of which the former does not slide easily +into the latter.<br> +<br> +The words “do” and “did,” which so much degrade +in present estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of +Cowley little censured or avoided; how often he used them, and with +how bad an effect, at least to our ears, will appear by a passage, in +which every reader will lament to see just and noble thoughts defrauded +of their praise by inelegance of language:<br> +<br> +<br> +Where honour or where conscience <i>does</i> not bind<br> + No other law shall shackle me;<br> + Slave to myself I ne’er will be;<br> +Nor shall my future actions be confined<br> + By my own present mind.<br> +Who by resolves and vows engaged <i>does </i>stand<br> + For days, that yet belong to fate,<br> +<i>Does</i> like an unthrift mortgage his estate,<br> + Before it falls into his hand;<br> + The bondman of the cloister so,<br> +All that he <i>does</i> receive <i>does </i>always owe.<br> +And still as Time comes in, it goes away,<br> + Not to enjoy, but debts to pay!<br> + Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell!<br> +Which his hour’s work as well as hours <i>does </i>tell:<br> +Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell.<br> +<br> +<br> +His heroic lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they are +sometimes sweet and sonorous.<br> +<br> +He says of the Messiah,<br> +<br> +<br> +Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound,<br> +<i>And reach to worlds that must not yet be found.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>In another place, of David,<br> +<br> +<br> +Yet bid him go securely, when he sends;<br> +<i>’Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends.<br> +The man who has his God, no aid can lack;<br> +And we who bid him go, will bring him back.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved and +scientific versification; of which it will be best to give his own account +subjoined to this line:<br> +<br> +<br> +Nor can the glory contain itself in th’ endless space.<br> +<br> +<br> +“I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of +readers, that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, long, +and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the nature of the +thing which it describes, which I would have observed in divers other +places of this poem, that else will pass as very careless verses: as +before,<br> +<br> +<i>And over-runs the neighb’ring fields with violent course.<br> +<br> +</i>“In the second book:<br> +<br> +<i>Down a precipice deep</i>,<i> dowse he casts them all -<br> +<br> +</i>“And,<br> +<br> +<i>And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care.<br> +<br> +</i>“In the third,<br> +<br> +<i>Brass was his helmet, his boots brass, and o’er<br> +His breast a thick plate strong brass he wore.<br> +<br> +</i>“In the fourth,<br> +<br> +<i>Like some fair pine o’er-looking all the ignobler wood.<br> +<br> +</i>“And,<br> +<br> +<i>Some from the rocks cast themselves down headlong.<br> +<br> +</i>“And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. +The thing is, that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, +as that, out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves may +be represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind +themselves to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught +I can find. The Latins <i>(qui musas colunt severiores</i>) sometimes +did it; and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples are innumerable, +and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it is superfluous +to collect them.”<br> +<br> +<br> +I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the +representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate +only sound and motion. A “boundless” verse, a “headlong” +verse, and a verse of “brass” or of “strong brass,” +seem to comprise very incongruous and unsociable ideas. What there +is peculiar in the sound of the line expressing “loose care,” +I cannot discover; nor why the “pine” is “taller” +in an Alexandrine than in ten syllables.<br> +<br> +But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example +of representative versification, which perhaps no other English line +can equal:<br> +<br> +<br> +Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:<br> +He, who defers this work from day to day,<br> +Does on a river’s bank expecting stay<br> +Till the whole stream that stopp’d him shall be gone,<br> +<i>Which runs</i>,<i> and</i>,<i> as it runs</i>,<i> for ever shall +run on.<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines +at pleasure with the common heroic of ten syllables, and from him Dryden +borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He considered +the verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestic, and has therefore +deviated into that measure when he supposes the voice heard of the Supreme +Being.<br> +<br> +The author of the “Davideis” is commended by Dryden for +having written it in couplets, because he discovered that any staff +was too lyrical for an heroic poem; but this seems to have been known +before by May and Sandys, the translators of the “Pharsalia” +and the “Metamorphoses.”<br> +<br> +In the “Davideis” are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect +by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have +intended to complete them; that this opinion is erroneous, may be probably +concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no subsequent Roman +poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of +recitation; because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because +all that can be done by a broken verse, a line intersected by a <i>cœsura</i>,<i> +</i>and a full stop, will equally effect.<br> +<br> +Of triplets in his “Davideis” he makes no use, and perhaps +did not at first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to +have changed his mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell +he inserts them liberally with great happiness.<br> +<br> +After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany them +must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversation, +that no man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, +may be applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his +verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His +thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equability, +which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is +far-sought, or hard-laboured; but all is easy without feebleness, and +familiar without grossness.<br> +<br> +It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay on the Classics, that Cowley +was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that he has rivalled +the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy.<br> +<br> +It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he brought +to his poetic labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages +are embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that +he was the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the +greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified +for sprightly sallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those +who freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his +author at a distance, walked by his side; and that, if he left versification +yet improvable, he left likewise from time to time such specimens of +excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LIVES OF THE POETS: WALLER, ETC. ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named lvwal10h.htm or lvwal10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, lvwal11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, lvwal10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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