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diff --git a/5098-h/5098-h.htm b/5098-h/5098-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c453fd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/5098-h/5098-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6954 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Lives of the English Poets: Waller, Milton, Cowley, by Samuel Johnson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: 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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