Page images
PDF
EPUB

A palace 'tis, and of a great resort,

It makes a noise, and gives a loud report,
Yet underneath the roof disasters lie,

Beat down the house, and many kill'd thereby:
I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun,

Sit on the banks by which clear waters run;
In summers hot, down in a shade I lie,

My music is the buzzing of a fly;

I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass, In fields, where corn is high, I often pass;

Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see,
Some brushy woods, and some all champaigns be;
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go,

To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low;
In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on,
Then I do live in a small house alone:
Although 'tis plain, yet cleanly 'tis within,
Like to a soul that's pure and clear from sin;
And there I dwell in quiet and still peace,
Not fill'd with cares how riches to increase;
I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures,
No riches are, but what the mind intreasures.
Thus am I solitary, live alone,

Yet better loved the more that I am known;
And though my face ill-favor'd at first sight,
After acquaintance it will give delight.
Refuse me not, for I shall constant be,
Maintain your credit and your dignity.

OF THE THEME OF LOVE

O Love, how thou art tired out with rhyme!
Thou art a tree whereon all poets climb;
And from thy branches every one takes some
Of thy sweet fruit, which Fancy feeds upon.
But now thy tree is left so bare and poor,
That they can hardly gather one plum more.

THE FUNERAL OF CALAMITY.

Calamity was laid on Sorrow's hearse,
And coverings had of melancholy verse;
Compassion, a kind friend did mourning go,
And tears about the corpse, as flowers, strow,

A garland of deep sighs, by Pity made,
Upon Calamity's sad corpse was laid;

Bells of complaints did ring it to the grave,
Poets of monument of fame it gave.

[blocks in formation]

FAR above all the poets of his own age, and, in learning, invention, ana sublimity, without an equal in the whole range of English literature, stands JOHN MILTON. He was born in London, December 9, 1608. His father. who was a scrivener, and who had suffered much for conscience' sake, doubtless infused into his son those principles of religious freedom which made him, in subsequent years, the bulwark of that holy cause in England. He was also early instructed in music, to which may doubtless be attributed that richness and harmony of his versification which distinguished him as much as his learning and imagination. His early education was conducted with great care. At sixteen he entered the University of Cambridge. After leaving the university, where he was distinguished for his scholarship, he retired to the house of his father, who had relinquished business, and had purchased a small property at Horton in Buckinghamshire. Here he lived five years, devoting his time most assiduously to classical literature, making the wellknown remark that he "CARED NOT HOW LATE HE CAME INTO LIFE, ONLY THAT HE CAME FIT." While in the university he had written his grand "Hymn on the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a new and great light was about to rise on English poetry:" and there, at his father's, he wrote his "Comus," and "Lycidas," his « L'Allegro,” and “Il Penseroso," and his " Arcades.'

In 1638 he went to Italy, the most accomplished Englishman that ever visited her classical shores, Here his society was courted by "the choicest Italian wits," and he visited Galileo,1 then a prisoner in the Inquisition. On his return home, he opened a school in London, and devoted himself with great assiduity to the business of instruction. In the mean time, he entered into the religious disputes of the day, engaging in the controversy singie. handed against all the royalists and prelates; and though numbering among

*

1 "The Tuscan artist." Paradise Lost, book i. line 288.

his antagonists such men as Bishop Hall and Archbishop Usher, proving himself equal to them all. In 1643 he married the daughter of Richard Powell, a high royalist; but the connection did not prove a happy one, his wife being utterly incapable of appreciating the loftiness and purity of the poet's character. In 1649 he was appointed foreign secretary under Cromwell, which office he held till the death of Cromwell, 1658.

For ten years Milton's eyesight had been failing, owing to the "wearisome studies and midnight watchings" of his youth. The last remains of it were sacrificed in the composition of his "Defensio Populi," (Defence of the People of England;) and by the close of the year 1652 he was totally blind: "Dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon." At the Restoration he was obliged to conceal himself till the publication of the act of oblivion released him from danger. He then devoted himself exclusively to study, and especially to the composition of "Paradise Lost." The idea of this unequalled poem was probably conceived as early as 1642. It was published in 1667. For the first and second editions the blind poet received but the sum of five pounds each! In 1671 he produced his "Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes." A long sufferer from an hereditary disease, his life was now drawing to a close. His mind was calm and bright to the last, and he died without a struggle, on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1674.

It is hardly necessary here to make any criticisms upon the works of this "greatest of great men," as essays almost numberless may be found upon his life and writings. His chief poetical works are—1. His “Paradise Lost," in twelve books, which is an account of the temptation and fall of our first Darents. 2. "Paradise Regained," in four books, depicting the temptation and triumph of "the second Adam, the Lord from Heaven." 3. "Samson Agonistes,”2 a dramatic poem, relating the incidents of the life of the great champion of the Israelites, from the period of his blindness to the catastrophe that ended in his death. 4. "Lycidas," a monody on the death of a beloved

1 The best edition of Milton's poetry is that of Todd: London, 1809, 7 vols. This contains the invaluable verbal index. Another excellent edition has been edited by Sir Egerton Brydges, in 6 vols., the first volume of which is taken up with his life, written with that taste and discrimination so characteristic of the author, to whom English literature is under lasting obligations. The best edition of his prose works is by Symmons, 7 vols. 8vo. His prose and poetry have been published in London in one large royal 8vo. An edition of his prose works has been edited in this country by the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold. An eloquent Essay on Milton may be found in Macaulay's Miscellanies; another in the Retrospective Review, xiv. 282; and another in the London Quarterly, xxxvi. 29. In the following numbers of the Spectator, Addison has written a series of admirable criticisms on the "Paradise Lost:" 262, 267, 273, 279, and so on for fifteen more numbers, at intervals of six, being published every Saturday. In No. 76 of the Observer, by Cumberland, there are some remarks upon the "Samson Agonistes." Consult, also, Hallam's "Literature of Europe;" and read an admirable article on Milton in Dr. Channing's works.

Of Johnson's "Life," Sir Egerton Brydges justly remarks: "It is written in a bad, malignant, and even vulgar spirit. The language is sometimes coarse, and the humor pedantic and gross. The criticism on the Paradise Lost is powerful and grand: the criticism on the other poems is mean, false, and execrable -Imaginative Biography, i. 149. Of Addison's "Essay," the same writer says: "It ought to be studied and almost got by heart by every cultivated mind which understands the English language. It is in all respects a masterly performance; just in thought, full of taste and the finest sensibility, eloquent and beautiful in composition, widely learned, and so clearly explanatory of the true principles of poetry, that whoever is master of them cannot mistake in his decision of poetical merit. It puts Milton above all other poets on such tests as cannot be resisted.”— Life, i. 221.

2 That is, "the champion," "the combatant," from the Greek aywviṛtns, (agonistes,) “a combatant at the public games."

friend, (Mr. Edward King,) who was shipwrecked in the Irish Sea. 5. «L'Allegro," an ode to mirth. 6. "Il Penseroso,” 6. "Il Penseroso," an ode to melancholy. 7. "Comus, a mask," the purest and most exquisite creation of the imagination and fancy in English literature. 8. "Arcades," a part of a mask.

9 Hymn on the Nativity." 10. "Sonnets."

[ocr errors]

ODE ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.2

I.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin-Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table

To sit the midst of Trinal-Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern road

The star-led wizards haste with odors sweet;

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

Have thou the honor first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

1 "Arcades," that is, the Arcadian shepherds: of course, it is of a pastoral character.

2 "When it is recollected that this piece was produced by the author at the age of twenty-one, all deep thinkers, of fancy and sensibility, must pore over it with delighted wonder. The vigor, the grandeur, the imaginativeness of the conception; the force and maturity of language; the bound, the gathering strength, the thundering roll of the metre; the largeness of the views; the extent of the learning; the solemn and awful tones; the enthusiasm, and a certain spell in the epithets, which puts the reader into a state of mysterious excitement,-all these may be better felt than described.”—Sir Egerton Brydges.

[blocks in formation]

No war, or battle's sound

IV.

Was heard the world around,

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;

And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,

V.

Wherein the Prince of Light

His reign of peace upon the earth began:

The winds, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,

VI.

The stars, with deep amaze,

Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer, that often warn'd them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VIII.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or e'er the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they than,

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

When such music sweet

IX.

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortal finger strook

« PreviousContinue »