Page images
PDF
EPUB

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

TO CYRIACK SKINNER.'

Cyriack, this three years day, these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope;2 but still bear up and steer

Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied

In liberty's defence,3 my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask
Content though blind, had I no better guide.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.

Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth

Wisely hast shunn'd the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,

That labour up the hill of heavenly truth;
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,

No anger find in thee but pity and ruth.

Thy care is fix'd, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,

And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure,
Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends

Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,

Hast gain'd thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.

The prose works of Milton are scarcely less remarkable than his poetry. They are mostly of a controversial character in Religion and Politics, and, as such, have lost some of the interest with which they were invested in the

1 Cyriack Skinner was the son of William Skinner, Esq., a merchant of London. Wood says that he was an ingenious young gentleman, and a scholar to John Milton."

2Of heart or hope," &c. "One of Milton's characteristics was a singular fortitude of mind, arising from a consciousness of superior abilities, and a conviction that his cause was just."— Warton. 3 When Milton had entered upon the labor of writing his "Defence of the People of England," one > his eyes was almost gone, and the physicians predicted the loss of both if he proceeded. But he Bays, "I did not long balance whether my duty should be preferred to my eyes." And yet (prob pudor!) this masterly work was, at the Restoration, ordered to be burnt by the common hangman! 4 "The summit of fame is occupied by the poet, but the base of the vast elevation may justly be said to rest on his prose works; and we invite his admirers to descend from the former, and survey the region that lies round about the latter;-a less explored, but not less magnificent domain."—Brydges "The prose writings of Milton deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become ac quainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance.”—MacaLay.

stormy and eventful times in which his lot was cast; but they "breathe throughout," says Burnett, "that sublime, ethereal spirit, peculiar only to him. We are continually astonished and delighted at his never-failing abundance of sentiments and imagery-at that majestic stream and swell of thoughts with which his mind always flows. He was a man essentially great; and whoever wishes to form his language to a lofty and noble style-his character to a fervid sincerity of soul, will read the works of Milton."

Milton early commenced his ecclesiastical controversies, and in 1642 published "The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy." The following is a part of the preface of the second book, and is par ticularly remarkable as giving a prophetic assurance of the proudest monu ment of his fame-PARADISE LOST.

MILTON CONSECRATES HIS POWERS TO THE CAUSE OF TRUTH-HIS STUDIES AND PREPARATION FOR HIS GREAT WORK.

Surely to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser and molester of thousands; much better would it like him doubtless to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own happiness.

But when God commands to take the trumpet and blow a dolorous or jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say or what he shall conceal. If he shall think to be silent as Jeremiah did, because of the reproach and derision he met with daily, "and all his familiar friends watched for his halting," to be revenged on him for speaking the truth, he would be forced to confess as he confessed; "his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary with forbearing, and could not stay."

Which might teach these times not suddenly to condemn all things that are sharply spoken or vehemently written as proceeding out of stomach virulence and ill-nature; but to consider rather, that if the prelates have leave to say the worst that can be said, or do the worst that can be done, while they strive to keep to themselves, to their great pleasure and commodity, those things which they ought to render up, no man can be justly offended with him that shall endeavor to impart and bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp and saving words, which would be a error and a torment in him to keep back.

For me, I have endeavored to lay up as the best treasure and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it avail able in so dear a concernment as the church's good. For, if I be, whether by disposition, or what other cause, too inquisitive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who can help it?

Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelates. the

[ocr errors]

touching wherefore is so distasteful and disquietous to a number of men; as by what hath been said I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me upon this controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear lest this duty should be against me, when 1 would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours; so, lest it should be still imputed to me, as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing humors of vain-glory hath incited me to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years are upon my head; from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully that which in this exigent behooves me; although I would be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and learned reader, to whom principally for a while I shall beg leave I may address myself.

To him it will be no new thing, though I tell him that if I hunted after praise, by the estimation of wit and learning, I should not write thus out of mine own season, when I have neither yet completed to my mind the full circle of my private studies, although I complain not of any insufficiency to the matter in hand; or were I ready to my wishes, it were a folly to commit any thing elaborately composed to the careless and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times.

I must say, therefore, that after I had for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, (whom God recompense,) been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers at home and at the school, it was found, that whether aught was imposed me by :hem that had the overlooking, or betaken to of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly this latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live.

But much latelier in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favored to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout, (for the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit and readng there,) met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things, which I had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniences to pack up amongst them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps; I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that with labor and intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die.

These thoughts at once possessed me; and these other, that if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and dewnward, there ought no regard be sooner had, than to God's glory, by the honor and instruction of my country.

For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a toilsome vanity,) but to be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things, among mine own citizens throughout this island in the mother dialect: that, what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old, did for their country, I, in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that; but content with these British islands as my world; whose fortune hath hitherto been, that, if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics.

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the Book of Job a brief model ;-or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed, which in them that show art, and use judgment, is no transgression, but an enriching of art: or, lastly, what king, or knight, before the Conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero.

And, as Tasso gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether he would command him to write of Godfrey's expedition against the infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, or Charlemagne against the Lombards; if to the instinct of nature and emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and there be nothing adverse in our climate or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in our own ancient stories; or whether those dramatic compositions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation.

[ocr errors]

The Scripture also affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon," consisting of two persons, and a double cho

1 Here is evidence of his first conceptions of his immortal Epic.

rus, as Origen rightly judges: and the "Apocalypse" of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies; and this, my opinion, the grave authority of Paræus, commenting that book, is sufficient to confirm.

Or, if occasion shall lead to imitate those magnific odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are, in most things, worthy; some others in their frame judicious, in their matter most an end faulty.

But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets, beyond all these, not in their divine arguments alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable.

These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some, though most abused, in every nation; and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship.

Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime; in virtue amiable or grave; whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe: tracking over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed; that, whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed.

And what a benefit this would be to our youth and gentry, may be soon guessed by what we know of the corruption and bane, which they suck in daily from the writings and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who having scarce ever heard of

1 To me, this has ever seemed the loftiest paragraph in English prose literature

« PreviousContinue »