'-f" T 




THE LIBRARY 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY 

OF CALIFORNIA 



GIFT OF 

Professor 
Benjamin H. Lehman 




4^^ jvldi- 



j 



-wyi- 



LIFE AND TIMES 



OF 



JOHN MILTON. 



BY 



W. CARLOS MARTYN, ESQ. 




PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
the American Tbact Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Court of the Southern District of the State of New York. 



GIFT 



PREFACE. 



A NUMBER of years ago, Southey declared that a 
life of Jolin Milton was "yet a desideratum iu Brit- 
ish literature." This is uo longer true of what may 
be distinctively termed, English letters ; but it is still 
true of American literature, which, up to this date, 
has never produced a biography of that illustrious 
republican and poet. 

Before the recent appearance of Mr. Masson's 
admirable and elaborate Life of Milton, of which an 
American firm undertook some years ago to give a 
reprint, but of which only the first volume has been 
published, those who were curious to acquaint them- 
selves with the details of his eventful and beneficent 
career, were obliged to glean their scanty informa- 
tion fi'om some six or eight outline sketches, usual- 
ly prefixed as introductory memoirs to the various 
editions of his works. But these, however useful 
as summaries of fact, are far below the dignity of 
independent biography. 

Mr. Masson's Life has supplied the English peo- 
ple with an accurate and complete account of the 
immortal author of "Paradise Lost f but even 
should its publication be completed in America, it 
can never, owing to its voluminous and costly char- 
acter — it consists of three bulky volumes, each con- 
taining upwards of seven hundred pages — become 

575 



4 PREFACE. 

in any proper sense a pipidar life of Milton, but 
Avill remain of value chiefly as a book of reference. 

A careful perusal of most of tlie so called "lives" 
of Milton, revealed the fact that they "were almost 
exclusively devoted to criticisms upon Milton the 
jjoet, while Milton the statesman, Milton the contro- 
versialist, antl Milton the j^^'^se icrifer, is either 
treated with neglect, or with supercilious contempt. 
Written mostly by authors connected with the Eng- 
lish establishment, when Milton's political and relig- 
ious opinions are touched upon, it is ajiologetically 
and deprecatingly. 

Since, on this side of the Atlantic, the republi- 
can ideas and the ecclesiastical truths which Milton 
so ardently espoused and so ably exi)ounded, have 
effected a fixed and lasting lodgment, and since it 
may, in some sense, be said that religious and polit- 
ical America sprang from his brain, it is somewhat 
singular that no American should have undertaken 
to present Milton's life to his fellow-countrymen, 
for the edification and instruction of those who 
stand so heavil}' in his debt. It certainlj- seems 
that this republic, based largely upon his ideas, and 
wedded enthusiastically to his religious opinions, 
owes John Milton at least the tribute and the gi-ate- 
ful recognition of a biographical record. 

This debt it has been the purpose of this biog- 
raphy, in a humble and unostentatious way, to 
pay. No special claim to originality is made for it, 
the desire of the author having been, not so much 
to Avrite an original life, as, by levying freely upon 
the existing and authentic data, to gi'oup in one 
volume those numerous and authentic historical, 



TKEFACE. r^ 

biographical, and anecdotal incidents wliicli now 
lie scattered through a variety of obscure and rare 
manuscripts and scanty lives, and to present these 
from an American stand-point. 

Milton's connection with the stirring events of 
the Eevolution of 16-iO was intimate and influential. 
Acting as Secretarj' of State during the ten years 
of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, that 
galaxy of glorious and statesmanlike measures which 
made England during that whole decade the arbiter 
of Europe, either originated with him, or received 
from his pen their justification and defence. 

Yet this period, so rich and fertile in his life, is, 
as we have said, passed by in comparative silence 
by most of his biographers; they entertaining no 
sympathy with his republicanism, while, captivated 
by his poetic splendors, they ignore even the inter- 
esting incidents of his youth. Thus Ivime}^ the 
only dissenting clergyman who has written Milton's 
biogi'aphy, though he has not suppressed the facts 
of his political career, whirls Milton on through all 
the scenes of his boyhood, through his college life, 
through his continental tour, to the commencement 
of the Revolution, in one short chapter of six pages. 

In these respects it is confidently believed that 
this volume will be found a decided improvement 
upon most of its predecessors. Considerable space 
is devoted to the incidents of his youth and early 
manhood, not only because these phases of his life 
are interesting in themselves, but because it is in- 
structive to learn the foundations upon which that 
august life was laid. 

An attempt has also been made in tliese pages 



G PREFACE. 

to rescue from comparative obscurity the magnifi- 
cent prose writings of John Milton. "It is to be 
regi'etted," says Macauley, " that the prose writings 
of Milton should in our time be so little read. As 
compositions, they deserve the attention of every 
man who wishes to become acquainted with the 
full power of the English language. They abound 
with passages, compared with which the finest dec- 
lamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They 
are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is 
stifi' with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the 
earlier books of 'Paradise Losf has he ever risen 
higher than in those parts of his controversial works 
in which his feelmgs, excited by conflict, find a vent 
in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to 
borrow his own majestic language, 'a seven-fold 
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.' " 

Since other biographers have ampl}' descanted 
upon Milton's transcendent merits as a poet, this 
biography contents itself, in most cases, with mere- 
ly mentioning the poems in the chronological order 
in which they were written, while large space is 
allotted to characteristic extracts from his religious 
and political pamphlets. 

It is perhaps proper to say that care has been 
taken to exclude from this volume, so far as could 
be, every thing of a partisan bias. Engaged in 
heated controversy at the most exciting period of 
English history, Milton's ardent temperament occa- 
sionally hurried him into rhetorical excesses which 
in his cooler moments no one was more ready to 
condemn than himself. He belongs to no single 
sect in religion, and to no single party in politics. 



PREFACE. 7 

In the broadest sense, Eeligiou and Liberty unite to 
claim him as their well-loved son. Wedded himseH 
not to party, but to principle, he was impartial in 
his defence of what he esteemed truth, came the 
assault from open foe or professed friend. Thus he 
opposed Archbishop Laud when that prelate* un- 
dertook to stifle freedom of discussion. In the 
same spirit he lashed the inconsistencies of the 
Puritans, when, themselves in power, they continued 
to shackle the press. He was earnest not to elevate 
a party, but to elevate mankind. 

In his fourfold character of Christian, states- 
man, poet, and man, Milton deserves all the respect 
that he has ever received. His sj)lendid genius and 
steadfast devotion to liberty and progress compel 
the homage of all generous and api^reciative souls. 
God grant that these pages, devoted to the delinea- 
tion of the life of one of the grandest teachers and 
benefactors ever lent the human race, may persuade 
all readers, to the extent of their ability, to emulate 
his virtues, and to be as faithful to Christianity and 
freedom in their day and generation, as John Mil- 
ton was in his. 

The authorities consulted in the compilation of 
this biography have been numerous and diverse. 
Milton's own works, and his letters of state have, of 
coui'se, been liberally used ; but the author wishes 

* It is j)roiDer to say that when the word '■^prelaie " occiu's 
in the follo'ning pages, it is used, not in its modern and more 
legitimate EngHsh and American sense, but as it was under- 
stood in Milton's age, as synonymous -ndth that extreme and 
intolerant high-churchism which bordered on the Vatican, 
and of which Archbishop Laud and his associates were the 
fitting representatives. 



8 PREFACE. 

to express Lis special indebtedness to the -works of 
Masson, Symmons, Todd, Ivimey, and Tolaud; and 
to Wood's curions " History and Antiquities of 
Oxford," to Philips' interesting Life, to Aubrey's 
quaint work, to the Gleanings of Mr. Hunter, to 
Keightley's Memoir, Edmunds' Biography, John- 
son's life, and to the very valuable papers of Mr. 
Marsh relating to Milton's later years. Besides 
these and some other authorities, a number of col- 
lateral works bearing upon the ecclesiastical and 
civil history of that age, have been consulted from 
time to time, as necessity arose or convenience sug- 
gested. 

It is believed that the notes attached to this vol- 
ume will be found interesting and instructive to 
some readers. 

And now this book, the result of much thought 
and careful labor, is committed to the public with 
a prayer that it may be esteemed in some sort wor- 
thy of its illustrious subject; and that it may be 
instrumental in kindlino; in the bosoms of all who 
peruse its pages, that ardent love of truth, that up- 
right devotion to justice, that pure morality, and 
that passion for Christian liberty wliieh so prei'mi- 
nently distinguished the splendid and beneficent 
career of John Milton. 

New York, January, 1866. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Milton's epoch — His birth — Ancestry — Parents — Early characteris- 
tics and education — His tutors — St. Paul's school — Departure 
for Cambridge - - 15 

CHAPTER II. 

Old London — Its population^The great fire — The Llermaid tav- 
ern — The Spread-eagle in Bread-street — The fomily circle — Mil- 
ton's associates - - 29 

CHAPTER III. 

Christ College, Cambridge — Milton's rooms — The town — College 
disorders — Milton's opinion of the course of study — Troubles 
in consequence — His correspondence — The plague — Public 
affairs — ^tlilton's college triumphs — -Completes his course — His 
personal appearance - 42 

CHAPTER IV. 

Milton at home — Situation of Hortou — Milton designed for the 
church — His reluctance to enter it— His reasons — Condition of 
the chiirch of England — Bishop Laud — His tyi'anny and brutal- 
ity — Milton's disgust thereat — His final selection of a hterary 
Ufe — His high objects — Condition of hteratiire in his age— Mil- 
ton's authorship — His character — Death of his mother — Quits 
England for the Continent -- GO 

CHAPTER V. 

Continental politics in 1638 — "The thirty years' war" — Milton on 
the Continent — Tour through France — Italy — Its attractions — 
Toiir through Italy — Nice — Genoa — Leghorn — Pisa — Flor- 
ence — Its artistic and literary charms — The academies — Visit 
to Galileo — Milton's free discussion of religious topics — Home — 

1* 



10 CONTENTS. 

Milton's cordial reception there — The cantatrice — Najjles — Mil- 
ton's intimacj' with Manso — News of the civil war — He deter- 
mines to return to England — Retraces his steps — Venice — Ge- 
neva — Its character — Milton reenters England 77 

CHAPTER VI. 

The period immediately preceding the civil war — King Charles in- 
vades Scotland for the purpose of compelling the Scotch Puri- 
tans to confonn with the ritual of the prelates — Consequent 
indignation and excitement — Scottish opinion of the "SerWce 
Book" — Signing of the covenant — Demonstrative excitement 
in England — Parliament convoked — Refuses to grant the king 
required supplies until he compUes with their demands — An- 
ger of Charles, and dissolution of the Parliament — Public 
affairs grow more and more unsettled — The king obliged again 
to convoke the Parliament — The "Long" Parliament — Its 
power and character — Impeachment of Strafford and Laiid — 
Further measui-es — Folly and treachery of the king — Repairs 
to York, and inaugurates the civil war — Character of the two 
sides - -- 99 

CHAPTER VII. 

Death of ]\Iilton's friend Deodati — Residence in London — Milton 
as "Schoolmaster" — Slurs of his critics upon that occupation — 
His plan of education — lililton enters the arena of polemical war- 
fare — "Treatise on the Reformation from Popery " — " Smectjmi- 
nus " — Milton's connection with it — Attack on his moral char- 
acter — His defence — Ground of Milton's objections to the Eng- 
lish church— His belief in complete toleration — His own opinion 
of his controversial powers — The verdict of posterity 106 

CHAPTER Vni. 

Movements of the Parliament — Abolition of diocesan Episcopacj' — 
Milton the champion of impartial liberty — Inconsistent con- 
duct of the Puritans in continuing the printing license on their 
accession to power — Milton's "Plea for Unlicensed Printing" — 
Sketch of the history of printing in England — Restrictions upon 
it — The plethora of books in that generation — Consequent in- 
convenience of the license — Brilliant character of Milton's argu- 
ment in fiivor of an nnshackled press — Extracts — Its failure to 
produce the desired change in the License law — The freedom 
of the press finally secured half a century later 120 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER IX. 

Milton's marriage — The Powell family — Folly of the match — His 
wife's cavalier education — Her desertion of him — Reasons for 
it — Positive refusal to return — Milton's consequent repudiation 
of her — Publishes four pamphlets in defence of his conduct — 
His doctrine of divorce — Clamors against his theories— Sum- 
moned before the bar of the House of Lords — Speedy dismissal — • 
Later indorsers of his doctrine of divorce — The pamphlets not 
the offspring of spite, but of sincere conviction — Takes several 
new pupils — His father comes to reside with him — Proposes to 
marry again — Singular reconciliation with his M'ife — Generosity 
of Jklilton's conduct — Publishes' the first edition of his poems 
in 1645 — Death of his father — Birth of two daughters — Ai^point- 
ment to the Latin secretaryship of state 13-4 

CHAPTER X. 

Resume of the progress of the civil war — Cromwell appointed gen- 
eralissimo of the Parliament — Consequent speedy dispersal of 
the king's adherents — Charles' flight into Scotland — Demanded 
by the Parliament — His rendition — Imprisonment at Holmby- 
house — At Hampton Court — Position of English parties — The 
Presbyterians — The Lidependents — Cromwell endeavors to per- 
suade the king to proclaim amnesty and liberty — His failure — 
Detennines to crush Charles— Intrigues of the Parliament — 
Return of the armj', and forcible ejection of the Presbyterians 
from power — Execution of the king — The government new- 
modelled — The Council of State — jMilton appointed Latin Sec- 
retary — Accepts the oflice against his inclinations and throiigh 
patriotism — Is a passive spectator of the execution of the king — 
His history of England— Work on the tenure of kings and mag- 
istrates — Other publications 147 

CHAPTER XI. 

Lifluential position of England under the Commonwealth — Per- 
sonal character of the members of the Council of State— Henrj"- 
Vane, the younger — John Bradshaw — Character of Milton's 
diplomatic correspondence — Appearance of the king's book — 
Milton answers it — The ' ' Iconoclastes " — Great ability and elab- 
orate completeness of the pamphlet — Milton's bitter raillery at 
the absurd pretensions of the royal party to religions imi^ulses — 
The book runs through several editions — Its powerful effect — 



12 CONTENTS. 

Milton's doubts concerning the king's authorship of the -work 
he has been confuting — Dr. Gauden finally proclaimed the real 
author by Charles 11. and the duke of York — ililton's private 
aflfairs — Bhth of a son — His changes of residence — His income 
at this period - 160 

CHAPTER XII. 

Jlilton's reputation becomes cosmopolitan — Charles Stuart in exile 
instigates Salmasius to write a defence of the Enghsh mon- 
archy — Sketch of the life of Salmasius — His vast enidition — 
Publishes the "Defensio Regia" — Sensation caused by its ap- 
l^earance — Its character — Milton selected by the Council of 
State to answer it — Publication of his ' ' Defence of the Enghsh 
People," in 1G51 — Its personalities — Masterly character of its 
argument — Extracts — llemarkable effect of Milton's pamphlet- 
Congratulations and acknowledgments showered upon him from 
all sides — The fate of Salmasius — Milton's severity 173 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The home effect of the "Defence of the People of England" — 
Milton's domestic affairs — Death of his wife — Gradual approach 
of blinchiess, and eventual total loss of sight — His letter thereon 
to Leonard Philarus — Milton's enemies attribute his blindness 
to his writing agamst the king — His noble and Chi'istian forti- 
tude under the affliction — Sonnet to Cjaiac Sldnner — His notice 
of the slanders of his foes — Sonnet on his blindness — His .sec- 
ond marriage, and death of his second wife — His afflictions, 186 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Milton's literaiy activitj- not diminished bj' his domestic losses oi 
by his blindness — llei^lics to his first "Defence" — Publication 
of his "Second Defence of the People of England" — Resume 
of the political situation — Cromwell's so-called xisuqiation — 
]\Iilton's acquiescence in the change of administration — Ap- 
pointed Latin Secretarj'' to the Lord Protector — His admiration 
for Cromwell's character — Sonnet on the Protector — Extracts 
from the "Second Defence" — Cromwell's character as .sketched 
by Milton — His closing addi-ess — Great effectiveness of the 
second defence — Final close of the controversy — Milton every- 
where hailed as conqueror 199 



CONTENTS. 13 

CHAPTER XV. 

Milton's retii-emeut from the arena of active controversy — His de- 
votion to his studies and the duties of his office — Raleigh's 
"Cabinet Council" — Verses to Christiana, Queen of Sweden — 
His literary projects — Commences " Paradise Lost" — His stu- 
diousness — -The state letters and papers — Cromwell's interces- 
sion in behalf of the persecuted Vaudois — Sketch of the facts 
which occasioned it — Milton's sonnet— His connection with the 
intercessioji — Character of his letters thereon to the various con- 
tinental powers — Eesult of the intercession 219 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The death of Oliver Cromwell — Chaotic state of the nation — Eich- 
ard Cromwell appointed Protector — His abdication — Parliametit 
convened — Renewed ascendency of the Presbyterians — Milton's 
reappearance as a pohtical writer — The treatise on the "Civil 
Power in Ecclesiastical Matters" — "Treatise on the Removal 
of Hirelings out of the Church " — Effect of these writings upon 
Milton's old republican admirers — Continued and increasing 
demoralization of the Commonwealth — Milton's treatise on the 
"Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth" — 
Extracts — Monk's treachery — The restoration of the monarchy — 
Milton secretes himself — Close of his public life — Character of 
the Restoration — Sketch of the principles which governed Mil- 
ton's public career 229 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Milton's safe asylum — His proseciition decreed bj' the Parliament- 
Two of his pamphlets burned by the common hangman — His 
mock funeral — Milton's powerful friends at court — The govern- 
ment afraid to punish him — The act of oblivion — Animadver- 
sions upon the clemency of Charles II. — Milton summoned be- 
fore the House of Commons — His speedy release — His various 
residences — jMilton's thii-d marTiage — Character of his "«ife — 
Anedotes of her hirsband — Habits — The unkindness of his 
children — His wife rescues him from their tyr-anny — ililton in- 
vited by the king to reassume the office of Latin Secretary of 
State — Anecdote of his refusal to accept that position 248 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Milton resumes his epic pen — His acquaintance with the Quaker, 
EUwood — Ellwood's connection with Milton — Completion of 



14 CONTENTS. 

"Paradise Lost," and "Paradise Regained" — Eemarks npon 
them — Milton's poem barely escapes the suspicious scrutiny of 
the licenser — Various criticisms upon these two gi'eat epics, 261 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Milton still held in great respect and veneration — His letter to Pe- 
ter Heimbach — Publication of the "Paradise Eegained," and 
"Samson Agonistes" — Character of the latter poem — Milton's 
literarj' condescension — His scheme of logic — His ardor of com- 
position undimmed by age — His pamphlet against Popery, and 
in favor of a closer union among the evangeUcal sects — The 
danger which Slilton seeks to avert, necessitates the revolution 
of 1688 — Close of Milton's literary career— Feels the approach 
of death, and makes his will — Milton's death — Eemarks - - 273 

CHAPTER XX. 

Eesum6 of Milton's character — His daily habits — His size and 
appearance — Personal qualities — Habits of composition — His 
domestic character — Hjs religious tenets — His propertj' — Ee- 
marks upon his position after the Restoration — Drj'deu's esti- 
mate of MUton — Milton's intellectual qualities — Temper, grav- 
itj'^ — Dignity — His candor and kindness — His ready and ardent 
defence of his principles — Milton's erudition — Favorite au- 
thors — His preference of the Bible before all other books — His 
influence upon his own time, and upon posterity — His influence 
upon the English language — His influence upon the British 
Constiti;tion — Upon the formation of the American Republic — 
Final survey of his life — Conclusion 287 



THE 

LIFE AND TIMES 



OF 



JOHN MILTON. 



CHAPTER. I. 

John Milton, one of the grandest names 
in letters, statesmanship, and Christian phi- 
losophy, had his nativity cast, by the blessing 
of God, in one of those transition ages when 
great and positive intellects are enabled, 
through the crumbling of old ideas and prin- 
ciples, to new- model their own generation, 
and to mould the future to a grander destiny. 
His remarkable genius found ample scope for 
its exercise in the stirring days of the most 
momentous epoch in English history. And 
broadcast in the furrows of the time, lay scat- 
tered the seed of a growth destined to be pro- 



16 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

digiously effective both for good and evil in 
the world. 

It was preeminently a period of interest- 
ing and instructive import, and singularlj^ 
])roductive of famous men. In 1G08, the year 
of Milton's birth, Spenser had been less than 
ten years dead, and Shakspeare still wrote. 
So nearly contemporary was this august trinity 
of poets. The Elizabethan era, fascinatingly 
gallant and romantic, had already produced 
Lord Bacon, who wedded religion to the pro- 
foundest philosophy in his intellectual theory 
if not in his daily life, the chivalric Raleigh, 
and the gentle Sydney, who could write upon 
his frontlet, and with equal truth, the motto of 
the French knight Baj^ard, "Without fear and 
without reproach," and wdio fell a martyr to 
Protestantism while fighting for the religious 
independence of the Netherlands. Elizabeth's 
whole reign had been full of that adventure 
which captivates the imagination, and w^as also 
distinguished for that learning and religious 
enthusiasm wdiich elevates the mind and in- 
spires the heart. Witnessing the meeting 
shock between nascent Protestantism and the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 17 

Eoman see armed ccq^a-pie for the tilt, it saw 
Catholicism completely unhorsed in England. 
At the commencement of the seventeenth 
centurj^, the Eeformation, triumphant in that 
island, had broken rank into innumerable in- 
dependent sects, busied mainly in acrimonious 
controversy concerning doctrinal points not of 
vital consequence, and united only in claiming 
from the state larger civil and religious liber- 
ty. The Roman-catholic party, still numerous 
and intriguing, though outnumbered and ostra- 
cised at court, recognized the essential agree- 
ment of the despotic principles of the then 
reigning house of Stnart with their own ten- 
ets, and therefore yielded an unwavering sup- 
port to the arbitrar}^ acts of James First, the 
most pedantic and weak of sovereigns; and 
of Charles First, the most treacherous and 
stubborn. The Catholics were still further 
confirmed in this course by perceiving that 
the Puritans were constantly drifting into 
greater hostility to the court, and they reason- 
ed, rightly as the sequel showed, that when 
the clasli came and the king required support, 
he would look for it to that party which had 



IS THE LIFE AND TIMES 

been steadfast in its devotion to him even 
when exiled from his smile. If the king proved 
successful, they would regrasp the reins of 
power; if unsuccessful, they would at least 
have the consolation of knowing that they had 
made a bold push for the reinstatement of 
their influence. A brilliant court, selfish, ty- 
rannical, and corrupt ; cavaliers besotted with 
wine and license, grown heedless of right and 
indifferent to justice ; the Puritans, shocked by 
this indecency, working with incessant indus- 
try and marvellous talent to inaugurate a new 
regime; the Catholics alert and intriguing; the 
commons intensely active through the dawn- 
ing of intelligence ; every tavern the head- 
quarters of a political clique ; general discon- 
tent begotten of the despotic policy of the 
crown ; the people, like a blind Samson, grasp- 
ing for the pillars of their prison-house : these 
were the discordent elements which even so 
early as the year of Milton's birth had begun 
to ferment : such was the rotten society through 
which there passed, forty years later, the stern 
ploughshare of the civil war. 

Of course Milton's mind could not but 



OF JOHN MILTON. 19 

take color in large measure from that era of 
sane giants, and giants gone mad. Out of the 
chaos of opinions he shaped and elaborated 
his own theories, based mainly on Bible truth, 
and so grew to be the thinker and the idealist 
of the Revolution — the brain of English Prot- 
estantism in the seventeenth century, 

John Milton was born on the morning of 
the 9th of December, 1608, in the city of 
London, and parish of All-hallows, in his fa- 
ther's house, in Bread-street. 

The Milton family, which was of gentle 
blood, had originally resided in the hamlet of 
Milton, near Abingdon, in Oxfordshire ; but 
having espoused the unsuccessful side in the 
civil wars between the houses of York and 
Lancaster in the preceding century, their es- 
tate, in common with many others, had been 
sequestrated, and they were in consequence 
reduced to comparative obscurity, though con- 
tinuing to hold property to a considerable 
extent, which had descended on the female 
side. The poet's grandfather, whose name was 
John Milton, was under-keeper or ranger to 



20 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the forest of Sliotover, near Ilorton, in Oxford- 
shire. 

The poet's father, also named John ^lilton, 
was a gentleman of varied accomplishments, 
and had been educated at Christ church, Ox- 
ford,* where he embraced the Protestant faith, 
being in consequence disinherited by his fa- 
ther, who was a bigoted Catholic. The stu- 
dent being tlms thrown npon his own resour- 
ces, chose for his support the profession of a 
scrivener. This term, at least in its old sense, 
is now obsolete ; and it may be interesting 
to know precisely what a scrivener was in 
Milton's boyhood, and when James First was 
king. 

Scriveners at that time were penmen of all 
kinds of writing, literary manuscripts as well 
as charters and law papers. Chaucer, the fa- 
ther of English poetry, has an epigram in 
which he lampoons his "scrivener" Adam 
for negligent workmanship. After the inven- 
tion of printing, the business of the scrivener 
became very similar to that of a modern attor- 
ney, or of an attornc}' in conjunction with a 

• Dr. Todd's Life, p. 1. Mitford's Lifo, p. 1, Vol. I. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 21 

law-stationer/'' The scriveners were an an- 
cient and quite numerous body, and were reg- 
ularly incorporated in the time of Milton's 
father. The profession was esteemed an hon- 
orable one, and though its members might be 
sent for, as in the instance mentioned, much 
of their business was done in their own "shops," 
the general aspect of which was very like the 
offices of modern lawyers, a chief desk for the 
master, side desks for the apprentices, pigeon- 
holes and drawers for parchments, and seats 
for customers. A scrivener who had money 
could find excellent opportunities for lending 
it at a profit. 

Being, as his son has written of him with 
proper pride, "a man of the utmost integrity," 
the scrivener Milton prospered rapidly. His 
industry and prudent conduct soon put him in 
possession of an extensive estate, so that he 
owned not only the "Spread-eagle" in Bread- 
street, where the poet was born, so named 

* In Shakspeare's "Tamiug of the Shrew," a boy is sent for 
the scrivener to draw np a marriage settlement : 

" Wc '11 pass the business privately and well. 
Send for your daughter by your servant here : 
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently." 



22 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

from the armorial bearings of the family, but 
also another house called the "Rose," in the 
same street, together with various other houses 
in different quarters of London. He was pas- 
sionately fond of the line arts, especially mu- 
sic, in which he was remarkably skilful. Sir 
John Hawkins and Dr. Burney have each se- 
lected specimens of his talent in their histories 
3f music. He is said to have been "a volu- 
minous composer, and equal in science, if not 
in genius, to the best musicians of his age."'-' 

It is always interesting to know something 
of the mothers of great men. Such inquiries 
almost invariably reveal the fact that they 
were women of remarkable character. Of 
Milton's mother enough is known to convince 
us that she was possessed of rare talent; and 
the loving pen of her son has recorded of her 
that she was respectabh' connected and de- 
scended, greatly esteemed for her virtues, and 
particularly distinguished for that charity upon 
which the apostle pronounces his glowing eulo- 
gium. Concerning her maiden name there is 
great conflict of authorities, but it is perhaps 

* Dr. Bumey's History of Music, Vol. III., p. 134. 



I 



OF JOHN MILTON. 23 

safe to conclude that she was a Caston, of a 
genteel family derived originally from Wales.* 

Above all, both the parents of the future 
champion of civil and religious liberty were 
conscientious and earnest Christians, of which, 
as we have seen, the father had given con- 
vincing proof by his renunciation of the errors 
of Romanism, in which he had been educated, 
and which were sanctioned by parental author- 
ity, and powerfully enforced by the persuasion 
of temporal interest. The sense of religious 
duty must have been keen, and the knowledge 
of theologic truth considerable, which could 
enable a man to turn his face resolutely away 
from such inducements, and accept cheerfully 
and without a murmur disinheritance and ear- 
ly penury. 

We have thus dwelt upon the characteris- 
tics of Milton's parents, not only because they 
are in themselves interesting and instructive, 
but also because they had a marked influence 
upon his whole life. Their religious tenets 
made on the reflective, strong, and enthusias- 

* Todd's Life of Jklilton, p. 111. Vol. I. Massou's Life, chap. 
I., Passim. Symmons' Life, p. 7, Vol. VII. 



24: THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tic mind of Milton an early and lasting im- 
pression. 

Milton was remarkable even in his infanc}'. 
Aubrey* says of him that "he was a poet at 
ten." This bud of genius was fondly noticed, 
wisely encouraged, and anxiously matured by 
his })arents and instructors, until it bloomed 
in the marvellous glories of his riper manhood. 
Taught from the outset with scrupulous care, 
he was so happy as to share the benefits both 
of public and private education. 

His first instruction was gotten from a pri- 
vate tutor named Thomas Young, whom Au- 
brey calls "a Puritan in Essex who cut his 
hair short." He appears to have been a man 
of rare parts, and succeeded in speedily win- 
ning the love and respect of his pupil, both 
of which he ever after retained. Under his 
able and conscientious instruction Milton made 
rapid progress, and from Thomas Young he 
doubtless imbibed manj' of those religious and 
political principles which he was called later 
so i)owerfnlly to vindicate. Milton publicly 

• Johu Aubrey, boru iu 1G26. He was a celebrated antiquary, 
and made the history and antiquities of England his peculiar stiidy. 



or JOHN MILTON. 25 

evinced liis gratitude b}" addressing to Mr. 
Young his fourth elegy and two elegant Latin 
epistles. Afterwards, when in the zenith of 
his power, he caused his old tutor to return 
from Hamburg, whither he had repaired in 
the commencement of the reign of Charles 
First, on account of his religious opinions, and 
where he was officiating as chaplain to the 
English merchants under Cromwell's rule, and 
accept the mastership of Jesus College, Cam- 
bridge. This fine incident shows the tenacity 
of Milton's friendship, and it further proves 
his kindness of heart, and that in his own pros- 
perity he did not forget his more unfortunate 
associates. 

In 1618 a very beautiful portrait of Mil- 
ton's boyish face was painted. The picture is 
now widely known. It was drawn by a young 
Dutch painter, Cornelius Jansen, recently ar- 
rived from Amsterdam, and then rising into 
fame. The portrait cost five broad pieces, 
about twenty pounds in the present English 
money, or nearly one hundred dollars in Unit- 
ed States currency, a large price for those 
days. It was executed in order to operate as 



2G THE LIFE AND TIMES 

an acldiuoiial iiicoiilive to tlie continued exer- 
tion of the thoughtful boy. The prevailing 
expression of the face is a lovable seriousness; 
and in looking at it one can well fancy that 
those lines from "Paradise Lost" which the 
first engraver ventured to inscribe beneath 
the portrait, were really written by the poet 
with some reference to his own recollections 
of his boyhood : 

' ' "WTien I was yet a child, no childisli play 
To me seemed pleasing ; all my mind was set 
Serious to leam and know, and thence to do 
What might be pubUe good ; myself I thought 
Bom to that end — born to promote all triith 
And righteous things." 

Thomas Young quitted England in 1623, 
npon which event Milton was sent at St. Paul's 
school, London, then in charge of Alexander 
Gill, with whose son, then acting as usher, 
he contracted a warm and lasting friendship. 
Here the young student was initiated into 
several of the modern languages. His insa- 
tiable thirst for knowledge habituallj^ kept him 
at his books till long past midnight — this pre- 
cocious boy of fifteen years. His passionate 
devotion to letters, making him utterly inat- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 27 

tentive to his liealtli, was the unquestionable 
source of that blindness in which his sight was 
quenched in after-life. 

Writing in 1641, while his father was yet 
alive, Milton thus describes his early studies : 
" I had from my first years, by the cease- 
less 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 both at 
home and at the schools." And again, after 
his father's death, he writes, "My father des- 
tined me, while yet a little child, for the study 
of humane letters. Both at the grammar- 
school and at home, he caused me to be in- 
structed daily." These sentences summarily 
describe Milton's education prior to his colle- 
giate course. 

In 1623, while in his fifteenth year, he 
gave several proofs of his precocious poetical 
genius, among other things translating the one 
hundred and fourteenth and the one hundred 
and thirty-sixth Psalms into English verse. 
These have won high praise from most critics, 
as being clear, firmly worded, and harmoni- 



28 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ous. The translations are mainly of interest 
now, as showing the early proclivities of his 
mind towards sacred things, and as marking 
the dawn on the horizon of letters of that mag- 
nificent genius which was eventually to sheet 
the whole literary heavens with unwonted 
splendor. 

Milton remained at St. Paul's school during 
two 3'ears. Upon completing his seventeenth 
year, he was removed to Cambridge, where 
he was admitted a pensioner in Christ col- 
le2:e on the 12th of Februarv, 1 621-5,* bein"; 
already distinguished as a classical scholar, 
and conversant with most of the modern 
tongues. 

* The reason for this double date is, that prior to 1752 the 
year in England began, not on the 1st of January, but on the 25th 
of ilarch. All those days therefore which intervened between the 
31st of December and the 25th of March, which we should now 
date as belonging to a particular year, were then dated as belong- 
ing to the year preceding that. As we now date, Jlilton entered 
college in February, 1625, but in the old reckoning it was Febru- 
ary, 1624 



OF JOHN MILTON. 29 



CHAPTER II. 

Before accompan3ing Milton to Cam- 
bridge, we desire to turn aside and devote a 
chapter to the scenes, influences, and society 
of his bojiiood. It has been well said that a 
great part of the education of every child con- 
sists of those impressions, visual and other, 
which its senses are busily though uncon- 
Bciousl}^ drinking in from the scenes amid 
which it daily lives. Familiarity therefore 
with the early associations of famous men, not 
unfrequently affords a key to their whole char- 
acter. 

The London of 1608 was not that mam- 
moth Babel, the London of our time. In place 
of its present two millions and a half of inhab- 
itants, the city contained, in the days when 
Milton's boyish feet trod its pavements, some- 
thing under two hundred thousand souls. The 
great fire of 1666 licked up with its flaming 
tongues most of the antiquities of London. 
Bread-street, Cheapside, the old taverns, round 



30 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

wnose quaint gables clustered the rich tradi- 
tions of the past, the famous tenements of the 
rich burghers — all succumbed. The burned 
district was, however, rebuilt with as strict 
attention to the old sites as the surveyor's art 
of that day could insure ; so that these portions 
of the cit}^ occupy the same relative position 
on the map of London as before the fire. We 
may therefore, with a little faith and a little 
fancy, rcpeople the old streets until the past 
shall once more live and breathe. 

Cheapside was then, as now, a famous thor- 
oughfare, gay with shops, and bustling with 
traffic. ]\Iilton had onl}" to go a few paces 
from his father's door to see the whole of that 
great street almost at a glance. Here the din 
of trade was at its loudest. The shops of the 
mercers and goldsmiths lined the sidewalks. 
Some of the most noted hostelries of the city 
there welcomed travellers. Multitudinous foot- 
passengers thronged the pavements, while 
horsemen, chairs, and an occasional coach — 
for of late years these vehicles had come into 
fashion, and the complaint was made that 
" the world was running on wheels with many 



OF JOHN MILTON. 31 

whose parents had been glad to go on foot" — 
passed and repassed. Whenever there was 
any city pageant, it was snre to pass through 
Cheapside. The whole aspect of the street, 
with its houses of various heights, nearly all 
turned gablewise to the street, all with pro- 
jecting upper-stories of wood-work, and dotted 
with latticed windows, was strangely pictur- 
esque. Some of the buildings were, according 
to the ideas of that age, as imposing as any in 
Christendom. Eastward was a row of many 
"fair and large houses possessed of mercers;" 
and westward, beginning at the very corner 
of Bread-street, was another row, "the most 
beautiful frame of fair houses and shops," says 
Stow, a careful antiquarian, "that be within 
the walls of London, or elsewhere in Eng- 
land." 

Bread-street stretched southward from 
Cheapside, and was "so called," says Stow, 
"of bread anciently sold there." It was in 
Milton's youth one of the most respectable 
streets in the city, "wholly inhabited by rich 
merchants," who had their shops below and 
their dwellings above. It could boast of two 



32 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

parish churches, and of " divers fair inns for 
good receipt of carriers and other travellers." 
"The Spread-eagle," the shop and dwelling 
of the scrivener Milton, was, as we have seen, 
situated in this street: It was a commodious 
and sightly building, fully in accordance with 
its owner's prosperous circumstances, and was 
not at all put to the blush by its neighbors. 
Near this house was the parish church of All- 
hallows, where Milton sat every Sunday with 
his father and mother, and in which he had 
been christened. 

Also in the immediate neighborhood was 
the famous "Mermaid tavern," the resort of 
Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, 
and other great spirits of the time, of which 
Beaumont thus speaks in a sonnet to Ben 
Jonson : 

"What things have we seen 
Done at the Mermaid ! heard -words that have been 
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
As if they every one from whence they came 
Had meant to put his whole soul in a jest, 
And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
Of his dull life ; then, when there hath been thrown 
Wit able enough to justify the town 
For three days past — wit that might warriint be 
For the whole city to talk foolishly 



OF JOHN MILTON. 33 

Till that were cancelled ; and when that was gone, 
"We left an air behind us which alone 
Was able to make the two next companies 
Eight witty, though but downright fools." 

Something of all this the youthful eyes of 
Milton must have taken in. But more impor- 
tant than contact with the world of city sights 
and the gay humors of the town, was the daily 
routine of his home existence. Let us then 
step across the threshold of the Spread-eagle, 
and while the roar of Cheapside and the sur- 
rounding city is muffled in the distance, catch 
a glimpse of the family circle. 

We see a warm and happy home. Peace, 
comfort, and industry reign within it. Dur- 
ing the day the scrivener is busy with his 
apprentices and clients ; but in the evening 
the family are gathered together, the father on 
one side, the mother on the other, the eldest 
daughter Anne and her brother John seated 
near, with little Kit, afterwards Sir Christo- 
pher Milton, who was seven years younger 
than John, at his mother's knee. A grave, 
Puritanic piety was then the order of the day 
in the households of most of the respectable 
citizens of London. Religious reading and 

2* 



34 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

devout exercises ^Youl(l therefore be the daily 
practice of the family. la this way a predis- 
position towards the serious, a regard for 
religion as the chief concern of life, and a 
dutiful love of the parents who so taught him, 
would be cultivated in Milton from his infan- 
cy. Happ3^ child to have such parents ; happy 
parents to have such a child. 

Reference has already been made to the 
fondness of Milton's father for music. The 
composer of a variety of madrigals, he had 
also devoted his talent to harmonizing a num- 
ber of the Psalms— those familiar tunes, Nor- 
wich and York, being both of them his lyrical 
productions. "The tenor part of York tune," 
says old Sir John Hawkins, "was so well 
known in ni}^ days, that half the nurses in 
England were used to sing it by way of lulla- 
by', " and the chimes of many country churches 
had "played it six or eight times in twenty- 
four hours, from time immemorial." 

That his father was a man so gifted was 
very material to Milton. In his scheme for 
an improved education for children, he gives a 
high place to music. "The intervals of more 



OF JOHN MILTON. 35 

severe labor," lie sa^'s, "might both with profit 
and delight be taken up in recreating and 
composing their travailed spirits with the sol- 
emn and divine harmonies of music heard or 
learned, either wdiile the skilful organist plies 
his grave or fanciful descant in loft}^ fugues, 
or the whole symphony with artful and un- 
imaginable touches, adorn and grace the well- 
studied chords of some choice composer; some- 
times the lute or soft organ-stop waiting on 
elegant voices, either to religious, martial, or 
civil ditties, which, if wise men and proph- 
ets be not extremely out, have a great power 
over dispositions and manners, to smooth and 
make them gentle." Of this kind of education 
Milton had the full advantage, and it was a 
source of amusement and praise which yielded 
him throughout the stormy phases of his life 
the sweetest consolation. Often as a child he 
must have bent over his father while compos- 
ing, or listened to him as he played. Often, 
at evening, when two or three of his father's 
musical acquaintances would call, the voices 
in the Spread-eagle would sufl&ce for a little 
household concert. Then if one of his father's 



3G THE LIFE AND TIMES 

compositions were selected, the words might 
be, 

' ' O liail I Things, like as a dove, 

Then should I from these troubles fly ; 
To wilderness I would remove, 

To spend my life, and there to die." 

Or perhaps the selection was the 2Tth Psalm, 
especially adapted to York, and pregnant with 
deep significance : 

' ' The Lord is both my health and light, 

Shall man make me dismayed ? 
Sith God doth give me strength and might, 

Why should I be afraid ? 
"\Miile that my foes ■with all their strength, 

Begin with me to bawl, 
And think to eat me up at length, 

ThemselvesTiave caught the fall." 

Joining in the chorus with his sweet j'oung 
voice, Milton became a singer almost as soon 
as he could speak. We can see him tottling 
to the organ, his tiny feet scarce able to bear 
their burden, and picking out little melodies 
by ear, and stretching his lingers in search of 
pleasing chords ! According to Aubrey, his 
father taught him the whole theory of music, 
and made him an accomplished organist. Af- 
terwards, when his philanthropic labors had 
brought upon him persecution, poverty, and 



OF JOHN MILTON. 37 

distress, when the hoarse clamors of the fickle 
multitude sounded ominously in his ears, the 
young musician, then grown old, blind, and 
infirm, would still, as in happier days, repair 
serenely to his organ 

" to sing, 



And build the lofty rhyme. " 

Here the sightless poet, forgetting the cares 
and vexations of his checkered career, peo- 
pled the dim twilight with the Seraphim and 
Cherubim of his august dreams. So David, 
flying from the vanities of earth, poured out 
his soul in praises to his Creator upon the 
psaltery and the harp. So Luther sought, in 
his tumultuous age, recreation and composure 
from his plaintive violin. 

But in the most musical household, music 
occupies but a portion of the domestic even- 
ing; and sometimes it would not be musical 
friends, but acquaintances of more general or 
difi'erent tastes, that would step in to soend an 
hour or two at the Spread-eagle. 

The Eev. Richard Stocke, pastor of the par- 
ish of All-hallows, was a frequent and welcome 
visitor. "This worthy," says Fuller, " was a 



38 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

constant, judicious, and religious preacher," 
a " zealous Puritan." There were young men, 
afterwards high in the church, who made it a 
point never to miss one of his sermons. In 
one essential part of a pastor's duty, that of 
interesting the young, he had a peculiar fac- 
ulty. Indeed his influence over the entire 
parish was extraordinarv ; and the fruit of his 
labors, "in converting many and confirming 
more in religion," was abundantly to be seen. 
Then one of the elder Milton's coparish- 
ioners and nearest neighbors was Humphrey 
Lownes, a printer and publisher, residing at 
the sign of the "Star," in Bread-street, one of 
a family then and since well known in the 
literary world, and himself a man of worth 
and ingenuit}'. With Lownes, Milton struck a 
great friendship ; and the publisher, perceiving 
the boy's wondrous precocity and appetite for 
reading, loaned him from time to time such 
books as he desired. In this manner he first 
read Spenser's works and the poems of that 
quaint old pedant Sylvester, for whom Milton 
then entertained a profound admiration, much 
modified however in mature life. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 39 

Among the frequenters of the Spread-eagle 
at that time there was also at least one author, 
John Lane, whom Milton's nephew, Philips, 
calls "a fine old queen Elizabeth gentleman," 
the author of several poems, but who has 
now passed from remembrance. 

If Mr. Stocke, Humphrey Lownes, and 
John Lane met in an evening at the hospita- 
ble hearth of the scrivener, there were other 
interesting topics besides Stocke's theology, 
Lownes' books, Lane's poetry, and Milton's 
music to invite conversation. Undoubtedly 
the talk would often drift upon the gloomy 
state of national affairs. Ever since the famous 
Hampton Court conference, held in 1603-4, at 
which both the great Protestant parties had 
appeared before the king, James First, to plead 
their views and enlist his sympathies, the hopes 
entertained by the Puritan party had been 
more and more disappointed. The Scottish 
sovereign had become, as decidedly as his 
predecessor, the supporter of prelacy in the 
church, and the maintainer of the most ultra 
notions of the royal prerogative in the state. 
In an English household like that of the elder 



40 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Milton, it is certain that this state of things 
must have provoked frequent and aggrieved 
comment — comment which the mature and 
inquiring mind of the boyish poet must have 
easily understood and treasured up. 

Such were some of the scenes amid which 
John Milton was reared — such some of the 
early influences which surrounded him — such 
some of his first associates. It was at this pe- 
riod of his life, as it may be supposed, that he 
imbibed that spirit of devotion which actuated 
his bosom to his latest moment upon earth. 
We need not extend our search beyond his own 
hearthstone for the influences which mould- 
ed his life and anchored it to truth. The 
warm religious sentiments there communicated 
to his mind were strengthened by the precepts 
and practice of his preceptor, Thomas Young, 
in whom religion was exalted into enthusiasm, 
and who submitted, as we have seen, to exile 
upon the requisition of his conscience. But 
whatever may have been the source of his 
fervid spirit, its action upon Milton's mind was 
from the outset powerfully marked ; it seemed 
to enlarge his mental capacity, and to give his 



or JOHN MILTON. 41 

faculties direction and emphasis. Invigorating 
and elevating, we are nnquestionably indebted 
to devotion not merely for the subject, but in 
large part for the sublimity of the "Paradise 
Lost." 



42 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER III. 

It is not known preciselj^ wh}' the elder 
Milton selected Cambridge for his son, espec- 
ially' as he ma}" be supposed to have been 
somewhat prejudiced in favor of the rival uni- 
versity, Oxford, where he had himself studied. 
In the absence of all authoritative data, specu- 
lation only is possible. The real cause of the 
choice may have been in the reputation which 
Christ College, tlie special department of 
Cambridge to which Milton was dispatched, 
had acquired as the seat not only of sound 
learning, but also of vital and evangelical piet3^ 
" It may without flattery be said of this house," 
says old Fuller, '' 'many daughters have done 
virtuously, but thou excellest them all,' if w^e 
consider the many divines who in so short a 
time have here had their education." A num- 
ber of distinguished prelates had indeed in the 
preceding century been graduated there, while 
the genius of the college pointed proudly to 



or JOHN MILTON. d3 

the roll of its alumni which embraced the 
names of the reformer Latimer, the antiquarian 
Leland, Harrington the translator of that 
elegant Italian poet Ariosto, and Sir Philip 
Sidney — a very honorable list. 

Christ College was one of the most com- 
fortable, as it was among the largest, in the 
university. It was substantially built, with a 
spacious inner quadrangle, a handsome dining- 
hall, and an extensive garden, provided with 
a bowling-green, a pond, and alcoves ; it also 
possessed shady walks, in true academic taste. 

Tradition still points out Milton's rooms. 
" They were," says Masson, " in the older part 
of the building, on the left side of the court, as 
you enter through the street-gate; the first 
floor rooms on the first stair on that side. The 
rooms consist at present of a small study, with 
two windows looking into the court, and a very 
small bed-room adjoining. They do not seem 
to have been altered at all since Milton's time." 
As soon as he had settled himself in his apart- 
ments, which he retained until he quitted Cam- 
bridge, he selected his tutor, William Chap- 
pell, and then strolled out to see the town. 



41 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

At that time tlie population of Cambridge 
was between seven and eight thousand. The 
distinction between "town" and "gown" had 
grown up long prior to that age, and while the 
town was governed by a mayor, aldermen, and 
a common council, the University was control- 
led by its own statutes, which were enforced by 
the collegiate authorities. The University was 
also represented in Parliament by two mem- 
bers returned by itself.* 

At the time of Milton's matriculation, Cam- 
bridge had fallen into man}^ disorders and 
deviations from the old academic discipline, 
ecclesiastical and other, arising on the one 
hand from the invasion of Puritan opinions, 
which prevailed to an extent which alarmed 
the zealous churchmen resident there, and on 
the other hand from "debauched and atheisti- 
cal" principles, and that "nicknaming and 
scoffing at religion and the power of godliness," 
which serious men thought "strange in a Uni- 
versity of the reformed church." 

Indeed the selfsame conflict between rot- 
ten formalism and scoffing infidelity on one 

* Masson's Life of Milton, p. 79. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 45 

side, and earnest, living, and sincere devotion 
on the other, which ere long lighted the flames 
of civil war throughout Great Britain, seems 
to have already commenced at the University 
when Milton entered it. In Christ College the 
order was ver}^ good. Its heads and seniors 
were puritanically inclined, and they imparted 
to the undergraduates something of their own 
zeal and piety. Still it is very certain that 
Milton always entertained a poor opinion of 
the University curriculum, or course of study. 
He was at the very outset disgusted by the 
superficial educational system, and the babel 
of controversy. In speaking, long afterwards, 
of boys who went up to the colleges for educa- 
tion, he says, "Their honest and ingenuous 
natures coming to the University to feed them- 
selves with good and solid learning, are there 
unfortunately fed with nothing else but the 
scragged and thoru}^ lectures of monkish and 
miserable sophistry. They are sent home 
again with such a scholastic bur in their throats 
as hath stopped and hindered all true and gen- 
erous philosophy from entering, cracked their 
voices for ever with metaphysical gargarisms; 



46 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

bath made them admire a sort of formal, out- 
side men, prelatically addicted, whose unchas- 
tened and overwrought minds were never yet 
initiated, nor subdued under the law of UKJial 
or religious virtue, which two are the greatest 
and best points of learning ; but either slightly 
trained up in a sort of hypocritical and hack- 
ney course of literature to get their living by, 
or else fondly overstudied in useless controver- 
sies, except those which they use with all the 
specious subtlety they arc able, to defend their 
prelatical Sparta." 

In a letter to his old friend and tutor 
Alexander Gill, he speaks again of the super- 
ficial and smattering course of learning pursued 
at the University, and of the manner in which 
the clergy engaged with raw and untutored 
judgments in the explanation of theological 
tenets, patching together a sermon with pilfer- 
ed scraps, without any acquaintance with 
criticism or philosophy. 

As might have been expected, with these 
views Milton's tarry at Cambridge was not 
invariably })leasant and agreeable. Himself, 
though but a boy in years — he was then but 



OF JOHN MILTON. 47 

two months turned of sixteen — marvellously 
and accurately learned, familiar with the 
French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew tongues, 
he saw easily beneath the pompous surface- 
knowledge of the college "Dons." In familiar- 
ity with the current English literature of the 
day, and with those authors who preceded 
him, the fossil professors were infinitely be- 
hind their strange and intractable pupil. 

In the beginning, when they perceived his 
evident contempt for their time-honored and 
inflexible methods, they treated him harshly, 
as a presumptuous and conceited upstart. But 
in the end they learned to appreciate and ad- 
mire his genius. Milton was always frank and 
free in the expression of his opinions, and as 
he bruited his educational notions abroad, the 
university authorities set themselves to crush 
the heresy. He was, in consequence, beset at 
this time by many vexations. Among other 
troubles was his famous quarrel with his tutor, 
William Chappell. 

Dr. Johnson, a Tory and a high-church- 
man, and therefore naturally inimical to Mil- 
ton's opinions, in his life of the poet, is fre- 



48 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

quently biased bj' his prejiuliccs. This pre- 
vents that fairness of statement and charity 
of judgment which are so becoming in a biog- 
rapher. Misled by this infirmity, he often seeks 
occasion for fault-finding where in reality none 
exists. Of this nature is his charge that Mil- 
ton obtained no fellowship in the university, 
and that he was publicly flogged while there 
for infractions of discipline. This assertion, 
though it has never created much wonder, has 
stirred more recent biographers to a careful 
investigation of the facts. The result of these 
inquiries has gone to show that there was no 
truth whatever in the charge of public flog- 
ging, the rumor of which Milton himself ear- 
nestl}^ denied but a few years after he quitted 
the University, when the facts must have been 
known to many persons, and when, surrounded 
as he then was by enemies, if such an allega- 
tion could have been made good, the ready 
pens of a score of adversaries would have 
attested it. Yet his denial was never ques- 
tioned in his age, but it was reserved for the 
pen of Dr. Johnson to revive the exploded 
slander, and to insult tlie memory of John 



OF JOHN MILTON. 49 

Milton b}-^ the expression of an affected con- 
cern at its trnth. 

There is, however, no question that Milton 
had some difficulty with William Chappell, and 
that in consequence he changed his tutor. 

His life in those days, while under the 
frown of the college authorities, was probably 
far from pleasant. He found consolation how- 
ever in his literary pursuits, and in his cor- 
respondence. He addressed at this period 
several letters to Alexander Gill ; to his old 
preceptor Thomas Young at Hamburg, in one 
of which he bewailed that worthy's exile, and 
predicted his speedy return, since the days 
were coming when England would need all 
such sons ; and to Charles Deodati. 

Deodati had been Milton's most intimate 
friend at St. Paul's school. The familj^ was 
of Italian extraction, and had originally come 
from Lucca on account of its Protestant princi- 
ples. Of two brothers born in G-eneva, Gio- 
vanni, the 3^ounger, remained there, where he 
rose to be professor in the Universit}^ of Ge- 
neva, and became an eminent theologian of the 
Reformation. The other brother, Theodore, 



60 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

came over to England in early life, adopted 
the medical profession, and attained considera- 
ble reputation ; so that in 1609 he had a house in 
Brentford, and was physician to Henry, Prince 
of Wales, and Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of 
Bohemia. Charles, Milton's friend, was born 
about the year 1608, and was therefore near 
the same age as his p;reat playfellow. 

Young D^odati was a bo}' of more than ordi- 
nary ability, and in earnest devotion to study 
and purity of life, was a proper mate for Mil- 
ton. He went to Oxford in 1621-2 ; but thdr 
old intimacy was still kept up. Milton's let- 
ters to this valued friend, usually written in 
the Latin or Italian languages, and dated from 
Cambridge, are ver}' beautiful. They relate 
his studies, his accomplishments, his feelings, 
his amusements, giving an inside view of the 
man. They show him to have excelled as 
much in the amiable virtues as he did in the 
controversial and rhetorical ones. 

It was during Milton's first j'ear at Cam- 
bridge that the plague made its appearance, 
the tradition of whose horrors still lingers in 
English history. This scourge stalked through 



OF JOHN MILTON. 51 

the island, decimating the population of the 
larger towns. It carried off over thirtj'-five 
thousand people in London, where it first rev- 
elled in its ghastly carnival. The pestilence 
did not break out in Cambridge, but it raged in 
many of the surrounding viUages, and caused 
such a panic at the Universitj^ as served to 
disturb the ordinary quiet routine, and send 
many of the collegians home. Milton passed 
the time with his family. 

In this same year, 1625, king James died, 
not much regretted by any part}^, and was 
succeeded by Charles Stuart, then in his twen- 
ty-tifth year. The death of the old and the 
succession of the new king caused considerable 
commotion at the Universit}^ It was difficult 
for the "Dons" and scholars, accustomed as 
they had long been to the formula '' Jacohwn 
Regwn^^ in their prayers and graces at meat, 
to bring their mouths all at once round to 
" Carolum Regum^^ instead. Meade, one of 
Milton's fellow-students, tells of one poor bach- 
elor who was so bent on remembering that 
" t7aco5z<s " had gone out and '' Carolus'^ had 
come in, that when, in publicly reading the 



52 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Psalms, lie came to llie phrase, '' Deus Jacohi,'^ 
God of Jacob, he altered it before he was 
aware into " Be^is Caroli,^^ God of Charles, 
and then stood horror-struck at his mistake. 

Public affairs were at this period very 
disordered. England was at war with France, 
and while disaster followed the national arms 
abroad, dissension reigned at home. An ex- 
pensive expedition sent under Buckingham to 
the assistance of the city of Rochelle, the 
strong-hold of the French Calvinists, then 
closel}' besieged by Richelieu, had proved a 
total failure ; and a second expedition, a 
twelvemonth later, proved equally unsuccess- 
ful, when led by Lord Denbigh. Such was 
the gloomy foreign aspect of affuirs. 

The domestic situation was still more 
threatening. Parliament, which had been 
prorogued in the preceding reign by the angry 
James, on account of its decided stand in de- 
fence of the popular rights, and its opposition 
to the arbitrary requisitions of the crown, 
met again in January, 1C28-9, and at once 
"fell upon their grievances." These were of 
two classes : the tonnage and poundage ques- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 63 

tion, which embraced the right of the king to 
raise money without the consent of Parlia- 
ment; and the question of the religious con- 
dition of the state, as connected with the 
spread of Popish doctrines, and with the pro- 
motion of men holding; to those tenets to hio;h 
positions in the church and state. In order 
more thoroughly to consider this last great 
subject, the House of Commons resolved itself 
into a " Committee of Religion." 

"It was in this Committee of Religion," 
says Carljie,'^ "on the 11th day of February, 
1628-9, that Mr. Cromwell, member for Hunt- 
ingdon, then in his thirtieth year, stood up 
and made his first speech, a fragment of which 
has found its way into history, and is now 
known to all the world. He said ' he had 
heard by relation from one Dr. Beard, his old 
schoolmaster at Huntingdon, that Dr. Alablas- 
ter, prebendary of St. Paul's and rector of a 
parish in Herts, had preached flat Popery at 
Paul's Cross ; and that the Bishop of Winches- 
ter, Dr. Neile, had commanded him, as his 

* Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, 3cl edit., 
pp. 1-92. 



5i THE LIFE AND TIMES 

diocesan, he sliould preach nothing to the 
contrary. Mainwaring, so justly censured in 
this House for his sermons, was b}" the same 
bishop's means preferred to a rich living. If 
these are the steps to church preferment, what 
are we to expect V " 

Cromwell's facts on this occasion were but 
two out of many similar ones brought to the 
attention of the House of Commons. A new 
remonstrance to the king was also drawn up, 
couched in bolder language than any which 
had preceded it. 

Charles, alarmed and provoked at the Par- 
liament, instantly dissolved it. Before the 
final adjournment however, the Remonstrance 
was ordered to be put to vote. This the 
Speaker, Finch, refused to do. Denzil Holies 
and other members locked the doors, held 
Finch in his seat, and hastily passed three res- 
olutions to the effect that whosoever should 
encourage Popery, or should advise the levy- 
ings of tonnage or poundage by the king on 
his own authority, or should pay the same so 
levied, should be held an enemy to religion 
and the state of England. 



or JOHN MILTON. 55 

The result of this bold movement was the 
indictment of Denzil Holies and his comrades 
b}^ the famous Star Chamber court/^ and their 
committal to the tower. Thus ended the Par- 
liament of 1628-9. It was the last held in 
England for over eleven years, and it was 
made a penal offence even to speak of the as- 
sembling of another. 

While the Revolution was thus hastening 
forward with rapid strides, Milton was immers- 
ed in hard and recluse stud}^, reserving him- 
self for a higher hour. Of course he must 
have shared in the interest which these events 
excited; but as the year 1628-9 was the one 
in which his undergraduateship closed and he 

* The Court of Star Chamber, the most infamous in Enghsh 
history, derived its name from the room in which it sat, which was 
fi'escoed \vith stars. It was the okl council chamber of the ancient 
palace of Westminster. The court was very ancient, but was new- 
modelled by Henry VIE. and Heurj^ VIII., when more obnoxious 
and arbitrary powers were confeiTed upon it. It consisted of 
divers lords, spu'itual and temporal, being privj' counsellors, to- 
gether with two judges of the courts of common law, without the 
intervention of any jury. It was used as the engine of oppression 
for a long series of years, and thus earned the fear and dislilie of 
the whole nation. Its stretches of despotic power, so aUen to the 
spirit of the British Constitution, at length awoke such opposition 
that the clamors of the people, finding voice through Parhament, 
finally compelled its abolition by statute, in the sixteenth j'ear of 
the reign of Charles I., to the gi'eat joy of the whole nation. En- 
cyclopedia Britannica, eighth edition, Vol. XX. , p. 537. 



56 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

gained his degree of Bachelor of Arts, he could 
not have devoted much time, had he so desired, 
to the consideration of public affairs. 

Milton graduated very brilliantly ; he had 
gradually pushed his way into the respect and 
admiration of the whole University, and was 
at this time regarded as one of its brightest 
ornaments. The old grudge had completely 
vanished, and professors and students united 
in doing homage to his religious principle and 
splendid genius. 

Malicious critics have made vague charges 
that Milton was addicted while an undergrad- 
uate to fast company and high living. The 
whole tenor of his life and writings, together 
with his own published and spirited denial at 
the time, unite to prove the unspotted inno- 
cence of his 3'outh. And indeed these rumors 
never won much credence, except, as in the 
case of Dr. Johnson, when the wish was father 
to the thought. At all events it is very cer- 
tain that the whole bod}^ of his biographers 
with singular agreement have unanimously 
branded them as slanderous fables. 

But this shows that even the greatest and 



OF JOHN MILTON. 57 

best of men, though their lives be as pnre as 
the driven snow, cannot hope to escape vitupe- 
ration and calumny. Our Saviour himself was 
accused of being the companion of gluttons and 
wine-bibbers. 

The course of study at Cambridge em- 
braced seven years ; the first four being the 
period of undergraduateship, the last three 
terminating with the degree of Master of Arts. 
Milton, as has been mentioned, had just com- 
pleted the first period, terminating with the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts. He had there- 
fore three 3^ears more to remain at the Uni- 
versity. Throughout this entire period Milton 
was treated with unusual respect, and his great 
powers were fullj^ recognized. But his pres- 
ent popularity did not turn his head any more 
than his prior unpopularity had dismayed him. 
Earnest and self-centred, he moved towards 
his goal unaffected to a remarkable degree by' 
the opinion of his fellows, so that his own con- 
science said "Amen" to his actions. He con- 
tinued to " hive fresh wisdom with each studi- 
ous year," and so grew to rival the qualities of 
the admirable Crichton of historic tradition. 

3* 



58 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

He did not give any extraordinary evidence 
during his universit}^ life of his splendid poet- 
ical talents. Still, a number of his mjnor 
poems belong to this period, and especially 
his ver}^ beautiful lines entitled, "On a Fair 
Infant Dying of a Cough," composed on the 
death of a daughter of his sister Anne, who 
had married a IMr. Philips — which are as 
undying as the English language. It was, 
however, as a profound, elegant scholar and 
young man of rare purity and promise, that 
he was at this time most famed. 

Having completed his full course, Milton 
finally quitted Cambridge in July, 1632, he 
being then in his twenty- fourth year, ripe in 
wisdom and in honors. 

In his personal appearance, Milton was at 
this time singularl}' prepossessing. He had 
acquired in college the nickname of "the 
lady," on account of his delicate complexion, 
his hair flowing to his ruff on both sides of his 
oval face, and his slender and elegant, rather 
than massive or powerful form. But there 
was nothing effeminate in his demeanor. He 
had long auburn hair, beautiful and curling, 



OF JOHN MILTON. 59 

an exceedingly fair complexion, an oval face, 
and dark gre}^ eyes. His deportment was 
affable, his gait erect and manly, bespeaking 
courage and undauntedness. Milton himself 
tells us that in his youth he did not neglect 
"daily practice" with his sword, and that he 
was not so very slight, though he was lithe 
and a trifle below the middle height ; but that 
"armed with it, as he generally was, he was 
in the habit of thinking himself quite a match 
for any one, even were he much the most 
robust, and of being perfectly at his ease as to 
any injury that any one could offer him, man 
to man." 

Such was John Milton when, at the age of 
twenty-four, he left his little college world to 
step out into that broader and grander arena 
in which Grod meant him to play so prominent 
and useful a part. 



60 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER IV. 

. Milton, upon leaving Cambridge, repaired 
at once to bis father's house, now however no 
longer in Bread-street, but at a villa which his 
father had taken at some distance from the 
bustling metropolis. "At my father's country 
residence," he himself informs us, " whither he 
liad retired to pass his old age, I, with every 
advantage of leisure, spent a complete holiday 
in turning over the Greek and Latin authors ; 
not but that sometimes I exchanged the coun- 
try for the town, either for the purpose of 
buying books, or for that of learning something 
new in mathematics or in music, in which 
sciences I then delighted." 

The new residence of the scrivener Milton 
was situated in the hamlet of Horton, near 
Colnbrook, in Buckinghamshire, and was but 
about seventeen miles from London, within 
easy distance for 3'oung Milton's occasional 
trips to town. The little village, containing at 
that time but few families, was quiet and very 



or JOHN MILTON. Gl 

beautiful — one of those sweet old English towns 
in which we desire to lie down and dream — 
precisely the nook for a speculative thinker or 
a poet. It was scatteringly built, the houses 
playing at hide-and-seek among the trees 
and intervening foliage, with no continuous 
streets, but only a great tree in the centre of 
an open space where three roads met and sug- 
gested that there might be more habitations 
about the spot than at first appeared, which 
suggestion was confirmed on looking down one 
of the roads, by the sight of an old church- 
tower, ivy covered, and with a cemetery in 
front, which you entered between two extreme- 
ly old yew-trees. Here it was that Milton, 
together with other members of his family, 
worshipped regularly for five years, or during 
his residence in the hamlet. 

One could lie under the elm-trees in the 
lawn, saunter through the green meadows by 
the rippling streamlet, from a rustic bridge 
watch the lazy mill-wheel, or walk along quiet 
roads well hedged, deviate into by-paths lead- 
ing past farm-yards and orchards, or through 
rich pastures where horses, cows, and sheep 



62 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

were wont to graze — an elysium indeed for the 
weary Londoner, a 'paradise regained' for the 
younger Milton. 

Milton had been designed both by his fa- 
ther and his own wish for the church, when he 
went to Cambridge ; but long before he acquir- 
ed his degree he had abandoned the intention. 
This resolution was owing to his conscientious 
scruples against signing the Articles, and en- 
dorsing the doctrine and discipline of the 
English church. "The church," he says, "to 
whose service, by the intentions of ni}^ parents 
and friends, I was destined of a child, and in 
my own resolutions till, coming to some 
maturity of 3'ears, and perceiving what tyran- 
n}' had invaded in the church — that he who 
would take orders must subscribe slave, and 
take an oath withal, which, unless he took with 
a conscience that would retch, he must either 
perjure or split his faith — I thought it better to 
prefer a blameless silence before the sacred 
office of speaking, bought and begun with ser- 
vitude and forswearing."* 

In order to account for this reluctance on 

• Keason of Church Government, (1641.) Works, HI. p. 150. 



OF JOHN MILTON. G3 

the part of Milton to take the oaths required of 
candidates for holy orders in the English church, 
it will be necessary to give a synopsis of Brit- 
ish ecclesiasticism at that period, in and about 
the year 1632. 

The population of England in 1632 was 
something under five millions, and this whole 
mass was then considered, legally at least, to 
belong to the English church. Of course the 
exceptions in fact were multitudinous. There 
were in the early years of king Charles' reign 
two parties which stood boldly out from the 
state creed, both existing under the ban and at 
the peril of the law, but both having extensive 
ramifications inside the church, where each had 
numerous sympathizers. These were the Ro- 
man-catholics, or as they were then popularly 
called the Papists, and the Separatists or Dis- 
senters. The Catholics were powerful and 
dangerous, always active, always scheming. 
Their party embraced numbers of the very 
highest nobility, and was strongly suspected of 
having the secret sympathy of many of the 
bishops of the English church. Reference has 
been made in a preceding chapter to a debate 



64 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ill the Plouse of Commons concerning the ten- 
dency of the English ecclesiastical polit}^ tow- 
ards Eomanism, in which Cromwell stuttered 
and stamped his maiden speech, and inquired 
whither they were tending. It is very certain 
that numerous gentlemen of property and dis- 
tinction, together with some churchmen, rep- 
resented the Catholic interest in different 
English counties, and in the church itself.* 

The Dissenters were but a handful, numer- 
ically, and consisted of those ultra Puritans 
who had considered themselves bound, wheth- 
er on doctrinal or ritual grounds, to separate 
from the English church, and set up an altar 
of their own. The majority of those whose 
Puritanism led them thus ftir, had before this 
emigrated to Holland, or to America, where 
they raised their psalms of thanksgiving on 
bleak and unknown headlands, amid cold and 
hunger, with the inijiiical Indian prowling upon 
one side, and on the other the eternal sea line 
which severed them from dear cruel England, 
and the long, low, monotonous plash of the 
sullen waves. But some remained at home, 

* Dod's Church History, time of Chai-les First. 



or JOHN MILTON. 05 

getting covert aid and comfort from their less 
radical brethren within the church. 

Behind these two parties stood the majority 
of the people, swaj^ed one way or the other 
according to their sympathies, but not yet pre- 
pared to ostracize themselves by becoming 
"come-outers." The great body of the Puri- 
tans were still within the church, and the quar- 
rel was, whether the church should be made 
to lean towards Puritanism, or towards that 
high-churchism which, it was contended, ended 
logically if not inevitably, in adhesion to Rome. 
Every new ecclesiastical measure therefore, 
and every new bishop, was closely scrutinized 
as to its or his leaning towards one or the 
other of these two sides. 

Unfortunately for the unity of the English 
church, it happened that its most influential 
members and its ruling bishops leaned decid- 
edly, and many of them fiercely, towards the 
prelatical or high-church theory. Of course 
they scouted the idea of conceding any thing 
to the Puritans, and in this they were openly 
supported by the king. Yet still unsatisfied, 
and encouraged by the royal sanction, the 



G6 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

liicrarcliical clergy rallied their whole strength, 
and after a bitter contest, succeeded ia foist- 
ing into the canonical law one hundred and 
forty-one new canons intensely hostile to the 
Puritan tenets even going so far as to excom- 
municate all who refused conformity with the 
most minute and unessential forms of the ritual. 

The result was decisive. Instantly a hun- 
dred platforms echoed with arguments for sep- 
aration, while a score of vigorous presses were 
kept busy day and night in the publication of 
Puritan pamphlets, numbers of which were 
also imported from Holland. Then began a 
persecution as remorseless as it was searching. 

The soul of the new crusade was the fa- 
mous Archbishop Laud, who was born at Read- 
ing, in Berkshire, England.* He had been 
educated at Oxford, and in religion "was a 
little over the frontier of the church of Eng- 
land, on that side from which the Vatican was 
visible." The legislative chief of the high- 
church party, he pushed affairs to an extremi- 
ty. Narrow and arbitrary in his disposition, 
he introduced the most bigoted innovations 

• Laud's Diary, p. 1. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 67 

into British ecclesiasticism. Detestable on ac- 
count of his intolerance, he was doubl}^ deserv- 
ing of the scorn of all generous souls on ac- 
count of his brutal cruelty. He stirred the 
Star Chamber court to displace obnoxious 
bishops; he also pushed inferior delinquents 
to the wall. There were, accordingly, a series 
of prosecutions from 1628 to 1632, which are 
recited by the historians of his religious ty- 
ranny, and which have covered his name with 
eternal infamy. Among the most horrible of 
these cases was that of Dr. Alexander Leigh- 
ton, father of the famous Archbishop Leighton, 
a clergyman of earnest piety and decided tal- 
ent, who held a preachership in Laud's diocese 
of London. Dr. Leighton had written and 
published in 1628 a book entitled, "Zion's Plea 
against Prelacy," which was fairly, though 
strongly written. For this he was indicted in 
1630, sentenced, degraded from his hol}^ or- 
ders, and cast into prison, from which he 
escaped through the connivance of his war- 
dens. Instantly a hue and cry was raised 
after him, printed handbills were posted in 
conspicuous places as for a malefactor, describ- 



b*8 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ing him as "a man of low stature, fair com- 
plexion, a yellowish beard, a high forehead; 
between forty and fift}^ years of age." Being 
taken in Bedfordshire, he was brought back 
to London, and part of his sentence was exe- 
cuted on him in this manner, in the palace of 
Westminster: he was severely whipped be- 
fore being placed in the pillory, after which 
he had one of his ears cut off; then one side 
of his nose was slit; then he was branded on 
the cheek with a redhot iron, with the letters 
S. S., signifying a Stirrer up of Sedition. Af- 
ter this torture he was carried back to the 
Fleet prison, where he was kept in close cus- 
tody. Precisely one week afterwards, his 
wounds upon the back, nose, and ears being 
yet unclosed, he was whipped again at the 
pillory in Cheapside, and there had the re- 
mainder of his sentence executed upon him by 
cutting off the remaining ear, slitting the other 
side of the nose, and branding the other cheek. 
'Thus horribly disfigured, he was remanded to 
prison, where he la}^ for ten j'cars. And all 
this accumulation of refined torture, which re- 
minds one of the palmy da3's of the Inquisi- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 60 

tion in Spain or Italy, on account of the publi- 
cation of an obnoxious Puritan pamphlet. 

The generous soul of Milton, sickened b}^ 
the atrocity of this and similar acts, v/as moved 
to its profoundest depths, and as we have seen, 
he turned with loathing from the service of a 
church which had so far forgotten its Protes- 
tantism as to dig up from its grave of two hun- 
dred 3'ears the horrors of the Inquisition, and 
which with one hand shackled the press, while 
with the other it gagged the lips of free in- 
quiry. He was not willing "to subscribe him- 
self slave," by stifling his honest Puritan con- 
victions in order to enter upon an ecclesiasti- 
cal career. 

Cut off thus from his chosen avenue of use- 
fulness, he finally, though not without anxious 
and prayerful meditation, determined to de- 
vote himself to a life of continued study, with 
the secret purpose of doing his utmost to ele- 
vate and enrich the literature of his time. 
From some random remarks of his, it has been 
conjectured that he had thoughts of studying 
the law. However this may be, it is certain 
that he took no steps towards the mastery of 



70 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

that science, leaving it fo^ bis brother Chris- 
topher to become the lawyer of tlie family, 
which posterity has never regretted. 

Milton's idea of his mission and duty as a 
literar}' man was high and noble. He ven- 
tured to hope that, b}^ "hard labor," which he 
took to be the portion of his life, he might be 
the instrument of some good, and "perhaps 
leave something so written to after-times as 
they should not willingly let it die." His 
chief aim was, as he has himself said, to be 
"an interpreter and relater of the best and 
sagest things among my own citizens through- 
out this island, in the mother ^dialect; that 
what the greatest and choicest wits of xVthens, 
Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews 
of old did for their countr}^, I, in my propor- 
tion, with this advantage of being a Christian, 
might do for mine." 

The literature of that age stood greatly in 
need of pious and elevated intellects. English 
letters were never more brilliant and witty 
than then ; neither were they ever more lax 
and licentious. It was the era of loose drama- 
tists and drunken wits, of infidel satirists and 



OF JOHN MILTON. 71 

epigrammatic sneerers. The scholarship of 
the French Revolution was not more atheistic. 
Ben Jonson, the poet laureate of England in 
1632, was a haunter of taverns and a wine 
bloat — stains which his rare genius cannot 
eradicate. Literature was taken possession 
of by Beaumont and Fletcher, by Webster 
and Massenger; and though Shakspeare had 
already written himself into immortality, and 
Spenser's sweet muse had sung, their efforts, 
however admirable, were certainly far from 
being tinctured with a religious spirit. Indeed 
the graceless letters of the time sadly needed 
the Christian leaven ; and that was precisely 
what John Milton intended to supply — what 
he, better than almost any other man who has 
lived before or since, was fitted and mentally 
equipped to do. 

Though he says he " spent a complete hol- 
iday in turning over the Greek and Latin 
writers" while at Horton, Milton's intellectual 
labor seems to have been really exhaustive, 
embracing a "ceaseless round of study and 
reading." His pen was seldom idle. It was 
during the first two and a half years of his 



72 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tariy in the bamlet, that lie composed five of 
his finest English poems — the "Sonnet to a 
Nightingale," "L'Allegro," "II Penseroso," 
"Arcades," and " Comns." The first was a 
composition in the " Petrarchian stanza," a 
species of verse made familiar to him l)y his 
readings in the Italian poets. The poem is 
light, airy, and very graceful. 

Next came "L'Allegro" and "II Pense- 
roso." These are two of the most splendid 
short poems in the language. The diction is 
exceedingl}^ rich and melodious, while man}^ 
of the ideas are quaintly expressed. They 
display exquisite feeling; and the imaginative 
subtilt}^ and musical art with which he man- 
ages the two styles of verse- — ^"L'AlIegro" 
invoking Mirth, attended by Jest and Jollity ; 
"II Penseroso," in contrast, bidding Mirth 
begone, and invoking the divine maid Melan- 
chol}', robed in pensive black, with rapt, 
heaven-directed ej^es — proves Milton to have 
been at twent^'-five one of the most skilful 
and wonderful of poets. 

" Arcades " and " Oomus " were conceived 
in a different vein, being masques, a species of 



OF JOHN MILTON. 73 

composition now obsolete, but somewhat allied 
to our modern drama. " Comiis" is a magnifi- 
cent poem, and as an eulogium upon virtue, 
has never been surpassed. Milton never 
afterwards wrote any thing more perfect and 
beautiful. He proved against all contempo- 
rary masque writers, Ben Jonson and the rest, 
whose similar works abound in vulgarity, 
what the pure poetry and the pure morality 
of a masque might be. " Comus " also shows 
that, had Milton devoted himself to the drama, 
he might have occupied a niche next to Shak- 
speare in the dramatic temple. 

This masque was originally acted at Lud- 
low castle, under the auspices of a noble fam- 
ily, for whom it had been composed. It was 
afterwards represented several times in Lon- 
don, being received with distinguished consid- 
eration. 

The most prominent and peculiar trait of 
Milton's writings, both in prose and verse, is 
their elevated tone, their sublimity. In this 
respect no writer has equalled him. Others 
occasionally soar and kiss the heavens; he 
walks upon the stars, and with an ease and 



74 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

grace which proves that he made no effort to 
be grand. From his boyhood he had revelled 
in ideas of the infinite and the eternal — time, 
space, immortality; themes "which other men 
seldom touch, save apologetically and with 
awe, were his intellectual commonplaces. This 
habit, which made some of his earlier compo- 
sitions seem magniloquent, ripened in his man- 
hood into the most gorgeous elevation of sen- 
timent. 

There was nothing contracted or mean in 
Milton's soul ; every thing was high and noble. 
Even his faults were such as belong to grand 
temperaments. Consequently his writings all 
bear the impress of his spirit, to which the 
very rhythm of his sentences corresponds. 

He is one of the most original of writers. 
Still, like Shakspeare, he did not disdain to 
borrow and adopt any isolated phrase or 
expression that pleased him. Many of his 
phrases may be found scattered through the 
pages of preceding or contemporary authors ; 
but he only had the power to collect and 
remould them into one grand and elevated 
whole. Spencer, Fletcher, Beaumont. Ben 



OF JOHN MILTON. 75 

Jonson, Sylvester — lie levied upon them all, 
and that too without ceasing to be original; 
for though many of these writers abounded in 
noble passages, Milton's genius was of a haugh- 
tier character, his sublimity was higher and 
more unapproachable. 

Though this elevation is Milton's peculiar 
and distinctive quality, it is not his onty 
beauty. He is the full equal of others in those 
other characteristics which go to make up a 
great writer. In fitness of epithet, in spright- 
liness of wit, in splendor of imagination, in a 
certain dainty quaintness of expression, he has 
no master. To sum up all, he is a marvel and 
a model in English literature. 

In 1637 Milton's dearly beloved and excel- 
lent mother died, ripe in years and in virtues, 
and happ3^ in the knowledge that she left her 
children, all of whom were with her upon the 
solemn occasion of her death — Anne the mar- 
ried daugliter, Christopher, then a law student 
at the Inner Temple, London, and John — in 
the promise of useful and Christian lives. This 
blow was a sad one to the Milton family, each 
member of which felt it keenly. 



76 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Milton liad scarcely recovered from the 
shock of his mother's death, when he learned 
of the accidental drowning of one of his old 
college friends, Edward King, a young man of 
piety and erudition, while on a vo3'age to Ire- 
land on a visit home. It was upon this occa- 
sion that he composed his weird monody called 
'^ LyddasT 

Worn by grief and study, and desirous to 
see something of foreign countries, Milton now 
determined to go abroad. Accordingly, after 
procuring his father's somewhat unwilling con- 
sent, and leaving his country in a still more 
unsettled and threatening condition than ever, 
in April, 1638, he bade England and his friends 
adieu for a time, and crossed the channel into 
France. 

Milton did not leave his father, aged and a 
widower, alone at Horton during his absence. 
His brother Christopher, then about to be 
called to the bar, married the daughter of a 
London citizen in the April of Milton's depart- 
ure, and he left the young couple domesticated 
with his father at his country villa.* 

• Masson's Life of Milton, vol. 1, p. 530. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 77 



CHAPTER, y. 

• 

When John Milton went abroad, the whole 
Continent heaved in the throes of that Titanic 
conflict which commenced in 1618, and raged 
without cessation until 1648, to which history 
has affixed the name of "The Thirty Years' 
War." That momentous struggle between pre- 
rogative and popular liberty, between prelacy 
and Puritanism in England, whose early phases 
we have traced, and which was about to burst 
forth when the great poet crossed the channel, 
was but an eddy of the European contest be- 
tween the Jesuitism of the Vatican and the 
Protestant idea. 

In its origin, the "Thirty j^ears' war" was 
an insurrection of the Protestants of Bohemia, 
and other Slavonian possessions of Austria, in 
1618-19, against the unbearable persecutions 
of the Austrian Csesars who then led the Cath- 
olic reaction in its assault upon the Reforma- 
tion. These sovereigns being likewise empe- 



78 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

rors of German}', recruited tlieir shattered 
ranks from time to time from the Lanzknechts 
of the German principalities, and finally drew 
the whole German confederation into the war. 
In this stage of the struggle, the representa-* 
tive of the Protestant principle both in Bohe- 
mia and in Germany was that Frederick, Elec- 
tor Palatine, who married Elizabeth Stuart, 
the sister of Charles First of England, and who 
lost both kingdom and palatinate in the sequel. 
This period, from 1618 to 1625, was called 
"the war of the Palatinate.*' 

Then Denmark and Sweden stepped into 
the arena as the champions of menaced Prot- 
estantism, retrieving "the good old cause" by 
the victories of Gustavus Adolphus; the last 
of which was sealed by the heroic death of 
that great captain. This formed the Danish 
and Swedish stage of the war, lasting from 
1625 until 1634. 

Meantime, to the support of Austria and 
Catholic Germany, had come Spain under 
Philip II., the most bigoted king in history. 
She drew in her train Naples, Sicily, Milan, 
indeed the entire Italian peninsula; so that 



OF JOHN MILTON. 79 

the Catholic powers were almost a unit in this 
attempt finally to suppress German and Sla- . 
vonian Protestantism. In this posture stood 
Latin Europe, while religious liberty was una- 
ble to foresee from whence its muster should 
come. 

At this desperate crisis, contrary to all 
ordinary calculation, a Catholic power charged 
to the rescue. France, witnessing the rapid 
strides of Spain, its rival, towards universal 
empire, and frightened by the extraordinary 
and inimical influence which that kingdom had 
acquired in Continental politics, had long se- 
cretly opposed the allies through Swedish sub- 
sidies and diplomatic services in Germany. 
Upon the death of Gustavus Adolphus, per- 
ceiving that the time had come either to give 
up all hope of French supremacy, or energeti- 
cally to reinforce succumbing Protestantism, 
Richelieu, the great statesman who then wield- 
ed the destinies of France, did not hesitate to 
fling the immense weight of the French arms 
into the scale of battle. France was, to be 
sure, a Catholic power, but of a very different 
type from Spain. Huguenot principles had so 



80 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

leavened her Catholicism, that it was capable, 
• when necessar}^ of splendid inconsistencies. 
And as for Richelieu, though he was profess- 
edly a cardinal of the Roman see, he was real- 
ly a secular statesman of the rarest genius and 
foresight. 

The year 1635 had been signalized by a 
magnificent burst of simultaneous strategy, 
which crackled over Europe. Richelieu had 
declared war against Spain as well as against 
the German emperor; he had established more 
intimate relations with Oxenstiern, the famous 
Swedish minister ; the wreck of the Protestant 
forces had been taken into French pay ; an 
alliance had been concluded with the states- 
general of Holland ; and French armies had 
invaded Raly, Germany, Spain, and the Neth- 
erlands. Thus began the linal, or "French 
period" of this historic war, to which there 
was to be no end until the peace of Westpha- 
lia in 1648. 

Such is a brief resume of the origin and 
various phases of "The Thirty Years' War," 
up to the year 1638. When Milton arrived 
in Paris, three years of (he "French period" 



OF JOHN MILTON. 81 

had already elapsed. The marchings and 
countermarchings of the opposing armies were 
the universal theme of conversation : Bernard 
of Weimar, D'Enghien, Turenne — the names 
of these military heroes were blazing brightl}^, 
while along the lines of the generals were 
creeping negotiators as famous in their diplo- 
matic craft, breaking Richelieu's threads, or 
knitting them more firmly together. 

With matters of such moment as the topics 
of his familiar gossip, Milton, after a brief stay 
in the giddy French metropolis, continued his 
journey in a leisurely way through southern 
France towards the Italian frontier, taking in 
his route Lyons, Provence, and the Rhone, 
and entering Italy at Nice. 

He had taken care, before leaving home, to 
provide himself with numerous letters of in- 
troduction to distinguished foreign savants, and 
had thus, while at Paris, made the acquaintance 
of the famous Dutch writer, Grotius, who was 
then residing at that capital in the capacity of 
Swedish minister. So far as regarded funds, 
his father had amply provided for him, and he 
took with him also one servant. 

4* 



82 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

There is much about Italy to attract schol- 
arly and poetic minds. Its thronging historic 
remembrances; its treasures of art; its vocal 
ruins; its marvellous climate, with the deli- 
ciously "soft wind blowing from the blue heav- 
en ;" its landscapes of plains and terraces, rich 
with corn and wine, adorned with olive-groves, 
or picturesque with garden and villa, the scene 
on one side reaching to the peaks of the Ap- 
ennines, bounded on the other by the blue 
Mediterranean which kisses the Italian strand. 
Yes, there is very much in Italy to awaken 
the passionate interest even of the most prosaic 
intellect. How then must it have affected 
Milton, who had studied its history and dream- 
ed of its fatal beauty from a boy, through 
whose mind trooped the figures of its mighty 
sons, who had learned its glorious legends by 
heart. 

But with Milton, the poet did not exclude 
the statesman and the Christian. He meant 
to acquaint himself thoroughly with the man- 
ners and the politics of those peoples with whom 
he might sojourn. He meant also to study 
Catholicism in its action at home, and to know 



OF JOHN MILTON. 83 

those distinguished foreigners whom it might 
afterwards be an honor to have seen. 

Unusually well informed beforehand re- 
specting the geography, history, and social 
condition of Italy, and incalculably assisted by 
his familiarity with the language, Milton press- 
ed southward by rapid stages towards the 
central and more interesting portions of the 
Italian peninsula. From Nice the coasting 
packet carried him to G-enoa, where he tarried 
for a little, admiring the beauties of the bay, 
and observing ' ' the proud palaces in and 
about, whereof there are two hundred within 
two miles of the town, and no two of them of 
the same form of building." At Genoa he 
also came first in contact with the swarms of 
lazzaroni or beggars, who then as now infested 
the country, affording a pathetic proof of its 
political mismanagement. 

From Genoa Milton sailed by packet to 
Leghorn, from whence he passed inland some 
fourteen miles, to the ancient town of Pisa. 
Here he spent several delightful days viewing 
the gems of Pisan art. Once or twice during 
that time he ascended the old belfry, or lean- 



84 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ing tower, from whose dizzy height he survey- 
ed the surrounding country, and cast his eyes 
far out over the Tuscan sea. 

From Pisa he went forty-five miles further 
inhmd, up the course of the Arno, to Florence, 
then as now the most charming city in Chris- 
tendom. Here, as he himself informs us, Mil- 
ton remained two months. 

Much as he loved the whole of Italy, Mil- 
ton felt a peculiar affection for Florence. Its- 
history ran back to days that were legendary 
even to Dante. It contained the churches of 
Santa Croce, San Lorenzo, and many more. 
The Palazzo Yecchio, an old structure identi- 
fied with the days of the republic, still reared 
its hoary walls. The city was synonj^mous 
with art and poetry. The grandest masters 
had here lived and wrought. Florence had 
witnessed the marvels of Angelo's chisel and 
the rich frescoes of his pencil. There was the 
Laurentian library, an immense collection of 
rare manuscripts, brought together by the 
princely Medici, when that illustrious house 
led the revival of learning. Here was the 
Baptistry in which Dante broke the carved 



or JOHN MILTON. 85 

font in liis haste to save a drowning child. 
Here was Dante's house. Here was the cell, 
in San Marco, of Savanarola ; and here rested 
at that very time the telescopes of Galileo, 
upon whose living face Milton was fortunate 
enough to look. The chosen haunt of belles- 
lettres scholarship and the fine arts, the very 
air was lovesick with music and poetry. 

Milton's whole visit was one continued 
ovation. Into the living society of the city, 
at that time peculiarly agreeable and learned, 
he found instant and cordial admission, mak- 
ing friends to whom he continued life-long 
attached. "There immediately," he says, "I 
contracted acquaintance of many noble and 
learned men, whose private academies also — 
which are an institution of most praiseworthy 
effect, both for the cultivation of polite letters 
and the keeping up of friendships — I assidu- 
ously attended. The memory of you, Jacobo 
Gaddi, of you. Carlo Dati, of you, Frescobaldi, 
of you, Cattellini, Baumattei, Chimentelli, 
Francini, and of not a few others, always de- 
lightful and pleasant to me, time shall never 
destroy." 



86 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The academics of which j\rilton here speaks 
were institutions quite distinct from the uni- 
versities, great museums, and libraries estab- 
lished in the chief cities of Europe, being 
nearer akin to what we now call literary clubs 
and philosophical societies. They originated 
in the fifteenth century, when Cosmo de Med- 
ici founded the "Platonic academy" at Flor- 
ence for the purpose of reading and discussing 
the writings of Plato, and when "academies'' 
were established for the same or simihir pur- 
poses in Rome, Naples, and Venice, that 
scholars in- those cities might get together, 
read the classic authors, compare.manuscripts, 
and exchange their ideas and information. 
These institutions spread throughout Italy 
very speedily, so that at the period of Milton's 
visit every town of any importance in the 
peninsula contained several of them, though 
the academies of Florence and Rome were the 
most famous. They were precisely the kind 
of literary nests in which the great English- 
man would delight to hide himself; and what- 
ever specimens of his extraordinary powers 
he may have presented, the Florentine schol- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 87 

ars .soon came to regard him as the prodigy 
he was. 

Whenever he tired of the debates of the 
academies, he might stroll by the banks of the 
Arno, pass contemplatively through the an- 
cient streets, or standing on some bridge, peo- 
ple the past with dusky historic figures, and 
live in imagination in those fierce days when 
Florence ordered that Dante to be burned 
alive whose dust she afterwards begged with 
vain tears from Ravenna ; or most interesting 
of all, he might pass an hour at Galileo's villa, 
a little out of Florence, being greeted by the 
sage, then grown old and blind, with cordial 
kindness, while upon his part he gazed with 
reverend attention upon the mien of Italy's 
most famous son. "There it was," .wrote 
Milton, "that I found and visited the famous 
Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisi- 
tion for thinking in astronomy otherwise than 
as the Franciscan and Dominican licensers 
thought." 

Doubtless he wended his way, under the 
eager escort of one of Galileo's disciples, to the 
summit of the adjacent observatory'-, whence 



83 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the great Columbus of the heavens had made 
his revolutionizing discoveries. Pie also could 
gaze upon the moon, 

"Whose orb, 
Through optic glass, the Tuscan artist views 
At evening from the top of Fesole, 
Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands, 
Rivers, and mountains in her spotty globe." , 

Milton made no secret of his religion when 
that subject was broached ; and his friends, 
" with singular politeness," as he afterwards 
said, conceded him full libert}" of speech upon 
that delicate matter. They on their part did 
not conceal their sentiments, which in that 
bigot age there might have been danger in 
expressing to an unknown person. " I could 
recount," he wrote six j^ears later in his 
"Plea for Unlicensed Printing" in England, 
"what I have seen and heard in other coun- 
tries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes, 
when I have sat among their learned men — 
for that honor I had — and been accounted 
happy to be born in such a place of philo- 
sophic freedom as they supposed England was, 
while themselves did nothing but bemoan the 
servile condition into which learning among 



OF JOHN MILTON. 89 

them was brought — that this was it which had 
damped the glory of Italian wits, that nothing 
had been written there now these many years 
but flattery and fustian." 

After the pleasantest of visits, Milton felt 
compelled to tear himself away from Florence, 
greatly to the regret of his many warm friends 
there, in order to set out for Rome, which city 
he reached in early October, 1638, when the 
unhealthy season of the Campagna was safely 
past. 

Here he remained, he tells us, "nearly two 
months," detained by "the antiquity and an- 
cient renown of the city." In Rome still more 
than in Florence might he dream of the shad- 
owy past when standing in the capital, in the 
Coliseum, on the Tarpeian rock, or when visit- 
ing the temples, the baths, and the tombs, the 
monumental wonders, and all the garnered 
trophies of the spoiler Time. 

Yet though the Rome of the past, of the 
mythical Latin-Etruscan kings, of the republi- 
can era, and of the empire, might throng his 
mind with the thrilling legends of antiquity, he 
was not so engrossed by it as to be unable to 



GO THE LIFE AND TIMES 

see and commiserate the shrunken Rome of his 
own time. Still, "The Eternal City," though 
discrowned of its ancient glory, was a splendid 
ruin, and wonderfully rich in artistic beauties. 
St. Peter's was then but recently completed. 
There was also the adjacent Vatican. The 
whole city was flushed with the hues of paint- 
ing; the public squares were crowded with 
statuary 5 the marvels of mediaeval art were 
scattered with lavish hand in all quarters — 
monuments which recalled the earlier and 
nobler popes, which connected those days 
with the brilliant episode of Rienzi and the 
schism. 

It has been very plausibly conjectured that 
these immortal objects may, many of them, be 
traced in their effect upon Milton's subsequent 
poetry. The frescoes of Angelo, then fresh in 
the Sistine chapel, the beauties of the milder 
canvas of Raphael, the marbles of Bandinelli, 
who had executed statues of Adam and Eve — 
all these being illustrative of holy writ — it is 
not impossible that they did stimulate the mind 
of Milton, and direct it to the study of those 
early scenes of the creation which he has 



or JOHN MILTON. 91 

grouped so marvellously in the ''Paradise 
Lost:' 

Iq Rome, as in Florence, the young English- 
man speedily formed the acquaintance of the 
most famous characters of the time. The kind- 
ness of Holstenius, the learned keeper of the 
Vatican librar}'-, not only opened to his favor- 
ed eyes that grand but usually closed reposi- 
tory of literature, but introduced him to the 
friendly attentions of Cardinal Barberini, at 
that time possessed of the whole delegated sov- 
ereignty of Rome 1^^ his uncle the reigning 
pope. Urban YIII. 

This prelate treated Milton with marked 
politeness, giving in his honor a magnificent 
concert, and bringing him by hand into the 
assembly. It was upon this occasion that he 
first listened to the singing of the celebrated 
Leonora Baroni, the Sontag or Jenn}^ Lind of 
her age. Passionately fond of music, as we 
have seen, the beautiful cantatrice made a great 
impression upon Milton, who evinced his ad- 
miration for her vocal talents in two or three 
Latin epigrams. 

In Rome, as in Florence before, several of 



92 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tlie literati addressed eulogistic couplets to the 
gifted stranger, all of wliicli he amply repaid 
in kind. Kor was he more cautious in the 
expression of his views while sojourning in the 
very centre of intolerant Romanism, than he 
had been while seated in the more liberal 
academies of his Florentine friends. Upon all 
suitable occasions he freely mentioned his re- 
ligious opinions, provoking by his boldness no 
little wonder among his associates. 

Sometime in November, 1638, the young 
traveller quitted Rome f(f\: Naples, whither he 
journeyed in company- with "a certain eremite 
friar," a man of some culture, who, upon arriv- 
ing at the city of their destination, introduced 
him to that Manso, Marquis of Yilla, who had 
been the constant patron of Tasso, and who, 
upon the death of that ill-used and unhappj'" 
poet, had been his biographer. Manso, who 
had formerly distinguished himself in the 
Spanish service, was then in advanced age, 
'and with ample means he had returned to his 
native city to pass the remainder of his daj's. 
He received Milton, a poet yet superior to his 
immortal fellow-countryman and friend, with 



OF JOHN MILTON. 93 

great kindness, pointed out himself all the in- 
teresting Neapolitan localities and curiosities 
to the young stranger, whom he also entertain- 
ed in his own palace, and did eyerj thing pos- 
sible to render the visit agreeable. 

Milton having with his accustomed freedom 
disclosed in the course of a conversation his 
Protestantism, Manso, whom he seems to have 
completely fascinated, declared that his only 
blemish was his heresy. When his guest was 
about to leave him, Manso presented him with 
a Latin distich in which he again referred to 
the matter: 

"With mind, mien, temper, face, did faith agree, 
Not ANGLIC, but an angel wouldst thou be."* 

In return for this compliment, Milton ad- 
dressed to this venerable friend and generous 
patron of the muses, a Latin poem of very high 
merit, which abounds in fine passages. 

Sicily and Greece were upon Milton's pro- 
gramme of procedure. He longed to visit 
those lands, older in history and song even than 
the Italian peninsula. Why he did not do so 

* The original is as follows : 

"Ut mens, forma, decor, facies, mas, si pietas sic, 
Non Anglusverum hercle Angelus ipse fores." 



94 THE LIFE AND TIMES ' 

lie himself informs us: "While I was desirous 
to cross into Sicily and G-reece, the sad news 
of the civil war coming from England called 
me back; for I considered it disgraceful that 
while my fellow-countr3'men were fighting at 
home for liberty, I should be travelling at ease 
for intellectual purposes."* 

Nobl}'- resolving to share the fortunes of 
the English commons in the opening conflict, 
Milton began immediately to retrace his steps. 

It seems that wdiat Wood calls Milton's 
"resoluteness" in religion while at Rome, had 
provoked the bitter anger of the English Jesuits. 
He himself says, " When I was about to return 
to Rome, the merchants at Naples warned me 
that they had learned by letters that snares 
were being laid for me by the English Jesuits, 
if I should return to Rome, on the ground that 
I had spoken too freel}" concerning religion. 
For I had made this resolution with myself — 
not indeed of my own accord to introduce in 
those places conversation about religion ; but, 
if interrogated respecting the faith, then, what- 
soever I should sufter, to dissemble nothing. 

* Dcf., Sec. p. W., Vol. V, p. 231. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 95 

To Eome therefore I did return, notwithstand- 
ing what I had been tokl : what I was, if any 
one asked, I concealed from no one ; if any one, 
in the very cit}" of the Pope, attacked the 
orthodox religion, I, as before, for a second 
space of nearly two months, defended it most 
freely.'"* 

The license permitted Milton was extraor- 
dinary for those days. Lord Chandos, in a 
book published in 1620, affirms that "if a man 
in his going thither," to Italy, "converse with 
Italians, and discuss or dispute his religion, he 
is sure, unless he fly, to be complained of and 
brought before the Inquisition." Yet this was 
precisely what Milton did for over a year, 
scattering his remarks, criticisms, and com- 
ments with perfect unconcern, and permitting 
his discussions at moments to become almost 
polemical. The matchless courage and earnest 
piety wdiich would not permit him to listen in 
silence to attacks on "the orthodox religion," 
are above human praise. But this stout English 
independence was highly characteristic of the 
man. 

• Def. Sec, Works VI, pp. 288, 289. 



90 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Upon his return to Florence lie was wel- 
comed, as he tells us, with no less eagerness 
than if the return had been to his native coun- 
try and his friends at home. Here he spent 
two additional months in the society of his old 
friends the academicians; and from Florence 
he indited a letter of thanks to Holstenius, 
already mentioned as the keeper of the Vati- 
can librar}' at Rome, for his many and kind 
attentions. 

When he left Florence for the last time, he 
crossed the Apennines, and travelled through 
Bologna and Forrara to A^enice. The singular 
attractions of that remarkable cit}^ detained 
him for a month in their examination. Yenice 
then contained several celebrated academies, 
of which the '' Incognito ^^ was chief. It has 
been suggested''' that the city and its inhabi- 
tants would not be the less interesting to Mil- 
ton, from the fact that in Venice alone, in 
Ital}', was there some independence of opinion 
as regarded both the Pope and the Spaniard, 
and that there had even been expectations 
that Venice, in her struggle with the papacy, 

• By Ma.sson, in his Life of Miltou, p. G55, Vol. I. 



OF JOHN MILTON 07 

would set the example of Italian Protestant- 
ism. At all events he tarried there, deeply 
absorbed, for thirty odd days ; when, after pro- 
viding for the transportation to England of the 
many rare books and manuscripts, a number 
of them musical compositions by the best mas- 
ters then living, which he had collected dur- 
ing his tour, he continued his homeward course 
through Yerona and Milan, over the Pennine 
Alps, and by lake Lemanus, to G-eneva. 

Geneva has been fitly called the Rome of 
Protestantism. It was then the strong-hold of 
the reformed theology, and contained a uni- 
versity which was presided over by men of 
remarkable attainments and earnest piety, who 
kept up the faith and the discipline established 
by the Reformation. There Milton again 
breathed the fresh, free air of Protestantism, 
after his long confinement to the Catholic at- 
mosphere of Ital3\ And here he made the 
acquaintance of the eminent theologians, Fred- 
eric Spanheim, and Giovanni Deodati, already 
mentioned in these pages, andthe uncle of his 
intimate friend, Charles Deodati. 

After a pleasant visit at Geneva of a week 



98 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

or more, Milton retraced his former route 
through France, and arrived in England early 
in August, 1G39, after an absence of one year 
and three months. 

It is perhaps proper to close this chapter 
by appending the sentence with which Milton 
himself concludes his account of liis Conti- 
nental tour: "I again take God to witness, 
that in all those places where so many things 
are considered lawful, I lived sound and un- 
touched from all profligacy and vice; having 
this thought perpetually with me, that though 
I might escape the eyes of men, I certainly 
could not the eyes of God."* 

* Def. Sec, Works VI., p. 289. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 99 



CHAPTER yi. 

Upon touching once more his native shore, 
Milton found chaos everywhere. Anarchy in 
the streets, bitter dissension in the church, the 
general dissolution of old institutions, "grim- 
visaged war" lowering with "its wrinkled 
front," effectually routed all idea of continuing 
that peaceful and secluded existence to which 
he had hitherto been wedded. 

The opening acts in the drama of the great 
rebellion were already being enacted. King 
Charles, bent upon enforcing the dogma of con- 
formity with the English ritual, had even in- 
vaded Scotland at the head of an army, for 
the purpose of compelling the Scotch, who had 
been Calvinized or Presbyterianized under 
the exhortations of stout John Knox, to whose 
teachings they remained enthusiastically true, 
to desert their cree'd, and accept in its place 
the Episcopal polity. 

When the "Service-book," as the bishops 
had named the new Scottish Liturgy, was cir- 



100 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

culated and ordered to be used bj^ all parish 
ministers on pain of outlawry, the rage which 
swept through Scotland was portentous. The 
refusal to comply with the conformity laws 
was universal and indignant. A riot at Edin- 
burgh, when the Service-book ritual was at- 
tempted to be read, summoned all Scotland to 
arms. "Posts running thick betwixt the court 
in London and the Scottish council,'' says 
Baillie, "spread the news of the insurrection 
far and near." Charles, in an unhappy hour, 
determined to coerce "these Scottish men who 
had the presumption to think independently 
in religious matters."* One expedition, dis- 
patched into Scotland during Milton's absence 
upon the Continent, had proved futile ; in 1G39, 
about the time of his return, Charles equipped 
a second expedition, and this also had been 
compelled by Leslie to retreat. 

Meantime the "Scottish men," as Claren- 
don calls them, flocked to Edinburgh from all 
quarters, and at a meeting held in the Gra}'- 
friars' church in that ancient capital, "signed 
a solemn covenant" never to submit to the 

• Clarendon. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 101 

abolition of the religious forms they loved, 
aud never to accept the innovations of the 
prelates. Thus originated the famous "Cove- 
nanters." The signing continued for many 
weeks both at Edinburgh and throughout Scot- 
land, until nine-tenths of the whole lowland 
population had sworn themselves members of 
the league 

. Such was the posture of affairs in Scotland. 
In England, though the Puritans were at 
the outset less stubborn, as they were less 
numerous and more loosely organized than on 
the north of the Tweed, the hubbub grew 
apace ; and joining the chorus of religious pro- 
test, the new Parliament, which the unsettled 
state of the nation had obliged the unwilling 
king to convoke, gave additional emphasis to 
the popular demand that the tyrannical action 
of the prelates should be curbed in ecclesiasti- 
cal matters, and that in the civil domain the 
arbitrary prerogatives of the crown should be 
defuiitely surrendered, as alien to the spirit 
of the British Constitution, and as outraging 
the liberty wrung from despotism by Magna 
Charta. 



102 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The Parliament of April, 1G40, instead of 
proving more compliant than its predecessors, 
was the boldest yet convoked. It refused to 
grant the king all supplies, until he acceded to 
their just demands. Charles, with an empty 
exchequer, greatly indebted, and with an army 
on his hands drawn together with much diili- 
culty, to whom the state had fallen into arrears, 
had the still further mortification of learning 
that the eleven years' interni.ission between 
the present Parliament and the })rior one, had 
made his subjects no more submissive to his 
usurpations, nor did he find them any the less 
tenacious!}' wedded to popular rights. En- 
raged at his disappointment, he dissolved the 
Parliament. 

The dark cloud grew blacker every ^ay. 
The Scottish army, zealous and triumphant, 
were alread}" marching for the borders of Eng- 
land. The discontent of the English people 
became more and more demonstrative. The 
court having begged, borrowed, and plundered 
money from friend and foe, Jew and Gentile, 
was at length bankrupt. 

Charles, appalled by the gathering storm, 



or JOHN MILTON. 103 

and conscious of bis inability to stem the tor- 
rent, determined once more to convoke a Par- 
liament, and yield at least in a measure to 
necessity. Accordingly that Parliament, fa- 
mous in history under the name of the "Long- 
Parliament," on account of the length of its 
continuance, whose "rump" was finally dis- 
persed by a stamp of the iron heel of Crom- 
well, was convened. Its first measure was to 
order the impeachment of Thomas Wentworth, 
Earl of Strafford, the chief minister of the 
king, and Archbishop Laud. Against' these 
men, companions in tyrann}^, and in some sort 
the authors of many of the evils under which 
the kingdom groaned, the popular feeling ran 
very high. Wentworth was shortly after tried 
and executed; Laud was instantly deposed 
from his Archiepiscopal see of Canterbury and 
thrown into the tower. 

The next move of the Parliament was to 
curb the usurpations of the bishops, to demand 
the abolition of the Star Chamber court, and 
to settle the foundations of its power upon a 
basis which should be thereafter indestructi- 
ble. The House of Commons, as the champion 



104 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of religious and civil liberty, had come to be 
the idol of the liberal masses. Its authority 
was singularl}'- large, while the genius of its 
members, comprising such names as Hampden, 
Pyne, and Henry Yane, gave it an unusual 
amount of executive ability. 

The king, after several foolish and treach- 
erous attempts to break the truce just declared 
between himself and the Parliament, at length, 
despoiled of many of his prerogatives, and cov- 
ered with shame, quitted London, hurried to 
the ancient city of York, and summoning his 
partisans to assemble beneath his banner, 
placed himself at the head of thje reactionary 
party, inaugurating the civil war by assault- 
ing, on the 23d of October, 1642, the forces of 
the Parliament lying at Edge-hill. 

Hume declares'-' that the nobility and more 
considerable gentr}^ adhered to the royal side. 
The Catholic, the high-church, and the profli- 
gate parties also ranged themselves under that 
ensign. The eclat of family name, proud posi- 
tion, and glittering pomp were decidedly with 
Charles. But opposed to him stood the great 

♦ ffist. Eng., Vol. VI., p. 42n. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 105 

middle classes, then as now omnipotent in 
England. The Parliamentary muster was an- 
imated by an earnestness, an enthusiasm, and 
a unity of purpose which made its onset irre- 
sistible. Cromwell's "Ironsides" squadron was 
simply typical of the iron sides of the popular 
cause. Civil and religious liberty clasped 
hands, and trod in triumph from the southern 
coast of Britain to the Orkne}- islands. 



5* 



106 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER YII. 

The preceding chapter is devoted to a suc- 
cinct surve}' of the civil and ecclesiastical con- 
dition of Great Britain during the months which 
immediately portended and ushered in the 
Revolution. Let us now see what was Milton's 
connection with that initiatory period. 

His first patriotic sensations on reaching 
England were somewhat benumbed by the 
calamity of a private loss — tha death of his 
intimate friend and sometime schoolmate, 
Charles Deodati. Milton gave utterance to his 
sorrow on this occasion b}^ the composition of 
his '' Ejntcqyhiwn Damonis,'' one of the most 
elegant and pathetic pastorals ever wTitten, 
worthy alike of his genius and of Deodati 's 
virtues. 

This debt of fraternal duty paid, he hasten- 
ed to London, where, after receiving the con- 
gratulations of his friends u})on his safe return 
from his tour, and after sadly missing the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 107 

warmtli of poor Deodati's greeting, he hired 
handsome lodgings, first in St. Bride's court, 
Fleet-street, and shortly in Aldersgate-street, 
a more retired locality. Here, taking a back 
room, into which the roar of the street should 
penetrate as little as possible, Milton arrang- 
ed his library, and settled down into fixed 
ways. 

The expense of his universit}^ education, 
and of his travels, seemed to make it proper 
that Milton should draw no longer upon the 
resources of his father, always so generously at 
his service. "My life," he saj^s, "has not 
been unexpensive, in learning and voyaging 
about." Therefore remembering that he was 
not the only child, and desirous of becoming 
independent, Milton received the two sons of 
his sister, Mrs. Phillips, into his house to be 
instructed and educated. At the earnest solic- 
itation of several others, all intimate friends, 
he consented to receive their sons also, for the 
same purpose. 

The system of education which Milton 
adopted in his little acadeni}^, unlike the Uni- 
versity Curriculum, upon which, as we have 



108 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

seen, he so bitterly animadverts, was sound 
and comprehensive. Dr. Johnson, and other 
critics, have severely censured his method of 
instruction. Bui it is really more open to 
criticism on account of its extensive and ex- 
pensive character than in any other respects. 
Dr. Johnson has the bad taste to go out of his 
way, in his elaborate assault upon Milton's 
educational theory, to launch a sneer at the 
great poet's condescension in becoming what 
he terms a "schoolmaster." Since Johnson 
was himself a sometime schoolmaster, the slur 
comes with a bad grace from him. But did 
he not remember that the noblest intellects 
God has lent the world have st6oped to be 
the teachers of mankind? Did he not recall 
Socrates in the old Athenian streets? Did 
he not remember Plato in the groves of the 
Academy? Did he forget Abelard, who shone 
so brightly in the middle ages? Had he for- 
gotten the sublimest of all teachers, Christ him- 
self, on the plains of Palestine? 

To a thoughtful mind, Milton's occupation, 
that of conducting young minds into the temple 
of knowledge, and pointing out to their appre- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 100 

ciation the wise actions of the past, the treas- 
ured lore of antiquity, the memorable deeds of 
present days^ the thrilling legends of sufferings 
endured for truth's sake or for justi(^, and, 
best of all, of accompanying them into the 
"holy of holies" of religious sentiment, will 
seem a fitting and fine absorption of a portion 
of his time. 

To a knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
authors, Milton's plan added the cultivation of 
the Asiatic tongues, "the Chaldee, the Syriac, 
the Hebrew;" he made his pupils "go through 
the Pentateuch, and gain an entrance into the 
Targum ;" nor did he banish from his theory 
the modern languages, but he insisted upon an 
intimate acquaintance with the best Italian and 
French writers. Every Sunday was spent in 
theological study; he himself was wont to dic- 
tate, from commentators then in vogue, short 
schemes of the theological system. Pearce has 
observed that Fagius was Milton's favorite an- 
notator on the Bible.* 

But his pupils did not wholly engross him. 
Milton was then — 1640 — thirty-two years of 

* Mitford's Life of Milton, p. 30. 



110 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

age, fully ripe, his miud enlarged bj^ travel, 
and singularl)^ learned. From bis return to 
England in 1639 up to the middle of 1642, 
when tie civil war was commenced in earnest, 
was a remarkably prolific period iu Milton".^ 
life, many of his most elaborate writings being 
penned in that time. It witnessed the birth of 
several of his polemical works. 

One phase of the national condition on his 
return from the continent, he has himself de- 
scribed. "On my return from my travels, I 
found all mouths open against the bishops ; 
some complaining of their vices, and others 
quarrelling with the vei*y order ; and thinking, 
from such beginnings, a way might be opened 
to true liberty, I hastil}" engaged in the dis- 
pute, as well to rescue my fellow-citizens from 
slavery, as to help the Puritan ministers, who 
w^ere inferior to the bishops in learning.'' 

One of his biographers. Birch, says, "He, 
in the first place, published two books on the 
Eeformatiou from Poper}', which were dedi- 
cated to a friend. In the first of these he 
proved, from the reign of Plenry YIIL, what 
had all along been the real impediments in the 



^ or JOHN MILTON. Ill 

kingdom to a perfect reformation. These he 
reduces to two heads : the first, the Popish 
ceremonies which had been I'etained in the 
Protestant church; and the second, the power 
of ordination to the ministry having been con- 
fined to diocesan bishops, to the exclusion of 
the choice of ministers by the suffrages of the 
people. 'Our ceremonies,' he says, 'are sense- 
less in themselves, and serve for nothing else 
but either to facilitate our return to Popery, 
or to hide the defects of better knowledge, and 
to set off the pomp of prelacy.' " 

This "Treatise on the Reformation" was 
published in 1641. It abounds in stirring 
passages, and was written with a i)urity of 
motive which Milton solemnly invokes the 
Deity to witness. He attempts to show in it, 

^that the prelates of the English church had 
always been the foes of liberty; and though 

>4fe "denied not but many of them had been 
good men, though not infallible, nor above 
all human frailties," he yet "affirmed that, 
though at the beginning they had renounced 
the Pojpe, yet they had hugged the Popedom, 
and shared the authority among themselves; 



112 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

by their six bloody articles persecuting the 
Protestants no slacker than the Pope would 
have done." 

In contemplating the glorious event of the 
Reformation, he rises into the highest elo- 
quence: "How the bright and glorious Ref- 
ormation, by divine power, shone through the 
black and settled night of ignorance and anti- 
christian tyranny ; methinks a sovereign and 
reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom 
of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odor 
imbue his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. 
Then was the sacred Bible brought out of the 
dusty corners where profane falsehood and 
neglect had thrown it; the schools opened, 
divine and human learning raked out of the 
embers of forgotten tongues; princes and cit- 
ies trooping apace to the new-erected banner 
of salvation ; the martyrs, with the irresistible 
might of weakness, shaking the powers of dark- 
ness, and scorning the iiery rage of the old red 
dragon." 

After tracing with singular acumen the 
influence of prelacy, and displaying the anti- 
liberal character of its politics, he turns to the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 113 

English and Scotch Puritans of his time, united 
by a " solemn league and covenant" to pursue 
the contest for liberty in church and state, and 
thus apostrophizes them: "Go on both, hand 
in hand, Oh nations never to be disunited. 
Be the praise and heroic song of all posterity. 
Merit this ; but seek only virtue, not to extend 
vour limits; for what need you win a fading^ 
triumphant laurel out of the tears of wretched 
men, but to settle the pure worship of God in 
his church, and justice in the state ? Then 
shall the hardest difficulties smootl! out them- 
selves before you ; envy shall sink to hell ; 
craft and malice be confounded, whether it be 
homebred mischief or outlandish cunning; yea, 
other nations wall then covet to serve you ; 
fo*.' lordship and victory are but the passes of 
justice and virtue. Commit securely to true 
wisdom the vanquishing and unusing of craft 
and subtlety, which are but her two renegades. 
Join 3^our invincible might to do worth}^ and 
godlike deeds; and then he that wishes to 
break your union, a cleaving curse be his 
inheritance to all generations." 

In 1641, the same year in which Milton's 



114 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

"Treatise on the Reformation" appeared, a 
number of Presbyterian ministers published, 
under the title of "Smectj^iinus,''* consisting 
of the initial letters of their names, a treatise 
against prelac}^ This treatise provoked indig- 
nant replies, which again drew from Milton 
three several reviews, in one of which, Toland 
saj's, "Milton shows the insufficiency, incon- 
veniency, and impiety " of attempting to estab- 
lish any part of Christianit}" from patristical 
lore, "and blames those persons who cannot 
think any doubt resolved or any doctrine 
confirmed unless they run to that undigested 
heap and frj' of authors which tliey call an- 
tiquity." ' Whatsoever either time or the blind 
hand of chance,' he says, ' has drawn down 
to this present, in her huge drag-net, wheth- 
er fish or sea-weed, shells or shrubs, unpick- 
ed, unchosen, these are the fathers.' " And 
so he chides these writers "for divulging use- 
less treatises, stuffed with the specious names 
of Ignatius and Polycarpus, with fragments 
of old martyrologies and legends, to distract 

* This was a quarto work, wTitten by Stephen ^Marshall, Edward 
Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurs- 
tow. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 115 

and stagger the multitude of credulous read- 
ers." 

To one of those writers who insinuated that 
Milton's habit of early rising was for sensual 
pursuits, he made this response: "My morn- 
ing haunts are where the}' should be, at home ; 
not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an 
irregular feast, but up and stirring: in winter, 
often before any bell awakens men to labor or 
devotion; in summer, as apt as the bird that 
first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good 
authors, or cause them to be read till the atten- 
tion is weary, or the memory have its full 
fraught. Then with useful and generous labor 
preserving the body's health and hardiness, to 
render a lightsome, clear, and not lumpish 
obedience of the mind for the cause of relig- 
ion and our country's liberty, when it shall 
require firm hearts in sound bodies to stand 
and cover their stations, rather than see the 
ruin of our Protestation, and the enforcement 
of a slavish life. , 

"These means, together with a certain 
niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness and 
self-esteem, either of what I was or what I 



116 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

might be, (which let env}'' call pride,) and last- 
ly, a burning modest}^ all uniting their natu- 
ral aid together, kept nie still above those 
low descents of mind, beneath which he must 
l)lunge himself that can agree to saleable and 
unlawful prostitution. 

"If I should tell you what I learnt of chas- 
tity and love, (I mean that which is truly so,) 
whose charming cup is only virtue, which she 
bears in her hand to those who are worthy — 
the rest are cheated with a thick, intoxicating 
potion, which a certain sorceress, the abuser 
of love's name, carries about — and if I were to 
tell you how the first and chiefest office of love 
begins and ends in the soul, producing those 
happy twins of the divine generation, know- 
ledge and virtue, with such abstracted sublim- 
ities as these, it micrht be worth vour listen- 
ing, readers." 

It will be observed that Milton's objections 
to the assumptions of his opponents were of a 
twofold nature: objections founded upon the 
dissenting arguments of the sufficiency of the 
Scriptures alone, and the right of private judg- 
ment, rejecting the authorit}' of the creeds of 



OF JOHN MILTON. 117 

the first four general councils ; and objections 
founded on an earnest opposition to the clear- 
ly antichristian principle, then a cardinal 
point in the prelatical belief, of the right of 
the civil magistrate to adopt rites and ceremo- 
nies, and enforce them by civil pains and pen- 
alties upon the observance of those whose con- 
sciences would not allow them to obey any 
thing in religion but what was taught them in 
the oracles of God. 

One of Milton's biographers* remarks very 
truly, that though the blunt and caustic style 
of Milton's writings, and the gorgeous elo- 
quence with which he attacked the bishops, 
must have been highly diverting to those Pu- 
ritans both in church and state who had begun 
to throw off their prelatical chains, yet the 
sentiments would be often very far from meet- 
ing their approval ; because, though the Puri- 
tans were opposed to episcopacy, yet they had 
no objection to the pnnciple of an establish- 
ment, nor to what was, above all, exposed and 
objected to by Milton, the right of the estab- 
lished sect to withhold toleration, and to pun- 

* Ivimey, p. 50. 



118 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ish with fines and imprisonment, jqs, even 
with death, those who would not submit their 
consciences to the dictation of the magistrate. 
In these respects the Puritans of that day 
were no whit in advance of the prelates, as 
they proved conclusively upon coming into 
power. They disliked not the princijyle of in- 
tolerance, but intolerance as applied to their 
own tenets. 

Milton stands out from those times as the 
only political writer whose Christianity and 
statesmanship were broad and generous enough 
to enable him to appreciate the inestimable 
value of unfettered thought, and~ to inscribe 
openly upon his phylactery the golden truth 
of religious toleration. 

Upon first entering the arena of controver- 
S}', Milton's modesty led him to say, "I was 
not disposed to this manner of writing, where- 
in knowing myself inferior to m3'self, led by 
the genial power of nature to another task, I 
have the use, as I may account it, but of ray 
left hand.'"'^ But posterity- has reversed his 

* Introduction to second volume of ' • Reasons of Church Gov- 
ernment." 



OF JOHN MILTON. 119 

verdict, and sincerely thanks him lor his po- 
lemical works, not because they arc always 
fair, or always just, or always right, but be- 
cause, honestly meant, they abound in noble 
thoughts magnificently expressed, and because 
their tendency is towards truth and liberty. 



120 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Upon the outbreak of hostilities, the Par- 
liament took the reins of government in their 
own hands, and proceeded to the correction of 
man}^ abuses. One of their first steps was, to 
exclude the bishops from their seats in the 
upper House. Soon after, in 1643, the Lords 
and Commons signed together the "Solemn 
League and Covenant " which bound England 
and Scotland to the extirpation of Poper}^ and 
Prelacy.* 

Considering how greatly Milton's writings 
had contributed towards that consummation, 
it must have afforded him undisguised jo}^ 
because with his sentiments, as expressed in 
his several treatises against the prelates, he 
considered, as the Parliament appears to 
have done, tliat popcrj^ and prelacy were 
then identical, or at least so closely united 
that the death of one insured the burial of the 
other. He considered that the overthrow of 

• Hume's History of England, Vol. VII., p. 470. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 121 

prelacy would assimilate the Episcopacy to 
the simpler, and as he Ihought, the more apos- 
tolic model of the reformed churches in other 
countries — introducing their exactness of dis- 
cipline, as they already held their puritj' of 
doctrine.* 

The rule of the Parliament, from the open- 
ing battle of the civil war at Edge-hill in 1642, 
up to the year 1644, had been checkered by 
alternate victory and defeat; still, upon the 
whole, the Puritans had gained, and their rule 
continued firm. 

In 1644 there occurred an event which 
proved Milton to be the friend of impartial 
liberty, not of a clique, and as ready to lash 
the inconsistencies of his political associates as 
he had been to expose the sophistries of the 
oppressive prelates. Unlike another famous 
character in English history, he would never 
consent " to give up to jjarty what was meant 
for mankind." 

"No pent-up XJtica confined his powers." 

When he beheld the Puritans, who, while 
smarting under the intolerant license laws of 

* mtford's Life of Milton, p. 33. 

UUton. 6 



122 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the prelates, had been the clamorous friends 
of the freedom of the press, themselves, upon 
their assumption of power, reenacting those 
very statutes restricting printing, the glaring 
inconsistency of these apostate patriots kin- 
dled his scornful indignation, and called forth 
an argument which the voices of the most op- 
posite critics have, with singular unanimity, 
described as one of the most masterly and elo- 
quent compositions ever originated by the wit 
of man. Milton called his argument, " Are- 
OPAGITICA;'^ or, An Oration to the Parliament 
of England for the Liberty of Unlicensed Print- 
tng. 

From the establishment of printing in Eng- 
land, the business had been constantly inter- 
fered with by the government, which in this 
respect imitated the inquisitorial inspections 
of the Yatican. In the reign of Philip and 
Mary an attempt was made to consolidate the 
printing trade, and the incorporation of the 
"Stationers' Company of London" was finally 
effected in 1557. By the act of incorporation, 
the exclusive privilege of printing "and pub- 

* From the Greek Xpemrayvc, an ancient Athenian high court. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 123 

lishing in the English domains was couferred 
upon the London company and its successors 
b}^ regular apprenticeship. The object of the 
government in creating this gigantic monopoly, 
the centralization of literature in one spot, 
where it could be under the immediate eye of 
the court, was thus gained. The company 
could lawfully search for and seize any books 
printed against its privilege, and such illegal 
printing was punishable by fine and imprison- 
ment. 

When Elizabeth assumed the crown, so 
stood the law ; but that the determination of 
what should be published might not be wholly 
at the discretion of the Stationers' Company, 
she decreed by the fifty-first of the Injunctions 
concerning Religion, promulgated in 1559, that 
no book, school-books and recognized classics 
excepted, should be published in any language 
in her domains henceforward, but with the pre- 
vious license of the queen or six of her privy 
counsellors, or by the chancellors of the two 
universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or by 
the archbishops of Canterbury and York, or 
by the bishop of London, or by the bishop 



124 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

being ordinary and the archdeacon of the 
place of publication. 

The privilege which the universities natu- 
rally claimed as seats of learning to print at 
their option, had caused a long dispute between 
themselves and the London company, which 
was finally decided b}^ a Star Chamber decree. 
It was settled that, in addition to the printing- 
presses under the control of the stationers of 
the metropolis, there might be one press at 
each university ; the owners of these however, 
to have but one apprentice at a time, and to 
employ London journeymen when they re- 
quired extra service.* 

These laws, so capable of being made the 
engine of intolerable oppression, had been so 
used by Archbishop Laud and his satellites ; 
and that too at a time when it was felt as a pe- 
culiar hardship. That was a period of remark- 
able intellectual activity. " Every man,'" says 
Clarendon, "had written or expected to write 
a book ;" and Coleridge has assured us that the 
store of pamphlets left us by the age of Milton 
is as rich in thought and as multitudinous in 

*Cooper's Annals (>f Cnmbridge. Vol. II. , p. 424. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 126 

number as any issued fi'om the press in later 
days. 

People then complained of the plethora of 
books, precisel}' as they do now. "In this 
scribbling age," says Burton in the preface to 
his ''Anatomy of Melancholy,''^ "the number of 
books is without number. What a company 
of poets hath this year brought out ; as Pliny 
complains to Sosius Senecio. What a cat- 
alogue of new books all this year, all this 
age, I say, have our Franklin marts, our do- 
mestic marts, brought out. Who can read 
them? We are oppressed with them, our 
eyes ache with reading, our lingers with turn- 
ing." 

Of course at such a time the indispensable 
imprimatur of the licensers came to be regarded 
by writers as a nuisance ; and by the Puritans 
it was especially objected to, because they often 
could not secure for their tracts the necessary 
license, while the prelates with the press for a 
fulcrum turned their tenets upside down. Yet, 
not taught toleration by their own suffering, 
they had no sooner deposed the bishops than 
they appointed new licensers, and continued 



126 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the Avliolc tyrannical system under the new 
dispensation. 

It was against the principle of the license 
code that Milton, in the '' Areopagitica,''^ trained 
his intellectual battery, and fired that tremen- 
dous broadside which reverberated then, and 
still reverberates throughout the world. 

The '' Areopagitica^^ is opened with master- 
ly art ; in conciliatory finesse, the exordium 
equals any thing in Greek or Eoman oratory. 
" Truth is armed, by reason and by fancy, with 
weapons which are effective by their weight 
and edge, while the}' dazzle us by their bright- 
ness." Milton's arguments, which are individ- 
uall}' strong, derive additional force from their 
mutual support and admirable arrangement; 
so that at the climax they compel with imperi- 
ous power unhesitating conviction. 

Showing at the outset that fetters for the 
press were first contrived by the papal tyran- 
ny,''' and perfected by the Spanish inquisition. 



* Dr. Syminons, in his Life of Hilton, appends this note to his 
clescription of the " Areopagitica :" "The turbulent and profligate 
Sextus IV., whose enormities were exceeded only by those of Alex- 
ander VI., was the first who placed the press under the control of 
a stiite inquisitor. He died in 1484, after having disgraced the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 127 

he next proceeds to prove that these gags are 
injurious to civil progress and religious truth. 
He affirms that the circulation of flagitious 
writings cannot be restrained by shackling the 
press ; while the suspicion which falls upon 
works, suppressed often by the ignorance of 
licensers, or by their spite, is an insult to 
authors, and a discouragement to the learned. 
Even admitting that the entire control of the 
press could be attained, as it certainly never 
has been, still no good would result to morals, 
as the avenues of corrupt communication would 
be alwaj^s numerous ; while, after all, not igno- 
rance of vice, but its rejection, constitutes virtue. 

" Adam's doom seems to have been that of 
knowing good hj evil. A fugitive and cloister- 
ed virtue is not to be praised — a virtue unex- 
ercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
and sees her adversar}^, but slinks out of the 
race where that immortal garland is to be run 
for, not without dust and heat." 

Milton scouts the idea of any one class un- 
dertaking to decide for mankind what truth is. 

Eoman see and disturbed Italy during thirteen years. This is not 
specified by Milton, but is the fact." 



128 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Opinion is not always truth ; it is truth filtered 
through the mood, the disposition, the educa- 
tion, the stand-point of the spectator. While 
the bishops affirmed that orthodoxy was their 
'doxy, the Dissenters were just as firmly per- 
suaded that the orthodox religion dwelt with 
them; while the Pope fulminated his bulls of 
excommunication against them both, arrogating 
to the Roman see the pure unquestionable or- 
thodox faith. In that and kindred controver- 
sies it was Milton's belief that unlicensed, un- 
restricted printing would be a grand helper, 
and no hinderance to the eternal truth. 

To the jealousy of a government, or the 
bigotry of a church, demanding an enslaved 
press, he replies, that "a state governed by 
the rules of justice and fortitude, or a church 
built upon the rock of f\iith and true know- 
ledge, cannot be so pusillanimous" as to dread 
the utmost liberty of criticism. 

Yet it was not the licentiousness of the press 
for which Milton pleaded. He was willing 
that it should be as free as the air, or the light 
of heaven, to pour its good and evil alike into 
the world ; but he would hold the writers to a 



OF JOHN MILTON. 129 

proper responsibility to the laws, not to vomit 
slander through the press, nor to infringe the 
fundamental precepts of morals and good order. 
That is, publishers were not to be allowed to 
violate the innocent peace of society, or of in- 
dividuals ; to permit that were not liberty, but 
flagitious licentiousness. 

"I deny not," says the great champion of 
regulated liberty, "but that it is of great con- 
cernment to the church and commonwealth to 
have a vigilant qjq how hooks bemean them- 
selves as well as men ; and therefore to confine, 
imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as 
malefactors ; for books are not absolutel}^ dead 
things, but do contain a potency of life in them 
to be as active as that soul was whose progeny 
they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, 
the honest efficacy and extraction of that living 
intellect that bred them. I know they are as 
lively, and as vigorously productive as those 
fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up 
and down, may chance to spring up armed men. 
And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness 
be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a 
good book : who kills a man kills a reasonable 

6* 



130 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a 
good book, kills reason itself, kills the image 
of God, as it were, in the eve. Many a man 
lives a burden to the earth ; but a good book 
is the precious lifcblood of a master-spirit em- 
balmed and treasured up on purpose to a life 
beyond life. 'T is true, no age can restore a 
life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; 
and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the 
loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which 
whole nations fare the worse. We should be 
wary, therefore, what persecution we raise 
against the living labors of public men — how 
we spill that seasoned life of man pfeserved 
and stored up in books ; since we see a kind 
of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes 
a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole im- 
pression, a kind of massacre, whereof the exe- 
cution ends not in the slaying of an elemental 
life, but strikes at that etherial and fifth essence, 
the breath of reason itself, and slays an immor- 
tality rather than a life." 

Milton did not fear the most convulsing 
agitation : he saw, in what some thought chaos, 
nothing but an unchained people "casting off 



OF JOHN MILTON. 131 

the old and wrinkled skin of corruption, wax- 
ing young again, entering the glorious ways of 
truth and prosperous virtue, and destined to 
become great and honorable in these latter 
days." Here occurs this burst of sublime and 
unrivalled eloquence 

"Methinks I see in my mind a noble and 
puissant nation rousing herself, like the strong- 
man after sleep, and shaking her invincible 
locks: methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing 
her mighty 3'outh, and kindling her undazzled 
eyes at the full midday beam ; purging and 
unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain 
itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole 
brood of timorous and flocking birds, with those 
also that love the twilight, flutter about, amaz- 
ed at what she means." 

What he says concerning the inconsisten- 
cy of the Parliament in its treatment of the 
license question, is keen and just: "Who can- 
not discern the fineness of this politic drift, 
and who are its contrivers ? that while the 
bishops were to be baited down, then all 
presses might be open: it was the people's 
birthright and privilege in time of Parliament; 



132 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

it was the breaking forth of light. But now, 
the bishops abrogated and voided out of the 
church, as if our reformation sought no more 
but to make room for others into their seats 
under another name, the episcopal arts begin 
to bud again; the cruse of truth must run no 
more oil ; liberty of printing must be inthrall- 
ed under a prelatical commission of twenty ;* 
the privilege of the people nullified, and which 
is worse, the freedom of learning must groan 
again, and to her old fetters."t 

This entire "Plea" of Milton's is a model 
of style, impressive dignity, and persuasive 
eloquence. la sublimity of thought and ele- 
vation of sentiment, it is unique and unrivalled 
in English letters. Some of the sentences are 
stiff with splendor, while its frequent figura- 
tiveness renders it what Burke fitly calls it, 
"the most magnificent of prose poems." 

Notwithstanding its splendor, cogency, and 
unanswerable logic, the Parliament turned a 
deaf ear to Milton's address, and remained in- 
exorably determined to preserve the license 

• In allusion to a then recent act of Parliament, placing the 
license under charge of such a commission. 
\ Works, Vol. L, p. 315. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 133 

gags, and to muzzle the press. Nor was it 
until the year 1694 that the license was defi- 
nitely abolished, and the press, shaking off its 
locks and shackles, became really free in Eng- 
land.* 

* Blackstoue's Commentaries, 11th ed., Vol. IV., p. 152. 



134 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER IX. 

At Whitsuntide, iu 1643, he being then 
thirty-five years of age, Milton married Mar}-, 
a daughter of Mr. Powell, a justice of the peace 
in Oxfordshire, and a gentleman of property 
and position. After spending the honeymoon 
among his bride's relatives, Milton brought 
her to town with him, in the expectation of 
living comfortably and happily with her. His 
bright hopes were, however, speedily blasted, 
and his wife held to his lips a goblet of morti- 
fication which he was obliged to drain to the 
very dregs. 

Many circumstances combined to render 
this match exceedingly unequal and ill-advis- 
ed; it certainly proves that the wisest of men 
are at times the most foolish. The Powells 
were stanchly cavalier in their politics; Miss 
Powell had been reared in the gay, frivolous 
circles of the "love-locked" gentry of that 
loose epoch, was used to much company, mer- 
riment, and dancing, held her austere hus- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 135 

band's democratic principles in utter contempt, 
and was not fitted either by nature or training 
to sympatliize with his magnificent projects, 
and studious, philosophical pursuits. 

To a lady thus bred, nothing could be 
more odiously uninviting than the solitary 
study of a recluse scholar, where no company 
whose tastes Avere similar to hers ever came, 
where spare diet and a house full of pupils 
constantly galled one who had been spoiled, 
petted, and lapped in luxury. Sighing for the 
old life of mirth and joviality, she urged Mil- 
ton, after passing some few weeks with him in 
London, to permit her to visit her friends in 
Oxfordshire for a while; with which request 
her husband complied, only stipulating that 
she should return to him at Michaelmas. 

This visit was in fact only a pretence for 
conjugal desertion.* Philips, Milton's nephew, 
at the time a pupil in his uncle's house, tells 
us that her relations "being generg,lly addicted 
to the cavalier party, and some of them possi- 
bly engaged in the king's service, (who by this 
time had his head-quarters at Oxford, and was 

* Todd's Life of Milton, p. 48. 



136 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

in some prospect of success,) they began to 
repent them of having matched the eldest 
daughter of the family to a person so contrary 
to them in opinion; and thought it would be 
a blot in their escutcheon, whenever that court 
should come to flourish again." 

However this may be, certain it is that she 
did not make her appearance at the appointed 
time, and that she yielded no obedience to her 
husband's repeated requests that she should 
resume her place at his side. " After receiv- 
ing several of his letters without sending him 
any answer," saj^s Tolland, " she did at length 
positively refuse to come, dismissing his 'mes- 
senger with contempt." 

It may easily be imagined what the result 
of such keenly insulting conduct would be upon 
a man of John Milton's high, proud, and hon- 
orable spirit. Exasperated beyond measure, 
he resolved to repudiate his wife ; and in de- 
fence of this, resolution, he published his four 
celebrated treatises on divorce, the two first 
in 1644, the others in 1645. 

The first pamphlet on this subject was 
called the ''Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce" 



OF JOHN MILTON. 137 

and was dedicated to the Parliament and the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster. This 
provoked much comment ; and several answers 
to it being penned by his opponents, Milton 
shortly after, in order to show that he did not 
stand alone in his opinion, published his sec- 
ond tract, " The judgment of the Famous Re- 
former Martin Bucer^ Touching Divorce,^'' in 
which he proved that that worthy exactly 
agreed with him. 

In response to an elaborate attack upon his 
theory in 1645, Milton published another tract 
in its defence: ^^ Tetrarchordon; or, depositions 
ujjoji the Four Chief Places of Scripture which 
treat of Marriage or JSfidlities in Marriage^ 
Some months later, being provoked thereto by 
continued denunciation and misrepresentation, 
he issued the " Colasterion" in which he closed 
the controversy. 

It is not within the purview of this Life to 
speak at any length or with any oracularness 
upon the momentous question of divorce. Per- 
haps however it is but fair to state that Mil- 
ton's design in the pamphlet he wrote upon 
the subject was, to show that there may be 



138 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

other and sufficient reasons for divorce besides 
adulter}', and that to i)rohibit any sort of 
divorce but such as are accepted by Moses is 
unjust, and against the reason of the law. 

These innovations brought upon Milton's 
head a storm of ridicule and denunciation at 
the time. The wits of the court and the thun- 
ders of the pulpit united their terrors to affright 
and daunt him. He was even summoned be- 
fore the bar of the House of Lords ; but he was 
quickly dismissed, and all efforts to excite the 
Lords and Commons of the Parliament against 
him signally failed. Perhaps they foresaw the 
time when they should require him to wield 
his might}" pen in their defence, and thus were 
cautious not to treat with harshness one be- 
neath the fegis of whose glittering rhetoric 
they might be driven to hide. 

Whether the Parliament accepted his the- 
ories or not, his writings gave birth to a sect 
called Miltonists, who did indorse him. 

Dr. Symmons, a clergj-man of the Estab- 
lished church in England, and one of Milton's 
ablest biographers, thinks that he "has made 
out a strong case, and fights with arguments 



OF JOHN MILTON. 130 

not easily to be repelled."* And Mr. Godwin 
says, "The books on divorce are written with 
the most entire knowledge of the snbject, and 
with a clearness and strength of argnment that 
it would be difficult to excel." Selden also, one 
of the profoundest lawyers in English jurispru- 
dence, fully indorsed Milton's principles, writ- 
ing his ''Uxor Hebraica^^ on that side of the 
question; while in America a number of the 
states have enacted analogous precepts into law. 
This proves that those critics who charge 
that Milton wrote the divorce pamphlets has- 
tily and ignorantly, in order to vent his spite, 
falsify the record. The pamphlets breathe, in 
the main, making fair deductions on account 
of the heated controversial period in which 
they were written — an age when polemical 
writers were far from nice in their choice 
and bestowal of epithets — a pure and Chris- 
tian spirit, and show their author's desire and 
effort to lean prayerfully and unhesitatingly 
upon the Scriptures. If he erred, it was not 
intentionally, or because he did not seek the 
truth. 

* Symmons' Life of Milton, p. 202. 



140 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The lesson which may safely be drawn 
from this unhappy episode in Milton's life is, 
that marriage should be based upon something 
better than mere fancy, upon which Milton s 
choice seems onh' to have rested; and that 
persons should not "marry in haste," if they 
do not wish " to repent at leisure.'' 

About this time Milton's little academy 
was reinforced by the arrival of several new 
pupils whom he had consented to receive into 
his family. His father also, upon the cnpture 
of Reading by the Earl of Essex in 1643, 
left his son Christopher, with whom he had 
been residing in that town, and came to form 
part of the establishment in Aldersgate- 
street. 

In conformity with his tenets on the sub- 
ject of divorce, and to exhibit his conscious- 
ness of freedom, Milton, in 1644, began to 
address a beautiful and accomplished young 
lady, a daughter of a Mr. Davis, with a view 
to matrimony. It has been asserted somewhat 
loosely, that Miss Davis was averse to the un- 
ion ; but if she entertained any objections, they 
were overcome, and the match would have 



or JOHN MILTON. 141 

taken place but for the occurrence of a some- 
what remarkable circumstance. 

The desperate situation of the king's cause 
in 1644, caused by the utter rout of the royal 
array at Naseby, made the family of Milton's 
wife reluctantly sensible of the folly of their 
conduct in alienating a man so powerful with 
the Parliament, and selfishly anxious to pro- 
pitiate his resentment. They foresaw that his 
active countenance would soon be necessary 
for their protection, and possibly for their ac- 
tual subsistence. "With no resemblance to 
the elevated equanimity of the man who had 
honored them with his alliance, they rose or 
fell, like the mob of their species, with the flow 
or the ebb of fortune, and were insolent or 
abject as their unstable power visited or de- 
serted them." They therefore determined to 
effect a reconciliation between Milton and his 
wife. 

"Their plan," says Dr. Symmons, "was 
conceived and executed with successful inge- 
nuity." When on a visit to a relative in the 
lane of St. Martin's-le-grand, he was surprised 
to see his wife come from another room and 



142 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

bog forgiveness on her knees. Fenton re- 
marks,* " It is not to be doubted but an inter- 
view of that nature, so little expected, must 
wonderfully affect him ; and perhaps the im- 
pression it made upon his imagination contrib- 
uted much to the painting of that pathetic 
scene in 'Paradise Lost,'' in which Eve address- 
es herself to Adam for pardon and peace. At 
the intercession of his friends who were pres- 
ent, after a short reluctance, he generously 
sacrificed all his resentment to her tears : 

"Soon liis heart relented 

Toward her, his Ufe so hxte, and sole delight, 
Now at his feet submissive in distress." 

Such was Milton's generous and Christian 
spirit, that, banishing all remembrance of his 
wife's ill-conduct, and also of her family's prov- 
ocation, he received them all into his own 
house, where he freely entertained and pro- 
tected them until their affairs were accommo- 
dated by his interest with the victorious Puri- 
tans. His wife continued to reside with him 
happily and affectionately until her death some 
years later. 

* Li the preface to his edition of ''Paradise Lost," first pub- 
lished in London, in 1725. 



OF JOHN MILTON. . U3 

At the time of Milton's reconciliation with 
his wife, the enlargement of his family had 
obliged him to change his residence to a more 
commodious mansion in Barbican, whither he 
now transported his household. 

" When it is considered that Milton cheer- 
fully opened his doors to those who had treat- 
ed him with indignity and breach of faith: to a 
father who, according to the poet's nuncupative 
will, never paid him the promised marriage 
portion of a thousand pounds ; and to a mother 
who, according to Wood, had encouraged the 
daughter in her perverseness, we cannot but 
accede to Mr. Hayley's conclusion, that the 
records of private life exhibit not a more mag- 
nanimous example of forgiveness and benefi- 
cence.""^' 

Notwithstanding these domestic embarrass- 
ments, and the engrossing interest of the civil 
war, then rising to its triumphant climax, Mil- 
ton did not permit his attention to be wholl} 
diverted from other important considerations. 
He published during this period, in addition to 
the "Plea for Unlicensed Printing," and the 

♦ Todd's Life of Milton, p. 58. 



144 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

pamphlets on divorce, his elaborate " Treatise 
on Education" and several sonnets. His lei- 
sure hours he filled u}) pleasantl}^ either in 
visiting his friends, and especially one lady, 
a daughter oi" the Earl of Marlborough, who 
was possessed of rare talents, and to whom, as 
to her husband. Captain Hobson, an accom- 
plished gentleman, his compan}'' was peculiar- 
ly acceptable; or in collecting and correcting 
his early poems, both Latin and English, an 
edition of which was first published under the 
auspices of Humphrey Moseley, the general 
publisher of the poets of that epoch, in 1645. 

Mosely says, in his "Address to the Read- 
er," "The author's more peculiar excellence in 
these studies was too well known to conceal 
his papers, or to keep me from attempting to 
solicit them from him. Let the event guide 
itself which way it will, I shall deserve of the 
age, bv brino-ino; into the lio-ht as true a birth 
as the muses have brought forth since our 
famous Spenser wrote ; whose poems in these 
English ones are as rarely imitated, as sweetly 
excelled." 

Moseley's discernment did indeed "deserve 



OF JOHN MILTON. 145 

of the age," and though these poems did not 
win much applause on their first appearance, it 
is only another proof that great works in liter- 
ature are seldom appreciated b}' the genera- 
tion which witnesses their birth. Bunyan's 
immortal writings were long treated with the 
shabbiest neglect. 

In 1G47, Milton again removed his resi- 
dence, taking a smaller house in Holborn ; the 
Powells having left him, he no longer required 
so much room as was contained in the spa- 
cious Barbican dwelling. Philips tells us that 
"he is much mistaken, if there was not about 
this time a design of making him an adjutant- 
general in William Waller's array. But the 
new modelling of the army proved an obstruc- 
tion to the design." 

It was in this year that Milton's father 
died, ending happily and peacefully a long 
and useful life, whose declining days had been 
soothed by every attention possible to be paid 
him by an affectionate, grateful, and pious son. 

]\Iilton still continued to instruct a few 
pupils; but for a number of months his busy 
pen had rest. 



U6 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Milton's wife had, a year or two after the 
reconciliation, presented him with a daughter, 
whom he named Anne, after his sister. This 
child was born lame, or became so in early 
youth from some accident. In October of 1 648, 
his second daughter was born, receiving her 
mother's name, Mary. 

It was while residing in Ilolborn, in this 
quiet and domestic manner, that the Parlia- 
ment appointed Milton to the Latin secretary- 
ship of state. This at once changed his mode 
of life, and introduced him to the busiest scene 
of his checkered career. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 147 



CHAPTER X. 

In order fulh' to comprehend the purpose 
and significance of Milton's state appointment, 
it will be necessary to cast a retrospective 
glance at the progress and scope of the civil 
war from that incipient stage up to which we 
have already traced it, to the unhappy and 
ghastly death of Charles upon the scaffold. 

The war, which, from the battle of Edge- 
hill, had somewhat dragged, success alternate- 
ly perching upon the eagles of the king and 
upon the Puritan standard, was in 1645 prose- 
cuted with new and Titanic energy, owing to 
the displacement of the honest but inefficient 
Parliamentary generals Essex and Fairfax, 
and the appointment of Oliver Cromwell to the 
supreme command of the Puritan array. From 
this period hope, which had twinkled in the 
political horizon, was quenched for the king. 
The cohorts of the Parliament, officered by the 
soldierly genius of Cromwell, one of the great- 



148 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

est captains of all time, inarched forward to 
assured success, achieving a series of brilliant 
victories, which speedily gave the royal cause 
its coup de grace. 

The rout at Long Marston Moor in 1644 
had sadly broken the spirit of the Cavaliers. 
The relentless and irresistible charge of Crom- 
well's "Ironsides" in the following year, at 
Naseby, completed the demoralization, and 
hopelessly scattered the adherents of the king. 

Charles, after a hazardous and checkered 
existence of several months from the fajal 
battle of Naseby, finally determined to throw 
himself upon the clemency of the Scotch Puri- 
tans; and he accordingly repaired, in 1646, to 
their camp before Newark. Though they 
received him with everj'' outward appearance 
of respect, the Scottish generals in reality 
made the monarch a captive, while they fell 
upon the consideration of the proper course to 
pursue towards him. 

The Parliament, immediately upon learn- 
ing the whereabouts of their runawa}' king, 
formally demanded his rendition to them by 
Scotland, on the ground that, though he was 



or JOHN MILTON: 149 

certainly king both of Scotland and England, 
still, being in England, he was comprehended 
within the jurisdiction of that kingdom/^' 
After considerable discussion, not without 
having incurred the suspicion of bribery,f the 
Scots handed Charles over to the Parliament. 
By them he was conducted to Holmby House 
in Northamptonshire, where he resided in easy 
confinement until his seizure by the army sev- 
eral months later, when he was removed to 
Hampton Court. 

While the king was at Hampton, several 
events occurred which might have reseated 
him upon the throne, had he possessed the 
slightest political honesty or sagacity. 

The Puritans were at this crisis divided 
into two ecclesiastical parties — the "Presby- 
terians," a sect of Scotch extraction, and the 
" Independents," a new-born organization, but 
very powerful, and strongly opposed to the 
Presbyterian policy. The Presbyterians hav- 
ing gotten the Parliament under their control, 
proceeded to abridge both civil and religious 
liberty to an almost unprecedented extent, 

* Hume's ffist. of Eng., Vol. Vn., p. 75. f Iljic^-> P- 77. 



150 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

going certainly much further in the direction 
of arbitrary dictation than the prelates them- 
selves had ventured to go. Milton had all 
along denounced their usurpations in the bold- 
est and most eloquently emphatic manner; 
and now behind him the Independents ranged 
themselves as the opponents of intolerance. 
They differed also from the Presbyterians in 
their notions of church government, approach- 
ing very closel}' to modern Congregational- 
ism. 

Cromwell, Ireton, and other noted leaders 
of the army were decided Independents. Dis- 
covering that the event might prove that they 
had lavished their blood only to substitute one 
tyranny for another, they instantl}^ decided to 
endeavor to win the king to proclaim amnesty, 
civil libert}^, and toleration, as the price of 
reinstatement in his royalties ;* or, that fail- 
ing, to crush Charles, oust the Parliament, and 
establish a free commonwealth upon the basis 
of justice and impartial liberty. 

After several interviews with their royal 
captive at Hampton Court, his haughtiness 

* Symmons' Life of Miltou, p. 213. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 161 

and duplicity disgusted them ; and discovering 
by his secret correspondence with the queen 
that no reliance could be placed upon his good 
faith, they determined to unite with the Par- 
liament in bringing him to speedy trial and 
execution, perceiving that thus one, and the 
chief, obstacle to peace and liberty would be 
removed. Charles meantime had fled, upon 
the withdrawal of the protection of the army, 
from Hampton to the Isle of Wight, seeking 
there an asylum, but fiudinga close and rigor- 
ous prison. 

But the Parliament having obtained some 
inkling of the Independent plot to effect their 
displacement from power, in their turn en- 
deavored to negotiate a treaty with the king, 
which should place him at their head, and 
repossess him of a large part at least of what 
had been ravished from him by the victorious 
arms of the Commonwealth. 

But the monarch's fatal obstinacy and sin- 
gular opinion of his great importance, which 
could lead him to say, as Rushworth records, 
that it was in his power to turn the scale, and 
that that party must sink which he abandon- 



152 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

cd — be the detlironed king of an annibilated 
faction! — led him to repel all overtures with 
the remark, "I shall see you glad ere long to 
accept more equal terras. You cannot do 
without me. You will fall to ruin if I do not 
sustain you.'"'^' 

While negotiations were still pending be- 
tween Parliament and the king, the array 
returned flushed with victory from several 
expeditions which had completely subdued all 
their enemies. Immediately, at Cromwell's 
suggestion, a remonstrance to the Parliament 
was drawn up, and signed by the council of 
general officers, demanding its dissolution, cotn- 
plaining of its usurpations, accusing it of trea- 
son to liberty and of riveting the old chains 
still tighter ; requiring a more equal represen- 
tation; and asserting that, though servants, 
they were entitled to represent these impor- 
tant points to their masters, who were them- 
selves no better than the servants or trustees 
of the people.f At the same time Cromwell's 
strategy insured the seizure of the king, and 
his strict confinement near the capital. 

• Rushworth. f Hume's Hist, of Eng., Vol. ^T;I., p. 127 



OF JOHN MILTON. 153 

Parliament met the menaced danger brave- 
ly, and declined to comply with the remon- 
strance of the army. Accordingly on the 6th 
of December, 1647-8, the military entered the 
chamber of the Parliament, forcibly ejected 
one hundred and sixt}^ members, constitnting 
the bulk of the Presbyterian strength, and 
leaving fifty or sixty Independents to carr}^ 
on the government: thus, to use the phrase of 
the time, "purged the house." 

Before this "rump" Parliament, Charles 
was summoned, tried, and sentenced to death ; 
which sentence was carried into execution on 
the 30th of Januar}", 1648-9. Thus perished 
this unhappy prince, whose obstinacy, duplic- 
ity, and despotism hurried him to an untime- 
ly and bloody grave. 

Upon the death of Charles, a representa- 
tive government, springing directly from the 
people, was organized upon the ruins of the 
throne. The "rump" Parliament, as that por- 
tion of the long Parliament which had survived 
the recent violence of the army soon came to 
be called, proceeded to proclaim the Common- 
wealth, and to lodge the executive power in a 



154 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

council of thirty-eight members of the Com- 
mons, which received the name of "The Coun- 
cil of State." 

The men who composed this council were 
remarkably able, were endowed with singular 
executive talent, and speedily made the new 
Commonwealth command the respect, and to 
be even the terror of Europe. 

Resolved on adopting the I^atin tongue as 
its medium of intercourse with foreign nations, 
the Council decreed the appointment of a Latin 
secretary. The learning, talents, piety, repub- 
licanism, and brilliant rhetorical reputation of 
Milton, at once suggested him to the Council, 
and secured his appointment, without a suspi- 
cion on his part of being invited to enter into 
the service of the state. 

Though his tastes and inclination dictated 
the continuance of his more retired literary 
life and pursuits, yet Milton was a man who 
never permitted his predispositions to deter 
him from duty. Influenced by that patriotism 
which had alwaj^s been a passion with him, he 
cheerfully surrendered his private pursuits at 
its imperious command, that he might do his 



OF JOHN MILTON. 155 

part towards strengthening and perfecting the 
nascent Commonwealth. 

That Milton did not regret the overthrow 
of the Presbj^terians, is proved conclusively 
by his own writings at the time, and especially 
by a satirical sonnet about the time of their 
downfall, in which he says, 

"New Freshyter is but old Priest writ large." 

During the transactions which preceded 
the death of the king and the establishment of 
the Commonwealth, Milton had remained quiet- 
ly domesticated at Holborn, a passive specta- 
tor of the tragedy about to be enacted ; his 
pen resting from controversy, and employed 
in the composition of a history of England, 
only six books of which were ever finished. 
These carry the story only to the battle of 
Hastings, leaving it at the most interesting 
period; but they are written accurately, mi- 
nutely, and often eloquently. 

Milton himself declared, at a subsequent 
period, when his party was firmly seated in 
power, when he had no reason to suppress the 
truth, but when, on the contrary, it would have 
redounded to his political advantage to have 



150 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

asserted his active participation in the execu- 
tion of the king, that he had not been accesso- 
r}^ to the fate of Charles. 

"Neither did I write any thing," he says, 
"respecting the regal authorit}', till the king, 
proclaimed an enemy by the senate, and over- 
come in arras, was brought captive to his trial, 
and condemned to suffer death. When in- 
deed some of the Presbyterian leaders, lately 
tlie most iuveterately hostile to Charles, but 
now irritated by the prevalence of the Inde- 
pendents in the nation and the senate, and 
stung with resentment, not of the fact, but of 
their own want of power to commit it,' ex- 
claimed against the sentence of the Parliament 
upon the king, and raised what commotions 
they could b}^ daring to assert that the doc- 
trine of the Protestant divines, and of all the 
reformed churches was strong in reprobation 
of this severity to kings, then at length I con- 
ceived it to be my duty publicly to oppose so 
much obvious and palpable falsehood. Nei- 
ther did I then direct my argument personally 
against Charles, but, by the testimony of many 
of the most eminent divines, I proved what 



OF JOHN MILTON. 157 

course of conduct might* lawfully be observed 
towards tyrants in general; and with the zeal 
almost of a preacher, I attacked the strange 
ignorance or the wonderful impudence of these 
men, who had lately amused us with the prom- 
ise of better things. This work was not pub- 
lished till after the death of the king ; and was 
written rather to tranquillize the minds of men, 
than to discuss any part of the question con- 
cerning Charles, a question the decision of 
which belonged to the magistrate, and not to 
me, and which has now received its final de- 
termination." 

From all this it should seem that the Pres- 
byterians, filled with bitterness on account of 
their exclusion from power, and more anxious 
for government and patronage than for right- 
eousness and the establishment of liberty, unit- 
ed their fierce clamors to swell the chorus of 
the king's partisans, raised upon the execution 
of the tyrant prince. 

Neale, the historian of the Puritans, makes 
this statement in reference to the course of the 
government at this troubled period : 

"The Parliament tried several methods to 



158 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

reconcile the Presbyterians to the present 
administration. Persons were appointed to 
assure them of the protection of the govern- 
ment, and of the full enjoyment of their eccle- 
siastical preferments, according to law. When 
this would not do ... . the famous Mr. Milton 
was appointed to write for the government, 
who rallied the seditious preachers with his 
satirical pen in a most severe manner.'* 

The work to which Neale refers, and which 
Milton mentions in the extract just quoted, 
was first published in February, 1648-9, and 
was entitled, ''The Tenure of Kings and Mag- 
istrates'''' It is able, elaborate, and like every 
thing from the pen of its great author, singu- 
larly eloquent. His aim was to prove that "it 
is lawful, and hath been so through all ages, 
for an}' who have the power, to call to account 
a tyrant or wicked king, and after due convic- 
tion, to depose and put him to death, if the 
ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied 

• From this statement it would seem that ililton had been 
h'lrtd to defend the government. This was not true. "NMiat he 
WTote was a freewill-offering to the tranquillization of the state. 
His duties as Latin secretary did not include any such arrange- 
ment 



OF JOHN MILTON. 159 

to do it; and that tlie}^ who of late so much 
blame deposing, are the men that did it them- 
selves." 

In this same year, Milton's prolific pen pro- 
duced another pamphlet: ''Observations upon 
the Articles of Peace which the Earl of Ormond 
has concluded at Kilkenny, January 17th, 1648—9, 
in the King^s name, and hy His Authority, with 
the Popish Irish Rebels" Esteeming the new- 
formed Commonwealth to be threatened by 
the transactions of Ormond, who headed the 
disaffected Scotch Presbyterians, and who had 
entered into a treaty with the Irish partisans 
of Charles, a movement kept afoot for several 
months after the king's death, he wrote this 
tract to avert the menaced danger. 



160 THE LIFE AND TTTVIES 



CHAPTER XI. 

At no period in history has Great Britain 
appeared to grander advantage than nnder the 
Commonwealth. Firm, able, yet tolerant in 
their domestic policy, inflexibly just and judi- 
cious in their dealings with foreign powers, the 
Council of State speedily inspired the utmost 
respect and awe in the breasts of the surround- 
ing nations. Not Elizabeth herself had exert- 
ed a more potent influence in continental poli- 
tics. In consequence of the proud position it 
acquired, the Commonwealth was enabled on 
several occasions to succor the oppressed of 
other lands, and even to dictate toleration and 
justice to foreign despots. 

The influence of England at this time was 
owing ver}' largelj^, without doubt, to the per- 
sonal character of several of the most prom- 
inent members of the Council of State.* Such 

* The foUowiug is a complete list of the names of the members 
of the Council during the first year or two of its establishment : 
President, John Bradshaw, Esq. ; Earls Denbigh, Mulgrave, Pem- 
broke, and Salisbury ; Lords Grey, Fairfax, and Lord Grey of 



or JOHN MILTON. 161 

men as the young'cr Yaiie'^' and stont John 
Braclshawf could not fail to infuse their own 

Groby ; Esquires, John Lisle, Rolles, and Bulstrocle White- 

locke ; Lieutenant-general Cromwell ; Major-general Skippon ; 
Sirs, Gilbert Pickering, William Massum, James Harrington, 
Henry Vane, Jr., John Dan vers, William Arm ine, Henry Mildmay, 
and William Constable; Esquires, Alexander Popham, William 
Puresay, Isaac Pennington, Rowland Wilson, Edmund Liidlow, 
William Herringham, Eobert Wellop, Henry Martin, Anthony 
Stapely, John Hutchinson, Valentine Walton, Thomas Scot, Den- 
nis Bond, Luke Kobinson, John Jones, and Corneliiis Holland. 

* Milton -wi'ote the following sonnet on Sir Henry Vane the 
younger, a httle previous to his appointment to the Foreign Secre- 
taryship : 

"TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER. 

"Vane, young in years, but in sage council old, 
Than whom a better senator ne'er held 
The helm of Eome, when gowns not arms repelled 
The fierce Epirot and the Afran bold ; 
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 
The drift of hollow states, hard to be spelled, 
Then to advise how war may, best upheld. 
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold. 
In all her equipage : besides, to know 
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means. 
What severs each, thou 'st learned, which few have done: 
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ; 
Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans 
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son." 

t Milton's opinion of John Bradshaw was evinced at about the 
same time that witnessed the production of the sonnet addi-essed 
to Vane. As what he says of that famous regicide may be of inter- 
est to some readers, it is subjoined : 

' ' John Bradshaw — a name which, in every country where her 
authority is acknowledged, liberty herself has dedicated to immor- 
tal renown — was descended, as is generally known, of a noble fam- 
ily. The early part of his life he devoted to the study of the laws 
of his country ; and then becoming a profound lawyer, a most 



162 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

talents and virtues into the governmental 
policy. 

eloquent advocate, a zealous asserter of freedom and the people's 
rights, he vras employed in the more important affairs of the state, 
and frequently discharged, vnth. unimpeachable integrity, the 
duties of a judge. 

""WTien at length solicited by the Parliament to preside at tho 
trial of the king, he did not decline tliis most dangerous commis- 
sion ; for to the science of the law he had brought a liberal dispo- 
sition, a lofty spirit, sincere and uuoffensive manners ; and thus 
qualified, he supj^orted that great and beyond precedent fearful 
office, exposed to the threats and to the daggers of innumerable 
assassins, with so much firmness, so much weight of manner, such 
presence and dignity of mind, that he seemed to have been formed 
and appointed immediately by the Deity himself for the perform- 
ance of that deed, which the divine Providence had of old decreed 
to be accomplished in this nation ; and so far has he exceeded the 
glory of aU tyrannicides as it is more humane, more just, more 
noble to try and to pass legal sentence on a tyrant, than without 
trial to put him to death. 

' ' ThoiTgh in other respects neither gloomy nor severe, but gen- 
tle and placid, he yet sust-^ins -with unfaltering dignity the charac- 
ter which he has borne, and laniformly consistent with himself, ho 
appears like a consul from whom the fasces are not to depart with 
the year ; so that not on the tribunal only, but throughout his life, 
you would regard him as sitting in judgment upon kings. 

"Unwearied and singly equal to a multitude in his labors for 
the public, in domestic life, to the utmost stretch of his powers, he 
is hospitable and splendid ; the steadiness and adherency of his 
friendship are not to be affected by the vicissitudes of fortune ; and 
instant and eager to acknowledge merit wherever it is discovered, 
he is munificent to reward it. The pious, the learned, the emi- 
nent in any wallc of genius, the soldier, the brave man, are either 
relieved by his wealth, if in distress, or if not indigent, are culti- 
vated by his attentions and cherished in his embrace. Delighted 
to dwell on the praises of others, he studiously suppresses his 
own. So great are his placability and readiness to forgive, that 
they are extended, as the experience of numbers hath ascei-tained, 



OF JOHN MILTON. 163 

Still, without plucking a single laurel from 
the brows of these eminent patriots, it cannot 
be questioned that the transcendent genius of 
John Milton, the Latin Secretary, set to their 
action the seal of unrivalled dignit3^ His 
hand wrote out, and perhaps his voice not 
unfrequently suggested the orders of the Coun- 
cil. During his tenure of his Secretaryship, 
which only ended with the Restoration, the 
state papers of Great Britain are models of 
diplomatic composition and broad statesman- 
ship. No wonder that the continental states, 
long accustomed to the pedantry of James and 
the fluctuating diplomacy of Charles, mar- 
velled at the new regime. Nor can we feel 

to any among the enemies of himself and of the state who, fi-om a 
sense of theii- errors, have reverted to reason. If the cause of the 
oppressed is openly to be asserted ; if the influence and the strong 
ai-m of the powerful are to be controlled ; if the public ingratitude 
to any meritorious individual is to be arraigned, then will no de- 
ficiency of eloquence or of fortitude be seen in this great man ; 
then will the client possess in him an advocate and a friend siiited 
to all his wants and adequate to his highest expectations ; the 
cause indeed ■will be in the hands of a defender whom no threats 
can divert from the straight path, whom neither intimidation nor 
bribes can bend from the uprightness of duty, or for an instant 
deject from the conscious firmness of his countenance and the 
determined attitude of his mind." 

Such is the portraiture of one of the central figures of that 
time, as drawn by the pencil of another. 



164 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

surprised that England learned to blush under 
the rotten morals and French policy of the 
Restoration, and longed once more to behold 
the brave days of the Comraonweallh, Avhen 
"the good old cause," as Milton loved to call 
it, gave purpose and emphasis to English 
diplomacy. 

Milton had onl}' been allowed sufficient 
time in which to acquaint himself with the 
routine of his office, before he was summoned 
by the government to the performance of a 
peculiar duty. 

Shortly after the death of the king, a book 
was published under the title of '' Eikon Biisil- 
ike; or, The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty 
in his Solitudes and Sufferings," with Charles' 
name upon the title-page as the author. As 
we have seen, the death of the king had pro- 
duced a profound sensation. Busy dema- 
gogues,, ecclesiastical and lay, had exhausted 
the arts of cunning and impudent falsehood in 
order to stir the people to active sedition. 
The unwonted character of the king's punish- 
ment made even the liberal party anxious 
and troubled, while many held it sacrilegious. 



or JOHN MILTON. 165 

With this feeling already abroad, it may easily 
be conceived how great was the effect of a book 
from the then dead hand of a prince whom 
many had come to consider a martyr and a 
saint, who spoke from a bloody grave, and 
who was represented as in constant intercourse 
through prayer with his Creator while in the 
flesh, urging before the Searcher of all hearts 
the integrity of his motives, and appealing 
from the cruelty and injustice of human tribu- 
nals to the awful bar of heavenly clemency 
and justice. 

Had a book of similar scope or purpose 
been published under the rule of the bishops, 
or under the Presbyterian administration, it 
would have been instantly suppressed. But 
the government was at this time made of 
sterner stuff. It determined to meet argu- 
ment with argument, book with book. 

Thus disposed to submit the merits of the 
controversy to the arbitrament of the pen, 
Milton was selected as the champion to whom 
the defence of the Commonwealth was to be 
intrusted. 

The result was the production of the ""Icon- 



166 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

oclastes,^^ or Image -breaker, which was the 
peculiarly apposite name chosen by Milton as 
the title of his refutation. This pamphlet is 
one of tlie grandest and most annihilating of 
his controversial writings. "Pressing closely 
on its antagonist, and tracing him step by step, 
it either exposes the fallacy of his reasoning, 
or the falsehood of his assertions, or the hollow- 
ness of his professions, or the convenient spe- 
ciousness of his devotion. In argument and 
in style compressed and energetic, perspicuous 
and neat, it discovers a quickness which never 
misses an advantage, and a keenness of remark 
which carries an irresistible edge."* 

It has been justl}^ said, that no one not 
under the dominion of unthinking prejudice 
can read this book without enforced conviction. 
It shows conclusively that Charles, however 
blameless may have been his private life, be- 
trayed in his public conduct the violence of 
Eastern despotism and the shifting and equiv- 
ocating morality of Loyola and the Jesuits. 

The Iconoclastes thus commences: "To 
descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen 

* Symmons' Life of Milton, p. 274 



OF JOHN MILTON. 167 

from so liigli a dignity, who hath also paid his 
final debt to nature and his faults, is neither of 
itself a thing commendable, nor the intention 
of this discourse. Neither was it fond ambi- 
tion, nor the vanity to get a name, present or 
with posterity, by writing against a king. I 
never was so thirsty after fame, nor so desti- 
tute of other hopes and means better and more 
certain to attain it; for kings have gained 
glorious titles from their favorers by writ- 
ing against private men, as Henry VIII. did 
against Luther ; but no man ever gained much 
honor by writing against a king, as not usually 
meeting with that force of argument in such 
courtly antagonists, which to convince might 
add to his reputation.''' 

"Kings most commonly, though strong in 
legions, are but weak at argument; as they 
who ever have been accustomed from their cra- 
dle to use their will only as their right hand, 
their reason always as their left. "Whence, 
unexpectedly constrained to that kind of com- 
bat, they prove but weak and puny adversa- 

IVIilton's liauglity clisdain of his opponent is here superbly 
expressed. 



1G8 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ries. Nevertheless for tlicir sakes who, through 
custom, simplicit}', or want of better tcaeJiing, 
have not more seriously considered kings than 
in the gaudy name of majesty, and admire 
them and their doings as if they breathed not 
the same breath with other mortal men, I shall 
make no scruple to take up — for it seems to be 
the challenge of him and all his party — this 
gauntlet, though the king's, in behalf of libert}^ 
and the Commonwealth.'"-' 

Of course it is not possible, within the lim- 
its of this volume, to give the full personal 
expressions of John Milton. All that is in- 
tended is, to quote such passages as are reqnired 
to give a portraiture of the man, his views, and 
methods of expression. If what is here writ- 
ten shall stir any admiring soul to study care- 
fully and at length the written books of this 
pious, recondite, and altogether remarkable 
champion of religion and liberty, its object 
will have been fully achieved. The following 
paragraph from the powerful argument and 
brilliantly keen satire now under considera- 
tion, is spirited and eloquent. 

♦ Prose Works, Vol. n., p. 391. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 169 

"But what needed that? They knew his 
chiefest arms left him w^ere those only which 
the ancient Christians were w^ont to use against 
their persecutors, prayers and tears. Oh sacred 
reverence of God, respect and shame of men, 
whither were ye fled when these hypocrisies 
were uttered? Was the kingdom then at all 
that cost of blood to remove'*' from him none 
but prayers and tears? What were those 
thousands of blaspheming cavaliers about him 
whose mouths let fly oaths and curses by the 
volley; w^ere those the pra^^ers? And those 
carouses, drunk to the confusion of all things 
good and holy; did these minister the tears? 
Were they prayers and tears which were listed 
at York, mustered on Heworth Moor, and laid 
siege to Hull for the guard of his person? 
Were prayers and tears at so high a rate in 
Holland that nothing could purchase them but 
the crown jewels? Yet the}^ in Holland — 
such word was sent us — sold them for guns, 
carbines, mortar- pieces, cannons, and other 
deadly instruments of war ; which, when they 
came to York, were all, no doubt, by the merit 

* The old form of expression for move. 



170 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of some great saint, suddenly transformed into 
prayers and tears; and being divided into 
regiments and brigades, were the only arms 
which mischieved ns in all those battles and 
encounters. These were his chief arms, what- 
ever we must call them ; and yet such arms as 
they who fought for the Commonwealth have, 
by the help of better prayers, vanquished and 
brought to nothing.'"^ 

It is not singular that the impudent claim 
made through the king's book, that the Cava- 
liers were peculiarly saint-like in their relig- 
ious feelings, should have called forth the bit- 
ing raillery of one who, like Milton, knew the 
rotten and riotous character of that side, and 
the stern, unyielding piety of the other. 

Milton hinted his doubt on several occa- 
sions in the course of his pamphlet, as to the 
king's being the author of the "Soliloquies," 
referring to it once as the work of " the Jioiise- 
hold rhetorician " of Charles. And again he 
says, "These petty conceits on the high and 
secret judgment of God, besides the boldness 
of unwarrantable commenting, are so weak 

• Prose Works, Vol. 11., p. 4C9. 



OF JOHN MILTON 171 

and shallow, and so like the quibbles of a 
court sermon, that we may safely reckon 
them either fetched from such a pattern, or 
that the hand of some household priest foisted 
them in.'"* 

Of course at the time these expressions 
had no influence upon the heated partisans of 
a book which served the interests and was sub- 
servient to the ends of the royal party. But 
j^ears later the "Soliloquies" were publicly 
and formally disavowed as the work of their 
father bj^ Charles II. and the Duke of York, 
who afterwards reigned as James II. " Mihon '' 
is said to have been written b}^ Dr. Gauden, 
one of Charles' most intimate friends, then 
Bishop of Salisbury, and it must be confessed 
that the evidence tends irresistibly to support 
that idea.* 

However this may be, Milton's pamphlet 
produced at the time a decided sensation. 
First published in 1649-50, it ran through 
several editions, and was esteemed by the gov- 



* Prose Works, Vol. II. p. 452. 

\ See Hume's remarks on this subject, Hist, of Eng., Vol. VTL 
Also SjTnmons' Life, pp. 284r-294. 



172 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

eminent and the Independent party generally 
as an exhaustive and complete refutation of 
the sophistries of the '' Eikon Basilikzr 

About the time perhaps, or shortly after the 
publication of the '' Iconodastes,''^ Milton re- 
moved from Holborn to a lodging in the house 
of one Thompson, at Charing-cross, and after- 
wards to apartments in Scotland-yard. Here 
a third child, a son, was born to him, who 
died however in infancy, on the 16th of March, 
1G50. In 1052 Milton once more changed his 
residence, securing this time a very handsome 
house in Petty France, opening upon St. James 
Park, and adjoining the mansion of Lord 
Scudamore. Here, without further change, he 
resided for eight years, or until the Restoration 
drove him to seek safety in flight and obscu- 
rity. Besides what property he had inherited 
from his father and the income derived from 
the sale of his writings, Milton was at this pe- 
riod in the receipt of an annual salary of two 
hundred pounds from the government as Latin 
Secretary, making in all a very comfortable 
and handsome income. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 173 



CHAPTER XII. 

Great as Miltoirs English reputation now 
was, it had not yet become cosmopolitan. 
Kno^Yn he was, indeed, to many eradite foreign- 
ers, and especially to the admiring academi- 
cians of Florence, of Eome, and of Venice. His 
genius and piety had also won the apprecia- 
tive plaudits of the able professors of the re- 
formed theology at Geneva. Yet when, in the 
brilliant belles-lettres circles of the Continent, 
critics counted the famous scholars of the age, 
and lauded the great rhetoricians, the}' did not 
couple Milton's name with those of Grotius and 
the literati. 

An event however now occurred which 
speedily gave him a splendid European repu- 
tation, and not only in the opinion of his con- 
temporaries, but in the estimation of calm pos- 
terity^, linked his name with those of the grand- 
est and most immortal writers. 

Charles Stuart, the exiled son of the re- 
cently executed monarch, spurred thereto by 



174 THE LIFK AND TIMES 

filial l>ii'tv and :» nnfiiral »l(>siiv to ki-cp liis 
nnnio niul rt\i::il <"l;iiiiis IxMoic* Kun^no, dotcr- 
minotl ti> iii\(tk(\ in llu^ (Icft-nco of lii.s liousc 
nnd fainlinix cause, tlio pen »>f some tncMl con- 
tinontnl writer; hftpinu^ thus, thouirh beaten in 
many a stricken ticld, to retrieve his sbatteretl 
fortunes in the arena of letters. The vt)iee of 
lame sj^eedily led the exile to seleet Tlaudius 
Salmasius, thtMi residing; at Levdcn in the ea- 
paeitv of honorary professor in tlu^ tniiversity. 
Salniasius was descended from a noMe fam- 
ily, whose seat was n«'ar lh(> town o( Semar, 
in the ancient pnn'inec of l>urguu<ly. Keceiv- 
ing from his mother a strong bias towards 
Protestantism in early youth, ho became, a 
little later, the stanch delender of the reform- 
ed tenets, and the vehement assailant of the 
po]>ish citadel. Since the death (»f the illus- 
trious younger Scaliger, no scholar had accjuir- 
cd the re]uitation of Salmasius. Tlu^ author of 
many rare and imjicrishable works, (i rot ins 
alone was at that lime ranked as his equal. 
Selden s]>eaks of (^rotius as "the greatest, the 
chief of men,^' and of Salmasius as "most ad- 
mirable," whom he desired much mc^re tt^ re- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 175 

seruble than the most eminent person for riches 
and honor in the world; and Cardinal Riche- 
lien declared that Bignon, GrotiuH, and Salma- 
gius were the only f>er5on5 of that age whom 
he looked njK>n as having arrived at the snm- 
mit of learning.* ''Salma?ias was a man of 
skill in languages, knowle^jge of antiqnity, and 
sagacity of criticism, almost exceeding all hope 
of human attainment ; and having by excessive 
praises been confirmed in great confidence in 
himself, thongh he probably had not much con- 
sidered the principles of society and the rights 
of government, undertook the employment with- 
out the distrust of his own qualifications; and 
as his exfHidition in writing was wonderful, in 
1649—50 published the 'Defensio Begi/i.' It is 
certainly wonderful that Salmasius, the pen- 
sioner of a republic, should write a vindication 
of monarchy. '*f Perhaps however Charles' re- 
taining fee of a hundred jacobuses may afford 
a satisfactory solution of the enigma, espec- 
ially if the haughty pride of the self-confident 
scholar at being selected by a prince for such 
a service be considered. 

• Mitford'a Life, pp. 51. 52. t Johnson'a Life; of Miltcai 



170 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The appearance of the '' Defensio Regia^^ 
created a decided sensation, though it is said to 
have somewhat disappointed the expectations 
of the learned.* Still it was a formidable 
volume, both on account of its author's reputa- 
tion and its own intrinsic merit. It abounded 
in subtle and specious arguments, clothed in 
pure and perspicuous language. 

Upon its publication in England, the Council 
of State immediately met and unanimousl}" ap- 
pointed Milton to answer Salmasius and defend 
the Commonwealth. " His compliance with the 
honorable requisition was instant; and, inatten- 
tive to the suggestions of his friends, who were 
fearful of his reputation, committed against so 
renowned an adversary; undeterred by the 
remonstrance of his physicians, who predicted 
that the loss of his sight would be the infallible 
result of his labor; and unrestrained by the 
dissuasion of his bad health, which allowed him 
to compose only at intervals and with hourly 
interruptions, he persevered in the duty which 
he had undertaken ; and with .principle strong 
within his heart, and the attraction of glory 

* Symmons' Life, p. 301. 



or JOHN MILTON. 177 

bright before liis view, he produced, earl}^ in 
the year 1651, that noble acquittal of his en- 
gagement to the Council, ' The Defence of (lie 
People of England.^ ^^'^ 

Both the '^DefensioBegia,'''' and the ''Defence 
of the People,''^ were written in Latin. It was 
the purpose of Salmasius to support the despotic 
dogma of the divine right of kings ; to prove 
that in the monarch resides naturally and of 
right the sovereign power, and that the king is 
responsible for his acts to God alone. Milton, 
taking the extreme republican ground, asserted 
with masterly and unanswerable logic the un- 
limited sovereignt}^ of the people. In compre- 
hensive erudition, in profound political wisdom, 
in sublime poetic eloquence, in noble Christian 
sentiment, in terse logical power, in biti'ng sat- 
ire, in mirth-provoking wit, in all those attri- 
butes which make a composition approximate 
perfection, Milton's magnificent defence of the 
Commonwealth stands to this day unrivalled. 

Milton used every art known to his rhetoric 
to interest and attract all classes, knowing well 
the importance in a contest like that, as Boyle 

* Symmons' Life, \)\}. 310, 311. 
8* 



178 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

acutely observes, of "getting the laughers on 
our side." The pointed personalities, the ag- 
gravated censures, which now perhaps form the 
chief blemishes of the "Defence" as read by 
our sober, unprejudiced eyes, were then one of 
the causes of its power and popularity. No 
means of teasing his adversary was omitted. 
The venality and accommodating pliancy of 
opinion which could enable Salmasius, "the 
pensioner of a republic," as Dr. Johnson calls 
him, to prostitute his pen to the defence of 
humbled despotism, is vividly and scathingly 
portrayed by Milton's pencil. He even makes 
the Leyden professor the subject of a spol*tive 
sally in iambics : 

"Who to our English tuned Sahnasius' throat? 
^Mio taught the pye to speak our •\vortls by rote ? 
A hundred golden Jameses* did the feat : 
He learned to prattle, for he wished to eat. 
Let the fidse glare of gold allure his hope ; 
And he whose stormy voice late shook the Pope, 
And threatened antichrist with speedy death, 
Will soothe the conclave with his tuneful breath. " 

Milton laid the foundation of his argument 
broad and strong, rearing thereon a rhetorical 
edifice of singular s^^mmetry and perfection. 

* In allusion to the hundred jacobuses Salmasius received from 
Charles for imdertaking the defence. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 179 

Starting with the assertion of the original 
and unlimited sovereignty of the people, he 
proves that by the laws of God, by those of 
nations, and by the municipal laws of England, 
a king may be impeached, and if found guilty, 
he may be executed. He affirms that in this 
the canons of God exactl}^ agree with the dic- 
tates of nature ; and that it is a settled maxim 
of natural law, unimpeachable and eternal, 
that the people are the source of power, and 
are therefore superior to their servant and 
creature, the king or magistrate. If therefore 
it be asked by what law Charles was put to 
death, the answer is, by that law which God 
established, and which nature sternly enjoins. 
He boldly asserts that whatever is for the 
general good of the state, is for that reason just 
and imperative ; that a people bound by oath 
to the support of a government or prince, are 
discharged of that obligation when government 
becomes destructive of its just ends, or the 
king assumes to plaj^ the tyrant. So circum- 
stanced, the law dispenses with a people's alle- 
giance. These doctrines, he claims, are not 
unique, or new,* but have received the com- 



180 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

mon sanction of mankind, and arc covered with 
the hoar of ages. 

This he proves by copious citations from 
the histor}' of ancient nations. Thus the kings 
of the Jews were subject to the selfsame law 
which controlled the people ; and he traces, 
with masterly erudition, the same principle 
through Egypt, through Persia, through the 
glowing legends of Grecian history to the an- 
nals of the Roman empire. Crossing the sea 
with the Roman conqueror, he shows that the 
principle obtained a fixed lodgment in early 
Britain ; that it maintained itself through the 
Saxon epoch, through the Norman conquest, 
and was incorporated in the English constitu- 
tion by usage and acquiescence; growing 
stronger and more clearly defined as civiliza- 
tion lighted its myriad torches, until it touched 
its climax in the necessary execution of Charles 
Stuart, and the banishment of his outlawed son. 

The argument concludes with this magnif- 
icent address : 

"So far, with God's assistance, have I ac- 
complished my original purpose of defending, 
both at home and abroad, the proud achieve- 



or JOHN MILTON. 181 

merits of my countrymen against tlie insane 
and malignant fury of a frantic sophist; and of 
vindicating — as the enem}^^ not of kings, but 
of tyrants — the general rights of the subject 
from the unjust despotism of the prince. Nor 
have I consciously left unanswered a single 
argument, instance, or evidence, adduced by 
my antagonist, which appeared to possess the 
smallest portion either of strength or conclu- 
siveness ; having rather perhaps inclined to the 
opposite fault, of replying too frequently even 
to his irrelevant and trivial sopliistries, and of 
treating them, as arguments, with a degree of 
attention of which they were undeserving. 

" One thing alone, but perhaps the most 
important, remains: that you also, my coun- 
trymen, should yourselves unite with me in the 
confutation of your enemy; and this, in my 
opinion, can no otherwise be effected than by a 
perpetual effort on your part to rise above his 
calumnies, and to crush them with your vir- 
tues. To your ardent vows and supplications 
the Almighty indulgently listened when, under 
the yoke of double servitude, you sued to him 
for deliverance. You are the first among the 



182 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

nations whom lie luis gloriously rescued from 
the oppression of tyranny and superstition, 
those two mighty evils which are the most 
hostile to the perfection of man. To you, the 
first of the human race, did he impart the mag- 
nanimity to submit to the solemnit}" of a judicial 
trial, and, when found guilty, to punish with a 
just death your vanquished and captive king. 

"After a deed so illustrious, nothing low 
or narrow^ nothing but what is great and ex- 
alted should enter j^our thoughts and actions. 
To this lofty superiority of character you can 
rise onl}' by showing that, as you have quelled 
your enemies in war, so with fortitude equally 
unexampled, without arms, and in profound 
peace, you can subdue ambition and avarice, 
the power of wealth, and the corruption of 
prosperity, which triumph over the rest of 
your species ; and by exhibiting, in the pres- 
ervation of your freedom, a degree of justice, 
temperance, and moderation, proportioned to 
the valor which you evinced in its attainment. 

" B}^ these arguments and evidences alone 
can you satisfactoril}- prove that you are not, 
as your calumniator afiQrms, 'Rebels,' 'Rob- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 183 

bers,' 'Ruffians,' 'Parricides,' and 'Fanatics,' 
and that jou. have not — under the impulse of 
ambition or a wish to plunder, not incited by 
sedition or by depraved passions, not in a par- 
oxj^sm of folly or phrenzy — murdered a king ; 
but that, elevated and kindled with the love of 
libert}^, of religion, of equity, of honor, and of 
your country, you have inflicted punishment 
upon a tja'ant. 

"If however, which God avert, your proj- 
ects and purposes be different; if, notwith- 
standing j-^our signal experience of a Deity so 
propitious to yourselves and so destructive to 
your foes ; after all your bravery in war, you 
are resolved to be corrupt in peace, and unaf- 
fected by the memorable and awful example 
before your eyes, you disdain ' to learn to do 
justice, and to walk humbly with jour Grod,' 
for my part, I must indeed be constrained re- 
luctantly to acknowledge the truth of all these 
infamous charges against you, which are now 
uttered or conceived by the slanderers of your 
fame ; and you will but too quickly feel the 
wrath of the Almighty in a much more power- 
ful deo-ree than it has ever visited vour ene- 



184 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

mics, or tliiiu you yourselves have ever expe- 
rienced, beyond the other nations of modern 
times, his kind, indulgent, and paternal love."* 

"This great display of intellectual poAver 
was received with the plaudit of tlie world; 
and as the author's name was not in any wide 
celebrity out of his own country, the general 
surprise was nearly equal to the general admi- 
ration. Congratulations and acknowledgments 
of respect poured in upon him from every 
quarter, and the scholars of Europe, actuated 
by a similar spirit with the spectators of tlie 
old Olympic games, threw garlands on the con- 
queror of Salmasius. On the publication of 
the ^Defence of the People of England,^ all the 
ambassadors in London, of whom perhaps the 
greater number were from crowned heads, dis- 
covered their sense of its merit hj compliment- 
ing or visiting its author ; and he was gratified 
by letters, replete with praise and with pro- 
fessions of esteem, from foreigners eminent for 
their talents and erudition. "f 

As for Salmasius, already broken in health, 

* Proso Works, Vol. V., p. 194. 
t Symmons' Life, pp. 322, 323. 



or JOHN MILTON. 185 

smote by the "thunder-clasping hand" of the 
mighty Englishman, and having in his intel- 
lectual armory no polemical weapons with 
which to parry the blow, he quitted Leyden 
bitterly chagrined, and repairing to the mineral 
waters of Spa for seclusion and relief, shortly 
after died there. 

No more terrible and utter demolition was 
ever given an opponent than Milton's cruci- 
fying expose. He might say, with stout and 
somewhat cynical old Wither,''' 

' ' I stript abuse from all her colors quite, 
And laid lier ugly face to open sight." 

And again : 

' ' I have my pen so point that, vrhere it traces, 
Each accent doth di'aw blood into their faces." 

Yet he is never exactly vindictive, but 
knows how to be "harsh as truth and uncom- 
promising as justice" when defending against 
hireling assaults and despotic precepts the 
majestic tenets of civil and religious liberty. 

* John Wither, a noted Puritan poet and satirist of that age ; 
bom in 1588, and sometime a major-general in the Parliamentary 
army under Cromwell. 



186 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The hearty applause with which the ''De- 
fence of the EngUsli People" was greeted by 
continental thinkers, was doubly echoed b}^ 
Milton's own grateful and appreciative coun- 
trj'men. The Council of State voted him a 
donation of a thousand pounds from the pub- 
lic treasury, as a testimonial of their sense of 
his service to the Commonwealth.* He had 
besides the gratification to perceive that, while 
the libel of Salmasius "lingered on the vend- 
ers' shelves, or crept languidl}' through a very 
confined circulation," his own immortal work 
passed rapidly through several editions, and 
made him, as Bayle tells us, the conversation 
of the world. Nor did the distinction which 
the " Defence'' enjoyed of being publicl}' burn- 
ed by the common hangman in the squares of 
Paris and Toulouse tend to decrease the de- 
mand for it, or to lessen the fame of its great 
writer. 

• TolantL Symmons, p. 335. 



or JOHN MILTON. 187 

It was at this time, wlien Milton was at the 
zenith of his contemporary fame, that the cele- 
brated Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode 
Island, the faithful friend of religious tolera- 
tion, and the dauntless defender of civil and 
ecclesiastical liberty, dispatched by his loving 
disciples at home on a mission to England, 
contracted that intimate friendship with the 
Latin Secretary of the Council and with the 
younger Yane, the influence of which has been 
so beneficent to either continent. 

Roger Williams reached London some time 
in 1651. Taking a house in the immediate vicin- 
ity of the respective residences of Milton and 
Yane, his mission brought him to their speedy 
notice ; while his republican sentiments, his 
religious fervor, his profound scholarship, and 
his tolerant principles soon secured their re- 
spect, which feeling ere long ripened into the 
most intimate friendship. Domesticated in 
England for some years — he did not return to 
America until 1654 — Roger Williams feked out 
his slender income by receiving, after Milton's 
fashion, a number of pupils. During this time 
the close familiarity in which he lived with 



188 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Milton and with Tanc, is shown by several 
passages in his writings. It appears that he 
even exchanged literary offices with Milton; 
for on his return to Rhode Island, in giving 
his friend Governor Winthrop of Connecticut 
an account of his employments while abroad, he 
uses this language : " It pleased the Lord to call 
me for some time and with some persons to 
practise the Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French, 
and Dutch ; the Secretary of the Council, Mr. 
Milton, for my Dutch I read him, read me 
many more languages.'"* 

Is it possible to overestimate the influence 
of an intimate association of two or three years 
with such master-minds as those of John Mil- 
ton and Sir Henry Yane upon so congenial a 
spirit as that of Roger Williams? May not 
many of those broad, tolerant, and self-sacri- 
ficing principles which distinguished Roger 
Williams' career, have owed their origin to the 
close intimacy and the friendly chat of these 
'three illustrious men in the vigorous days of 
the Endish Commonwealth? 



* See Appleton's " Cyclopsedia ;" also various biographical 
sketches of Roger Williams. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 189 

On the second of May, 1G52, Milton's fam- 
ily was increased by the birth of a fourth child, 
Deborah; whose advent into the world, how- 
ever, cost the life of her mother. Milton seems 
ever after their reconciliation to have lived 
very happily with his wife, and she died re- 
gretted and mourned by him. " He was thus," 
says Dr. Sj^mmons, "left with three orphan 
daughters in domestic solitude, and in a state 
rapidly advancing to blindness. As we have 
seen, his physicians predicted loss of sight as 
the inevitable result of his persistence in the 
compilation of the ^'BefenceT Their prophetic 
declarations were fatally verified : his sight, 
naturally weak, and impaired by long years of 
ceaseless devotion to study and neglect of all 
precautions, had been for many months sensi- 
bly declining; and completely overtasked by 
the labor of this last work, he became, proba- 
bly some time in 1G53, totally blind. 

Leonard Philarus, an Athenian scholar 
who had been enthusiastically attached to 
Milton by the perusal of his ''Defence of the 
English People,^^ and who had even visited 
England for the purpose of making the per- 



190 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sonal acquaintance of the immortal P^nglish- 
man, upon learning Milton's misfortune, wrote 
liim from Paris, urging him to forward a de- 
tailed account of his blindness, which he prom- 
ised to submit to the consideration of 'SI. The- 
venot, then an eminent oculist. In response to 
this request, Milton communicated the follow- 
ing facts, peculiarly interesting and sad : 

"It is now about ten years I think since I 
first perceived my sight to grow weak and dim, 
and at the same time my spleen and other vis- 
cera heav}' and flatulent. When I sate down 
to read as usual of the morning, my eyes gave 
me considerable pain, and refused their oflBcc 
till fortified by moderate exercise of body. 
If I looked at a candle, it appeared surrounded 
with an iris. In a little time a darkness, cov- 
ering the left side of the left eye, which was 
partially clouded some years before the other, 
intercepted the view of all things in that direc- 
tion. Objects also in front seemed to dwindle 
in size whenever I closed my right eye. This 
eye too for three years gradually failing, a 
few months previous to my total blindness, 
while I was perfectly stationary, every thing 



OF JOHN MILTON. 191 

seemed to swim backward and forward; and 
now thick vapors appear to settle on my fore- 
head and temples, which weigh down my lids 
with an oppressive sense of drowsiness, espec- 
ially in the interval between dinner and the 
evening, so as frequently to remind me of Phin- 
eas the Salmydessian, in the Argonautics : 

" 'In darkness swam his brain, and where he stood, 
The steadfast earth seemed rolling as a flood. 
Nerveless his tongue, and, every power oppressed. 
He sank, and languished into torpid rest. ' 

"I ought not however to omit mentioning, 
that, before I wholly lost my sight, as soon as 
I lay down in my bed and turned upon either 
side, brilliant flashes of light used to issue from 
my closed eyes ; and afterwards, upon the 
gradual failure of my powers of vision, colors, 
proportionably dim and faint, seemed to rush 
out with a degree of vehemence, and a kind of 
inward noise. These have now faded into uni- 
form blackness, such as issues on the extinc- 
tion of a candle ; or blackness varied only and 
intermingled with a dunnish grey. The con- 
stant darkness however in which I live day 
and night inclines more to a whitish than to a 
blackish tinge, and the eye, in turning itself 



192 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

round, admits, as tliruugh a narrow chink, a 
very small portion of light. But this, though 
it may perhaps ofTer a similar glimpse of hope 
to tlie physician, docs not prevent me from 
making up ni}' mind to m}- case, as one evi- 
dently beyond the reach of cure ; and I often 
reflect that, as many da3's of darkness, accord- 
ing to the wise man, Eccles. 11:8, are allotted 
to us all, mine, which, by the singular favor of 
the Deity, are divided between leisure and 
study, are recreated by the conversation and 
intercourse of m}' friends, and are far more 
agreeable than those deadly shades of which 
Solomon is speaking. 

"But if, as it is written, 'Man shall not 
live b}^ bread alone, but by every word that 
proceedeth out of the mouth of God,' Matt. 
4 : 4, why should not each of us likewise acqui- 
esce in the reflection that he derives the bene- 
fits of sight not from his eyes alone, but from the 
guidance and providence of the same supreme 
Being. While lie looks out and provides for 
me as he does, and leads me about, as it were, 
with his hand through the paths of life, I will- 
ingly surrender my own faculty of vision in 



OF JOHN MILTON. 193 

conformity with his good pleasure ; and with a 
heart as strong and as steadfast as if I were a 
Lynceus, I bid j^ou, ni}- Philarus, farewell." 

This letter to Philarus was dated at West- 
minster, September 28, 1654, and speaks ol 
the loss of sight as no recent event. Singular- 
ly enough the precise date of Milton's blind- 
ness has never been definitely ascertained, 
thou2:h circumstances seem to indicate that it 
occurred sometime in 1652-3. 

Milton's enemies did not scruple to taunt 
him with his blindness, attributing it to the 
judgment of God upon him for his wicked writ- 
ings. But the calm Christian philosojoh}^, and 
the serene reliance upon the indisputable good- 
ness of the Creator, which peculiarly character- 
ized John Milton's mind, enabled him to bear 
without a murmur, and with pitying disdain, 
the heartless jibes of his relentless foes, from 
whose venomed shafts not even the sacred 
shelter of misfortune could cover him. There 
is nothing in history grander and more sub- 
lime than Milton's uncomplaining and sweet 
acceptance of a calamity which threatened to 
throw him out of the employment of the state, 



19i THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to bliglit all prospect of a further literary 
career, and to lead him in darkness and penury 
to a speedy grave. 

This fortitude, and its source, he admirably 
displays in a touehingly beautiful sonnet ad- 
dressed to his friend Cyriac Skinner, a grand- 
son of that famous lawyer. Lord Coke. 

"TO CYEIAC SKINNER. 
"Cyriac, this thi-ee years day, these eyes, though clear 

To outward ^^cw of blemish or of spot, 

Bereft of light, their seeing have foi^ot ; 
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
Of sun, or moon, or stai-s, throughout the year. 

Or man, or woman : yet I argue not 

Against heaven's hand or yrHl, nor bate a jot 
Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and s-teer 

Eight onward. "VMiat supports me, dost thou ask ?- 
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overphed 

In Liberty's defence, my noble task. 
Of which all Eurojie rings from side to side ; 

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

• When Milton came, a little later, to notice 
the slurs cast upon his loss of sight, he made 
it evident that he deliberately and serenely 
chose blindness and speech, rather than silence 
with sight. Actuated by the old martyr spirit, 
he tore out his eyes, in no metaphorical sense, 
and laid them upon the altar of slandered and 
outraged liberty. 



or JOHN MILTON. 195 

He says, " When the task of repljing to 
the 'Defence of the Kincf was publicly com- 
mitted to me at a time when I had to contend 
with ill-health, and when one of my eyes being 
nearly lost, my phj^sicians clearly predicted 
that, if I undertook the laborious work, I 
should soon be deprived both of one and the 
other ; undeterred by the warning, I seemed 
to hear a voice, not of a physician, nor issuing 
from the shrine of Epidaurian Esculapius, but 
of some internal and divine monitor; and con- 
ceiving that, by some fatal decree, the alterna- 
tive of two lots was proposed to me, that I 
must either lose my sight, or must desert a high 
duty, the two destinies occurred to me which 
the son of Thetis reports to have been submit- 
ted to him by his mother from the oracle of 
Delphi: 

" 'For, as the goddess spoke who gave me birth, 
Two fates attend me while I live on earth. 

If fixed, I combat by the Trojan wall, 

Deathless my fame, but certain is my fall ; 

If I return — beneath my native sky 

My days shall flourish long — my glory die.' 

"Eeflecting therefore with myself, that 
man}" had purchased less good with greater evil, 
and had even paid life as the price of glor}', 



196 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

while to mc the greater good was offered at 
the expense of tlie less evil ; that only by in- 
curring blindness I might satisfy the demand 
of the most honorable duty; and that glory 
even by itself ought universally to be regard- 
ed as of all human possessions the most cer- 
tain, the most desirable, and the most worthy 
of our esteem, I determined to dedicate the 
short enjoyment of my eyesight, with as much 
effect as I could, to the public advantage. 

" You see then what I have preferred, what 
I have lost, what motives influenced my con- 
duct. Let my slanderers therefore desist from 
their calumnies, nor make me the subject of 
their visionary and dreaming fancies. Let 
them know that I am far from regretting my 
lot, or from repenting of my choice ; let them 
be assured that my mind and m}' opinions are 
immovably the same ; that I am neither con- 
scious of the anger of God, nor believe that I 
am exposed to it; but, on the contrar}^ that 
I have experienced in the most momentous 
events of my life, and am still sensible of, his 
mercy and paternal kindness.'"''' 

* Defensio Secunda, Prose Works, Vol. V., p. 216. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 197 

This beautiful sonnet exhibits still farther 
the patient and Christian spirit of Milton, and 
shows that the principles of religious faith en- 
abled him to triumph gloriously over the afflic- 
tions of the fleshly tabernacle, and " filled him 
with joy and peace in believing." 

«'0N MY BLINDNESS. 

"When I consider how my life is spent 

Ere half my daj's, in this dark world and wide, 
And that one taleut which is death to hide 
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest he returning chide, 
' Doth God exact day labor, UgJit denied ?' 
I fondly ask ; but patience, to prevent 
That murmur, soon replies, ' God doth not need 
Either man's works, or his ovsti gift ; who best 
Bears his mild yoke, they serve him best : his state 
Is kingly ; thoiisands at his bidding speed. 

And post o'er land and ocean withoiit rest : 
They also serve who only stand and wait. ' " 

"Equally unascertained with that of his 
blindness,'' says Dr. Symmons, "is the precise 
date of his second marriage, which took place, 
as we are informed, about two years after his 
entire loss of sight. The lady whom he chose 
on this occasion was Catharine, the daughter 
of a Captain Woodcock of Hackney. She seems 
to have been the object of her husband's fond- 



198 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

est affection ; and dying, like her predecessor, 
in childbed, within a year after her marriage, 
she was lamented by him in a pleasing and 
pathetic sonnet." The daughter born to him 
at this time lingered but a few days, before fol- 
lowing her mother to the tomb. 

Inlirm, blind, and a widower for the second 
time, surely Milton needed all his faith in a 
Providence overruling all things for the best, 
to enable his chastened lips to say, " Not my 
will. Father, but thine be done." 






OF JOHN MILTON. 199 



CHAPTER XIY. 

During the whole jDeriocl of domestic mis- 
fortune narrated in the preceding chapter, 
Milton's pen was employed as vigorously and 
as efifectiyely as ever, in the defence and elu- 
cidation of the principles of religion and just 
government. 

Two answers to the ''Defence of the People 
of England "' ere long appeared. The first was 
weakly though venomously written, and Mil- 
ton, not deigning to notice it, turned it over to 
the youthful pen of his nephew, Phillips, then 
scarce twenty years old. The other was 
published at the Hague in 1652, and was en- 
titled, ''The Cry of Royal Blood to Heaven 
against the Unglish Parricides.''^ In reply to 
this work, which was ably written, though full 
of ribald falsehood, Milton himself, urged there- 
to by the Council of State, drew his trenchant 
pen. 

Accordingly in 1654 appeared "A Second 
Defence of the Peojple of England,''^ which has 



200 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

been prououneed the iiKist inlere.^liiig if not 
the most striking of his prose compositions.* 

The "Second Defence" is mainly of inter- 
est now on account of the fact that it contains 
many personal details concerning the habits, 
appearance, and purposes of its author, and 
also because of several valuable pen portraits 
of Milton's prominent republican and other 
friends and associates. 

In order clearly to understand the several 
passages which we give from this "Defence," 
it will be necessary to direct our attention once 
more to the political condition of Great Britain 
at this momentous conjuncture. 

It will be remembered that that portion of 
the Long Parliament which had survived the 
military invasion of 1648, and which has re- 
ceived in history the name of the "Rump" 
Parliament, had, after the execution of the 
king, new-modelled and rcpublicanized the 
government. Under the Parliament and the 
Council of State, of which Milton was secreta- 
ry, the conduct of public affairs had been ener- 
getic, able, and cflcctive. Many of the political 

• Symmous' Life, p. 353. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 201 

acts of that unique administration had display- 
ed profound sagacity, and high statesmanship. 
The famous navigation act, which contributed 
so essentially to the naval supremacy of Great 
Britain then and ever after, was the offspring 
of its wisdom. The exchequer had been kept 
fully supplied. The entire civil establishment 
had, for the first time in several decades, been 
liberally and handsomely kept up; so that 
from the revenues of the state the various pub- 
lic officers and the army could be paid readily 
and promptly according to their several merits. 
It had moreover compelled the unhesitating 
respect of Continental Europe. 

Had the government been as careful to 
conciliate that public opinion at home upon 
which it professed to rest, as it was to preserve 
its dignity and high character, how different 
might have been the history of "the fast-an- 
chored island." 

Many of the domestic measures of the new 
administration had been exceedingly arbitrary 
and reprehensible. It had tampered with the 
jurisprudential system quite as offensivel}^ as 
had the Stuarts beforetime. High courts of 

9* 



202 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

justice of the nature of the Star Chamber had 
been repeatedly cstablislicd, and that palladium 
of popular rights, the jury trial, so dear to every 
English heart, and so justl}' eulogized by a long 
and illustrious line of lawyers and statesmen, 
from Coke and Bacon to Soraers and ^lans- 
field, had been dispensed with. The victims 
of these irresponsible tribunals, and their 
friends, made the island echo with their pro- 
tests; while the government, disregarding in 
its tenacious grasp of power the fundamental 
principle upon which it was based, and from 
which it drew its very breath — popular sover- 
eignty' — laid open its inconsistency and greedy 
ambition to the easy and inevitable observa- 
tion of the masses. The consequence of all 
this was that the Parliament became generally 
odious. 

But while the pojnilar assembh' was thus 
declining in the estimation of the people, the 
army, and especially its victorious and re- 
markable commander-in-chief, acquired a pro- 
portionate ascendency in the national favor. 
The conduct of the army, and of its leaders, 
had been quite as despotic and reprehensible, 



or JOHN MILTON. 203 

to say the least, and that too without the cover 
of necessity or authority, as that of the Parlia- 
ment. But prejudice knows no reason, and the 
people, discontented and harassed, did not stop 
to philosophize, but clamored ominousl}'' for a 
reform. 

For the inauguration of the new regime they 
looked to Oliver Cromwell, then decorated 
with the almost imperial title of Captain-Gen- 
eral, and the idol alike of the army and of the 
populace. The early and lamented death of 
the accomplished and high-minded Hampden, 
the resignation of Fairfax, the sudden death 
of that stern and inflexible republican, and 
popular and potent leader, Ireton,'" had de- 
prived the nation of many of those leaders 
upon whom it had been wont to rely, while at 
the same time these circumstances had served 
to render the popularity of the grandest chief 
of them all, Cromwell, all but limitless. To 
him therefore the nation appealed in this 
crisis. 

Returning flushed with success from the 
splendid triumphs of Dunbar and Worcester, 

• Ireton died at Limerick, Ireland, of the plagiie, iu Nov. 1651. 



204 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

where the royal cause, which the outlawed 
prince had sought to prop up by foreign inva- 
sion, had again and hopelessly fallen before the 
genius and the trenchant blade of the Captain- 
General, his ears were instantly filled with 
the popular grievances. "Wielding the army 
in his right hand and holding the people in his 
left, Cromwell now determined to remould the 
state. 

Whether he was urged to what is called 
his usurpation l)y hypocritical and impious 
ambition, or by honest and patriotic zeal for 
the welfare of the Commonwealth, is matter of 
mere idle speculation. He is to be judged by 
his acts, not by his secret impulses. Only the 
great Searcher of all hearts is competent to let 
the plummet down into Cromwell's soul and 
to disclose his motives. 

And this is what he did: the "Rump" 
Parliament was dismissed ; a new legislature 
was elected by Cromwell's own authority. 
After a brief and inefQcient existence of but a 
few months, this puny Parliament, which was 
called, from one of its leading members, a 
leather-seller of Fleet-street, "Barebone's Par- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 205 

liament," was also rather roughly sent from the 
Council-chamber; and a board of officers as- 
sumed the authority, acting professedly for the 
nation, to appoint Cromwell to the supreme 
control, with the title of "Lord Protector of 
the Commonwealth of England." At the same 
time provision was made for the triennial con- 
vocation of a Parliament in whose constitution 
the popular element was a decided feature. 

Into this high office the Lord Protector was 
installed, amid much enthusiasm and with mag- 
nificent ceremonies, on the 16th of December, 
1653. 

History has of course branded this whole 
procedure as, in a technical sense, illegal ; but 
remembering the distraction of the times, the 
foundations of the great political deep broken 
up, anarchy running mad and raving through 
the aff'righted streets, all generous and libert}-- 
loving souls will find palliation for Cromwell's 
"usurpation," which gave> England a stable 
government, needed rest, and rational freedom, 
during the remainder of the great Protector's 
life. 

With this new government Milton at once 



206 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

fell in, because "he confidently hoped," says 
Toland, " that Cromwell would employ his 
power and trust to extinguish the numerous 
factions in the state, and to settle a perfect 
form of free government, wherein no single 
person should enjoy any power above or be- 
side the laws." 

The Latin Secretaryship was continued 
under the Protectorate, with Milton still at its 
head, he being allowed to have, on account of 
his blindness, an assistant, one Andrew Mar- 
vell, a person of learning and real worth, be- 
sides being a devoted friend of the famous Sec- 
retary. Milton's salary continued to be 'two 
hundred pounds a year, as before. 

It is very certain that Milton warmly ad- 
mired Cromwell's genius and character. The 
Protector was a sincere friend of complete re- 
ligious toleration, not, as is too often the case, 
from carelessness or lukewarmness — for surely 
no man ever had rftore decided religious opin- 
ions than Oliver Cromwell — but from a firm 
belief in the justice of the principle. Here at 
the outset a chord of sympathy was established 
between these two celebrated men ; and when, 



OF JOHN MILTON. 207 

shortly after his assumption of sovereign power, 
Cromwell proclaimed religious toleration, Mil- 
ton addressed to him this expressive and justly 
eulogistic sonnet: 

"Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud 
Not of war only, but distractions rude. 
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 

To peace and truth thy glorious way hath ploughed, 
And fought God's battles, and his work pursued, 
■WTiile Darwent streams, with blood of Scots imbiied, 
And Dunbar's field resounds thy praises loud, 

And "Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains 
To conquer still ; peace has her victories 
No less than those of war. New foes arise. 

Threatening to bind our souls in secular chains : 
Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves, whose gosj^el is their maw. " 

It was, as before stated, in the year 1654 
that the ''Second Defence of the English Peo- 
j9/6" was published, and consequently but a 
few months after the commencement of Crom- 
well's Protectorate. It is in this work, writ- 
ten under the circumstances just described, 
that Milton's portrait and eulogy of the Lord 
Protector appear. This apostrophe, though 
highly laudatory, is singularly free from flat- 
tery or sycophancy, and betrays the erect and 
austerely independent spirit which made John 
Milton in many respects a model citizen. 



208 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Milton thus expresses his approbation of 
Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Parliament: 

" When 3'ou saw them studious only of de- 
lay, and perceived each one more attentive to 
private advantage than public welfare; when 
3'ou found the nation lamenting over their de- 
luded hopes, which were successively baffled 
and disappointed by the power of a few, you 
at length did that which they had been fre- 
quently warned and instructed to do, and put 
an end to their sittings." 

He bears this witness to Cromwell's relig- 
ious character : "Such was the discipline of his 
mind, moulded not merely to military subor- 
dination, but to precepts of Christianity, sanc- 
tity, and sobriety, that all the good and val- 
iant were irresistibly drawn to his camp, not 
only as to the best school of martial science, 
but also of piety and religion ; and those who 
joined it were necessarily rendered such by 
his example." 

Milton next proceeds animatedl}' and strik- 
ingly to group the remarkable events which 
had sprinkled Cromwell's path with the stars 
of glory since his appointment to the Captain- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 209 

generalship of the army. He enumerates the 
complete reconquest of Ireland, the definitive 
subjugation of Scotland, the great and crown- 
ing victory at Worcester, the dissolution of the 
Long Parliament, the meeting and subsequent 
abdication of the "Barebone's" Parliament. 
He pictures the deserted Commonwealth as 
leaning on the single arm of the Protector, 
who, " by that best of rights, acknowledged by 
reason and given by God, the right of superior 
talents and virtue, is in possession of the su- 
preme power." Then resting from his mas- 
terly resume^ he speaks of Cromwell's magnan- 
imous rejection of the title of king, which had 
been pressed upon him, and adds this pane- 
gyric : 

"Proceed then, Oh Cromwell, and exhibit, 
under every circumstance, the same loftiness 
of mind ; for it well becomes you, and is con- 
sistent with your greatness. The redeemer, 
as you are, of your country, the author, the 
guardian, the preserver of her liberty, you can 
assume no additional character more important 
or more auo-ust; since not onlv the actions of 
our kings, but the fabled exploits of our heroes 



210 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

are overcome by your aclncvements. Reflect 
then frequently — liow dear alike the trust, and 
the Parent from whom you received it — that 
to your hands your country has commended 
and confided her freedom ; that what she late- 
ly expected from her choicest representatives, 
she now hopes only from you. Oh reverence 
this high confidence, this hope of your coun- 
try, relying exclusively upon yourself: rever- 
ence the countenances and the wounds of those 
brave men who have so nobly struggled for 
liberty under your auspices, as well as the 
manes of those who have fallen in the conflict : 
reverence also the opinion and the discourse of 
foreign communities; their lofty anticipation 
with respect to our freedom so valiantly ob- 
tained, to our republic so gloriously establish- 
ed, of which the speedy extinction would in- 
volve us in the deepest and the most unexam- 
pled infamy: reverence, finally, yourself; and 
suffer not that liberty, for the attainment of 
which you have endured so manj^ hardships, 
to sustain any violation from your hands, or 
any from those of others. Without our free- 
dom, in fact, you cannot yourself be free ; for 



OF JOHN MILTON. 211 

it is justly ordained by nature, that he who in- 
vades the liberty of others, shall, in the very 
outset, lose his own, and be the first to feel 
that servitude which he has induced. But if 
the very patron, the tutelary deity as it were, 
of freedom — if the man the most eminent for 
justice and sanctity, and general excellence, 
should assail that liberty which he has asserted, 
the issue must necessarily be pernicious, if not 
fatal, not only to the aggressor, but to the en- 
tire sj^stem and interests of piety herself: honor 
and virtue would, indeed, appear to be empty 
names; the credit and character of religion 
would decline and perish, under a wound more 
deep than any which, since the first transgres- 
sion, has been inflicted on the race of man. 

" You have engaged in a most arduous un- 
dertaking, which will search you to the quick ; 
which will scrutinize you through and through ; 
which will bring to the severest trial your 
spirit, your energy, your stability ; which will 
ascertain whether you are really actuated by 
that living piety and honor and equity and 
moderation, which seem, b}' the favor of God, 
to have raised you to your present high dignity. 



212 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

"To rule with your counsels throe mighty 
realms; in the place of their erroneous institu- 
tions to substitute a sounder sj'stem of doctrine 
and of discipline; to pervade their remotest 
provinces with unremitting attention and anx- 
iety, vigilance and foresight ; to decline no la- 
bors, to jield to no blandishments of pleasure, 
to spurn the pageantries of wealth and of pow- 
er — these are difficulties in comparison with 
which those of war are mere levities of plaj^; 
these will sift and winnow you ; these demand 
a man sustained by the divine assistance — tu- 
tored and instructed almost by a personal com- 
munication with his God. 

" These and more than these you often, as I 
doubt not, revolve and make the subjects of your 
deepest meditation, grcatlj^ solicitous how, most 
happil}', they maybe achieved, and your coun- 
try's freedom be strengthened and secured: 
and these objects you cannot, in my judgment, 
otherwise effect than b}' admitting, as jou. do, 
to an intimate share in your counsels, those 
men who have alread}' participated your toils 
and dangers — men of the utmost moderation, 
integrity, and valor ; not rendered savage or 



OF JOHN MILTON. 213 

austere by the sight of so much bloodshed and 
of so many forms of death ; but inclined to 
justice, to a reverence of the Deit}", to a sym- 
pathy with human sufferings, and animated, for 
the preservation of iibert}^, with a zeal strength- 
ened by the hazards which, for its sake, they 
have encountered — men not raked together 
from the dregs of our own or of a foreign pop- 
ulation, not a band of mercenary adventurers, 
but men chiefly of superior condition; in ex- 
traction noble or reputable; with respect to 
property considerable or competent, or, in some 
instances, deriving a stronger claim to our re- 
gard even from their poverty itself — men not 
convened by the lust of plunder, but, in times 
of extreme difficulty, amid circumstances gen- 
erally doubtful, and often almost desperate, 
excited to vindicate their country from op- 
pression ; and prompt, not only in the safe- 
ty of the senate-house to wage the war of 
words, but to join battle with the enemy on 
the field. 

"If we will then renounce the idleness of 
never-ending and fallacious expectation, I see 
not in whom, if not in such as these, we can 



214 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

])lace reliance and trnst. Of their fidklity we 
have the surest and most indisputable proof, in 
the readiness which they have discovered even 
to die, if it had been their lot, in the cause of 
their country; of their piety, in the devotion 
with which, having repeatedl}' and successfully 
implored the protection of heaven, they uni- 
formly ascribed the glory to Him from whom 
they had solicited the victory ; of their justice, 
in their not exempting even their king from 
trial or from execution ; of their moderation, 
in our own experience, and in the certainty 
that if their violence should disturb the peace 
which they have established, they would them- 
selves be the first to feel the resulting mis- 
chiefs, themselves would receive the first 
wounds in their own bodies, while they were 
again doomed to struggle for all their fortunes 
and honors now happily secured ; of their for- 
titude, lastly, in that none ever recovered 
their liberty with more bravery or eflfect, to 
give us the assurance that none will ever watch 
over it with more solicitous attention and 
care."* 

* Prose Works, Vol. V., p. 259. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 215 

Milton closed the "Second Defence" Avith 
this dignified and pathetic address : 

"For myself, whatever may be the final 
result, such efforts as in my judgment were 
the most likely to be beneficial to the Common- 
wealth I have made without reluctance, though 
not, as I trust, without effect. I have wielded 
my weapons for liberty not only in our domes- 
tic scene, but on a far more extensive theatre, 
that the justice and the principle of our extra- 
ordinarj^ actions, explained and vindicated both 
at home and abroad, and rooted in the general 
approbation of the good, might be unquestion- 
ably established, as well for the honor of my 
compatriots as for precedents to posterity. 

"That the conclusion prove not unworthy 
of such a commencement, be it my country- 
men's to provide; it has been mine to deliver 
a testimony, I had almost said to erect a mon- 
ument, which will not soon deca}^, to deeds of 
greatness and of glory almost transcending hu- 
man panegyric. And if I have accomplished 
nothing further, I have assuredly discharged 
the whole of my engagement. 

"As a bard however who is denominated 



216 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

epic, if he conriiic liis work a little within cer- 
tain canons of composition, proposes to himself, 
for a subject of poetical embellishment, not the 
whole life of his hero, but some single action, 
such as the wrath of Achilles, the return of 
Ul^^sses, or the arrival in Italy of ^neas, and 
takes no notice of the rest of his conduct ; so 
will it suffice either to form my vindication or 
to satisfy my duty, that I have recorded in 
heroic narrative one only of my fellow-citi- 
zen's achievements. The rest I omit; for who 
can declare all the actions of an entire people? 
"If, after such valiant exploits, you fall 
into gross delinquency, and perpetrate any 
thing unworthy of j'ourselves, posterity will 
not fail to discuss and to pronounce sentence 
on the disgraceful deed. The foundation they 
will allow indeed to have been firmly laid, and 
the first — na}', more than the first — parts of the 
superstructure to have been erected with suc- 
cess, but with anguish they will regret that 
there were none found to carry it forward to 
completion; that such an enterprise and such 
virtues were not crowned with perseverance; 
that a rich harvest of glory and abundant ma- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 217 

terials for heroic achievement were prepared, 
bnt that men were wanting to the illnstrious 
opportiinit}^, while there wanted not a man to 
instruct, to urge, to stimulate to action — a man 
who could Call fame as well upon the acts as 
the actors, and could spread their names over 
lands and seas to the admiration of all future 
ages."* 

The effect produced b}" the publication of 
the "Second Defence" was profound. The 
presses employed in its issue could not keep 
pace with the popular demand for it, and it 
served to raise John Milton still higher, if 
that were possible, in the estimation of the 
republicans and the scholars of that epoch. 

Milton's friend and assistant, Andrew Mar- 
vcll, presented a copy of the work to the Lord 
Protector, with the compliments of the author. 

Terribly galled by the crushing force and 
sarcasm of Milton's "Second Defence," Alex- 
ander Morus, w^ho had been mistaken by the 
great Englishman for the author of the pamph- 
let to which his work was an answer, f ven- 

* Prose W^orks, Vol. V., p. 2G6. 

\ The real author was a Frencliman named Dii Moulin, ■who, 

Jlllton. 10 



218 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

turcd to piiblisli a book which he called " Fides 
Piiblica,'- or Public Faith. Milton rejoined by 
writing his '' Defencio Pro,'' or defence of him- 
self, in which he handled his unfortunate ad- 
versary with the most extreme severity. This 
was published in 1655. Apparently in the 
same year, Morus printed a '' SuppJemenhan" 
which was speedil}' silenced by a brief "i?e- 
sponsio''' from Milton, in which poor Morus 
was again so riddled and ridiculed that he 
gladl}' retired into obscurity, leaving Milton 
in undisputed possession of the field. Thus 
closed a long and bitter controvers}', in which 
Milton had fairly earned, and then wore by 
general consent, the proud title of "the peo- 
ple's champion and conqueror.'' 

fearful of exposing his own head to ililton's literary hatchet, per- 
Biiaded More, or ilorus, in an luihapjiy moment, to publish and 
father it. 



OF JOHN MILTON 219 



CHAPTER XV. 

At the conclusion of the famous controver- 
sy with Salmasius, and of those collateral ones 
which had grown out of that central literary 
combat, Milton for a time laid aside his polem- 
ical pen, and devoted himself to his private 
studies and the duties of his office. He does 
not appear to have been very frequent in his 
attendance upon the government. This is 
shown by an extract from a letter of his to a 
young friend who had solicited his influence in 
obtaining the office of secretary to the English 
ambassador in Holland : " I am grieved that it 
is not in my power to serve you on this point, 
inasmuch as I have very few familiarities with 
the gratiosi of the court, who keep myself al- 
most wholly at home, and am willing to do so." 

His absence from the public councils was 
owing to no political dissatisfaction, but to his 
blindness and ill-health. His good friend and 
assistant, Andrew Marvell,* probably perform- 

* Andre-w Marvell was born in 1620, in the town of Hull, where 
his father was settled as vicar. He was early distingiiished for his 



220 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ed the routine duties of the secretaryship, Mil- 
ton being consulted only in regard to the more 
important foreign questions and imbroglios. 
Although he was thus eased of the more oner- 
ous burdens of his office, his diplomatic pen 
was still kept quite busy. In 1055 he wrote 
the elegant and forcible manifesto issued by 
the Protector in justification of his war with 
Spain. In this same year he published, under 
the title of ''The Cabinet Council," Sir Walter 
Raleigh's manuscript of aphorisms on the art 
of government. A little previous to the pro- 
duction of these compositions, he addressed 

talents aud aj^petite for learning, being sent at the early age of 
thirteen to Cambridge University. Possessed of ample fortune, he 
made a toiir of the Continent, tivn-jing some time at Constantinople 
in the capacity of Secretary to the British embassy at the Turkish 
court. Ardently wedded to the libcnd and Puritan party, shortly 
after his return to England, he attached himself to the fortunes of 
Cromwell, by whom he was, in KioT, associated with ^klilton in the 
Latin secretfiryship. In the Parliament summoned just before the 
Kestoration, he represented his native town, and though not sin- 
gularly eloquent, he played in its debates aud plans a prominent 
part. Learned, moral, and sedate, he preserved through his life 
the respect of the court partj', and the aflection of his friends. 
Himself no inconsiderable author, his various writings were then 
highly esteemed and eagerly sought. His pen was on more than 
one occasion wielded in the defence of his immortal friend, John 
Milton. He died in 1078, in his fifty-eighth year. As he was ap- 
parently in vigorous health at the time of his decease, his death 
was attributed to the effect of poison. 

niCO. BHIT., ARTICLE, "MARVELL.* 



OF JOHN MILTON. 221 

some eulogistic verses to the eccentric Chris- 
tiana, queen of Sweden, sending them in the 
name of Cromwell. 

Milton now spent most of his leisure hours 
in the prosecution of three literar}^ projects : 
the composition of his history of England, of 
which mention has been already made, the 
compilation of a Latin dictionary, which he 
left in too undigested a state for publication, 
though the materials which he accumulated 
were advantageously employed by the editors 
of the Cambridge dictionary in later years,* 
and in the perfection of the plan and the lay- 
ing of the groundwork of his immortal epic. 
"Some great production in the highest region 
of poetry had been, as we have observed, in 
his contemplation from the commencement 
nearly of his literary life. The idea accompa- 
nied him to Italy, where, with a more defined 
object, it acquired a more certain shape from 
the example of Tasso, and the conversation of 
Tasso's friend, the accomplished Marquis of 
Villa. From this moment it seems to have been 
immovably fastened in his mind; and though 

• Symmons' Life, pp. 403, 404. Todd's Life, p. 97. 



222 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

for a season oppressed and overwhelmed by the 
incumbent duties of controversy, its root was 
full of life and })regnant with stately vegeta- 
tion. At the time of which we are speaking, 
the end of 1653 and the beginning of 1654, 
the mighty work, according to Phillips, was 
seriously undertaken ; and it is curious to re- 
flect on the steadiness of its growth under a 
complication of adverse circumstances ; and to 
see it, like a pine on the rocks of Norway, as- 
cending to its majestic elevation beneath the 
inclemency of a dreary sky, and assailed in 
the same moment by the fury of the ocean at 
its feet and the power of the tempest above its 
bead."''' 

It may also be noticed as a proof of Mil- 
ton's indefatigable studiousness, that he had 
collected all the important state papers from 
the death of the king to the year 1658 — prob- 
ably with a view to render them easily ac- 
cessible to the future historian of his times. f 
These rested in manuscript form until 1743, 
when they were published under the title of 
" Original Letters and Pajiers of State, address- 

* Symmons' Life, pp. 404, 405. t Todd's Life, p. 97. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 223 

ed to Oliver Cromwell, concerning the Affairs of 
Great Britain, from the year 1649 to 1658. 
Found among the Political Collections of Mr. 
John Milton, now first published from the origi- 
nals, hy John Nicholls, Jr., memher of the Socie- 
ty of Antiquarians, London^ This collection 
is singularly interesting, as read by the eyes 
of this generation, and abounds in curious 
data, anecdotal, historical, and biographical, 
together with several addresses to, and por- 
traits of, the prominent supporters of what 
Milton fondly calls, :77ie good old cause'f^ 

It was in 1654 that Cromwell raised him- 
self and the Commonwealth to the highest pin- 
nacle of earthly honor, by his famous interven- 
tion in behalf of menaced Protestantism on the 
Continent. As Milton was the mouth of the 
Lord Protector on this occasion, a sketch of 
Cromwell's noble zeal, its cause and result, 
will come legitimately within the purview of 
the great Secretary's life. 

"The Duke of Savoy," saj^s the author of 
the Critical History of England, "raised a 
new persecution of the Yaudois, massacring 

* See Iklilton's Prose Works, ed. 1698, Vol. II., p. 797. 



224 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

man}', and driving the rest from their lial)ita- 
tions. Wherefore Cromwell sent to the Fi-ench 
court, demanding of them to oblige that duke, 
(of Alva,) whom he knew to he in their power, 
to put a stop to his unjust fury, or otherwise 
he must break with them. The cardinal, Ma- 
zarini, objected to this as unreasonable. lie 
would do good offices, he said, but could not 
answer for the effects. However, nothing 
would satisfy the Protector till they obliged 
the duke to restore all he had taken from his 
Protestant subjects, and to renew their former 
privileges. 

" Cromwell wrote* on this occasion to the 
Duke of Alva himself, and by mistake omit- 
ted the title of 'Royal Highness' on his let- 
ter ; upon which the major part of the Council 
of Savoy were for returning it unopened; but 
one, representing that Cromwell would not 
pass by such an affront, but would certainly 
lay Yilla Franca in ashes, and set the Swiss 
cantons upon Savoy, with Cardinal Mazarini's 
influence, had the desired effect. The Pro- 
tector also raised money in England for the 

• Through Milton. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 225 

poor sufferers, and sent an agent over to settle 
their afifairs.'' 

This picture makes the blood tingle in our 
veins, as we recall the paltry and selfish part 
which England had stooped to play in tlie 
Titanic religious wars of Continental Europe 
during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and 
Charles. Cromwell and the Puritans were 
made of sterner stuff. Not satisfied with hav- 
ing achieved freedom and toleration for them- 
selves at home, thej^ were also zealous to be- 
stow the same beneficent boon upon suffering 
mankind, and woe betide the despot or the 
priest who ventured to rattle a secular or relig- 
ious chain within the hearing of the Puritan 
government of England in the iron daj^s of the 
Commonwealth. 

Sir Samuel Morland, the English ambassa- 
dor who was dispatched to Piedmont by the 
Lord Protector, carried with him a contribu- 
tion amounting to thirt}— eight thousand two 
hundred forty-one pounds sterling, or about 
two hundred thousand dollars, which had been 
specially takefl up for the Vaudois in the 
churches of G-reat Britain. Cromwell himself 

10* 



226 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

headed the subscription with £2,000, or ten 
thousand dollars.* 

Morland afterwards published a history of 
the crusade against the Yaudois, which the 
Protector's noble intervention had stopped, 
and illustrated his narrative with engravings 
of some of the most revolting and barbarous 
scenes wdiich ever harrowed the human heart. 
Upon these representations Milton founded his 
inimitable sonnet entitled, 

"OX THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 

'Avenge, Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bonea 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 
Even them who kept thy faith so pure of old, 
When nil our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, 
Forget not ; in thy book record their groans 
WTio were thy sheej), and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the It<ilian fields, where still doth grow 
A hundred fold, who, ha\'ing learned thy way. 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe." 

In speaking of the compassion and zeal of 
Cromwell upon this occasion, Morland says, 
"Having upon his spirit a deep sense of their 

• Morland's History of the Evang. Churches in the Valley of 
Piedmont, 1658, pp. 584-593. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 227 

calamities, which were occasioned by their 
faithful adherence to the profession of the re- 
formed religion, he was pleased not only to 
mediate by most pathetic letters on their behalf 
to the King of France and Duke of Savoy, but 
did also seriouslj^ invite the people of England 
to seek the Lord by prayer and humiliation, in 
reference to their thus sad condition and future 
life.'"* 

These "pathetic letters" to the King of 
France and the Duke of Savoy, together with 
others of similar spirit and purpose addressed 
to the various European governments. Catholic 
and Protestant, in protest against the Yaudois 
crusade, emanated from the brain of Milton, if 
they were not written by his hand. He there- 
fore partakes of the high honor of rescuing the 
unhappy Yaudois, whose smiling valleys had 
been twice harried, from the fangs of the Ro- 
man see. 

Of "the notable effects of the intercession 
of His Highness for the poor distressed Prot- 
estants of the valleys of Piedmont upon the 
spirits of the neighboring princes and states of 

* Morland's History, p. 585. 



228 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the Protestant profession,"* Morland assures 
us in his history of that tragic episode. 

B}' their spirited and efficacious interven- 
tion, both Cromwell and Milton wove for them- 
selves garlands of imperishable honor; while 
libert}' stands by approvingly' through the mist 
of ages, and shouts, " Amen. AVcll done, good 
and faithful servants." 

• Morland's History, p. 597. 



Note. Those who may choose to study this intercession at 
large, together with Milton's letters to the Continental jjowei-s, wiU 
find the necessarj' data in Milton's state papers, mentioned in the 
above chapter, or in Ivimey's Life of Milton, or in the singularly 
complete life of the Latin Secretary lately ^v^itten by David- Mas- 
son, and i^ubUshed in Boston in 1859. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 229 



CHAPTER XYI. 

In September of 1658, after a reign of sin- 
gular firmness and ability, during which the 
English Commonwealth had led and shaped 
European politics, the remarkable, checkered, 
yet, upon the whole, beneficent career of Oli- 
ver Cromwell, the mighty Lord Protector, was 
closed by his sickness and death. 

Instantly the heterogeneous elements which 
had been moulded into apparent homogeneity 
by the strategic and powerful hand of Crom- 
well, began to ferment; and the nation soon 
learned to regret the loss of one whose vigor- 
ous authority had repressed those fatal confu- 
sions to which they now fell a prey. 

Richard Cromwell, the son of the Protec- 
tor, who had assumed the Protectorate upon 
the death of his father, appalled by the stormy 
atmosphere of the time, and keenly aware of 
his inability to control the hour, after an inef- 
ficient reign of nine months, laid down his 
sceptre, and retired into that obscurity which 
he was best fitted to adorn. 



230 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Meantime the anarchy into which tlie na- 
tion IkuI la})sccl coiitiniKMl to increase. The 
council of officers, headed by Desborongli and 
Fleetwood, upon the abdication of Richard 
Cromwell, summoned the relics of the famous 
Long Parliament, which still legally' existed, 
having never been prorogued by a competent 
authority, to reassume the guidance of the 
Commonwealth. 

The Parliament convened upon this invi- 
tation, and displaying its old-time energy and 
executive talent, speed ilj^ excited the jealous}' 
of the tyrannical army, which erelong once 
more forcibly ended its sittings. 

The Presbyterians, discontented since the 
triumph of the Independents, instead of at- 
tempting to smother the flames of confusion, 
fanned the fire, and openl}' united themselves 
with the Royalists. 

It was at this alarming crisis that Milton, 
drawn once more from his retirement by the 
voice of patriotism, addressed to the Parlia- 
ment two treatises, one called "J. Treatise of 
the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical flatter s,^' which 
he wrote because of his apprehension of re- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 231 

turning intolerance from the increasing influ- 
ence of the Presbj'terians ; the other was of 
somewhat similar scope and purpose, " Consid- 
erations Touching the Likeliest Means to Remove 
Hirelings out of the Church,^^ in which he argued 
with masterly and incontrovertible power for 
the complete separation and independence of 
church and state. 

His definition of evangelical religion in 
the first of these treatises is terse and admi- 
rable: "What evangelical religion is, is told 
in two words, faith and charity, or belief and 
practice, and that both of these flow either 
the one from the understanding, the other 
from the will, or both jointly from both ; once 
indeed naturall}^ free, but now only as they 
are regenerate and wrought on by Divine 
grace, is in part evident to common sense and 
principles unquestioned; the rest b}^ Scrip- 
ture." 

The treatise on the " Removal of Hirelings 
out of the Church," and urging that to each 
congregation be left the support of its own 
pastor, instead of maintaining the expensive 
and aristocratic ecclesiastical establishment 



232 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

then kept up b}' the collection of tithes, thus 
concludes : 

"Of which hireling crew, together with 
all the mischiefs, dissensions, troubles, wars, 
merely of their own kindling, Christendom 
might soon rid herself and be happy, if Chris- 
tians would but know their own dignity, their 
liberty, their adoption, and let it not be won- 
dered if I say their own spiritual priesthood, 
whereby they have all equal access to any min- 
isterial functions whenever called by their own 
abilities to the church, though they never came 
near commencements or university. 

"But while Protestants, to avoid the due 
labors of understanding their own religion, are 
content to lodge it in their books or in the breast 
of a state clergyman, and to take it thence by 
scraps and mammocks, as he dispenses it in 
his Sunda}^ dole, they will be always learning 
and never knowing; always infants; alwaj's 
either his vassals, as lay papists are to their 
priests, or at odds with him, as reformed prin- 
ciples give them some light to be not wholly- 
conformable ; whence infinite disturbances in 
the state, as they do, must needs follow. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 233 

" Thus much I had to say, and I su|)pose 
what may be enough to those wlio are not ava- 
riciously bent otherwise, touching the likeliest 
means to get hirelings out of the church ; than 
which nothing can more conduce to truth, to 
peace, and all happiness, both in church and 
state. If I be not heard and believed, the 
event will bear me witness to have spoken 
truth ; and I in the mean while have borne 
me witness, not out of season, to the church 
and my country."* 

Unhappily the nation, maddened by the 
cries of faction and given over to anarchy, was 
in no mood to listen to, or heed the sober 
words and the warning expostulations of its 
great monitor. Still Milton's fresh appearance 
as a political writer, after his lengthened with- 
drawal from public observation, was peculiarly 
gratifying to his old republican admirers, some 
of whom had suspected him of alienation from 
their cause since his repose under the shadow 
of the Protectoral government. These writ- 
ings however proved his consistency, and show- 
ed him to be still the Milton of old times, and 

* Prose Works. 



234 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ardently as ever wedded to the "good old 
cause." 

In a letter addressed to him, upon the pub- 
lication of the treatise on the civil power in 
ecclesiastical matters, a Mr. Wall of Causham, 
under date of May 29, 1659, saj's, "I confess 
I have even in my privacy in the countrj-^ oft 
had thoughts of you, and that with much res- 
pect for 3'our friendship to truth in your early 
years, and in bad times. But I was uncertain 
whether your relation to the court, though I 
think that a commonwealth was more friendly 
to you than a court, had not clouded your form- 
er light ; but 3^our last book resolved that 
doubt. "==' 

Meanwhile the general disorder found no 
hand competent to quell it, and the disorgani- 
zation grew apace. 

Milton, grieved, disquieted, and alarmed by 
the confusion of parties, and indignant at the 
outrages of the army, collected his faculties, and 
made one more desperate and almost despair- 
ing effort to retrieve the political situation, pub- 

• Birche's Life of Milton, p. 42. Prose Works, Vol. 11., p. 388 
Symmons' Life, pp. 415, 41 G. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 235 

lishing ill 1659 his celebrated pamphlet en- 
titled, '' The Heady and Easy Way to establish a 
Free Commonwealth" which he sadly hoped 
might not contain " the last words of expiring 
liberty." 

This he addressed to General Monk, then 
governor of Scotland and commander of the 
Puritan army in that kingdom, to which posts 
he had been promoted by Cromwell. 

The treatise on the Commonwealth is sadly 
grand, and its eloquence is full of tears. In it 
Milton says, 

" The Parliament of England, assisted by a 
great number of the people who appeared and 
stuck to them faithfully in defence of religion 
and their civil liberties, judging kingship by 
long experience a government unnecessary'', 
burdensome, and dangerous, justly and magnan- 
imously abolished it, turning regal bondage 
into a free Commonwealth, to the admiration 
and terror of our emulous neighbors. They 
took themselves not bound by the light of na- 
ture or religion to any former covenant, from 
which the king himself, by many forfeitures of 
a latter date or discovery, and our own long 



236 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

consideration thereon, luul more and more un- 
bound Us both to himself and liis jKjsterity, as 
hath been ever the justice and prudence of all 
wise nations that have ejected tyranny. 

^'They covenanted to preserve the king's person 
and authority, in the preservation of true religion 
and our liberties; not in his endeavoring to 
bring in upon our consciences a popish relig- 
ion, upon our liberties thraldom, upon our 
lives destruction b}^ his occasioning if not 
complotting, as was afterwards discovered, the 
Irish massacre ; his fomenting and arming the 
rebellion; his covert league with the rebels 
against ns ; his refusing more than seven tfmes 
propositions most just and necessary' to the 
true religion and our liberties, tendered him 
by the Parliament both of England and Scot- 
land." 

Passing then to another consideration, he 
asks indignantly if the Commonwealth be a 
failure? "And what will the}^ at best say of 
us, and of the whole English name, but scof- 
fingly, as of that foolish builder mentioned b}'- 
our Saviour, who began to build a tower, and 
was not able to finish it. Where is this goodly 



OF JOHN MILTON. 237 

tower of a Commonwealth, which Ihe English 
began to build?" 

He then urgently remonstrates with the 
nation in regard to its proposed invitation to 
Charles Stuart to ascend the rebuilt throne ; 
showing vividly and prophetically what a 
wretched tide of lewdness and profanity would 
overwhelm the state upon the restoration of 
the reckless and outlawed libertine who was 
even at that critical hour lapped in the em- 
braces of his continental mistresses, or else 
engaged in the fitting and congenial pursuit of 
hunting; in the bogs of France. 

Next passing to the consideration of other 
matters, he shows "wherein freedom and a 
flourishing condition would be more ample and 
secure to England under a Commonwealth 
than under a kingship." "Admitting that 
monarchy may be convenient to some nations," 
he warns England to beware of it; for the re- 
made king, not forgetting his former ejection, 
will arm and fortify himself against all similar 
attempts in future. The people would then be 
"so narrowly watched and kept so low, that 
though they would never so fain, and at tlie 



238 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

same rate of tljcir blood and treasure, they 
never shall be able to regain Avliat they now 
have purchased and may enjoy, or to free 
themselves from any yoke imposed upon them : 
nor will they dare to go about it, utterly dis- 
heartened for the future, if these their highest 
attempts prove unsuccessful: which will be 
the triumph of all tyrants hereafter over any 
people that shall resist oppression ; and their 
song shall then be, to others. How sped the re- 
bellious English? to our posterity. How sped 
the rebels your fathers ?" 

Among other disabilities sure to be inaugu- 
rated with a monarchy, he places the shaclding 
of conscience: "This liberty of conscience, 
which, above all other things, ought to be to all 
men dearest and most precious, no government 
is more inclinable, not to favor onl}', but to 
protect, than a free Commonwealth; as being 
most magnanimous, most fearless, and confident 
of its own fair proceedings. Whereas king- 
ship, though looking big, is yet indeed most 
pusillanimous, full of fears, full of jealousies, 
starting at every umbrage. As it hath been 
observed of all to have ever suspected most 



OF JOHN MILTON. 239 

and mistrusted those who were in most esteem 
for virtue and generosity of mind ; so it is now 
known to have most in doubt and suspicion 
those wdio are most reputed to be religious. 

"Queen Elizabeth, though herself account- 
ed so good a Protestant, so moderate, so con- 
fident of her subjects' love, would never give 
way so much as to Presbyterian reformation 
in this land, though once and again besought, 
as Camden relates ; but imprisoned and perse- 
cuted the very proposers thereof, alleging it 
as her mind and maxim unalterable, that such 
reformation wbald diminish regal authorit}^ 

"What liberty of conscience can we then 
expect of others, far worse principled from the 
cradle, trained up and governed b}' popish and 
Spanish counsels, and on such depending hith- 
erto for subsistence ?" 

Milton's treatise concludes with these 
weighty and prophetic w^ords : 

"I have no more to say at present: few 
words will save us, .well considered ; few and 
easy things, now seasonably done. 

"But if the people be so affected as to 
prostitute religion and liberty to the vain and 



240 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

groundless apprelicnsiou that nothing but king- 
ship can restore trade, not remembering the 
frequent plagues and pestilences that then 
wasted this cit}', such as through God's mercy 
we have never felt since; and that trade flour- 
ishes nowhere more than in the free common- 
wealths of Italy, German}', and the Low Coun- 
tries, before their e5'es at this da}' ; yet if trade 
be grown so craving and importunate through 
the profuse living of tradesmen, that nothing 
can support it but the luxurious expenses of a 
nation upon trifles or superfluities; so as if the 
people generally should betake themselves to 
frugality, it might prove a dangerous mafter, 
lest tradesmen should mutiny for want of trad- 
ing ; and that therefore we must forego and 
set to sale religion, libert}', honor, safety, all 
concernments, divine and human, to keep up 
trading: if, lastl}', after all this light among 
us, the same reason shall pass for current to 
put our necks again under kingship as was 
made use of by the Jews to return back to 
Egypt, and to the worship of their idol queen, 
because they falsely imagined that they then 
lived in more plenty and prosperity- — our con- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 241* 

clition is not sound, bnt rotten, both in relig- 
ion and all civil prudence, and will bring us 
soon, the way we are marching, to those calam- 
ities which attend always and unavoidably on 
luxury, all national judgments under foreign 
and domestic slavery ; so far we shall be from 
mending our condition by monarchizing our 
government, whatever new conceit now pos- 
sesses us, 

"However, with all hazard I have ven- 
tured, what I thought my duty, to speak in 
season, and to forewarn my country in time; 
wherein I doubt not but there be man}^ wise 
men in all places and degrees, but am sorry 
the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. 

"Many circumstances and particulars are in 
those things whereof I have spoken, but a few 
main matters now put speedily in execution, 
will suffice to recover us, and set all right; and 
there will want at no time those who are good 
at circumstances ; but men who set their minds 
on main matters, and sufficiently urge them, in 
these difficult times, I find not many. What I 
have spoken is the language of that which is 
not called amiss, 'The good old cause.' If it 

Milton. 11 



242 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

seem straiig:c to any, it will not seem more 
strange, I hope, than convincing to backsliders. 

"Thns mnch I should perhaps have said, 
though I were sure I should have spoken only 
to trees and stones, and had none to cry to, 
but with the prophet, '0 earth, earth, earth!' 
to tell the very soil itself what her perverse 
inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I 
have spoke should happen — which Thou suffer 
not who didst create mankind free, nor Thou 
next who didst redeem us from being servants 
of men — to be the last word.'? of our expiring 
libert}'.^*'-' 

But Milton's plaintive yet powerful appeal 
was without effect. The nation had gone mad 
with discontent and desire for change, and in 
1660 the popular clamor summoned Monk, 
whom the conflict of factions and his own influ- 
ential position, united to make the arbiter of 
events, to reinitiate the old regime. 

That tlu-ice- infamous renegade, placing 
honor behind his back, and banishing from 
remembrance his former Puritan convictions 
and republican professions, pushed by the per- 

• Prose Works, Vol. HI., pp. 421-428. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 213 

suasions of the meanest self-interest, ruthlessly 
and perfidiously abandoned his old associates 
to the butcher}^ of legal vengeance, and with- 
out a single stipulation for their safet}^ or the 
preservation of the national liberty, surren- 
dered the Commonwealth " to the dominion of 
a master in whom voluptuousness and cruelty 
were confounded in a disgusting embrace." 
This betraj'al of a sacred cause entrusted to 
his keeping, and his restoration of the mon- 
archy loithout a 8])edjied condition^ has fairly 
entitled Monk to be called the Judas Iscariot 
of British politics. 

Against this fatal reaction Milton struggled 
so long as there was hope. When, however, 
the final thunder-cloud burst upon him and his 
party, and the news of the conclusion of the 
negotiations with Charles II. at Breda was 
received, together with his own dismissal from 
the Latin Secretaryship by order of the Par- 
liament, his saddened yet undaunted heart 
prompted him to take some precautionary 
measures for his personal safety. 

Milton had acted too prominent and decid- 
ed a part in the revolution not to be made to 



244 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

feel the keenest edge of the restored prince's 
resentment. He therefore quitted his famous 
abode in Petty France, where he had resided 
liappily and in great renown during eight of 
the eventful years of his connection with the 
government, and where he had been visited 
by multitudes of persons eminent in the belles- 
lettres, political, and religious circles of the 
time ; and while Charles advanced, amid the 
acclamations of tlie tickle masses, to reseat 
himself upon the throne of his fathers, the 
deposed Secretar}'^ sought an obscure asylum 
under the roof of a devoted friend, where he 
trusted to outlive the first flush of the king's 
severity of punishment. 

Thus inauspiciously ended, w^hen he was at 
the age of fifty-two, John Milton's glorious 
and beneficent public career, in which he had 
proved himself as superior to his contempora- 
ries in polemics and Christian statesmanship, 
as it was still reserved for him to prove him- 
self superior to all rivals in the different 
sphere of the sublimest poetry. 

Then also was inaugurated that age which 
Macaule}' paints with a ])en of fire: "Then 



OF JOHN MILTON. '215 

came those days never to be recalled without 
a blush, the days of servitude without loyalt}^ 
and sensuality without love, of dwarfish tal- 
ents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold 
hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of 
the bigot and the slave .... the government 
had just ability enough to deceive, and just 
religion enough to persecute. The principles 
of liberty were the scoff of every grinning 
courtier, and the anathema-maranatha of every 
fawning dean." 

And here, at the close of Milton's public 
life, it may not be inappropriate to glance 
briefly at the S3^stem upon which he asserts 
his political career to have been based. 

When the popular opposition to the usur- 
pations of the prelates commenced, and the 
model of the reformed churches was compared 
disadvantageously to those of others, seeing 
the way open for the establishment of true 
liberty, Milton felt called of God to write in 
defence of justice and toleration. 

He conceived that there were three kinds 
of liberty essential to the happiness of social 
life — religious, domestic, and political. To 



246 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

promote the first, lie wrote against the prelates, 
and published the treatises on the Reformation. 
Perceiving that the whole people were eager 
in the pursuit of their civil rights, and that 
they then needed little scholarly assistance, he 
turned his attention to the subject of domestic 
libert}-, which he also divided into three de- 
partments — the nature of the conjugal relation, 
the education of children, and the free publi- 
cation of opinion. These subjects he sever- 
ally and respectively considered in the trea- 
tises on divorce, in the tractate on education, 
and in the Areopagitica, or plea for unlicensed 
printing. 

With regard to civil affairs, he left them 
in the hands of the magistrates till it became 
necessary to vindicate the right of lawfully 
dethroning or destroying tyrants. 

Such were the fruits of his private studies ; 
and these he gratuitously presented to justice 
and liberty in church and state, receiving 
scoffs and persecution as his reward from his 
own ungrateful age, though posterity has 
crowned him with its laureate wreath. 

But notwithstanding the ingratitude of his 



OF JOHN MILTON. 247 

countrymen, cozened and heated by the glitter 
of the throne, Milton says, "The actions them- 
selves procured me peace of conscience and 
the approbation of the good, while I exercised 
that freedom of discussion which I loved." 



248 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER XYII. 

MiLTOx remained securely hidden in tlie 
house of that friend in need, whose name has 
escaped the most careful inquiry,* during the 
first four months of the Restoration. Safely 
sheltered himself, he saw with grievous sorrow 
that the heads of many of his old associates 
were bared to the pitiless pelting of the storm 
of persecution. 

Meantime a vote of the House of Commons 
had decreed the public prosecution of the ex- 
secretary, and also ordered that two of his 
most obnoxious pamphlets, the '' Iconodastes^'' 
and the ''Defence of the People of England,''^ 
should be burned by the common hangman. 
It is not probable that these measures troub- 
led ]\lilton very seriously. He had seen one 
of these same works publicly burned in the 
squares of Toulouse and Paris, and yet it had 
survived. Nor can it be imagined that his 
serenity was much disturbed by the futile ma- 

t Symmons' Life, p. 429. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 249 

lignity of his oft-beaten enemies, who eagerly 
seized upon this hour of his political undoing 
to publish the refuted slanders of the dead Sal- 
masius. 

Still Milton ran, through all this period, 
a fearful personal risk. The proclamation 
against himself and another of the noted char- 
acters of the time, John Goodwin, who had 
written a tract against the king entitled, " The 
Obstruders of Justice,^' issued immediately after 
the coronation of Charles, was 5"et out, declar- 
ing that "the said John Milton and John 
Goodwin are so fled or so obscure themselves 
that no endeavors used for their apprehension 
can take effect, whereby they may be brought 
to legal trial and deservedly receive condign 
punishment for their treasons and offences.'""' 

Some of his friends, esteeming the danger 
that menaced his life to be imminent, actually 
bruited it through the streets that he was dead, 
and they contrived for him a sham funeral. f 
Afterwards, when matters had been accommo- 
dated, Charles laughed heartil}' at the trick. 

• Kennet's Chronicle, p. 189. 

t Wharton's Second Ed.'of Milton's Minor Poems, p. 358. I^d- 
mey's Life, p. 218. Todd's Life, p. 101. 

11* 



250 THE LIFE AXD TIMES 

"The king," says an old historian, "applaud- 
ed his policy in escaping the punishment of 
death by a seasonable show of d3'ing.'"'=' 

It is also certain that a number of influ- 
ential gentlemen ardently exerted themselves 
at this crisis of Milton's life to secure his 
preservation, f and it was probably to this 
kind intervention that he owed his security, 
since no keen search for him was ever insti- 
tuted. 

Milton's offence had been more grave than 
that of the regicides themselves: they had only 
put one king to death, he had attacked the ver^^ 
office, and memorialized posterity against the 
idea of kingship, lavishing the most splendid 
panegyrics upon the rebellion and the most 
prominent and obnoxious actors in it ; and it 
was well known that with these glowing eulo- 
giums in her hand the muse of history would 
march proudly down through the ages with the 
immortal trust. Yet contenting himself with 
the babble of spiteful words, and the absurd 
comedy of burning his pamphlets, the king per- 

* Cmmingbam's Hist, of Great Britain, Vol. I., p. li. 
t Symmons' Life, pp. 4"27, 428. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 251 

mitted the great architect of the ruin of his 
house to go untouched. This clemency was 
due, not to the heart or brain of the effeminate 
prince who then acted like a puppet the part 
of king, but to the powerful influence of active 
friends, whose menacing intercession made it 
dangerous to punish Milton, and convenient to 
overlook him. 

Andrew Marvell, his old associate in office 
under the Commonwealth, then member of Par- 
liament for Hull, made all possible influence 
for him in the House of Commons, while Sir 
William D'Avenant, one of the most amiable 
and influential gentlemen of the day, whose life 
Milton had saved when he had been captured 
by the fleet of the Commonwealth in his pas- 
sage from France to America and ordered to 
his trial before the High Court of Justice, in 
1651, now eagerly requited that kind act by 
one of equal generosity.* 

Thus, in one way or another, Milton man- 
aged to survive the opening months of the Res- 
toration, until, on the 29th of August, 1660, 
the "Act of Oblivion" opened the doors of his 

* Wood, AtheiUTj Oxon, Vol. II., p. •112. 



252 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

asylum, and allowed liim safely to emerge from 
his secrecy. 

The clemency of Charles in the i)romulga- 
tion of the act of oblivion has been the theme 
not only of lavish contemporarj' panegyric, but 
also of later eulogium ; but " the time has long 
elapsed in which praise, unsupported by truth, 
can be admitted on the plea of passion." 

It has been well remarked by an able and 
candid writer,"^' that 'if we reflect that Charles 
was not now reclaiming his rojid right as a 
conqueror ; that the nation was not trembling 
at his feet, and, like a city taken by storm, in 
a state to be thankful for every deed of brutal 
violence which was not committed ; but that, in 
truth, he was an impotent exile, receiving gra- 
tuitously a crown from the very hands which 
had torn it from his family, from a Parliament 
a great majority of whose members had been 
active in the overthrow of the monarchy, and 
from an army which had immediately conduct- 
ed his father to the scaffold, we may reason- 
abl}' inquire by what acts he could have dis- 

• Dr. Sytomons, in his Life of Milton, pp. 431, 432, 433, 434, 
435, 436. 



or JOHN MILTON. 253 

covered a stronger propensity to cruelty tlian 
he did in the first moments of power conferred 
on him by his recent popularity. When his 
heart ought to have been softened by the un- 
expected influx of prosperous foi-tune, he elud- 
ed the proposition which was made to him at 
Breda for a general amnesty, and evidently 
discovered that his spirit brooded revenge. 

"When he was seated on his throne, he 
accepted those victims which the perfidious- 
ness of party, in expiation of its own offences, 
was so base as to offer him ; and he glutted the 
nation, so far as he durst, with an effusion of 
blood not more guilty than that of thousands, 
perhaps, who were present to behold it; for 
they who, from their office, were more person- 
ally engaged in the trial and execution of the 
king, were unquestionably not more criminal 
than were all those who had voted for these vio- 
lences in Parliament, or, in the army, had first 
planned, and then imperiously carried them into 
effect. More however than they who were re- 
garded as the actual regicides were exempted 
from the benefit of the amnesty. Neither Yane, 
nor Peters, nor Lambert was immediately im- 



254 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

plicated in the murder of the king; vet the 
two former were shiughtered, and Yane in 
violation of the royal promise to the Parlia- 
ment for his pardon; while the last, the most 
guilty of the three, w^as indeed permitted to 
live, but to live only in a state of miserable 
exile. 

"But not limited to the sufferings of the 
living, the vengeance of Charles extended itself 
to mean and atrocious outrages on the dead. 
It broke the hallowed repose of the tomb, and 
exhibited that last infirmity of our mortal na- 
ture, the corruption through which it is doomed 
to pass into its kindred earth, to the derision 
and the disgust of impotent malignity. When 
we behold the bodies of the illustrious usurper 
and of the formidable Ireton torn from their 
graves, and made the subject of idle punish- 
ment, we are less disposed to wonder than to 
smile at the cow^ardly and pitiful insult; but 
when w^e see subjected to similar indigni- 
ties, the mouldering remains of the noble- 
minded Blake,'-' of the mild and amiable Clay- 

* Blake, the famous admiral whose name stands first on the 
pages of the naval history of England, and whose integi-ity and 
patriotism need no vouchers. 



OF JOHN MILTON, 255 

pole,* one of whom bad strenuously opposed all 
the crimes of her father's ambition, and the other 
had carried the thunder and the fame of his 
country to the extremities of the world, we are 
shocked b}^ the infam}^ of the deed, and arc 
tempted in the bitterness of our hearts, to vent 
a curse upon the savageness of the perpetra- 
tors." 

Upon his appearance once more in society, 
Milton was arrested, probably in consequence 
of the order for his apprehension issued in 
the preceding June by the House of Commons. 
The sequel is to be derived from the following 
Minutes in the journals of the House : 

"Satukday, 15tli Decern., 1G60. 

" Ordered, That Mr. Milton, now in cus- 
tody of the Serjeant attending this House, be 
forthwith released, paying his fees." 

"Monday, 17th December. 

"A complaint made, that the serjeant-at- 
arms had demanded excessive fees for the 
imprisonment of Mr. Milton, 

"Ordered, That it be referred to a com- 

• Mi-s. Clayijole, CromweU's favorite daughter, a lady of singu- 
larly upright and humane character. 



256 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

mittee for privileges, to examine this business, 
and to call Mr. Milton and the serjeant before 
them, and to determine what is fit to be given 
to the Serjeant for his fees in this case." 

What the conclusion of this committee was 
we know not; but it is certain that Milton was 
unconditionally released within a day or two, 
and that he rented a house, first in Holborn, 
near Red Lion-square, where he resided but a 
few months; next, in 1662, removing to Jew- 
en-street; then to a small house in the Artil- 
lery-walk, adjoining Bunhill-fields ; and in this 
residence he continued until the close of his 
life. 

It is related by Richardson that, at some 
intermediate period after he left Jewen-street, 
he resided with Millington, a celebrated auc- 
tioneer of that age, who was accustomed to lead 
his venerable and illustrious lodger through 
the streets for air and exercise.* 

In or about the year 1602, Milton once 
more entered into the marriage state, his 
choice being on this occasion a Miss Elizabeth 
Minshall, the daughter of a gentleman of 

* See Kicharilsou's Life of Milton. 



or JOHN MILTON. 257 

Cheshire, and a distant relative of the poet's 
good friend and medical adviser Dr. Paget, 
then a phj'sician of eminence in London, upon 
whose advice it was that Milton now married. 

This lad}" appears to have made him an 
excellent and faithful wife, tending him with 
the utmost solicitude, and carefully protecting 
him from the imposition of heartless and false 
friends and relations.* From Mrs. Milton a 
number of interesting personal incidents touch- 
ing her husband's mode of life, are to be glean- 
ed. Among other things, she relates that he 
composed principally in the winter; and on his 
waking in the morning, he would request her 
to write at his dictation sometimes twenty, 
sometimes thirty verses. On being asked 
whether Milton did not frequently consult Ho- 
mer and y irgil, she replied that ' ' he stole 
from nobody but the muse who inspired him ;" 
and to a lady who inquired who that muse was, 
she quickly answered, "it was God's grace and 
the Holy Spirit that visited him nightl3^"t 

It is sad and revolting to be obliged to 

* Mrs. Slilton sur^dved her husband some fifty-five j-ears, dying 
at Namptwich, in her native Cheshire, in the year 1729. 
t Newton's Life of Milton. 



258 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

relate that, previous to his marriage, Milton 
suffered seriously from the ill-treatment of 
those whom this venerable father, in his non- 
cupative will, quite recently discovered and 
published,* which shows Milton to have been 
amiable and forgiving in all those domestic 
scenes in which alone he has seemed liable to 
censure or unworthy of sympathy, calls his 
''unkind children." We are assured that 
against these unnatural daughters Milton was 
frequently obliged to appeal for protection 
even to his servants, one of whom, in a depo- 
sition under oath, affirms that the poet's com- 
plaints were not extorted from him by slight 
wrongs, or uttered by capricious passion upon 
trivial provocations; but that his children, 
with the fjrobable exception of Deborah, then 
a little thing but nine years old, would even 
sell his books, and that they habitually com- 
bined with the maid-servant, advising her to 
cheat her master and their father in her mar- 
keting, since he was sightless and would be 
none the wiser. One of them, Mary, upon 

• It "wras first published br Tbomton in an appendix to the 
pref&c« of bis second edition of Hilton's JuTenile Poems, and is 
weil entitled to the reader's attentire perosaL 



OF JOHN MILTOIT, 250 

being mformcd of her father's intention to 
marrj, replied that " that was no news ; but 
if she could hear of his death, that would be 
something/'* 

Milton had taught two of his daughters to 
read and pronounce with the nicest propriety 
the English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Latin, 
and Hebrew languages. There was therefore 
no work in any of these tongues which he 
could not hear read to hini, though they did 
not understand any but their mother tongue. 
Learning that his daughters complained of this 
employment as drudgery, the proud spirit of 
John Milton would not brook such grudged 
assistance, and he instantly dispensed with 
their aid, and procuring for them the know- 
ledge of some useful trades suited to their sex 
and tastes,f he secured, though he was now 
[)oor and could ill afford the expense, the ser- 
vices of a private secretary. 

From the domestic tyranny of his daugh- 
ters Milton's marriage at once secured him, 
and he gained that ease of mind and tranquil- 
lity of spirit which were necessary to enable 

• Symmotui' Lite^ ppt 4A1, 442. f lTinuey'« Life, p. 22L 



260 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

him to prosecute his transcendent literary proj- 
ects to a successful couclusiou. 

It is a curious fact, and a remarkable trib- 
ute to Milton's unrivalled genius and states- 
manship, that he was offered about this time, 
1CG2-3, the Latin Secretaryship of State under 
the king. But to accept office under a govern- 
ment in which he did not believe, whose hands 
were still red with the blood of his old politi- 
cal friends of the Commonwealth, would have 
been an act of recreant sycophancy to which 
his high and unsullied spirit could never stoop. 
Accordingly, when his wife, attentive only to 
the advancement of his worldly fortunes, urged 
him to accept the ap})ointment, he silenced 
her with, "You are in the right; 3'ou, as other 
women, would ride in your coach; but my 
aim is to live and die an honest man.'* 

* This liigli anecdote rests on the authority of Kichardson, 
•who received it from Henry Bendish, a grandson of Cromwell's, 
and an intimate in Milton's house at this time. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 261 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

Banishing, so far as possible, all cares and 
anxieties from his mind, Milton forgot the in- 
stability of fortune, the treachery of parties, 
the fickleness of the unthinking multitude, and, 
seated in his study, gave himself up to the full 
pleasure of that poetic composition which had 
ever been his passion. After the publication 
of several trifles,* he surrendered himself com- 
pletely to the work of elaborating and finish- 
ing that immortal epic, '' Paradise Lost, ^^ which, 
as we have seen, he had commenced in 1655, 
while acting as Latin Secretary to the Common- 
wealth, and which had until lately been laid 
aside, owing to the manifold distractions and 
misfortunes which had beset his career. Now 
however, resuming his epic pen, he daily ap- 
proached nearer and yet more near to the 
transcendent climax of his poem. 

* A short treatise on ^^ Accidence in Grammar," for juvenile 
students, and another manuscript of Sir Walter Kaleigh's, entitled, 
"Aphorisms of State." 



262 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

It was about tlie liiiio of Milton's marriage 
thnt he formed the now liistoric acquaintance 
with Tliomas EUwood, a pious and learned 
Quaker, and one of the ablest writers of the 
societ}' of Friends. Ellwood, who has left a 
history of his own life, thus relates his connec- 
tion with Milton : 

"John Milton, a gentleman of great note 
for learninpj throughout the learned world, for 
the accurate pieces he had written on various 
subjects and occasions. This person having 
filled a public station in former times, lived 
now a private and retired life in London ; and 
having wholly lost his sight, kept always a mnn 
to read to him, which usually was the son of 
some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in 
kindness he took to improve in learning. Thus 
by the mediation of m}" friend Isaac Penning- 
ton with Dr. Paget, and of Dr. Paget with 
John Milton, was I admitted to come to him ; 
not as a servant to him, which at that time he 
needed not, nor to be in the house with him ; 
but only to have the liberty of coming to his 
house, at certain times when I w^ould, and to 
read to him what books he should appoint me. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 263 

Understanding that the mediation for my ad- 
mittance with John Milton had succeeded so 
well that I might come when I would, I hasten- 
ed to London, and in the first place went to 
wait njDon him. 

"He received me courteously, as well for 
the sake of Dr. Paget who introduced me, as 
of Isaac Pennington who recommended me ; to 
both whom he bore a good respect. And hav- 
ing inquired divers things of me in respect to 
my former progression in learning, he dismiss- 
ed me to provide myself such accommodations 
as might be most suitable to my future studies. 
I went therefore and took myself a lodging as 
near to his house, which was in Irwen-street, 
as conveniently I could ; and from thencefor- 
ward went every day in the afternoon, except 
on the first day of the week, and sitting by him 
in his dining-room, read to him in such books 
in the Latin tongue as he pleased to hear me 
read. 

"At my first sitting to read to him, ob- 
serving that I used the English pronunciation,'^' 

* There are two ways in wliicli the Latin language is pronounc- 
ed, the Enrjlish and the Conllnenlal. It seems from Ellwood, that 
Milton preferred the latter. 



264 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

lie told ine, 'if I would liave the benefit of the 
Latin tongue, not only to read and understand 
Latin authors, but to converse with foreigners, 
either abroad or at home, I must learn the 
foreign pronunciation.' To this I consenting, 
he instructed me how to sound the vowels. 
Perceiving with what earnest desire I pursued 
learning, he gave me not only all the encour- 
agement, but all the help he could. For hav- 
ing a curious ear, he understood b}- my tones 
when I understood what I read, and when I 
did not. 

"Some time before I went to Alesbury 
prison''' in 1665, I was desired by my quondam 
master, Milton, to take a house for him in the 
neighborhood where I dwelt, that he might get 
out of the cit}^, for the safety of himself and 
his family, the pestilencef then growing hot 

* Ellwood was imijrisoned several times by the bigots of that 
age on account of his Quaker piiuciples, from which no persecu- 
tion was ever able to alienate him. 

t In the following year, IGCG, the plagiie raged with ghastly 
fury in London, decimating the poinilation. Nothing like that 
holocaust of death was ever witnessed in that city before or since. 
And the great plague j'ear is still mentioned in England with a 
Bhudder. To crown the full hon'ors of the scene, 1666 was also 
the year of the terrific conflagration in Loudon already mentioned, 
which half destroyed the citv. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 265 

ill London. I took a pretty box for him in 
Giles Chalfont, a mile from me, of which I gave 
him notice; and intended to have waited on 
him, and seen him well settled in it, bnt was 
prevented by that imprisonment. But now, 
being released and returned home, I soon 
made a visit to him, to welcome him into the 
country. 

" After some common discourses had passed 
between us, he called for a manuscript of his; 
which being brought, he delivered to me, bid- 
ding me take it home with me, and read it at 
my leisure ; and when I had so done, to return 
it to him with my judgment thereupon. 

"When I came home and had set myself 
to read it, I found it was that excellent poem 
' Paradise Lost.' After I had, with the best 
attention, read it through, I made him another 
visit, and returned him his book, with due 
acknowledgment of the favor he had done me 
in communicating it to me. He asked me how 
I liked it, and what I thoudit of it, which I 
modestly but freely told him ; and after some 
further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to 
him, 'Thou hast said much here of 'Paradise 

MlltOD. 12 



266 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Lost,'' but what hast thou to say of Paradise 
Found?'' He made no answer, but sat some 
time in a muse, then broke off" that discourse, 
and fell upon another subject. 

"After the sickness was over, and the city 
well cleansed and become safely habitable 
again, he returned thither; and when after- 
wards I went to wait on him there, which I 
seldom failed of doing whenever any occasion 
drew me to London, he showed me his second 
poem, called ' Paradise Regained,' and in a 
pleasant tone said to me, ' This is owing to 
you ; for you put it into my head by the ques- 
tion you put to me at Chalfont, which before I 
had not thought of.' "''' 

Thus at the close of 1606 Milton had, 
against every disadvantage of domestic and 
political trouble, of pecuniary embarrassment 
and blindness, prosecuted to a successful and 
triumphant climax his two great epics. "Con- 
sidering,'' says Dr. Xewton, "the difficulties 
under which the author lay — his uneasiness on 
account of public affairs, his age and infirmi- 
ties, his not being in circumstances to maintain 

• EUwood's Life, pp. 132, 134, 135. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 267 

an amaimensis, but obliged to make use of any 
hand that came next to write his verses as he 
made them — it is really wonderful that he 
should have the spirit to undertake such a 
work, and much more that he should ever 
bring it to perfection." 

Yet the evil daj^s upon which he had fallen 
could not shake his faith, or make him "bate 
one jot of heart or hope." His tuneful voice 
was 

" Uiichangecl 



To hoarse or mute, tliougli fallen on evil days, 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues ; 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, 
And solitude." 

It is not certain how long Milton resided at 
Chalfont, but it has been conjectured that it 
extended from June or July of 1GG5 to March 
or April of 1666, or during the prevalence 
and until the extirpation of the plague which 
haunted the capital, to avoid which he had 
changed his residence.* If this inference be 
correct, Milton must not onh' have commenced, 
but also completed, the poem of "Paradise Re- 
gained," which Ellwood sua'o-ested to him, and 

* Symruons' Life, p. 451. 



268 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the plan oC which must have been entirely 
unformed, within tlic incredibly short space of 
eight or nine months. 

But though these grand and immortal po- 
ems were completed in 1666, Milton suffered a 
twelvemonth to elapse before he committed 
either of them to the press. It was not until 
the 2Tth of April, 1667, as the contract for the 
copy-right of "Paradise Lost," with a pub- 
lisher named Samuel Simmons, conclusively 
shows, that that cMf-cVceuvre of John Milton's 
laborious and brilliant literary career was first 
published to the admiration of the ages. 

Dr. Symmons remarks, " Much surprise 
and concern have been discovered at the small 
pecuniary benefit which the author was per- 
mitted to derive from this proud display of 
his genius, and on the slow and laborious prog- 
ress with which the work won its way to pub- 
lic estimation. To us in the utmost cultivation 
of taste, and accustomed to admire the ' Par- 
adise Lost' without any reference to its au- 
thor or to the age in which it appeared, it must 
certainly seem deplorable that the copy-right 
of such a composition should be sold for the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 269 

actual payment of five pounds, and the con- 
tingent payment, on the sale of two thousand 
six hundred copies, of two other equal sums. 
But if we would regard ourselves as placed in 
the middle of the seventeenth century, and 
immersed in all the party violence of that mis- 
erable period, we should rather be inclined to 
wonder at the venturous liberality of the book- 
seller who would give even this small sum for 
the poem of a man living under the heaviest 
frown of the times, in whom the poet had long 
been forgotten in the polemic, and who now 
tendered an experiment in verse, of which it 
was impossible that the purchaser should be 
able to appreciate the value, or should not be 
suspicious of the danger. 

" Our shame and regret for the slow appre- 
hension of our forefathers with respect to the 
merits of this illustrious production, are still 
more unwarranted than those which have been 
expressed for the parsimony of the bookseller. 
Before the entire revolution of two years, at a 
time when learning and the love of reading 
were far from being in their present wide dif- 
fusion through the community, thirteen hundred 



270 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

copies of the 'Paradise Lost' were absorbed 
into circulation. In live years after this pe- 
riod, a second edition of the poem was issued ; 
and after another interval of four years, a tliird 
was conceded to the honorable demands of the 
public. As we ma}^ fairly conclude that, ac- 
cording to the original stipulation of the book- 
seller, each of these impressions consisted of 
fifteen hundred copies, we shall find that in 
the space of little more than eleven years four 
thousand five linndrcd individuals of the Brit- 
ish community were possessed of sufficient dis- 
crimination to become the purchasers of the 
' Paradise Lost.' 

"Before the expiration of twenty years, 
the poem passed through six editions, a cir- 
cumstance which abundan tl 3" proves that it 
was not destitute of popularity before it attain- 
ed its full and final dominion over the public 
taste from the patronage of Somers, and still 
more from the criticism of Addison."''' 

The office of licenser of printing, which had 
been abolished under the wise and liberal gov- 
ernment of Cromwell, was restored under the 

* Symmons' Life, pp. 457-459. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 271 

monarchy for a limited time by an act of Par- 
liament passed in 1662. Milton's great epic 
barely escaped being strangled at its birth by 
the malignit}'' or the perverse sagacity of a 
Mr. Tomkyns, then acting as licenser. The 
quick nostril of this suspicious and alert oiii- 
cial scented treason in the well-known simile 
of the sun, in the first book : 

-"As when the sun, new risen, 



Looks through the horizontal misty air. 
Shorn of liis beams ; or, from behind the moon, 
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nation, and with fear of change 
Perplexes monarchs." 

It has been well remarked that "the press 
was certainl}^ in safe hands when it was in 
those of this licenser, .... for an eye which 
could dive so deeply and could discern so 
finely was not likel}^ to be baffled by the most 
profound, or to be eluded by the most subtle 
and aerial mischief." Or perhaps Lord Lyt- 
tleton's acute explanation is the most correct, 
that " the politics of Milton at this time brought 
his poetry into disgrace; for it is a rule with 
the English, tJiey see no good in a man whose 
'politics they dislike." 



272 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

It is not widiin the scope of this Life to 
enter into any exuiiiiiuition of tlie beauties or 
the defects of "Paradise Lost," or of its broth- 
er poem, " Pakadise Regained," which sin- 
gularly enough Milton always preferred, and 
which several competent critics, among others 
Jortin and Warburton, have united to place 
above "Paradise Lost," though they have 
ever failed to get the mass of readers to agree 
with them. That harvest has been so fre- 
quently and so efficiently gleaned, that but 
few sheaves would reward the reaper of this 
late day. All readers therefore who are curi- 
ous in this matter, are referred directlj' to tire 
poems themselves, and to the learned and acute 
comments of the multitudinous accomplished 
critics who have edited them.* 

* See the Lives by Symmons, Todd, Mitford, Newton. Warton, 
Richardson, Cleveland, Turner, and others ; also Addison's essays 
in the "Spectator." 



I 



OF JOHN MILTON. 273 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Notwithstanding the sadly changed times 
and his own discrowned political principles, 
the unwavering respect and even veneration 
accorded to Milton after the Restoration, proves 
the high estimation in which his genius, integ- 
rity, and unostentatious piety were universally 
held. Toland, after mentioning that numbers 
of the nobility and the more cultivated gentry 
were his habitual visitors, adds, "Nor was he 
less frequented b}- foreigners to the last, than 
in the time of his flourishing condition before 
the Restoration." Indeed his illustrious for- 
eign friends and correspondents always man- 
ifested the kindest regard and exhibited the 
most watchful solicitude, from the unhappy da}^ 
when blindness first struck him, until the hour 
of his death. 

Thus a rumor havino; been circulated that 
he had fallen a victim to the plague in 1666, 
Peter Heimbach, a learned and famous Ger- 
man scholar and politician, and perhaps a 

12* 



274 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sometime j^upil of the immortal Englishman, 
wrote anxiously to iiujuire into the truth of 
the report. To this letter Milton penned the 
follo\Yiug reply: 

"To THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED PeTER HeIMBACH, CotTNCIIiLOR 

OF State to the Elector of Bbandf-nbuegh : 

"That in a year so pestilential and so fatal 
as the ])resent, amid the deaths of so many of 
my com})atriots, 3'ou should have believed me 
likewise, as you write mo word, in consequence 
too of some rumor or other, to have fallen a 
victim, excites in me no surprise; and if that 
rumor ow^ed its currency among you, as it 
seems to have done, to anxietv for my welfare, 
I feel flattered by it as an instance of your 
friendly regard. Through the goodness of 
God however, who had provided me with a 
safe retreat in the country, I still live and am 
well ; and would that I could add, not incom- 
petent to any duty which it may be my fur- 
ther destiny to discharge. 

"But that, after so long an interval, I 
should have recurred to your remembrance, is 
highl}' gratifying to me; though, to judge from 
your eloquent embellishments of the matter, 



OF JOHN MILTON. 275 

when you profess j^our admiration of so many 
different virtues united in my single person, 
3'ou seem to furnish some ground for suspect- 
ing that I have indeed escaped from your rec- 
ollection. From such a number of unions, in 
fact, I should have cause to dread a progeny 
too numerous, were it not admitted that in 
disgrace and adversity the virtues principalh^ 
increase and flourish. One of them, however, 
has not made me any very grateful return for 
her entertainment ; for she whom you call the 
political, though I had rather 3^ou had termed 
her love of countr}^, after seducing me with 
her fine name, has nearly, if I may so express 
myself, deprived me of a countr3^ The rest 
indeed harmonize more perfectly together. 
Our country is wherever we can live as we 
ought. 

"Before I conclude, I must prevail on jou. 
to impute whatever incorrectness of orthogra- 
phy or of punctuation you may discover in 
this epistle to my young amanuensis, whose 
total ignorance of Latin has imposed on me 
the disagreeable necessity of actually dictating 
to him everv individual letter. 



276 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

"That 3'our deserts as a man, consistently 
with the liigh i)romise with which you raised 
my expectations in your youth, should have 
elevated you to so eminent a station in your 
sovereign's favor, gives me the most sincere 
])leasure ; and I fervently pray and trust that 
you may proceed and prosper. Farewell. 

"London, August 15, 1666." 

In 1671 Milton published the ''Paradise 
Regained,''' and '' 8amson Agonistes,^''^' a poem 
written after the completion, in 1666, of the 
''Paradise Lost ^^ and the "Paradise Regained^ 

It seems peculiarly appropriate that the 
blind Samson who typifies the physical strength 
of antiquity, should be celebrated by the blind 
Samson of literature, who had groped for the 
pillars, and who overthrew the temple of 
English tj^ranny. 

Of the merits of this noble and pathetic 
drama, all critics are loud in the praise, though 
several writers have quarrelled with its cou- 

* Agonistes, from a Greek word, meaniug a couteuder in the 
public games of Greece, wbich were called agones, wlieuce our 
English word agony. This was the i^ecnliarly sxpprojiriate title 
which Milton chose for the hero of his drama, the catastrophe of 
which results from an exhibition of his strength in the pubUc 
games of the Philistines. See Symmons, p. 490. 



or JOHN MILTON. 277 

duct, and also with some portions of its struc- 
ture. Still, in pathos of sentiment, in breadth 
of tone, in dignity of diction, and in that mar- 
vellous and heaven-kissing sublimity which 
immortalizes all of Milton's more elaborate 
compositions, ''Samson Agonistes^^ is hardly 
surpassed even b}' the transcendent glories of 
''Paradise Lost J' 

Milton's philosophy, unlike that of the old 
philosophers of the G-recian and Roman schools, 
which scorned to descend to the advancement 
of humble and useful things, was derived from 
the broader school of Lord Bacon, the key to 
whose philosophic system, as Macauley assures 
us, is found in two words — progress and util- 
it}^ Therefore, notwithstanding the high and 
ideal level upon which many of his works 
stood, he stooped with grace and ease to per- 
form the humblest offices of utility. He had 
already published several treatises for the 
special assistance and advancement of young 
students. The year following the appearance 
of the "Samson Agonistes''^ witnessed another 
instance of his literary condescension. He 
wrote in 1672, for the aid of advanced schol- 



278 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ars, a scheme of logic, digested on the plan of 
M. Ue la Ramee, a learned French Huguenot, 
who closed a life of remarkable vicissitude 
at Paris on the ghastlj" eve of St. Bartholo- 
mew. 

Milton was especially attracted towards 
Ramee by the rebellion of his logic against 
the artificial and antichristian sj'stem of Aris- 
totle and the schoolmen, an assault which ^lar- 
tin Luther had powerfully commenced years 
before from his professorial chair at Wittcn- 
burg, and which had ever since been spirit- 
ed h^ continued by the philosophical adherents 
of the Reformation. 

Though Milton's bodily infirmities daily 
increased, and his lamp of life began to flicker 
ominously, his ardor of composition was not 
stifled by the hand of disease, nor extinguished 
by the damp of blindness and age. 

In 1673, attracted and alarmed by the 
rapid and insidious progress which Catholi- 
cism, under the active, open countenance of 
the Duke of York, afterwards James II., was 
making in Great Britain, Milton wrote his last 
elaborate prose work, entitled, "J. Treatise of 



OF JOHN MILTON. 279 

True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and 
the best Means ivhich may he used to Prevent the 
Groivth of Popery J^ In this pamphlet, show- 
ing that " the great interests of man were uni- 
formly the leading objects of his regard." he 
paints vivldh^ the dangers arising from Jesu- 
itism ; "strongl}^ inculcates the doctrine of mu- 
tual forbearance and essential union among 
those Christians of ever}^ denomination who 
appeal to the holy Scriptures for the rule of 
their faith;" and excludes from his scheme of 
ample toleration the Roman see alone, as be- 
ing not so much a religious sect as a meddle- 
some foreign propaganda, inimical not only to 
the ecclesiastical, but to the civil welfare and 
liberty of England. 

"Let us now inquire," he says, "whether 
Poper}^ be tolerable or no. Popery is a double 
thing to deal with, and claims a twofold power, 
ecclesiastical and political, both usurped, and 
the one sustaining the other. 

"But the ecclesiastical is ever pretended 
to the political. The pope, by this mixed fac- 
ulty, pretends right to kingdoms and states, and 
especially to this of England, thrones and un- 



280 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

thrones kings, and absolves the people from 
(lieir obedience to them ; sometimes interdicts 
to "whole nations the public worship of God, 
shutting up their churches ; and was wont to 
draw away the greatest part of the wealth of 
this then miserable land as part of his patri- 
mony, to maintain the pride and luxury of his 
court and prelates; and now since, through 
the infinite mercy and favor of God, we have 
shaken off his Babylonish j'oke, hath not ceased, 
by his spies and agents, bulls and emissaries, 
once to destroy both king and Parliament, 
perpetually to seduce, corrupt, and pervert as 
many as they can of the people. Whether 
therefore it be fit or reasonable to tolerate 
men thus principled in religion towards the 
state, I submit it to the consideration of all 
magistrates, who are best able to provide for 
their own and the i)ublic safety." 

But towards the Pai)ists he was not in 
favor of exercising any personal harshness or 
severity. "Are we," he asks, "to punish 
them by corporal punishments or fines in their 
estates on account of their religion? I sup- 
pose it stands not with the clemenc}' of the 



OF JOHN MILTON. 281 

gospel more than what appertains to the secu- 
rity of the state." 

"The best means to abate Popery," he 
says, "arises from the constant reading of 
Scripture. The Papal antichristian church 
permits not the laity to read the Bible in her 
own tongue. Our Protestant church, on the 
contrary, hath proposed it to all men, and to 
this end translated it into English, with profit- 
able notes to what is met with obscure, thouo-h 
what is most necessary to know is still plain- 
est, that all sorts and degrees of men not un- 
derstanding it in the original, may read it in 
their mother tongue; .... wherein believers 
who agree in the main are everywhere exhorted 
to mutual forbearance and charit}" towards one 
another, though dissenting in some opinions. 
It is written that tlie coat of our Saviour was 
without seam; whence some would infer that 
there should be no division in the church of 
Christ. It should be so indeed ; j^et seams in 
the same cloth neither hurt the cloth nor mis- 
become it ; and not onl}' seams, but schisms will 
be while men are fallible. But if they dissent 
in matters not essential to belief while the com- 



282 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

moil adversary is in the field, and stand jarring 
and pelting at one another, they will be soon 
routed and subdued. 

''It is human frailty to err, and no man is 
infallible here on earth," says Milton. Then, 
after enumerating different Christian sects, he 
sa3^s of such as "profess to set the word of God 
onl}" before them as the rule of their faith and 
obedience, and use all diligence and sincerit}' 
of heart b}' reading, b}- learning, b}^ study, by 
praj'er for illumination of the Holy Spirit, to 
understand this rule and obe}' it, they have 
done whatever man can do. God will assur- 
edly pardon them, as he did the friends of Job, 
good and pious men, though much mistaken, 
as there it appears, in some points of doctrine. 
But some will say, with Christians it is other- 
wise, whom God has promised by his Spirit to 
teach all things. True, all things ahsolutely 
necessary to salvation ; but the hottest disputes 
among Protestants, calmly and charitably" ex- 
amined, will be found less than such." Of 
these Protestants he adds, 

"It cannot be denied that the authors or 
late revivers of all these sects or opinions 



OF JOHN MILTON. 283 

were learned, worthy, zealous, and relii2:ious 
men, as appears b}^ their lives written, and the 
fame of their many eminent and learned fol- 
lowers, perfect and powerfnl in the Scriptures, 
holy and unblamable in their actions; and it 
cannot be imagined that God would desert 
such painful and zealous laborers in his church, 
and ofttimes great sufferers for their conscience, 
to damnable errors and reprobate sense, who 
had often implored the assistance of his Spirit ; 
but rather, having made no man infallible, that 
he has pardoned their errors, and accepts their 
pious endeavors, sincerely searching all things 
according to the rule of Scripture, with such 
guidance and direction as they can obtain ol 
God by prayer. 

" What Protestant then, who himself main- 
tains the same principles and disavows all im- 
plicit faith, would persecute and not tolerate 
such men as these, unless he means to abjure 
the principles of our religion? If it be asked 
how far they should be tolerated, I answer, 
Doubtless equally, as being all Protestants; 
that is, on all occasions to be permitted to give 
an account of their faith, either by arguing, 



284 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

preaching in their several assemblies, by jnib- 
lic writing, mid the freedom of printing." 

After urging, as an additional means of 
preventing the growth of Poper3^ the reforma- 
tion of their conduct by professed Protes- 
tants — a warning not inappropriate in the loose 
morals and unbridled license of the Restora- 
tion — Milton concludes in these words : 

"Let us therefore, using this last mean, 
last here spoken of, but first to be done, amend 
our lives at all speed; lest, through impeniten- 
Q,j, we run into that stupidly which we now 
seek by all means warily to avoid, the worst 

OF SUPERSTITIONS AXD THE HEAVIEST OF XLC 

Gtod's judgments. Popery.'' 

The danger which had awakened Milton's 
fears, and which he put forth this pamphlet to 
avert, erelong became so palpably near nnd 
deadly as to stir up a new rebellion, depose 
the Catholic bigot who had succeeded Charles 
II. upon the throne, and in 1688 to hand over 
'the emancipated kingdom to triumphant Prot- 
estantism in the persons of "William of Orange 
and Mary Stuart. 

Besides his pamphlet against Popery, Mil- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 285 

Ion also published in 1GT3 a second edition of 
liis earlier poems, incorporating several pieces 
which had not appeared in the edition of 1645. 
In the following year, 1674, his familiar Latin 
letters, now widely celebrated, and some of 
his university exercises, were published ; and 
in some part of this same year his laborious 
and splendid literary career was closed by his 
translation of the Latin declaration of the Poles 
in favor of the election of John Sobieski to the 
throne of Poland. 

Milton, as we have seen, had long been an 
invalid ; the gout especially had of late years 
racked his enfeebled frame. Fully and calmly 
aware of his approaching death, and desirous 
of setting his house in order, he sent for his 
brother Christopher, then an eminent lawj^er, 
and a bencher of the Inner Temple, to whom 
he dictated that nuncupative will to which we 
have once before had occasion to refer. 

This duty completed, at length at peace 
with man, as he had alwaj^s been with God, 
on the 8th of November, 1674, in the sixty- 
seventh year of his age, "without pain, and so 
quietly that those who waited in his chamber 



286 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

were unconscious of the moment of his depart- 
ure," the bright and beneficent spirit of Jolin 
Milton deserted its fleslily tabernacle and 
winged its glad way to that ''paradise regained'' 
whose beatitudes he had so sublimely chanted, 
where, seated among seraphim and cherubim, 
he might still more transcendentl}' 

"Sing, 
And buikl the lofty rhjme." 

Upon his death, Toland says that "all his 
learned and great friends in London, not with- 
out a friendly concourse of the vulgar, accom- 
panied his body to the church of St. Giles, 
near Cripplegate, where he lies buried in the 
chancel." 

To that record Toland adds this fine eulo- 
gium : "Thus lived and died John Milton, a 
person of the best accomplishments, the hap- 
piest genius, and the rarest learning which 
this nation, so renowned for producing excel- 
lent writers, could ever 3'et show ; esteemed in- 
deed at home, but much more honored abroad, 
where almost in his childhood he made a con- 
siderable figure, and continues to be reputed 
one of the brightest luminaries of the sciences." 



OF JOHN MILTON. 287 



CHAPTER XX. 

And now it becomes of interest to learn 
something of Milton's personal habits, to glance 
somewhat at his character, and to trace briefly 
his manifold influence upon his own age and 
upon posterity. 

Milton habitually dedicated the commence- 
ment of each day to religion. Immediately 
upon rising, which was "with the birds," a 
chapter of the Scriptures, usually in the Greek 
or Hebrew text, was read to him. The sub- 
sequent interval till seven o'clock he passed in 
private meditation. At seven he breakfasted. 
From seven till twelve he devoted to reading 
and writing; after he lost his sight, he dictated 
when "some friendlj'' hand supplied him with 
a pen." From twelve to one he occupied in 
exercise. He had ordered a peculiar kind of 
swing to be constructed in his stud}", and upon 
this he was accustomed to practise gymnastic 
feats. At the conclusion of this hour of exer- 
cise he took his frugal dinner ; after which, 



288 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

repairing to his organ, he resigned himself to 
the delightful recreation of music, instrumen- 
tal, vocal, or both. From this amusement he 
returned to his books or writing, with fresh 
inspiration and renewed strength. At six he 
received the visits of his friends; at eight he 
supped, very simph' ; and at nine, having 
smoked a pipe and taken a glass of water, for 
of wine or of any strong liquors he was not a 
friend,'-' he retired to his repose. 

Such was the ordinary routine of Milton's 
day, though of course this distribution of his 
hours was not stereotyped, but bent to cir- 
cumstances. "When he was in office," saj's 
Dr. S^'mmons, "many of his four and twenty 
hours were unquestionabl}^ engaged in business ; 
and as a table was allowed him by government 
for the entertainment of learned foreigners, this 
scheme of life could, at that juncture, have 
been but very imperfectly followed. ''f But it 
is probable that during his later years he re- 
sumed these regular and domestic habits. 

" Milton," says Toland, " was middle sized, 

* Todd's Life, p. 144. I^'imcy, p. 250.. Toland's Life, 
t Symmons' Life, pp. 510, 511. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 289 

and well proportioned, his deportment was 
erect and manly, his hair of a light brown, his 
featnres exactly regular, his complexion won- 
derfully fair when a youth, and ruddy to the 
last. 

" He was affable in conversation, of an equal 
and cheerful temper, and highly delighted with 
all sorts of music, in which he was himself not 
meanly skilled.'** 

What is termed the unequal flow of Mil- 
ton's genius has provoked much comment. 
Some writers, Toland, for instance, assigned 
the spring as the season of his special and 
highest activity ; Philips, his nephew, declared 
that his "vein never flowed happil}' but from 
the autumnal equinox to the vernal ;" while 
Richardson, with a proper respect to the ardent 
character of Milton's intellect, doubts whether 
he could suffer any work to lie still for a con- 
siderable period. When we reflect that those 
great controversial writings which elicited the 
admiring plaudits of contemporary Europe 
were written at various times of the jear, we 
shall probably dismiss the idea that Milton 

* Toland's Life. Wood's Fasti Oxou, p. 266. 

Milton. 1.3 



290 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

could not sufficiently command his faculties to 
write sublimely at any season, though doubt- 
less particular seasons somewhat afifected his 
spirits and intellectual activity, precisely as 
the climate affects all minds, at certain times 
clouding the full splendor of his genius, and at 
other luminous moments inspiring him to soar 
with easy effort and kiss the stars. 

Milton's domestic life has usually been con- 
sidered the vulnerable spot in the heel of this 
Achilles. At that the venomed shafts of bitter 
critics have long been aimed. But we appre- 
hend that even that spot upon the disc of his 
fair fame disappears before an impartial exam- 
ination. It seems certain that in his conduct 
towards his wives he displayed no deficient 
tenderness. "To his first," says one of his 
biographers, "his conduct seems at least to 
have been exempt from blame ; to his last two 
to have been distinguished by uniform kind- 
ness and affection." 

As regards his "unkind" daughters, he 
seems to have acted towards them, through all 
their disrespect and negligence, the part of an 
affectionate and considerate father. "Well edu- 



OF JOHN MILTON. 291 

cated and ampl}^ provided for, when tliey com- 
plained of the hardship of ministering to his 
phj'sical and intellectual comfort, Milton in- 
stantly dismissed them to more congenial pur- 
suits ; continuing to support them, though the}^ 
refused to raise a finger to ease the heavy load 
under which their blind father staggered, until 
they voluntarily quitted his roof. 

Milton left but three children, all the 
daughters of his first wife. Of these Anne, the 
eldest, who, though deformed, possessed some 
beauty, married well, but died in giving birth to 
her first child. Mary, the second daughter, is 
said to have been the most unfilial of the three ; 
of her little is known, save that she died unmar- 
ried. Deborah, the youngest, and the least 
guilty of them all, left her father's house in con- 
sequence of some disagreement with her step- 
mother, and repairing to Ireland in company 
with a lady named Merian, shortly after married 
there a weaver of Spitalfields, Abraham Clarke. 
Falling, later, into some distress, she was tar- 
dily relieved by a donation from Joseph Addi- 
son, and by a present from Queen Caroline of 
fifty guineas. She had several children, all of 



292 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

whom iiowevoi- slic outlived; and wlien, in 
1754, she herself died, after a life of singular 
and touching penury and wretchedness,'-' the 
last descendant of John IMilton vanished from 
the earth. 

Milton's religious tenets have been the 
theme of much idle speculation. The wildest 
bigot, even in his most heated moment, has 
never ventured to question the sincerity, fer- 
vor, and essentially evangelical character of 
Milton's Christian belief and practice; it is 
what is termed his pecuhanties-f of faith which 
have provoked comment. Most of this criti- 
cism is based upon the following brief para- 
graph in Toland's life of the poet. 

"In his earlv davs he was a favorer of 



* Symmous' Life, pp. 528, 529. 

t Sometime in the reign of George IV., a L.atin manuscript was 
discovered in the state paper office bearing Jlilton's name, and 
containing sentiments in some respects at variance with those 
which have been attributed to him in this work. By command of 
the king, this manuscript was translated and pubUshed in 1825, 
under the title of ".4 Treatise on Ghrisiian Doclrine, compiled from 
the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton." 

It has been asserted that this pamphlet placed Milton in the 
Arian ranks. It is doubtful on many accounts — it was not discov- 
ered until a hundred and fifty years after i\Iilton's death — whether 
he ever wrote it. Even if he did, the above inference caimot be 
" — -x from it. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 293 

those Protestants then opprobriousl}^ called b}^ 
the name of Puritans; in his middle years he 
was best pleased with the Independents and 
Anaba2:)tists, as allowing of more liberty than 
others, and coming nearest, in his opinion, to 
the primitive practice; but in the latter part 
of his life he was not a professed member of 
any particular sect among Christians, he fre- 
quented none of their assemblies, nor made use 
of their peculiar rites in his famil3^" 

Upon this passage Dr. Sj^mmons very 
judicioush' remarks, " The fact of Milton's not 
frequenting, in the latter period of his life, any 
place of public worship, may possibly, though 
still with caution, be admitted on the single 
testimony of Toland f but the cause of this 
fact may more properly be sought in the blind- 
ness and infirmities which for some of his last 
3'ears confined the great author to his house, 
than to any disgust with which he had been 
affected by a nearer insight into the imperfec- 

* It should be remembered that Toland was au ojien infidel, 
and he would naturally seek to identify, so far as possible, the 
views of Milton with his own, or at least to bridge over the impas- 
sable chasm which separated them. For this cause Symmous 
receives his testimony with hesitation. 



294: THE LIFE AND Ti:\rES 

tions of contending sects. On any determina- 
tion of this question, narrow must be the mind 
of that man wlio can suspect the devotion of 
Milton merely because it was not exercised 
within the consecrated precincts of a church. 
We know that a good man may offer his hom- 
age to God with as strong an assurance of ac- 
ceptance, in the Lybian desert as in the cathe- 
dral of St. Paul.''* 

Dr. Newton considers Milton to have 
been a Quiefist, full of the interior of religion, 
though he so little regarded the exterior.f 
Dr. Johnson observes that "he grew old 
without any visible worship ; but that he lived 
without prayer, can hardly be affirmed ; his 
studies and meditations were an habitual pray- 
er."! 

To us it seems that all these surmises are 
flippant and impudent. What shall we say of 
that idle curiosity' which stands indulging in 
dilettante speculation concerning the orthodoxy 
of John Milton's creed — ^Milton, who consecrat- 
ed the opening hours of each da}' to the exer- 

• Synimous' Life, pp. 524, 525. 

t Todd's Life, pp. 154, 155. X Johnsou'.s Life. 



or JOHN MILTON. 295 

cises of devotion ; who initiated bis children 
and his pupils with careful zeal into the i)i'in- 
ciples of Christianity ; who never wrote even 
the most trilling pamphlet without descanting 
upon the merits or the sufferings of the Re- 
deemer of mankind ; whose larger works are 
replete with the essence of godliness, and many 
of which were written in elucidation of obscure 
points of religious doctrine, or for the purpose 
of reforming ecclesiastical abuses, and assimi- 
lating the modern church more closely to its 
primitive model ; whose latest elaborate writ- 
ing was devoted to an earnest plea for the 
closer union of the evangelical sects — Milton, 
whose sublimest poems are made immortal by 
hymning the praises of that very Christianity 
whose necessary forms some critics hesitate to 
acknowledge that he valued. 

It is certain that Milton was not a rigid 
sectarian, being much more anxious to secure 
essential Christian agreement, than earnest for 
similarity o^ form; this trait of his character, 
in connection with his infirmity and blindness, 
may, in his later years, have made him less 
desirous than in his youth of prominently iden- 



29G THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tifyinii; liiinself with any one of (he various 
evangelical sects; but his whole career exhaled 
the very odor of sanctit}' ; his life bloomed with 
the beatitudes. 

A notion exists that John Milton passed 
the last fourteen years of his life in sullen 
gloom, plunged in penury, soured by disap- 
pointment,* unchecred by sympathy or aj)pre- 
ciation. Nothing could be more untrue, noth- 
ing could be more unjust to his memory. 

Although with the peculiar carelessness of 
generous and high souls, he never attached 
undue value to monc}', or made any effort 
to hoard it, he left a considerable estate upon 
his death. Though never affluent, he had 
inherited from his AUher some property. As 
Latin Secretary, his income had been ample 
for his support; while the large sale of his 
political writings before and during the revo- 
lution, 3'ielded him no mean revenue. U])on 
the Restoration, two thousand pounds, which he 
had placed in the excise oflice, were lost to him 
l)y confiscation; he had before lost a similar 
sum b}^ an abuse of confidence, the scrivener 

t Todd's Life, p. 152. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 297 

to whom it had been intrusted fiiiliiig to make 
a due return. By the great fire in 166G, his 
father's old residence in Bread-street, where 
he w^as born, and which had descended to him, 
was destro^^ed ; and after his dismissal from 
the secretaryship of state, of course liis official 
salary was cut off. Yet notwithstanding this 
series of financial misfortunes, Milton contrived, 
by the paucity of his wants and economical 
finesse, not only always to keep himself above 
want, but actually to devise, for the subsistence 
of his famil}^, upwards of three thousand pounds, 
including the amount he had received by the 
sale of his librarj^, disposed of a little before 
his death, and his first wife's dowry, which 
then remained in the hands of the Powells still 
unpaid. 

So far from being soured b}' disappoint- 
ment or unappreciated, after his rescue by mar- 
riage from the cruelty of his unnatural daugh- 
ters, he lived in unbroken peace and serenity 
of temper. He continued to be the recipient 
of the most o-ratifvino- notice of illustrious for- 
eigners,* to whom, on their visits to England, 

\ Symmons' Life, p. 511. 
13* 



298 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

he formed the j)iincipal object of curiosity and 
regard ; and though deserted in his misfortunes 
by the gay and sycophantic crowd of his own 
countrymen who had fluttered about him in 
more prosperous days, there were numerous 
generous and discerning souls who appreciated 
his personal merits, and warmly recognized his 
transcendent genius. 

Nor were his friends and admirers confined 
to those of his own creed and politics. One of 
the foremost poets in English letters, Dryden, 
upon being handed by the Earl of Dorset a 
volume of ''Paradise Lost,^^ which that noble- 
man had accidentally picked up, and, struck 
with the majesty of certain passages, given to 
him with the request that he should pronounce 
an opinion upon it. remarked, after an atten- 
tive perusal, "This man cuts us all out, and 
the ancients too." Shortly afterwards, as 
Aubrey informs us, Dryden called upon Milton 
and solicited permission to construct a drama 
upon his epic. Milton readily assenting, with 
the remark that he saw no objection to this 
scheme of "tagging his lines," the result was 
the production of Dry den's opera, " TAe State 



OF JOHN MILTON. 299 

of Innocence and the Fall of Man.'''^ In the 
preface to this opera, which was not published 
till 1676, two years after Milton's death, "Dry- 
den is sufficiently liberal in his acknowledg- 
ments to the majestic and venerable poet with 
whose materials he had constructed his own 
beautiful edifice." 

Milton was in his temper somewhat grave 
and haughtj^, though not unpleasantly or obtru- 
sively so. He could at times descend to bandy 
epithets, and to jocularity ; but though his sar- 
casm is terrible, nay, almost annihilating, his 
wit is ponderous, and when he jokes it is like 
the gambol of an elephant; he seems out of 
his element. He never appears to so great 
advantage as when, 

"High on a throne of royal state, which far 
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, 
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand 
Showers on her kings barbaric gold and pearls," 

he sits in majesty and discourses upon high 
morals, settles religious differences, and gives 
vocal expression to the beneficent impulses of 
liberty. 

But if in his deportment he exhibited some- 

* Aubrey's Life of Milton. 



300 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

thing of conscious superiority and a little im- 
patience of opposition, bis heart was too kind 
and his charity was too broad to i)ermit him 
ever to give intentional offence. Wlien con- 
vinced of error, no one was more ready to 
recant. When convicted of over-veheinent 
resentment, no one w^as more willing, nay, 
anxious to make atonement. When wronged, 
no one was more ready to forgive, as witness 
his cordial reconciliation with his erring but 
repentant wife. If, lashed into severity by 
the brutal personality of his political assail- 
ants, he retorted with crushing power, and 
sometimes, hurling back the scurrilous epi- 
thets which they had showered upon him, beat 
them at their chosen weapons, sufficient justi- 
fication is usuall}' found in the circumstances 
under which he defended himself; or ])erhaps 
Solomon's aphorism will apply: " Answei a fool 
according to his folh', lest he be wise in his 
own conceit." 

Instant in season and out of season in the 
defence of those civil and religious principles 
which he esteemed essential to the welfare of 
society, if any heedless or venturous adversary 



OF JOHN MILTON. 301 

dared to assail them, his sacred animosity was 
instantly kindled, and be his opponent king or 
courtier, priest or layman, scholar or ignora- 
mus, this knight-errant of truth, buckling on 
his armor for Grod and liberty, went gladly 
into the arena, eager for the combat. 

Milton's erudition was immense. Of the 
two dialects of the Hebrew, and of the Greek, 
Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages, 
he was the master. Passionately fond of read- 
ing, his favorite classical authors were Homer, 
Ovid's ^Metamorphoses,'' and Euripides. Ho 
also himself informs us that "the divine vol- 
umes of Plato and his equal Xenophon," were 
chief objects of his regard. His skill in Latin 
was such, says Dr. Johnson, as places him in 
the first rank of writers and critics. In Ital- 
ian, his melodious sonnets have received from 
Italian critics the highest eulogiums; and in 
skilful use of the Tuscan he rivals Petrarch, 
and at times Dant^ himself. 

But vast as was his literature, no book was 
so frequently in his hands as the Bible, none 
yielded him such solace and support. " It 
must gratify every Christian to reflect," says 



302 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Mr. Ilayley, "that tlie man of our country 
most eminent for energy of mind, for intense- 
ness of application, and for frankness and in- 
trepidity in asserting what he believed to be 
the cause of truth, was so confirmedly devoted 
to Christianit}', that he seems to have made 
the Bible not only the rule of his conduct, but 
the prime director of his genius.'' And Milton 
himself says he penned his plea for unlicensed 
printing, " hoping that his name might deserve 
to appear, not among the mercenary crew of 
false pretenders to learning, but the free and 
ingenuous sort, of such as evidently were born 
for study, and love learning for itself, not for 
lucre, or any other end but the service of God 
and truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and 
perpetuity of praise which God and good men 
have consented shall be the reward of those 
whose published labors advance the good of 
mankind."* 

In his influence upon his own time and 
upon succeeding ages, Milton stands absolutely 
without a rival in English letters. Broader 
than Bacon, sublimor than Dryden, more 

* Miltou's " AreopajUica." Prose Works. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 303 

statesmanlike than Pym or the younger Vane, 
freer from the infirmity of ambition than Crom- 
well, more scholarly than Hampden, finer than 
Pope, grander than Burke — these men, so 
illustrious in the various circles of philosophy, 
politics, poetrj^, and Christianity, stand witli 
proud humility at his feet. 

"From the power of Milton, the English 
language has obtained a sublimity adequate to 
the loftiest conceptions of the human mind, 
and a variety and a richness of harmony on 
which his poetic successors, including Dry den 
himself, have been utterly unable to improve."' 

But civil and religious liberty stand most 
heavily in his debt. 

In Milton's age, the British Constitution had 
not settled down upon its present foundations 
of comparative liberty. Those nice checks and 
balances which enable it now to combine, to 
some extent, democratic energy with the sta- 
bility of an hereditary order, and which have 
served to curb so completely the prerogatives 
of the crown, that the king is moved by the 
will of the ministry, these Britain owes to the 
efforts of Milton and his compeers, who, in 



304 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

1640, Ibllowing in the footsteps of the old bar- 
ons at Runnymede, insisted ujion the enlarge- 
ment of |)Oj)ular liberty and the curtailment of 
the arbitrar}' assumptions of the crown. 

In the century preceding Milton's epoch, 
"the impetuous power of the Tudors, spring- 
ing from the disastrous consequences of the 
wars between the factions of York and Lan- 
caster, had overleaped ever}'^ barrier of the 
Constitution."' In Milton's age, " the amlji- 
tion of the Stuarts, at a period less favorable 
to the exertion of lawless prerogative, had dil- 
igently followed in the track of their insolent 
and tyrannical predecessors. On whatever 
side he looked, Milton saw nothing but insult- 
ed parliaments, arbitrary taxation, illegal and 
sanguiuar}' tribunals, corrupt and mercenary 
law, bigoted and desolating persecution. With 
that ardent love of liberty therefore, which 
always burns brightest in the most expanded 
and elevated bosoms, and fresh from the schools 
of Greece and Rome which had educated the 
masterspirits of the world, it was natural for 
him to turn with delight from the scene in 
which he was engaged,'* to the contemplation 



OF JOHN MILTON. 305 

of those republican forms of govcniinciit in 
which the value of manhood was fully recog-- 
nizecl, and political and ecclesiastical equalit}^ 
were enthroned in the statute-book. 

Such a government he made a galhmt 
though unsuccessful attempt to organize in 
England. But though he failed, the effects of 
his brave effort are clearly traceable in the 
present and the constantly increasing liberal- 
ity of the British Constitution. While, upon 
this side of the Atlantic, Milton's ideal dreams 
have been stereotyped into a grand republic, 
planted by those sturdy Puritans wdio were 
his intellectual children, in successful o{)cra- 
tion from the Atlantic coast to the shores of 
the peaceful sea, upon whose phylacter}" is 
inscribed his glorious motto of the iron days of 
the Commonwealth, ''Toleration, equality, and 
devotion to the good old cause." 

Such, in his life and in his influence, was 
John Milton. And now, arrived at the close 
of this unwMM-thy and imperfect record of his 
radiant and beneficent career, we devoutly 
thank God for lending to the human race so 
high a teacher, so grand a benefactor. "The 



306 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sight of his books, the sound of his name, are 
refreshing to us. His thoughts resemble those 
celestial fruits and flowers which llie virgin 
martyr of Massinger sent down from the gar- 
dens of Paradise to the earth, distinguished 
from the productions of other soils not only by 
their superior bloom and sweetness, but by 
their miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to 
heal. They are powerful not only to delight, 
but to elevate and purify. 

"Nor do we envy the man who can study 
either the life or the writings of the great poet 
and patriot without aspiring to emulate, not 
indeed the sublime works with which his gen- 
ius has enriched our literature, but the zeal 
with which he labored for the public good, the 
fortitude with which he endured every private 
calamit}', the lofty disdain with which he looked 
down on temptation and dangers, the deadly 
hatred which he bore to bigots and t3Tants, 
and the faith which he so sternly kept with 
his country and with his fame."'^' 

Over John Milton's grave civil and relig- 
ious liberty clasp hands; science, poesy, and 

• Miioimley's Miscellaneous Writings, Essay on Milton. 



OF JOHN MILTON. 307 

"divine philosophy" strew upon it garlands as 
immortal as his name ; while the muse of his- 
tory, dipping her pencil in the sunlight, sculp- 
tures through proud tears the scriptural bene- 
diction, "Well done, good and faithful servant; 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



Jusstiny ami ^liaivativcjs. 



D'Aubigne's History of the Great Reformation. 

In five vuliuues 12mt); 2,i.'Ji pp. Five stctl portruits. A learned 
jirofessor lias well siiid, this is "one of the most timely and nseful 
works of the present century. The style is graphic and full of life, 
and a delightful spirit of evangelical piety pervades the whole." 

Sketches from Life. Series I. and II. 

Those two volumes comprise more thau three hmitlrcd and 
fifty interesting and imjjressivc naiTatives, with many engravings, 
llimo. 

Revival Sketches and Manual. 

By Rev. Dr. IlfMPHr.Ev. A worlv adapted to encourage Christians 
in efforts to promote the cause of Christ. 470 i)p. 12mo. 

Elegant Narratives. 

Twenty-four select tracts, beautifidly printed and illustrateiL 
500 pp. 12mo. 

Pictorial Narratives. 

Twenty-four iUustrated tracts. 252 Ytp. 12mo. 

Anecdotes for the Family Circle. 

Contamiug three liun<li-ed and eight anecdotes, each conveying 
some valuable lesson, full of iutere.st luid instruction to all. Fine- 
ly illustrated. 503 pp. 18mo. 

Haste to the Rescue. 

A narrative of God's blessing upon tlu> noble efforts of an Eng- 
lish lady to reclaim and lead to Christ the laboring classes of a 
large town. With frontispiece. 321 pp. 18mo. 

Seamen's Narratives. 

An interesting volume for .sailors. Illu.strated. 281 pp. 18mo. 

Annals of the Poor. 

Legh Richmond's beautiful narratives of the Daibtman's Daugh- 
ter, African Servant, and Young Cottager. 320 pp. ISmo. 

The Dairyman's Daughter. 

New edition, illustrated, large type. ISO jip. 18mo. 

The Young Cottager. 

In the same style as the above. 113 pp. 



"^ 



OWEN ON F0EGIVENES3. 

A practical cxiDosition of the 130tli rsalui. •i'20 pii. Vlmo. 

ATONEMENT AND JUSTIEIOATION. 

By Eev. Andkew Fuller. A clear, scriptural, and forcible pre- 
sentation of these great fiiutlamental points in the gospel system. 
39(5 pp. 12mo. 

THE BAOKSLIDEE. 

By Rev. Andrew Fuller. Sho-waug the natiire of backsliding, its 
symptoms, dangers, and the means of recovery. 9G pp. 18mo. 

EEV. EICHAED ALLEINE'S HEAVEN OPENED. 

A rich book for those who love the marrow of the gospel. 388 
pp. 12mo. 

ALLEINE'S ALAEM TO THE UNCONVEETED. 

In three j^ears, 75,000 copies were sold. The Society have 
issued 240,000. 190 pp. ISmo. 

WILLISON'3 AEPLIOTED MAN'S COMPANION, 
To which is added Dr. Grosvenoe's Mourner, or the Afflicted 
ReUeved. Works well knouai, and adapted to the afflicted of every 
class. 343 pp. 12mo. 

BIOKEESTETH ON PEAYEE. 

A standard treatise sh(j\\-ing the nature, duty, and privilege of 
prayer, private, public, family, and social. 332 pp. 12mo. 

ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. 

A highly evangelical treatise, rich in Scripture tnith, and 
abounding in beautiful incident and illustration. By Rev. Dr. 
Krummacher of Berlin, Prussia. 458 pp. ISmo. 

PEACTICAL PIETY, 

Or the influence of religion on the mind and heart. By Hannah 
More. 412 pj). 18mo. 

WILBEEFOEOE'S PEACTICAL VIEW OF OHEISTIANITY. 

Enforcing in an clevattd and impressive style the necessity of 
vital godliness. Steel portrait. 412 pp. 18mo. 



HELPS TO BIBLE STUDY. 



The lamily Bible, Royal Octavo, Revised Edition. 
With brief Notes and Instnutions, M;u-|j;iiKil riefcrenccs, an Intro- 
duction to euch book, a Harmony of the Gospels, new Majjs, Tal)les 
of I'atriarehs, Prophets, and Apostles, Bible Chronology, and a 
Family Record. For general use in family worship and Bible 
study. 1,504 pages. In one volume sheep, or three volumes cloth. 

Pamily Testament and Psalms, 

With Notes, etc. A beautiful volume of 524 pages super-roval 
8vo. 

Pocket Testament, 
With Notes, Maps, etc. 18mo, 810 pages. 

A Dictionary of the Holy Bible, 

For general use in the study of the Scriptures, with five Maps, 
Chronological and other Tables, and two hundred and fifty Engrav- 
ings. 534 pages, large 12mo. 

Bible Atlas and Gazetteer, 
Roj'al octavo, 32 pages, •with six fine maps, a list of all the geo- 
graphical names in Scrijjture, and valuable Tables. 

Oruden's Condensed Concordance. 
A fine edition. 5G1 pages, 8vo. 

Locke's Commonplace-Book to the Holy Bible. 
412 pages 8vo. 

The Bible Text-Book, 
Or the principal Texts relating to the Persons, Places, and Sub- 
jects occurring in the Holy Scriptures. Colored Maps, and Tables. 
280 pages, 18mo. 

Youth's Bible Studies, 
Complete in six parts. Part I. The Pentateuch. II. Historical 
Books. III. The Prophets. IV. Poetical Books. Y. The Gospels. 
VI. The Acts, Epistles, etc. In a set with case. 

Gallaudet's Youth's Scripture Biography, 
Comiiktc in eleven volumes. 49 Engravings. In a case. 

Published and for sale by the American Tract Society, 150 Nassau-street, 
New York; Boston, 40 Coruhill; Roche.ster, 75 State-street; Ehiladei.phiAj 
92'J Chestnut-street ; Baltimore. 73 West-l'"ayette-8treel : Cincinnati, 163 Wal> 
init-street: Chicago, 170 Clark-street; St. Louis, 9 Sonth-Fifth-street; and to 
be had of the principal booksellers. 



RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 

TO— ► 202 Main Library 




LOAN PERIOD 1 
HOME USE 


2 


3 ' 


4 


5 ( 


S 


ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 


DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 








AUTO D'^CSF' • '^ 


" 
" 




DtC1819ftq 












^^"0 Dis, OCT i 


ms 






'^N ^mo 








mmi ^^^ ^ '' '-"■ 






^ 1 ("rr^ r'^i^ i*^ 






-M 1 1 (J UiO'w 






bUi U 1 19^3^ 






ORCULATiOM 






hpn wnrFiTT m ^ ' 


': V 


1 



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKE' 
FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720 



LD62A-30m-7,'73 
(B2278l0)94l2-A-32 



Univerartyof Califbroia 
Berkeley 



*c 



># 






I 




<^oob?L,flbai 



