Volume II Part 12 (1/2)
Milton no doubt was highly pleased with such extreme condescension and esteem from a person of the Marquis of Villa's quality; and as an evidence of his grat.i.tude, he presented the Marquis at his departure from Naples, his eclogue, ent.i.tled Mansus; which, says Dr. Newton, is well worth reading among his Latin poems; so that it may be reckoned a peculiar felicity in the Marquis of Villa's life to have been celebrated both by Ta.s.so and Milton, the greatest poets of their nation. Having seen the finest parts of Italy, and conversed with men of the first distinction, he was preparing to pa.s.s over into Sicily and Greece, when the news from England, that a civil war was like to lay his country in blood, diverted his purpose; for as by his education and principles he was attached to the parliamentary interest, he thought it a mark of abject cowardice, for a lover of his country to take his pleasure abroad, while the friends of liberty were contending at home for the rights of human nature. He resolved therefore to return by way of Rome, tho' he was dissuaded from pursuing that resolution by the merchants, who were informed by their correspondents, that the English jesuits there were forming plots against his life, in case he should return thither, on account of the great freedom with which he had treated their religion, and the boldness he discovered in demonstrating the absurdity of the Popish tenets; for he by no means observed the rule recommended to him by Sir Henry Wotton, of keeping his thoughts close, and his countenance open.
Milton was removed above dissimulation, he hated whatever had the appearance of disguise, and being naturally a man of undaunted courage, he was never afraid to a.s.sert his opinions, nor to vindicate truth tho' violated by the suffrage of the majority.
Stedfast in his resolutions, he went to Rome a second time, and stayed there two months more, neither concealing his name, nor declining any disputations to which his antagonists in religious opinions invited him; he escaped the secret machinations of the jesuits, and came safe to Florence, where he was received by his friends with as much tenderness as if he had returned to his own country. Here he remained two months, as he had done in his former visit, excepting only an excursion of a few days to Lucca, and then crossing the Appenine, and pa.s.sing thro' Bologna, and Ferrara, he arrived at Venice, in which city he spent a month; and having s.h.i.+pped off the books he had collected in his travels, he took his course thro' Verona, Milan, and along the Lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he continued some time, meeting there with people of his own principles, and contracted an intimate friends.h.i.+p with Giovanni Deodati, the most learned professor of Divinity, whose annotations on the bible are published in English; and from thence returning to France the same way that he had gone before, he arrived safe in England after an absence of fifteen months, in which Milton had seen much of the world, read the characters of famous men, examined the policy of different countries, and made more extensive improvements than travellers of an inferior genius, and less penetration, can be supposed to do in double the time. Soon after his return he took a handsome house in Aldersgate-street, and undertook the education of his sister's two sons, upon a plan of his own. In this kind of scholastic solitude he continued some time, but he was not so much immersed in academical studies, as to stand an indifferent spectator of what was acted upon the public theatre of his country.
The nation was in great ferment in 1641, and the clamour against episcopacy running very high, Milton who discovered how much inferior in eloquence and learning the puritan teachers were to the bishops, engaged warmly with the former in support of the common cause, and exercised all the power of which he was capable, in endeavouring to overthrow the prelatical establishment, and accordingly published five tracts relating to church government; they were all printed at London in 4to. The first was int.i.tled, Reformation touching Church Discipline in England, and the Causes that have hitherto hindered it: two books written to a friend. The second was of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deducted from Apostolical Times, by virtue of those Testimonies which are alledged to that purpose in some late treatises; one whereof goes under the name of James Usher archbishop of Armagh.
The third was the Reason of Church Government urged against the Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, in two books. The fourth was Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus; and the fifth an Apology for a Pamphlet called, a Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrants against Smectymnuus; or as the t.i.tle page is in some copies, an Apology for Smectymnuus, with the Reason of Church Government, by John Milton.
In the year 1643 Milton married the daughter of Richard Powel, Esq; of Forrest-hill in Oxfords.h.i.+re; who not long after obtaining leave of her husband to pay a visit to her father in the country, but, upon repeated messages to her, refusing to return, Milton seemed disposed to marry another, and in 1644 published the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; the Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce, and the year following his Tetrachordon and Colasterion. Mr. Philips observes, and would have his readers believe, that the reason of his wife's aversion to return to him was the contrariety of their state principles. The lady being educated in loyal notions, possibly imagined, that if ever the regal power should flourish again, her being connected with a person so obnoxious to the King, would hurt her father's interest; this Mr. Philips alledges, but, with submission to his authority, I dissent from his opinion. Had she been afraid of marrying a man of Milton's principles, the reason was equally strong before as after marriage, and her father must have seen it in that light; but the true reason, or at least a more rational one, seems to be, that she had no great affection for Milton's person.
Milton was a stern man, and as he was so much devoted to study, he was perhaps too negligent in those endearments and tender intercourses of love which a wife has a right to expect. No lady ever yet was fond of a scholar, who could not join the lover with it; and he who expects to secure the affections of his wife by the force of his understanding only, will find himself miserably mistaken: indeed it is no wonder that women who are formed for tenderness, and whose highest excellence is delicacy, should pay no great reverence to a proud scholar, who considers the endearments of his wife, and the caresses of his children as pleasures unworthy of him. It is agreed by all the biographers of Milton, that he was not very tender in his disposition; he was rather boldly honourable, than delicately kind; and Mr. Dryden seems to insinuate, that he was not much subject to love. ”His rhimes, says he, flow stiff from him, and that too at an age when love makes every man a rhymster, tho' not a poet. There are, methinks, in Milton's love-sonnets more of art than nature; he seems to have considered the pa.s.sion philosophically, rather than felt it intimately.”
In reading Milton's gallantry the breast will glow, but feel no palpitations; we admire the poetry, but do not melt with tenderness; and want of feeling in an author seldom fails to leave the reader cold; but from whatever cause his aversion proceeded, she was at last prevailed upon by her relations, who could foresee the dangers of a matrimonial quarrel, to make a submission, and she was again received with tenderness.
Mr. Philips has thus related the story.--'It was then generally thought, says he, that Milton had a design of marrying one of Dr.
Davy's daughters, a very handsome and witty gentlewoman, but averse, as it is said, to this motion; however the intelligence of this caused justice Powel's family to let all engines at work to restore the married woman to the station in which they a little before had planted her. At last this device was pitched upon. There dwelt in the lane of St. Martin's Le Grand, which was hard by, a relation of our author's, one Blackborough, whom it was known he often visited, and upon this occasion the visits were more narrowly observed, and possibly there might be a combination between both parties, the friends on both sides consenting in the same action, tho' in different behalfs. One time above the rest, making his usual visits, his wife was ready in another room; on a sudden he was surprized to see one, whom he thought never to have seen more, making submission, and begging pardon on her knees before him. He might probably at first make some shew of aversion, and rejection, but partly his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger and revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm league of peace for the future; and it was at length concluded that she should remain at a friend's house, till he was settled in his new house in Barbican, and all things prepared for her reception. The first fruits of her return to her husband was a brave girl, born within a year after, tho', whether by ill const.i.tution, or want of care, she grew more and more decrepit.'
Mr. Fenton observes, that it is not to be doubted but the abovementioned interview between Milton and his wife must wonderfully affect him; and that perhaps the impressions it made on his imagination contributed much to the painting of that pathetic scene in Paradise Lost, b. 10. in which Eve addresses herself to Adam for pardon and peace, now at his feet submissive in distress.
About the year 1644 our author wrote a small piece in one sheet 4to, under this t.i.tle, Education, to Mr. Samuel Hartly, reprinted at the end of his Poems on several occasions; and in the same year he published at London in 4to, his Areopagitica, or a speech of Mr. J.
Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing, to the Parliament of England.
In 1645 his Juvenile Poems were printed at London, and about this time his zeal for the republican party had so far recommended him, that a design was formed of making him adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's army; but the new modelling the army proved an obstruction to that advancement. Soon after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell with the whole army through the city, in order to suppress the insurrection which Brown and Ma.s.sey were endeavouring to raise there, against the army's proceedings, he left his great house in Barbican, for a smaller in High Holborn, where he prosecuted his studies till after the King's trial and death, when he published his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: His Observations on the Articles of peace between James Earl of Ormond for King Charles I. on the one hand, and the Irish Rebels and Papists on the other hand; and a letter sent by Ormond to colonel Jones governor of Dublin; and a representation of the Scotch Presbytery at Belfast in Ireland.
He was now admitted into the service of the Commonwealth, and was made Latin Secretary to the Council of State, who resolved neither to write nor receive letters but in the Latin tongue, which was common to all states.
'And it were to be wished,' says Dr. Newton, 'that succeeding Princes would follow their example, for in the opinion of very wise men, the universality of the French language will make way for the universality of the French Monarchy. Milton was perhaps the first instance of a blind man's possessing the place of a secretary; which no doubt was a great inconvenience to him in his business, tho' sometimes a political use might be made of it, as men's natural infirmities are often pleaded in excuse for their not doing what they have no great inclination to do. Dr. Newton relates an instance of this. When Cromwell, as we may collect from Whitlocke, for some reasons delayed artfully to sign the treaty concluded with Sweden, and the Swedish amba.s.sador made frequent complaints of it, it was excused to him, because Milton on account of his blindness, proceeded slower in business, and had not yet put the articles of treaty into Latin. Upon which the amba.s.sador was greatly surprized that things of such consequence should be entrusted to a blind man; for he must necessarily employ an amanuensis, and that amanuensis might divulge the articles; and said, it was very wonderful there should be only one man in England who could write Latin, and he a blind one.'
Thus we have seen Milton raised to the dignity of Latin Secretary. It is somewhat strange, that in times of general confusion, when a man of parts has the fairest opportunity to play off his abilities to advantage, that Milton did not rise sooner, nor to a greater elevation; he was employed by those in authority only as a writer, which conferred no power upon him, and kept him in a kind of obscurity, who had from nature all that was proper for the field as well as the cabinet; for we are a.s.sured that Milton was a man of confirmed courage.
In 1651 our author published his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, for which he was rewarded by the Commonwealth with a present of a thousand pounds, and had a considerable hand in correcting and polis.h.i.+ng a piece written by his nephew Mr. John Philips, and printed at London 1652, under this t.i.tle, Joannis Philippi Angli Responsio ad Apologiam Anonymi cujusdam Tenebrionis pro Rege & Populo Anglicano infantissimam. During the writing and publis.h.i.+ng this book, he lodged at one Thomson's, next door to the Bull-head tavern Charing-Cross; but he soon removed to a Garden-house in Petty-France, next door to lord Scudamore's, where he remained from the year 1652 till within a few weeks of the Restoration. In this house, his first wife dying in child-bed, 1652, he married a second, Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodc.o.c.k of Hackney, who died of a consumption in three months after she had been brought to bed of a daughter. This second marriage was about two or three years after he had been wholly deprived of his sight; for by reason of his continual studies, and the head-ach[e], to which he was subject from his youth, and his perpetual tampering with physic, his eyes had been decaying for twelve years before.
In 1654 he published his Defensio Secunda; and the year following his Defensio pro Se. Being now at ease from his state adversaries, and political controversies, he had leisure again to prosecute his own studies, and private designs, particularly his History of Britain, and his new Thesaurus Linguae Latinae according to the method of Robert Stevens, the ma.n.u.script of which contained three large volumes in folio, and has been made use of by the editors of the Cambridge Dictionary, printed 4to, 1693.
In 1658 he published Sir Walter Raleigh's Cabinet Council; and in 1659 a Treatise of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, Lond. 12mo.
and Considerations touching the likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church; wherein are also Discourses of t.i.thes, Church-fees, Church-Revenues, and whether any Maintenance of Ministers can be settled in Law, Lond. 1659, 12mo.
Upon the dissolution of the Parliament by the army, after Richard Cromwell had been obliged to resign the Protectors.h.i.+p, Milton wrote a letter, in which he lays down the model of a commonwealth; not such as he judged the best, but what might be the readiest settled at that time, to prevent the restoration of kingly government and domestic disorders till a more favourable season, and better dispositions for erecting a perfect democracy. He drew up likewise another piece to the same purpose, which seems to have been addressed to general Monk; and he published in February 1659, his ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth. Soon after this he published his brief notes upon a late sermon, ent.i.tled, the Fear of G.o.d and the King, printed in 4to, Lond. 1660. Just before the restoration he was removed from his office of Latin secretary, and concealed himself till the act of oblivion was published; by the advice of his friends he absconded till the event of public affairs should direct him what course to take, for this purpose he retired to a friend's house in Bartholomew-Close, near West-Smithfield, till the general amnesty was declared.
The act of oblivion, says Mr. Phillips, proving as favourable to him, as could be hoped or expected, through the intercession of some that stood his friends both in Council and Parliament; particularly in the House of Commons, Mr. Andrew Marvel member for Hull, and who has prefixed a copy of verses before his Paradise Lost, acted vigorously in his behalf, and made a considerable party for him, so that together with John Goodwin of Coleman-Street, he was only so far excepted as not to bear any office in the Commonwealth; but as this is one of the most important circ.u.mstances in the life of our author, we shall give an account of it at large, from Mr. Richardson, in his life of Milton, prefixed to his Explanatory Notes, and Remarks on Paradise Lost.
His words are
'That Milton escaped is well known, but not how. By the accounts we have, he was by the Act of Indemnity only incapacitated for any public employment. This is a notorious mistake, though Toland, the bishop of Sarum, Fenton, &c, have gone into it, confounding him with Goodwin; their cases were very different, as I found upon enquiry. Not to take a matter of this importance upon trust, I had first recourse to the Act itself. Milton is not among the excepted. If he was so conditionally pardoned, it must then be, by a particular instrument.
That could not be after he had been purified entirely by the general indemnity, nor was it likely the King, who had declared from Breda, he would pardon all but whom the Parliament should judge unworthy of it, and had thus lodged the matter with them, should, before they came to a determination, bestow a private act of indulgence to one so notorious as Milton. It is true, Rapin says, several princ.i.p.al republicans applied for mercy, while the Act was yet depending, but quotes no authority; and upon search, no such pardon appears on record, though many are two or three years after, but then they are without restrictions; some people were willing to have a particular, as well as a general pardon; but whatever was the case of others, there was a reason besides what has been already noted, that no such favour would be shewn to Milton. The House of Commons, June 16, 1660, vote the King to be moved to call in his two books, and that of John Goodwin, written in justification of the murder of the King, in order to be burnt, and that the Attorney General do proceed against them by indictment. June 27, an Order of Council reciting that Vote of the 16th, and that the persons were not to be found, directs a Proclamation for calling in Milton's two books, which are here explained, to be that against Salmasius, and the Eikon Basilike, as also Goodwin's book; and a Proclamation was issued accordingly, and another to the same purpose the 13th of August: as for Goodwin he narrowly escaped for his life, but he was voted to be excepted out of the Act of Indemnity, amongst the twenty designed to have penalties inflicted short of death, and August 27, these books of Milton and Goodwin were burnt by the hangman. The Act of Oblivion, according to Kennet's Register, was pa.s.sed the 29th. It is seen by this account, that Milton's person and Goodwin's are separated, tho' their books are blended together. As the King's intention appeared to be a pardon to all but actual regicides, as Burnet says, it is odd, he should a.s.sert in the same breath, almost all people were surprized that Goodwin and Milton escaped censure. Why should it be so strange, they being not concerned in the King's blood? that he was forgot, as Toland says, some people imagined, is very unlikely. However, it is certain, from what has been shewn from bishop Kennet, he was not. That he should be distinguished from Goodwin, with advantage, will justly appear strange; for his vast merit, as an honest man, a great scholar, and a most excellent writer, and his fame, on that account, will hardly be thought the causes, especially when it is remembered Paradise Lost was not produced, and the writings, on which his vast reputation stood, are now become criminal, and those most, which were the main pillars of his fame. Goodwin was an inconsiderable offender, compared with him; some secret cause must be recurred to in accounting for this indulgence. I have heard that secretary Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges were his friends, and managed matters artfully in his favour; doubtless they, or some body else did, and they very probably, as being powerful friends at that time. But still how came they to put their interest at such a stretch, in favour of a man so notoriously obnoxious? perplexed, and inquisitive as I was, I at length found the secret. It was Sir William Davenant obtained his remission, in return of his own life, procured by Milton's interest, when himself was under condemnation, Anno 1650. A life was owing to Milton (Davenant's) and it was paid n.o.bly; Milton's for Davenant, at Davenant's intercession.
The management of the affair in the house, whether by signifying the King's desire, or otherwise, was, perhaps by those gentlemen named.'
This account Mr. Richardson had from Mr. Pope, who was informed of it by Betterton, the celebrated actor, who was first brought upon the stage by Sir William Davenant, and honoured with an intimacy with him, so that no better authority need be produced to support any fact.
Milton being secured by his pardon, appeared again in public, and removed to Jewin street, where he married his third wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. Minshul of Ches.h.i.+re, recommended to him by his friend Dr. Paget, to whom he was related, but he had no children by her: soon after the restoration he was offered the place of Latin secretary to the King, which, notwithstanding the importunities of his wife, he refused: we are informed, that when his wife pressed him to comply with the times, and accept the King's offer, he made answer, 'You are in the right, my dear, you, as other women, would ride in your coach; for me, my aim is to live and die an honest man.' Soon after his marriage with his third wife, he removed to a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill-fields, where he continued till his death, except during the plague, in 1665, when he retired with his family to St. Giles's Chalfont Buckinghams.h.i.+re, at which time his Paradise Lost was finished, tho' not published till 1667. Mr. Philips observes, that the subject of that poem was first designed for a tragedy, and in the fourth book of the poem, says he, there are ten verses, which, several years before the poem was begun, were shewn to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of the tragedy. The verses are,
O thou that with surpa.s.sing glory crown'd Look'st from thy sole dominion like the G.o.d, Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, Which brings to my remembrance, from what state I fell; how glorious once above thy sphere, 'Till pride, and worse ambition, threw me down, Warring in Heaven, 'gainst Heav'ns matchless King.
Mr. Philips further observes, that there was a very remarkable circ.u.mstance in the composure of Paradise Lost, which, says he, 'I have particular reason to remember, for whereas I had the perusal of it from the very beginning, for some years, as I went from time to time to visit him, in a parcel of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time, which being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly want correction, as to the orthography and pointing; having, as the summer came on, not been shewn any for a considerable while, and desiring the reason thereof, was answered, that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal, and that whatever he attempted at other times, was never to his satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never so much; so that in all the years he was about his poem, he may be said to have spent but half his time therein.'[3]