the four chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage [or nullities in Marriage]'. 54 This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy, who, then holding their famous assembly at Westminster, procured that the author should be called before the Lords; 'but that House,' says Wood, 'whether approving the doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, did soon dismiss him ".' 55 There seems not to have been much written against him, nor any thing by any writer of eminence 3. The antagonist that appeared is styled by him, 'a Serving man turned Solicitor' Howel in his letters mentions the new doctrine with contempt 5; and it was, I suppose, thought more worthy of derision than of confutation. He complains of this neglect in two sonnets, of which the first is contemptible, and the second not excellent'. 56 From this time it is observed that he became an enemy to the Presbyterians, whom he had favoured before 8. He that changes his party by his humour is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself rather than truth'. 1 See Appendix L. 2 Fasti Oxon. i. 483. The Assembly did not proceed directly, but 'stirred up the Stationers' Company to activity in the matter.' Milton had openly violated the Ordinance for Printing of the Long Parliament, dated June 14, 1643. His Doctrine and Discipline he had neither had licensed, nor registered by the Stationers' Company, to their loss of fees. There was a trade-feeling behind the petition' presented by the Company to Parliament on Aug. 24, 1644, against unlicensed pamphlets generally and Milton's particularly. A few days earlier he had been attacked in a sermon before both Houses by a divine of the Assembly. The petition was ferred to a Committee, which 'let Milton alone.' On Dec. 9, 1644, five weeks after the publication of Areopagitica (also unlicensed and unregistered), the Company renewed the attack, this time before the Lords. Two justices were ordered to examine him. There is not a word in the Journals to show that any action was taken against him on their report, or that he appeared before the Lords. Masson's Milton, re iii. 164, 264-5, 270-4, 291, 295. On July 2 of this year the battle of Marston Moor had been fought, and Milton's friends, the Independents, with their doctrine of toleration, were becoming 'lords of the ascendant.' 3 Milton mentions this in Colasterion, Works, ii. 240. 'It was animadverted upon, but without any mention of Milton's name, by Bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience, Decade 4, case 2. JAMES BOSWELL, JUN., Johnson's Works, vii. 81 n. For other writers (of whom the most eminent was Prynne) see Masson's Milton, iii. 262, 298, 466. 4 Works, ii. 243. poor shallow 5 That opinion of a brain'd Puppy . deserves to be hiss'd at rather than confuted.' Letters, 1892, p. 569. No. xi. Johnson, in his Dictionary, under Sonnet, after saying that 'it has not been used by any man of eminence since Milton,' quotes this sonnet in full. For his Sonnets see post, MILTON, 206. 7 No. xii. His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an 57 unresisting sufferer of injuries; and perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great accomplishments, the daughter of one Doctor Davis, who was however not ready to comply 1, they resolved to endeavour a reunion. He went sometimes to the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand2, and at one of his usual visits was surprised to see his wife come from another room, and implore forgiveness on her knees 3. He resisted her intreaties for a while; but partly,' says Philips, 'his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger or revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm league of peace *.' It were injurious to omit, that Milton afterwards received her father and her brothers in his own house, when they were distressed, with other Royalists". He published about the same time his Areopagitica, a Speech 58 of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed Printing. The the best men in England, when it was seen that 'New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large.' Phillips' Milton, p. 26. 2 lb. p. 28. 'The lane was that bend of Aldersgate Street where now the General Post Office stands.' Masson's Milton, iii. 440. 3 This interview was about July or August, 1645. Their first child was born on July 29, 1646. The submission was probably due to the defeat of the king at Naseby on June 14, 1645. Her father was weighed down with debt, and the sequestrations and fines for delinquency, which followed the surrender of Oxford on June 24, 1646, were threatening him. Ib. iii. 439, 473, 483, 632 ; N. & Q. 2 S. viii. 142. Fenton thinks that from this interview sprung' that pathetic scene in Paradise Lost (x. 940), in which Eve addresseth herself to Adam for pardon and peace.' Paradise Lost, 1727, ed. Fenton, Preface, p. 13. Compare also Samson Agonistes, 11. 710-1060, where Dalila is spurned by Samson. kindred with her in her house, viz. her father and mother, and several of her brothers and sisters, which were in all pretty numerous.' Ib. See also Masson's Milton, iii. 652; Works, vi. 122. 6 It appeared Nov. 24, 1644, with this title: Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicens'd Printing to the Parlament of England.' Masson's Milton, iii. 277; Works, i. 286. On June 14, 1643, Parliament had appointed eight sets of licensers of the press. For Books of Philosophy, History, Poetry, Morality and Arts,' two of the three licensers were 'the three School-Masters of Paul's.' Rushworth's Hist. Collections, v. 336. For the Licensing Act and its abolition in 1695 see Macaulay's Hist. vi. 360; vii. 167. After describing 'the reasons which determined the Lower House not to renew the Act' Macaulay concludes:-'Such were the arguments which did what Milton's Areopagitica had failed to do.' Ib. vii. 169. For a reprint of Areopagitica in 1738, when the Act was passed for licensing plays, see post, THOMSON, 31 n. 59 danger of such unbounded liberty and the danger of bounding it have produced a problem in the science of Government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be published but what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his projects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace; and if every sceptick in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed that every society may punish, though not prevent, the publication of opinions, which that society shall think pernicious 3: but this punishment, though it may crush the author, promotes the book*; and it seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief". But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestick, poetry was never long out of his thoughts. About this time (1645) a collection of his Latin and English poems appeared 6, in which the Allegro and Penseroso", with some others, were first published. 60 He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception of I 'JOHNSON. In short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.' Boswell's Johnson, iv. 12. See also post, SAVAGE, 107. 2 For the fury of innovation,' from which 'Tyburn itself was not safe,' see ib. iv. 188. 36 'JOHNSON. No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.' lb. ii. 249. 'As burning a book by the common hangman is a known expedient to make it sell, so to write a book that deserves such treatment is another.' SWIFT, Works, viii. 112. Hume explains how, though late, there arose the paradoxical principle and salutary practice of toleration.' Hist. Eng. vi. 165. 5 The only plausible argument heretofore used for restraining the just freedom of the press, "that it was necessary, to prevent the daily 'I do not recollect that for seventy 8 Phillips' Milton, p. 28; Masson's Milton, iii. 443. Bridgewater House scholars, but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away; and the house again,' says Philips, 'now looked like a house of the Muses only, though the accession of scholars was not great. Possibly his having proceeded so far in the education of youth may have been the occasion of [some of] his adversaries calling him pedagogue and school-master; whereas it is well known he never set up for a publick school to teach all the young fry of a parish, but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to relations and the sons of gentlemen who were his intimate friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching ever savoured in the least of pedantry'.' Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be 61 denied, and what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean employment 2. This, however, his warmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift and palliate. He did not sell literature to all comers at an open shop; he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his friends. Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of 62 degradation, tells us that it was not long continued ; and, to raise his character again, has a mind to invest him with military splendour: 'He is much mistaken,' he says, 'if there was not about this time a design of making him an adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's army 3. But the new modelling of the army proved an obstruction to the design. An event cannot be set at a much greater distance than by having been only designed, about some time, if a man be not much mistaken. Milton shall be a pedagogue Directory as 'a pious rational book, but in any except a very regular life difficult to practise.' John. Misc. i. 103. Phillips' Milton, p. 28. For the New Model, by which the command of the army passed from the Presbyterians to the Independents, from the lukewarm to the thorough-goers, from Essex, Manchester, and Waller to Fairfax, Cromwell, and Skippon, see Clarendon's Hist. v. 88, 130, and Gardiner's Civil War, ii. 5, 79, 116. 63 64 no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, somebody at some time designed him for a soldier 1. About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645) he removed to a smaller house in Holbourn, which opened backward into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields". He is not known to have published any thing afterwards till the King's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, and 'to compose the minds of the people 3.' He made some Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalence of opinions, first willingly admitted and then habitually indulged, if objections by being overlooked were forgotten, and desire superinduced conviction, he yet shared only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no less sincere than his opponents. But as faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him, Milton is suspected of having interpolated the book called Icon Basilike 5, which the Council of State, to whom he was now made Latin secretary, employed him to censure, by inserting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and In Defensio Secunda, Milton says that it was not through want of courage or zeal that he had never borne arms. His training fitted him for different, though not less dangerous services. Works, v. 199. 2 Phillips' Milton, p. 28. He removed in 1647. Masson's Milton, iv. 104. 3 The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Works, ii. 271. It was published a fortnight after the King's death,' and only a few days after Eikon Basilike. 'It was written mainly' while the king was alive. Masson's Milton, iv. 65, 76. 'Liber iste non nisi post mortem regis prodiit, ad componendos potius hominum animos factus quam ad statuendum de Carolo quicquam.' Works, v. 235. 4 Observations upon the Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels, on the Letter of Ormond to Col. Jones, and the Representation of the Presbytery at Belfast, Works, ii. 360; Masson's Milton, iv. 98. Ormond having 'coupled' Cromwell with John of Leyden, Milton replied::-'Cromwell, whom he couples with a name of scorn, hath done in few years more eminent and remarkable deeds whereon to found nobility in his house, though it were wanting, and perpetual renown to posterity, than Ormond and all his ancestors put together can show from any record of their Irish exploits, the widest scene of their glory.' Works, ii. 367. 5 See Appendix M. On March 15, 1648-9. Masson's Milton, iv. 82. See also ib. v. 396, 570, 623, 674, and post, MILTON, 162. 'They [the Commonwealth] stuck to this noble and generous resolution not to write to any Princes and States, or receive answers from any, but in a language most proper to maintain a correspondence among the learned of all nations; scorning to carry on their affairs in the wheedling lisping jargon of the cringing French. Phillips' Milton, p. 30. |