It need scarcely be said that Milton's fitness for the championship he assumed was recognised by others. Indeed it was partly in deference to the urgency of others that he stood forward as he did. Learned men were complaining of the new tyranny 'And that so generally that when I disclosed myself a companion of their discontent, I might say, if without envy, that he whom an honest quæstorship had endeared to the Sicilians was .not more by them importuned against Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and persuasions that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning.' SECTION III. THE FORM. As Milton wished directly to appeal to the Parliament, and not merely to talk at them, it seemed to him well to cast what he had to say in the form of a Speech addressed straight to them. Not that the speech was ever meant to be delivered in the ordinary sense. Just as the best dramatic pieces of the present century were written to be read-not to be seen acted-so this work was meant to be read, not heard delivered. It was meant for the closet, not for the forum. The author ascends an imaginary tribune, and conceives the Lords and Commons of England gathered around to listen. This direct expression suited better the mood of Milton's spirit at the time. He was terribly in earnest, and zealous to strike home. He did not propose merely to discuss the general question at issue, but he longed also to expostulate immediately and fervently with the Government on the character of the policy they were enforcing. It seemed to him no idle matter fit for leisurely disquisition, but a matter of life and death; and so far as might be, he would put aside all intervening obstacles, and say out in the very ears of those whom he would move the thoughts that burned within him. Moreover, it gave no trifling charm in his judgment to this treatment of his subject that precedents for it were, as we shall see, to be found in that Greek literature which was his delight. It is to be remembered then, that the Parliament is immediately before the eye of his mind throughout this discourse. The exordium or opening passage is altogether devoted to their praises, and the deprecation of any annoyance that might possibly be created by his boldness in intruding his voice upon them. He says that the mere thought of whom it is his address 'hath recourse to,' stirs in him a strange excitement-'hath got the power within me to a passion far more welcome than incidental to a preface.' And, indeed, this was no wonder, when we think of the immortal services that 'High Court' had done for England. In the subsequent history of the Long Parliament there may be something that is ignoble and mean. It may be that it outlived its vigour, and in its senility sank into folly and contempt; but it is not possible to recall its illustrious youth and the prowess of it without pride and admiration. Milton's audience was at the time he spoke not unworthy of Milton. And amidst all the eulogies that contemporaries and writers since of all shades of political opinion have bestowed upon that memorable House of Commons, no higher compliment was ever paid to it than when the ardent soul of Milton turned so impetuously towards it to pray for the relaxation of bonds that seemed to stifle the very spirit of freedom. Its past career filled him with confidence for the future. 'For this is not the liberty which wee can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth, that let no man in this World expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply consider'd, and speedily reform'd, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men looke for. To which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter that we are already in good part arriv'd, and yet from such a steepe disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will bee attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of God, our deliverer; next, to your faithfull guidance, and undaunted Wisdome, Lords and Commons of England.' It has been already said that for this Reading Speech, if we may call it so (as we speak of a Reading Play as opposed to an Acting Play), Milton found Greek example. Indeed it is possible enough that Greek example may have, in the first instance, suggested the form of the work. Perhaps no one has ever lived in modern times who appreciated more intensely than Milton the excellence of Greek art. His writings abound with professions and testimonies of this distinguishing Hellenism. Thus, in a letter to Leonard Philaros, the Athenian, in 1654, he speaks of himself as 'A pueritia totius Græci nominis tuarumque in primis Athenarum cultor, si quis alius"; i.e. 'as from his boyhood a worshipper, if ever there was one, of all that bore the Greek name, and especially of your Athens.' In the remarks with which he prefaces Samson Agonistes, he pronounces Aeschylos, Sophokles, and Euripides, 'the three tragic poets unequalled by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write tragedy.' See the famous passage in the Fourth Book of Paradise Regained, where he describes Athens with an accurate minuteness that is not slightly significant of the frequency and the devotion with which, in thought at least, he had visited that fair metropolis of the world of mind. 'Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil; City or suburban, studious walks and shades, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream: within the walls then view Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next.' It was one of the dearest hopes of his youth to visit this Athens in the body, but 'when I was preparing to pass over into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelligence which I received of the civil commotions in England made me alter my purpose; for I thought it base to be travelling abroad while my fellow-citizens 1 Epist. Fam. 15. 1 were fighting for liberty at home'.' It may well be believed that this resignation of his Greek tour was not the least of the sacrifices Milton made at the call of Duty. Such was the fascination of Greek artistic form over him that, as is well known, his first design for his great poem was formed on the model of the Greek drama. Towards the close of his life he did so plan and compose his Samson Agonistes. The Areopagitica illustrates the influence of Greece upon him scarcely less than the Samson Agonistes. Its name is Greek, and its model was Greek. In the prose work, Isokrates is to the author what Euripides was to him in the dramatic poem. And it is introduced with a Greek motto2. In looking round for parallels to himself, in his oration to the English Parliament in behalf of a Free Press, he naturally turned his eyes to Greece, and the men who in the days of Greece3 'profest the study of wisdom and eloquence.' He saw the nearest resemblance to his own case in the Λόγος Αρεοπαγιτικός, the Areopagitic Discourse of Isokrates, and he adopted the name, or a mere variation of it. It is Isokrates he means when he speaks of him 'who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament of Athens that perswades them to change the form of Democracy which was then established.' To this same writer he alludes in his Sonnet to the Lady Margaret Ley. The Lady Margaret's father, the Earl of Marlborough, was said to have died broken-hearted by the dissolution of the Parliament of 16285 (Charles I's third Parliament), and Milton finds a parallel in the story that the news of Philip of Macedon's victory over the Athenians in 338 B.C. killed Isokrates. "The good Earl,' he says, after his retirement from public life, lived on, 1 The Second Defence. From the Suppliants of Euripides, a favourite author with Milton. See Suppl. 438-41. The readings given are such as could not be retained when once the structure of the Iambic was understood. The first line now runs: τοὐλεύθερον δ ̓ ἐκεῖνο· τίς θέλει πόλει. the last, more satisfactorily perhaps : * See p. 4, 1. 5. σιγᾷ· τί τούτων ἔστ ̓ ἰσαίτερον πόλει ; ▲ Ibid. 1. 1. 5 The Parliament was dissolved March 10, 1628-9. Lord Marlborough died on March 14th. 'more in himself content, Till the sad breaking of that Parliament Kill'd with report that old man eloquent.' This 'old man eloquent' was at the time of his death some ninety-eight years of age, being born in 436 B.C. As a young man he had won the highest praise from Sokrates. See Plato's Phaidros, 279 A, when, Lysias having been discussed, Phaidros asks Sokrates what he has to say for Isokrates :— Δοκεί μοι, answers the Sage, αμείνων ἢ κατὰ τοὺς περὶ Λυσίαν εἶναι · λόγους τὰ τῆς φύσεως, ἔτι τε ἤθει γεννικωτέρῳ κεκρᾶσθαι· ὥστε οὐδὲν ἂν γένοιτο θαυμαστὸν, προϊούσης τῆς ἡλικίας εἰ περὶ αὐτούς τε τοὺς λόγους, οἷς νῦν ἐπιχειρεῖ, πλέον ἢ παίδων διενέγκοι τῶν πώποτε ἁψαμένων λόγων, ἔτι τε, εἰ αὐτῷ μὴ ἀποχρήσαι ταῦτα, ἐπὶ μείζω δέ τις αὐτὸν ἄγοι ὁρμὴ θειοτέρα. φύσει γὰρ, ὦ φίλε, ἔνεστί τις φιλοσοφία τῇ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς διανοίᾳ. ‘I think he deserves a higher estimate than we have given Lysias as to natural gifts, and further that he is compounded with a nobler nature; so that it would prove no wonder, as he advances in years, if in respect of the very rhetoric, which he now takes in hand, he should excel all who have ever yet applied themselves to it as if they were scarcely children at it; and further, should such success not suffice him, if a certain diviner impulse should lead him to greater things; for, my friend, there is an inborn philosophical power in his intellect.' Isokrates scarcely fulfilled this high prophecy ; but as a rhetorician he became supremely eminent. Physical weakness incapacitated him from the public practice of his art; but he became the most famous teacher of his day, and, what more nearly concerns us, the great composer of Reading Speeches, which enjoyed a wide circulation throughout Greece. Especially noticeable was he for connecting oratory and politics; for before his time the art of speaking, 'with the exception of the panegyrical species, had hitherto been cultivated chiefly for the contest of the courts'.' The drift of his Areopagiticos has already been quoted from Milton himself. Its purpose was in fact to bring back to Athens 'See Lewis' Müller's Hist. of the Literature of Ancient Greece, p. 505. |