143 144 and which is universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture 1. The style is harsh; but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps may often strike though it cannot please. On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he would transmit it to the press tore out several parts. Some censures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be applied to the modern clergy; and a character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines was excluded3, of which the author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, being afterwards published, has been since inserted in its proper place. The same year were printed Paradise Regained and Sampson Agonistes, a tragedy written in imitation of the Ancients and never designed by the author for the stage. As these poems were published by another bookseller it has been asked, whether Simmons was discouraged from receiving them by the slow sale of the former? Why a writer changed his bookseller a hundred years ago I am far from hoping to discover. Certainly he who in two years sells thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, fragment of the History. 'I have determined to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales, be it for nothing else but in favour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously.' Works, iv. 2. Hume says of the history of the Heptarchy:-'Even the great learning and vigorous imagination of Milton sunk under the weight.' Hist. of Eng. i. 28. 2 Phillips' Milton, p. 39. He says of the monkish historians :-'This we must expect, in civil matters to find them dubious relaters, and still to the best advantage of what they term Holy Church, meaning indeed themselves; in most other matters of religion, blind, astonished, and struck with superstition as with a planet; in one word Monks.' Works, iv. 79. This passage was not struck out by the censors, for it is in the first edition, p. 97. For Gibbon's scorn of monks see his Memoirs, p. 57. 3 Works, iv. 81. It was published in 1681 under the title of Character of the Long Parliament. Professor Masson (vi. 808) doubts it being a 4 Phillips' Milton, p. 39; Toland's Life of Milton, p. 139. The Earl, when Arthur Annesley, 'had been the chief manager of the Restoration along with Monk.' He was probably one of those who got Milton included in the Act of Oblivion (ante, MILTON, 102). Masson's Milton, vi. 187. 'Antony Wood represents this lord as an artful time-server; by principle a Calvinist, by policy a favourer of the Papists. Burnet paints him as a tedious and ungraceful orator, as a grave, abandoned, and corrupt man, whom no party would trust. The benign author of the Biographia Britannica (a work which I cannot help calling Vindicatio Britannica, or a defence of everybody) humanely applies his softening pencil.' HORACE WALPOLE, Works, i. 412. See Burnet's Hist. i. 104. 5 The title-page bears the date of 1671. These poems were licensed on July 2, 1670, and 'may have appeared late in that year.' Masson's Milton, vi. 651. See post, MILTON, 265, 266. bought for two payments of five pounds each, has no reason to repent his purchase. When Milton shewed Paradise Regained to Elwood, 'This,' 145 said he', 'is owing to you; for you put it in [into] my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which otherwise [before] I had not thought of.' His last poetical offspring was his favourite. He could not, as 146 Elwood relates, endure to hear Paradise Lost preferred to Paradise Regained. Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty3. Milton, however it happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself *. To that multiplicity of attainments and extent of comprehension 147 that entitle this great author to our veneration may be added a kind of humble dignity, which did not disdain the meanest services to literature. The epick poet, the controvertist, the politician, having already descended to accommodate children with a book of rudiments, now in the last years of his life composed a book of Logick, for the initiation of students in philosophy, and published (1672) Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata', that is, 'A new Scheme of Logick, according to the Method of Ramus.' I know not whether even in this book he did not intend an act of hostility against the Universities; for 'In a pleasant tone he said to me,' &c. Life of Ellwood, p. 145. 2 The passage to which Johnson refers is not in Ellwood's Life, but in Phillips' Milton, p. 39. Neither is it there stated that Paradise Regained was Milton's favourite. 'Paradise Regained,' Phillips wrote, 'is generally censured to be much inferior to the other; though he could not hear with patience any such thing when related to him.' See ante, COWLEY, 114. 36 'Pope knew that the mind is always enamoured of its own productions, and did not trust his first fondness.' Post, POPE, 302. 46 'An author and his reader are 148 149 150 Ramus was one of the first oppugners of the old philosophy, who disturbed with innovations the quiet of the schools'. His polemical disposition, again revived. He had now been safe so long that he forgot his fears, and published a treatise Of true Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the best Means to prevent the Growth of Popery 2. But this little tract is modestly written, with respectful mention of the Church of England and an appeal to the thirty-nine articles3. His principle of toleration is agreement in the sufficiency of the Scriptures, and he extends it to all who, whatever their opinions are, profess to derive them from the sacred books*. The papists appeal to other testimonies, and are therefore in his opinion not to be permitted the liberty of either publick or private worship; for though they plead conscience, 'we have no warrant,' he says, 'to regard conscience which is not grounded in [on] Scripture "." Those who are not convinced by his reasons may be perhaps delighted with his wit: the term 'Roman catholick' is, he says, one of the Pope's bulls; it is particular universal, or catholick schismatick". 151 He has, however, something better. As the best preservative against Popery he recommends the diligent perusal of the Scrip In Milton's abridgement of Freigius's Petri Rami Vita we read how in Paris, P. Ramus repente ad praetorii tribunalis capitalem contentionem... rapitur, novique criminis accusatur, quod scilicet, Aristotelem oppugnando, artes enervaret.' Works, vi. 355. Ramus fell in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 'Ses ennemis traînèrent son corps sanglant à la porte de tous les colléges, pour faire amende honorable à la philosophie d'Aristote.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxvi. 299.. For Europe divided by Ramism and Aristotelianism see Masson's Milton, i. 264. 2 Of True Religion, Haeresie, Schism, Toleration, And what best Means may be us'd against the Growth of Popery. The Author J. M. London, 1673, Works, iv. 259; Masson's Milton, vi. 687, 690. The king's declaration in 1672, 'suspending the execution of all penal laws against Papists and Nonconformists,' had, in 1673, set the tures; a duty, from which he warns the busy part of mankind not to think themselves excused'. 152 He now reprinted his juvenile poems with some additions 2. In the last year of his life he sent to the press, seeming to take 153 delight in publication, a collection of Familiar Epistles in Latin ; to which, being too few to make a volume, he added some academical exercises 3, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as they recalled to his memory the days of youth; but for which nothing but veneration for his name could now procure a reader. When he had attained his sixty-sixth year the gout, with which 154 he had been long tormented, prevailed over the enfeebled powers of nature. He died by a quiet and silent expiration, about the tenth of November 1674, at his house in Bunhill-fields, and was buried next his father in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate 5. His funeral was very splendidly and numerously attended 6. Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial'; but 155 1 'Neither let the countryman, the tradesman, the lawyer, the physician, the statesman, excuse himself by his much business from the studious reading thereof.' Works, iv. p. 267. 2 For the title see ante, MILTON, 14n. To the ten sonnets of the edition of 1645 (ante, MILTON, 59) nine were added. Masson's Milton,vi. 688. Phillips printed four in 1694 at the end of his Life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State-those to Fairfax, Cromwell, and Cyriack Skinner for the first time. The fourth, the sonnet to Vane, sent to him on July 3, 1652, had been printed in 1662 in George Sikes's Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, p. 93; where it is described as 'composed by a learned gentleman.' Aubrey wanted to get copies of the first two. Were they made in commendation of the devill,' he wrote, ''twere all one to me; 'tis the vos [sublimity] that I look after.' Brief Lives, ii. 70. 3 Ioannis Miltoni Angli Epistolarum Familiarium Liber Unus: Quibus accesserunt Eiusdem, iam olim in Collegio Adolescentis, Prolusiones Quaedam Oratoriae, 1674, Works, vi. 109. The printer was not suffered by the Government to include Milton's Letters of State. Masson's Milton, vi. 724. For their publication in 1676 see ib. p. 791, and For Milton's publication in 1674 of a translation of a Latin tract about John Sobieski see Works, iv. 314; Masson's Milton, vi. 725. In 1682 was published his Brief History of Moscovia. Works, iv.271; Masson's Milton, vi. 812. 4 6 'He died of the gowt struck in, the 9th or 10th of November, 1674.' AUBREY, Brief Lives, ii. 66. He died on Nov. 8. Masson's Milton, vi. 731. 5 In the same church, on Aug. 22, 1620, Oliver Cromwell had been married to Elizabeth Bourchier. Carlyle's Cromwell, 1857, i. 37. He was attended from his house to the Church by several gentlemen then in town his principal wellwishers and admirers.' Phillips' Milton, p. 40. 'All his learned and great friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar, accompanied his body.' Toland's Life of Milton, p. 149. He lies buried in St. Giles's Cripplegate, upper end of chancell at the right hand, vide his gravestone. -Memorandum, his stone is now removed; for about two yeares since (now, 1681) the two steppes to the 156 157 in our time a monument has been erected in Westminster-Abbey To the Author of Paradise Lost, by Mr. Benson, who has in the inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton'. When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was said to be soli Miltono secundus 2, was exhibited to Dr. Sprat, then dean of Westminster, he refused to admit it; the name of Milton was, in his opinion, too detestable to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to devotion 3. Atterbury, who succeeded him, being author of the inscription, permitted its reception. 'And such has been the change of publick opinion,' said Dr. Gregory*, from whom I heard this account, 'that I have seen erected in the church a statue of that man, whose name I once knew considered as a pollution of its walls.' 5 Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently communion table were raysed.' AU- For the reported violation of his The wretches who have dared pro- His dread sepulchral rest,' 'A neat marble monument was set up in 1793. Ann. Reg. 1793, ii. 36. 'When the proposition was agitated that monuments should be erected in St. Paul's as well as in Westminster Abbey' Johnson thought Milton's should be the first. Boswell's Johnson, ii. 239. I Johnson, in his letter on the benefit given to Milton's granddaughter (post, MILTON, 175), wrote:-'To ensure a participation of fame with a celebrated poet, many, who would perhaps have contributed to starve him when alive, have heaped expensive pageants upon his grave.' Boswell's Johnson, i. 227. Carlyle wrote on Coleridge's death: 'Carriages in long files, as I hear, were rushing all round Highgate when the old man lay near to die. Foolish carriages! Not one of them would roll near him (except to splash him with their mud) while he lived. ... To complete the Farce-Tragedy, they have only to bury him in Westminster Abbey. Early Letters of J. W. Carlyle, 1889, p. 258. 2 Uni in hoc laudis genere Miltono secundus, primoque paene par.' Post, JOHN PHILIPS, 8. 3 For Sprat's praise of Cromwell see post, SPRAT, 22. 4 Perhaps David Gregory, D.D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, from 1756 to 1767. For some Latin hexameters by Dr. George, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, ‘on the reception of Milton's monument into the venerable repository of kings and prelates,' see Milton's Poems, ed. T. Warton, p. 574. Vincent Bourne, Usher of Westminster School, ends his lines In Miltonum (Poetical Works, 1826, p. 41): Salve, sancta mihi sedes, tuque, Ipsa senis, laurique comae, et tu Egregii. Tanto signatum nomine [annos.' marmor Securum decus et seros sibi vindicet 5 A bust. |