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©nglisf) Jfoleit of ^Letters

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY
VOL. II

MILTON

GOLDSMITH

COWPER

MILTON

By MARK PATTISON, B.D.

GOLDSMITH

By WILLIAM BLACK

COWPER

By GOLDWIN SMITH

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

tfitgttett 3Hrn of 3tcttcr£»

EDITED BY .TORN MORE

MILTON

M I L T O N

BY

MARK PATTISON, B.D.

RECTOR OP LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

1909

First Edition 1879

Reprinted 1880, 1883, 1885, 1887, 1890, 1894,
1895, 1896, 1900, 1902, 1906, 1909

CONTENTS

a

£

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

^ . CHAPTER I.

\i) page

Family— School— College. . ]

CHAPTER II.

Residence at Horton4-L’ allegro — II

CADE8 — COMUS — LYCIDAS

Penseroso— -Ar-

12

CHAPTER III.

Journey to Italy . .32

O

IN

SECOND PERIOD . 1640- 1 660.

.... CHAPTER IV.

\

r Educational Theory— Teaching . . . . 43

7 'Marriage and

pi

CHAPTER V.
Pamphlet on Divorce

» 4

50

<r>

Pamphlets .
y7

CHAPTER VI.

» •

64

K

CHAPTER VIJ.

Biographical.

1640—1649 ....

e a

85

152007

CONTENTS.

m

CHAPTER VIII.

The Latin Secretaryship .

&-

CHAPTEE IX.

Milton and Salmasius — Blindness

H n _

XyL

Milton and Morus — The Second Defence — The Defence

CHAPTER X.

FOR HIMSELF

CHAPTER XI.

Latin Secretaryship comes to an end — Milton’s Friends

THIRD PERIOD. 1 660—1 674.

C CHAPTER XII.

Biographical — Literary Occupation — Religious Opinions

CHAPTER XIII.

Paradise Lost — Paradise Regained— Samson Agonistbs .

PAGE

93

105

112

119

140

185

INDEX

221

MILTON

MILTON.

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

CHAPTER I.

FAMILY — SCHOOL — COLLEGE.

In the seventeenth century it was not the custom to pub*
lish two volumes upon every man or woman whose name
had appeared on a title-page. Nor, where lives of authors
were written, were they written with the redundancy of
particulars which is now allowed. Especially are the lives
of the poets and dramatists obscure and meagrely recorded.
Of Milton, however, we know more personal details than
of any man of letters of that age. Edward Phillips, the
poet’s nephew, who was brought up by his uncle, and
lived in habits of intercourse with him to the last, wrote
a life, brief, inexact, superficial, but valuable from the
nearness of the writer to the subject of his memoir. A
cotemporary of Milton, John Aubrey (b. 1625), “a very
honest man, and accurate in his accounts of matters of
fact,” as Toland says of him, made it his business to learn
all he could about Milton’s habits. Aubrey was himself

B

2

FIRST PERIOD, 1608—1639,

[chap.

acquainted with Milton, and diligently catechised the
poet’s widow, his brother, and his nephew, scrupulously
writing down each detail as it came to him, in the minutes
of lives which he supplied to Antony Wood to he worked
up in his Athence and Fasti. Aubrey was only an anti-
quarian collector, and was mainly dependent on what
could he learned from the family. None of Milton’s
family, and least of all Edward Phillips, were of a capacity
to apprehend moral or mental qualities, and they could
only tell Aubrey of his goings out and his comings in, of
the clothes he wore, the dates of events, the names of his
acquaintance. In compensation for the want of observa-
tion on the part of his own kith and kin, Milton himself,
with a superb and ingenuous egotism, has revealed the
secret of his thoughts and feelings in numerous autobio-
graphical passages of his prose writings. From what he
directly communicates, and from what he unconsciously
betrays, we obtain an internal life of the mind, more
ample than that external life of the bodily machine,
which we owe to Aubrey and Phillips.

In our own generation all that printed books or writ-
ten documents have preserved about Milton has been
laboriously brought together by Professor David Masson,
in whose Life of Milton we have the most exhaustive bio-
graphy that ever was compiled of any Englishman. It is
a noble and final monument erected to the poet’s memory,
two centuries after his death. My excuse for attempting
to write of Milton after Mr. Masson is that his life is in six
volumes octavo, with a total of some four to five thousand
pages. The present outline is written for a different class
of readers, those, namely, who cannot afford to know
more of Milton than can be told in some two hundred
and fifty pages.

BIRTH.

3

*0

A family of Miltons, deriving the name in all probability
from the parish of Great Milton near Thame, is found in
various branches spread over Oxfordshire and the adjoin-
ing counties in the reign of Elisabeth. The poet’s grand-
father was a substantial yeoman, living at Stanton St. John,
about live miles from Oxford, within the forest of Shot-
over, of which he was also an under-ranger. The ranger’s
son John was at school in Oxford, possibly as a chorister,
conformed to the Established Church, and was in conse-
quence cast off by his father, who adhered to the old faith.
The disinherited son went up to London, and by the
assistance of a friend was set up in business as a scrivener.
A scrivener discharged some of the functions which, at
the present day, are undertaken for us in a solicitor’s
office. John Milton the father, being a man of probity
and force of character, was soon on the way to acquire
“ a plentiful fortune.” But he continued to live over his
shop, which was in Bread Street, Cheapside, and which
bore the sign of the Spread Eagle, the family crest.

It was at the Spread Eagle that his eldest son, John
Milton, was bom^ 9th December, 1608, being thus
exactly cotemporary with Lord Clarendon, who also
died in the same year as the poet. Milton must be
added to the long roll of our poets who have been
natives of the city which now never sees sunlight or
blue sky, along with Chaucer, Spenser, Herrick, Cowley,
Shirley, Ben Jonson, Pope, Gray, Keats. Besides attend-
ing as a day-scholar at St. Paul’s School, which was
close at hand, his father engaged for him a private tutor
at home. The household of the Spread Eagle not only
enjoyed civic prosperity, hut some share of that liberal
cultivation, which, if not imbibed in the home, neither
school nor college ever confers. The scrivener was not

4

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[CHA.P,

only an amateur in music, but a composer, whose tunes,
songs, and airs found their way into the best collections
of music. Both schoolmaster and tutor were men of
mark. The high master of St. Paul's at that time
was Alexander Gill, an M.A. of Corpus Cliristi College,
Oxford, who was 66 esteemed to have such an excellent
way of training up youth, that none in his time went
beyond it." The private tutor was Thomas Young, who
was, or had been, curate to Mr. Gataker, of Kotherhithe,
itself a certificate of merit, even if we had not the pupil's
emphatic testimony of gratitude. Milton's fourth elegy
is addressed to Young, when, in 1627, he was settled at
Hamburg, crediting him with having first infused into his
pupil a taste for classic literature and poetry. Biographers
have derived Milton's Presbyterianism in 1641 from the
lessons twenty years before of this Thomas Young, a
Scotchman, and one of the authors of the Smectymnum .
This, however, is a misreading of Milton's mind — a mind
which was an organic whole — “ whose seed was in itself,"
seK-deterinined ; not one whose opinions can be accounted
for by contagion or casual impact.

Of Milton’s boyish exercises two have been preserved.
They are English paraphrases of two of the Davidic
Psalms, and were done at the age of fifteen. That they
were thought by himself worth printing in the same
volume with Comus , is the most noteworthy thing about
them. No words are so commonplace but that they can
be made to yield inference by a biographer. And even
in these school exercises we think we can discern that
the future poet was already a diligent reader of Sylvester's
Du Bartas (1605), the patriarch of Protestant poetry,
and of Fairfax's Tasso (1600). There are other indi-
cations that, from very early years, poetry had assumed

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH.

6

*0

a place in Milton’s mind, not merely as a juvenile pastime,
but as an occupation of serious import.

Young Gill, son of the high master, a school-fellow of
Milton, went up to Trinity, Oxford, where he got into
trouble by being informed against by Chillingworth, who
reported incautious political speeches of Gill to his
godfather, Laud. With Gill Milton corresponded ; they
exchanged their verses, Greek, Latin, and English, with
a confession on Milton’s part that he prefers English and
Latin composition to Greek ; that to write Greek verses
in this age is to sing to the deaf. Gill, Milton finds “ a
severe critic of poetry, however disposed to be lenient to
his friend’s attempts.”

If Milton’s genius did not announce itself in his para-
phrases of Psalms, it did in his impetuosity in learning,
“ which I seized with such eagerness that from the
twelfth year of my age, I scarce ever went to bed before
midnight.” Such is his own account. And it is worth
notice that we have here an incidental test of the trust-
worthiness of Aubrey’s reminiscences. Aubrey’s words
are, “When he was very young he studied very hard,
and sate up very late, commonly till twelve or one o’clock
at night ; and his father ordered the maid to sit up for
him.”

He was ready for college, at., sixteen^ not earlier than
the usual age at that period. As his schoolmasters, both
the Gills, were Oxford men (Young was of St. Andrew’s),
it might have been expected that the young scholar would
have been placed at Oxford. However, it was determined
that he should go to Cambridge, where he was admitted a
pensioner of Christ’s, 12th February, 1625, and com-
menced residence in the Easter term ensuing. Perhaps
his father feared the growing High Church, or, as it was

6

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap.

fclien called, Arminianism, of his own university. It so
happened, however, that the tutor to whom the young
Milton was consigned was specially noted for Arminian
proclivities. This was William Chappell, then Fellow of
Christ’s, who so recommended himself to Laud by his party
zeal, that he was advanced to be Provost of Dublin and
Bishop of Cork.

Milton was one of those pupils who are more likely
to react against a tutor than to take a ply from him.
A preaching .divine — Chappell composed a treatise on
the art of preaching— a narrow ecclesiastic of the type
loved by Laud, was exactly the man who would drive
Milton into opposition. But the tutor of the seventeenth
century was not able, like the easy-going tutor of the
eighteenth, to leave the young rebel to pursue the reading
of his choice in his own chamber. Chappell endeavoured
to drive his pupil along the scholastic highway of exercises.
Milton, returning to Cambridge after his summer vacation,
eager for the acquisition of wisdom, complains that he
“ was dragged from his studies, and compelled to employ
himself in composing some frivolous declamation ! ” In-
docile, as he confesses himself (indocilisque astas prava
magistra fuit), he kicked against either the discipline or
the exercises exacted by college rules. He was punished.
Aubrey had heard that he was flogged, a thing not im-
possible in itself, as the Admonition Booh of Emanuel
gives an instance of corporal chastisement as late as 1667.
Aubrey’s statement, however, is a dubitative interlineation
in his MS., and Milton’s age, seventeen, as well as the
silence of his later detractors, who raked up everything
which could be told to his disadvantage, concur to make
us hesitate to accept a fact on so slender evidence. Any-
how, Milton was sent away from college for a time, in the

AT CAMBRIDGE.

7

*0

year 1627, in consequence of something unpleasant which
had occurred. That it was something of which he was
not ashamed is clear, from his alluding to it himself in
the lines written at the time, —

Nee duri libet usque minas perferre magistri
Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.

And that the tutor was not considered to have been
wholly free from blame is evident from the fact that the
master transferred Milton from Chappell to another tutor,
a very unusual proceeding. Whatever the nature of the
punishment, it was not what is known as rustication ;
for Milton did not lose a term, taking his two degrees of
B.A. and M.A. in regular course, at the earliest date
from his matriculation permitted by the statutes. The
one outbreak of juvenile petulance and indiscipline over,
Milton’s force of character and unusual attainments ac-
quired him the esteem of his seniors. The nickname of
“ the lady of Christ’s” given him in derision by his fellow-
students, is an attestation of virtuous conduct. Ten
years later, in 1642, Milton takes an opportunity to
“ acknowledge publicly, with all grateful mind, that more
than ordinary respect which I found, above many of my
equals, at the hands of those courteous and learned men,
the Fellows of that college wherein I spent some years ;
who, at my parting after I had taken two degrees, as the
manner is, signified many ways how much better it would
content them that I w^ould stay ; as by many letters full
of kindness and loving respect, both before that time and
long after, I was assured of their singular good affection
towards me.”

The words “ how much better it would content them
that I would stay ” have been thought to hint at the

8 FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639. [chap.

offer of a fellowship at Christ’s. It is highly improbable
that such an offer was ever made. There had been two
vacancies in the roll of fellows since Milton had become
eligible by taking his B.A. degree, and he had been
passed over in favour of juniors. It is possible that
Milton was not statutably eligible, for, by the statutes of
Christ’s, there could not be, at one time, more than two
fellows who were natives of the same county. Edward
King, who was Milton’s junior, was put in, not by college
election, but by royal mandate. And in universities
generally, it is not literature or general acquirements
which recommend a candidate for endowed posts, but
technical skill in the prescribed exercises, and a pedagogic
intention.

Further than this, had a fellowship in his college been
attainable, it would not have had much attraction for
Milton. A fellowship implied two things, residence in
college, with teaching, and orders in the church. With
neither of these two conditions was Milton prepared to
comply. In 1632, when he proceeded to his M.A. degree,
Milton was twenty-four, he had been seven years in
college, and had therefore sufficient experience what
college life was like. He who was so impatient of the
“ turba legentum prava ” in the Bodleian library, could
not have patiently consorted with the vulgar-minded and
illiterate ecclesiastics, who peopled the colleges of that
day. Even Mede, though the author of Clavis Apo-
calyptica was steeped in the soulless clericalism of his
age, could not support his brother-fellows without fre-
quent retirements to Balsham, “ being not willing to be
joined with such company.” To be dependent upon
Bainbrigge’s (the Master of Christ’s) good pleasure for a
supply of pupils; to have to live in daily intercourse

AT CAMBRIDGE.

9

‘J

with the Powers and the Chappells, such as we know
them from Mede’s letters, was an existence to which
only the want of daily bread could have driven Milton.
Happily his father’s circumstances were not such as to
make a fellowship pecuniarily an object to the son. If he
longed for “ the studious cloister’s pale,” he had been, now
for seven years, near enough to college life to have dis-
pelled the dream that it was a life of lettered leisure and
philosophic retirement. It was just about Milton’s time
that the college tutor finally supplanted the university
professor, a system which implied the substitution of
excercises performed by the pupil for instruction given
by the teacher. Whatever advantages this system
brought with it, it brought inevitably the degradation of
the teacher, who was thus dispensed from knowledge,
having only to attend to form. The time of the college
tutor was engrossed by the details of scholastic super-
intendence, and the frivolous worry of academical busi-
ness. Admissions, matriculations, disputations, declama
tions, the formalities of degrees, public reception of royal
and noble visitors, filled every hour of his day, and left
no time, even if he had had the taste, for private study.
To teaching, as we shall see, Milton was far from averse.
But then it must be teaching as he understood it, a teach-
ing which should expand the intellect and raise the cha-
racter, not dexterity in playing with the verbal formulas
of the disputations of the schools.

Such an occupation could have no attractions for one
who was even now meditating II Pe?iseroso (composed
1633). At twenty he had already confided to his school-
fellow, the younger Gill, the secret of his discontent
with the Cambridge tone. “ Here among us,” he writes
from college, “ are barely one or two who do not flutter

io

FIRST PEEIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap.

off, all unfledged, into theology, having gotten of philology
or of philosophy scarce so much as a smattering. And
for theology they are content with just what is enough
to enable them to patch up a pad try sermon.” He re-
tained the same feeling towards his Alma Mater in 1641,
when he wrote (Eeason of Church Government), “ Cam-
bridge, which as in the time of her better health, and
mine own younger judgment, I never greatly admired,
so now much less . . . .”

On a review of all these indications of feeling, I should
conclude that Milton never had serious thoughts of a
college fellowship, and that his antipathy arose from a
sense of his own incompatibility of temper with academic
life, and was not, like Phineas Fletcher’s, the result of
disappointed hopes, and a sense of injury for having
been refused a fellowship at King’s. One consideration
which remains to be mentioned would alone be de-
cisive in favour of this view. A fellowship required
orders. Milton had been intended for the church, and
had been sent to college with that view. By the
time he left Cambridge, at twenty-four, it had become
clear, both to himself and his family, that he could
never submit his understanding to the trammels of church
formularies. His later mind, about 1641, is expressed
by himself in his own forcible style, — “ The church, to
whose service by the intention of my parents and friends
I was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions,
till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving
what tyranny had invaded in the church, that he who
would take orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath
withal. ... I thought it better to prefer a blameless
silence before the sacred office of speaking, bought and
begun with servitude and forswearing.” When he took

AT CAMBRIDGE.

11

*0

leave of the university, in 1632, he had perhaps not
developed this distinct antipathy to the establishment.
For in a letter, preserved in Trinity College, and written
in the winter of 1631-32, he does not put forward any
conscientious objections to the clerical profession, but
only apologises to the friend to whom the letter is
addressed, for delay in making choice of some profession.
The delay itself sprung from an unconscious distaste. In
a mind of the consistent texture of Milton’s, motives are
secretly influential before they emerge in consciousness.
We shall not be wrong in asserting that when he left
Cambridge in 1632, it was already impossible, in the
nature of things, that he should have taken orders in the
Church of England, or a fellowship of which orders were
a condition.

CHAPTER 33.

RESIDENCE AT HORTON L’ ALLEGRO 1L PENSEROSO— AR-
CADES COMUS — LYCIDAS.

Milton had been sent to college to quality for a profession.
The church, the first intended, he had gradually dis-
covered to be incompatible. Of the law, either his
father’s branch, or some other, he seems to have enter-
tained a thought, but to have speedily dismissed it. So
at the age of twenty-four he returned to his father’s house,
bringing nothing with him but his education and a silent
purpose. The elder Milton had now retired from busi-
ness, with sufficient means but not with wealth. Though
John was the eldest son, there were two other children,
a brother, Christopher, and a sister, Anne. To have no
profession, even a nominal one, to be above trade and
below the status of squire or yeoman, and to come home
with the avowed object of leading an idle life, was
conduct which required justification. Milton felt it to be
so. In a letter addressed, in 1632, to some senior friend
at Cambridge, name unknown, he thanks him for being
a a good watchman to admonish that the hours of the night
pass on, for so I call my life as yet obscure and unser-
viceable to mankind, and that the day with me is at hand,

CH. II.]

RESIDENCE AT HORTON.

13

wherein Christ commands all to labour.” Milton has no
misgivings. He knows that what he is doing with him-
self is the best he can do. His aim is far above bread-
winning, and therefore his probation must be long. He
destines for himself no indolent tarrying in the garden of
Armida. His is a “mind made and set wholly on the
accomplishment of greatest things.” He knows that the
looker-on will hardly accept his apology for “being late,”
that it is in order to being “ more fit.” Yet it is the only
apology he can offer. And he is dissatisfied with his own
progress. “ I am something suspicious of myself, and do
take notice of a certain belatedness in me.”

Of this frame of mind the record is the second sonnet,
lines which are an inseparable part of Milton’s biography —

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stol’n on his wing my three-and- twentieth year 1
My hasting days fly on with full career,

But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arrived so near,

And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.

Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.

All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

With aspirations thus vast, though unformed, with
“ amplitude of mind to greatest deeds,” Milton, retired to
his father’s house in the country. Five more years of
self-education, added to the seven years of academical
residence, were not too much for the meditation of pro-
jects such as Milton was already conceiving. Years many

14

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap.

more than twel ve, filled with great events and distracting
interests, were to pass over before the body and shape of
Paradise Lost was given to these imaginings.

The country retirement in which the elder Milton had
fixed himself was the little village of Horton, situated in
that southernmost angle of the county of Buckingham,
which insinuates itself between Berks and Middlesex.
Though London was only about seventeen miles distant,
it was the London of Charles I., with its population of
some 300,000 only; before coaches and macadamised
roads ; while the Colne, which flows through the village,
was still a river, and not the kennel of a paper-mill.
There was no lack of water and wood, meadow and pas-
ture, closes and open field, with the regal towers of
Windsor “ bosom’d high in tufted trees,” to crown the
landscape. Unbroken leisure, solitude, tranquillity of
mind, surrounded by the thickets and woods, which Pliny
thought indispensable to poetical meditation (Epist. 9. 10),
no poet’s career was ever commenced under more favour-
able auspices. The youth of Milton stands in strong
contrast with the misery, turmoil, chance medley, struggle
with poverty, or abandonment to dissipation, which
blighted the early years of so many of our men of letters.

Milton’s life is a drama in three acts. Tl^e first dis-
covers him in the calm and peaceful retirement of Horton,
of which U Allegro, II Penseroso , and Lycidas are the
expression. In the second act he is breathing the foul
and heated atmosphere of party passion and religious
hate, generating the lurid fires which glare in the bat-
tailous canticles of his prose pamphlets. The three great
poems, Paradise Lost , Paradise Regained , and Samson
AgonisteSy are the utterance of his final period of solitary
and Promethean grandeur, when, blind, destitute, friend-

RESIDENCE AT HORTON.

16

less, he testified of righteousness, temperance, and judg-
ment to come, alone before a fallen world.

In this delicious retirement of Horton, in alternate
communing with nature and with books, for five years of
persevering study he laid in a stock, not of learning, but
of what is far above learning, of wide and accurate know-
ledge. Of the man whose profession is learning, it is
characteristic that knowledge is its own end, and research
its own reward. To Milton all knowledge, all life, virtue
itself, was already only a means to a further end. He will
know only “that which is of use to know,” and by useful,
he meant that which conduced to form him for his vocation
of poet.

From a very early period Milton had taken poetry to
be his vocation, in the most solemn and earnest mood.
The idea of this devotion was the shaping idea of his life.
It was, indeed, a bent of nature, with roots drawing
from deeper strata of character than any act of reasoned
will, which kept him out of the professions, and now fixed
him, a seeming idler, but really hard at work, in his
father’s house at Horton. The intimation which he had
given of his purpose in the sonnet above quoted had be-
come, in 1641, “an inward prompting which grows daily
upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to
be my portion in this life, joined with the strong propen-
sity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written
to after times, as they should not willingly let it die.”

What the ultimate form of his poetic utterance shall be,
he is in no hurry to decide. He will be “ long choosing,”
and quite content to be “ beginning late.” All his care
at present is to qualify himself for the lofty function to
which he aspires. No lawyer, physician, statesman, evei
laboured to fit himself for his profession harder than

16

FIRST PERIOD 1608—1639.

[chap,

Milton strove to qualify himself for his vocation of poet.
Verse-making is, to the wits, a game of ingenuity ; to
Milton, it is a prophetic office, towards which the will
of heaven leads him. The creation he contemplates will
not flow from him as the stanzas of the Gerusalemme did
from Tasso at twenty-one. Before he can make a poem,
Milton will make himself. “I was confirmed in this
opinion, that he who would not he frustrated of his hope
to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to
be a true poem .... not presuming to sing high praises
of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself
the experience and practice of all that which is praise-
worthy.”

Of the spontaneity, the abandon, which are supposed
to be characteristic of the poetical nature, there is nothing
here ; all is moral purpose, precision, self-dedication. So
he acquires all knowledge, not for knowledge7 sake, from
the instinct of learning, the necessity for completeness,
but because he is to be a poet. Hor will he only have
knowledge, he will have wisdom ; moral development shall
go hand in hand with intellectual. A poet’s soul should
“ contain of good, wise, just, the perfect shape.” He will
cherish continually a pure mind in a pure body. “ I
argued to myself that, if unchastity in a woman, whom
St. Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandal and
dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the
image and glory of God, it must, though commonly not
so thought, be much more deflouring and dishonourable.”
There is yet a third constituent of the poetical nature ; to
knowledge and to virtue must be added religion. For it
is from God that the poet’s thoughts come. “This is
not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that Eternal
Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge,

nj

RESIDENCE AT HORTON.

17

and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of
his altar, to touch and purify the life of whom he
pleases. To this must he added industrious and select
reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly
and generous acts and affairs ; till which in some measure
he compast, I refuse not to sustain this expectation.”
Before the piety of this vow, Dr. Johnson’s morosity
yields for a moment, and he is forced to exclaim, “ From
a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational,
might he expected the Paradise Lost .”

Of these years of self-cultivation, of conscious moral

architecture, such as Plato enacted for his ideal State, hut
none hut Milton ever had the courage to practise, the
biographer would gladly give a minute account. But the
means of doing so are wanting. The poet kept no diary
of his reading, such as some great students, e. g. Isaac
Casaubon, have left. Nor could such a record, had it
been attempted, have shown ns the secret process by
which the scholar’s dead learning was transmuted in
Milton’s mind into living imagery. u Many studious and
contemplative years, altogether spent in the search of re-
ligious and civil knowledge ” is his own description of the
period. “ You make many inquiries as to what I am
about;” he writes to Diodati — “ what am I thinking of %
Why, with God’s help, of immortality ! Forgive the
word, I only whisper it in your ear ! Yes, X am pluming
my wings for a flight.” This was in 1637, at the end of
flve years of the Horton probation. The poems, which,
rightly read, are strewn with autobiographical hints, are
not silent as to the intention of this period. In Paradise
Regained (i. 196), Milton reveals himself. And in
Comus , written at Horton, the lines 375 and following
are charged with the same sentiment, —

o

18

FIRST PERIOD. 1608-1639.

[CHAr,

And wisdom’s self
Gfb seeks to sweet retired solitude,

Where, with her best nurse, contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.

That in the various bustle of resort
Were all -to rallied and sometimes impair’d.

That at Horton Milton " read all the Greek and Latin
writers” is one of Johnson’s careless versions of Milton’s
own words, “ enjoyed a complete holiday in turning over
Latin and Greek authors.” Milton read, not as a pro-
fessional phi lologian, hut as a poet and scholar, and always
in the light of his secret purpose. It was not in his way
to sit down to read over all the Greek and Latin writers,
as Casaubon or Salmasius might do. Milton read with
selection, and “ meditated,” says Aubrey, what he read.
His practice conformed to the principle he has himself
laid down in the often-quoted lines (Paradise Regained ,
iv. 322)—

Who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep vers’d in books, and shallow in himself.

Some of Milton’s Greek books have been traced ; his
Aratus , Lycophron , Euripides (the Stephanus of 1602),
and his Pindar (the Benedictus of 1620), are still extant,
with marginal memoranda, which should seem to evince
careful and discerning reading. One critic even thought
it worth while to accuse Joshua Barnes of silently appro-
priating conjectural emendations from Milton’s Euripides.
But Milton’s own poems are the best evidence of his
familiarity with all that is most choice in the remains of
classic poetry. Though the commentators are accused of
often seeing an imitation where there is none, no com-

RESIDENCE AT HORTON.

19

ii,]

mentary can point out the ever-present infusion of clas-
sical flavour, which bespeaks intimate converse far more
than direct adaptation. Milton’s classical allusions, says
Hartley Coleridge, are amalgamated and consubstantiated
with his native thought.

A commonplace book of Milton’s, after having lurked
unsuspected for 200 years in the archives of Netherby,
has been disinterred in our own day (1874). It appears
to belong partly to the end of the Horton period. It is
not by any means an account of all that he is reading,
but only an arrangement, under certain heads, or places
of memoranda for future use. These notes are extracted
from about eighty different authors, Greek, Latin, French,
Italian, and English. Of Greek authors no less than
sixteen are quoted. The notes are mostly notes of his-
torical facts, seldom of thoughts, never of mere verbal
expression. There is no trace in it of any intention to
store up either the imagery or the language of poetry. It
may be that such notes were made and entered in another
volume ; for the book thus accidentally preserved to us
seems to refer to other similar volumes of collections.
But it is more likely that no such poetical memoranda
were ever made, and that Milton trusted entirely to
memory for the wealth of classical allusion with which
his verse is surcharged. He did not extract from the
poets and tire great writers whom he was daily turning
over, but only from the inferior authors and secondary
historians, which he read only once. Most of the material
collected in the commonplace book is used in his prose
pamphlets. But when so employed the facts are worked
into the texture of his argument, rather than cited as
extraneous witnesses.

In reading history it was his aim to get at a conspectus of

20

FrRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap,

the general current of affairs rather than to study minutely
a special period. He tells Diodati in September, 1637,
that he has studied Greek history continuously, from the
beginning to the fall of Constantinople. When he tells
the same friend that he has been long involved in the
obscurity of the early middle ages of Italian History down
to the time of the Emperor Rudolph, we learn from the
commonplace book that he had only been reading the one
volume of Sigonius’s Hist aria Regni Italici. From the
thirteenth century downwards he proposes to himself to
study each Italian state in some separate history. Even
before his journey to Italy he read Italian with as much
ease as French. He tells us that it was by his father's ad-
vice that he had acquired these modern languages. But we
can see that they were essential parts of his own scheme
of self-education, which included, in another direction,
Hebrew, both Biblical and Rabbinical, and even Syriac.

The intensity of his nature showed itself in his method
of study. He read, not desultorily, a bit here and
another there, but “when I take up with a thing, I
never pause or break it off, nor am drawn away from it
by any other interest, till I have arrived at the goal I
proposed to myself.” He made breaks occasionally in
this routine of study by visits to London, to see friends,
to buy books, to take lessons in mathematics, to go to the
theatre, or to concerts. A love of music was inherited
from his father.

I have called this period, 1632-39, one of preparation

and_not of production. But though the first volume of

poems printed by Milton did not appear till 1645, the
most considerable part of its contents was written during
the period included in the present chapter.

The fame of the author of Paradise Lost has over-

«■]

COMUS.

21

shadowed that of the author of L’ Allegro, 11 Penseroso ,
and Lycidas . Yet had Paradise Lost never been
written, these three poems, with Comus, would have
sufficed to place their author in a class apart, and above
all those who had used the English language for poetical
purposes before him. It is incumbent on Milton’s bio-
grapher to relate the circumstances of the composition of
Comus , as it is an incident in the life of the poet.

Milton’s musical tastes had brought him the acquain-
tance of Henry Lawes, at that time the most celebrated
composer in England. When the Earl of Bridgewater
would give an entertainment at Ludlow Castle to celebrate
his entry upon his office as President of Wales and the
Marches, it was to Lawes that application was made to
furnish the music. Lawes, as naturally, applied to his
young poetical acquaintance Milton, to write the words.
The entertainment was to be of that sort which was
fashionable at court, and was called a Mask. In that
brilliant period of court life which was inaugurated by
Elisabeth and put an end to by the Civil War, a Mask
was a frequent and favourite amusement. It was an
exhibition in which pageantry and music predominated,
but in which dialogue was introduced as accompaniment
or explanation.

The dramatic Mask of the sixteenth century has been
traced by the antiquaries as far back as the time of
Edward III. But in its perfected shape it was a genuine
offspring of the English renaissance, a cross between the
vernacular mummery, or mystery-play, and the Greek
drama. JSTo great court festival was considered complete
without such a public show. Many of our great dramatic
writers, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Middleton,
Dekker, Shirley, Carew, were constrained by the fashion

22 FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639. [chap

of the time to apply their invention to gratify this taste
for decorative representation. No less an artist than
Inigo Jones must occasionally stoop to construct the

machinery.

The taste for grotesque pageant in the open air must
have gradually died out before the general advance of
refinement. The Mask by a process of evolution would
have become the Opera. But it often happens that when
a taste or fashion is at the point of death, it undergoes
a forced and temporary revival. So it was with the
Mask. In 1633, the Puritan hatred to the theatre had
blazed out in Prynne’s Histriomastix , and as a natural
consequence, the loyal and cavalier portion of society
threw itself into dramatic amusements of every kind
It was an unreal revival of the Mask, stimulated by
political passion, in the wane of genuine taste for the
fantastic and semi-barbarous pageant, in which the former
age had delighted. What the imagination of the specta-
tors was no longer equal to, was to be supplied by costli-
ness of dress and scenery. These last representations of
the expiring Mask were the occasions of an extravagant
outlay. The Inns of Court and Whitehall vied with
each other in the splendour and solemnity with which
they brought out,— the Lawyers, Shirley’s Triumph of
Peace , — the Court, Carew’s Caelum Britannicum.

It was a strange caprice of fortune that made the future
poet of the Puritan epic the last composer of a cavalier
mask. The slight plot, or story, of Comus was probably
suggested to Milton by his recollection of George Peele’s
Otd Wives 7 Tale , which he may have seen on the
stage. The personage of Comus was borrowed from a
Latin extravaganza by a Dutch professor, whose Comm
was reprinted at Oxford in 1634, the very year in which

COMUS.

2o

Lt.j

Milton wrote his Mask . The so-called tradition col*

lected by Oldys, of the young Egertons, who acted in
Comus , haying lost themselves in Haywood Forest on
their way to Ludlow, obviously grew out of Milton’s
poem. However casual the suggestion, or unpromising
the occasion, Milton worked out of it a strain of poetry
such as had never been heard in England before. If any
reader wishes to realise the immense step upon what had
gone before him, which was now made by a young man
of twenty-seven, he should turn over some of the most
celebrated of the masks of the Jacobean period.

We have no information how Comas was received
when represented at Ludlow, but it found a ptiblic of
readers. For Lawes, who had the MS. in his hands, was
so importuned for copies that, in 1637, he caused an
edition to be printed off. Hot surreptitiously ; for though
Lawes does not say, in the dedication to Lord Brackley,
that he had the author’s leave to print, we are sure that
he had it, only from the motto. On the title page of this
edition (1637), is the line,—

Eiieu ! quid volui miser o mihi ! floribus austrum

Perditu3 —

The words are Virgil’s, but the appropriation of them,
and their application in this “ second intention” is too
exquisite to have been made by any but Milton.

To the poems of the Horton period belong also the
two pieces II Allegro and II Penseroso , and Lycidas . He
was probably in the early stage of acquiring the language,
when he superscribed the two first poems with their
Italian titles. For there is no such word as “ Penseroso,”
the adjective formed from “Pensiero ” being “pensieroso.”
Even had the word been written correctly, its significa-

24 FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639. [chap.

tion is not that which Milton intended, viz. thoughtful,
or contemplative, but anxious, full of cares, cark-
ing. The rapid purification of Milton’s taste will be
best perceived by comparing LI Allegro and II Pense-
roso of uncertain date, but written after 1632, with
the Ode on the Nativity , written 1629. The Ode, not-
withstanding its foretaste of Milton’s grandeur, abounds in
frigid conceits, from which the two later pieces are
free. TJheOde is frosty, as written in winter, within the
four walls of a college chamber. Th^woTdyHs breathe
tii^lrefilur of spring^and^summer, and of the fields round
Horton. 'They are ' thoroughly' hliim^
expression our language has yet found of the fresh charm
of country life, not as that life is lived by the peasant,
but as it is felt by a young and lettered student, issuing
at early dawn, or at sunset, into the fields from his
chamber and his books. All rural sights and sounds and
smells are here blended in that ineffable combination,
which once or twice perhaps in our lives has saluted our
young senses before their perceptions were blunted by
alcohol, by lust, or ambition, or diluted by the social
distractions of great cities.

The fidelity to nature of the imagery of these poems
has been impugned by the critics.

Then to come, in spite of sorrow,

And at my window bid good morrow.

The skylark never approaches human habitations in this
way, as the redbreast does. Mr. Masson replies that the
subject of the verb “to come” is, not the skylark, but
1/ Allegro, the joyous student. I cannot construe the
lines as Mr. Masson does, even though the consequence
were to convict Milton, a city-bred youth, of not knowing
a skylark from a sparrow when he saw it. A close
observer of things around us would not speak of the

II.]

L’ ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

26

eglantine as twisted, of the cowslip as wan, of the
violet as glowing, or of the reed as balmy. Lyonias’
laureate hearse is to be strewn at once with primrose and
woodbine, daffodil and jasmine. When we read “the
rathe primrose that forsaken dies/’ we see that the poet
is recollecting Shakespeare (Winter’s Tale, 4. 4), not
looking at the primrose. The pine is not “ rooted deep
as high” (P. B. 4416), but sends its roots along the
surface. The elm, one of the thinnest foliaged trees of
the forest, is inappropriately named starproof (Arc. 89).
Lightning does not singe the tops of trees (P. L. i. 613),
but either shivers them, or cuts a groove down the stem
to the ground. These and other such like inaccuracies
must be set down partly to conventional language used
without meaning, the vice of Latin versification enforced
as a task, but they are partly due to real defect of natural
knowledge.

Other objections of the critics on the same score,
which may be met with, are easily dismissed. The
objector, who can discover no reason why the oak should
be styled “ monumental,” meets with his match in the
defender who suggests, that it may be rightly so called
because monuments in churches are made of oak. I
should tremble to have to offer an explanation to critics
of Milton so acute as these two. But of less ingenious
readers I would ask, if any single word can be found
equal to “ monumental ” in its power of suggesting to
the imagination the historic oak of park or chase, up to
the knees in fern, which has outlasted ten generations of
men ; has been the mute witness of the scenes of love,
treachery, or violence enacted in the baronial hall which
it shadows and protects ; and has been so associated with
man, that it is now rather a column and memorial obelisk
than a tree of the forest ?

26

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[CHAK

These are the humours of criticism. But, apart from
these, a naturalist is at once aware that Milton had
neither the eye nor the ear of a naturalist. At-iuijd?16?
even before his loss of sight, was he an exact observer
of natural ol)j ects^^ he knew a skylark

from a redbreast, and did not confound the dog-rose with
the honeysuckle. But I am sure that he had never
acquired that interest in nature’s things and ways, which
leads to close and loving watching of them. He had not
that sense of outdoor nature, empirical and not scientific,
which endows the Angler of his cotemporary Walton,
with its enduring charm, and which is to be acquired
only by living in the open country in childhood. Milton
is not a man of the fields, but of books. His life is in
His study, and whehHfre ^BtSps^broad^^nto the air he
carmT^ him. He does look at

na^u?ep4ait^ through books. Natural im-

pressions are received from without, but always in those
forms of beautiful speech, in which the poets of all ages
have clothed them. His epithets are not, like the epithets
of the school of Dryden and Pope, culled from the Gradus
ad Parnassum ; they are expressive of some reality, but it
is of a real emotion in the spectator’s soul, not of any
quality detected by keen insight in the objects themselves.
This emotion Milton’s art stamps with an epithet, which
shall convey the added charm of classical reminiscence.
When, e.g., he speaks of “ the wand’ring moon,” the
original significance of the epithet comes home to the
scholarly reader with the enhanced effect of its association
with the “ errantem lunam ” of VirgiL Nor because it
is adopted from Virgil has the epithet here the second-
hand effect of a copy. If Milton sees nature through
books, he still sees it*

«•]

L’ ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

27

To behold the waud’rrng moon,

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray,
Through the heaven’s wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bow’d.
Stooping through a fleecy clouc

No allegation that “ wand’ring moon i» uorrowed from
Horace can hide from us that Milton, though he remem-
bered Horace, had watched the phenomenon with a feel-
ing so intense that he projected his own soul’s throb into
the object before him, and named it with what Thomson
calls “ recollected love.”

Milton’s attitude towards nature is not that of a scien-
tific naturalist, nor even thatofiA close observer. It is
that of a poet who feels its total influence too powerfully
to dissect it. If, as I have laid, Milton reads hooks first
and nature afterwards, it is not to test nature by his
books, but to learn from both. He is learning not books,
but from books. All he reads, sees, hears, is to him but
nutriment for the soul. He is making himself. Man is
to him the highest object ; nature is subordinate to man,
not only in its more vulgar uses, but as an excitant of
fine emotion. He 'is not concerned to register the facts
and phenomena of nature, but to convey the impressions
they make on a sensitive soul. The external forms of
things are to be presented to us as transformed through
the heart and mind of the poet. The moon is endowed
with life and will, “ stooping,” “ riding,” “wand’ring,”
“bowing her head,” not as a frigid personification, and
because the ancient poets so personified her, but by com-
munication to her of the intense agitation which the
nocturnal spectacle rouses in the poet’s own breast.

I have sometimes read that these two idylls are “ mas-

28

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[CHAP.

terpieces of description. ” Other critics will ask if in
the scenery of V Allegro and II Penseroso Milton has
described the country about Horton, in Bucks, or that
about Forest Hill, in Oxfordshire ; and will object that the
Chiltern Hills are not high enough for clouds to rest
upon their top, much less upon their breast. But he has
left out the pollard willows, says another censor, and the
lines of pollard willow are the prominent feature in the
valley of the Colne, even more so than the “ hedgerow
elms.” Does the line “ Walk the studious cloister’s pale,”
mean St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey 1 When these
things can continue to be asked, it is hardly superfluous
to continue to repeat, that truth of fact and poetical truth
are two different things. Milton’s attitude towards nature
is not that of a “ descriptive poet/’ if indeed the phrase
be not a self-contradiction.

In Milton, nature is not put forward as the poet’s
theme. His theme is man, in the two contrasted moods of
joyous emotion, or grave reflection The shifting scenery
ministers to the varying mood. Thomson, in the Sea-
sons (1726), sets himself to render natural phenomena
as they truly are. He has left us a vivid presentation
in gorgeous language of the naturalistic calendar of the
changing year. Milton, in these two idylls, has recorded a
day of twenty-four hours. But he has not registered the
phenomena ; he places us at the standpoint of the man
before whom they deploy. And the man, joyous or
melancholy, is not a bare spectator of them; he is the
student, compounded of sensibility and intelligence, of
whom we are not told that he saw so and so, or that he
felt so, but with whom we are made copartners of his
thoughts and feeling. Description melts into emotion,
and contemplation bodies itself in imagery. All the

II.]

LYCIDAS.

29

charm of rural life is there, hut it is not tendered to us
in the form of a landscape ; the scenery is subordinated
to the human figure in the centre.

These two short idylls are marked by a gladsome spon-
taneity which never came to Milton again. The delicate
fancy and feeling which play about L Allegro and II
Penseroso never reappear, and form a strong contrast to
the austere imaginings of his later poetical period. These
two poems have the freedom and frolic, the natural grace
of movement, the improvisation, of the best Elizabethan
examples, while both thoughts and words are under a
strict economy unknown to the diffuse exuberance of the
Spenserians.

In Lycidas (1637) we have reached the high-water
mark of English Poesy and of Milton’s own production.
A period of a century and a half was to elapse before
poetry in England seemed, in Wordsworth’s Ode on Im-
mortality (1807), to be rising again towards the level
of inspiration which it had once attained in Lycidas .
And in the development of the Miltonic genius this
wonderful dirge marks the culminating point. As the
twin idylls of 1632 show a great advance upon the OdG
on the Nativity (1629), the growth of the poetic mind
during the five years which follow 1632 is registered in
Lycidas. Like the L Allegro and II Penseroso , Lycidas
is laid out on the lines of the accepted pastoral fiction ;
like them it offers exquisite touches of idealised rural
life. But Lycidas opens up a deeper vein of feeling, a
patriot passion so vehement and dangerous, that, like
that which stirred the Hebrew prophet, it is compelled
to veil itself from power, or from sympathy, in utterance
made purposely enigmatical. The passage which begins
“ Last came and last did go,” raises in us a thrill of

30

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap,

awe-struck expectation which I can only compare with
that excited by the Cassandra of iEschylus’s Agamem-
non. For the reader to feel this, he must have present in
memory the circumstances of England in 1637. He
must place himself as far as possible in the situation of a
cotemporary. The study of Milton’s poetry compels the
study of his time; and Professor Masson’s six volumes
are not too much to enable us to understand that there
were real causes for the intense passion which glows
underneath the poet’s words — a passion which unex-
plained would be thought to be intrusive.

The historical exposition must be gathered from the
English history of the period, which may be read in
Professor Masson’s excellent summary. All I desire to
point out here is, that in Lycidas , Milton’s original pic-
turesque vein is for the first time crossed with one of
quite another sort, stern, determined, obscurely indicative
of suppressed passion, and the resolution to do or die.
The fanaticism of the covenanter and the sad grace of
Petrarch seem to meet in Milton’s monody. Yet these
opposites, instead of neutralising each other, are blended
into one harmonious whole by the presiding, but invisible,
genius of the poet. The conflict between the old cavalier
world — the years of gaiety and festivity of a splendid and
pleasure-loving court, and the new puritan world into
which love and pleasure were not to enter — this conflict
which was commencing in the social life of England, is
also begun in Milton’s own breast, and is reflected in
Lycidas.

For we were nurs’d upon the self-same hilL

Here is the sweet mournfulness of the Spenserian time,
upon whose joys Death is the only intruder. Pass on-

a.] LYCIDA8. 31

ward a little, and you are in presence of the tremendous
Two-handed engine at the door,

the terror of which is enhanced by its obscurity. We
are very sure that the avenger is there, though we know
not who he is. In these thirty lines we have the pre-
luding mutterings of the storm which was to sweep away
mask and revel and song, to inhibit the drama, and
suppress poetry. In the earlier poems Milton’s muse has
sung in the tones of the age that is passing away ; the
poet is, except in his austere chastity, a cavalier. Though
even in JO. Allegro Dr. Johnson truly detects **some
melancholy in his mirth,” In Lycidas , for a moment, the
tones of both ages, the past and the coming, are combined,
and then Milton leaves behind him for ever the golden
age, and one half of his poetic genius. He never ful-
filled the promise with which Lycidas concludes* “ Ta
morrow to fresh woods and pastures new,”

CHAPTER IIL

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

Before 1632 Milton had begun to learn Italian. His
mind, just then open on all sides to impressions from
books, was peculiarly attracted by Italian poetry. The
language grew to be loved for its own sake. Saturated
as he was with Dante and Petrarch, Tasso and Ariosto,
the desire arose to let the ear drink in the music of
Tuscan speech.

The “ unhappy gift of beauty/’ which has attracted the
spoiler of all ages to the Italian peninsula, has ever exerted,
and still exerts, a magnetic force on every cultivated mind.
Manifold are the sources of this fascination now. The
scholar and the artist, the antiquarian and the historian,
the architect and the lover of natural scenery, alike find
here the amplest gratification of their tastes. This is so
still ; but in the sixteenth century the Italian cities were
the only homes of an ancient and decaying civilization.
Not insensible to other impressions, it was specially the
desire of social converse with the living poets and men of
taste — a feeble generation, but one still nourishing the
traditions of the great poetic age — which drew Milton
across the Alps.

In April, 1637, Milton’s mother had diedj_butAua

CH. III.]

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

33

younger brother, Christopher, had come to live, with his
wife, in the paternal home at Horton. Milton, the father,
was not unwilling that his son should have his foreign tour,
as a part of that elaborate education by which he was
qualifying himself for his doubtful vocation, j The cost
“waiTnot to standTn the way, coniidmibleas it must have
been. Howell’s estimate, in his Instructions for Forreine
Travel , 1642, was 300Z. a year for the tourist himself,
and 60Z. for his man, a sum equal to about 1000/. at
present.

Among the letters of introduction with which Milton
provided himself, one was from the aged Sir Henry
Wotton, Provost of Eton, in Milton’s immediate neigh-
bourhood. Sir Henry, who had lived a long time in
Italy, impressed upon his young friend the importance of
discretion on the point of religion, and told him the story
which he always told to travellers who asked his advice.
r<At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto

Scipioni, an old Eoman courtier in dangerous times

At my departure for Eome I had won confidence
enough to beg his advice ho.w I might carry myself
securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own
conscience. ‘ Signor Arrigo mio,’ says he, ‘ pensieri stretti
ed il viso sciolto (thoughts close, countenance open) will
go safely over the whole world.’” Though the intensity
of the Catholic reaction had somewhat relaxed in Italy,
the deportment of a Protestant in the countries which were
terrorised by the Inquisition was a matter which demanded
much circumspection. Sir H. Wotton spoke from his
own experience of far more rigorous times than those of
the Barberini Pope. But he may have noticed, even in
his brief acquaintance with Milton, a fearless presumption
of speech which was just what was most likely to bring

D

84

FIRST PERIOD. 1608-1639-

tohap

him into trouble. The event proved that the hint wa*

replied that he was a Catholic, which, in a Laudian, was
but a natural equivoque. Milton was resolute in his
>mef so much so that many were deterred

oiler. Mis rule, he says, was “ notTof my own accord to
introduce in those places conversation about religion, but,

should suffer, to dissemble nothing. What I was, if any
one asked, I concealed from no one ; if any one in the
very city of the Pope attacked the orthodox religion, I
defended it most freely.” Beyond the statement that the
English Jesuits were indignant, we hear of no evil con-
sequences of this imprudence. Perhaps the Jesuits saw
that Milton was of the stuff that would welcome mar-
tyrdom, and were sick of the affair of Galileo, which had
terribly damaged the pretensions of their church.

Milton arrived in Paris April or May, 1638.^. He
received* civilities from the English ambassador, Lord
Scudamore, who at his request gave him an introduction
to Grotius. Grotius, says Phillips, “ took Milton's visit
kindly, and gave him entertainment suitable to his worth,
and the high commendations he had heard of him.” We
have no other record of his stay of many days in Paris,
though A. Wood supposes that “the manners and graces
of that place were not agreeable to his mind.” It was
August before he reached Florence, by way of Nice and
Genoa, and in Florence he spent the two months which
we now consider the most impossible there, the months

not misplaced. For at Borne itself, in the very, lion's

■om showing him the civilities they were prepared to

if interrogated respecting the faith, then, whatsoever I

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

86

of August and September. Nor did he find, as he would
find now, the city deserted by the natives. We hear
nothing of Milton’s impressions of the place, but of the
men whom he met there he retained always a lively
and affectionate remembrance. The learned and polite
Florentines had not fled to the hills from the stifling heat
and blinding glare of the Lung’ Arno, but seem to have
carried on their literary meetings in defiance of climate.
This was the age of academies — an institution, Milton
says, “ of most praiseworthy effect, both for the cultivation
of polite letters and the keeping up of friendships.”
Florence had five or six such societies, the Florentine, the
Della Crusca, the Svogliati, the Apotisti, &c. It is easy,
and usual in our day, to speak contemptuously of the
literary tone of these academies, fostering, as they did,
an amiable and garrulous intercourse of reciprocal compli-
ment, and to contrast them unfavourably with our
societies for severe research. They were at least evidence
of culture, and served to keep alive the traditions of the
more masculine Medicean age. And that the members
of these associations were not unaware of their own degene-
racy and of its cause, we learn from Milton himself. For,
as soon as they found that they were safe with the young

* they,, had to bear. UJL have sate

among their learned men,” Milton wrote in 1644, “and
been counted 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 amongst them was brought, that this
was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits,
that nothing had been written there now these many
years but flattery and fustian.” Milton was introduced

4h^h^owiu bitter hatred of the

38

FIRST PERIOD. 160R-1689.

[CHAP,

lit the meetings of their academies ; his presence is re-
corded on two occasions, of which the latest is the 16th
September at the Svogliati. He paid his scot by reciting
from memory some of his youthful Latin verses, hexa-
meters, “molto erudite,” says the minute-book of the
sitting, and others, which “ I shifted, in the scarcity of
books and conveniences, to patch up.” He obtained much
credit by these exercises, which, indeed, deserved it by
comparison. He ventured upon the perilous experiment
of offering some compositions in Italian, which the fas-
tidious Tuscan ear at least professed to include in those
“ encomiums which the Italian is not forward to bestow
on men of this side the Alps.”

The author of Lycidas cannot but have been quite
aware of the small poetical merit of such an ode as that
which was addressed to him by Francini In this ode
Milton is the swan of Thames — “ Thames, which, owing
to thee, rivals Boeotian Permessus ;” and so forth. But
there is a genuine feeling, an ungrudging warmth of
sympathetic recognition underlying the trite and tumid
panegyric. And Milton may have yielded to the not
unnatural impulse of showing his countrymen, that though
not a prophet in boorish and fanatical England, he had
found recognition in the home of letters and arts. Upon
us is forced, by this their different reception of Milton,
the contrast between the two countries, Italy and England,
in the middle of the seventeenth century. The rude
north, whose civilisation was all to come, concentrating all
its intelligence in a violent effort to work off the eccle-
siastical poison from its system, is brought into sharp con-
trast with the sweet south, whose civilisation is behind it,
and whose intellect, after a severe struggle, has succumbed
to the material force and organisation of the church.

III.]

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

37

As soon as the season allowed of it, Milton set forward
fco Eome, taking what was then the usual way by Siena.
At Rome he spent two months, occupying himself partly
with seeing the antiquities, and partly with cultivating
the acquaintance of natives, and some of the many
foreigners resident in the eternal city. But though he
received much civility, we do not find that he met with
the peculiar sympathy which endeared to him his Tuscan
friends. His chief ally was the German, Lucas Holstenius,
a native of Hamburg, who had abjured Protestantism to
become librarian of the Vatican. Holstenius had resided
three years in Oxford, and considered himself bound to
repay to the English scholar some of the attentions he
had received himself. Through Holstenius Milton was
presented to the nephew, Francesco Barberini, who was
just then everything in Rome. It was at a concert at the
Barberini palace that Milton heard Leonora Baroni sing.
His three Latin epigrams addressed to this lady, the first
singer of Italy, or of the world at that time, testify to the
enthusiasm she excited in the musical soul of Milton.

Hor are these three epigrams the only homage which
Milton paid to Italian beauty. The susceptible poet, who in
the sunless north would fain have “sported with the tangles
of FTesera’s hair,” could not behold Heaera herself and the
hashing splendour of her eye, unmoved. Milton proclaims
( Defensio Secunda) that in all his foreign tour he had
lived clear from all that is disgraceful. But the pudicity
of his behaviour and language covers a soul tremulous
with emotion, whose passion was intensified by the disci-
pline of a chaste intention. Five Italian pieces among
his poems are to the address of another lady, whose
“majestic movements and love- darting dark brow ” had
subdued him. The charm lay in the novelty of this style

38

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

[chap

of beauty to one who came from the land of the “vermeil*
tinctur'd cheek ” (Comus) and the “ golden nets of hair ”
{El. i. 60). No clue has been discovered to the name
of this divinity, or to the occasion on which Milton saw
her.

Of Milton's impression of Eome there is no record.
There are no traces of special observation in his , poetry.
The descriptionof the city in Paradise Regained (iv. 32)
has nothing characteristic, and could have been written
by one who had never seen it, and by many as well as
by Milton. We get one glimpse of him by aid of the
register of the English College, as dining there at a
“ sumptuous entertainment ” on 30th October, when he
met Nicholas Carey, brother of Lord Falkland. In spite
of Sir Henry Wotton's caution, his resoluteness, as A.
Wood calls it, in his religion, besides making the English
Jesuits indignant, caused others, not Jesuits, to withhold
civilities. Milton only tells us himself that the anti-
quities detained him in Rome about two months.

At the end of November he went on to Naples. On the
road he fell in with an Eremite friar, who gave him an
introduction to the one man in Naples whom it was im-
portant he should know, Giovanni Battista Manso,
Marquis of Villa. The marquis, now seventy- eight, had
been for two generations the Maecenas of letters in
Southern Italy. He had sheltered Tasso in the former
generation, and Marini in the latter. It was the singular
privilege of his old age that he should now entertain a
third poet, greater than either. In spite of his years, he
was able to act as cicerone to the young Englishman over
the scenes which he himself, in hi3 Life of Tasso , has
described with the enthusiasm of a poet. But even the
high-souled Manso quailed before the terrors of the In-

III.]

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

39

quisition, and apologised to Milton for not having shown
him greater attention, because he would not be more
circumspect in the matter of religion. Milton’s Italian
journey brings out the two conflicting strains of feeling,
wlnch_ were uttered together in Lycidas , the poet’s inn
possibility by nature, the freeman’s indignation at clerical
domination.

The time was now at hand when the latter passion, the
noble rage of freedom, was to suppress the more delicate
flower of poetic imagination. Milton’s original scheme
had included Sicily and Greece. The serious aspect of
affairs at home compelled him to renounce his project.
“ I considered it dishonourable to be enjoying myself at
my ease in foreign lands, while my countrymen were
striking a blow for freedom.” _He^_retraced his steps
leisurely enough, however, making a halt of two months
in Rome, and again one of two months in Florence.
We find him mentioned in the minutes of the academy
of the Svogliati as having been present at three of
their weekly meetings, on the 17th, 24th, and 31st
March. Rut the most noteworthy incident of his second
Florentine residence is his interview with Galileo. He
had been unable to see the veteran martyr Ilf Science on
his first visit. For though Galileo was at that time
living within the walls, he was kept a close prisoner
by the Inquisition, and not allowed either to set foot
outside his own door, or to receive visits from non-
Catholics. In the spring of 1639, however, he was
allowed to go back to his villa at Gioiello, near Arcetri,
and Milton obtained admission to him, old, frail, and
blind, but in full possession of his mental faculty. There
is observable in Milton, as Mr. Masson suggests, a pro-
phetic fascination of the fancy on the subject of blind*

40

FIRST PERIOD. 1608—1639.

l_OHAP,

ness. And the deep impression left by this sight of u the
Tuscan artist ” is evidenced by the feeling with which
Galileo’s name and achievement are imbedded in Paradise
Lost .

Ei^om JlQxence^ Milton crossed the Apennines by Bo-
logna and Ferrara to Venice. From this port he shipped
for England the books he had collected during his tour,
books curious and rare as they seemed to Phillips, and
among them a chest or two of choice music books.
The month of April was spent at Venice, and bidding
farewell to the beloved land he would never visit again,
Milton passed the Alps to Geneva.

No Englishman’s foreign pilgrimage was complete with-
out touching at this marvellous capital of the reformed
faith, which with almost no resources had successfully
braved the whole might of the Catholic reaction. The
only record of Milton’s stay at Geneva is the album of
a Neapolitan refugee, to which Milton contributed his
autograph, under date 10th June, 1639, with the follow-
ing quotation

If virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

(From Comus ).

Coelum non animum muto, dum trans mare curro.

(From Horace.)

But it is probable that he was a guest in the house of
one of the leading pastors, Giovanni Diodati, whose
nephew Charles, a physician commencing practice in
London, was Milton’s bosom friend. Here Milton first
heard of the death, in the previous August, of that friend.
It was a heavy blow to him, for one of the chief plea-
sures of being at home again would have been to poui

1,1.]

JOURNEY TO ITALY.

41

into a sympathetic Italian ear the story of his adventures.
The sadness of the homeward journey from Geneva is
recorded for us in the Epitaphium Damonis. This
piece is an elegy to the memory of Charles Diodati. It
unfortunately differs from the elegy on King in being
written in Latin, and is thus inaccessible to uneducated
readers. As to such readers the topic of Milton’s Latin
poetry is necessarily an ungrateful subject, I will dismiss
it here with one remark. Milton’s Latin verses are dis-
tinguished from most Heo-latin verse by being a vehicle
of real emotion. His technical skill is said to have been
surpassed by others ; but that in which he stands alone
is, that in these exercises of imitative art he is able to
remain himself, and to give utterance to genuine passion.
Artificial Arcadianism is as much the frame-work of the
elegy on Diodati as it is of Lycidas. We have Daphnis
and Bion, Tityrus and Amyntas for characters, Sicilian
valleys for scenery, while Pan, Pales, and the Fauna
represent the supernatural. The shepherds defend their
flocks from wolves and lions. But this factitious buco-
licism is pervaded by a pathos, which, like volcanic heat,
has fused into a new compound the dilapidated debris
of the Theocritean world. And in the Latin elegy there
is more tenderness than in the English. Charles Diodati
was much nearer to Milton than had been Edward King.
The sorrow in Lycidas is not so much personal as it is
the regret of the society of Christ’s. King had only been
known to Milton as one of the students of the same
college ; Diodati was the associate of his choice in riper
manhood.

The Epitaphium Damonis is further memorable as
Milton’s last attempt in serious Latin verse. He dis-
covered in this experiment that Latin was not an adequate

u

FIRST PERIOD. 1608-1639.

[ch. in.

vehicle of the feeling he desired to give vent to. In the
concluding lines he takes a formal farewell of the Latian
muse, and announces his purpose of adopting henceforth
the “ harsh and grating Brittonic. idiom %y (Britt onicum
stridm$\

SECOND PERIOD . 1640—1660.

CHAPTEB IY.

EDUCATIONAL THEORY — TEACHING.

Milton was back in England in August, 1639. He had
been absent a year and three months, during which space
of time the aspect of public affairs, which had been per-
plexed and gloomy when he left, had been growing stilP^
more ominous of a coming storm. The issues of the con-
troversy were so pervasive, that it was almost impossible
for any educated man who understood them not to range
himself on a side. # Yet Milton, though he had broken off
his projected tour in consequence, did not rush into th&.
fray on his return. He resumed his retired and studious
life, ~<tYdth~no small delight, cheerfully leaving,” as he
says, “ the event of public affairs first to God, and then to
those to whom the people had committed that task.”

He did not return to Horton, but took lodgings in
London, in the house of Eussel a tailor, in St. Bride’s
Churchyard, at the city end of Fleet-street, on the site of
what is now Farringdon-street. There is no attempt on
the part of Milton to take up a profession, not even for the
sake of appearances. The elder Milton was content to
provide the son, of whom he was proud, with the means
of prosecuting his eccentric scheme of life, to continue,

U SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

namely, to prepare himself for some great work, nature
unknown.

For a young man of simple habits and studious life a
little suffices. The chief want is books, and of these, for
Milton's style of reading, select rather than copious, a
large collection is superfluous. There were in 1640 no
public libraries in London, and a scholar had to find his
own store of books or to borrow from his friends. Milton
never can have possessed a large library. At Horton he
may have used Kederminster’s bequest to Langley Church.
Still, with his Italian acquisitions, added to the books that
he already possessed, he soon found a lodging loo-narrow
for his accommodation, and removed to a house^of-his

an entry?* AHersgate was outside the city walls, on the

verge of the open country of Islington, and was a genteel
though not a fashionable quarter. There were few streets
in London, says Phillips, more free from noise.

He had taken in hand the education of his two
nephews, John and Edward Phillips, sons of his only
sister Anne. Anne was a few years older than her bro-
ther John. Her first husband, Edward Phillips, had died
in 1631, and the widow had given her two sons a step-
father in one Thomas Agar, who was in the Clerk of the
Crown's office. Milton, on settling in London in 1639,
had at once taken his younger nephew John to live with
him. When, in 1640, he removed to Aldersgate, the
elder, Edward, also came under his roof.

If it was affection for his sister which first moved
Milton to undertake the tuition of her sons, he soon deve-
loped a taste for the occupation. In 1643 he began to
receive into his house other pupils, but only, says
Phillips (who is solicitous that his uncle should not be

EDUCATIONAL THEOitY.

"•]

4 fi

thought to have kept a school), “ the sons of some gentle*
men that were his intimate friends.” He threw into his
lessons the same energy which he carried into everything
else. In his eagerness to find a place for everything that
could be learnt, there could have been few hours in the
day which were not invaded by teaching. He had ex-
changed the contemplative leisure of Horton for a busy
life, in which no hour but had its calls. Even on Sundays
there were lessons in the Greek Testament and dictations
of a system of Divinity in Latin. His pamphlets of this
period betray, in their want of measure and equilibrium,
even in their heated style and passion-flushed language,
the life at high pressure which their author was leading.

We have no account of Milton’s method of teaching
from any competent pupil. Edward Phillips was an
amiable and upright man, who earned his living respec-
tably by tuition and the compilation of books. He held
his uncle’s memory in great veneration. But when he
comes to describe the education he received at his uncle’s
hands, the only characteristic on which he dwells is that of
quantity. Phillips’s account is, however, supplemented
for us by Milton’s written theory. His Tractate of Edu-
cation to Master Samuel Hartlib is probably known even
to those who have never looked at anything else of Milton’s
in prose.

Of all the practical arts, that of education seems the
most cumbrous in its method, and to be productive of the
smallest results with the most lavish expenditure of
means. Hence the subject of education is one which is
always luring on the innovator and the theorist. Every
one, as he grows up, becomes aware of time lost, and effort
misapplied, in his own case. It is not unnatural to desire
to save our children from a like waste of power. And in a

46 SECOND PEEIOD. 1640—1660. [ohaf

time such as was that of Milton’s youth, when all tra-
ditions were being questioned, and all institutions were to
be remodelled, it was certain that the school would be
among the earliest objects to attract an experimental
reformer. Among the advanced minds of the time there
had grown up a deep dissatisfaction with the received
methods of our schools, and more especially of our
universities. The great instaurator of all knowledge,
Bacon, in preaching the necessity of altering the whole
method of knowing, included as matter of course the
method of teaching to know.

The man who carried over the Baconian aspiration into
education was Comenius (d. 1670). A projector and en-
thusiast, Comenius desired, like Bacon, an entirely new
intellectual era. With Bacon’s intellectual ambition, but
without Bacon’s capacity, Comenius proposed to revo-
lutionise all knowledge, and to make complete wisdom
accessible to all, in a brief space of time, and with a
minimum of labour. Language only as an instrument,
not as an end in itself ; many living languages, instead of
the one dead language of the old school ; a knowledge of
things, instead of words ; the free use of our eyes and ears
upon the nature that surrounds us ; intelligent appre-
hension, instead of loading the memory- — all these doc-
trines, afterwards inherited by the party of rational
reform, were first promulgated in Europe by the numerous
pamphlets — some ninety have been reckoned up — of this
Teuto-Slav, Comenius.

Comenius had as the champion of his views in England
Samuel Hartlib, a Dantziger by origin, settled in London
since 1628. Hartlib had even less of real science than
Comenius, but he was equally possessed by the Baconian
ideal of a new heaven and a new earth of knowledge.

EDUCATIONAL THEORY.

47

iv.]

Not himself a discoverer in any branch, he was unceasingly
occupied in communicating the discoveries and inventions
of others. He had an ear for every novelty of whatever
kind, interesting himself in social, religious, philanthropic
schemes, as well as in experiments in the arts. A sanguine
universality of benevolence pervaded that generation of
ardent souls, akin only in their common anticipation of an
unknown Utopia. A secret was within the reach of
human ingenuity which would make all mankind happy.
But there were two directions more especially in which
Hartlib’s zeal without knowledge abounded. These were
a grand scheme for the union of Protestant Christendom,
and his propagand of Comenius’s school-reform.

For the first of these projects it was not likely that
Hartlib would gain a proselyte in Milton, who had at
one-and- twenty judged Anglican orders a servitude, and
was already chafing against the restraints of Presbytery.
But on his other hobby, that of school-reform, Milton was
not only sympathetic, but when Hartlib came to talk
with him, he found that most or all of Comenius’s ideas
had already independently presented themselves to the
reflection or experience of the Englishman. At Hartlib’s
request Milton consented to put down his thoughts on
paper, and even to print them in a quarto pamphlet of
eight pages, entitled, Of Education: to Master Samuel
Hartlib .

This tract, often reproduced and regarded, along with
one of Locke’s, as a substantial contribution to the sub-
ject, must often have grievously disappointed those who
have eagerly consulted it for practical hints or guidance of
any kind. Its interest is wholly biographical. It cannot
be regarded as a valuable contribution to educational
theory, but it is strongly marked with the Miltonic indi-

48

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

f CHAP,

viduality. We find in it the same lofty conception of the
aim which Milton carried into everything he attempted ;
the same disdain of the beaten routine, and proud reliance
upon his own resources. He had given vent elsewhere to
his discontent with the system of Cambridge, “ which, as
in the time of her better health, and mine own younger
judgment, I never greatly admired, so now (1642) much
less.” In the letter to Hartlib he denounces with equal
fierceness the schools and “ the many mistakes which have
made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuc«
cessful.” The alumni of the universities carry away with
them a hatred and contempt for learning, and sink into
“ignorantly zealous” clergymen, or mercenary lawyers,
while the men of fortune betake themselves to feasts
and jollity. These last, Milton thinks, are the best of
the three classes.

All these moral shipwrecks are the consequence,
according to Milton, of bad education. It is in out
power to avert them by a reform of schools. But the
measures of reform, when produced, are ludicrously incom-
mensurable with the evils to be remedied. I do not
trouble the reader with the proposals ; they are a form of
the well-known mistake of regarding education as merely
the communication of useful knowledge. The doctrine as
propounded in the Tractate is complicated by the further
difficulty, that the knowledge is to be gathered out of
Greek and Latin books. This doctrine is advocated by
Milton with the ardour of his own lofty enthusiasm. In
virtue of the grandeur of zeal which inspires them, these
pages, which are in substance nothing more than the now
familiar omniscient examiner’s programme, retain a place
as one of our classics. The fine definition of education
here given has never been improyed upon : “ I call a

EDUCATIONAL THEORY.

"•]

complete and generous education that which fits a man
to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the
offices, both private and public, of peace and war.” This
is the true Milton. When he offers, in another page, as
an equivalent definition of the true end of learning, “ to
repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know
God aright,” we have the theological Milton, and what
he took on from the current language of his age.

Milton saw strongly, as many have done before and
since, one weak point in the practice of schools, namely,
the small result of much time. He fell into the natural
error of the inexperienced teacher, that of supposing that
the remedy was the ingestion of much and diversified
intelligible matter. It requires much observation of
young minds to discover that the rapid inculcation of
unassimilated information stupefies the faculties instead of
training them. Is it fanciful to think that in Edward
Phillips, who was always employing his superficial pen
upon topics with which he snatched a fugitive acquain-
tance, we have a concrete example of the natural result
of the Miltonic system of instruction I

CHAPTEE V.

MARRIAGE, AND PAMPHLETS ON DIVORCE*

We have seen that Milton turned hack from his unaccom-
plished tour because he 4 4 deemed it disgraceful to he
idling away his time abroad for his own gratification,
while his countrymen were contending for their liberty/1
From these words biographers have inferred that he
hurried home with the view of taking service in the Par-
liamentarian army. This interpretation of his words
seems to receive confirmation from what Phillips thinks
he had heard,— 44 1 am much mistaken if there were not
about this time a design in agitation of making him
Adjutant-General in Sir William Waller’s army.”
Phillips very likely thought that a recruit could enlist as
an Adjutant-General, but it does not appear from Milton’s
own words that he himself ever contemplated service in
the field. The words 44 contending for liberty ” (de liber-
tate dimicarent) could not, as said of the winter 1638-39,
mean anything more than the strife of party. And when
war did break out, it must have been obvious to Milton
that he could serve the cause better as a scholar than as a
soldier.

That he never took service in the army is certain. If

MARRIAGE.

51

CH. V.]

there was a time when he should have been found in the
ranks, it was on the 12th November, 1642, when every
able-bodied citizen turned out to oppose the march of the
king, wTho had advanced to Brentford. But we have the
evidence of the sonnet —

Captain, or Colonel, or Kniglit in arms,

that Milton, on this occasion, stayed at home. He had,
as he announced in February, 1642, “ taken labour and
intent study ” to be his portion in this life. He did not
contemplate enlisting his pen in the service of the Par-
liament, but the exaltation of his country’s glory by the
composition of some monument of the English language,
as Dante or Tasso had done for Italian. But a project
ambitious as this lay too far off to be put in execution as
soon as thought of. The ultimate purpose had to give
place to the immediate. One of these interludes, originating
in Milton’s personal relations, was his series of tracts on
divorce.

(^jn the early part of the summer of 1643^3IiltQa-4eok
a sudden journey into the country, u nobody about him
certain reasonTor that it was any more

than a journey” of recr^ion7r^TIe^was absent about a
Inonth^ he returned he brought back a wife.

mthhimT~~^ . She was attended
« bv^some few~of her nearesF~relations/’ and there was
feasting and celebration of the nuptials, in the house in
Aldersgate-street.

The bride’s name was Mary, eldest daughter of Bichard
Powell, Esq., of Forest Hill, J.P. for the county of Oxford.
Forest Hill is a village and parish about five miles from
Oxford on the Thame road, where Mr. Powell had a house

52

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

and a small estate of some 3Q0Z. a year, value of that day.
Forest Hill was within the ancient royal forest of Shot-
over, of which Mr. Powell was Jessee. The reader will
remember that the poet’s father was horn at Stanton St.
John, the adjoining parish to Forest Hill, and that Bichard
Milton, the grandfather, had been under-ranger of the
royal forest. There had been many transactions between
the Milton and the Powell families as far back as 1627.
In paying a visit to that neighbourhood, Milton was both
returning to the district which had been the home of all
the Miltons, and renewing an old acquaintance with the
Powell family. Mr. Powell, though in receipt of a fair
income for a country gentleman — 300Z. a year of that day
may be roughly valued at 1000Z. of our day — and his wife
had brought him 3000Z., could not live within his means.
His children were numerous, and, belonging as he did to
the cavalier party, his house was conducted with the
careless hospitality of a royalist gentleman. Twenty years
before he had begun borrowing, and among other persons
had had recourse to the prosperous and saving scrivener of
Bread-street. He was already mortgaged to the Miltons,
father and sons, more deeply than his estate had any
prospect of paying, which was perhaps the reason why he
found no difficulty in promising a portion of 1000Z. with
his daughter. Milton, with a poet’s want of caution, or
indifference to money, and with a lofty masculine dis-
regard of the temper and character of the girl he asked
to share his life, came home with his bride in triumph,
and held feasting in celebration of his hasty and ill con-
sidered choice. It wasa beginning of sorrows to him.
Hitherto, up to his thirty -fifth year, independent master
"of leisure and the delights of literature, his years had
passed without a check or a shadow. From this day

MARRIAGE.

58

v-3

forward domestic misery, the importunities of business,
the clamour of controversy, crowned by the crushing
calamity of blindness, were to be his portion for more than
thirty years. Singular among poets in the serene fortune
of the first half of life, in the second half his piteous fate
was to rank in wretchedness with that of his masters,
Dante or Tasso.

The biographer, acquainted with the event, has no
difficulty in predicting it, and in saying at this point in
his story, that Milton might have known better than,
with his puritanical connections, to have taken to wife a
daughter of a cavalier house, to have brought her from a
roystering home, frequented by the dissolute officers of
the Oxford garrison, to the spare diet and philosophical
retirement of a recluse student, and to have looked for
sympathy and response for his speculations from an un-
educated and frivolous girl. Love has blinded, and will
continue to blind, the wisest men to calculations as easy
and as certain as these. And Milton, in whose soul
Puritan austerity was as yet only contending with the
more genial currents of humanity, had a far greater than
average susceptibility to the charm of woman. Even
at the later date of Paradise Lost , voluptuous thoughts,
as Mr. Hallam has observed, are not uncongenial to him.
And at an earlier age his poems, candidly pure from
the lascivious inuendoes of his contemporaries, have pre-
served the record of the rapid impression of the momen-
tary passage of beauty upon his susceptible mind. Once,
at twenty, he was set all on flame by the casual meeting,
in one of his walks in the suburbs of London, with a
damsel whom he never saw again. Again, sonnets hi.
to v. tell how he fell before the new type of foreign
beauty which crossed his path at Bologna. A similar

64

SECOND PERIOD. 1640-1660.

[chap.

surprise of his fancy at the expense of his judgment seems
to have happened on the present occasion of his visit to
Shotover. There is no evidence that Mary Powell was
handsome, and we may he sure that it would have been
mentioned if she had been. But she had _ronthr- and
country freshness ; her “ unliveliness and natural sloth
unfit for conversation"” passed as ** tfieHBashful muteness
olTTviilJi]^^ doutyTmtruded that he was being

too hasty, Milton may have thought that a girl of seven
teen could be moulded at pleasure.

He was too soon undeceived. His dream of married
happiness barely lasted ou t_The^Jaon?y moon^TI e found
thaT^Eehad mated himself to a clod of earthrwho not
only^waj^noTno^l^^

a helpmeet for him. With Milton, as with the whole
Calvimsticand Puritan Europe, woman was a creature of
an inferior and subordinate class. Man was the final
cause of God’s creation, and woman was there to minister
to this nobler being. In his dogmatic treatise, Be
d^octfwn^ Milton formulated this sentiment

in the thesis, borrowed from the schoolmen, that the
soul was communicated “ in semine patris.” The cavalier
section of society had inherited the sentiment of chivalry,
and contrasted with the roundhead not more by its loyalty
to the person of the prince, than by its recognition of the
superior grace and refinement of womanhood. Even in
the debased and degenerate epoch of court life which
followed 1660, the forms and language of homage still
preserved the tradition of a nobler scheme of manners.
The Puritan had thrown off chivalry as being parcel of
Catholicism, and had replaced it by the Hebrew ideal of
the subjection and seclusion of woman. Milton, in whose
mind the rigidity of Puritan doctrine was now contending

*0

MARRIAGE.

56

with the freer spirit of culture and romance, shows on
the present occasion a like conflict of doctrine with
sentiment. While he adopts the oriental hypothesis of
woman for the sake of man, he modifies it by laying
more stress upon mutual affection, the charities of home,
and the intercommunion of intellectual and moral life,
than upon that ministration of woman to the appetite
and comforts of man, which makes up the whole of her
functions in the Puritan apprehension. The failure in
his own case to obtain this genial companionship of soul,
which he calls ‘‘the gentlest end of marriage, ” is what
gave the keenest edge to his disappointment in his matri-
monial venture.

But however keenly he felt and regretted the precipi-
tancy which had yoked him for life to “a mute and

spiritless mate,,, the breach did not come from his sid&.

The girl herself conceived an equal repugnance to the
husband she had thoughtlessly accepted, probably on the
strength of his good looks, which was all of Milton that
she was capable of appreciating. A young bride, taken
suddenly from the freedom of a jovial and an undisci-
plined home, rendered more lax by civil confusion and easy
intercourse with the officers of the royalist garrison, and
committed to the sole society of a stranger, and that
stranger possessing the rights of a husband, and expecting
much from all who lived with him, may not unnaturally
have been seized with panic terror, and wished herself
home again. The young Mrs. Milton not only wished it,

but incited her family to write and beg that she might be

allowed to go home to stay the remainder of the summer.
The request to quit her husband at the end of the first
month was so unreasonable, that the parents would
hardly h a v e m ade7 It if they had not suspected some pro-

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

56

[chap,

found cause of estrangement. Hor could Milton have
consented, as he did, to so extreme a remedy, unless he
had felt that the case required no less, and that her
mother’s advice and influence were the most available
means of awakening his wife to a sense of her duty.
Milton’s consent was therefore given. He may have
thought it desirable she should go, and thus Mrs. Powell
would not have been going very much beyond the truth
when she pretended some years afterwards that her son-
in-law had turned away his wife for a long space.

^Mary Milton went to Forest Hill in July, hut on the
understanding that she was to come back at Michaelmas.
When the appointed time came, she did not appear. Mil-
ton wrote for her to come. Ho answer. Several other
letters met the same fate. At last he despatched a foot
messenger to Forest Hill desiring her return. The
messenger came back only to report that he had been
“ dismissed with some sort of contempt.” It was evident
that Mary Milton’s family had espoused her cause as
against her husband. Whatever may have been the
secret motive of their conduct, they explained the quarrel
politically, and began to repent, so Phillips thought, of
having matched the eldest daughter of their house with a
violent Presbyterian.

If Milton had “ hasted too eagerly to light the nuptial
torch,” he had been equally ardent in his calculations of
the domestic happiness upon which he was to enter. His
poet’s imagination had invested a dull and common girl
with rare attributes moral and intellectual, and had pic-
lured for him the state of matrimony as an earthly paradise,
in which he was to be secure of a response of affection
showing itself in a communion of intelligent interests.
In proportion to the brilliancy of his ideal anticipation

*.)

PAMPHLETS ON DIVORCE.

67

was the fury of despair which came upon him when he
found out his mistake. A common man, in a common
age, would have vented his vexation upon the individual.
Milton, living at a time when controversy turned away
from details, and sought to dig down to the roots of every
question, instead of urging the hardships of his own case,
set to to consider the institution of marriage in itself. He
published a pamphlet with the title, The Doctrine and
Discipline of Divorce, at first anonymously, but putting
his name to a second edition, much enlarged. He further
reinforced this argument in chief with three supplementary
pamphlets, partly in answer to opponents and objectors ;
for there was no lack of opposition, indeed of outcry loud
and fierce.

A biographer closely scans the pages of these pam-
phlets, not for the sake of their direct argument, but to
see if he can extract from them any indirect hints of their
author’s personal relations. There is found in them no
mention of Milton’s individual case. Had we no other
information, we should not be authorised to infer from
them that the question of the marriage tie was more than
an abstract question with the author.

But though all mention of his own case is studiously
avoided by Milton, his pamphlet, when read by the light
of Phillips’s brief narrative, does seem to give some assis-
tance in apprehending the circumstances of this obscure
passage of the poet’s life. The mystery has always been
felt by the biographers, but has assumed a darker hue
since the discovery by Mr. Masson of a copy of the first
edition of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce , with
the written date of August 1. According to Phillips’s
narrative, the pamphlet was engendered by Milton’s
indignation at his wife’s contemptuous treatment of him,

68 SECOND PERIOD. 1640-1660. [chap.

in refusing to keep th© engagement to return at Michael-
mas, and would therefore be composed in October and
November, time enough to allow for the sale of the edition,
and the preparation of the enlarged edition, which came
out in February, 1644. But if the date “ August 1 ” for
the first edition be correct, we have to suppose that Milton
was occupying himself with the composition of a vehe-
ment and impassioned argument in favour of divorce for
incompatibility of temper, during the honeymoon ! Such
behaviour on Milton’s part, he being thirty-five, towards a
girl of seventeen, to whom he was bound to show all
loving tenderness, is so horrible, that a suggestion has been
made that there was a more adequate cause for his dis-
pleasure, a suggestion which Milton’s biographer is bound
to notice, even if he does not adopt it. The suggestion,
which I believe was first made by a writer in the
Athenceum , is that Milton’s young wife refused him the
consummation of the marriage. The supposition is
founded upon a certain passage in Milton’s pamphlet.

If the early date of the pamphlet be the true date ; if
the Doctrine and Discipline was in the hands of the
public on August 1 ; if Milton was brooding over this
seething agony of passion all through J uly, with the young
bride, to whom he had been barely wedded a month, in
the house where he was writing, then the only apology for
this outrage upon the charities, not to say decencies, of
home is that which is suggested by the passage referred
to. ThenAhe pamphlet, however imprudent, becomes par-
donable. It is a passionate crySomAheilep ths of a great
despair ; another evidence of the noble purity of a nature
which refused to console itself as other men would have
consoled themselves ; a nature which, instead of an
egotistical whine for its own deliverance, sets itself to

V.]

PAMPHLETS ON DIVORCE.

69

plead the common cause of man and of society. Tie gives
no intimation of any individual interest, but his argument
throughout glows with a white heat of concealed emotion,
such as could only he stirred by the sting of some per-
sonal and present misery.

Notwithstanding the amount of free opinion abroad in
England, or at least in London, at this date, Milton’s
divorce pamphlets created a sensation of that sort which
Gibbon is fond of calling~lTScandal. 5~ scandal, in this
sense, must always arise m your own party ; you cannot
scandalise the enemy. And so it was now. The Episco-
palians were rejoiced that Milton should ruin his credit
with his own side by advocating a paradox. The Presby-
terians hastened to disown a man who enabled their
opponents to brand their religious scheme as the parent
of moral heresies. Eor though church government and
the English constitution in all its parts had begun to be
open questions, speculation had not as yet attacked either
of the two bases of society, property or the family. Loud
was the outcry of the Philistines. There was no doubt
that the rigid bonds of Presbyterian orthodoxy would not
in any case have long held Milton. They were snapped
at once by the publication of his opinions on divorce, and
Milton is henceforward to be ranked among the most
independent of the new party which shortly after this
date began to be heard of under the name of Inde-
pendents.

But the men who formed the nucleus of this new mode
of thinking were as yet, in 1643, not consolidated into a
sect, still less was their importance as the coming political
party dreamt of. At present they were units, only drawn
to each other by the sympathy of opinion. The contemp-
tuous epithets, Anabaptist, Antinomian, &c., could he

60 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

levelled against them with fatal effect by every Philistine,
and were freely used on this occasion against Milton. He
says of himself that he now lived in a world of dis-
esteem. Hor was there wanting, to complete his dis-
comfiture, the practical parody of the doctrine of divorce.
A Mistress Attaway, lacewoman in Bell-alley, and she-
preacher in Coleman-street, had been reading Master
Milton’s book, and remembered that she had an unsanc-
tified husband, who did not speak the language of Canaan.
She further reflected that Mr. Attaway was not only
unsanctified, but was also absent with the army, while
William Jenney was on the spot, and, like herself, also
a preacher. Could a “ scandalised ” Presbyterian help
pointing the finger of triumphant scorn at such examples,
the natural fruits of that mischievous book, The Doctrine
and Discipline ?

Beyond the stage of scandal and disesteem the matter
did not proceed. In dedicating The Doctrine and Dis-
cipline to the Parliament, Milton had specially called on
that assembly to legislate for the relief of men who were
encumbered with unsuitable spouses. Ho notice was
taken of this appeal, as there was far other work on hand,
and no particular pressure from without in the direction
of Milton’s suit. Divorce for incompatibility of temper
remained his private crotchet, or obtained converts only
among his fellow-sufferers, who, however numerous, did
not form a body important enough to enforce by clamour
their demand for relief.

Milton was not very well pleased to find that the Par-
liament had no ear for the bitter cry of distress wrung
from their ardent admirer and staunch adherent. Accord-
ingly, in 1645, in dedicating the last of the divorce pam-
phlets, which he entitled Tetrachordon , to the Parliament,

PAMPHLETS ON DIVORCE.

*0

61

he concluded with a threat, “ If the law make not a timely
provision, let the law, as reason is, hear the censure of the
consequences.”

This threat he was prepared to put in execution, and
did, in 1645, as Phillips tells us, contemplate a union,
which could not have been a marriage, with another
woman. He was able at this time to find some part of
that solace of conversation which his wife failed to give
him, among his female acquaintance. Especially we find
him at home in the house of one of the Parliamentary
women, the Lady Margaret Ley, a lady “ of great wit and
ingenuity,” the “ honoured Margaret ” of Sonnet x. But
the Lady Margaret was a married woman, being the wife
of a Captain Hobson, a “ very accomplished gentleman,”
of the Isle of Wight. The young lady who was the
object of his attentions, and who, if she were the “ vir-
tuous young lady” of Sonnet ix., was “in the prime of
earliest youth,” was a daughter of a Dr. Davis, of whom
nothing else is now known. She is described by Phillips,
who may have seen her, as a very handsome and witty
gentlewoman. Though Milton was ready to brave public
opinion, Miss Davis was not. And so the suit hung,
when all schemes of the kind were put an end to by the
unexpected submission of Mary Powell.

Since October, 1643, when Milton’s messenger had been
dismissed from Eorest Hill, the face of the civil struggle
was changed. The Presbyterian army had been replaced by
that of the Independents, and the immediate consequence
had been the decline of the royal cause, consummated by
its total ruin on the day of l^aseby, in June, 1645.
Oxford was closely invested, Forest Hill occupied by the
besiegers, and the Powell family compelled to take refuge
within the lines of the city. Financial bankruptcy, too.

62 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

had overtaken the Powells. These influences, rather
than any rumours which may have reached them of
Milton's designs in regard to Miss Davis, wrought a
change in the views of the Powell family.. By the
triumph of the Independents Mr. Milton was become a
man of consideration, and might be useful as a protector.
They concluded that the best thing they could do was to
seek a reconciliation. There were not wanting friends of
Milton's also, some perhaps divining his secret discontent,
who thought that such reconciliation would be better for
him too, than perilling his happiness upon the experiment
of an illegal connexion. A conspiracy of the friends of
both parties contrived to introduce Mary Powell into a
house where Milton often visited in St. Martin's-le-Grand.
She was secreted in an adjoining room, on an occasion
when Milton was known to be coming, and he was sur-
prised by seeing her suddenly brought in, throw herself
on her knees, and ask to be forgiven. The poor young
thing, now two years older and wiser, but still only
nineteen, pleaded, truly or falsely, that her mother “ had
been all along the chief promoter of her frowardness."
Milton, with a “ noble leonine clemency " which became
I him, cared not for excuses for the past. It was* enough
that she was come back, and was willing to live with him
as his wife. He received her at once, and not only her,
but on the surrender of Oxford, in June, 1646, and the
sequestration of Porest Hill, took in the whole family of
Powells, including the mother-in-law, whose influence with
her daughter might even again trouble his peace.

It is impossible not to see that Milton had this impres-
sive scene, enacted in St. Martin's-le-Grand in 1645,
before his mind, when he wrote, twenty years afterwards,
the lines in Paradise Lost , x. 937 : —

RECONCILIATION WITH HIS WIFE.

68

v.1

. . . Eve, with tears that ceas'd not flowing
And tresses all disorder’d, at his feet
Fell humble, and embracing them, besought
His peace .

. . . Her lowly plight
Immovable, till peace obtain’d from fault
Acknowledg’d and deplor’d, in Adam wrought
Commiseration ; soon his heart relented
Tow’rds her, his life so late and sole delight,
low at his feet submissive in distress !

Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,

* * * * *

At once disarm’d, his anger all he lost.

The garden-house in Aldersgate-street had before been
found too small for tbe pupils who were being now
pressed upon Milton. It was to a larger house in Bar-
bican, a side street leading out of Aldersgate, that he
brought the Powells and Mary Milton. Milton probably
abated his exactions on the point of companionship, and
learned to be content with her acquiescence in the duties
of a wife. In July, 1646, she became a mother, and bore
in all four children. Of these, three, all daughters, lived
to grow up. Mary Milton herself died in giving birth to
the fourth child in the summer of 1652. She was only
twenty-six, and had been married to Milton nine years.

CHAPTER VI

PAMPHLETS.

We liave now seen Milton engaged in teaching and
writing on education, involved in domestic unhappiness,
and speculating on the obligations of marriage. But
neither of these topics formed the principal occupation of
his mind during these years. He had renounced a cherished
scheme of travel because his countrymen were engaged at
home in contending for their liberties, and it could not
but be that the gradually intensified stages of that struggle
engrossed his interest, and claimed his participation.

So imperative did he regard this claim that he allowed
it to override the purposed dedication of his life to poetry.
Not indeed for ever and aye, but for a time. As he had
renounced Greece, the iEgean Isles, Thebes, and the East
for the fight for freedom, so now to the same cause he
postponed the composition of his epic of Arthurian
romance, or whatever his mind “in the spacious circuits of
her musing proposed to herself of highest hope and hardest
attempting.” No doubt at first, in thus deferring the
work of his life, he thought the delay would be for a .
brief space. He did not foresee that having once taken
an oar, he would be chained to it for more than twenty

CH. VI.]

PAMPHLETS.

65

years, and that he would finally owe his release to the
ruin of the cause he had served. But for the Restoration
and the overthrow of the Puritans, we should never have
had the great Puritan epic.

The period then of his political activity is to be re-
garded as an episode in the life of the poet Milton. It
is indeed an episode which fills twenty years, and those
the most vigorous years of manhood, from his thirty-
second to his fifty-second year. He himself was con-
scious of the sacrifice he was making, and apologises to
the public for thus defrauding them of the better work
which he stood pledged to execute. As he puts it, there
was no choice for him. He could not help himself, at
this critical juncture, “ when the Church of God was at
the foot of her insulting enemies he would never have
ceased to reproach himself, if he had refused to employ
the fruits of his studies in her behalf. He saw also that a
generation inflamed by the passions of conflict, and look-
ing in breathless suspense for the issue of battles, was not
in a mood to attend to poetry. Hor, indeed, was he
ready to write, “not having yet (this is in 1642) com-
pleted to my mind the full circle of my private studies.”

But though he is drawn into the strife against his will,
and in defiance of his genius, when he is in it, h© throws
into it the whole vehemence of his nature. The pam-
phlet period, I have said, is an episode in the life of the
poet. But it is a genuine part of Milton’s life. However
his ambition may have been set upon an epic crown, his
zeal for what he calls the church was an equal passion,
nay had, in his judgment, a paramount claim upon him.
He is a zealot among the zealots ; his cause is the cause
of God ; and the sword of the Independents is the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon. He does not refute

F

66 SECOND PERIOD. 1640-1660. [chap.

opponents, but curses enemies. Yet his rage, even when
most delirious, is always a Miltonic rage ; it is grand,
sublime, terrible ! Mingled with the scurrilities of the
theological brawl are passages of the noblest English ever
written. Hartley Coleridge explains the dulness of the
wit-combats in Shakspeare and Jonson, on the ground
that repartee is the accomplishment of lighter thinkers
and a less earnest age. So of Milton’s pamphlets it must
be said that he was not fencing for pastime, but fighting
for all he held most worthy. He had to think only of
making his blows tell. When a battle is raging, and my
friends are sorely pressed, am I not to help because good
manners forbid the shedding of blood (l

Ho good man can, with impunity, addict himself to
party . And the best men will suffer most, because their
conviction of the goodness of their cause is deeper. But
when one with the sensibility of a poet throws himself
into the excitements of a struggle, he is certain to lose
bis balance. The endowment of feeling and imagination
which qualifies him to be the ideal interpreter of life,
unfits him for participation in that real life, through the
manoeuvres and compromises of which reason is the only
guide, and where imagination is as much misplaced as it
would be in a game of chess. “ The ennobling difference
between one man and another is that one feels more than
another.” Milton’s capacity of emotion, when once he
became champion of a cause, could not be contained
within the bounds of ordinary speech. It breaks into
ferocious reprobation, into terrific blasts of vituperation,
beneath which the very language creaks, as the timbers
of a ship in a storm. Corruptio optimi pessima. The
archangel is recognisable by the energy of his malice.
Were all those accomplishments, those many studious

TlO

PAMPHLETS.

67

years hiving wisdom, the knowledge of all the tongues,
the command of all the thoughts of all the ages, and that
wealth of English expression — were all these acq uirements
only of use, that their possessor might vie in defamation
with an Edwards or a Du Moulin 1

For it should be noted that these pamphlets, now only
serving as a record of the prostitution of genius to political
party, were, at the time at which they appeared, of no use
to the cause in which they were written. Writers, with
a professional tendency to magnify their office, have always
been given to exaggerate the effect of printed words.
There are examples of thought having been influenced by
books. But such books have been scientific, not rhetorical.
Milton’s pamphlets are not works of speculation, or philo-
sophy, or learning, or solid reasoning on facts. They
are inflammatory appeals, addressed to the passions of
the hour. He who was meditating the erection of an
enduring creation, such as the world “ would not wil-
lingly let die,” was content to occupy himself with the
most ephemeral of all hackwork. His own polemical
writings may be justly described in the words he himself
uses of a book by one of his opponents, as calculated “ to
gain a short, contemptible, and soon-fading reward, not to
stir the constancy and solid firmness of any wise man ....
but to catch the worthless approbation of an inconstant,
irrational, and image-doting rabble.”

It would have been not unnatural that the public
school and university man, the admirer of Shakspeare
and the old romances, the pet of Italian academies, the
poet-scholar, himself the author of two Masks, who was
nursing his wings for a new flight into the realms of
verse, should have sided with the cavaliers against the
Puritans, with the party of culture and the humanities

68 SECOND PEKIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

against tlie party which shut up the theatres and despised
profane learning. But we have seen that there was
another side to Milton’s mind. This may he spoken of
as his other self, the Puritan self, and regarded as in
internal conflict with the poet’s self. His twenty years’
pamphlet warfare may he presented hy his biographer as
the expression of the Puritanic Milton, who shall have
been driven hack upon his suppressed instincts as a poet
by the ruin of his political hopes. This chart of Milton’s
life is at once simple and true. But like all physiological
diagrams it falls short of the subtlety and complexity of
human character. A study of the pamphlets will show that
the poet is all there, indeed only too openly for influence on
opinion, and that the blighted hope of the patriot lends a
secret pathos to Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes.

This other element in Milton is not accurately named
Puritanism. Even the term republicanism is a coarse and
conventional description of that sentiment which domi-
nated his whole being, and which is the inspiration at once
of his poetry and of his prose. To give a name to this
sentiment, I must call it the love of liberty. It was an
aspiration at once real and vague, after a new order of
things, an order in which the old injustices and oppres-
sions should cease; after a new Jerusalem, a millennium,
a Utopia, an Oceana. Its aim was to realise in political
institutions that great instauration of which Bacon dreamed
in the world of intelligence. It was much more negative
than affirmative, and knew better, as we all do, how good
was hindered than how it should be promoted. “ I did
but prompt the age to quit their clogs.11 Milton embodied,
more perfectly than any of his cotemporaries, this spirit
of the age. It is the ardent aspiration after the pure and
noble life, the aspiration which stamps every line he

VI.]

PAMPHLETS.

69

wrote, verse or prose, with a dignity as of an heroic age.
This gives consistency to all his utterances. The doctri-
naire republican of to-day cannot understand how the
man who approved the execution of the would-be despot
Charles Stuart, should have been the hearty supporter of
the real autocrat Oliver Cromwell. Milton was not the
slave of a name. He cared not for the word republic^
so as it was well with the commonwealth. Parliaments
or single rulers, he knew, are but means to an end ; il
that end was obtained, no matter if the constitutional
guarantees exist or not. Many of Milton’s pamphlets are
certainly party pleadings, choleric, one-sided, personal.
But through them all runs the one redeeming charac-
teristic— that they are all written on the side of liberty.
He defended religious liberty against the prelates, civil
liberty against the crown, the liberty of the press against
the executive, liberty of conscience against the Presby-
terians, and domestic liberty against the tyranny of canon
law. Milton’s pamphlets might have been stamped with
the motto which Selden inscribed (in Greek) in all his
books, “ Liberty before everything.”

One virtue these pamphlets possess, the virtue of style.
They are monuments of our language so remarkable that
Milton’s prose works must always be resorted to by
students, as long as English remains a medium of ideas.
Yet even on the score of style, Milton’s prose is subject
to serious deductions. His negligence is such as to
amount to an absence of construction. He who, in his
verse, trained the sentence with delicate sensibility to
follow his guiding hand into exquisite syntax, seems in
his prose writing to abandon his meaning to shift for
itself. Here Milton compares disadvantageously with
Hooker. Hooker’s elaborate sentence, like the sentence

70

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

of Demosthenes, is composed of parts so hinged* of clauses
so subordinated to the main thought, that we foresee the
end from the beginning, and close the period with a sense
of perfect roundness and totality. Milton does not seem
to have any notion of what a period means. He begins
anywhere, and leaves off, not when the sense closes,
but when he is out of breath. We might have thought
this pell-mell huddle of his words was explained, if not
excused, by the exigencies of the party pamphlet, which
cannot wait. But the same asyntactic disorder is equally
found in the History of Britain , which he had in hand
for forty years. Hor is it only the Miltonic sentence
which is incoherent ; the whole arrangement of his topics
is equally loose, disjointed, and desultory. His inspira-
tion comes from impulse. Had he stayed to chastise his
emotional writing by reason and the laws of logic, he would
have deprived himself of the sources of his strength.

These serious faults are balanced by virtues of another
kind. Putting Bacon aside, the condensed force and
poignant brevity of whose aphoristic wisdom has no
parallel in English, there is no other prosaist who possesses
anything like Milton’s command over the resources of our
language. Milton cannot match the musical harmony
and exactly balanced periods of his predecessor Hooker.
He is without the power of varied illustration, and accu-
mulation of ornamental circumstance, possessed by his
contemporary, Jeremy Taylor (1613— 1667). But neither
of these great writers impresses the reader with a sense of
unlimited power such as we feel to reside in Milton.
Vast as is the wealth of magnificent words which he
flings with both hands carelessly upon the page, we feel
that there is still much more in reserve.

The critics have observed (Collier’s Poetical Decameron)

VI.]

MILTON’S PROSE.

71

that as Milton advanced in life he gradually disused the
compound words he had been in the habit of making for
himself. However this may be, his words are the words
of one who made a study of the language, as a poet
studies language, searching its capacities for the expression
of surging emotion. Jeremy Taylor’s pro3e is poetical
prose. Milton’s prose is not poetical prose, but a
different thing, the prose of a poet ; not like Taylor’s,
loaded with imagery on the outside ; but coloured by
imagination from within. Milton is the first English
writer who, possessing in the ancient models a standard
of the effect which could be produced by choice of words,
set himself to the conscious study of our native tongue
with a firm faith in its as yet undeveloped powers as an
instrument of thought.

The words in Milton’s poems have been counted, and
it appears that he employs 8000, while Shakspeare’s plays
and poems yield about 15,000. From this it might be
inferred that the Miltonic vocabulary is only half as rich
as that of Shakspeare. But no inference can be founded
upon the absolute number of words used by any writer.
We must know, not the total of different words, but
the ^proportion of different words to the whole of any
writer’s words. Kow to furnish a list of 100 different
words the English Bible requires 531 common words,
Shakspeare 164, Milton 135 only. This computation is
founded on the poems ; it would be curious to have the
same test tried upon the prose writings, though no such
test can be as trustworthy as the educated ear of a listener
to a continued reading.

It is no part of a succinct biography, such as the present,
to furnish an account in detail of the various controversies
of the time, as Milton engaged in them. The reader will

72 SECOND PERIOD. 1640-1660. [chap.

doubtless be content with the bare indication of the sub-
jects on which he wrote. The whole number of Milton’s
political pamphlets is twenty-five. Of these, twenty-one
are written in English, and four in Latin. Of the Tractate
of Education and the four divorce pamphlets something
has been already said. Of the remaining twenty, nine,
or nearly half, relate to church government, or ecclesiastical
affairs ; eight treat of the various crises of the civil strife ;
and two are personal vindications of himself against one of
his antagonists. There remains one tract of which the
subject is of a more general and permanent nature, the
best known of all the series, Areopagitica : A Speech for
the Liberty of unlicensed Printing , to the Parliament of
England . The whole series of twenty-five extends over
a period of somewhat less than twenty years ; the earliest,
viz., Of Reformation touching Church Discipline in Eng-
land, and the Causes that hitherto have hindered it, having
been published in 1641 ; the latest, entitled, A ready and
easy way to establish a free Commonwealth, coming out in
March, 1660, after the torrent of royalism had set in,
which was to sweep away the men and the cause to which
Milton had devoted himself. Milton’s pen thus accom-
panied the whole of the Puritan revolution from the
modest constitutional opposition in which it commenced,
through its unexpected triumph, to its crushing overthrow
by the royalist and clerical reaction.

The autumn of 1641 brought with it a sensible lull in
the storm of revolutionary passion. Indeed, there began
to appear all the symptoms of a reaction, and of the
formation of a solid conservative party, likely to be strong
enough to check, or even to suppress, the movement. The
impulse seemed to have spent itself, and a desire for rest

VI.]

POLITICS.

73

from political agitation began to steal over the nation.
Autumn and the harvest turn men's thoughts towards
country occupations and sports. The King went off to
Scotland in August ; the Houses adjourned till the 20th
October. The Scottish army had been paid off, and had
repassed the border ; the Scottish commissioners and
preachers had left London.

It was a critical moment for the Puritan party. Some
very considerable triumphs they had gained. The arch-
enemy Strafford had been brought to the block ; Laud
was in the tower ; the leading members of Convocation,
bishops, deans, and archdeacons, had been heavily fined ;
the Star Chamber and the High Commission Court had
been abolished ; the Stannary and Forestal jurisdictions
restrained. But the Puritan movement aimed at far more
than this. It was not only that the root-and-branch men
were pushing for a generally more levelling policy, but
the whole Puritan party was committed to a struggle with
the hierarchy of the Established Church. It was not so
much that they demanded more and more reform, with
the growing appetite of revolution, but that as long as
bishops existed, nothing that had been wrested from them
was secure. The Puritans could not exist in safety side
by side with a church whose principle was that there was
no church without the apostolic succession. The abolition
of episcopacy and the substitution of the Presbyterian
platform was, so it then seemed, a bare measure of neces-
sary precaution, and not merely the extravagant demand
of dissatisfied spirits. Add to this, that it was well
understood by those near enough to the principal actors
in the drama, that the concessions made by the Court
had been easily made, because they could be taken back,
when the time should come, with equal ease. Even the

74

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

most moderate men, who were satisfied with the amount
of reform already obtained, must have trembled at its
insecurity. The Puritan leaders must have viewed with
dismay the tendency in the nation towards a reaction in
favour of things as they were.

It was upon this condition of the public mind that
Milton persistently poured pamphlet after pamphlet,
successive vials of apocalyptic wrath. He exhausts all
the resources of rhetoric, and plays upon every note in the
gamut of public feeling, that he may rouse the apathetic,
confirm the wavering, dumbfound the malignant ; where
there was zeal, to lan it into flame ; where there was
opposition, to cow and browbeat it by indignant scorn and
terrific denunciation. The first of these manifestoes was
(1) Of Ref ormation touching Church Discipline , of which
I have already spoken. This was immediately followed
by (2) Of Prelaticall Episcopacy. This tract was a reply,
in form, to a publication of Archbishop Usher. It was
about the end of May, 1641, that Usher had come
forward on the breach with his Judgment of Dr. Rainolds
touching the Original of Episcopacy. Rainolds, who had
been President of Corpus (1598—1607), had belonged to
the Puritan party in his day, had refused a bishopric, and
was known, like Usher himself, to be little favourable to
the exclusive claims of the high prelatists. He was thus
an unexceptionable witness to adduce in favour of the
apostolic origin of the distinction between bishop and
presbyter. Usher, in editing Rainolds’ opinions, had
backed them up with all the additional citations which
his vast reading could supply.

Milton could not speak with the weight that attached
to Usher, the most learned Churchman of the age, who
had spent eighteen years in going through a complete

n.]

PAMPHLETS.

76

course of fathers and councils. But, in the first paragraph
of his answer, Milton adroitly puts the controversy upon
a footing by which antiquarian research is put out of
court. Episcopacy is either of human or divine origin.
If of human origin, it may be either retained or abolished,
as may be found expedient. If of divine appointment, it
must be proved to be so out of Scripture. If this cannot
be proved out of inspired Scripture, no accumulation of
merely human assertion of the point can be of the least
authority. Having thus shut out antiquity as evidence
in the case, he proceeds nevertheless to examine his oppo-
nent's authorities, and sets them aside by a style of argu-
ment which has more of banter than of criticism.

One incident of this collision between Milton, young
and unknown, and the venerable prelate, whom he was
assaulting with the rude wantonness of untempered youth,
deserves to be mentioned here. Usher had incautiously
included the Ignatian epistles among his authorities.
This laid the most learned man of the day at the mercy
of an adversary of less reading than himself. Milton,
who at least knew so much suspicion of the genuineness
of these remains as Casaubori’s Exerciiations on Baronins
and Yedelin's edition (Geneva, 1623) could suggest
pounced upon this critical flaw, and delightedly denounced
in trenchant tones this “ Perkin Warbeck of Ignatius/’
and the “ supposititious offspring of some dozen epistles.”
This rude shock it was which set Usher upon a more
careful examination of the Ignatian question. The result
was his well-known edition of Ignatius, printed 1642,
though not published till 1644, in which he acknow-
ledged the total spuriousness of nine epistles, and the
partial interpolation of the other six. I have not noticed
in Usher's Prolegomena that he alludes to Milton's

76 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap,

onslaught. Nor, indeed, was he called upon to do so in a
scientific investigation, as Milton had brought no contribu-
tion to the solution of the question beyond sound and fury.

Of Milton’s third pamphlet, entitled (3) Animadversions
on the Remonstrants ’ defence against Smectymnuus, it need
only be said that it is a violent personal onfall upon
Joseph Hall, bishop, first, of Exeter and afterwards of
Norwich. The bishop, by descending into the arena of
controversy, had deprived himself of the privilege which
his literary eminence should have secured to him. But
nothing can excuse or reconcile us to the indecent scur-
rility with which he is assailed in Milton’s pages, which
reflect more discredit on him who wrote them, than on
him against whom they are written.

The fifth pamphlet, called (5) An Apology against a
Pamphlet called “ A Modest Confutation , <^c.” (1642), is
chiefly remarkable for a defence of his own Cambridge
career. A man who throws dirt, as Milton did, must not
be surprised if some of it comes back to him. A son of
Bishop Hall, coming forward as his father’s champion
and avenger, had raked up a garbled version of Milton’s
quarrel with his tutor Chappell (see p. 6), and by a
further distortion had brought it out in the shape that,
“ after an inordinate and violent youth spent at the
university,” Milton had been “ vomited out thence.”
From the university this “ alchemist of slander ” follows
him to the city, and declares that where Milton’s morn-
ing haunts are, he wisses not, but that his afternoons are
spent in playhouses and bordelloes. Milton replies to
these random charges by a lengthy account of himself and
his studious habits. As the reader may expect a specimen
of Milton’s prose style, I quote a part of this autobio
graphical paragraph : —

71.]

PAMPHLETS.

77

“ I had my time, as others have who have good learning
bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where the
opinion was it might be sooner attained ; and, as the manner
is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most com-
mended, whereof some were grave orators and historians, whom
methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was, so I under-
stood them ; others were the smooth elegiac poets, whereof the
schools are not scarce ; whom both for the pleasing sound of
their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easy,
and most agreeable to nature’s part in me, and for their matter,
which what it is there be few who know not, I was so allowed

to read, that no recreation came to me better welcome

Whence having observed them to account it the chief glory of
their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by
that could esteem themselves worthiest to love those high per-
fections which under one or other name they took to celebrate,
I thought with myself by every instinct and presage of nature
which is not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to
this task might with such diligence as they used embolden me,
and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my share, would
herein best appear and best value itself by how much more
wisely and with more love of virtue I should choose (let rude

ears be absent) the object of not unlike praises Nor blame

it in those years to propose to themselves such a reward as the
noblest dispositions above other things in this life have some-
times preferred. Whereof not to be sensible when good and
fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judg-
ment, and withal an ungentle and swainish breast. For by the
firm settling of these persuasions I became so much a proficient,
that if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy
things of themselves, or unchaste of those names which before
they had extolled, this effect it wrought with me, from that
time forward their art I still applauded, but the men I deplored ;
and above them all preferred the two famous renowners of Beatrice
and Laura, who never write but honour of them to whom they
devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts with-
out transgression. And long it was not after, when I was
confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate

78

SECOND PERIOD* 1640—1660.

[chap.

of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought
himself to be a true poem, that is a composition and pattern of
the best and honourablest things, not presuming to sing high
praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in him-
self the experience and the practice of all that which is praise-
worthy.

“ These reasonings together with a certain niceness of nature,
an honest haughtiness and self-esteem, either of what I was or
what I might be, which let envy call pride, and lastly that
modesty, whereof, though not in the title-page, yet here, I may
be excused to make some beseeming profession, all these uniting
the supply of their natural aid together, kept me still above
those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject and
plunge himself, that can agree to saleable and unlawful pros-
titutions.

“ Next, for hear me out now, readers, that 1 may tell ye
whither my younger feet wandered, I betook me among those
lofty fables and romances which recount in solemn cantos the
deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from
hence had in renown over all Christendom. There I read it in
the oath of every knight, that he should defend to the expence
of his best blood, or of his life if it so befel him, the honour and
chastity of virgin or matron. From whence even then I learnt
what a noble virtue chastity ever must be, to the defence of
which so many worthies by such a dear adventure of themselves
had sworn. And if I found in the story afterwards any of them
by word or deed breaking that oath, I judged it the same fault
of the poet as that which is attributed to Homer to have written
undecent things of the gods. Only this my mind gave me, that
every free and gentle spirit without that oath ought to be
borne a knight, nor needed to expect the gilt spur, or the laying
of a sword upon his shoulder, to stir him up both by his counsel
and his arm to serve and protect the weakness of any attempted
chastity. So that even those books which to many others have
been the fuel of wantonness and loose living, I cannot think how
unless by divine indulgence, proved to me so many incitements
to the love and steadfast observation of virtue.”

This is one of the autobiographical oases in these pain-

71.]

PAMPHLETS.

75

phlets, which are otherwise arid deserts of sand, scorched
by the fire of extinct passion. It may be asked why it is
that a few men, Gibbon or Milton, are indulged without
challenge in talk about themselves, which would be
childish vanity or odious egotism in others. When a
Frenchman writes, “ Nous avons tous, nous autres Fran-
9ais, des seduisantes qualites ” (Gaffarei), he is ridiculous.
The difference is not merely that we tolerate in a man of
confessed superiority what would be intolerable in an
equal. This is true ; but there is a further distinction of
moral quality in men’s confessions. In Milton, as in
Gibbon, the gratification of self-love, which attends all
autobiography, is felt to be subordinated to a nobler
intention. The lofty conception which Milton formed
of his vocation as a poet, expands his soul and absorbs his
personality. It is his office, and not himself, which he
magnifies. The details of his life and nurture are im-
portant, not because they belong to him, but because he
belongs, by dedication, to a high and sacred calling. He
is extremely jealous, not of his own reputation, but of the
credit which is due to lofty endeavour*. We have only to
compare Milton’s magnanimous assumption of the first
place with the paltry conceit with which, in the following
age of Dryden and Pope, men spoke of themselves as
authors, to see the wide difference between the profes-
sional vanity of successful authorship and the proud con-
sciousness of a prophetic mission. Milton leads a
dedicated life, and has laid down for himself the law
that “he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write
well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a
true poem.”

If Milton had not been the author of Lycidas and
Paradise Lost , his political pamphlets would have been

80 SECOND PEEIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

as forgotten as are the thousand civil war tracts preserved
in the Thomason collection in the Museum, or have
served, at most, as philological landmarks. One, how-
ever, of his prose tracts has continued to enjoy some
degree of credit down to the present time, for its matter
as well as for its words, Areopagitica. This tract belongs
to the year 1644, the most fertile year in Milton’s life, as
in it he brought out two of his divorce tracts, the
Tractate of Education , and the Areopagitica . As Milton’s
moving principle was not any preconceived system of
doctrine but the passion for liberty in general, it was
natural that he should plead, when occasion called, for
liberty of the press, among others. The occasion was one
personal to himself.

It is well known that, early in the history of printing,
governments became jealous of this new instrument for
influencing opinion. In England, in 1556, under Mary,
the Stationers’ Company was invested with legal privileges,
having the twofold object of protecting the book trade and
controlling writers. All publications were required to
be registered in the register of the company. U o per-
sons could set up a press without a licence, or print
anything which had not been previously approved by
some official censor. The court, which had come to be
known as the court of Star-chamber, exercised criminal
jurisdiction over offenders, and even issued its own
decrees for the regulation of printing. The arbitrary
action of this court had no small share in bringing about
the resistance to Charles I. But the fall of the royal
authority did not mean the emancipation of the press.
The Parliament had no intention of letting go the control
which the monarchy had exercised ; the incidence of the
coercion was to be shifted from themselves upon their

VI.]

PAMPHLETS.

81

opponents. The Star-chamber was abolished, but its
powers of search and seizure were transferred to the Com-
pany of Stationers. Licensing was to go on as before, but
to be exercised by special commissioners, instead of by the
Archbishop and the Bishop of London. Only whereas,
before, contraband had consisted of Presbyterian books,
henceforward it was Catholic and Anglican books which
would be suppressed.

Such was not Milton's idea of the liberty of thought
and speech in a free commonwealth. He had himself
written for the Presbyterians four unlicensed pamphlets.
It was now open to him to write any number, and to get
them licensed, provided they were written on the same
side. This was not liberty, as he had learned it in his
classics, “ubi sentire quse velis, et quge sentias dicere
licet." Over and above this encroachment on the liberty
of the free citizen, it so happened that at this moment
Milton himself was concerned to ventilate an opinion
which was not Presbyterian, and had no chance of passing
a Presbyterian licenser. His Doctrine and Discipline of
Divorce was just ready for press when the ordinance of
1643 came into operation. He published it without
licence and without printer's name, in defiance of the law,
and awaited the consequences. There were no conse-
quences. He repeated the offence in a second edition in
February, 1644, putting his name now (the first edition
had been anonymous), and dedicating it to the very Par-
liament whose ordinance he was setting at nought. This
time the Commons, stirred up by a petition from the
Company of Stationers, referred the matter to the com-
mittee of printing. It went no further. Either it was
deemed inexpedient to molest so sound a Parliamentarian
as Milton, or Cromwell's “ accommodation resolution ” of

Q

82r SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660, [chap.

September 13, 1644, opened the eyes of the Presbyterian
zealots to the existence in the kingdom of a new, and
much wider, phase of opinion, which ominously threat-
ened the compact little edifice of Presbyterian truth that
they had been erecting with a profound conviction of its
exclusive orthodoxy.

The occurrence had been sufficient to give a new direc-
tion to Milton’s thoughts. Regardless of the fact that his
plea for liberty in marriage had fallen upon deaf ears, he
would plead for liberty of speech. The Areopagitica , for
the Liberty of unlicensed Printing , came out in November,
1644, an unlicensed, unregistered publication, without
printer’s or bookseller’s name. It was cast in the form of
a speech addressed to the Parliament. The motto was
taken from Euripides, and printed in the original Greek,
which was not, when addressed to the Parliament of
1644, the absurdity which it would be now. The title is
less appropriate, being borrowed from the Areopagitic
Discourse of Isocrates, between which and Milton’s
Speech there is no resemblance either in subject or style.
All that the two productions have in common is their form.
They are both unspoken orations, written to the address
of a representative assembly — the one to the Boule or
Senate of Athens, the other to the Parliament of England

Milton’s Speech is in his own best style; a copious
flood of majestic eloquence, the outpouring of a noble
soul with a divine scorn of narrow dogma and paltry
aims. But it is a mere pamphlet, extemporised in, at
most, a month or two, without research or special know-
ledge, with no attempt to ascertain general principles, and
more than Milton’s usual disregard of method. A jurist’s
question is here handled by a rhetorician. He has
preached a noble and heart-stirring sermon on his text,

AREOPAGITICA.

88

but the problem for the legislator remains where it was.
The vagueness and confusion of the thoughts finds a
vehicle in language which is too often overcrowded and
obscure. I think the Areopagitica has few or no
offences against taste ; on the other hand, it has few or
none of those grand passages which redeem the scurrility
of his political pamphlets. The passage in which Milton’s
visit to Galileo “ grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition,”
is mentioned, is often quoted for its biographical interest ;
and the terse dictum, “ as good almost kill a man as kill a
good book,” has passed into a current axiom. A paragraph
at the close, where he hints that the time may be come
to suppress the suppressors, intimates, but so obscurely
as to be likely to escape notice, that Milton had already
made up his mind that a struggle with the Presbyterian
party was to be the sequel of the overthrow of the
Royalists. He has not yet arrived at the point he will
hereafter reach, of rejecting the very idea of a minister
of religion, but he is already aggrieved by the implicit
faith which the Puritan laity, who had cast out bishops,
were beginning to bestow upon their pastor ; “ a factor to
whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing
of his religious affairs.” Finally, it mnst be noted, that
Milton, though he had come to see round Presbyterianism,
had not, in 1644, shaken off all dogmatic profession. His
toleration of opinion was far from complete. He would
call in the intervention of the executioner in the case of
“ mischievous and libellous books,” and could not bring
himself to contemplate the toleration of Popery and open
superstition, “ which as it extirpates all religious and civil
supremacies, so itself should be extirpate ; provided first
that all charitable and compassionate means be used to
win and gain the weak and misled,”

84

SECOND PEKIOB. 1640—1660,

[CH. 7L

The Areopagitica , as might be expected, produced bo
effect upon the legislation of the Long Parliament, of whom
(says Hailam) “very few acts of political wisdom or
courage are recorded.” Individual licensers became more
lax in the performance of the duty, but this is reasonably
to be ascribed to the growing spirit of independency — a
spirit which was incompatible with any embargo on the
utterance of private opinion. A curious epilogue to the
history of this publication is the fact, first brought to light
by Mr. Masson, that the author of the Areopagitica , at a
later time, acted himself in the capacity of licenser. It
was in 1651, under the Commonwealth, Marchmont
Needham being editor of the weekly paper called Mer-
curius Politicus , that Milton was associated with him as his
censor or supervising editor. Mr. Masson conjectures,
with some probability, that the leading articles of the
Mercurius , during part of the year 1651, received touches
from Milton’s hand. But this was, after all, rather in
the character of editor, whose business it is to see that
nothing improper goes into the paper, than in that of
press licenser in the sense in which the Areopagitica had
denounced it.

CHAPTER, VIL

BIOGRAPHICAL. 1640—1649.

tn September, 1645, Milton left the garden-house in
Aldersgate, for a larger house in Barbican, in the
same neighbourhood, but a little further from the city
gate, i. e, more in the country. The larger house was,
perhaps, required for the accommodation of his pupils
(see above, p. 44), but it served to shelter his wife’s
family, when they were thrown upon the world by the
surrender of Oxford in June, 1646. In this Barbican
house Mr. Powell died at the end of that year. Milton
had been promised with his wife a portion of 1000Z.; but
Mr. Powell’s affairs had long been in a very embarrassed
condition, and now by the consequences of delinquency
that condition had become one of absolute ruin. Great
pains have been bestowed by Mr. Masson in unravelling
the entanglement of the Powell accounts. The data which
remain are ample, and we cannot but feel astonished at the
accuracy with which our national records, in more im-
portant matters so defective, enable us to set out a debtor
and creditor balance of the estate of a private citizen, who
died more than 200 years ago. But the circumstances are
peculiarly intricate, and we are still unable to reconcile

86

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660,

[chap.

Mr. Powell’s will with the composition records, both of
which are extant. As a compounding delinquent, his fine,
assessed at the customary rate of two years’ income, was
fixed by the commissioners at 180£. The commissioners
must have, therefore, been satisfied that his income did
not exceed 901. a year. Yet by his will of date December
30, 1646, he leaves his estate of Forest Hill, the annual
value of which alone far exceeded 9QZ., to his eldest son.
This property is not mentioned in the inventory of his
estate, real and personal, laid before the commissioners,
sworn to by the delinquent, and by them accepted. The
possible explanation is that the Forest Hill property had
really passed into the possession, by foreclosure, of the
mortgagee, Sir Bobert Pye, who sate for Woodstock in
the Long Parliament, but that Mr. Powell, making his
will on his deathbed, pleased himself with the fancy of
leaving his son and heir an estate which was no longer
his to dispose of. Putting Forest Hill out of the account,
it would appear that the sequestrators had dealt somewhat
harshly with Mr. Powell ; for they had included in their
estimate one doubtful asset of 5Q0Z., and one non-existent
of 4QQZ. This last item was a stock of timber stated to
be at Forest Hill, but which had really been appropriated
without payment by the Parliamentarians, and part of
it voted by Parliament itself towards repair of the church
in the staunch Puritan town of Banbury.
xTke upshot of the whole transaction is that, in satisfac-
tion of his claim of 150QZ. (1Q00Z. his wife’s dower, 500Z.
an old loan of 1627), Milton came into possession of some
property at Wheatley. This property, consisting of the
tithes of Wheatley, certain cottages, and three and a half
prd lands, had in the time of the disturbances pro-
duced only 40Z. a year. But as the value of all property

Vtl.J

DOMESTIC INCIDENTS.

87

improved when the civil war came to an end, Milton
found the whole could now be let for 80 l. But then out
of this he had to pay Mr. Powell's composition, reduced
to 130Z. on Milton's petition, and the widow's jointure,
computed at 26Z. 13s. 4 d. per annum. What of income
remained after these disbursements he might apply
towards repaying himself the old loan of 1627. This was
all Milton ever saw of the 10CM7 1 ‘ 1 ^ 11 *J1

was ruined, had promised as i

months by that of J ohn Milton, senior. He died in the
house in Barbican, and the entry, u John Milton, gentle-
man, 15 (March)," among the burials in 1646, is still to be
seen in the register of the parish of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate.
A host of eminent men have traced the first impulse of
their genius to their mother. Milton always acknowledged
with just gratitude that it was to his father's discerning taste
and fostering care, that he owed the encouragement of his
studies, and the leisure which rendered them possible.
He has registered this gratitude in both prose and verse.
The Latin hexameters, “ Ad patrern,” written at Horton,
are inspired by a feeling far beyond commonplace filial
piety, and a warmth which is rare indeed in neo-Latin
versification. And when, in his prose pamphlets, he has
occasion to speak of himself, he does not omit the acknow-
ledgment of “ the ceaseless diligence and care of my father,
whom God recompense." (. Reason of Church Government.)
j After the death of his father, being now more at ease
in his circumstances, he gave up taking pupils, and
quitted the large house in Barbican for a smaller in High
Holborn, opening backwards into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.
This removal was about Michaelmas, 1647,

the high-flying magnificence

Powell's death was followed in less than three

88 SECOND PEKIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

During this period, 1639 — 1649, while his interests were
engaged by the all-absorbing events of the civil strife, he
wrote no poetry, or none deserving the name. All artists
have intervals of non-productiveness, usually caused by
exhaustion. This was not Milton’s case. His genius
was not his master, nor could it pass, like that of
Leonardo da Yinci, unmoved through the most tragic
scenes. He deliberately suspended it at the call of what he
believed to be duty to his country. His unrivalled power
of expression was placed at the service of a passionate
political conviction. This prostitution of faculty avenged
itself ; for when he did turn to poetry, his strength was
gone from him. The period is chiefly marked by sonnets,
not many, one in a year, or thereabouts. That On the
religious memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson , in 1646, is
the lowest point touched by Milton in poetry, for his
metrical psalms do not deserve the name.

The sonnet, or Elegy on Mrs. Catherine Thomson in
the form of a sonnet, though in poetical merit not distin-
guishable from the average religious verse of the Caroline
age, has an interest for the biographer. It breathes
a holy calm that is in sharp contrast with the angry
virulence of the pamphlets, which were being written at
this very time by the same pen. Amid his intemperate
denunciations of his political and ecclesiastical foes, it
seems that Milton did not inwardly forfeit the peace which
passeth all understanding. He had formerly said himself
(Doctrine and Disc .), “ nothing more than disturbance of
mind suspends us from approaching to God,” How, out
of all the clamour and the bitterness of the battle of
the sects, he can retire and be alone with his heavenly
aspirations, which have lost none of their ardour by
having laid aside all their sectarianism. His genius has
forsaken him, but his soul still glows with the fervour of

VII.]

SONNETS.

devotion. And even of this sonnet we may say what
Ellis says of Catullus, that Milton never ceases to bo a
poet, even when his words are most prosaic.

The sonnet (xv.) On the Lord- General Fairfax , at the
siege of Colchester , written in 1648, is again a manifesto
of the writer’s political feelings, nobly uttered, and invest-
ing party with a patriotic dignity not unworthy of the
man, Milton. It is a hortatory lyric, a trumpet-call to his
party in the moment of victory to remember the duties
which that victory imposed upon them. It is not with-
out the splendid resonance of the Italian canzone. But
it can scarcely be called poetry, expressing, as it does,
facts directly, and not indirectly through their imaginative
equivalents. Fairfax was, doubtless, well worthy that
Milton should have commemorated him in a higher strain.
Of Fairfax’s eminent qualities the sonnet only dwells on
two, his personal valour, which had been tried in many
fights— he had been three times dangerously wounded in
the Yorkshire campaign — and his superiority to sordid
interests. Of his generalship, in which he was second to
Cromwell only, and of his love of arts and learning,
nothing is said, though the last was the passion of his
life, for which at forty he renounced ambition. Perhaps
in 1648 Milton, who lived a very retired life, did not
know of these tastes, and had not heard that it was by
Fairfax’s care that the Bodleian library was saved from
wreck on the surrender of Oxford in 1646. And it was
not till later, years after the sonnet was written, that the
same Fairfax, “ whose name in arms through Europe
rings,” became a competitor of Milton in the attempt to
paraphrase the Psalms in metre.

Milton’s paraphrase of the Psalms belongs to history,
but to the history of psalmody, not that of poetry. At St.
Paul’s School, at fifteen, the boy had turned two psalmss

80 SECOND PERIOD. 1640— 16£0.

the 114th and the 136th, by way of exercise. That in
his day of plenary inspiration, Milton, who disdained
Dryden as “ a rhymist but no poet,” and has recorded his
own impatience writh the “ drawling versifiers,” should
have undertaken to grind down the noble antistrophic
lyrics of the Hebrew bard into ballad rhymes for the use
of Puritan worship, would have been impossible. But the
idea of being useful to his country had acquired exclusive
possession of his mind. Even his faculty of verse should
be employed in the good cause. If Parliament had set him
the task, doubtless he would have willingly undertaken it,
as Corneille, in the blindness of Catholic obedience, versified
the Imitatio Christi at the command of the Jesuits.
Milton was not officially employed, but voluntarily took
up the work. The Puritans were bent upon substituting
a new version of the Davidic Psalms for that of Sternhold
and Hopkins, for no other reason than that the latter
formed part of the hated Book of Common Prayer. The
Commons had pronounced in favour of a version by one of
their own members, the staunch Puritan M.P. for Truro,
Francis Rouse. The Lords favoured a rival book, and
numerous other claimants were before the public. Dis-
satisfied with any of these attempts, Milton would essay
himself. In 1648 he turned nine psalms, and recurring to
the task in 1 653, “ did into verse ” eight more. He thought
these specimens worth preserving, and annexing to the
volume of his poems which he published himself in 1673.
As this doggerel continues to encumber each succeeding
edition of the Poetical Works , it is as well that Milton did
not persevere with his experiment and produce a complete
Psalter. He prudently abandoned a task in which success
is impossible. A metrical psalm, being a compromise
between the psalm and the hymn, like other compro-

COLLECTION OF EARLY POEMS.

91

vn.J

mises, misses, rather than combines, the distinctive ex-
cellences of the things united. That Milton should ever
have attempted what poetry forbids, is only another proof
how entirely at this period more absorbing motives had
possession of his mind, and overbore his poetical judgment.
It is a coincidence worth remembering that Milton’s con-
temporary, Lord Clarendon, was at this very time solacing
his exile at Madrid by composing, not a version but a com-
mentary upon the Psalms, “ applying those devotions to
the troubles of this time.”

Yet all the while that he was thus unfaithful in prac-
tice to his art, it was poetry that possessed his real affec-
tions, and the reputation of a poet which formed his
ambition. It was a temporary separation, and not a
divorce, which he designed. In each successive pamphlet
he reiterates his undertaking to redeem his pledge of a
great work, as soon as liberty shall be consolidated in the
realm. Meanwhile, as an earnest of what should be here-
after, he permitted the publication of a collection of his
early poems.

This little volume of some 200 pages, rude in execution
as it is, ranks among the highest prizes of the book col-
lector, very few copies being extant, and those mostly in
public libraries. It appeared in 1645, and owed its
appearance, not to the vanity of the author, but to the
seal of a publisher. Humphrey Moseley, at the sign of
the Prince’s Arms, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, suggested
the collection to Milton, and undertook the risk of it,
though knowing, as he says in the prefixed address of
The Stationer to the Reader, that “the slightest pam-
phlet is nowadays more vendible than the works of
learnedest men.” It may create some surprise that, in
1645, there should have been any public in England for

92 SECOND PERIOD. 1640— 1660. [cel vix,

a volume of verse. Kaseby had been fought in June,
Philiphaugh in September, Fairfax and Cromwell were
continuing their victorious career in the west, Chester,
Worcester, and the stronghold of Oxford, alone holding
out for the King. It was clear that the conflict was
decided in favour of the Parliament, but men's minds
must have been strung to a pitch of intense expectation
as to what kind of settlement was to come. Yet, at the
very crisis of the civil strife, we find a London publisher
able to bring out the Poems of Waller (1644), and suffi-
ciently encouraged by their reception to follow them up,
in the next year, with the Poems of Mr. John Milton.
Are we warranted in inferring that a finer public was
beginning to loathe the dreary theological polemic of
which it had had a surfeit, and turned to a book of poetry
as that which was most unlike the daily garbage, just as
a later public absorbed five thousand copies of Scott's
Lay of the Last Minstrel in the year of Austerlitz ? One
would like to know who were the purchasers of Milton
and Waller, when the cavalier families were being ruined
by confiscations and compositions, and Puritan families
would turn with pious horror from the very name of a
Mask.

Milton was himself editor of his own volume, and pre-
fixed .to it, again out of Yirgil's Eclogues, the charac-
teristic motto, “ Baccare front em Cingite, ne vati noceat
mala lingua futuro ," indicating that his poetry was all to

come.

CHAPTER VHI.

THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP.

The Crown having fallen on January 30, 1649, and the
House of Lords by the vote of February 6 following,
the sovereign power in England was for the moment in
the hands of that fragment of the Long Parliament, which
remained after the various purges and expulsions to which
it had been subjected. Some of the excluded members
were allowed to return, and by occasional new elections
in safe boroughs the number of members was raised to
one hundred and fifty, securing an average attendance of
about seventy. The future government of the nation was
declared to be by way of a republic, and the writs ran
in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England,
by authority of Parliament. Rut the real centre of
power was the Council of State, a body of forty-one
members, nominated for a period of twelve months, ac-
cording to a plan of constitution devised by the army
leaders. In the hands of this republican Council was
concentrated a combination of power such as had never
been wielded by any English monarch. But, though its
attribution of authority was great, its exercise of the
powers lodged with it was hampered by differences among

94

SECOND PERIOD. 164D-160O.

[chap,

its members, and the disaffection of various interests and
parties. The Council of State contained most of the
notable statesmen of the Parliamentary party, and had
before it a vast task in reorganizing the administration of
England, in the conduct of an actual war in Ireland, a pos-
sible war in Scotland, and in the maintenance of the honour
of the republic in its relations with foreign princes.

The Council of State prepared the business for its con-
sideration through special committees for special depart-
ments of the public service. The Committee for Foreign
Affairs consisted of Whitelocke, Vane, Lord Lisle, Lord
Denbigh, Mr. Marten, Mr. Lisle. A secretary was re-
quired to translate despatches, both those which were
sent out, and those which were received. Nothing seems
more natural than that the author of the Tenure of Kings
and Magistrates , who was at once a staunch Parliamen-
tarian, an accomplished Latin scholar, and conversant
with more than one of the spoken languages of the Con-
tinent, should be thought of for the office. Yet so little
was Milton personally known, living as he did the life of
a retired student, that it was the accident of his having
the acquaintance of one of the new Council to which he
owed the appointment.

The post was offered him, hut would he accept it ? He
had never ceased to revolve in his mind subjects capable
of poetical treatment, and to cherish his own vocation as
the classical poet of the English language. Peace had
come, and leisure was within his reach. He was poor,
but his wants were simple, and he had enough wherewith
to meet them. Already, in 1649, unmistakable symp-
toms threatened his sight, and warned him of the necessity
of the most rigid economy in the use of the eyes. The
duties that he was now asked to undertake were in-

THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP.

96

7111.]

definite already in amount, and would doubtless extend
themselves if zealously discharged.

But the temptation was strong, and he did not resist it.
The increase of income was, doubtless, to Milton the
smallest among the inducements now offered him. He
had thought it a sufficient and an honourable employment
to serve his country with his pen as a volunteer. Here
was an offer to become her official, authorised servant,
and to bear a part, though a humble part, in the great
work of reorganisation which was now to be attempted.
Above all other allurements to a retired student, unversed
in men, and ready to idealise character, was the oppor-
tunity of becoming at once personally acquainted with all
the great men of the patriotic party, whom his ardent
imagination had invested with heroic qualities. The very
names of Fairfax, Yane, and Cromwell, called up in him
emotions for which prose was an inadequate vehicle. Itfor
was it only that in the Council itself he would be in daily
intercourse with such men as Henry Marten, Hutchinson,
Whitelocke, Harrington, St. John, Ludlow, but his posi-
tion would introduce him at once to all the members of
the House who were worth knowing. It was not merely
a new world ; it was the world which was here opened
for the first time to Milton. And we must remember that,
all scholar as he was, Milton was well convinced of the
truth that there are other sources of knowledge besides
books. He had himself spent “ many studious and contem-
plative years in the search of religious and civil knowledge,’1
yet he knew that, for a mind large enough to “ take in a
general survey of humane things,” it was necessary to know—

The world, . . . her glory,

Empires and monarchs, and their radiant courts,

Best school of best experience,

F. R. iii. 237*

96

SECOND PERIOD. 1640-1669.

[chap.

He had repeatedly, as if excusing his political interludes,
renewed his pledge to devote all his powers to poetry as
soon as they should be fully ripe. To complete his edu-
cation as a poet,, he wanted initiation into affairs. Here
was an opening far beyond any he had ever dreamed of.
The sacrifice of time and precious eyesight which he was
to make was costly, but it was not pure waste ; it would
be partly returned to him in a ripened experience in
this

Insight

In ail things that to greatest actions lead.

He accepted the post at once without hesitation. On
March 13, 1649, the Committee for Foreign Affairs was
directed to make the offer to him; on March 15, he
attended at Whitehall to be admitted to office. A^elJ
would it have been both for his genius and his fame if
he had declined it. His genius might have reverted to
its proper course, while he was in the flower of age, with
eyesight still available, and a spirit exalted by the triumph
of the good cause. His fame would have been saved
from the degrading incidents of the contention with Sal-
masius and Morns, and from being tarnished by the
obloquy of the faction which he fought, and which
conquered him. No man can with impunity insult and
trample upon his fellow-man, even in the best of causes.
Especially if he be an artist, he makes it impossible to
obtain equitable appreciation of his work.

So far as Milton reckoned upon a gain in experience
I from his secretaryship, he doubtless reaped it. Such a
probation could not be passed without solidifying the
judgment, and correcting its tendency to error. And this
school of affairs, which is indispensable for the historian,

VIII.] THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP. 97

may also be available for the poet. Yet it would be
difficult to point in Milton's subsequent poetry to any
element which the poet can be thought to have imbibed
from the foreign secretary. Where, as in Milton's two
epics and Samson Agonistes , the personages are all
supernatural or heroic, there is no room for the employ-
ment of knowledge of the world. Had Milton written
comedy, like Moliere, he might have said with Moliere
after he had been introduced at court, “Je n'ai plus
que faire d'etudier Plaute et Terence ; je n'ai qu'a
etudier le monde.”

The office into which Milton was now inducted is
called in the Council books that of " Secretary for foreign
tongues." Its duties were chiefly the translation of
despatches from, and to, foreign governments. The
degree of estimation in which the Latin secretary was
held, may be measured by the amount of salary assigned
him. For while the English chief Secretary had a salary
of 730Z. (= 2200 1. of our day), the Latin Secretary was
paid only 288Z. 13s. 6d. (= 900Z.). For this, not very
liberal pay, he was told that all his time was to be at the
disposal of the government. ^Lincoln's Inn Fields was
too far off for a servant of the Council who might have
to attend meetings at seven in the morning. He accord-
ingly migrated to Charing Cross, now become again
Charing without the cross, this work of art having been
an early (1647) victim of religious barbarism. In No-
vember he was accommodated with chambers in White-
hall. But from these he was soon ousted by claimants
more considerable or more importunate, and in 1651 he
removed to “ a pretty garden-house ” in Petty France,
in Westminster, next door to the Lord Scudamore's, and
opening into St. James's Park. The house was extant

B

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

till 1877, when it disappeared, the last of Milton’s many
London residences. It had long ceased to look into St.
James’s Park, more than one row of houses, encroach-
ments upon the public park, having grown up between.
The garden-house had become a mere ordinary street
house in York-street, only distinguished from the
squalid houses on either side of it by a tablet affixed by
Bentham, inscribed “ sacred to Milton, prince of poets.”
Petty France lost its designation in the French Revo-
lution, in obedience to the childish petulance which
obliterates the name of any one who may displease you
at the moment, and became one of the seventeen York-
streets of the metropolis. Soon after the re-baptism of
the street, Milton’s house was occupied by William
Hazlitt, who rented it of Bentham. Milton had lived in
it for nine years, from 1651 till a few weeks before the
Restoration. Its nearness to Whitehall where the Council
sat, was less a convenience than a necessity.

For Milton’s life now became one of close attention,
and busy service. As Latin secretary, and Weckherlin’s
successor, indeed, his proper duties were only those of a
clerk or translator. But his aptitude for business of a
literary kind soon drew on him a great variety of employ-
ment. The demand for a Latin translation of a despatch
was not one of frequent occurrence. The Letters of
the Parliament, and of Oliver and Richard, Protectors,
which are, intrusively, printed among Milton’s works, are
but one hundred and thirty-seven in all. This number is
spread over ten years, being at the rate of about fourteen
per year; most of them are very short. For the purposes
of a biography of Milton, it is sufficient to observe, that
the dignified attitude which the Commonwealth took up
towards foreign powers lost none of its elevation in being

THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP.

99

mi.]

conveyed in Miltonic Latin. Whether satisfaction for
the murder of an envoy is to be extorted from the arro-
gant court of Madrid, or an apology is to be offered to a
humble count of Oldenburg for delay in issuing a salva-
guardia which had been promised, the same equable
dignity of expression is maintained, equally remote from
crouching before the strong, and hectoring the weak.

His translations were not all the duties of the new
secretary. He must often serve as interpreter at audi-
ences of foreign envoys. He must superintend the semi-
official organ, the Mercurius Poiiticus . He must answer
the manifesto of the Presbyterians of Ireland. The Ob-
servations on the peace of Kilkenny are Milton’s com-
position, but from instructions. By the peace the Irish
had obtained home rule in its widest extent, release from
the oath of supremacy, and the right to tie their ploughs
to the tail of the horse. The same peace also conceded
to them the militia, a trust which Charles I. had said he
would not devolve on the Parliament of England, u not
for an hour ! ” Milton is indignant that these indulgences,
which had been refused to their obedience, should have
been extorted by their rebellion, and the massacre of
“ 200,000 Protestants.” This is an exaggeration of a
butchery sufficiently tragic in its real proportions, and in
a later tract ( Eikonoklastes ) he reduces it to 154,000.
Though the savage Irish are barbarians, uncivilised and
uncivilisable, the Observations distinctly affirm the new
principle of toleration. Though popery be a supersti-
tion, the death of all true religion, still conscience is not
within the cognisance of the magistrate. The civil sword
is to be employed against civil offences only. In adding
that the one exception to this toleration is atheism, Milton
is careful to state this limitation as being the toiera-

iOO SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap,

tion professed by Parliament, and not as his private
opinion.

So well satisfied were the Council with their secretary’s
Observations on the peace of Kilkenny, that they next
imposed upon him a far more important labour, a reply to
the Eikon Basilike. The execution of Charles I. was not
an act of vengeance, but a measure of public safety. If, as
Hallam affirms, there mingled in the motives of the managers
any strain of personal ill-will, this was merged in the
necessity of securing, themselves from the vengeance of
the King, and what they had gained from being taken
back. They were alarmed by the reaction which had set
in, and had no choice but to strengthen themselves by a
daring policy. But the first effect of the removal of the
King by violence was to give a powerful stimulus to the
reaction already in progress. The groan which burst from
the spectators before Whitehall on January 30, 1649,
was only representative of the thrill of horror which ran
through England and Scotland in the next ten days.
This feeling found expression in a book entitled “ Eikon
Basilike , the portraiture of his sacred majesty in his
solitude and sufferings.” The book was, it should seem,
composed by Dr. Gauden, but professed to be an authen-
tic copy of papers written by the King. It is possible
that Gauden may have had in his hands some written
scraps of the King’s meditations. If he had such, he
only used them as hints to work upon. Gauden was a
churchman whom his friends might call liberal, and
his enemies time-serving. He was a churchman of the
stamp of Archbishop Williams, and preferred bishops and
the Common-prayer to presbyters and extempore sermons,
but did not think the difference between the two of the
essence of religion. In better times Gauden would have

VIII.]

REPLY TO EIEON BASIL1KE.

101

passed for broad, though his latitudinarianism was more
the result of love of ease than of philosophy. Though a
royalist he sat in the Westminster Assembly, and took
the covenant, for which compliance he nearly lost the
reward which, after the Restoration, became his due.
Like the university-bred men of his day, Gauden was
not a man of ideas, but of style. In the present instance
the idea was supplied by events. The saint and martyr,
the man of sorrows, praying for his murderers, the King,
who renounced an earthly kingdom to gain a heavenly,
and who in return for his benefits received from an un-
thankful people a crown of thorns — this was the theme
supplied to the royalist advocate. Poet’s imagination
had never invented one more calculated to touch the
popular heart. This imitatio Christi to which every
private Christian theoretically aspires, had been realised by
a true prince upon an actual scaffold with a graceful
dignity of demeanour, of which it may be said, that
nothing in life became him like the leaving it.

This moving situation Gauden, no mean stylist, set out
in the best academical language of the period. Frigid
and artificial it may read now, but the passion and pity,
which is not in the book, was supplied by the readers of
the time. And men are not dainty as to phrase when
they meet with an expression of their own sentiments.
The readers of Eikon Basilike — and forty-seven editions
were necessary to supply the demand of a population of
eight millions — attributed to the pages of the book emo-
tions raised in themselves by the tragic catastrophe.
They never doubted that the meditations were those of
the royal martyr, and held the book, in the words of
Sir Edward Nicholas, for “ the most exquisite, pious, and
princely piece ever written.” The Parliament thought

102

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap,

themselves called upon to put forth a reply. If one book
could cause such a commotion of spirits, another book
could allay it — the ordinary illusion of those who do not
consider that the vogue of a printed appeal depends, not
on the contents of the appeal, but on a predisposition of
the public temper.

Selden, the most learned man, not only of his party,
but of Englishmen, was first thought of, but the task was
finally assigned to the Latin Secretary. Milton's ready
pen completed the answer, Eikonoklastes , a quarto of 242
pages, before October, 1649. It is, like all answers,
worthless as a book. Eikonoklastes, the Image-breaker,
takes the Image, Eikon, paragraph by paragraph, turn-
ing it round, and asserting the negative. To the Eoyalist
view of the points in dispute Milton opposes the Indepen-
dent view. A refutation, which follows each step of an
adverse book, is necessarily devoid of originality. But
Milton is worse than tedious ; his reply is in a tone of
rude railing and insolent swagger, which would have been
always unbecoming, but which at this moment was grossly
indecent.

Milton must, however, be acquitted of one charge
which has been made against him, viz., that he taunts the
king with his familiarity with Shakespeare. The charge
rests on a misunderstanding. In quoting Richard III. in
illustration of his own meaning, Milton says, “ I shall not
instance an abstruse author, wherein the King might be
less conversant, but one whom we well know was the
closet companion of these his solitudes, William Shake-
speare.” Though not an overt gibe, there certainly lurks
an insinuation to Milton's Puritan readers, to whom
stage plays were an abomination — an unworthy device
of rhetoric, as appealing to a superstition in others which

vm.]

BEPLY TO EIKON BASILIKE.

103

the writer himself does not share. In Milton’s contemp-
tuous reference to Sidney’s Arcadia as a vain amatorious
poem, we feel that the finer sense of the author of
L1 Allegro has suffered from immersion in the slough of
religious and political faction.

Gauden, raking up material from all quarters, had
inserted in his compilation a prayer taken from the
Arcadia . Milton mercilessly works this topic against
his adversary. It is surprising that this plagiarism from
so well-known a hook as the Arcadia should not have
opened Milton’s eyes to the unauthentic character of the
Eikon. He alludes, indeed, to a suspicion which was
abroad that one of the royal chaplains was a secret
coadjutor. But he knew nothing of Gauden at the time
of writing the Eikonoklastes, and probably he never came
to know anything. The secret of the authorship of the
Eikon was well kept, being known only to a very few
persons — the two royal brothers, Bishop Morley, the Earl
of Bristol, and Clarendon. These were all safe men, and
Gauden was not likely to proclaim himself an impostor.
He pleaded his authorship, however, as a claim to prefer-
ment at the Restoration, when the church spoils came to
be partitioned among the conquerors, and he received the
bishopric of Exeter. A bishopric— because less than the
highest preferment could not be offered to one whose pen
had done such signal service ; and Exeter — because the
poorest see (then valued at 500Z. a year) was good enough
for a man who had taken the covenant and complied with
the usurping government. By ceaseless importunity the
author of the Eikon Basilike obtained afterwards the see
of W orcester, while the portion of the author of Eikonch
klastes was poverty, infamy, and calumny. A century
after Milton’s death it was safe for the most popular

104 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [ch. yin

writer of the day to say that the prayer from the Arcadia
had been interpolated in the Eikon by Milton himself,
and then by him charged upon the King as a plagiarism.
(J ohnson. Lives of the Poets.)

CHAPTEK IX.

MILTON AND SALMASITJS, — BLINDNESS.

The mystery which long surrounded the authorship ol
EiJcon Basilike lends a literary interest to Milton’s share in
that controversy, which does not belong to his next ap-
pearance in print. Besides, his pamphlets against Salma-
sius and Morus are written in Latin, and to the general
reader in this country and in America inaccessible in
consequence. In Milton’s day it was otherwise; the
widest circle of readers could only be reached through
Latin. For this reason, when Charles II. wanted a
public vindication of his father’s memory, it was indis-
pensable that it should be composed in that language.
The EiJcon was accordingly turned into Latin, by one of
the royal chaplains, Earle, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury.
But this was not enough ; a defence in form was necessary,
an Apologia Socratis , such as Plato composed for his
master after his death. It must not only be written in
Latin, but in such Latin as to ensure its being read.

In 1649 Charles II. was living at the Hague, and it so
happened that the man, who was in the highest repute in
all Europe as a Latinist, was professor at the neighbouring
university of Leyden. Salmasius (Claude de Saumaise)

106 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

was commissioned to prepare a manifesto, which should be
at once a vindication of Charles’s memory, and an indict-
ment against the regicide government. Salmasius was a
man of enormous reading and no judgment. He says of
himself that he wrote Latin more easily than his mother-
tongue (French). And his Latin was all the more read-
able because it was not classical or idiomatic. With all
his reading — and Isaac Casaubon had said of him when
in his teens that he had incredible erudition — he was
still, at sixty, quite unacquainted with public affairs, and
had neither the politician’s tact necessary to draw a state
paper as Clarendon would have drawn it, nor the literary
tact which had enabled Erasmus to command the ear of
the public. Salmasius undertook his task as a profes-
sional advocate, though without pay, and Milton accepted
the duty of replying as advocate for the Parliament, also
without reward ; he was fighting for a cause which was not
another’s but his own.

Salmasius’ Defensio regia — that was the title of his
book — reached this country before the end of 1649. The
Council of State, in very unnecessary alarm, issued a pro-
hibition. On 8th January, 1650, the Council ordered
“ that Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the
book of Salmasius.” Early in March, 1651, Milton’s
answer, entitled Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio , was out.

Milton was as much above Salmasius in mental power
as he was inferior to him in extent of book knowledge.
But the conditions of retort which he had chosen to
accept neutralised this superiority. His greater power
was spent in a greater force of invective. Instead of
setting out the case of the Parliament in all the strength
of which it was capable, Milton is intent upon tripping
up Salmasius, contradicting him, and making him odious

«■]

MILTON AND SALMASIUS.

107

or ridiculous. He called his book a Defence of the People
of England ; but when he should have been justifying
his clients from the charges of rebellion and regicide
before the bar of Europe, Milton is bending all his inven-
tion upon personalities. He exaggerates the foibles of
Salmasius, his vanity, and the vanity of Madame de
Saumaise, her ascendancy over her husband, his narrow
pedantry, his ignorance of everything but grammar and
words. He exhausts the Latin vocabulary of abuse to
pile up every epithet of contumely and execration on the
head of his adversary. It but amounts to calling Salma-
sius fool and knave through a couple of hundred pages,
till the exaggeration of the style defeats the orator's pur-
pose, and we end by regarding the whole, not as a serious
pleading, but as an epideictic display. Hobbes said truly
that the two books were “ like two declamations, for and
against, made by one and the same man as a rhetorical
exercise ” [Behemoth).

Milton's Defensio was not calculated to advance the
cause of the Parliament, and there is no evidence that it
produced any effect upon the public, beyond that of rais-
ing Milton's personal credit. That England, and Puritan
England, where humane studies were swamped in a bib-
lical brawl, should produce a man who could write Latin
as well as Salmasius, was a great 'surprise to the learned
world in Holland. Salmasius was unpopular at Leyden,
and there was therefore a predisposition to regard Milton's
book with favour. Salmasius was twenty years older than
Milton, and in these literary digladiations readers are
always ready to side with a new writer. The contending
interests of the two great English parties, the wider issue
between republic and absolutism, the speculative inquiry
into the right of resistance, were lost sight of by the

108

SECOND PERIOD. 1640— 166a

[chap

spectators of this literary duel. The only question was
whether Salmasius could heat the new champion, or the
new man heat Salmasius, at a match of vituperation.

Salmasius of course put in a rejoinder. His rapid pen
found no difficulty in turning off 300 pages of fluent
Latin. It was his last occupation. He died at Spa,
where he was taking the waters, in September, 1653, and
his reply was not published till 1660, after the Kestoration,
when all interest had died out of the controversy. If it
be true that the work was written at Spa, without books
at hand, it is certainly a miraculous effort of memory. It
does no credit to Salmasius. He had raked together, after
the example of Scioppius against Scaliger, all the tittle-
tattle which the English exiles had to retail about Milton
and his antecedents. Bramhall, who bore Milton a special
grudge, was the channel of some of this scandal, and
BramhalTs source was possibly Chappell, the tutor with
whom Milton had had the early misunderstanding. (See
above p. 6). If any one thinks that classical studies of
themselves cultivate the taste and the sentiments, let him
look into Salmasius’s Responsio . There he will see the
first scholar of his age not thinking it unbecoming to taunt
Milton with his blindness, in such language as this : “ a
puppy, once my pretty little man, now blear-eyed, or
rather a blindling ; having never had any mental vision,
he has now lost his bodily sight ; a silly coxcomb, fancy-
ing himself a beauty; an unclean beast, with nothing
more human about him than his guttering eyelids; the
fittest doom for him would be to hang him on the highest
gallows, and set his head on the Tower of London.” These
are some of the incivilities, not by any means the most
revolting, but such as I dare reproduce, of this literary
warfare.,

IX.]

MILTON AND SALMASIUS.

109

Salmasius’s taunt about Milton’s venal pen is no less
false than his other gibes. The places of those who
served the Commonwealth, were places of “ hard work and
short rations.” Milton never received for his Defensio a
sixpence beyond his official salary. It has indeed been
asserted that he was paid 1000Z. for it by order of Parlia-
ment, and this falsehood having been adopted by J ohnson
— himself a pensioner — has passed into all the biographies,
and will no doubt continue to be repeated to the end of
time. This is a just nemesis upon Milton, who on his
part had twitted Salmasius with having been complimented
by the exiled King with a purse of 100 Jacobuses for his
performance. The one insinuation was as false as the
other. Charles II. was too poor to offer more than thanks.
Milton was too proud to receive for defending his country
what the Parliament was willing to pay. Sir Peter
Wentworth, of Lillingston Lovell, in Oxfordshire, left in
his will 100Z. to Milton for his book against Salmasius.
But this was long after the Restoration, and Milton did
not live to receive the legacy.

Instead of receiving an honorarium for his Defence of
the English People , Milton had paid for it a sacrifice for
which money could not compensate him. His eyesight,
though quick, as he was a proficient with the rapier, had
never been strong. His constant headaches, his late
study, and (thinks Phillips) his perpetual tampering with
physic to preserve his sight, concurred to bring the
calamity upon him. It had been steadily coming on for
a dozen years before, and about 1650 the sight of the left
eye was gone. He was warned by his doctor that if he
persisted in using the remaining eye Iot book-work, he
would lose that too. 64 The choice lay before me,” Milton
writes in the Second Defence, “ between dereliction of a

110 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap,

supreme duty and loss of eyesight ; in such a case I could
not listen to the physician, not if iEsculapius himself had
spoken from his sanctuary ; I could not but obey that
inward monitor, I know not what, that spake to me from
heaven. I considered with myself that many had pur-
chased less good with worse ill, as they who give their
lives to reap only glory, and I thereupon concluded to
employ the’ little remaining eyesight I was to enjoy in
doing this, the greatest service to the common weal it was
in my power to render.”

It was about the early part of the year 1652 that the
calamity was consummated. At the age of forty-three he
was in total darkness. The deprivation of sight, one of
the severest afflictions of which humanity is capable, falls
more heavily on the man whose occupation lies among
books, than upon others. He who has most to lose, loses
most. To most persons books are but an amusement, an
interlude between the hours of serious occupation. The
scholar is he who has found the key to knowledge, and
knows his way about in the world of printed books. To
find this key, to learn the map of this country, requires a
long apprenticeship. This is a point few men can hope to
reach much before the age of forty. Milton had attained
it only to find fruition snatched from him. He had
barely time to spell one line in the book of wisdom, before,
like the wizard’s volume in romance, it was hopelessly
closed against him for ever. Any human being is shut
out by loss of sight from accustomed pleasures, the scholar
is shut out from knowledge. Shut out at forty-three,
when his great work was not even begun ! He consoles
himself with the fancy that in his pamphlet, the Defensio ,
he had done a great work (< quanta maxima quivi) for his
country. This poor delusion helped him doubtless to

«0

BLINDNESS.

Ill

support his calamity. He could not foresee that, in
less than ten years, the great work would he totally anni-
hilated, his pamphlet would he merged in the obsolete
mass of civil war tracts, and the Defensio , on which he
had expended his last year of eyesight, only mentioned
because it had been written by the author of Paradise
Post.

The nature of Milton’s disease is not ascertainable from
the account he has given of it. In the well-known passage
of Paradise Lost , iii. 25, he hesitates between amaurosis
(drop serene) and cataract (suffusion)

So thick a drop serene hath quench’d their orbs,

Or dim suffusion veil’d.

A medical friend referred to by Professor Alfred Stern,
tells him that some of the symptoms are more like
glaucoma. Milton himself has left such an account as a
patient ignorant of the anatomy of the organ could give.
It throws no light on the nature of the malady. But it is
characteristic of Milton that even his affliction does not
destroyjds solicitude about his personal appearance. The
taunts of his enemies about “ the lack-lustre eye, guttering
with prevalent rheum ” did not pass unfelt. In his Second
Defence Milton informs the world that his eyes “ are ex-
ternally uninjured. They shine with an unclouded light,
just like the eyes of one whose vision is perfect. This is
the only point in which I am, against my will, a hypo-
crite.” The vindication appears again in Sonnet xix.
“ These eyes, though clear To outward view of blemish or
of spot.” In later years, when the exordium of Book iii. of
ParoAise Lost was composed, in the pathetic story of his
blindness, this little touch of vanity has disappeared, as
incompatible with the solemn dignity of the occasion.

CHAPTER X.

MILTON AND MORUS — THE SECOND DEFENCE — THE DEFENCE
FOR HIMSELF.

Civil history is largely a history of wars between states,
and literary history is no less the record of quarrels in
print between jealous authors. Poets and artists, more
susceptible than practical men, seem to live a life of per-
petual wrangle. The history of these petty feuds is not
healthy intellectual food, it is at best amusing scandal.
But these quarrels of authors do not degrade the authors
in our eyes, they only show them to be, what we
knew, as vain, irritable, and opinionative as other men.
Ben Jonson, Dry den, Pope, Voltaire, Rousseau, belabour
their enemies, and we see nothing incongruous in their
doing so. It is not so when the awful majesty of Milton
descends from the empyrean throne of contemplation to
use the language of the gutter or the fish-market. The
bathos is unthinkable. The universal intellect of Bacon
shrank to the paltry pursuit of place. The disproportion
between the intellectual capaciousness and the moral aim
jars upon the sense of fitness, and the name of Bacon,
“wisest, meanest,” has passed into a proverb. Milton's fall
is far worse. It is not here a union of grasp of mind with an

CH. X.]

MILTON AND MORUS.

113

ignoble ambition, but the plunge of the moral nature itself
from the highest heights to that despicable region of
vulgar scurrility and libel, which is below the level of
average gentility and education. The name of Milton is a
synonym for sublimity. He has endowed our language
with the loftiest and noblest poetry it possesses, and the
same man is found employing speech for the most unworthy
purpose to which it can be put, that of defaming and
vilifying a personal enemy, and an enemy so mean that
barely to have been mentioned by Milton had been an
honour to him. In Salmasius, Milton had at least been
measuring his Latin against the Latin of the first classicist
of the age. In Alexander Morus he wreaked august
periods of Roman eloquence upon a vagabond preacher, of
chance fortunes and tarnished reputation, a grceculus
esuriens , who appeared against Milton by the turn of
accidents, and not as the representative of the opposite
principle. In crushing Morus, Milton could not beguile
himself with the idea that he was serving a cause.

In 1652 our country began to reap the fruits of the
costly efforts it had made to obtain good government. A
central authority was at last established, stronger than
any which had existed since Elisabeth, and one which
extended over Scotland and Ireland, no less than over
England. The ecclesiastical and dynastic aims of the
Stuart monarchy had been replaced by a national policy,
in which the interests of the people of Great Britain sprang
to the first place. The immediate consequence of this
union of vigour and patriotism, in the government, was the
self-assertion of England as a commercial, and therefore
as a naval power. This awakened spirit of conscious
strength meant war with the Dutch, who while England
was pursuing ecclesiastical ends, had possessed themselves

I

114

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap,

of the trade of the world. War accordingly broke out
early in 1652. Even before it came to real fighting, the
war of pamphlets had recommenced. The prohibition of
Salmasius’ Defensio regia annulled itself as a matter of
course, and Salmasius was free to prepare a second
Defensio in answer to Milton. For the most vulnerable
point of the new English Commonwealth, was through the
odium excited on the continent against regicide. And
the quarter from which the monarchical pamphlets were
hurled against the English republic, was the press of the
republic of the United Provinces, the country which had
set the first example of successful rebellion against its law-
ful prince.

Before Salmasius’ reply was ready, there was launched
from the Hague, in March, 1652, a virulent royalist
piece in Latin, under the title of Regii sanguinis clamor
ad coelum (Cry of the King’s blood to Heaven against the
English parricides). Its 160 pages contained the usual
royalist invective in a rather common style of hyperbolical
declamation, such as that “ in comparison of the execution
of Charles I., the guilt of the Jews in crucifying Christ
was as nothing.” Exaggerated praises of Salmasius were
followed by scurrilous and rabid abuse of Milton. In the
style of the most shameless Jesuit lampoon, the Amphi-
theatrum or the Scaliger hypobolimceus , and with Jesuit
tactics, every odious crime is imputed to the object of
the satire, without regard to truth or probability. Exiles
are proverbially credulous, and it is likely enough that
the gossip of the English refugees at the Hague was much
employed in improving or inventing stories about the
man, who had dared to answer the royalist champion in
Latin as good as his own. Salmasius in his Defensio had
employed these stories, distorting the events of Milton’s

*•]

MILTON AND MORTJS.

115

life to discredit him. But for the author of the Clamor
there was no such excuse, for the hook was composed in
England, by an author living in Oxford and London, who
had every opportunity for informing himself accurately
of the facts about Milton’s life and conversation. He
chose rather to heap up at random the traditional vocabu-
lary of defamation, which the Catholic theologians had
employed for some generations past, as their best weapon
against their adversaries. In these infamous productions,
hatched by celibate pedants in the foul atmosphere of the
Jesuit colleges, the gamut of charges always ranges from
bad grammar to unnatural crime. The only circumstance
which can be alleged in mitigation of the excesses of the
Regii sanguinis clamor is that Milton had provoked the
onfall by his own violence. He who throws dirt must
expect that dirt will be thrown back at him, and when it
comes to mud-throwing, the blackguard has, as it is right
that he should have, the best of it.

The author of the Clamor was Peter Du Moulin, a son
of the celebrated French Calvinist preacher of the same
name. The author not daring to entrust his pamphlet to
an English press, had sent it over to Holland, where it
was printed under the supervision of Alexander Morns.
This Morns (More or Moir) was of Scottish parentage, but
born (1616) at Castres, where his father was principal of
the Protestant college. Morus fitted the Clamor with a
preface, in which Milton was further reviled, and styled a
“ monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademtum.” The secret of the authorship was strictly
kept, and Morus having been known to be concerned in
the publication, was soon transformed in public belief into
the author. So it was reported to Milton, and so Milton
believed. He nursed his wrath, and took two years to

116

SECOND PERIOD, 1640—1660.

[chap

meditate his blow. He caused inquiries to be made into
Morus’s antecedents. It happened that Morus’s conduct
had been wanting in discretion, especially in his relations
with women. He had been equally imprudent in his
utterances on some of the certainties of Calvinistic divinity.
It was easy to collect any amount of evidence under both
these heads. The system of kirk discipline offered a
ready-made machinery of espionage and delation. The
standing jest of the fifteenth century on the “governante ”
of the cure was replaced, in Calvinistic countries, by the
anxiety of every minister to detect his brother minister in
any intimacy upon which a scandalous construction could
be put.

Morns endeavoured, through every channel at his com-
mand, to convince Milton that he was not the author of
the Clamor. He could have saved himself by revealing
the real author, who was lurking all the while close to
Milton’s elbow, and whose safety depended on Moms’
silence. This high-minded respect for another’s secret is
more to Morns’ honour, than any of the petty gossip about
him is to his discredit. He had nothing to offer, there-
fore, but negative assurances, and mere denial weighed
nothing with Milton, who was fully convinced that Morus
lied from terror. Milton’s Defensio Secunda came out in
May, 1654. In this piece (written in Latin) Morus is
throughout assumed to be the author of the Clamor , and
as such is pursued through many pages in a strain of
invective, in which banter is mingled with ferocity. The
Hague tittle-tattle about Morus’s love-affairs is set forth
in the pomp of Milton’s loftiest Latin. Sonorous periods
could hardly be more disproportioned to their material
content. To have kissed a girl is painted as the blackest
of crimes. The sublime and the ridiculous are here

S-J

MILTON AND MORUS.

117

blended without the step between. Milton descends even
to abuse the publisher, Ylac, who had officially signed hia
name to Morus’s preface. The mixture of fanatical choler
and grotesque jocularity, in which he rolls forth his
charges of incontinence against Morus, and of petty
knavery against Ylac, is only saved from being unseemly
by being ridiculous. The comedy is complete when we
remember that Morus had not written the Clamor , nor
Ylac the preface. Milton’s rage blinded him ; he is mad
Ajax castigating innocent sheep instead of Achaeans,

The Latin pamphlets are indispensable to a knowledge
of Milton’s disposition. We see in them his grand dis-
dain of his opponents, reproducing the concentrated in-
tellectual scorn of the Latin Per3ius ; his certainty of the
absolute justice of his own cause, and the purity of his own
motives. This lofty cast of thought is combined with an
eagerness to answer the meanest taunts. The intense sub-
jectivity of the poet breaks out in these paragraphs, and
while he should be stating the case of the republic, he holds
Europe listening to an account of himself, his accomplish-
ments, his studies and travels, his stature, the colour of his
eyes, his skill in fencing, &c. These egoistic utterances
must have seemed to Milton’s contemporaries to be intru-
sive and irrelevant vanity. Paradise Lost was not as yet,
and to the Council of State Milton was, what he was
to Whitelocke, aa blind man who wrote Latin.” But
these paragraphs, in which he talks of himself, are to us
the only living fragments out of many hundred worthless
pages.

To the Defensio Secunda there was of course a reply
by Morus. It was entitled Fides Publica , because it
was largely composed of testimonials to character. When
one priest charges another with unchastity, the world

118 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [ch. x

looks on and laughs. But it is no laughing matter to
the defendant in such an action. He can always bring
exculpatory evidence, and in spite of any evidence he is
always believed to he guilty. The effect of Milton’s
furious denunciation of Moms had been to damage his
credit in religious circles, and to make mothers of families
shy of allowing him to visit at their houses.

Milton might have been content with a victory which,
as Gibbon said of his own, “over such an antagonist
was a sufficient humiliation.” Milton’s magnanimity was
no match for his irritation. He published a rejoinder
to Morus’s Fides Publica , reiterating his belief that Morus
was author of the Clamor , but that it wTas no matter
whether he was or not, since by publishing the book,
and furnishing it with a recommendatory preface, he had
made it his own. The charges against Morus’ character
he reiterated, and strengthened by new “ facts,” which
Morus’s enemies had hastened to contribute to the budget
of calumny. These imputations on character, mixed with
insinuations of unorthodoxy, such as are ever rife in
clerical controversy, Milton invests with the moral indig-
nation of a prophet denouncing the enemies of Jehovah.
He expends a wealth of vituperative Latin which makes
us tremble, till we remember that it is put in motion to
crush an insect.

This Pro se defensio (Defence for himself), appeared in
August, 1655. Morus met it by a supplementary Fides
Publica , and Milton, resolved to have the last word, met
him by a Supplement to the Defence. The reader will be
glad to hear that this is the end of the Morus controversy.
We leave Milton’s victim buried under the mountains of
opprobrious Latin here heaped upon him — this “ circum-
foraneus pharmacopola, vanissimus circulator, propudi-
um hominis et prostibulum.”

CHAPTER XI.

LATIN SECRETARYSHIP COMES TO AN END— MILTON5S
FRIENDS,

It is no part of Milton’s biography to relate the course of
public events in these momentous years, merely because
as Latin secretary he formulated the despatches of the
Protector or of his Council, and because these Latin
letters are incorporated in Milton’s works. On the
course of affairs Milton’s voice had no influence, as he
had no part in their transaction. Milton was the last
man of whom a practical politician would have sought
advice. He knew nothing of the temper of the nation,
and treated all that opposed his own view with supreme
disdain. On the other hand, idealist though he was, he
does not move in the sphere of speculative politics, or
count among those philosophic names, a few in each
century, who have influenced, not action but thought.
Accordingly his opinions have for us a purely personal
interest. They are part of the character of the poet
Milton, and do not belong to either world, of action or
of mind.

The course of his political convictions up to 1654 has
been traced in our narrative thus far. His breeding at

120 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

home, at school, at college, was that of a member of the
Established Church, but of the Puritan and Calvinistic,
not of the Laudian and Arminian, party within its pale.
By 1641, we find that his Puritanism has developed
into Presbyterianism ; he desires, not to destroy the
Church, hut to reform it by abolishing government by
bishops, and substituting the Scotch or Genevan disci-
pline. When he wrote his Reason of Church Govern -
ment (1642), he is still a royalist; not in the cavalier
sense of a person attached to the reigning sovereign, or
the Stuart family, hut still retaining the belief of his
age that monarchy in the abstract had somewhat of divine
sanction. Before 1649, the divine right of monarchy,
and the claim of Presbytery to be scriptural, have yielded
in his mind to a wider conception of the rights of the man
and the Christian. To use the party names of the time,
Milton the Presbyterian has expanded into Milton the
Independent. There is to be no State Church, and in-
stead of a monarchy there is to be a commonwealth.
Very soon the situation developes the important question
how this commonwealth shall be administered — whether
by a representative assembly, or by a picked council, or
a single governor. This question was put to a test in the
Parliament of 1654. The experiment of a representative
assembly, begun in September 1654, broke down in
January 1655. Before it was tried we find Milton in his
Second Defence , in May 1654, recommending Cromwell to
govern not by a Parliament, but by a council of officers ;
i. e. he is a commonwealth’s man. Arrived at this point,
would Milton take his stand upon doctrinaire repub-
licanism, and lose sight of liberty in the attempt to
secure equality, as his friends Yane, Overton, Bradshaw
would have done ? Or would his idealist exaltation sweep

XI.] MILTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 121

him on into some one of the current fanaticisms, Leveller,
Fifth Monarchy, or Muggletonian 1 Unpractical as he
was, he was close enough to State affairs as Latin Secre-
tary, to see that personal government by the Protector
was, at the moment, the only solution. If the liberties
that had been conquered by the sword were to be main-
tained, between levelling chaos on the one hand, and
royalist reaction on the other, it was the Protector alone
to whom those who prized liberty above party names
could look. Accordingly Milton may be regarded from
the year 1654 onwards as an Oliverian, though with
particular reservations. He saw— it was impossible for
a man in his situation not to see— -the unavoidable
necessity which forced Cromwell, at this moment, to
undertake to govern without a representative assembly.
The political necessity of the situation was absolute, and
all reasonable men who were embarked in the cause felt
it to be so.

Through all these stages Milton passed in the space of
twenty years— Church-Puritan, Presbyterian, Eoyalist,
Independent, Commonwealth’s man, Oliverian. These
political phases were not the acquiescence of a placeman,
or indifferentist, in mutations for which he does not care ;
still less were they changes either of party or of opinion.
Whatever he thought, Milton thought and felt intensely,
and expressed emphatically ; and even his enemies could
not accuse him of a shadow of inconsistency or wavering
in his principles. On the contrary, tenacity, or persistence
of idea, amounted in him to a serious defect of character.
A conviction once formed dominated him, so that, as in
the controversy with Morus, he could not be persuaded
that he had made a mistake. Ho mind, the history of
which we have an opportunity of intimately studying,

122 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

could be more of one piece and texture than was that of
Milton from youth to age. The names, which we are
obliged to give to his successive political stages, do not
indicate shades of colour adopted from the prevailing
political ground, but the genuine development of the
public consciousness of Puritan England repeated in an
individual. Milton moved forward, not because Cromwell
and the rest advanced, but with Cromwell and the rest.
We may perhaps describe the motive force as a passionate
attachment to personal liberty, liberty of thought and
action. This ideal force working in the minds of a few,
“ those worthies which are the soul of that enterprise ”
( Tenure of Kings), had been the mainspring of the whole
revolution. The Levellers, Quakers, Fifth Monarchy men,
and the wilder Anabaptist sects, only showed the work-
ings of the same idea in men, whose intellects had not
been disciplined by education or experience. The idea of
liberty, formulated into a doctrine, and bowed down to as
a holy creed, made some of its best disciples, such as
Harrison and Overton, useless at the most critical junc-
ture. The party of anti-Oliverian republicans, the In-
transigentes, became one of the greatest difficulties of the
Government. Milton, with his idealism, his thorough-
ness, and obstinate persistence, was not unlikely to have
shipwrecked upon the same rock. He was saved by his
constancy to the principle of religious liberty, which was
found with the party that had destroyed the King
because he would not be ruled by a Parliament, while in
1655 it supported the Protector in governing without a
Parliament. Supreme authority in itself was not Crom-
well's aim ; he used it only to secure the fulfilment of
those ideas of religious liberty, civil order, and Protestant
ascendancy in Europe, which filled his whole soul. To

MILTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

123

*1.1

Milton, as to Cromwell, forms, whether of worship or
government, were but means to an end, and were to he
changed whenever expediency might require.

In 1655, then, Milton was an Oliverian, but with
reservations. The most important of these reservations
regarded the relation of the state to the church. Crom-
well never wholly dropped the scheme of a national
church. It was, indeed, to be as comprehensive as pos-
sible ; Episcopacy was pulled down, Presbytery was not
set up, but individual ministers might be Episcopalian or
Presbyterian in sentiment, provided they satisfied a certain /
standard, intelligible enough to that generation, of “ god- j
liness.” Here Milton seems to have remained throughout
upon the old Independent platform ; he will not have
the civil power step over its limits into the province of
religion at all. Many matters, in which the old prelatic
church had usurped upon the domain of the state, should
be replaced under the secular authority. But the spiritual
region was matter of conscience, and not of external
regulation.

A further reservation which Milton would make related
to endowments, or the maintenance of ministers. The/
Protectorate, and the constitution of 1657, maintained an
established clergy in the enjoyment of tithes or othe|
settled stipends. Nothing was more abhorrent to Milton^
sentiment than state payment in religious things. The
minister who receives such pay becomes a state pensioner,
“a hireling.” The law of tithes is a Jewish law, repealed
by the Gospel, under which the minister is only main-
tained by the freewill offerings of the congregation to
which he ministers. This antipathy to hired preachers
was one of Milton’s earliest convictions. It thrusts itself,
rather importunately, into Lycidas (1636), and reappears

124 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap*

in the Sonnet to Cromwell (Sonnet xv n., 1652), before it is
dogmatically expounded in the pamphlet, Considerations
touching means to remove Hirelings out of the Church
(1659). Of the two corruptions of the church by the
secular power, one by force, the other by pay, Milton
regards the last as the most dangerous. “ Under force,
though no thank to the forcers, true religion ofttimes best
thrives and flourishes ; but the corruption of teachers,
most commonly the effect of hire, is the very bane of
truth in them who are so corrupted.” Nor can we tax
this aversion to a salaried ministry, with being a mono-
mania of sect. It is essentially involved in the conception
of religion as a spiritual state, a state of grace. A soul in
this state can only be ministered to by a brother in a like
frame of mind. To assign a place with a salary, is to offer
a pecuniary inducement to simulate this qualification.
This principle may be wrong, but it is not unreasonable.
It is the very principle on which the England of our day
has decided against the endowment of science. The
endowment of the church was to Milton the poison oi
religion, and in so thinking he was but true to his con-
ception of religion. Cromwell, whatever may have been
his speculative opinions, decided in favour of a state
endowment, upon the reasons, or some of them, which
have moved modern statesmen to maintain church esta-
blishments.

With whatever reservations, Milton was an Oliverian.
Supporting the Protector’s policy, he admired his conduct,
and has recorded his admiration in the memorable sonnet
xn. How the Protector thought of Milton, or even
that he knew him at all, there remains no evidence.
Napoleon said of Corneille that, if he had lived in his
day, h© would have made him his first minister.

XI.] MILTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 126

Milton’s ideas were not such as could have value in the
eyes of a practical statesman. Yet Cromwell was not
always taking advice, or discussing business. He, who
could take a liking for the genuine inwardness of the
enthusiast George Fox, might have been expected to
appreciate equal unworldliness, joined with culture and
reading, in Milton. “ If,” says Heal, “ there was a man
in England who excelled in any faculty or science, the
Protector would find him out and reward him.” But the
excellence which the Protector prized was aptness for
public employment, and this was the very quality in
which Milton was deficient.

The poverty of Milton’s state letters has been often
remarked. Whenever weighty negotiations are going on,
other pens than his are employed. We may ascribe this
to his blindness. Milton could only dictate, and there-
fore everything entrusted to him must pass through an
amanuensis, who might blab. One exception to the
commonplace character of the state papers there is. The
massacre of the Vaudois by their own sovereign, Charles
Emanuel II., Duke of Savoy, excited a thrill of horror in
England greater than the massacres of Scio or of Batak
roused in our time. For in Savoy it was not humanity
only that was outraged, it was a deliberate assault of the
Papal half of Europe upon an outpost of the Protestant
cause.

One effect of the Puritan revolution had been to
alter entirely the foreign policy of England. By nature,
by geographical position, by commercial occupations,
and the free spirit of the natives, these islands were
marked out to be members of the northern confederacy
of progressive and emancipated Europe. The foreign
policy of Elisabeth had been steady adhesion to this

126 SECOND PERIOD, 1640—1660. [chap

law of nature. The two first Stuarts, coquetting
with semi-catholieism at home, had leaned with all the
weight of the crown and of government towards catholic
connexions. The country had always offered a vain re-
sistance ; the Parliament of 1621 had been dismissed for
advising James to join the continental protestants against
Spain. It was certain, therefore, that when the govern-
ment became Puritan, its foreign policy would again
become that of Elisabeth. This must have been the case
even if Cromwell had not been there. He saw not only
that England must be a partner in the general protestant
interest, but that it fell to England to make the com-
bination and to lead it. He acted in this with his usual
decision. He placed England in her natural antagonism
to Spain ; he made peace with the Dutch ; he courted
the friendship of the Swiss Cantons, and the alliance of
the Scandinavian and German Princes ; and to France,
which had a divided interest, he made advantageous
offers provided the Cardinal would disconnect himself
from the ultramontane party.

It was in April 1655, that the Yaudois atrocities
suddenly added the impulse of religious sympathy to the
permanent gravitation of the political forces. In all
catholic countries the Jesuits had by this time made
themselves masters of the councils of the princes. The
aim of Jesuit policy in the seventeenth century was nothing
less than the entire extirpation of protestantism and pro-
testants in the countries which they ruled. The in-
habitants of certain Piedmontese valleys had held from
time immemorial, and long before Luther, tenets and
forms of worship very like those to which the German
reformers had sought to bring back the church. The
Yaudois were wretchedly poor, and had been incessantly

xi.] THE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT. 127

the objects of aggression and persecution. In January
1655, a sudden determination was taken by the Turin
government to make them conform to the catholic re-
ligion by force. The whole of the inhabitants of three
valleys were ordered to quit the country within three
days, under pain of death and confiscation of goods, unless
they would become, or undertake to become, catholic.
They sent their humble remonstrances to the court of
Turin against this edict. The remonstrances were dis-
regarded, and military execution was ordered. On April
17, 1655, the soldiers, recruits from all countries — the
Irish are specially mentioned— were let loose upon the
unarmed population. Murder and rape and burning
are the ordinary incidents of military execution. These
were not enough to satisfy the ferocity of the catholic
soldiery, who revelled for many days in the infliction of
all that brutal lust or savage cruelty can suggest to men.

It was nearly a month before the news reached Eng-
land. A cry of horror went through the country, and
Cromwell said it came “as near his heart as if his own
nearest and dearest had been concerned.” A day of hu-
miliation was appointed, large collections were made for
the sufferers, and a special envoy was despatched to re-
monstrate with the Duke of Savoy. Cardinal Mazarin,
however, seeing the importance which the Lord Protectoi
would acquire by taking the lead on this occasion, stepped
in, and patched up a hasty arrangement, the treaty of
Pignerol, by which some sort of fallacious protection was
ostensibly secured to the survivors of the massacre.

All the despatches in this business were composed by
Milton. But he only found the words ; especially in the
letter to the Duke of Savoy, the tone of which is much
more moderate than we should have expected, consider-

128 SECOND PERIOD- 1640— 1660. [chap.

ing that Blake was in the Mediterranean, and master oi
the coasts of the Duke’s dominions. It is impossible to
extract from these letters any characteristic trait, unless
it is from the speech which the envoy, Morland, was in-
structed to deliver at Turin, in which it is said that all
the Heros of all ages had never contrived inhumanities
so atrocious, as what had taken place in the Vaudois
valleys. Thus restricted in his official communications,
Milton gave vent to his personal feelings on the occasion
in the well-known sonnet (xvm.) “ Avenge, 0 Lord, thy
slaughtered saints, whose hones Lie scattered on the Alpine
mountains cold.”

It has been already said that there remains no trace of
any personal intercourse between Milton and Cromwell.
He seems to have remained equally unknown to, or un-
regarded by, the other leading men in the Government or
the Council. It is vain to conjecture the cause of this
general neglect. Some have found it in the coldness
with which Milton regarded, parts at least of, the policy
of the Protectorate. Others refer it to the haughty nature
of the man, who will neither ask a favour, nor make the
first advances towards intimacy. This last supposition is
nearer the truth than the former. An expression he uses
in a private letter may he cited in its support. Writing
to Peter Heimbach in 1657, to excuse himself from giving
him a recommendation to the English ambassador in
Holland, he says : “I am sorry that I am not able to do
this ; I have very little acquaintance with those in power,
inasmuch as I keep very much to my own house, and
prefer to do so.” Something may also be set down to
the character of the Puritan leaders, alien to all poetry,
and knowing no books but the Bible.

The mental isolation in which the great poet lived his

XI.]

MILTON AND HIS FlUENDB.

129

life, is a remarkable feature of his biography. It was not
only after the Bestoration that he appears lonely and
friendless; it was much the same during the previous
period of the Parliament and the Protectorate. Just at
one time, about 1641, we hear from our best authority,
Phillips, of his cultivating the society of men of his own
age, and “ keeping a gawdy-day,” but this only once in
three weeks or a month, with u two gentlemen of Gray’s
Inn.” He had, therefore, known what it was to be
sociable. But the general tenour of his life was other ;
proud, reserved, self-contained, repellent; brooding over
his own ideas, not easily admitting into his mind the
ideas of others. It is indeed an erroneous estimate of
Milton to attribute to him a hard or austere nature. He
had all the quick sensibility which belongs to the poetic
temperament, and longed to be loved that he might love
again. But he had to pay the penalty of aH who believe
in their own ideas, in that their ideas come between
them and the persons that approach them, and constitute
a mental barrier which can only be broken down by
sympathy. And sympathy for ideas is hard to find, just
in proportion as those ideas are profound, far-reaching,
the fruit of long study and meditation. Hence it was
that Milton did not associate readily with his contem-
poraries, but was affable and instructive in conversation
with young persons, and those who would approach him
in the attitude of disciples. His daughter Deborah, who
could tell so little about him, remembered that he was
delightful company, the life of a circle, and that he was
so, through a flow of subjects, and an unaffected cheerful-
ness and civility. I would interpret this testimony, the
authenticity of which is indisputable, of his demeanour
with the young, and those who were modest enough to

K

130 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1600. [chap.

wait upon his utterances. His isolation from his coevals,
and from those who offered resistance, was the necessary
consequence of his force of character, and the moral
tenacity which endured no encroachment on the narrow
scheme of thought, over which it was incessantly brood-
ing.

Though, as Johnson says, “his literature was immense,”
there was no humanity in it; it was fitted immovably
into a scholastic frame- work. Hence it was no bond of
sympathy between him and other men. We find him in
no intimate relation with any of the contemporary men of
learning, poets, or wits. From such of them as were of
the cavalier party he was estranged by politics. That
it was Milton’s interposition which saved Davenant’s
life in 1651, even were the story better authenticated
than it is, is not an evidence of intimacy. The three
men most eminent for learning (in the usually received
sense of the word) in England at that day were Selden
(d. 1654), Gataker (d. 1654), and Archbishop Usher
(d. 1656), all of whom were to be found in London.
With none of the three is there any trace of Milton ever
having had intercourse.

It is probable, but not certain, that it was at Milton’s
intercession that the Council proposed to subsidise Brian
Walton in his great enterprise — the Polyglott Bible.
This, the noblest monument of the learning of the Anglican
Church, was projected and executed by the silenced
clergy. Fifteen years of spoliation and humiliation thus
bore richer fruit of learning than the two centuries of
wealth and honour which have since elapsed. As Brian
Walton had, at one time, been curate of Allhallows,
Bread Street, Milton may have known him, and it has
been inferred that by Twells’ expression — “ The Council of

XI.]

MILTON AND HIS FRIENDS.

131

state, before whom somef having relation to them , brought
this business ” — Milton is meant.

Not with John Hales, Cudworth, Whichcote, Nicholas
Bernard, Meric Casaubon, nor with any of the men of
letters who were churchmen, do we find Milton in corre-
spondence. The interest of religion was more powerful
than the interest of knowledge ; and the author of Eikono -
klastes must have been held in special abhorrence by the
loyal clergy. The general sentiment of this party is ex-
pressed in Hacket’s tirade, for which the reader is referred
to his Life of Archbishop Williams.

From Presbyterians, such as Theophilus Gale or Baxter,
Milton was equally separated by party. Of Hobbes,
Milton’s widow told Aubrey “that he was not of his
acquaintance ; that her husband did not like him at all,
but would acknowledge him to be a man of great parts.”

Owing to these circumstances, the circle of Milton’s
intimates contains few, and those undistinguished names.
One exception there was. In Andrew Marvel Milton
found one congenial spirit, incorruptible amid poverty,
unbowed by defeat. Marvel was twelve years Milton’s
junior, and a Cambridge man (Trinity), like himself. He
had had better training still, having been for two years
an inmate of Nunappleton, in the capacity of instructor
to Mary, only daughter of the great Lord Fairfax. In
1652, Milton had recommended Marvel for the appoint-
ment of assistant secretary to himself, now that he was
partially disabled by his blindness. The recommendation
was not effectual at the time, another man, Philip Mea-
dows, obtaining the post. It was not till 1657, when
Meadows was sent on a mission to Denmark, that Marvel
became Milton’s colleague. He remained attached to him
to the last. It were to be wished that he had left some

132

SECOND PEBIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

reminiscences of his intercourse with the poet in his later
years, some authentic notice of him in his prose letters,
instead of a copy of verses, which attest, at least, his
affectionate admiration for Milton’s great epic, though
they are a poor specimen of his own poetical efforts.

Of Marchmont Needham, and Samuel Hartlib mention
has been already made. During the eight years of his
sojourn in the house in Petty France, “ he was frequently
visited by persons of quality,” says Phillips. The only
name he gives is Lady Kanelagh. This lady, by birth a
Boyle, sister of Robert Boyle, had placed first her nephew,
and then her son, under Milton’s tuition. Of an excel-
lent understanding, and liberally cultivated, she sought
Milton’s society, and as he could not go to visit her,
she went to him. There are no letters of Milton addressed
to her, but he mentions her once as “a most superior
woman,” and when, in 1656, she left London for Ireland,
he “grieves for the loss of the one acquaintance which
was worth to him all the rest.” These names, with that
of Dr. Paget, exhaust the scanty list of Milton’s intimates
during this period.

To these older friends, however, must be added his
former pupils, now become men, but remaining ever
attached to their old tutor, seeing him often when in
London, and when absent corresponding with him. With
them he was “affable and instructive in conversation.”
Henry Lawrence, son of the President of Oliver’s Council,
and Cyriac Skinner, grandson of Chief Justice Coke, were
special favourites. With these he would sometimes “ by
the fire help waste a sullen day and it was these two
who called forth from him the only utterances of this
time which are not solemn, serious, or sad. Sonnet xvi
is a poetical invitation to Henry Lawrence, “ of virtuous

MILTON AND HIS FRIENDS.

133

«.]

father virtuous son,” to a “ neat repast,” not without wine
and song, to cheer the winter season. Besides these two,
whose names are familiar to us through the Sonnets, there
was Lady Ranelagh’s son, Richard Jones, who went, in
1656, to Oxford, attended by his tutor, the German
Heinrich Oldenburg. We have two letters (Latin)
addressed to Jones at Oxford, which are curious as show-
ing that Milton was as dissatisfied with that university
even after the reform, with Oliver Chancellor, and Owen
Vice-Chancellor, as he had been with Cambridge.

His two nephews, also his pupils, must have ceased at
a very early period to be acceptable either as friends or
companions. They had both — but the younger brother,
John, more decidedly than Edward — passed into the
opposite camp. This is a result of the uncle’s strict system
of Puritan discipline, which will surprise no one who has
observed that, in education, mind reacts against the pres-
sure of will. The teacher who seeks to impose his views
raises antagonists, and not disciples. The generation of
young men who grew up under the Commonwealth were
in intellectual revolt against the constraint of Puritanism,
before they proceeded to political revolution against its
authority. Long before the reaction embodied itself in
the political fact of the Restoration, it had manifested
itself in popular literature. The theatres were still closed
by the police, but Davenant found a public in London to
applaud an “ entertainment by declamations and music,
after the manner of the ancients ” (1656). The press
began timidly to venture on books of amusement, in a
i style of humour which seemed ribald and heathenish to
the staid and sober covenanter. Something of the jollity
and merriment of old Elisabethan days seemed to be in
the air. But with a vast difference. Instead of “ dally-

134

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

mg with the innocence of love/’ as in England's Helicon
(1600), or The Passionate Pilgrim , the sentiment, crushed
and maimed by unwise repression, found a less honest and
less refined expression. The strongest and most universal
of human passions when allowed freedom, light, and air,
becomes poetic inspiration. The same passion coerced by
police is but driven underground.

So it came to pass that, in these years, the Protector's
Council of state was much exercised by attempts of the
London press to supply the public, weary of sermons,
with some light literature of the class now (1879)
known as facetious. On April 25, 1656, the august body
which had upon its hands the government of three king-
doms and the protection of the protestant interest mili-
tant throughout Europe, could find nothing better to do
than to take into consideration a book entitled Sportive
Wit , or The Muse's Merriment . Sad to relate, the book
was found to contain “much lascivious and profane
matter." And the editor? — no other than John Phillips,
Milton's youngest nephew ! It is as if nature, in reassert-
ing herself, had made deliberate selection of its agent.
The pure poet of Comus , the man who had publicly
boasted his chastity, had trained up a pupil to become
the editor of an immodest drollery ! Another and more
original production of John Phillips, the Satyr against
Hypocrites , was an open attack, with mixed banter and
serious indignation, on the established religion. “It
affords," says Godwin, “ unequivocal indication of the
company now kept by the author with cavaliers, and bon
vivanSy and demireps, and men of ruined fortunes."
Edward Phillips, the elder brother, followed suit with the
Mysteries of Love and Eloquence (1658), a book, accord-
ing to Godwin, “ entitled to no insignificant rank among

XI.] HIS REPUTATION WITH FOREIGNERS. 135

the multifarious productions issued from the press, to
debauch the manners of the nation, and to bring back the
King.” Truly, a man's worst vexations come to him from
his own relations. Milton had the double annoyance of
the public exposure before the Council of State, and the
private reflection on the failure of his own system of
education.

The homage which was wanting to the prophet in his
own country was more liberally tendered by foreigners.
Milton, it must be remembered, was yet only known in
England as the pamphleteer of strong republican, but
somewhat eccentric, opinions. On the continent he was
the answerer of Salmasius, the vindicator of liberty
against despotic power. “ Learned foreigners of note,"
Phillips tells us, “ could not part out of this city without
giving a visit" to his uncle. Aubrey even exaggerates
this flocking of the curious, so far as to say that some
came over into England only to see Oliver Protector and
John Milton. That Milton had more than he liked of
these sightseers, who came to look at him when he could
not see them, we can easily believe. Such visitors would
of course be from protestant countries. Italians, though
admiring his elegant Latin, had “ disliked him on account
of his too severe morals." A glimpse, and no more than
a glimpse, of the impression such visitors could carry
away, we obtain in a letter written, in 1651, by a Nurem-
berg pastor, Christoph Arnold, to a friend at home : —
“ The strenuous defender of the new regime , Milton, enters
readily into conversation ; his speech is pure, his written
style very pregnant. He has committed himself to a
harsh, not to say unjust, criticism of the old English
divines, and of their Scripture commentaries, which are
truly learned, be witness the genius of learning himself !

136

SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660.

[chap.

It must not be supposed from this that Milton had dis-
coursed with Arnold on the English divines. The allusion
is to that onfall upon the reformers, Cranmer, Latimer, &c.,
which had escaped from Milton’s pen in 1642 to the great
grief of his friends. If the information of a dissenting
minister, one Thomas Bradbury, who professed to derive
it from Jeremiah White, one of Oliver’s chaplains,
may be trusted, Milton “ was allowed by the Parliament
a weekly table for the entertainment of foreign minis-
ters and persons of learning, such especially as came
from protestant states, which allowance was also con-
tinued by CromwelL”

Such homage, though it may be a little tiresome, may
have gratified for the moment the political writer, but it
would not satisfy the poet who was dreaming of an
immortality of far other fame—

Two equat’d with me in fate,

So were I equat’d with them in renown.

And to one with Milton’s acute sensibility, yearning for
sympathy and love, dependent, through his calamity, on
the eyes, as on the heart, of others, his domestic* interior
was of more consequence than outside demonstrations
of respect. Four years after the death of his first
wife he married again. We know nothing more of this
second wife, Catharine Woodcock, than what may be
gathered from the Sonnet xix. in which he comme-
morated his “ late espoused saint,” in whose person “ love,
sweetness, goodness shin’d.” After only fifteen months
union she died (1658), after having given birth to a
daughter, who lived only a few months. Milton was
again alone.

His public functions as Latin Secretary had been con-

XI.]

DEATH OF CROMWELL.

137

tracted within narrow limits by his blindness. The
heavier part of the duties had been transferred to others,
first to Weckherlin, then to Philip Meadows, and lastly
to Andrew Marvel. The more confidential diplomacy
Thurloe reserved for his own cabinet. But Milton con-
tinued up to the last to be occasionally called upon for a
Latin epistle. On September 3, 1658, passed away the mas-
ter-mind which had hitherto compelled the jarring elements
in the nation to co-exist together, and chaos was let loose.
Milton retained and exercised his secretaryship under
Bichard Protector, and even under the restored Parlia-
ment. His latest Latin letter is of date May 16, 1659.
He is entirely outside all the combinations and complica-
tions which filled the latter half of that year, after
Richard’s retirement in May. It is little use writing to
foreign potentates now, for, with one man’s life, England
has fallen from her lead in Europe, and is gravitating
towards the catholic and reactionary powers, France or
Spain. Milton, though he knows nothing more than one
of the public, “ only what it appears to us without doors,”
he says, will yet write about it. The habit of pam-
phleteering was on him, and he will write what no one
will care to read. The stiff-necked commonwealth men,
with their doctrinaire republicanism, were standing out
for their constitutional ideas, blind to the fact that the
royalists were all the while undermining the ground
beneath the feet alike of Presbyterian and Independent,
Parliament and army. The Greeks of Constantinople
denouncing the Azymite, when Mohammed II. was forming
his lines round the doomed city, were not more infatuated
than these pedantic commonwealth men with their parlia*
mentarianism when Charles II. was at Calais,

Hot less inopportune than the public men of the party,

188 SECOND PERIOD. 1640—1660. [chap.

Milton chooses this time for inculcating his views on
endowments. A fury of utterance was upon him, and he
poured out, during the death-throes of the republic, pam-
phlet upon pamphlet, as fast as he could get them written
to his dictation. These extemporised effusions betray in
their style, hurry and confusion, the restlessness of a
coming despair. The passionate enthusiasm of the early
tracts is gone, and all the old faults, the obscurity, the
inconsecutiveness, the want of arrangement, are ex-
aggerated. In the Ready Way there is a monster sen-
tence of thirty-nine lines, containing 336 words. Though
his instincts were perturbed, he was unaware what turn
things were taking. In February 1660, when all persons
of ordinary information saw that the restoration of
monarchy was certain, Milton knew it not, and put out a
tract to show his countrymen a Ready and easy way to
establish a free Commonwealth . With the same perti-
nacity with which he had adhered to his own assumption
that Morus was author of the Clamor , he now refused to
believe in the return of the Stuarts. Fast as his pen
moved, events outstripped it, and he has to rewrite the
Ready and easy way to suit their march. The second
edition is overtaken by the Eestoration, and it should
seem was never circulated. Milton will ever “give
advice to Sylla,” and writes a letter of admonition to
Monk, which, however, never reached either the press or
Sylla.

The month of May 1660, put a forced end to his
illusion. Before the 29th of that month he had fled from
the house in Petty France, and been sheltered by a friend
in the city. In this friend's house, in Bartholomew
Close, he lay concealed till the passing of the Act of
Oblivion, 29th August. Phillips says that he owed his

XI.] THE RESTORATION. 139

exemption from the vengeance which overtook so many
of his friends, to Andrew Marvel, “ who acted vigorously
in his behalf, and made a considerable party for him.” But
in adding that “ he was so far excepted as not to bear any
office in the commonwealth,” Phillips is in error.
Milton’s name does not occur in the Act. Pope used to
tell that Davenant had employed his interest to protect a
brother-poet, thus returning a similar act of generosity
done to himself by Milton in 1650. Pope had this story
from Betterton the actor. How far Davenant exaggerated
to Betterton his own influence or his exertions, we cannot
tell. Another account assigns the credit of the interven-
tion to Secretary Morris and Sir Thomas Clarges. After
all, it is probable that he owed his immunity to his insig-
nificance and his harmlessness. The formality of burning
two of his books by the hands of the hangman was gone
through. He was also for some time during the autumn
of 1660 in the custody of the serjeant-at-arms, for on
15th December, there is an entry in the Commons
journals ordering his discharge. It is characteristic of
Milton that, even in this moment of peril, he stood up
for his rights, and refused to pay an overcharge, which the
official thought he might safely exact from a rebel and a
covenanter.

THIRD PERIOD . 1660—1674.

CHAPTER XII.

BIOGRAPHICAL. — LITERARY OCCUPATION. — RELIGIOUS
OPINIONS.

Revolutions are of two kinds ; they are either progressive
or reactionary. A revolution of progress is often destruc-
tive, sweeping away much which should have been pre-
served. But such a revolution has a regenerating force ;
it renews the youth of a nation, and gives free play to its
vital powers. Lost limbs are replaced by new. A revolu-
tion of reaction, on the other hand, is a benumbing influ-
ence, paralysing effort, and levelling character. In such a
conservative revolution the mean, the selfish, and the
corrupt come to the top ; man seeks ease and enjoyment
rather than duty ; virtue, honour, patriotism, and dis-
interestedness disappear altogether from a society which
has ceased to believe in them.

The Restoration of 1660 was such a revolution. Com-
plete and instantaneous inversion of the position of the two
parties in the nation, it occasioned much individual hard-
ship. But this was only the fortune of war, the necessary
consequence of party ascendancy. The Restoration was
much more than a triumph of the party of the royalists
over that of the roundheads ; it was the deathblow to

ch. xii.] EFFECTS OF THE RESTORATION. 141

national aspiration, to all those aims which raise man
above himself. It destroyed and trampled under foot
his ideal. The Restoration was a moral catastrophe. It
was not that there wanted good men among the church-
men, men as pious and virtuous as the Puritans whom
they displaced. But the royalists came hack as the party
of reaction, reaction of the spirit of the world against
asceticism, of self-indulgence against duty, of materialism
against idealism. For a time virtue was a public laugh-
ing-stock, and the word “ saint,” the highest expression
in the language for moral perfection, connoted everything
that was ridiculous. I do not speak of the gallantries of
Whitehall, which figure so prominently in the histories of
the reign. Far too much is made of these, when they are
made the scapegoat of the moralist. The style of court
manners was a mere incident on the surface of social life.
The national life was more profoundly tainted by the
discouragement of all good men, which penetrated every
shire and every parish, than by the distant reports of the
loose behaviour of Charles II. Servility, meanness,
venality, time-serving, and a disbelief in virtue diffused
themselves over the nation like a pestilential miasma, the
depressing influence of which was heavy, even upon those
souls which individually resisted the poison. The heroic
age of England had passed away, not by gradual decay,
by imperceptible degeneration, but in a year, in a single
day, like the winter’s snow in Greece. It is for the
historian to describe, and unfold the sources of this con-
tagion. The biographer of Milton has to take note of the
political change only as it affected the worldly circum-
stances of the man, the spiritual environment of the
poet, and the springs of his inspiration.

The consequences of the Restoration to Milton’s worldly

142 THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674. [chap.

fortunes were disastrous. As a partisan he was necessarily
involved in the ruin of his party. As a matter of course
he lost his Latin secretaryship. There is a story that he
was offered to be continued in it, and that when urged to
accept the offer by his wife, he replied^ “ Thou art in the
right ; you, as other women, would ride in your coach ; for
me, my aim is to live and die an honest man.” This tradi-
tion, handed on by Pope, is of doubtful authenticity. It
is not probable that the man who had printed of Charles I.
what Milton had printed, could have been offered office
under Charles II. Even were court favour to be pur-
chased by concessions, Milton was not the man to make
them, or to belie his own antecedents, as Marchmont
Needham, Dry den, and so many others did. Our wish
for Milton is that he should have placed himself from the
beginning above party. But he had chosen to be the
champion of a party, and he loyally accepted the conse-
quences. He escaped with life and liberty. The re-
action, though barbarous in its treatment of its victims,
was not bloodthirsty. Milton was already punished by
the loss of his sight, and he was now mulcted in three-
fourths of his small fortune. A sum of 2000Z. which
he had placed in government securities was lost, the
restored monarchy refusing to recognise the obligations
of the protectorate, He lost another like sum by mis-
management, and for want of good advice, says Phillips,
or according to his granddaughter’s statement, by the
dishonesty of a money-scrivener. He had also to give up,
without compensation, some property, valued at 60Z. a
year, which he had purchased when the estates of the
Chapter of Westminster were sold. In the great fire,
1666, his house in Bread-street was destroyed. Thus,
from easy circumstances, he was reduced, if not to desti-
tution, at least to narrow means. He left at his death

ill.]

effects of the restoration.

143

1500/., which Phillips calls a considerable sum. And il
he sold his books, one by one, during his lifetime, this
was because, knowing their value, he thought he could
dispose of them to greater advantage than his wife would
be able to do.

But fai outweighing such considerations as pecuniary
ruin, and personal discomfort, was the shock which the
moral nature felt from the irretrievable discomfiture of all
the hopes, aims, and aspirations which had hitherto sus-
tained and nourished his soul. In a few months the
labour of twenty years was swept away without a trace of
it being left. It was not merely a political defeat of his
party, it was the total wreck of the principles, of the social
and religious ideal, with which Milton’s life was bound up.
Others, whose convictions only had been engaged in the
cause, could hasten to accommodate themselves to the new
era, or even to transfer their services to the conqueror.
But such flighty allegiance was not possible for Milton,
who had embarked in the Puritan cause not only intel-
lectual convictions, but all the generosity and ardour of
his passionate nature. “ I conceive myself to be,” he had
written in 1642, “ not as mine own person, but as a mem-
ber incorporate into that truth whereof I was persuaded,
and whereof I had declared myself openly to be the par-
taker.” It was now in the moment of overthrow that
Milton became truly great. “ W andellos im ewigen Ruin,”
he stood alone, and became the party himself. He took
the only course open to him, turned away his thoughts
from the political disaster, and directed the fierce enthu-
siasm which burned within, upon an absorbing poetic task.
His outward hopes were blasted, and he returned with
concentrated ardour to woo the muse, from whom he had
so long truanted. The passion which seethes beneath the
stately march of the verse in Paradise Lost , is not the

144

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674,

[chap.

hopeless moan of despair, but the intensified fanaticism
which defies misfortune to make it “bate one jot of heart
or hope.” The grand loneliness of Milton after 1668, “is
reflected in his three great poems by a sublime indepen-
dence of human sympathy, like that with which mountains
fascinate and rebuff us ” {Lowell).

Late then, but not too late, Milton, at the age of fifty-
two, fell back upon the rich resources of his own mind, upon
poetical composition, and the study of good books, which
he always asserted to be necessary to nourish and sustain
a poet’s imagination. Here he had to contend with the
enormous difficulty of blindness. He engaged a kind of
attendant to read to him. But this only sufficed for
English books — imperfectly even for these— -and the greater
part of the choice, not extensive, library upon which
Milton drew, was Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and the modern
languages of Europe. In a letter to Heimbach, of date
1666, he complains pathetically of the misery of having
to spell out, letter by letter, the Latin words of the epistle,
to the attendant who was writing to his dictation. At
last he fell upon the plan of engaging young friends, who
occasionally visited him, to read to him and to write for
him. In the precious volume of Milton MSS. preserved
in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, six different
hands have been distinguished. Who they were is not
always known. But Phillips tells us that, “ he had daily
about him one or other to read to him ; some persons of
man’s estate, who of their own accord greedily catch’d at
the opportunity of being his reader, that they might as
well reap the benefit of what they read to him, as oblige
him by the benefit of their reading; others of younger
years sent by their parents to the same end.” Edward
Phillips himself, who visited his uncle to the last, may

XII.]

HIS THIRD MARRIAGE.

145

have been among the number, as much as his own engage-
ments as tutor, first to the only son of John Evelyn, then
in the family of the Earl of Pembroke, and finally to the
Bennets, Lord Arlington’s children, would permit him.
Others of these casual readers were Samuel Barrow, body
physician to Charles II., and Cyriac Skinner, of whom
mention has been already made (above, p. 132).

To a blind man, left with three little girls, of whom the
youngest was only eight at the Restoration, marriage
seemed equally necessary for their sake as for his own.
Milton consulted his judicious friend and medical adviser,
Dr. Paget, who recommended to him Elizabeth Minshull,
of a family of respectable position near Nantwich, in
Cheshire. She was some distant relation of Paget, who
must have felt the terrible responsibility of undertaking to
recommend. She justified his selection. The marriage
took place in February 1663, and during the remaining
eleven years of his life, the poet was surrounded by the
thoughtful attentions of an active and capable woman.
There is but scanty evidence as to what she was like,
either in person or character. Aubrey, who knew her,
says she was “a gent. (? genteel) person, (of) a peaceful
and agreeable humour.” Newton, Bishop of Bristol, who
wrote in 1749, had heard that she was “ a woman of a most
violent spirit, and a hard mother-in-law to his children.”
It is certain that she regarded her husband with great
veneration, and studied his comfort. Mary Fisher, a maid-
servant in the house, deposed that at the end of his life,
when he was sick and infirm, his wife having provided
something for dinner she thought he would like, he “ spake
to his said wife these or like words, as near as this de-
ponent can remember : 4 God have mercy, Betty, I see
thou wilt perform according to thy promise, in providing

h

146

THIRD PERIOD, 1660—1674.

[chap.

me such dishes as X think fit while I live, and when X die
thou knowest X have left thee all.’ ” There is no evidence
that his wife rendered him literary assistance. Perhaps,
as she looked so thoroughly to his material comfort, her
function was held, by tacit agreement, to end there.

As casual visitors, or volunteer readers, were not always
in the way, and a hired servant who could not spell Latin
was of very restricted use, it was not unnatural that Milton
should look to his daughters, as they grew up, to take a
share in supplying his voracious demand for intellectual
food. Anne, the eldest, though she had handsome features,
was deformed and had an impediment in her speech, which
made her unavailable as a reader. The other two, Mary
and Deborah, might now have been of inestimable service
to their father, had their dispositions led them to adapt
themselves to his needs, and the circumstances of the house.
Unfortunate it was for Milton, that his biblical views on
the inferiority of woman had been reduced to practice in
the bringing up of his own daughters. It cannot indeed
be said that the poet whose imagination created the Eve
of Paradise Lost , regarded woman as the household
drudge, existing only to minister to man's wants. Of all
that men have said of women nothing is more loftily con-
ceived than the well-known passage at the end of Book
viii : —

When I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,

And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best ,•

All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded,* wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanc’d, and like folly shows $
Authority and reason on her wait,

As one intended first, not after made

HIS DAUGHTERS.

147

Occasionally ; and, to consummate all,

Greatness of mind, and. nobleness, their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic plac’d.

Bishop Newton thought that, in drawing Eve, Milton
had in mind his third wife, because she had hair of the
colour of Eve's “ golden tresses.” But Milton had never
seen Elizabeth MinshulL If reality suggested any trait,
physical or mental, of the Eve, it would certainly have
been some woman seen in earlier years.

But wherever Milton may have met with an incarnation
of female divinity such as he has drawn, it was not in his
own family. We cannot but ask, how is it that one,
whose type of woman is the loftiest known to English
literature, should have brought up his own daughters on so
different a model ? Milton is not one of the false prophets,
who turn round and laugh at their own enthusiasms, who
say one thing in their verses, and another thing over their
cups. What he writes in his poetry is what he thinks,
what he means, and what he will do. But in directing
the bringing up of his daughters, he put his own typical
woman entirely on one side. His practice is framed on
the principle that

Nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good.

Paradise Lost, ix. 233,

He did not allow his daughters to learn any language,
saying with a gibe that one tongue was enough for a woman.
They were not sent to any school, and had some sort of
teaching at home from a mistress. But in order to make
them useful in reading to him, their father was at the
pains to train them to read aloud in five or six languages,

148

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674

[chap.

of non© of which they understood one word. When we
think of the time and labour which must have been ex-
pended to teach them to do this, it must occur to us that
a little more labour would have sufficed to teach them so
much of one or two of the languages, as would have made
their reading a source of interest and improvement to
themselves. This Milton refused to do. The conse-
quence was, as might have been expected, the occupation
became so irksome to them, that they rebelled against it.
In the case of one of them, Mary, who was like her mother
in person, and took after her in other respects, this restive-
ness passed into open revolt. She first resisted, then
neglected, and finally came to hate, her father. When
some one spoke in her presence of her father’s approaching
marriage, she said “ that was no news to hear of his wed-
ding ; but if she could hear of his death, that was some-
thing.” She combined with Anne, the eldest daughter,
“ to counsel his maidservant to cheat him in his market-
ings.” They sold his books without his knowledge.
“ They made nothing of deserting him,” he was often
heard to complain. They continued to live with him five
or six years after his marriage. But at last the situation
became intolerable to both parties, and they were sent out
to learn embroidery in gold or silver, as a means of obtain-
ing their livelihood. Deborah, the youngest, was included
in the same arrangement, though she seems to have been
more helpful to her father, and to have been at one time
his principal reader. Aubrey says that he “ taught her
Latin, and that she was his amanuensis.” She even spoke
of him when she was old — she lived to be seventy -four —
with some tenderness. She was once, in 1725, shewn
Faithorne’s crayon drawing of the poet, without being told
for whom it was intended. She immediately exclaimed,

XII.]

THOMAS ELLWOOD.

149

“ 0 Lord ! that is the picture of my father ! ” and stroking
down the hair of her forehead, added, “ Just so my father
wore his hair. ”

One of Milton's volunteer readers, and one to whom we
owe the most authentic account of him in his last years,
was a young Quaker, named Thomas Ellwood. Milton's
Puritanism had been all his life slowly gravitating in the
direction of more and more liberty, and though he would
not attach himself to any sect, he must have felt in no re-
mote sympathy with men who repudiated state interference
in religious matters, and disdained ordinances. Some
such sympathy with the pure spirituality of the Quaker
may have disposed Milton favourably towards Ellwood,
The acquaintance once begun, was cemented by mutual
advantage. Milton, besides securing an intelligent reader,
had a pleasure in teaching; and Ellwood, though the
reverse of humble, was teachable from desire to expand
himself. Ellwood took a lodging near the poet, and went
to him every day, except “ first-day," in the afternoon, to
read Latin to him.

Milton's frequent change of abode has been thought
indicative of a restless temperament, seeking escape from
petty miseries by change of scene. On emerging from
hiding, or escaping from the serjeant-at-arms in 1660, he
lived for a short time in Holborn, near Red Lion Square.
From this he removed to Jewin Street, and moved again,
on his marriage, in 1662, to the house of Millington, the
bookseller, who was now beginning business, but who,
before his death in 1704, had accumulated the largest
stock of second-hand books to be found in London. His
last remove was to a house in a newly- created row facing
the Artillery-ground, on the site of the west side of what
Is now called Bunhill Row. This was his abode from his

150

THIRD PERIOD. 1660— -1674.

[chap.

marriage till his death, nearly twelve years, a longer stay
than he had made in any other residence. This is the
house which must be associated with the poet of Paradise
Lost , as it was here that the poem was in part written, and
wholly revised and finished. But the Bunhill Bow house
is only producible by the imagination ; every trace of it
has long been swept away, though the name Milton Street,
bestowed upon a neighbouring street, preserves the re-
membrance of the poet’s connexion with the locality.
Here “ an ancient clergyman of "Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright,
found John Milton in a small chamber, hung with rusty
green, sitting in an elbow-chair, and dressed neatly in
black ; pale, but not cadaverous, his hands and fingers
gouty and with chalk-stones.” At the door of this house,
sitting in the sun, looking out upon the Artillery-ground,
“ in a grey coarse cloth coat,” he would receive his visitors.
On colder days he would walk for hours — three or four
hours at a time, in his garden. A garden was a sine qua non}
and he took care to have one to every house he lived in.

His habit in early life had been to study late into the
night. After he lost his sight, he changed his hours, and
retired to rest at nine. In summer he rose at four, in
winter at five, and began the day with having the Hebrew
Scriptures read to him. “ Then he contemplated. At
seven his man came to him again, and then read to him
and wrote till dinner. The writing was as much as the
reading” (Aubrey). Then he took exercise, either walk-
ing in the garden, or swinging in a machine. His only
recreation, besides conversation, was music. He played
the organ and the bass viol, the organ most. Sometimes
he would sing himself or get his wife to sing to him,
though she had, he said, no ear, yet a good voice. Then
he went up to his study to be read to till six. After six
his friends were admitted to visit him, and would sit with

sjl] LITERARY OCCUPATIONS. 153

him till eight. At eight he went down to supper, usually
olives or some light thing. He was very abstemious in
his diet, having to contend with a gouty diathesis. He
was not fastidious in his choice of meats, but content with
anything that was in season, or easy to be procured.
After supping thus sparingly, he smoked a pipe of to-
bacco, drank a glass of water, and then retired to bed.
He was sparing in his use of wine. His Samson, who in
this as in other things, is Milton himself, allays his thirst
“ from the clear milky juice.”

Bed with its warmth and recumbent posture he found
favourable to composition. At other times he would
compose or prune his verses, as he walked in the garden,
and then, coming in, dictate. His verse was not at the
command of his will. Sometimes he would lie awake
the whole night, trying but unable to make a single line.
At other times lines flowed without premeditation “ with
a certain impetus and oestro.” What was his season of
inspiration is somewhat uncertain. In the elegy “To
Spring,” Milton says it was the spring which restored his
poetic faculty. Phillips, however, says, “that his vein
never flowed happily but from the autumnal equinox to
the vernal,” and that the poet told him this. Phillips’
reminiscence is perhaps true at the date of Paradise Lost ,
when Milton’s habits had changed from what they had
been at twenty. Or we may agree with Toland, that
Phillips has transposed the seasons, though preserving
the fact of intermittent inspiration. What he composed
at night, he dictated in the day, sitting obliquely in an
elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm. He
would dictate forty lines, as it were in a breath, and then
reduce them to half the number.

Milton’s piety is admitted, even by his enemies; and it
is a piety which oppresses his writings as well as his life.

152

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

The fact that a man, with a deep sense of religion, should
not have attended any place of public worship, has given
great trouble to Milton’s biographers. And the principal
biographers of this thorough-going nonconformist have
been Anglican clergymen; Bishop Newton, Todd, Mitford;
Dr. Johnson, more clerical than any cleric, being no ex-
ception. Mitford would give Milton a dispensation on
the score of his age and infirmities. But the cause lay
deeper. A profound apprehension of the spiritual world
leads to a disregard of rites. To a mind so disposed ex-
ternals become, first indifferent, then impedient. Minis-
tration is officious intrusion. I do not find that Milton,
though he wrote against paid ministers as hirelings, ever
expressly formulated an opinion against ministers as such.
But as has already been hinted, there grew up in him, in
the last period of his life, a secret sympathy with the
mode of thinking which came to characterise the Quaker
sect. Not that Milton adopted any of their peculiar
fancies. He affirms categorically the permissibility of
oaths, of military service, and requires that women should
keep silence in the congregation. But in negativing all
means of arriving at truth except the letter of scripture
interpreted by the inner light, he stood upon the same
platform as the followers of George Fox.

Milton’s latest utterance on theological topics is found
in a tract published by him the year before his death,
1673. The piece is entitled Of true religion , heresy,
schism, toleration ; but its meagre contents do not bear
out the comprehensiveness of the title. The only matter
really discussed in the pages of the tract is the limit of'
toleration. The stamp of age is upon the style, which is
more careless and incoherent even than usual. He has
here dictated his extempore thoughts, without premedi-
tation or revision, so that we have here a record of

XII.]

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

153

Milton's habitual mind. Having watched him gradually
emancipating himself from the contracted Calvinistic
mould of the Bread-street home, it is disappointing to
see that, at sixty-five, his development has proceeded
no further than we here find. He is now willing to
extend toleration to all sects who make the Scriptures
their sole rule of faith. Sects may misunderstand Scrip-
ture, but to err is the condition of humanity, and will
be pardoned by God, if diligence, prayer, and sincerity
have been used. The sects named as to be tolerated are,
Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Arians, Socinians,
Arminians. They are to be tolerated to the extent of
being allowed, on all occasions, to give account of their
faith, by arguing, preaching in their several assemblies,
writing and printing.

In this pamphlet the principle of toleration is flatly
enunciated in opposition to the practice of the Restoration,
But the principle is rested not on the statesman's ground
of the irrelevancy of religious dispute to good government,
but on the theological ground of the venial nature of
religious error. And to permissible error there are very
narrow limits ; limits which exclude Catholics. For
Milton will exclude Romanists from toleration, not on
the statesman's ground of incivism, but on the theologian's
ground of idolatry. All his antagonism in this tract is
reserved for the Catholics. There is not a hint of dis-
content with the prelatry, once intolerable to him. Yet
that prelatry was now scourging the nonconformists
with scorpions instead of with whips, with its Act of
Uniformity, its Conventicle Act, its Five-mile Act, filling
the gaols with Milton's own friends and fellow-religionists.

N Several times, in these thirteen pages, he appeals to the
practice or belief of the Church of England, once even
calling it “ our church."

154

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

This tract alone is sufficient refutation of an idle story
that Milton died a Eoman Catholic. The story is not well
vouched, being hearsay three times removed. Milton’s
younger brother, Sir Christopher, is said to have said so
at a dinner entertainment. If he ever did say as much,
it must be set down to that peculiar form of credulity
which makes perverts think that every one is about to
follow their example. In Christopher Milton, “ a man of
no parts or ability, and a superstitious nature” (Toland),
such credulity found a congenial soil.

The tract Of true religion was Milton’s latest pub-
lished work. But he was preparing for the press, at the
time of his death, a more elaborate theological treatise.
Daniel Skinner, a nephew of his old friend Cyriac, was
serving as Milton’s amanuensis in writing out a fair copy.
Death came before a third of the work of correction,
196 pages out of 735, had been completed, of which the
whole rough draft consists. The whole remained in
Daniel Skinner’s hands in 1674. Milton, though in his
preface he is aware that his pages contain not a little
which will be unpalatable to the reigning opinion in re-
ligion, would have dared publication, if he could have
passed the censor. But Daniel Skinner, who was a
Fellow of Trinity, and had a career before him, was not
equally free. What could not appear in London, how-
ever, might be printed at Amsterdam. Skinner accord-
ingly put both the theological treatise, and the epistles
written by the Latin Secretary, into the hands of Daniel
Elzevir. The English government getting intelligence
of the proposed publication of the foreign correspondence
of the Parliament and the Protector, interfered, and
pressure was put upon Skinner, through the Master of
Trinity, Isaac Barrow. Skinner hastened to save him.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.

155

xii.]

self from the fate which in 1681 befel Locke, and gave
up to the Secretary of State, not only the Latin letters,
but the MS. of the theological treatise. Nothing further
was known as to the fate of the MS. till 1823, when it
was disinterred from one of the presses of the old State
Paper Office. The Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Wil-
liamson, when he retired from office in 1678, instead
of carrying away his correspondence as had been the cus-
tom, left it behind him. Thus it was that the Treatise
of Christian doctrine first saw light, one hundred and
fifty years after the author’s death.

In a work which had been written as a text-book for
the use of learners, there can be little scope for origi-
nality. And Milton follows the division of the matter
into heads usual in the manuals then current. But it
was impossible for Milton to handle the dry bones of a
^divinity compendium without stirring them into life.
And divinity which is made to live, necessarily becomes
unorthodox^/

The usual method of the school text-books of the
seventeenth century was to exhibit dogma in the artificial
terminology of the controversies of the sixteenth century
For this procedure Milton substitutes the words of Scrip-
ture simply. The traditional terms of the text-books
are retained, but they are employed only as heads under
which to arrange the words of Scripture. This process,
which in other hands would be little better than index
making, becomes here pregnant with meaning. The
originality which Milton voluntarily resigns, in em-
ploying only the words of the Bible, he recovers by his
freedom of exposition. He shakes himself loose from the
trammels of traditional exposition, and looks at the texts
for himself. The truth was

156

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

Left only in those written records pure,

Though not but by the spirit understood.

Paradise Lost , xii. 510.

Upon the points which interested him most closely,
Milton knew that his understanding of the text differed
/ from the standard of Protestant orthodoxy. That God
created matter, not out of nothing, hut out of Himself,
and that death is, in the course of nature, total extinction
j of being, though not opinions received, were not singular.
/ More startling, to European modes of thinking, is his as*
j sertion that polygamy is not, in itself, contrary to morality,
though it may be inexpedient. The religious sentiment
of his day was offended by his vigorous vindication of the
freewill of man against the reigning Calvinism, and his
assertion of the inferiority of the Son in opposition to the
received Athanasianism. He labours this point of the
nature of God with especial care, showing how greatly it
occupied his thoughts. He arranges his texts so as to
exhibit in Scriptural language the semi-Arian scheme, i. e.
a scheme which, admitting the co-essentiality, denies the
eternal generation. Through all this manipulation of
texts we seem to see, that Milton is not the school logi-
cian erecting a consistent fabric of words, but that he is
dominated by an imagination peopled with concrete per-
sonalities, and labouring to assign their places to the
Father and the Son as separate agents in the mundane
drama. The De doctrina Christiana is the prose counter-
part of Paradise Lost and Regained , a caput mortuum of
^ — the poems, with every ethereal particle evaporated.

In the royal injunctions of 1614, James I. had ordered
students in the universities not to insist too long upon
compendiums, but to study the Scriptures, and to bestow
their time upon the fathers and councils. In his attempt

XII.]

HISTORY OF PARADISE LOST.

157

to express dogmatic theology in the words of Scripture,
Milton was unwittingly obeying this injunction. The
other part of the royal direction as to fathers and councils
it was not in Milton’s plan to carry out. Neither indeed
was it in his power, for he had not the necessary learning.
M. Scherer says that Milton “ laid all antiquity, sacred
and profane, under contribution.” So far is this from
being the case, that while he exhibits, in this treatise, an
intimate knowledge of the text of the canonical books,
Hebrew and Greek, there is an absence of that average
acquaintance with Christian antiquity which formed at
that day the professional outfit of the episcopal divine.
Milton’s references to the fathers are perfunctory and
second-hand. The only citation of Chrysostom, for in-
stance, which I have noticed is in these words : “ the same
is said to be the opinion of Chrysostom, Luther, and other
moderns.” He did not esteem the judgment of the fathers
sufficiently, to deem them worth studying. In the inter-
pretation of texts, as in other matters of opinion, Milton
withdrew within the fortress of his absolute personality.

I have now to relate the external history of the com-
position of Paradise Lost When Milton had to skulk
for a time in 1660, he was already in steady work upon
the poem. Though a few lines of it were composed as
early as 1642, it was not till 1658 that he took up the
task of composition continuously. If we may trust our
only authority (Aubrey-Phillips), he had finished it in
1663, about the time of his marriage. In polishing,
re-writing, and writing out fair, much might remain
to be done, after the poem was, in a way, finished.
It is in 1665, that we first make acquaintance with
Paradise Lost in a complete state. This was the year

168

THIRD PERIOD, 1660—1674

[chap.

of the plague, known in our annals as the Great Plague,
to distinguish its desolating ravages from former slighter
visitations of the epidemic. Every one who could fled
from the city of destruction. Milton applied to his
young friend Ellwood to find him a shelter. Ellwood,
who was then living as tutor in the house of the Pen-
ningtons, took a cottage for Milton in their neighbour-
hood, at Chalfont St. Giles, in the county of Bucks.
Not only the Penningtons, but General Fleetwood had
also his residence near this village, and a report is men-
tioned by Howitt that it was Fleetwood who provided
the ex-secretary with a refuge. The society of neither
of these friends was available for Milton. For Fleetwood
was a sentenced regicide, and in July, Pennington and
Ellwood were hurried off to Aylesbury gaol by an inde-
fatigable justice of the peace, who was desirous of giving
evidence of his zeal for the king's government. That
the Chalfont cottage (( was not pleasantly situated,” must
have been indifferent to the blind old man, as much so
as that the immediate neighbourhood, with its heaths and
wooded uplands, reproduced the scenery he had loved
when he wrote L\ Allegro.

As soon as Ellwood was relieved from imprisonment, he
returned to Chalfont. Then it was that Milton put into
his hands the completed Paradise Lost , “ bidding me take
it home with me, and read it at my leisure, and when I had
so done, return it to him with my judgment thereupon.”
On returning it, besides giving the author the benefit of
his judgment, a judgment not preserved, and not indis-
pensable— the Quaker made his famous speech, “Thou
hast said much here of Paradise Lost , but what hast thou
to say of Paradise found?” Milton afterwards told
Ellwood that to this casual question was due his writing
Paradise Regained . We are not, however, to take this

XII.]

HISTORY OF PARADISE LOST.

159

complaisant speech quite literally, for it is highly probable
that the later poem was included in the original con-
ception, if not in the scheme of the first epic. But we do
get from Ellwood’s reminiscence a date for the beginning
of Paradise Regained , which must have been at Chalfont
in the autumn of 1665.

When the plague was abated, and the city had become
safely habitable, Milton returned to Artillery Bow. He
had not been long back when London was devastated by
a fresh calamity, only less terrible than the plague, because
it destroyed the home, and not the life. The Great Fire
succeeded the Great Plague. 13,000 houses, two-thirds
of the city, were reduced to ashes, and the whole current
of life and business entirely suspended. Through these
two overwhelming disasters, Milton must have been
supporting his solitary spirit by writing Paradise Re-
gained, Samson Agonist es, and giving the final touches
to Paradise Lost . He was now so wholly unmoved by
his environment, that we look in vain in the poems* for
any traces of this season of suffering and disaster. The
past and his own meditations were now all in all to him ;
the horrors of the present were as nothing to a man who
had outlived his hopes. Plague and fire, what were they,
after the ruin of the noblest of causes 1 The stoical com-
pression of Paradise Regained is in perfect keeping with
the fact that it was in the middle of the ruins of London
that Milton placed his finished poem in the hands of the
licenser.

For licenser there was now, the Archbishop oi
Canterbury to wit, for religious literature. Of course the
Primate read by deputy, usually one of his chaplains.
The reader into whose hands Paradise Lost came, though
an Oxford man, and a cleric on his preferment, who had
written his pamphlet against the dissenters, happened

160

THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674.

[chap.

to be one whose antecedents, as Fellow of All Souls,
and Proctor (in 1663), ensured his taking a less pedantic
and bigoted view of his duties. Still, though Dryden's
dirty plays would have encountered no objection before
such a tribunal, the same facilities were not likely to be
accorded to anything which bore the name of John
Milton, ex-secretary to Oliver, and himself an austere
republican. Tomkyns— ~ that was the young chaplain's
name— did stumble at a phrase in Book i. 598,

With fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.

There had been in England, and were to be again, times
when men had hanged for less than this. Tomkyns, who
was sailing on the smooth sea of preferment with a fair
wind, did not wish to get into trouble, but at last he let
the book pass. Perhaps he thought it was only religious
verse written for the sectaries, which would never be
heard of at court, or among the wits, and that therefore it
was of little consequence what it contained,

A publisher was found, notwithstanding that Paul's, or
as it now was again, St. PauTs-Churchyard had ceased
to exist, in Aldersgate, which lay outside the circuit of
the conflagration. The agreement, still preserved in the
national museum, between the author, “John Milton,
gent, of the one parte, and Samuel Symons, printer,
of the other parte," is among the curiosities of our literary
history. The curiosity consists not so much in the
illustrious name appended (not in autograph) to the deed,
as in the contrast between the present fame of the book,
and the waste-paper price at which the copyright is being
valued. The author received 51. down, was to receive a
second 51. when the first edition should be sold, a third
51. when the second, and a fourth 51. when the third

XJI.]

HISTORY OF PARADISE LOST.

161

edition should he gone. Milton lived to receive the
second 51., and no more, 10/. in all, for Paradise Lost .
I cannot bring myself to join in the lamentations of the
biographers over this bargain. Surely it is better so;
better to know that the noblest monument of English
letters had no money value, than to think of it as having
been paid for at a pound the line.

The agreement with Symons is dated 27 April, 1667, the
entry in the register of Stationers’ Hall is 20th August.
It was therefore in the autumn of 1667 that Paradise
Lost was in the hands of the public. We have no data
for the time occupied in the composition of Paradise
Regained and Samson Agonistes. We have seen that the
former poem was begun at Chalfont in 1665, and it may
be conjecturally stated that Samson was finished before
September, 1667. At any rate, both the poems were pub-
lished together in the autumn of 1670.

Milton had four years more of life granted him after
this publication. But he wrote no more poetry. It was
as if he had exhausted his strength in a last effort, in the
Promethean agony of Samson, and knew that his hour of
inspiration was passed away. But, like all men who have
once tasted the joys and pangs of composition, he could
not now do without its excitement. The occupation, and
the indispensable solace of the last ten sad years, had been
his poems. He would not write more verse, when the
oestrus was not on him, but he must write. He took up all
the dropped threads of past years, ambitious plans formed
in the fulness of vigour, and laid aside, but not abandoned.
He was the very opposite of Shelley, who could never look
at a piece of his own composition a second time, but when
he had thrown it off at a heat, rushed into something else.
Milton’s adhesiveness was such that he could never give

M

162

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

up a design once entered upon. In these four years, as if
conscious that his time was now nearly out, he laboured
to complete five such early undertakings.

(1.) Of his Compendium of Theology I have already
spoken. He was overtaken by death while preparing this
for the press.

(2.) His History of Britain must have cost him much
labour, bestowed upon comparison of the conflicting
authorities. It is the record of the studies he had made
for his abandoned epic poem, and is evidence how much
the subject occupied his mind.

The History of Britain , 1670, had been preceded by
(3) a Latin grammar, in 1669, and was followed by (4)
a Logic on the method of Ramus, 1672.

(5.) In 1673 he brought out a new edition of his early
volume of Poems. In this volume he printed for the
first time the sonnets, and other pieces, which had been
written in the interval of twenty-seven years since the date
of his first edition. Not, indeed, all the sonnets which we
now have. Four, in which Fairfax, Vane, Cromwell, and
the Commonwealth are spoken of as Milton would speak
of them, were necessarily kept back, and not put into print
till 1694, by Phillips, at the end of his life of his uncle.

In proportion to the trouble which Milton’s words cost
him, was his care in preserving them. His few Latin
letters to his foreign friends are remarkably barren either
of fact or sentiment. But Milton liked them well enough
to have kept copies of them, and now allowed a publisher,
Brabazon Aylmer, to issue them in print, adding to them,
with a view to make out a volume, his college exercises,
which he had also preserved.

Among the papers which he left at his death, were the
beginnings of two undertakings, either of them of over-

XII.]

LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.

163

whelming magnitude, which he did not live to complete.
We have seen that he taught his pupils geography out of
Davity , Description de VUnivers . He was not satisfied
with this, or with any existing compendium. They were
all dry ; exact enough with their latitudes and longitudes,
but omitted such uninteresting stuff as manners, govern-
ment, religion, &c. Milton would essay a better system.
All he had ever executed was Russia, taking the pains to
turn over and extract for his purpose all the best travels
in that country. This is the fragment which figures in his
Works as a Brief History of Moscovia .

The hackneyed metaphor of Pegasus harnessed to a
luggage trolley, will recur to us when we think of the
author of V Allegro, setting himself to compile a Latin
lexicon. If there is any literary drudgery more mechani-
cal than another, it is generally supposed to be that of
making a dictionary. Hot had he taken to this industry
as a resource in age, when the genial flow of invention had
dried up, and original composition had ceased to be in his
power. The three folio volumes of MS. which Milton left
were the work of his youth ; it was a work which the loss
of eyesight of necessity put an end to. It is not Milton
only, but all students who read with an alert mind, read-
ing to grow, and not to remember, who have felt the want
of an occupation which shall fill those hours when mental
vigilance is impossible, and vacuity unendurable. Index-
making or cataloguing has been the resource of many in
such hours. But it was not, I think, as a mere shifting
of mental posture that Milton undertook to rewrite Robert
Stephens ; it was as part of his language training. Only
by diligent practice and incessant exercise of attention and
care, could Milton have educated his susceptibility to the
specific powrer of words, to the nicety which he attained

164

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[CH. XII.

beyond any other of our poets. Part of this education is
recorded in the seemingly withered leaves of his Latin
Thesaurus, though the larger part must have been
achieved, not by a reflective and critical collection of
examples, but by a vital and impassioned reading.

Milton's complaint was what the profession of that day
called gout. “He would be very cheerful even in his
gout fits, and sing,” says Aubrey. This gout returned
again and again, and by these repeated attacks wore out
his resisting power. He died of the “ gout struck in ” on
Sunday, 8th November, 1674, and was buried, near his
father, in the chancel of St. Giles^, Cripplegate. The
funeral was attended, Toland says, “ by all his learned and
great friends in London, not without a friendly concourse
of the vulgar.” The disgusting profanation of the leaden
coffin, and dispersion of the poet's bones by the parochial
authorities, during the repair of the church in August,
1790, has been denied, but it is to be feared the fact is
too true.

CHAPTER XIH.

FARADISE LOST PARADISE REGAINED SAMSON AGONISTES

“ Many men of forty,” it has "been said, “ are dead poets
and it might seem that Milton, Latin secretary, and party
pamphleteer, had died to poetry about the fatal age. In
1645, when he made a gathering of his early pieces for the
volume published by Humphry Moseley, he wanted three
years of forty. That volume contained, besides other
things, Comus , Lycidas , U Allegro, and II JPenseroso ;
then, when produced, as they remain to this day, the
finest flower of English poesy. But, though thus like a
wary husbandman, garnering his sheaves in presence of
the threatening storm, Milton had no intention of bidding
farewell to poetry. On the contrary, he regarded this
volume only as first-fruits, an earnest of greater things to
come.

The ruling idea of Milton’s life, and the key to his
mental history, is his resolve to produce a great poem.
Not that the aspiration in itself is singular, for it is pro-
bably shared by every young poet in his turn. As every
clever schoolboy is destined by himself or his friends to
become Lord Chancellor, and every private in the French
army carries in his haversack the baton of a marshal, so
it is a necessary ingredient of the dream on Parnassus,

166

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

that it should embody itself in a form of surpassing bril-
liance. What distinguishes Milton from the crowd of
young ambition, “ audax juventa,” is the constancy of
resolve. He not only nourished through manhood the
dream of youth, keeping under the importunate instincts
which carry off most ambitions in middle life into the
pursuit of place, profit, honour — the thorns which spring
up and smother the wheat — but carried out his dream in
its integrity in old age. He formed himself for this
achievement, and for no other. Study at home, travel
abroad, the arena of political controversy, the public
service, the practice of the domestic virtues, were so many
parts of the schooling which was to make a poet.

The reader who has traced with me thus far the course
of Milton's mental development will perhaps be ready to
believe, that this idea had taken entire possession of his
mind from a very early age. The earliest written record
of it is of date 1632, in Sonnet n. This was written
as early as the poet's twenty-third year ; and in these
lines the resolve is uttered, not as then just conceived, but
as one long brooded upon, and its non-fulfilment matter
of self-reproach.

If this sonnet stood alone, its relevance to a poetical, or
even a literary performance, might be doubtful. But at
the time of its composition it is enclosed in a letter to an
unnamed friend, who seems to have been expressing his
surprise that the Cambridge B. A. was not settling himself,
now that his education was complete, to a profession.
Milton's apologetic letter is extant, and was printed by
Birch in 1738. It intimates that Milton did not consider
his education, for the purposes he had in view, as anything
like complete. It is not “ the endless delight of specula-
tion,'' but “a religious advisement how best to undergo ;

Kill.]

PARADISE LOST.

167

not taking thought of being late, so it give advantage to
be more fit.” He repudiates the love of learning for its
own sake ; knowledge is not an end, it is only equipment
for performance. There is here no specific engagement as
to the nature of the performance. But what it is to he, is
suggested by the enclosure of the “ Petrarchian stanza ”
(i. e. the sonnet). This notion that his life was like
Samuel's, a dedicated life, dedicated to a service which
required a long probation, recurs again more than once in
his writings. It is emphatically repeated, in 1641, in a
passage of the pamphlet Ho. 4

None hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with
more unwearied spirit none shall, — that I dare almost aver of
myself, as far as life and full license will extend. Neither do I
think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader that for
some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the pay-
ment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be
raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that
which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or
the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained
by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters,
but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich
with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim
with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the life
of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and
select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and
generous acts and affairs. Till which in some measure be com-
passed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this
expectation, from as many as are not loth to hazard so much
credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them.

In 1638, at the age of nine and twenty, Milton has
already determined that this lifework shall be a poem,
an epic poem, and that its subject shall probably be the
Arthurian legend.

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

Si quae do indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,
Artummque etiam sub terris bella moventem,

Aut dicam invictas sociali feedere mens®

Magnanimos heroas, et, o modo spiritus adsit !

Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub marte phalangas.

May I find such a friend .... when, if ever, I shall revive
in song our native princes, and among them Arthur moving to
the fray even in the nether world, and when I shall, if only
inspiration be mine, break the Saxon bands before our Britons1
prowess.

The same announcement is reproduced in the Epi-
taphium Damonis , 1639, and, in Pamphlet No. 4, in the
often-quoted words : —

Perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, com-
posed at under twenty, or thereabout, met with acceptance, . . .
I began to assent to them (the Italians) and divers of my
friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting
which now grows daily upon me, that by labour and intent
study, which I take to be my portion in this life, joined with
the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave some-
thing so written to aftertimes as they should not willingly let
it die.

Between the publication of the collected Poems in
1645, and the appearance of Paradise Lost in 1667, a
period of twenty-two years, Milton gave no public sign
of redeeming this pledge. He se6med to his cotempo-
raries to have renounced the follies of his youth, the
gewgaws of verse, and to have sobered down into the
useful citizen. “ Le bon poete,” thought Malherbe,
“n’est pas plus utile a Tetat qu’un bon joueur de quilles.”
Milton had postponed his poem, in 1641, till “the land
had once enfranchished herself from this impertinent yoke
of prelatry, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical

Kill.]

PARADISE LOST.

16S

duncery no free and splendid wit can flourish.” Prelatry
was swept away, and he asked for further remand on
account of the war. Peace was concluded, the country
was settled under the strong government of a Protector,
and Milton's great work did not appear. It was not even
preparing. He was writing not poetry but prose, and
that most ephemeral and valueless kind of prose, pam-
phlets, extempore articles on the topics of the day. He
poured out reams of them, in simple unconsciousness that
they had no influence whatever on the current of events.

Hor was it that, during all these years, Milton was
meditating in secret what he could not bring forward in
public ; that he was only holding back from publishing,
because there was no public ready to listen to his
song. In these years Milton wa^ neither writing nor
thinking poetry. Of the twenty-four sonnets indeed—
twenty-four, reckoning the twenty-lined piece, “ The
forcers of conscience,” as a sonnet — eleven belong to this
period. But they do not form a continuous series, such
as do Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets , nor do they
evince a sustained mood of poetical meditation. On the
contrary, their very force and beauty consist in their
being the momentary and spontaneous explosion of an
emotion welling up from the depths of the soul, and
forcing itself into metrical expression, as it were, in spite
of the writer. While the first eight sonnets, written
before 1645, are sonnets of reminiscence and intention,
like those of the Italians, or the ordinary English sonnet,
the eleven sonnets of Milton's silent period, from 1645 to
1658, are records of present feeling kindled by actual
facts. In their naked, unadorned simplicity of language,
they may easily seem, to a reader fresh from Petrarch, to
be homely and prosaic. Place them in relation to the

170

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

circumstance on which each piece turns, and we begin to
feel the superiority for poetic effect of real emotion over
emotion meditated and revived. History has in it \hat
which can touch us more abidingly than any fiction. It
is this actuality which distinguishes the sonnets of Milton
from any other sonnets. Of this difference Wordsworth
was conscious when he struck out the phrase, “ In his
hand the thing became, a trumpet.” Macaulay compared
the sonnets in their majestic severity to the collects.
They remind us of a Hebrew psalm, with its undisguised
outrush of rage, revenge, exultation, or despair, where
nothing is due to art or artifice, and whose poetry is the
expression of the heart, and not a branch of literature.
It is in the sonnets we most realise the force of Words-
worth’s image —

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea.

We are not then to look in the sonnets for latent traces
of the suspended poetic creation. They come from the
other side of Milton’s nature, the political, not the artistic.
They are akin to the prose pamphlets, not to Paradise Lost.
Just when the sonnets end, the composition of the epic
was taken in hand. The last of the sonnets (23 in the
ordinary numeration) was written in 1658, and it is to
the same year that our authority, Aubrey-Phillips, refers
his beginning to occupy himself with Paradise Lost. He
had ’by this time settled the two points about which he
had been long in doubt, the subject, and the form. Long
before bringing himself to the point of composition, he
had decided upon the Fall of man as subject, and upon the
narrative, or epic, form, in preference to the dramatic. It
is even possible that a few isolated passages of the poem,
as it now stands, may have been written before. Of one

PARADISE LOST.

171

XIII.]

such passage we know that it was written fifteen or
sixteen years before 1658, and while he was still con-
templating a drama. The lines are Satan's speech, P . L.
iv. 32, beginning, —

O, thou that with surpassing glory crowned.

These lines, Phillips says, his uncle recited to him, as
forming the opening of his tragedy. They are modelled,
as the classical reader will perceive, upon Euripides.
Possibly they were not intended for the very first lines,
since if Milton intended to follow the practice of his model,
the lofty lyrical tone of this address should have been
introduced by a prosaic matter-of-fact setting forth of the
situation, as in the Euripidean prologue. There are other
passages in the poem which have the air of being insiti-
tious in the place where they stand. The lines in Book iv,
now in question, may reasonably be referred to 1640-42,
the date of those leaves in the Trinity College MS., in
which Milton has written down, with his own hand,w
various sketches of tragedies, which might possibly be
adopted as his final choice.

A passage in The Reason of Church Government , written
at the same period, 1641, gives us the the fullest account
of his hesitation It was a hesitation caused, partly by
the wealth of matter which his reading suggested to him,
partly by the consciousness that he ought not to begin in
haste while each year was ripening his powers. Every
one who has undertaken a work of any length has made
the experience, that the faculty of composition will not
work with ease, until the reason is satisfied that the sub-
ject chosen is a congenial one. Gibbon has told us him-
self of the many periods of history upon which he tried
his pen, even after the memorable 15 October, 1764, when

172

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

he “ sate musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while the
barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of
Jupiter.” We know how many sketches of possible
tragedies Racine would make before he could adopt one
as the appropriate theme, on which he could work with
that thorough enjoyment of the labour, which is necessary
to give life and verve to any creation, whether of the poet
or the orator.

The leaves of the Trinity College MS., which are con-
temporary with his confidence to the readers of his tract
Of Church Government , exhibit a list of nearly one hun-
dred subjects, which had occurred to him from time to time
as practicable subjects. Eroni the mode of entry we see
that, already in 1641, a scriptural was likely to have the
preference over a profane subject, and that among scriptural
subjects Paradise Lost (the familiar title appears in this
early note), stands out prominently above the rest. The
historical subjects are all taken from native history, none
«are foreign, and all are from the time before the Roman
conquest. The scriptural subjects are partly from the Old,
partly from the 'New, Testament. Some of these subjects
are named and nothing more, while others are slightly
sketched out. Among these latter are Baptistes , on the
death of John the Baptist, and Christus Patiens , apparently
to be confined to the agony in the garden. Of Paradise
Lost there are four drafts in greater detail than any of the
others. These drafts of the plot or action, though none
of them that which was finally adopted, are sufficiently
near to the action of the poem as it stands, to reveal to us
the fact that the author’s imaginative conception of what
he intended to produce was generated, cast, and moulded,
at a comparatively early age. The commonly received
notion, therefore, with which authors, as they age, are

PARADISE LOST.

173

XIII.]

wont to comfort themselves, that one of the greatest feats
of original invention achieved by man, was begun after
fifty, must be thus far modified. Paradise Lost was com-
posed after fifty, but was conceived at thirty-two. Hence
the high degree of perfection realised in the total result.
For there were combined to produce it the opposite virtues
of two distinct periods of mental development ; the daring
imagination and fresh emotional play of early manhood,
with the exercised judgment and chastened taste of ripened
years. We have regarded the twenty-five years of Milton’s
life between 1641 and the commencement of Paradise
Lost , as time ill laid out upon inferior work which any
one could do, and which was not worth doing by any one.
Yet it may be made a question if in any other mode than
by adjournment of his early design, Milton could have
attained to that union of original strength with severe
restraint, which distinguishes from all other poetry, except
that of Virgil, the three great poems of his old age. If the
fatigue of age is sometimes felt in Paradise Regained , we
feel in Paradise Lost only (in the words of Chateaubriand),
“ la maturite de l’age a travers les passions des legeres
annees ; une charme extraordinaire de vieillesse et de
jeunesse.”

A still further inference is warranted by the Trinity
College jottings of 1641. 'Not the critics merely, but
readers ready to sympathise, have been sometimes inclined
to wish that Milton had devoted his power to a more
human subject, in which the poet’s invention could have
had freer play, and for wThich his reader’s interest could
have been more ready. And it has been thought that the
choice of a Biblical subject indicates the narrowing effect
of age, adversity, and blindness combined. We now know
that the Fall was the theme, if not determined on, at

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660— 1674

[chap.

least predominant in Milton’s thoughts, at the age ol
thirty- two. His ripened judgment only approved a

selection made in earlier years, and in days full of hope.
That in selecting a scriptural subject he was not in fact
exercising any choice, hut was determined by his circum-
stances, is only what must be said of all choosing. With
all his originality, Milton was still a man of his age. A
Puritan poet, in a Puritan environment, could not have
done otherwise. But even had choice been in his power,
it is doubtful if he would have had the same success with
a subject taken from history.

First, looking at his public. He was to write in
English. This, which had at one time been matter of
doubt, had at an early stage come to be his decision. Hor
had the choice of English been made for the sake of popu-
larity, which he despised. He did not desire to write for
the many, but for the few. But he was enthusiastically
patriotic. He had entire contempt for the shouts of the
mob, but the English nation, as embodied in the persons
of the wise and good, he honoured and reverenced with all
the depth of his nature. It was for the sake of his nation
that he was to devote his life to a work, which was to
ennoble her tongue among the languages of Europe.

He was then to write in English, for the English, not
popularly, but nationally. This resolution at once limited
his subject. He who aspires to be the poet of a nation is
bound to adopt a hero who is already dear to that people,
to choose a subject and characters which are already
familiar to them. This is no rule of literary art
arbitrarily enacted by the critics, it is a dictate of reason,
and has been the practice of all the great national poets.
The more obvious examples will occur to every reader.
But it may be observed that even the Greek tragedians.

Kin.]

PARADISE LOST.

175

who addressed a more limited audience than the epic poets,
took their plots from the best known legends touching the
fortunes of the royal houses of the Hellenic race. Now to
the English reader of the seventeenth century — and the
same holds good to this day — there were only two cycles of
persons and events sufficiently known beforehand to admit
of being assumed by a poet. He must go either to the
Bible, or to the annals of England. Thus far Milton’s
choice of subject was limited by the consideration of the
public for whom he wrote.

Secondly, he was still farther restricted by a condition
which the nature of his own intelligence imposed upon
himself. It was necessary for Milton that the events and
personages, which were to arouse and detain his interests,
should be real events and personages. The mere play of
fancy with the pretty aspects of things could not satisfy him]
he wanted to feel beneath him a substantial world of reality.
He had not the dramatist’s imagination which can body
forth fictitious characters with such life-like reality that it
can, and does itself, believe in their existence. Macaulay
has truly said that Milton’s genius is lyrical, not dramatic.
His lyre will only echo real emotion, and his imagination
is only stirred by real circumstances. In his youth he had
been within the fascination of the romances of chivalry, as
well in their original form, as in the reproductions of
Ariosto and Spenser. While under this influence he had
thought of seeking his subject among the heroes of these
lays of old minstrelsy. And as one of his principles was
that his hero must be a national hero, it was of course
upon the Arthurian cycle that his aspiration fixed. When
he did so, he no doubt believed at least the historical
existence of Arthur. As soon, however, as he came to
understand the fabulous basis of the Arthurian legend,

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap,

it became unfitted for his use. In the Trinity College
MS. of 1641, Arthur has already disappeared from the list
of possible subjects, a list which contains thirty-eight sug-
gestions of names from British or Saxon history, such as
Yortigern, Edward the Confessor, Harold, Macbeth, &c.
While he demanded the basis of reality for his person-
ages, he at the same time, with a true instinct, rejected all
that fell within the period of well-ascertained history. He
made the Conquest the lower limit of his choice. In this
negative decision against historical romance we recognise
Milton’s judgment, and his correct estimate of his own
powers. Those who have been thought to succeed best in
engrafting fiction upon history, Shakspeare or Walter
Scott, have been eminently human poets, and have
achieved their measure of success by investing some well-
known name with the attributes of ordinary humanity
such as we all know it. This was precisely what Milton
could not have done. He had none of that sympathy with
which Shakspeare embraced all natural and common
affections of his brother men. Milton, burning as he did
with a consuming fire of passion, and yearning for rapt
communion with select souls, had withal an aloofness from
ordinary men and women, and a proud disdain of common-
place joy and sorrow, which has led hasty biographers and
critics to represent him as hard, austere, an iron man of
iron mould. This want of interest in common life disquali-
fied him for the task of revivifying historic scenes.

Milton’s mental constitution, then, demanded in the
material upon which it was to work, a combination of
qualities such as very few subjects could offer. The
events and personages must be real and substantial, for he
could not occupy himself seriously with airy nothings and

PARADISE LOST.

177

XIII.]

creatures of pure fancy. Yet they must not be such
events and personages as history had pourtrayed to us
with well-known characters, and all their virtues, faults,
foibles, and peculiarities. And, lastly, it was requisite
that they should he the common property and the familiar
interest of a wide circle of English readers.

These being the conditions required in the subject, it is
obvious that no choice was left to the poet in the England
of the seventeenth century but a biblical subject. And
among the many picturesque episodes which the Hebrew
Scriptures present, the narrative of the Eall stands out
with a character of all-embracing comprehensiveness which
belongs to no other single event in the Jewish annals.
The first section of the book of Genesis clothes in a dra-
matic form the dogmatic idea from which was developed
in the course of ages the whole scheme of Judaico-
Christian anthropology. In this world-drama, Heaven
above and Hell beneath, the powers of light and those of
darkness, are both brought upon the scene in confiict with
each other, over the fate of the inhabitants of our globe,
a minute ball of matter suspended between two infinities.
This gigantic and unmanageable material is so completely
mastered by the poet’s imagination, that we are made to
feel at one and the same time the petty dimensions of our
earth in comparison with primordial space and almighty
power, and the profound import to us of the issue depend -
ing on the conflict. Other poets, of inferior powers, have
from time to time attempted, with different degrees of
success, some of the minor Scriptural histories ; Bodmer,
the Hoachian Deluge; Solomon Gessner, the Death of
Abel, &c. And Milton himself, after he had spent his
full strength upon his greater theme, recurred in Samson
Agonistes to one such episode, which he had deliberately

17® THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674. [chap,

set aside before, as not giving verge enough for the sweep
of his soaring conception.

These considerations duly weighed, it will be found
that the subject of the Fall of Man was not so much
Milton’s choice as his necessity. Among all the traditions
of the peoples of the earth, there is not extant another
story which could have been adequate to his demands.
Biographers may have been somewhat misled by his
speaking of himself as “ long choosing and beginning
late.” He did not begin till 1658, when he was
already fifty, and it has been somewhat hastily inferred
that he did not choose till the date at which he began
But, as we have seen, he had already chosen at least as
early as 1642, when the plan of a drama on the subject,
and under the title, of Paradise Lost was fully developed.
In the interval between 1642 and 1658, he changed the
form from a drama to an epic, but his choice remained
unaltered. And as the address to the sun ( Paradise Lost ,
iv. 32) was composed at the earlier of these dates, it
appears that he had already formulated even the rhythm
and cadence of the poem that was to be. Like Words-
worth’s “ Warrior ” — *

He wrought

Upon the plan that pleas’d his boyish thought.

I have said that this subject of the Fall was Milton’s
necessity, being the only subject which his mind, “in the
spacious circuits of her musing,” found large enough.
But as it was no abrupt or arbitrary choice, so it was not
forced upon him from without, by suggestion of friends, or
command of a patron. We must again remind ourselves
that Milton had a Calvinistic bringing up. And Cal-
vinism in pious Puritan souls of that fervent age was not
the attenuated creed of the eighteenth century, the Cal-
vinism which went not beyond personal gratification of

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

179

safety for oneself, and for the rest damnation. When
Milton was being reared, Calvinism was not old and effete,
a mere doctrine. It was a living system of thought, and
one which carried the mind upwards towards the Eternal
will, rather than downwards towards my personal security.
Keble has said of the old Catholic views, founded on sac-
ramental symbolism, that they are more poetical than any
other religious conception. But it must he acknowledged
that a predestinarian scheme, leading the cogitation up-
ward to dwell upon “the heavenly things before the
foundation of the world, ” opens a vista of contemplation
and poetical framework, with which none other in the
whole cycle of human thought can compare. Not election
and reprobation as set out in the petty chicanery of Cal-
vin’s Institutes , hut the prescience of absolute wisdom
revolving all the possibilities of time, space, and matter.
Poetry has been defined as “ the suggestion by the image
of noble grounds for noble emotions,” and, in this respect,
none of the world-epics— there are at most five or six such
in existence — can compete with Paradise Lost The
melancholy pathos of Lucretius indeed pierces the heart
with a two-edged sword more keen than Milton’s, but the
compass of Lucretius’ horizon is much less, being limited
to this earth and its inhabitants. The horizon of Paradise
Lost is not narrower than all space, its chronology not
shorter than eternity ; the globe of our earth becomes a
mere spot in the physical universe, and that universe
itself a drop suspended in the infinite empyrean. His
aspiration had thus reached “ one of the highest arcs that
human contemplation circling upwards can make from
the glassy sea whereon she stands” ( Doctr . and Disc .)
Like his contemporary Pascal, his mind had beaten her
wings against the prison walls of human thought.

The vastness of the scheme of Paradise Lost may

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674.

[chap.

become more apparent to us if we remark that, within its
embrace, there seems to be equal place for both the
systems of physical astronomy which were current in the
seventeenth century. In England, about the time Para-
dise Lost was being written, the Copernican theory, which
placed the sun. in the centre of our system, was already
the established belief of the few well-informed. The old
Ptolemaic or Alphonsine system, which explained the
phenomena on the hypothesis of nine (or ten) transparent
hollow spheres wheeling round the stationary earth, was
still the received astronomy of ordinary people. These
two beliefs, the one based on science, though still wanting
the calculation which Newton was to supply to make it
demonstrative, the other supported by the tradition of
ages, were, at the time we speak of, in presence of each
other in the public mind. They are in presence of each
other also in Milton’s epic. And the systems confront
each other in the poem, in much the same relative posi-
tion which they occupied in the mind of the public. The
ordinary, habitual mode of speaking of celestial pheno-
mena is Ptolemaic (see Paradise Lost , vii. 339 ; iii. 481).
The conscious, or doctrinal, exposition of the same pheno-
mena is Copernican (see Paradise Lost, viii. 122). Sharp
as is the contrast between the two systems, the one being
the direct contradictory of the other, they are lodged
together, not harmonised, within the vast circuit of the
poet’s imagination. The precise mechanism of an object
so little as is our world in comparison with the immense
totality may be justly disregarded. “De minimis non
curat poeta.” In the universe of being the difference
between a heliocentric and a geocentric theory of our
solar system is of as small moment, as the reconcilement of
fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute is in the

PAEADX8E LOST.

JLttl

XIII.]

realm of absolute intelligence. The one is the frivolous
pastime of devils ; the other the Great Architect

Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide.

As one, and the principal, inconsistency in Milton’s
presentment of his matter has now been mentioned, a
general remark may be made upon the conceptual in-
congruities in Paradise Lost. The poem abounds in such,
and the critics, from Addison downwards, have busied
themselves in finding out more and more of them. Mil-
ton’s geography of the world is as obscure and untenable
as that of Herodotus. The notes of time cannot stand
together. To give an example : Eve says ( Paradise Lost ,
iv. 449) —

That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awak’d.

But in the chronology of the poem, Adam himself, whose
creation preceded that of Eve, was but three days old at
the time this reminiscence is repeated to him. The mode
in which the Son of God is spoken of is not either con-
sistent Athanasianism or consistent Arianism. Above
all there is an incessant confusion of material and im-
material in the acts ascribed to the angels. Dr. J ohnson,
who wished for consistency, would have had it preserved
“ by keeping immateriality out of sight.” And a general
arraignment has been laid against Milton of a vagueness
and looseness of imagery, which contrasts unfavourably
with the vivid and precise detail of other poets, of
Homer or of Dante, for example.

How first, it must be said that Milton is not one of the
poets of inaccurate imagination. He could never, like

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674.

[chap.

Scott, have let tlie precise picture of the swan on “ still
Saint Mary’s lake ” slip into the namby-pamby “ sweet
Saint Mary’s lake.” When he intends a picture, he is
unmistakably distinct ; his outline is firm and hard.
But he is not often intending pictures. He is not, like
Dante, always seeing — he is mostly thinking in a dream,
or as Coleridge best expressed it, he is not a picturesque,
but a musical poet. The pictures in Paradise Lost are
like the paintings on the walls of some noble hall — only
part of the total magnificence. He did not aim at that
finish of minute parts in which each bit fits into every
other. For it was only by such disregard of minutiae that
the theme could be handled at all. The impression of
vastness, the sense that everything, as Bishop Butler says,
“ runs up into infinity,” would have been impaired if he
had drawn attention to the details of his figures. Had he
had upon his canvas only a single human incident, with
ordinary human agents, he would have known, as well as
other far inferior artists, how to secure perfection of illu-
sion by exactness of detail. But he had undertaken to
present, not the world of human experience, but a super-
natural world, peopled by supernatural beings, God and
his Son, angels and archangels, devils ; a world in which
Sin and Death may be personified without palpable
absurdity. Even his one human pair are exceptional
beings, from whom we are prepared not to demand con-
formity to the laws of life which now prevail in our
world. Had he presented all these spiritual personages
in definite form to the eye, the result would have been
degradation. We should have had the ridiculous instead
of the sublime, as in the scene of the Iliad , where Diomede
wounds Aphrodite in the hand, and sends her crying home
to her father. Once or twice Milton has ventured too

PARADISE LOST.

183

Kill.]

near the limit of material adaptation, trying to explain
how angelic natures subsist, as in the passage ( Paradise
Lost , y. 405) where Raphael tells Adam that angels eat
and digest food like man. Taste here receives a shock,
because the incongruity, which before was latent, is forced
upon our attention. We are threatened with being trans-
ported out of the conventional world of Heaven, Hell,
Chaos, and Paradise, to which we had well adapted our-
selves, into the real world in which we know that such
beings could not breathe and move.

Por the world of Paradise Lost is an ideal, conventional
world, quite as much as the world of the Arabian Nights ,
or the world of the chivalrous romance, or that of the
pastoral novel. Hot only dramatic, but ail, poetry is
founded on illusion. We must, though it be but for the
moment, suppose it true. We must be transported out of
the actual world into that world in which the given scene
is laid. It is chiefly the business of the poet to effect this
transportation, but the reader (or hearer) must aid. “ Willst
du Dichter ganz verstehen, musst in Dichter’s Lande
gehen.” If the reader’s imagination is not active enough
to assist the poet, he must at least not resist him. When
we are once inside the poet’s heaven, our critical faculty
may justly require that what takes place there shall be
consistent with itself*, with the laws of that fantastic
world. But we may not begin by objecting that it is
impossible that such a world should exist. If, in any
age, the power of imagination is enfeebled, the reader
becomes more unable to make this effort ; he ceases to
co-operate with the poet. Much of the criticism on Para-
dise Lost which we meet with resolves itself into a refusal
on the part of the critic, to make that initial abondonment
to the conditions which the poet demands ; a determina-

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[ghaf.

tion to insist that his heaven, peopled with deities, domi-
nations, principalities, and powers, shall have the same
material laws which govern our planetary system. It is
not, as we often hear it said, that the critical faculty is
unduly developed in the nineteenth century. It is that
the imaginative faculty fails us ; and when that is the
case, criticism is powerless — it has no fundamental as-
sumption upon which its judgments can proceed.

It is the triumph of Milton's skill to have made his
ideal world actual, if not to every English mind's eye, yet
to a larger number of minds than have ever been reached
by any other poetry in our language. Popular (in the
common use of the word) Milton has not been, and cannot
be. But the world he created has taken possession of
the public mind. Huxley complains that the false
cosmogony, which will not yield to the conclusions of
scientific research, is derived from the seventh book of
Paradise Lost , rather than from Genesis. This success
Milton owes partly to his selection of his subject, partly
to his skill in handling it. In his handling, he presents
his spiritual existences with just so much relief as to
endow them with life and personality, and not with that
visual distinctness which would at once reveal their
spectral immateriality, and so give a shock to the illusion.
We might almost say of his personages that they are
shapes, “ if shape it might be called, that shape had
none." By his art of suggestion by association, he does
all he can to aid us to realise his agents, and at the
moment when distinctness would disturb, he withdraws
the object into a mist, and so disguises the incongruities
which he could not avoid. The tact that avoids
difficulties inherent in the nature of things, is an art
which gets the least appreciation either in life or in litera-

PARADISE) LOST.

185

XIII.]

ture. But if we would have some measure of the skill
which in Paradise Lost ha3 made impossible beings
possible to the imagination, we may find it in contrasting
them with the incarnated abstraction and spirit voices,
which we encounter at every turn in Shelley, creatures
who leave behind them no more distinct impression than
that we have been in a dream peopled with ghosts.
Shelley, too,

Voyag’d fch’ unreal, vast, unbounded deep

Of horrible conf usion.

Paradise Lost, x„ 470.

and left it the chaos which he found it. Milton has
elicited from similar elements a conception so life-like
that his poetical version has inseparably grafted itself upon,
if it has not taken the place of, the historical narrative of
the original creation.

So much Milton has effected by his skilful treatment.
But the illusion was greatly facilitated by his choice of
subject. He had not to create his supernatural personages,
they were already there. The Father, and the Son, the
Angels, Satan, Baal and Moloch, Adam and Eve, were in
full possession of the popular imagination, and more
familiar to it than any other set of known names. Hor
was the belief accorded to them a half belief, a bare ad-
mission of their possible existence, such as prevails at
other times or in some countries. In the England of
Milton, the angels and devils of the Jewish Scriptures were
more real beings, and better vouched, than any historical
personages could be. The old chronicles were full of lies,
but this was Bible truth. There might very likely have
been a Henry VIII., and he might have been such as he
is described, but at any rate he was dead and gone, while

186 THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674, [chap*

Satan still lived and walked the earth, the identical Satan
who had deceived Eve.

Nor was it only to the poetic public that his personages
were real, true, and living beings. The poet himself be-
lieved as entirely in their existence as did his readers. I
insist upon this point, because one of the first of living
critics has declared of Paradise Lost that it is a poem in
which every artifice of invention is consciously employed,
not a single fact being, for an instant, conceived as tenable
by any living faith. (Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies , p. 138).
On the contrary, we shall not rightly apprehend either the
poetry or the character of the poet until we feel that
throughout Paradise Lost , as in Paradise Regained and
Samson , Milton felt himself to be standing on the sure
ground of fact and reality. It was not in Milton's nature
to be a showman, parading before an audience a phantas-
magoria of spirits, which he himself knew to be puppets
tricked up for the entertainment of an idle hour. We are
told by Lockhart, that the old man who told the story of
Gilpin Horner to Lady Dalkeith bona fide believed the
existence of the elf. Lady Dalkeith repeated the tale to
Walter Scott, who worked it up with consummate skill
into the Lay of the Last Minstrel . This is a case of a
really believed legend of diablerie becoming the source of
a literary fiction. Scott neither believed in the reality of
the goblin page himself, nor expected his readers to believe
it. He could not rise beyond the poetry of amusement,
and no poetry with only this motive can ever be more than
literary art.

Other than this was Milton's conception of his own
function. Of the fashionable verse, such as was written
in the Caroline age, or in any age, he disapproved, not only
because it was imperfect art, but because it was untrue

PARADISE LOST.

187

XIII.]

utterance. Poems that were raised “from the heat of
youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at
waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the
trencher fury of a rhyming parasite/’ were in his eyes
treachery to the poet’s high vocation.

Poetical powers “ are the inspired gift of God rarely bestowed
... in every nation, and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit,
to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and
public civility, to allay the perturbation of the mind, and set the
affections in right tune ; to celebrate in glorious and lofty
hymns the throne and equipage of God’s almightiness, and what
he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence
in his church ; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints,
the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly
through faith against the enemies of Christ ; to deplore the
general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God’s
true worship.”

So he had written in 1642, and this lofty faith in his
calling supported him twenty years later, in the arduous
labour of his attempt to realise his own ideal. In setting
himself down to compose Paradise Lost and Regained , he
regarded himself not as an author, but as a medium,
the mouthpiece of “ that eternal Spirit who can enrich
with all utterance and all knowledge : Urania, heavenly
muse,” visits him nightly,

And dictates to me slumb’ring, or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse.

Paradise Lost, ix. 24.

Urania bestows the flowing words and musical sweetness :
to God’s Spirit he looks to

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

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THIRD PERIOD. 1680-1674.

£obap.

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Paradise Lost} iii. 60.

The singers with whom he would fain equal himself are
not Dante, or Tasso, or, as Dryden would have it, Spenser,
but

Blind Thamyris, and blind Mseonides,

And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.

&s he is equalled with these in misfortune — loss of sight
— he would emulate them in function. Orpheus and
Musasus are the poets he would fain have as the com-
panions of his midnight meditation ( Penseroso ). And
the function of the poet is like that of the prophet in the
old dispensation, not to invent, but to utter. It is God's
truth which passes his lips — lips hallowed by the touch
of sacred fire. He is the passive instrument through
whom flows the emanation from on high ; his words are
not his own, but a suggestion. Even for style Milton is
indebted to his “ celestial patroness who deigns her
nightly visitation unimplor’cL”

Milton was not dependent upon a dubious tradition in
the subject he had selected. Man’s fall and recovery were
recorded in the Scriptures. And the two media of truth,
the internal and the external, as deriving from the same
source, must needs be in harmony. That the Spirit en-
lightens the mind within, in this belief the Puritan saint,
the poet, and the prophet, who all met in Milton, were at
one. That the Old Testament Scriptures were also a reve-
lation from God, was an article of faith which he had never
questioned. Nor did he only receive these books as con-
veying in substance a divine view of the world’s history,
he regarded them as in the letter a transcript of fact.

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

189

If the poet-prophet would tell the story of creation or
redemption, he was thus restrained not only by the genera]
outline and imagery of the Bible, hut by its very words.
And here we must note the skill of the poet in surmount-
ing an added or artificial difficulty, in the subject he had
chosen as combined with his notion of inspiration. He
must not deviate in a single syllable from the words of
the Hebrew books. He must take up into his poem the
whole of the sacred narrative. This he must do, not
merely because his readers would expect such literal
accuracy from him, but because to himself that narrative
was the very truth which he was undertaking to deliver.
The additions which his fancy or inspiration might supply
must be restrained by this severe law, that they should be
such as to aid the reader’s imagination to conceive how
the event took place. They must by no means be suffered
to alter, disfigure, traduce the substance or the letter of the
revelation. This is what Milton has done. He has told
the story of creation in the very words of Scripture.
The whole of the seventh book, is little more than a
paraphrase of a few verses of Genesis. What he has
added is so little incongruous with his original, that
most English men and women would probably have
some difficulty in discriminating in recollection the part
they derive from Moses, from that which they have added
from the paraphrast. In Genesis it is the serpent who
tempts Eve, in virtue of his natural wiliness. In Milton
it is Satan who has entered into the body of a serpent,
and supplied the intelligence. Here indeed Milton was
only adopting a gloss, as ancient at least as the Book of
Wisdom (ii. 24). But it is the gloss, and not the text of
Moses, which is in possession of our minds, and who has
done most to lodge it there, Milton or the commentators ?

190

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chjlp

Again, it is Milton and not Moses who makes the serpent
pluck and eat the first apple from the tree. But Bp*
Wilson comments upon the words of Genesis (iii. 6) as
though they contained this purely Miltonic circumstance.

It could hardly hut he that one oi two of the incidents
whicli Milton has supplied, the popular imagination has
been unable to homologate. Such an incident is the
placing of artillery in the wars in heaven. We reject
this suggestion, and find it mars probability. But it
would not seem so improbable to Milton’s contemporaries,
not only because it was an article of the received poetic
tradition (see Ronsard 6, p. 40), but also because fire-arms
had not quite ceased to be regarded as a devilish enginery
of a new warfare, unfair in the knightly code of honour,
a base substitute of mechanism for individual valour. It
was gunpowder and not Don Quixote which had destroyed
the age of chivalry.

Another of Milton’s fictions which has been found
too grotesque is the change (P. L., x. 508) of the demons
into serpents, who hiss their Prince on his return from his
embassy. Here it is not, I think, so much the unnatural
character of the incident itself, as its gratuitousness
which offends. It does not help us to conceive the
situation. A suggestion of Chateaubriand may therefore
go some way towards reconciling the reader even to this
caprice of imagination. It indicates, he says, the degra-
dation of Satan, who, from the superb Intelligence of the
early scenes of the poem, is become at its close a hideous
reptile. He has not triumphed, but has failed, and is
degraded into the old dragon, who haunts among the
damned. The bruising of his head has already com-
menced.

The bridge, again, which Sin and Death construct

xiii.] PARADISE REGAINED. 191

(Paradise Lost , x. 300), leading from the mouth of hell
to the wall of the world, has a chilling effect upon the
imagination of a modern reader. It does not assist the
conception of the cosmical system which we accept in the
earlier hooks. This clumsy fiction seems more at home
in the grotesque and lawless mythology of the Turks, or
in the Persian poet Sadi, who is said by Marmontel to
have adopted it from the Turk. If Milton's intention
were to reproduce Jacob's ladder, he should, like Dante
(Farad, xxi. 25), have made it the means of commu-
nication between heaven and earth.

It is possible that Milton himself, after the experiment
of Paradise Lost was fully before him, suspected that he
had supplemented too much for his purpose; that his
imagery, which was designed to illustrate history, might
stand in its light. For in the composition of Paradise
Regained (published 1671) he has adopted a much severer
style. In this poem he has not only curbed his imagi-
nation, but has almost suppressed it. He has amplified,
but has hardly introduced any circumstance which is not
in the original. Paradise Regained is little more than a
paraphrase of the Temptation as found in the synoptical
gospels. It is a marvel of ingenuity that more than two
thousand lines of blank verse can have been constructed
out of some twenty lines of prose, without the addition of
any invented incident, or the insertion of any irrelevant
digression. In the first three books of Paradise Regained
there is not a single simile. Hor yet can it be said that
the version of the gospel narrative has the fault of most
paraphrases, viz., that of weakening the effect, and ob-
literating the chiselled features of the original. Let a
reader take Paradise Regained not as a theme used as a
canvas for poetical embroidery, an opportunity for an author

132

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[CB£*«

to show off his powers of writing, hut as a bond fide attempt
to impress upon the mind the story of the Temptation,
and he will acknowledge the concealed art of the genuine
epic poet, bent before all things upon telling his tale. It
will still be capable of being alleged that the story told
does not interest; that the composition is dry, hard,
barren ; the style as of set purpose divested of the attri-
butes of poetry. It is not necessary indeed that an epic
should be in twelve boobs; but we do demand in an
epic poem multiplicity of character and variety of in-
cident. In Paradise Regained there are only two per-
sonages, both of whom are supernatural Indeed, they
can scarcely be called personages ; the poet, in his fidelity
to the letter, not having thought fit to open up the fertile
vein of delineation which was afforded by the human
character of Christ. The speakers are no more than the
abstract principles of good and evil, two voices who hold
a rhetorical disputation through four books and two
thousand lines.

The usual explanation of the frigidity of Paradise Re-
gained is the suggestion, which is nearest at hand, viz.,
that it is the effect of age. Like Ben Jonson’s New Inn}
it betrays the feebleness of senility, and has one of the
most certain marks of that stage of authorship, the
attempt to imitate himself in those points in which he
was once strong. When u glad no more, He wears a face
of joy, because He has been glad of yore.” Or it is an
“ oeuvre de lassitude,” a continuation, with the inevitable
defect of continuations, that of preserving the forms and
wanting the soul of the original, like the second parts oi
Faust , of Don Quixote , and of so many other books.

Both these explanations of the inferiority of Paradise
Regained have probability. Either of them may be true,

XIII.]

PARADISE REGAINED.

193

or both may have concurred to the common effect. In
favour of the hypothesis of senility is the fact, recorded
by Phillips, that Milton “ could not hear with patience
any such thing when related to him.” The reader will
please to note that this is the original statement, which
the critics have improved into the statement that he
preferred Paradise Regained to Paradise Lost . But

his approval of his work, even if it did not amount to
preference, looks like the old man’s fondness for his
youngest and weakest offspring.

Another view of the matter, however, i3 at least
possible. Milton's theory as to the true mode of
handling a biblical subject was, as I have said, to add
no more dressing, or adventitious circumstance, than
should assist the conception of the sacred verity. After
he had executed Paradise Lost , the suspicion arose that
he had been too indulgent to his imagination ; that he
had created too much. He would make a second experi-
ment, in which he would enforce his theory with more
vigour. In the composition of Paradise Lost he must
have experienced that the constraint he imposed upon
himself had generated, as was said of Racine, “ a pleni-
tude of soul.” He might infer that were the compression
carried still further, the reaction of the spirit might be
still increased. Poetry he had said long before should be
“ simple, sensuous, impassioned ” ( Tractate of Education).
Nothing enhances passion like simplicity. So in Paradise
Regained Milton has carried simplicity of dress to the verge
of nakedness. It is probably the most unadorned poem
extant in any language. He has pushed severe abstinence
to the extreme point, possibly beyond the point, where a
reader’s power is stimulated by the poet/s parsimony.

It may elucidate the intention of the author of Para -

Q

194

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

dise Regained , if we contrast it for a moment with a poem
constructed upon the opposite principle, that, viz., of the
maximum of adornment. Claudian’s Rape of Proserpine
(a.d. 400) is one of the most rich and elaborate poems
ever written. It has in common with Milton the cir-
cumstance that its whole action is contained in a solitary
event, viz., the carrying off of Proserpine from the vale of
Henna by Pluto. All the personages, too, are super-
human ; and the incident itself supernatural. Claudian’s
ambition was to overlay his story with the gold and
jewellery of expression and invention. Nothing is
named without being carved, decked, and coloured from
the inexhaustible resources of the poet’s treasury. This is
not done with ostentatious pomp, as the hyperbolical
heroes of vulgar novelists are painted, but always with
taste, which though lavish is discriminating.

Milton, like Wordsworth, urged his theory of parsi-
mony further in practice than he would have done, had
he not been possessed by a spirit of protest against pre-
vailing error. Milton’s own ideal was the chiselled
austerity of Greek tragedy. But he was impelled to
overdo the system of holding back, by his desire to chal-
lenge the evil spirit which was abroad. He would sepa-
rate himself not only from the Clevelands, the Denhams,
and the Drydens, whom he did not account as poets at
all, but even from the Spenserians. Thus, instead of
severe, he became rigid, and his plainness is not un-
frequently jejune.

“ Pomp and ostentation of reading,” he had once
written, “ is admired among the vulgar ; but, in matters
of religion, he is learnedest who is plainest.” As Words-
worth had attempted to regenerate poetry by recurring to
nature and to common objects, Milton would revert to

SAMSON AGONISTES.

195

XIII.]

the pure Word of God. He would present no human
adumbration of goodness, but Christ Himself. He saw
that here absolute plainness was best. In the presence
of this unique Being silence alone became the poet. This
“ higher argument ” was “ sufficient of itself ” ( Paradise
Lost , ix. 42).

There are some painters whose work appeals only to
painters, and not to the public. So the judgment of
poets and critics has been more favourable to Paradise
Regained than the opinion of the average reader. John-
son thinks that “ if it had been written, not by Milton,
but by some imitators, it would receive universal praise.”
Wordsworth thought it “ the most perfect in execution of
anything written by Milton.” And Coleridge says of it,
“ in its kind it is the most perfect poem extant.”

There is a school of critics which maintains that a poem
is, like a statue or a picture, a work of pure art, of which
beauty is the only characteristic of which the reader
should be cognisant. And beauty is wholly ideal, an abso-
lute quality, out of relation to person, time, or circum-
stance. To such readers Samson Agonistes will seem tame,
hat, meaningless, and artificial. From the point of view of
the critic of the eighteenth century, it is “ a tragedy which
only ignorance would admire and bigotry applaud ” (Dr.
Johnson). If, on the other hand, it be read as a page of
cotemporary history, it becomes human, pregnant with real
woe, the record of an heroic soul, not baffled by temporary
adversity, but totally defeated by an irreversible fate, and
unflinchingly accepting the situation, in the firm con-
viction of the righteousness of the causa If fiction is
truer than fact, fact is more tragic than fiction. In the
course of the long struggle of human liberty against the

196 THIRD PERIOD. 1660— 1674. [chap.

church, there had been terrible catastrophes. But the St.
Bartholomew, the Revocation of the Edict, the Spanish
Inquisition, the rule of Alva in the Low Countries, — these
and other days of suffering and rebuke have been left to
the dull pen of the annalist, who has variously diluted
their story in his literary circumlocution office. The
triumphant royalist reaction of 1660, when the old ser-
pent bruised the heel of freedom by totally crushing
Puritanism, is singular in this, that the agonised cry of
the beaten party has been preserved in a cotemporary
monument, the intensest utterance of the most intense of
English poets— the Samson Agonistes .

In the covert representation, which we have in this
drama, of the actual wreck of Milton, his party, and his
cause, is supplied that real basis of truth which was
necessary to inspire him to write. It is of little moment
that the incidents of Samson’s life do not form a strict
parallel to those of Milton’s life, or to the career of the
Puritan cause. The resemblance lies in the sentiment
and situation, not in the bare event. The glorious youth
of the consecrated deliverer, his signal overthrow of the
Philistine foe with means so inadequate that the hand of
God was manifest in the victory ; his final humiliation,
which he owed to his own weakness and disobedience, and
the present revelry and feasting of the uncircumcised Philis-
tines in the temple of their idol, — all these things together
constitute a parable of which no reader of Milton’s day
could possibly mistake the interpretation. More obscurely
adumbrated is the day of vengeance, when virtue should
return to the repentant backslider, and the idolatrous
crew should be smitten with a swift destruction in the
midst of their insolent revelry. Add to these the two
great personal misfortunes of the poet’s life, his first

XIII.]

SAMSON AGONISTES.

197

marriage with a Philistine woman, out of sympathy with
him or his cause, and his blindness ; and the basis of
reality becomes so complete, that the nominal personages
of the drama almost disappear behind the history which
we read through them.

But while for the biographer of Milton Samson
Agonistes is charged with a pathos, which as the ex-
pression of real suffering no Active tragedy can equal, it
must be felt that as a composition the drama is languid,
nerveless, occasionally halting, never brilliant. If the
date of the composition of the Samson be 1663, this may
have been the result of weariness after the effort of
Paradise Lost. If this drama were composed in 1667,
it would be the author’s last poetical effort, and the
natural explanation would then be that his power over
language was failing. The power of metaphor, i. e. of
indirect expression, is, according to Aristotle, the cha-
racteristic of genius. It springs from vividness of con
ception of the thing spoken of. It is evident that this
intense action of the presentative faculty is no longer at
the disposal of the writer of Samson. In Paradise Re-
gained we are conscious of a purposed restraint of strength.
The simplicity of its style is an experiment, an essay of a
new theory of poetic words. The simplicity of Samson
Agonistes is a flagging of the forces, a drying up of the
rich sources from which had once flowed the golden stream
of suggestive phrase which makes Paradise Lost a unique
monument of the English language. I could almost fancy
that the consciousness of decay utters itself in the lines
(594)—

I feel my genial spirits droop,

My hopes all fiat, nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself,

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

My race of glory inn, and race of shame,

And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

The point of view I have insisted on is that Milton
conceives a poet to be one who employs his imagination
to make a revelation of truth, truth which the poet him-
self entirely believes. One objection to this point of
view will at once occur to the reader, the habitual em-
ployment in both poems of the fictions of pagan myth-
ology. This is an objection as old as Miltonic criticism.
The objection came from those readers who had no
difficulty in realising the biblical scenes, or in accepting
demoniac agency, but who found their imagination re-
pelled by the introduction of the gods of Greece or Eome.
It is not that the biblical heaven and the Greek Olympus
are incongruous, but it is that the unreal is blended with
the real, in a way to destroy credibility.

To this objection the answer has been supplied by De
Quincey. To Milton the personages of the heathen
Pantheon were not merely familiar fictions, or established
poetical, properties; they were evil spirits. That they
were so was the creed of the early interpreters. In their
demonology, the Hebrew and the Greek poets had a com-
mon ground. Up to the advent of Christ, the fallen
angels had been permitted to delude mankind. To Milton,
as to Jerome, Moloch was Mars, and Chemosh Priapus.
Plato knew of hell as Tartarus, and the battle of the
giants in Hesiod is no fiction, but an obscured tradition
of the war once waged in heaven. What has been ad-
verse to Milton’s art of illusion is, that the belief that
the gods of the heathen world were the rebellious angels
has ceased to be part of the common creed of Christendom.
Milton was nearly the last of our great writers who was
fully possessed of the doctrine. His readers now no

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

199

longer share it with the poet. In Addison’s time (1712)
some of the imaginary persons in Paradise Lost were
beginning to make greater demands upon the faith of
readers, than those cool rationalistic times could meet.

There is an element of decay and death in poems which
we vainly style immortal. Some of the sources of
Milton’s power are already in process of drying up. I do
not speak of the ordinary caducity of language, in virtue
of which every effusion of the human spirit is lodged in
a body of death. Milton suffers little as yet from this
cause. There are few lines in his poems which are less
intelligible now, than they were at the time they were
written. This is partly to be ascribed to his limited
vocabulary, Milton, in his verse, using not more than
eight thousand words, or about half the number used by
Shakespeare. Hay, the position of our earlier writers has
been improved by the mere spread of the English language
over a wider area. Addison apologised for Paradise Lost
falling short of the JEneid, because of the inferiority of
the language in which it was written. “ So divine a
poem in English is like a stately palace built of brick.”
The defects of English for purposes of rhythm and har-
mony are as great now as they ever were, but the space
that our speech fills in the world is vastly increased, and
this increase of consideration is reflected back upon our
older writers.

But if, as a treasury of poetic speech, Paradise Lost
has gained by time, it has lost far more as a storehouse
of divine truth. We at this day are better able than
ever to appreciate its force of expression, its grace of
phrase, its harmony of rhythmical movement, but it is
losing its hold over our imagination. Strange to say, this
failure of vital power in the constitution of the poem is

200

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

due to the very selection of subject by which Milton sought
to secure perpetuity. Not content with being the poet of
men, and with describing human passions and ordinary
events, he aspired to present the destiny of the whole race
of mankind, to tell the story of creation, and to reveal the
councils of heaven and hell. And he would raise this
structure upon no unstable base, but upon the sure
foundation of the written word. It would have been a
thing incredible to Milton that the hold of the Jewish
Scriptures over the imagination of English men and
women could ever be weakened. This process, however,
has already commenced. The demonology of the poem
has already, with educated readers, passed from the
region of fact into that of fiction. Not so universally,
but with a large number of readers, the angelology can
be no more than what the critics call machinery. And
it requires a violent effort from any of our day to
accommodate their conceptions to the anthropomorphic
theology of Paradise Lost Were the sapping process to
continue at the same rate for two more centuries, the
possibility of epic illusion would be lost to the whole
scheme and economy of the poem. Milton has taken a
scheme of life for life itself. Had he, in the choice of
subject, remembered the principle of the Aristotelean
Poetic (which he otherwise highly prized), that men in
action are the poet’s proper theme, he would have raised
his imaginative fabric on a more permanent foundation \
upon the appetites, passions, and emotions of men, their
vices and virtues, their aims and ambitions, which are a
far more constant quantity than any theological system.
This perhaps was what Goethe meant, when he pro-
nounced the subject of Paradise Lost to be “ abominable,
with a fair outside, but rotten inwardly.”

PARADISE LOST.

201

Kill.]

Whatever fortune may be in store for Paradise Lost in
the time to come, Milton's choice of subject was, at the
time he wrote, the only one which offered him the
guarantees of reality, authenticity, and divine truth,
which he required. We need not therefore search the
annals of literature to find the poem which may have
given the first suggestion of the fall of man as a subject.
This, however, has been done by curious antiquaries, and
a list of more than two dozen authors has been made,
from one or other of whom Milton may have taken either
the general idea or particular hints for single incidents.
Milton, without being a very wide reader, was likely to
have seen the Adamus Exul of Grotius (1601), and he
certainly had read Giles Fletcher's Chrisfs Victory and
Triumph (1610). There are traces of verbal reminiscence
of Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas . Eut out of the
long catalogue of his predecessors there appear only three,
who can claim to have conceived the same theme with
anything like the same breadth, or on the same scale as
Milton has done. These are the so-called Caedmon,
Andreini, and Yondel.

1. The anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem which passes
under the name of Caedmon has this one point of resem-
blance to the plot of Paradise Lost , that in it the seduction
of Eve is Satan's revenge for his expulsion from heaven.
As Francis Junius was much occupied upon this poem of
which he published the text in 1655, it is likely enough
that he should have talked of it with his friend Milton.

2. Voltaire related that Milton during his tour in Italy
(1638) had seen performed UAdamo , a sacred drama by
the Florentine Giovanni Battista Andreini, and that he
“took from that ridiculous trifle" the hint of the “noblest
product of human imagination.” Though Voltaire relates

202

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap,

this as a matter of fact, it is doubtful if it be more than
an on dit which he had picked up in London society.
Voltaire could not have seen Andreini’s drama, for it is
not at all a ridiculous trifle. Though much of the
dialogue is as insipid as dialogue in operettas usually is,
there is great invention in the plot, and animation in the
action. Andreini is incessantly offending against taste,
and is infected with the vice of the Marinists, the
pursuit of concetti , or far-fetched analogies between things
unlike. His infernal personages are grotesque and dis-
gusting, rather than terrible; his scenes in heaven childish
—at once familiar and fantastic, in the style of the
Mysteries of the age before the drama. With all these
faults the Adamo is a lively and spirited representation
of the Hebrew legend, and not unworthy to have been
the antecedent of Paradise Lost. There is no question
of plagiarism, for the resemblance is not even that of
imitation or parentage, or adoption. The utmost that
can be conceded is to concur in Hayley’s opinion that,
either in representation or in perusal, the Adamo of
Andreini had made an impression on the mind of Milton ;
had, as Voltaire says, revealed to him the hidden majesty
of the subject. There had been at least three editions
of the Adamo by 1641, and Milton may have brought
one of these with him, among the books which he had
shipped from Venice, even, if he had not seen the drama
on the Italian stage, or had not, as Todd suggests, met
Andreini in person.

So much appears to me to be certain from the internal
evidence of the two compositions as they stand. But
there are further some slight corroborative circumstances,
(i.) The Trinity College sketch, so often referred to, of
Milton’s scheme when it was intended to be dramatic,

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

203

keeps much more closely, both in its personages and in
its ordering, to Andreini. (ii.) In Phillips's Theatrum
Poetarum, a compilation in which he had his uncle's
help, Andreini is mentioned as author “of a fantastic
poem entitled Olivastro, which was printed at Bologna,
1642.” If Andreini was known to Edward Phillips, the
inference is that he was known to Milton.

3. Lastly, though external evidence is here wanting,
it cannot be doubted that Milton was acquainted with
the Lucifer of the Dutch poet, Joost van den Vondel,
which appeared in 1654. This poem is a regular five-act
drama in the Dutch language, a language which Milton
was able to read. In spite of commercial rivalry and
naval war there was much intercourse between the two
republics, and Amsterdam books came in regular course
to London. The Dutch drama turns entirely on the
revolt of the angels, and their expulsion from heaven, the
fall of man being but a subordinate incident. In Para-
dise Lost the relation of the two ©vents is inverted, the
fall of the angels being there an episode, not transacted,
but told by one of the personages of the epic. It is
therefore only in one book of Paradise Lost , the sixth, that
the influence of Yondel can be looked for. There may
possibly occur in other parts of our epic single lines
of which an original may be found in Vondel's drama.
Notably such a one is the often-quoted—

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Paradise Lost , i. 263.

which is YondeTs—

En liever d’eerste Vorst in eenigh lager hof

Dan in’t gezalight licht de tweede, of noch een minder !

But it is in the sixth book only in which anything more

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THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674,

[chap.

than a verbal similarity is traceable. According to Mr.
Gosse, who has given an analysis, with some translated
extracts, of V ondel’s Lucifer , the resemblances are too
close and too numerous to be mere coincidences. Yondel
is more human than Milton, just where human attributes
are unnatural, so that heaven is made to seem like earth,
while in Paradise Lost we always feel that we are in a
region aloft. Miltonic presentation has a dignity and
elevation, which is not only wanting but is sadly missed
in the Dutch drama, even the language of which seems
common and familiar.

The poems now mentioned form, taken together, the
antecedents of Paradise Lost In no one instance, taken
singly, is the relation of Milton to a predecessor that of
imitation, not even to the extent in which the iEneid, for
instance, is an imitation of the Iliad and Odyssey. The
originality of Milton lies not in his subject, but in his
manner ; not in his thoughts, but in his mode of thinking.
His story and his personages, their acts and words, had
been the common property of all poets since the fall of
the Roman Empire. Hot only the three I have specially
named had boldly attempted to set forth a mythical
representation of the origin of evil, but many others had
fluttered round the same central object of poetic attraction.
Many of these productions Milton had read, and they had
made their due impression on his mind according to their
degree of force. When he began to compose Paradise Lost
he had the reading of a life-time behind him. His ima-
gination worked upon an accumulated store, to which
books, observation, and reflection had contributed in equal
proportions. He drew upon this store without conscious
distinction of its sources. Hot that this was a recollected
material, to which the poet had recourse whenever inven-

Mil.]

PARADISE LOST.

205

fcion failed him ; it was identified with himselt His verse
flowed from his own soul, but his was a soul which had
grown up nourished with the spoil of all the ages. He
created his epic, as metaphysicians have said that God
created the world, by drawing it out of himself, not by
building it up out of elements supplied ah extra .

The resemblances to earlier poets, Greek, Latin, Italian,
which could be pointed out in Paradise Lost , were so
numerous that in 1695, only twenty-one years after
Milton’s death, an editor, one Patrick Hume, a school-
master in the neighbourhood of London, was employed by
Tonson to point out the imitations in an annotated edition.
From that time downwards, the diligence of our literary
antiquaries has been busily employed in the same track of
research, and it has been extended to the English poets, a
field which was overlooked, or not known to the first
collector. The result is a valuable accumulation of parallel
passages, which have been swept up into our variorum
Miltons, and make Paradise Lost , for English phraseology,
what Virgil was for Latin in the middle ages, the centre
round which the study moves. The learner, who desires
to cultivate his feeling for the fine shades and variations
of expression, has here a rich opportunity, and will acknow-
ledge with gratitude the laborious services of Newton,
Pearce, the Wartons, Todd, Mitford, and other compilers.
But these heaped-up citations of parallel passages some-
what tend to hide from us the secret of Miltonic language.
We are apt to think that the magical effect of Milton’s
words has been produced by painfully inlaying tessera
of borrowed metaphor — a mosaic of bits culled from exten-
sive reading, carried along by a retentive memory, and
pieced together so as to produce a new whole, with the
exquisite art of a Japanese cabinet-maker. It is some-

206

THIRD PERIOD. 1660— 1674.

[chap.

times admitted that Milton was a plagiary, but it is urged
in extenuation that his plagiarisms were always repro-
duced in finer forms.

It is not in the spirit of vindicating Milton, hut as
touching the mystery of metrical language, that I dwell a
few moments upon this misconception. It is true that
Milton has a way of making his own even what he
borrows. While Horace’s thefts from Alcaeus or Pindar
are palpable, even from the care which he takes to Latinise
them, Milton cannot help transfusing his own nature into
the words he adopts. But this is far from all. When
Milton’s widow was asked “if he did not often read
Homer and Yirgil, she understood it as an imputation
upon him for stealing from those authors, and answered
with eagerness, that he stole from nobody but the muse
who inspired him.” This is more true than she knew. It
is true there are many phrases or images in Paradise Lost
taken from earlier writers — taken, not stolen, for the
borrowing is done openly. When Adam, for instance, begs
Baphael to prolong his discourse deep into night, —

Sleep, listening to thee, will watch 5
Or we can bid his absence, till thy song
End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine j

we cannot be mistaken in saying that we have here a con-
scious reminiscence of the words of Alcinous to Ulysses in
the eleventh book of the Odyssey. Such imitation is on
the surface, and does not touch the core of that mysterious
combination of traditive with original elements in diction,
which Milton and Yirgil, alone of poets known to us,
have effected. Here and there, many times, in detached
places, Milton has consciously imitated. But, beyond
this obvious indebtedness, there runs through the whole

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

207

texture of his verse a suggestion of secondary meaning, a
meaning which has been accreted to the words, by their
passage down the consecrated stream of classical poetry.
Milton quotes very little for a man of much reading. He
says of himself ( Judgment of Bucer) that he “ never could
delight in long citations, much less in whole traductions,
whether it be natural disposition or education in me, or
that my mother bore me a speaker of what God made
mine own, and not a translator.” And the observation is
as old as Eishop Hewton, that “there is scarce any author
who has written so much, and upon such various subjects,
and yet quotes so little from his cotemporary authors.” It is
said that “ he could repeat Homer almost all without book.”
But we know that common minds are apt to explain to
themselves the working of mental superiority, by exagge-
rating the power of memory. Milton’s own writings remain
a sufficient evidence that his was not a verbal memory.
And, psychologically, the power of imagination and the
power of verbal memory, are almost always found in
inverse proportion.

Milton’s diction is the elaborated outcome of all the best
words of all antecedent poetry, not by a process of recol-
lected reading and storage, but by the same mental habit
by which we learn to speak our mother tongue. Only, in
the case of the poet, the vocabulary acquired has a new
meaning superadded to the words, from the occasion on
which they have been previously employed by others.
Words, over and above their dictionary signification, con-
note all the feeling which has gathered round them by
reason of their employment through a hundred generations
of song. In the words of Mr. Myers, “ without ceasing
to be a logical step in the argument, a phrase becomes a
centre of emotional force. The complex associations which

208

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[CHAP.

it evokes, modify the associations evoked by other words
in the same passage, in a way distinct from logical or
grammatical connection.” The poet suggests much more
than he says, or as Milton himself has phrased it, “ more
is meant than meets the ear.”

For the purposes of poetry a thought is the representa-
tive of many feelings, and a word is the representative of
many thoughts. A single word may thus set in motion
in us the vibration of a feeling first consigned to letters
3000 years ago. For oratory words should he winged,
that they may do their work of persuasion. For poetry
words should he freighted with associations of feeling, that
they may awaken sympathy. It is the suggestive power
of words that the poet cares for, rather than their current
denotation. How laughable are the attempts of the
commentators to interpret a line in Virgil as they would
a sentence in Aristotle's Physics / Milton's secret lies in
his mastery over the rich treasure of this inherited vocabu-
lary. He wielded it as his own, as a second mother-
tongue, the native and habitual idiom of his thought and
feeling, hacked by a massive frame of character, and “a
power which is got within me to a passion.” (Areopa-
gitica.)

When Wordsworth came forward at the end of the
eighteenth century with his famous reform of the language
of English poetry, the Miltonic diction was the current
coin paid out by every versifier. Wordsworth revolted
against this dialect as unmeaning, hollow, gaudy, and inane.
His reform consisted in dropping the consecrated phraseo-
logy altogether, and reverting to the common language
of ordinary life. It was necessary to do this in order to
reconnect poetry with the sympathies of men, and make it
again a true utterance instead of the ingenious exercise in

PARADISE LOST.

209

XIII.]

putting together words, which it had become. In project-
ing this abandonment of the received tradition, it may be
thought that Wordsworth was condemning the Miltonic
system of expression in itself. But this was not so.
Milton's language had become in the hands of the imitators
of the eighteenth century sound without sense, a husk
without the kernel, a body of words without the soul of
poetry. Milton had created and wielded an instrument
which was beyond the control of any less than himself.
He used it as a living language ; the poetasters of the
eighteenth century wrote it as a dead language, as boys
make Latin verses. Their poetry is to Paradise Lost , as
a modern Gothic restoration is to a genuine middle-age
church. It was against the feeble race of imitators, and
not against the master himself, that the protest of the lake
poet was raised. He proposed to do away with the
Miltonic vocabulary altogether, not because it was in itself
vicious, but because it could now only be employed at
secondhand.

One drawback there was attendant upon the style chosen
by Milton, viz. that it narrowly limited the circle of his
readers. All words are addressed to those who understand
them. The Welsh triads are not for those who have not
learnt Welsh ; an English poem is only for those who
understand English. But of understanding English there
are many degrees ; it requires some education to under-
stand literary style at all. A large majority of the natives
of any country possess, and use, only a small fraction of
their mother tongue. These people may be left out of the
discussion. Confining ourselves only to that small part of
our millions which we speak of as the educated classes,
that is those whose schooling is carried on beyond fourteen
years of age, it will be found that only a small fraction of

F

210

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[chap.

the men, and a still smaller fraction of the women, fully
apprehend the meaning of words. This is the case with
what is written in the ordinary language of hooks. When
we pass from a style in which words have only their
simple signification, to a style of which the effect depends on
the suggestion of collateral association, we leave behind
the majority even of these few. This is what is meant
by the standing charge against Milton that he is too
learned.

It is no paradox to say that Milton was not a learned
man. Such men there were in his day, Usher, Selden,
Y oss, in England ; in Holland, Milton’s adversary Salmasius,
and many more. A learned man was one who could range
freely and surely over the whole of classical and patristic
remains in the Greek and Latin languages (at least), with
the accumulated stores of philological, chronological,
historical criticism, necessary for the interpretation of
those remains. Milton had neither made these acquisi-
tions, nor aimed at them. He even expresses himself, in
his vehement way, with contempt of them. “ Hollow
antiquities sold by the seeming bulk,” “ marginal stuff-
ings,” “ horse-loads of citations and fathers,” are some of
his petulant outbursts against the learning that had been
played upon his position by his adversaries. He says ex-
pressly that he had “ not read the Councils, save here and
there ” (Smectymnuus) . His own practice had been

“ industrious and select reading.” He chose to make
himself a scholar rather than a learned man. The aim of
his studies was to improve faculty, not to acquire know-
ledge. “ Who would be a poet must himself be a true
poem ;” his heart should “ contain of just, wise, good, the
perfect shape.” He devoted himself to self-preparation
with the assiduity of Petrarch or of Goethe. “ In weari-

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

211

some labour and studious watchings I have tired out
almost a whole youth.” “ Labour and intense study I
take to be my portion in this life.” He would know,
not all, but “ what was of use to know,” and form himself
by assiduous culture. The first Englishman to whom the
designation of our series, Men of Letters , is appropriate,
Milton was also the noblest example of the type. He
cultivated, not letters, but himself, and sought to enter
into possession of his own mental kingdom, not that ho
might reign there, but that he might royally use its re-
sources in building up a work, which should bring honour
to his country and his native tongue.

The style of Paradise Lost is then only the natural ex-
pression of a soul thus exquisitely nourished upon the best
thoughts and finest words of all ages. It is the language
of one who lives in the companionship of the great and
the wise of past time. It is inevitable that when such a
one speaks, his tones, his accent, the melodies of his
rhythm, the inner harmonies of his linked thoughts, the
grace of his allusive touch, should escape the common ear.
To follow Milton one should at least have tasted the
same training through which he put himself. “ Te quoque
dignum finge deo.” The many cannot see it, and com-
plain that the poet is too learned. They would have
Milton talk like Bunyan or William Cobbett, whom they
understand. Milton did attempt the demagogue in his
pamphlets, only with the result of blemishing his fame and
degrading his genius. The best poetry is that which calls
upon us to rise to it, not that which writes down to us.

Milton knew that his was not the road to popularity.
He thirsted for renown, but he did not confound renown
with vogue. A poet has his choice between the many
and the few ; Milton chose the few. “ Paucis hujusmodi

212

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[crap.

lectoribus contentus,” is his own inscription in a copy oi
his pamphlets sent by him to Patrick Young. He derived
a stern satisfaction from the reprobation with which the
vulgar visited him. His divorce tracts were addressed
to men who dared to think, and ran the town “ number-
ing good intellects. ” His poems he wished laid up in the
Bodleian Library, " where the jabber of common people
cannot penetrate, and whence the base throng of readers
keep aloof” ( Ode to Rouse). If Milton resembled a Roman
republican in the severe and stoic elevation of his cha-
racter, he also shared the aristocratic intellectualism of
the classical type. He is in marked contrast to the level-
ling hatred of excellence, the Christian trades-unionism of
the model Catholic of the mould of S. Francis de Sales,
whose maxim of life is “ mar chons avec la troupe de nos
freres et compagnons, doucement, paisiblement, et ami-
ablement.” To Milton the people are—

But a herd confus’d,

A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
Things vulgar.

Pcvradise Regained , iii. 49.

At times his indignation carries him past the cour-
tesies of equal speech, to pour out the vials of prophetic
rebuke, when he contemplates the hopeless struggle of
those who are the salt of the earth, “ amidst the throng and
noises of vulgar and irrational men ” ( Tenure of Kings) ,
and he rates them to their face as “ owls and cuckoos,
asses, apes, and dogs ” {Sonnet xix.) ; not because they will
not listen to him, but because they “ hate learning more
than toad or asp ” {Sonnet ix.).

Milton’s attitude must be distinguished from patrician
pride, or the noli-me-tangere of social exclusiveness. Nor,
again, was it, like Callimachus’s, the fastidious repulsion

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

213

of a delicate taste for the hackneyed in literary expression ;
it was the lofty disdain of aspiring virtue for the sordid
and ignoble.

Various ingredients, constitutional or circumstantial,
concurred to produce this repellent or unsympathetic atti-
tude in Milton. His dogmatic Calvinism, from the effects
of which his mind never recovered— a system which easily
disposes to a cynical abasement of our fellow-men — counted
for something. Something must be set down to habitual
converse with the classics — a converse which tends to im-
part to character, as Platner said of Godfrey Hermann, “ a
certain grandeur and generosity, removed from the spirit
of cabal and mean cunning which prevail among men of
the world.” His blindness threw him out of the com-
petition of life, and back upon himself, in a way which
was sure to foster egotism. These were constitutional
elements of that aloofness from men which characterised
all his utterance. These disposing causes became inex-
orable fate, when, by the turn of the political wheel of
fortune, he found himself alone amid the mindless
dissipation and reckless materialism of the Restoration,
He felt himself then at war with human society as
constituted around him, and was thus driven to with-
draw himself within a poetic world of his own crea-
tion.

In this antagonism of the poet to his age much was
lost ; much energy was consumed in what was mere
friction. The artist is then most powerful when he finds
himself in accord with the age he lives in. The pleni-
tude of art is only reached when it marches with the
sentiments which possess a community. The defiant
attitude easily slides into paradox, and the mind falls in
love with its own wilfulness. The exceptional emergence

214 THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674. I[chap.

of Milton’s three poems, Paradise Lost , Regained , and
Samson , deeply colours their context. The greatest
achievements of art in their kinds have been the capital
specimens of a large crop ; as the Iliad and Odyssey are
the picked lines out of many rhapsodies, and Shakespeare
the king of an army of contemporary dramatists. Milton
was a survival, felt himself such, and resented it.

Unchang'd,

Though fall'n on evil days,

On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues ;

In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round,

And solitude.

Paradise Lost , vii. 24.

Poetry thus generated we should naturally expect to
meet with more admiration than sympathy. And such,
on the whole, has been Milton's reception. In 1678,
twenty years after the publication of Paradise Lost , Prior
spoke of him ( Hind transversed ) as “ a rough, unhewn
fellow, that a man must sweat to read him.” And in
1842, Hallam had doubts “ if Paradise Lost , published
eleven years since, would have met with a greater de-
mand ” than it did at first. It has been much disputed
by historians of our literature what inference is to be
drawn from the numbers sold of Paradise Lost at its
first publication. Between 1667 and 1678, a space of
twenty years, three editions had been printed, making
together some 4500 copies. Was this a large or a small
circulation? Opinions are at variance on the point.
Johnson and Hallam thought it a large sale, as books
went at that time. Campbell, and the majority of our
annalists of books, have considered it as evidence of
neglect. Comparison with what is known of other cases
of circulation leads to no more certain conclusion. On

PARADISE LOST.

215

am.]

the one hand, the public could not take more than three
editions — say 3000 copies — of the plays of Shakespeare
in sixty years, from 1623 to 1684. If this were a fair
measure of possible circulation at the time, we should
have *to pronounce Milton’s sale a great success. On the
other hand, Cleveland’s poems ran through sixteen or
seventeen editions in about thirty years. If this were
the average output of a popular book, the inference
would be that Paradise Lost was not such a book.

Whatever conclusion may be the true one from the
amount of the public demand, we cannot be wrong in
asserting that from the first, and now as then, Paradise
Lost has been more admired than read. The poet’s wish
and expectation that he should find “ fit audience, though
few,” has been fulfilled. Partly this has been due to
his limitation, his unsympathetic disposition, the de-
ficiency of the human element in his imagination, and
his presentation of mythical instead of real beings. But
it is also in part a tribute to his excellence, and is to be
ascribed to the lofty strain which requires more effort to
accompany, than an average reader is able to make, a
majestic demeanour which no parodist has been able to
degrade, and a wealth of allusion demanding more
literature than is possessed by any but the few whose life
is lived with the poets. An appreciation of Milton is the
last reward of consummated scholarship ; and we may
apply to him what Quintilian has said of Cicero, “ Ille se
profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit.”

Causes other than the inherent faults of the poem
long continued to weigh down the reputation of Paradise
Lost. In Great Britain the sense for art, poetry, litera-
ture, is confined to a few, while our political life has
been diffused and vigorous. Hence all judgment, even

216 THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674. [cha*.

upon a poet, is biassed by considerations of party. Be-
fore 1688 it was impossible that the poet, who had
justified regicide, could have any public beyond the sup-
pressed and crouching Nonconformists. The Revolution
of 1688 removed this ban, and from that date forward
the Liberal party in England adopted Milton as the
republican poet. William Hogg, writing in 1690, says
of Paradise Lost that “ the fame of the poem is spread
through the whole of England, but being written in
English, it is as yet unknown in foreign lands.” This is
obvious exaggeration. Lauder, about 1748, gives the
date exactly, when he speaks of “ that infinite tribute of
veneration that has been paid to him these sixty years
past” One distinguished exception there was. Dryden,
royalist and Catholic though he was, was loyal to his art.
Nothing which Dryden ever wrote is so creditable to his
taste, as his being able to see, and daring to confess, in
the day of disesteem, that the regicide poet alone deserved
the honour which his cotemporaries were for rendering
to himself. Dryden's saying, “ This man cuts us all out,
and the ancients too,” is not perfectly well vouched, but
it would hardly have been invented, if it had not been
known to express his sentiments. And Dryden’s sense
of Milton's greatness grew with his taste. When, in the
preface to his State of Innocence (1674), Dryden praised
Paradise Lost , he “ knew not half the extent of its ex-
cellence,” John Dennis says, “as more than twenty years
afterwards he confessed to me.” Had he known it, he
never could have produced his vulgar parody, The State
of Innocence, a piece upon which he received the com-
pliments of his cotemporaries, as “ having refined the ore
of Milton.”

With the one exception of Dryden, a better critic than

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

217

poet, Milton's repute was the work of the Whigs. The
first edition de luxe of Paradise Lost (1688) was brought
out by a subscription got up by the Whig leader, Lord
Somers. In this edition Dryden's pinchbeck epigram so
often quoted, first appeared —

Three poets in three distant ages born, &c.

It was the Whig essayist, Addison, whose papers in the
Spectator (1712) did most to make the poem popularly
known. In 1737, in the height of the Whig ascendancy,
the bust of Milton penetrated Westminster Abbey, though,
in the generation before, the Dean of that day had refused
to admit an inscription on the monument erected to John
Phillips, because the name of Milton occurred in it.

The zeal of the Liberal party in the propagation of the
cult of Milton was of course encountered by an equal
passion on the part of the Tory opposition. They were
exasperated by the lustre which was reflected upon De-
volution principles by the name of Milton. About the
middle of the eighteenth century, when Whig popularity
was already beginning to wane, a desperate attempt was
made by a rising Tory pamphleteer to crush the new Liberal
idol. Dr. Johnson, the most vigorous writer of the day,
conspired with one William Lauder, a native of Scotland
seeking fortune in London, to stamp out Milton's credit by
proving him to be a wholesale plagiarist. Milton's imita-
tions—he had gathered pearls wherever they were to be
found — were thus to be turned into an indictment against
him. One of the beauties of Paradise Lost is, as has been
already said, the scholar's flavour of literary reminiscence
which hangs about its words and images. This Virgilian
art, in which Milton has surpassed his master, was repre-
sented by this pair of literary bandits as theft, and held

218

THIRD PERIOD. 1660-1674.

[chap,

to prove at once moral obliquity and intellectual feeble-
ness. This line of criticism was well chosen ; it was, in
fact, an appeal to the many from the few. Unluckily for
the plot, Lauder was not satisfied with the amount of re-
semblance shown by real parallel passages. He ventured
upon the bold step of forging verses, closely resembling
lines in Paradise Lost , and ascribing these verses to older
poets. He even forged verses which he quoted as if from
Paradise Lost , and showed them as Milton’s plagiarisms
from preceding writers. Even these clumsy fictions
might have passed without detection at that uncritical
period of our literature, and under the shelter of the name
of Samuel Johnson. But Lauder’s impudence grew with
the success of his criticisms, which he brought out as letters,
through a series of years, in the Gentleman' s Magazine.
There was a translation of Paradise Lost into Latin
hexameters, which had been made in 1690 by William
Hogg. Lauder inserted lines, taken from this translation,
into passages taken from Massenius, Staphorstius, Taub-
mannus, neo-Latin poets, whom Milton had, or might have
read, and presented these passages as thefts by Milton.

Low as learning had sunk in England in 1750, Hogg’s
Latin Paradisus amissus was just the book, which tutors of
colleges who could teach Latin verses had often in their
hands. Mr. Bowie, a tutor of Oriel College, Oxford,
immediately recognised an old acquaintance in one or two
of the interpolated lines. This put him upon the scent,
he submitted Lauder’s passages to a closer investigation, and
the whole fraud was exposed. Johnson, who was not
concerned in the cheat, and was only guilty of indolence
and party spirit, saved himself by sacrificing his comrade.
He afterwards took ample revenge for the mortification of
this exposure, in his Lives of the Poets , in which he em-

XIII.]

PARADISE LOST.

219

ployed all liis vigorous powers and consummate skill to
write down Milton. He undoubtedly dealt a heavy blow
at the poet’s reputation, and succeeded in damaging it for
at least two generations of readers. He did for Milton
what Aristophanes did for Socrates, effaced the real man
and replaced him by a distorted and degrading caricature.

It was again a clergyman to whom Milton owed his
vindication from Lauder’s onslaught. John Douglas,
afterwards bishop of Salisbury, brought Bowie’s materials
before the public. But the high Anglican section of
English life has never thoroughly accepted Milton. B. S.
Hawker, vicar of Morwenstow, himself a poet of real feel-
ing, gave expression, in rabid abuse of Milton, to the
antipathy which more judicious churchmen suppress.
Even the calm and gentle author of the Christian Year ,
wide heart ill-sorted with a narrow creed, deliberately
framed a theory of Poetic for the express purpose, as it
would seem, of excluding the author of Paradise Lost
from the first class of poets.

But a work such as Milton has constructed, at once
intense and elaborate, firmly knit and broadly laid, can
afford to wait. Time is all in its favour, and against its
detractors. The Church never forgives, and faction does
not die out. But Milton has been, for two centuries, get-
ting beyond the reach of party feeling, whether of friends
or foes. In each national aggregate an instinct is always
at work, an instinct not equal to exact discrimination of
lesser degrees of merit, but surely finding out the chief
forces which have found expression in the native tongue.
This instinct is not an active faculty, and so exposed to the
influences which warp the will, it is a passive deposition
from unconscious impression. Our appreciation of our
poet is not to be measured by our choosing him for our

220

THIRD PERIOD. 1660—1674.

[CH. XIII.

favourite closet companion, or reading him often. As
Voltaire wittily said of Dante, “Sa reputation s’affirmera
toujours, parce qu'on ne le lit guere.” We shall prefer
to read the fashionable novelist of each season as it passes,
but we shall choose to be represented at the international
congress of world poets by Shakespeare and Milton;
Shakespeare first, and next Milton.

INDEX

Act of Oblivion, 138
Act of Uniformity, 153
Adamo (Andreini), 201-202
Adamus Exul (G-rotius), 201
Addison, 181, 199, 217
JEneid , 199, 204
iEschylus, Agamemnon , 30
Agar, Thomas, 44
Aldersgate, 44, 51, 63, 160
Amsterdam, 154
Anabaptists, 122
Andreini, 201-203
Animadversions on the Remon-
strants' Defence , 76
Apology against a pamphlet, etc., 7 6
Arabian Nights , 183
Aratus, 18

Arcadia (Sidney), 103
Areopagitica, 72, 80, 82-84, 208
Ariosto, 175
Aristotle, 197
Arnold, C., 135-136
Arthurian legend, 167-168, 175 -
176

Artillery Row, 159
Attaway, Mrs., 60
Aubrey, John, 1, 2, 5-6, 18, 131,
135, 145, 148, 150, 157, 164,
170

Aylmer, B., a publisher, 162

Bacon, 46, 70, 112
Baptistes, 172
Barberini, F., 37
Barbican, 63, 85, 87

Barnes, J., a plagiarist, 18
Baroni, L., an Italian singer, 37
Barrow, I., Master of Trinity, 154
Barrow, S. , physician to Charles II.,
145

Bartholomew Close, 138
Bentham, 98
Betterton, 139
Bible, the, 71, 130, 189
Birch, a printer, 166
Blake, Admiral, 128
Bodleian library, 8, 89, 212
Bodmer, a poet, 177
Bologna, 40, 53
Bowie, Oxford tutor, 218-219
Braekley, Lord, 23
Bradbury, a clergyman, 136
Bradshaw, 120
Bramhall, a detractor, 108
Bread Street, 3, 142
Brentford, 51
Bridgewater, Earl of, 21
Brief History of Moscovia, 163
Britain, History of, 70, 162
Bunhill Row, 149, 150
Bunyan, 211
Butler, Bishop, 182

Caedmon, 201
Callimachus, 212
Calvin’s Institutes , 179
Cambridge, 5-11
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 159
Carew, Caelum Rritannicum, 22
Carey, N., 38

222

MILTON.

Casaubon, 17, 106 ; Exercitations
on Baronins , 75
Chalfont St. Giles, 158-159
Chappell, 6, 7, 76, 108
Charing Cross, 97
Charles I., 69, 93, 100, 126
Charles II., 105, 109, 137, 141
Chateaubriand, 173, 190
Chilling worth, 5

Christ’s College, Cambridge, 5-11
Christ's Victory and Triumph
(Fletcher), 201
Christus Patiens , 172
Cicero, 215
Clarges, Sir T., 139
Claudian, ancient poet, 194
Claris Apocalyptica (Mede), 8
Cleveland, 194, 215
Cobbett, W., 211
Coleridge, Hartley, 19, 66
Coleridge, S. T., 182, 195
Collier, Poetical Decameron , 70
Comenius, 46

Commonplace book, Milton’s, 19
Compendium of Theology. See
Treatise of Christian Doctrine
Comus , 4, 17, 21-23, 165
Considerations to remove Hirelings ,
124

Conventicle Act, 153
Copernican theory, 180
Corneille, 90

Council of State, 93-94, 106, 119,
130, 134

Cromwell, O., 69, 81, 89, 92, 95,
98, 119-127, 135-136, 162
Cromwell, K., 98, 137

Dante, 181-182, 188, 191, 220
Davenant, 133, 139
Davis, Miss, 61-62
Davity , 163

De Doctrina Christiana , 54, 155-
156, 162

Defensio pro se, and suppl., 118
Defensio pro populo Anglicano ,

106-107, 109

Defensio Regia (Salmasius), 106,
114

Defensio Secunda , 37, 109, 110,
116, 120
Demosthenes, 70
Denbigh, Lord, 94
Dennis, 216
De Quincey, 198
Diodati, C., 17, 20, 41
Diodati, G., 40

Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,
57-60, 81

Don Quixote , 190, 192
Douglas, J., Bishop of Salisbury,
219

Dryden, 79, 90, 112, 142, 188,
194, 216-217
Du Bartas , 4, 201
Du Moulin, 115
Dutch war, 113-114, 126

Earle, a royal chaplain, 105
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (Words-
worth), 169

Edward the Confessor, 176
Egertons, the, 23

Eikon Basilike (Gauden), 100, 105
Eikonoklastes , 102
Elisabeth, Queen, 125-126
Ellwood, Thomas, 149, 158
Elzevir, Daniel, 154
England's Helicon , 134
Epigrams, Milton’s Latin, 37
Epitaphium Damonis, 41, 168
Euripides , 18, 171

Fairfax, Lord, 89, 92, 95, 131,
162

Fairfax’s Tasso , 4

Faithorne’s portrait of Milton, 148

Falkland, Lord, 38

Faust (Goethe), 192

Ferrara, 40

Fides Publica (Morus), 117
Fifth Monarchy men, 121-122
Fire, the Great, 159
Fisher, Mary, 145
Five Mile Act, 153
Fleetwood, General, 158
Fletcher, Christ's Victory and
Triumph , 201

INDEX.

223

Florence, 34-35, 39
Forest Hill, 51-52, 61-62, 86
Fox, G., 125, 152
France, 126
Francini, a poet, 36
Francois de Sales, S., 212

Galileo, 39-40, 83
Gataker, 4, 130

Gauden, author of Eikon Basilike ,
100-101, 103
Geneva, 40
Genoa, 34

Gentleman s Magazine , The , 218

Gessner, a poet, 177

Gibbon, 79, 171

Gill, Master of St. Paul’s, 4, 5

Godwin, William, 134

Goethe, 200, 210

Gosse, Edmund, 204

Grammar, Latin (Milton), 162

Greece, 39

Grotius, 34, 201

Hacket, 131

Hall, Joseph, a bishop, 76
Hallam, 53, 84, 100, 214
Harold, 176
Harrington, 95
Harrison, 122

Hartlib, Samuel, champion of
Comenius, 46-48
Hawker, a poet, 219
Hayley, a critic, 202
Pleimbach, 128, 144
Hermann, 213
Heylin, 34

High Commission Court, 73
Historia regni Italici (Sigonius),

20

History of Britain, 70, 162
Histriomastix (Prynne), 22
Hobbes, 107, 131
Hogg, W., 216, 218
Holstenius, Lucas, 37
Homer, 181
Hooker, 69-70
Horace, 27, 206
Horton, 14-15, 17-19, 44-45

Howell, Instructions for Forreine
Travel , 33
Howitt, 158

Hume, P., a schoolmaster, 205
Hutchinson, 95
Huxley, 184

Iliad , The, 182, 204, 214
II Penseroso, 9, 14, 21, 23-29, 165
Independents, 59, 61-62, 65, 120
Instructions for Forreine Travel
(Howell), 33
Isocrates, 82

James I., 126, 156
Jesuits, 126

Johnson, S., 17-18, 31, 104, 109,
130, 152, 181, 195, 214, 217-218
Jones, R., 133
Jonson, B., 112, 192

Judgment of Bucer, 207
Judgment of Dr. Raiholds (Usher),
74

Junius, F., 201

Keble, 179, 219

Keder minster, 44

King, E., Fellow of Christ’s, 8, 41

V Allegro, 14, 21, 23-31, 158, 165
Laud, 5, 73
Lauder, Wm. , 216-218
Lawes, H., celebrated composer,
21, 23

Lawrence, H., 132
Lay of the Last Minstrel (Scott),
92

Letters, Milton’s Latin, 162
Levellers, 121-122
Lexicon, Milton’s Latin, 163
Ley, Lady M., 61
Leyden, University of, 105
Lisle, 94

Lives of the Poets (Johnson), 218

Locke, 47, 155

Lockhart, 186

Logic (Milton), 162

Lowell, J. R., 144

Lucifer (Vondel), 203-204

224

MILTON.

Lucretius, 179
Ludlow, 95
Ludlow Castle, 21
Lycidas, 14, 21, 23, 29-31, 39,
123, 165
Lycophron , 18

Macaulay, Lord, 170, 175
Macbeth, 176
Malherbe, 168

Manso, G., Marquis of Villa, 38
Marmontel, 191
Marten, H., 94, 95
Marvel, A., 131, 137, 139
Mask, the, 21-22
Massenius, 218

Masson, L., Professor, 2, 24, 30,
39, 57, 84-85
Mazarin, 126-127
Meadows, P., 131, 137
Mede, Clavis Apocalyptica , 8
Mercurius Politicus, 84, 99
Millington, 149

Milton, John, his ancestry, 3 ;
father, 3 ; birthplace, 3 ; at St.
Paul’s School, 3-4 ; Presbyterian
influences, 4 ; paraphrases of
Psalms, 4 ; early studies, 5 ;
pensioner of Christ’s, Cambridge,

5 ; college punishment, 6-7 ;
takes degrees of B.A. and M.A.,

7 ; “the lady of Christ’s,” 7 ;
question of Fellowship, 8-11 ;
his opinion of Cambridge, 9-10 ;
retires to Horton, 14 ; poetry
his vocation, 15-16 ; common-
place book, 19 ; visits to London,
20 ; Comus, 21-23 ; L’ Allegro,
11 Penseroso , Lycidas , Ode on
the Nativity, 23-31 ; journey to
Italy, 32-42 ; compositions in
Italian, 36-37 ; Epitaphium
Damonis, 41 ; return to London,
43 ; lives in Aldersgate, 44 ;
education of his nephews, 44-
45 ; marries Mary Powell, 51 ;
domestic unhappiness, 53, 55-
56 ; his wife leaves him, 56 ;
Doctrine and Discipline ofi

Divorce, 57 ; becomes an Inde-
pendent, 59 ; Tetrachordon, 60 ;
reconciliation with his wife, 61-
62 ; moves to house in Bar-
bican, 63 ; his children born,
63 ; death of his wife, 63 ;
renounces poetry, 64-65 ; poli-
tical pamphlets, 72-84; Areo-
pagitica, 72 ; gives up pupils,
87 ; moves to High Holborn, 87 ;
Sonnets, 88-89 ; Paraphrase of
Psalms, 89-91 ; early poems
published, 91 ; his eyesight
threatened, 94 ; Secretary to
Council of State, 95-96, 136-
137; moves to Charing Cross,
to Petty France, 97 ; Eikono-
klastes, 102; Pro populo Angli-
cano defensio, 106 ; blindness,
110-111,125; Defensio Secunda,
116 ; Pro se defensio, 118 ; as
, Puritan, Presbyterian, Indepen-
dent, 120 ; as supporter of
Cromwell, 120-124 ; Considera-
tions to remove Hirelings, 124 ;
relations with Cromwell and
Council, 124, 128 ; his second
marriage and wife’s death, 136 ;
Ready and easy way to establish
a Commonwealth, 138 ; lies con-
cealed at the Restoration, 138 ;
loses Latin secretaryship, 142 ;
his monetary losses, 142 ; re-
turns to poetry, 143-144; his
readers and amanuenses, 144 ;
his third marriage, 144 ; rela-
tions with his daughters, 146-

149 ; his various houses, 149-

150 ; Of true Religion, 152 ;
Treatise of Christian Doctrine,
154-155, 162; Paradise Lost ,
157-158, 161; Paradise Re-
gained and Samson Agonistes,
161 ; History of Britain, Latin
Grammar, Logic, Early Poems
(new ed.), Latin letters, 162 ;
Brief History of Moscovia, 163 ;
Latin Lexicon, 163 ; death, 164

Lives of, 1, 2, 152 ; character

INDEX.

225

and disposition, 6, 7, 117,

129-130; his mental isola-
tion, 8, 128-129, 211-214;

views upon education, 9, 45-
49 ; his views of the poetic
character, 16 - 17 ; his Puritan
austerity, 16, 53 ; personal

appearance and habits, 20, 148-
149, 150-151 ; attitude to nature
in his poems, 24-28 ; his views
of women, 54-55, 146-147 ; his
prose style, 66-71, 107, 112-113;
his love of liberty, 68, 122-124;
his vocabulary, 71, 199 ; views
of toleration, 83, 99, 152-153 ;
his theory of Church and State,
123-124 ; his State letters, 125 ;
his friends, 131-133 ; his reputa-
tion with foreigners, 135-136 :
methods of composition, 151 ;
his piety, 151-152 ; his religious
views, 152, 156 ; his learning,
157, 210-211 ; poetry his voca-
tion, 165-167 ; his genius lyrical,
175 ;*his theory of poetry, 193 ;
his diction, 207-208
Milton, Anne (sister), 12, 44
Milton. Anne (daughter), 146-
148 '

Milton, Catharine (nee Woodcock,
second wife), 136

Milton, Christopher (brother), 12,
33, 154

Milton, Deborah (daughter), 129,
146-148

Milton, Elizabeth ( nee Minshull,
third wife), 131, 145
Milton, John (father), 3, 33, 43,
52, 87

Milton, Mary ( nee Powell, first
wife), 51, 54-58, 61-63
Milton, Mary (daughter), 146-
148

Milton, Richard (grandfather), 3,
52

Mitford, 152, 205
Moliere, 97
Monk, Gen., 138
Morland, 128

Morris, secretary, 139
Morus, 96, 105, 113, 115-118,
121

Moscovia, Brief History of 163
Moseley, H., publisher, 91, 165
Myers, 207

Mysteries of Love and Eloquence

(Phillips), 134

Naples, 38
Naseby, 61
Neal, 125

Needham, M., newspaper editor,
84, 142
Netherby, 19
New Inn (Jonson), 192
Newton, Bishop, 145, 147, 152
205, 207
Nice, 34

Observations of the Peace of Kil-
kenny, 99-100

Ode on Immortality (Wordsworth),
29

Ode on the Nativity , 24
Of Church Government , 172
Of Education, 47
Of Prelaticall Episcopacy, 7 4
Of Reformation touching Church
Discipline, 72, 74
Of true Religion, 152, 154
Oldenburg, H., 133
Old Wives’ Tale (Peele), 22
Oldys, 23

On the Lord- General Fairfax ,
sonnet, 89

On Mrs. Catherine Thomson, son-
net, 88

Overton, 120, 122
Oxford, 62, 89

Paget, Dr., 132, 145
Pamphlets (Milton), 19, 45, 47,
69, 72, 74-84, 138, 168
Paradise Lost , 14, 21, 53, 62-63,
111, 146, 151, 159, 168, 178,
209, 211 ; parallel passages in, 18-
19, 205-207 ; date, 157 ; agree-

Q

226

MILTON.

ment with Symons to publish,
160-161; choice of subject,
170-179 ; drafts of the plot,
172 ; vastness of scheme, 179-
180 ; incongruities in, 181-184;
skill in handling, 184-185 ; the
supernatural personages, 185-

188 ; adherence to Scripture,

189 ; compared with Paradise
Regained , 191 - 195 ; pagan
mythology in, 198 ; element of
decay in, 199-200 ; antecedents (
of, 201-204 ; its originality, j
204-205 ; more admired than
read, 214-215; sale of, 214;
Whigs and the poem, 217 ;
Milton’s alleged plagiarism, 217-
219

Paradise Regained, 14, 17, 18,

158-159, 161, 173, 186-187,
191-195, 214

Paradisus Amissus (Hogg), 218
Parliament, 93, 101, 109
Pascal, 179

Passionate Pilgrim , The , 134
Pearce, 205

Peele, Old Wives’ Tale , 22
Penningtons, the, 158
Persius, 117 •

Petrarch, 169, 210
Petty France, 97-98, 132, 138
Phillips, Edward, 1-4, 40, 44-
45, 49-50, 56-57, 61, 109, 129,
132-135, 138 -139, 142 - 144,
151, 157, 162, 170-171, 193 ;
Theatrum Poet arum, 203
Phillips, John, 44, 133-134, 217
Piedmontese, massacre of, 125-
128

Pignerol, treaty of, 127
Pindar , 18
Plague, the Great, 159
Platner, criticism of Hermann,
213

Poetical Decameron (Collier), 70
Pope, A., 79, 112, 139, 142
Powell, R., 51-52, 61-63, 85-87
Presbyterians, 59, 82-83, 99, 120
Prior, criticism by, 214

Pro populo Anglicano defensio,
106, 107, 109
Pro se defensio , 118
Prynne, Histriomastix, 22
Psalms, Paraphrase of the, 4, 89-
91

Ptolemaic theory, 180
Puritans, 73, 128, 133, 141, 178-
179, 196

Pye, Sir R., M.P. for Woodstock,
86

Quakers, 122
Quintilian, 215

Racine, 172
Rainolds, Dr., 74
Ranelagh, Lady, 132
Rape of Proserpine (Claudian),
194

Ready and easy ivay to establish a
free Commonwealth, 72, 138
Reason of Church Government, The,
120, 171

Regii sanguinis clamor ad coelum

(Du Moulin), 114
Restoration, the, 133, 138, 140-
141

Rome, 37-39
Ronsard, 190

Rouse, F., M.P. for Truro, 90
Rousseau, 112
Ruskin, 186

Sadi, Persian poet, 191
St. Bride’s churchyard, 43
St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, 164
St. John, 95

Salmasius, 96, 105-109, 114, 210
Samson Agonistes , 14, 97, 159,
161, 177, 186, 195-197, 214
Satyr against Hypocrites (Phillips),
134

Savoy, Duke of, 125-128
Scaliger, 108
Scherer, on Milton, 157
Scioppius, 108
Scipioni, 33

Scott, Sir W., 92, 176, 182, 186

INDEX

227

Scudamore, Lord, English am-
bassador at Paris, 34
Seasons, The (Thomson), 28
Selden, 102, 130, 210
Shakespeare, 71, 102,176,214, 220
Shelley, 161, 185
Shirley, Triumph of Peace, 22
Shotover, 52, 54
Sicily, 39

Sidney, Arcadia , 103
Siena, 37
Sig'onius, 20
Skinner, C., 132, 145
Skinner, D., 154
Smectymnuus, 4, 76, 210
Somers, Lord, 217
•5 Sonnets , The , 13, 15, 51, 53, 61,
88-89, 111, 124, 128, 132, 136,
162, 165, 169-170
Spain, 126

Spectator , The (Addison), 217
Spenser, 175, 188, 194
Sportive Wit , 134
Stapliorstius, 218
Star Chamber, 73, 80-81
State of Innocence (Dry den), 216
State Paper Office, 155
Stationers’ Company, 80-81
Stephens, R., 163
Strafford, 73

Sylvester, Du Bartas, 4, 201
Symons, S., printer, 160-161

Tasso, 4, 188
Taubmannus, 218
Taylor, Jeremy, 70-71

Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,
94

Tetracliordon, 60

Theatrum Poetarum (Phillips),
203

Thomson, Mrs. Catherine, 88
Thomson, James, author of The
Seasons , 28
Thurloe, 137
Todd, 152, 202, 205
Toland, 151, 154, 164
Tomkyns, the Primate’s chaplain,
160

Tonson, 205

Tractate of Education , 45, 48, 80,
193

Treatise of Christian Doctrine, 54,

155-156, 162

Trinity College, Cambridge, 11 ;
Milton MSS., 144, 171 - 173,
176, 202
Twells, 130

Usher, Archbishop, 74, 75, 130,
210

Vane, 94-95, 120, 162
Vaudois massacre, 125-128
; Vedelin, 75
Venice, 40, 202
Villa, Marquis of, 38
Virgil, 26, 205-206, 208
Vlac, 117

Voltaire, 112, 201-202, 220
Vondel, 201, 203-204
Vortigern, 176
Voss, 210

Waller, E., poet, 92
Waller, SirW., 50
Walton, B., curate of Allhallows,
130

Walton, I., 26
Wartons, the, 205
Weckherlin, 98, 137
Wentworth, 109
Westminster Abbey, 217
Westminster Assembly, 101
Wheatley, 86
Whigs, the, 217
White, J., a chaplain, 136
Whitelocke, 94-95, 117
Williams, Archbishop, 100
Williamson, Sir J. , Secretary of
j State, 155
Wood, Antony, 2, 34, 38
Wordsworth, 29, 169, 170, 194-
195, 208-209
Wotton, Sir H., 33
Wright, Dr., a clergyman, 150

Young, P., 212
i Young, T., tutor, 4, 5

Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh

tiPttglfeft iHni of Hetters

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY

GOLDSMITH

GOLDSMITH

BY

WILLIAM BLACK

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1909

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

First Edition 1873.

Reprinted 1879,^1880, 1881, 1883, 1887, 1893, 1893, 1899, 1900,
1903, 1905, 1909.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY ... 1

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 7

CHAPTER III.

IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL 15

CHAPTER IV,

EARLY STRUGGLES. — HACK-WRITING 23

CHAPTER V.

BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP. — THE BEE 33

VI

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

PAGE

PERSONAL TRAITS . . . . „ . „ .... , 44

CHAPTER VII.

THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. — BEAU NASH . 50

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARREST . 0 . 67

CHAPTER IX.

THE TRAVELLER ........ . . , 75

CHAPTER X.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITING ... . 82

CHAPTER XI,

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD 87

CHAPTER XII.

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN 100

CHAPTER XIII.

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY 109

CONTENTS.

vii

CHAPTER XIV,

PAGE

THE DESERTED VILLAGE . . * , . 120

CHAPTER XV

OCCASIONAL WRITINGS „ . . . ....... 134

CHAPTER XVI.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER . , , . , ..... 141

CHAPTER XVII.

INCREASING DIFFICULTIES. — THE END 150

GOLDSMITH

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

“ Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream
of life is wisdom.” So wrote Oliver Goldsmith ; and
surely among those who have earned the world’s grati-
tude by this ministration he must be accorded a con-
spicuous place. If, in these delightful writings of his,
he mostly avoids the darker problems of existence — if
the mystery of the tragic and apparently unmerited
and unrequited suffering in the world is rarely touched
upon — we can pardon the omission for the sake of the
gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly
side of life. “ You come hot and tired from the day’s
battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you,” says
Mr. Thackeray. “ Who could harm the kind vagrant
harper 1 Whom did he ever hurt 1 He carries no
weapon save the harp on which he plays to you ; and
with which he delights great and humble, young and
old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the
15

B

2

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose
porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and
beauty,” And it is to be suspected — it is to be hoped,
at least — that the cheerfulness which shines like sun-
light through Goldsmith’s writings, did not altogether
desert himself even in the most trying hours of his
wayward and troubled career. He had, with all his
sensitiveness, a fine happy-go-lucky disposition ; was
ready for a frolic when he had a guinea, and, when he
had none, could turn a sentence on the humorous side
of starvation ; and certainly never attributed to the
injustice or neglect of society misfortunes the origin
of which lay nearer home.

Of course, a very dark picture might be drawn of
Goldsmith’s life ; and the sufferings that he undoubtedly
endured have been made a whip with which to lash the
ingratitude of a world not too quick to recognise the
claims of genius. He has been put before us, without
any brighter lights to the picture, as the most unfor-
tunate of poor devils ; the heart-broken usher ; the
hack ground down by sordid booksellers ; the starving
occupant of successive garrets. This is the aspect of
Goldsmith’s career which naturally attracts Mr. Forster.
Mr0 Forster seems to have been haunted throughout his
life by the idea that Providence had some especial spite
against literary persons ; and that, in a measure to com-
pensate them for their sad lot, society should be very kind
to them, while the Government of the day might make
them Companions of the Bath or give them posts in the
Civil Service. In the otherwise copious, thorough, and
valuable Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith , we find an
almost humiliating insistance on the complaint that

I.] INTRODUCTORY. 3

Oliver Goldsmith did not receive greater recognition
and larger sums of money from his contemporaries.
Goldsmith is here “ the poor neglected sizar ” ; his
4 4 marked ill-fortune ” attends him constantly ; he shares
“ the evil destinies of men of letters ” ; he was one of
those who “ struggled into fame without the aid of
English institutions ” ; in short, “ he wrote, and paid the
penalty.” Nay, even Christianity itself is impeached
on account of the persecution suffered by poor Gold-
smith. “ There had been a Christian religion extant
for seventeen-hundred and fifty-seven years,” writes Mr.
Forster, “ the world having been acquainted, for even so
long, with its spiritual necessities and responsibilities ;
yet here, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was
the eminence ordinarily conceded to a spiritual teacher,
to one of those men who come upon the earth to lift
their fellow-men above its miry ways. He is up in a
garret, writing for bread he cannot get, and dunned for
a milk-score he cannot pay.” That Christianity might
have been worse employed than in paying the milkman’s
score is true enough, for then the milkman would have
come by his own ; but that Christianity, or the state, or
society should be scolded because an author suffers the
natural consequences of his allowing his expenditure
to exceed his income, seems a little hard. And this is
a sort of writing that is peculiarly inappropriate in
the case of Goldsmith, who, if ever any man was author
of his own misfortunes, may fairly have the charge
brought against him. “ Men of genius,” says Mr.
Forster, “ can more easily starve, than the world, with
safety to itself, can continue to neglect and starve
them*” Perhaps so; but the English nation, which

b 2

4

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

has always had a regard and even love for Oliver Gold-
smith, that is quite peculiar in the history of literature,
and which has been glad to overlook his faults and
follies, and eager to sympathise with him in the many
miseries of his career, will be slow to believe that it
is responsible for any starvation that Goldsmith may
have endured.

However, the key-note has been firmly struck, and it
still vibrates. Goldsmith was the unluckiest of mortals,
the hapless victim of circumstances. “ Yielding to that
united pressure of labour, penury, and sorrow, with
a frame exhausted by unremitting and ill-rewarded
drudgery, Goldsmith was indebted to the forbearance
of creditors for a peaceful burial.” But what, now,
if some foreigner strange to the traditions of English
literature — some Japanese student, for example, or the
New Zealander come before his time — were to go over
the ascertained facts of Goldsmith's life, and were
suddenly to announce to us, with the happy audacity
of ignorance, that he, Goldsmith, was a quite ex-
ceptionally fortunate person % “ Why/’ he might say, “ I
find that in a country where the vast majority of people
are born to labour, Oliver Goldsmith was never asked
to do a stroke of work towards the earning of his own
living until he had arrived at man’s estate. All that
was expected of him, as a youth and as a young man,
was that he should equip himself fully for the battle of
life. He was maintained at college until he had taken
his degree. Again and again he was furnished with
funds for further study and foreign travel ; and again
and again he gambled his opportunities away. The
constant kindness of his uncle only made him the best

Xo]

INTRODUCTORY.

begging-letter writer the world has seen. In the midst
of his debt and distress as a bookseller’s drudge, he
receives £400 for three nights’ performance of The
Good-Natured Man ; he immediately purchases chambers
in Brick Court for £400 ; and forthwith begins to
borrow as before. It is true that he died owing £2000,
and was indebted to the forbearance of creditors for a
peaceful burial ; but it appears that during the last
seven years of his life he had been earning an annual
income equivalent to £800 of English currency.1 He
was a man liberally and affectionately brought up, who
had many relatives and many friends, and who had the
proud satisfaction — which has been denied to many men
of genius — of knowing for years before he died that his
merits as a writer had been recognised by the great
bulk of his countrymen. And yet this strange English
nation is inclined to suspect that it treated him rather
badly ; and Christianity is attacked because it did not
pay Goldsmith’s milkscore.”

Our Japanese friend may be exaggerating ; but his
position is after all fairly tenable. It may at least
be looked at, before entering on the following brief
resume of the leading facts in Goldsmith’s life, if only
to restore our equanimity. For, naturally, it is not
pleasant to think that any previous generation, however
neglectful of the claims of literary persons (as com-
pared with the claims of such wretched creatures as
physicians, men of science, artists, engineers, and so

1 The calculation is Lord Macaulay’s : see his Biograiiliical
Essays.

6

GOLDSMITH.

[chap. i.

forth) should so cruelly have ill-treated one whom we
all love now. This inheritance of ingratitude is more
than we can bear. Is it true that Goldsmith was so
harshly dealt with by those barbarian ancestors of
ours h

CHAPTER IL

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE,

The Goldsmiths were of English descent; Goldsmith’s
father was a Protestant clergyman in a poor little vil-
lage in the county of Longford ; and when Oliver, one
of several children, was born in this village of Pallas,
or Pallasmore, on the 10th November, 1728, the Rev.
Charles Goldsmith was passing rich on £40 a year. But
a couple of years later Mr. Goldsmith succeeded to a
more lucrative living ; and forthwith removed his family
to the village of Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath.

Here at once our interest in the story begins : is this
Lissoy the sweet Auburn that we have known and loved
since our childhood 1 Lord Macaulay, with a great
deal of vehemence, avers that it is not ; that there
never was any such hamlet as Auburn in Ireland ;
that The Deserted Village is a hopelessly incongruous
poem ; and that Goldsmith, in combining a descrip-
tion of a probably Kentish village with a description
of an Irish ejectment, “has produced something which
never was, and never will be, seen in any part of the
world.” This criticism is ingenious and plausible,
but it is unsound, for it happens to overlook one of

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

the radical facts of human nature — the magnifying
delight of the mind in what is long remembered and
remote. What was it that the imagination of Goldsmith,
in his life-long banishment, could not see when he
looked back to the home of his childhood, and his early
friends, and the sports and occupations of his youth %
Lissoy was no doubt a poor enough Irish village ; and
perhaps the farms were not too well cultivated ; and
perhaps the village preacher, who was so dear to all
the country round, had to administer many a thrashing
to a certain graceless son of his • and perhaps Paddy
Byrne was something of a pedant ; and no doubt pigs
ran over the “ nicely sanded floor ” of the inn ; and no
doubt the village statesmen occasionally indulged in
a free fight. But do you think that was the Lissoy that
Goldsmith thought of in his dreary lodgings in Fleet-
Street courts 1 No. It was the Lissoy where the
vagrant lad had first seen the “ primrose peep beneath
the thorn ” ; where he had listened to the mysterious
call of the bittern by the unfrequented river ; it was
a Lissoy still ringing with the glad laughter of young
people in the twilight hours ; it was a Lissoy for ever
beautiful, and tender, and far away. The grown-up
Goldsmith had npt to go to any Kentish village for a
model ; the familiar scenes of his youth, regarded with
all the wistfulness and longing of an exile, became
glorified enough. “ If I go to the opera where Signora
Colomba pours out all the mazes of melody,” he writes
to Mr. Hodson, “ I sit and sigh for Lissoy’s fire side,
and Johnny Armstrong' s Last Good Night from Peggy
Golden.”

There was but little in the circumstances of Gold-

II.]

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.

9

smith’s early life likely to fit him for, or to lead him
into, a literary career ; in fact, he did not take to
literature until he had tried pretty nearly everything
else as a method of earning a living. If he was in-
tended for anything, it was no doubt his father’s
wish that he should enter the Church ; and he got
such education as the poor Irish clergyman — who was
not a very provident person^- could afford. The child
Goldsmith was first of all taught his alphabet at home,
by a maid- servant, who was also a relation of the family ;
then, at the age of six, he was sent to that village school
which, with its profound and learned master, he has
made familiar to all of us ; and after that he was sent
further a-field for his learning, being moved from this to
the other boarding-school as the occasion demanded.
Goldsmith’s school-life could not have been altogether a
pleasant time for him. We hear, indeed, of his being
concerned in a good many frolics — robbing orchards,
and the like ; and it is said that he attained proficiency
in the game of fives. But a shy and sensitive lad
like Goldsmith, who was eagerly desirous of being
thought well of, and whose appearance only invited the
thoughtless but cruel ridicule of his schoolmates, must
have suffered a good deal. He was little, pitted with
the small-pox, and awkward ; and schoolboys are
amazingly frank. He was not strong enough to thrash
them into respect of him ; he had no big brother to
become his champion ; his pocket money was not lavish
enough to enable him to buy over enemies or subsidise
allies.

In similar circumstances it has sometimes happened
that a boy physically inferior to his companions has

10

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

consoled himself by proving his mental prowess — has
scored off his failure at cricket by the taking of prizes, and
has revenged himself for a drubbing by writing a lampoon.
But even this last resource was not open to Goldsmith.
He was a dull boy; “a stupid, heavy blockhead,’ ’ is
Dr. Strean’s phrase in summing up the estimate formed
of young Goldsmith by his contemporaries at school.
Of course, as soon as he became famous, everybody
began to hunt up re collections of his having said or
done this or that, in order to prove that there were
signs of the coming greatness. People began to re-
member that he had been suspected of scribbling
verses, which he burned. What schoolboy has not
done the like ? We know how the biographers of
great painters point out to us that their hero early
showed the bent of his mind by drawing the figures
of animals on doors and walls with a piece of chalk ;
as to which it may be observed that, if every schoolboy
who scribbled verses and sketched in chalk on a brick
wall, were to grow up a genius, poems and pictures
would be plentiful enough. However, there is the
apparently authenticated anecdote of young Goldsmith’s
turning the tables on the fiddler at his uncle’s dancing-
party. The fiddler, struck by the odd look of the boy
who was capering about the room, called out u iEsop ! ”
whereupon Goldsmith is said to have instantly replied,

“ Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,

See HSsop dancing and his monkey playing ! ”

But even if this story be true, it is worth nothing as an
augury ; for quickness of repartee was precisely the ac-
complishment which the adult Goldsmith conspicuously

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.

11

H-]

lacked. Put a pen into his hand, and shut him up
in a room : then he was master of the situation —
nothing could be more incisive, polished, and easy than
his playful sarcasm. But in society any fool could get
the better of him by a sudden question followed by a
horse-laugh. All through his life — even after he had
become one of the most famous of living writers —
Goldsmith suffered from want of self-confidence. He
was too anxious to please. In his eager acquiescence,
he would blunder into any trap that was laid for him.
A grain or two of the stolid self-sufficiency of the
blockheads who laughed at him would not only have
improved his character, but would have considerably
added to the happiness of his life.

As a natural consequence of this timidity, Goldsmith,
when opportunity served, assumed airs of magnificent
importance. Every one knows the story of the mistake
on which She Stooqjs to Conquer is founded. Getting
free at last from all the turmoil, and anxieties, and
mortifications of school-life, and returning home on a
lent hack, the released schoolboy is feeling very grand
indeed. He is now sixteen, would fain pass for a man,
and has a whole golden guinea in his pocket. And so
he takes the journey very leisurely until, getting be-
nighted in a certain village, he asks the way to the
“ best house,” and is directed by a facetious person to
the house of the squire. The squire by good luck falls
in with the joke ; and then we have a very pretty
comedy indeed — the impecunious schoolboy playing the
part of a fine gentleman on the strength of his solitary
guinea, ordering a bottle of wine after his supper, and
inviting his landlord and his landlord’s wife and daughter

12

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

to join him in the supper-room. The contrast, in She
Stoops to Conquer , between Marlow’s embarrassed diffi-
dence on certain occasions and his audacious effrontery
on others, found many a parallel in the incidents of
Goldsmith’s own life; and it is not improbable that
the writer of the comedy was thinking of some of his
own experiences, when he made Miss Hardcastle say
to her timid suitor : “ A want of courage upon some
occasions assumes the appearance of ignorance, and
betrays us when we most want to excel.”

It was, perhaps, just as well that the supper, and
bottle of wine, and lodging at Squire Featherston’s had
not to be paid for out of the schoolboy’s guinea; for
young Goldsmith was now on his way to college, and
the funds at the disposal of the Goldsmith family
were not over abundant. Goldsmith’s sister having
married the son of a well-to do man, her father con-
sidered it a point of honour that she should have a
dowry : and in giving her a sum of £400 he so crippled
the means of the family, that Goldsmith had to be sent
to college not as a pensioner but as a sizar. It appears
that the young gentleman’s pride revolted against this
proposal ; and that he was won over to consent only by
the persuasions of his uncle Contarine, who himself had
been a sizar. So Goldsmith, now in his eighteenth year,
went to Dublin ; managed somehow or other — though
he was the last in the list — to pass the necessary exami-
nation ; and entered upon his college career (1745.)

How he lived, and what he learned, at Trinity Col-
lege. are both largely matters of conjecture ; the chief
features of such record as we have are the various
means of raising a little money to which the poor

II.] SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 13

sizar had to resort; a continual quarrelling with his
tutor, an ill-conditioned brute, who baited Goldsmith
and occasionally beat him ; and a chance frolic when
funds were forthcoming. It was while he was at
Trinity College that his father died; so that Gold-
smith was rendered more than ever dependent on the
kindness of his uncle Contarine, who throughout seems
to have taken much interest in his odd, ungainty
nephew. A loan from a friend or a visit to the
pawnbroker tided over the severer difficulties ; and
then from time to time the writing of street- ballads,
for which he got five shillings a-piece at a certain
repository, came in to help. It was a happy-go-lucky,
hand to -mouth sort of existence, involving a good deal
of hardship and humiliation, but having its frolics and
gaieties notwithstanding. One of these was pretty near
to putting an end to his collegiate career altogether.
He had, smarting under a public admonition for having
been concerned in a riot, taken seriously to his studies
and had competed for a scholarship. He missed the
scholarship, but gained an exhibition of the value of
thirty shillings ; whereupon he collected a number of
friends of both sexes in his rooms, and proceeded to
have high jinks there. In the midst of the dancing
and uproar, in comes his tutor, in such a passion that
he knocks Goldsmith down. This insult, received
before his friends, was too much for the unlucky sizar,
who, the very next day, sold his books, ran away from
college, and ultimately, after having been on the verge
of starvation once or twice, made his way to Lissoy.
Here his brother got hold of him ; persuaded him to
go back ; and the escapade was condoned somehow.

14

GOLDSMITH.

Goldsmith remained at Trinity College until he took his
degree (1749.) He was again lowest in the list; but
still he had passed ; and he must have learned some-
thing. He was now twenty-one, with all the world
before him ; and the question was as to how he was
to employ such knowledge as he had acquired.

CHAPTER III.

IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL.

But Goldsmith was not in any hurry to acquire either
wealth or fame. He had a happy knack of enjoying
the present hour — especially when there were one or
two boon companions with him, and a pack of cards
to be found ; and, after his return to his mother’s
house, he appears to have entered upon the business of
idleness with much philosophical satisfaction. If he
was not quite such an unlettered clown as he has
described in Tony Lumpkin, he had at least all Tony
Lumpkin’s high spirits and love of joking and idling ;
and he was surrounded at the ale-house by just such a
company of admirers as used to meet at the famous
Three Pigeons. Sometimes he helped in his brother’s
school ; sometimes he went errands for his mother ;
occasionally he would sit and meditatively play the
flute — for the day was to be passed somehow 3 then in
the evening came the assemblage in Conway’s inn, with
the glass, and the pipe, and the cards, and the uproarious
jest or song. “But Scripture saith an ending to all
fine things must be,” and the friends of this jovial
young “ buckeen ” began to tire of his idleness and his

16

GOLDSMITH.

[ciiap.

recurrent visits. They gave him hints that he might set
about doing something to provide himself with a living ;
and the first thing they thought of was that he should
go into the Church — perhaps as a sort of purification-
house after George Conway’s inn. Accordingly Gold-
smith, who appears to have been a most good-natured
and compliant youth, did make application to the
Bishop of Elphin. There is some doubt about the
precise reasons which induced the Bishop to decline
Goldsmith’s application, but at any rate the Church
was denied the aid of the young man’s eloquence and
erudition. Then he tried teaching, and through the
good offices of his uncle he obtained a tutorship which
he held for a considerable time — long enough, indeed, to
enable him to amass a sum of thirty pounds. When he
quarrelled with his patron, and once more “took the
world for his pillow,” as the Gaelic stories say, he had
this sum in his pocket and was possessed of a good
horse.

He started away from Ballymahon, where his
mother was now living, with some vague notion of
making his fortune as casual circumstance might
direct. The expedition came to a premature end ;
and he returned without the money, and on the back of
a wretched animal, telling his mother a cock-and-bull
story of the most amusing simplicity. “ If Uncle
Contarine believed those letters,” says Mr. Thackeray,

“ if Oliver’s mother believed that story which the

youth related of his going to Cork, with the purpose of
embarking for America ; of his having paid his passage-
money. and having sent his kit on board ; of the anony-
mous captain sailing away with Oliver’s valuable

Ill]

IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVELS.

17

luggage, in a nameless ship, never to return ; if Uncle
Contarine and the mother at Ballymahon believed his
stories, they must have been a very simple pair; as it
was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them.”
Indeed, if any one is anxious to fill up this hiatus in
Goldsmith’s life, the best thing he cam do is to discard
Goldsmith’s suspicious record of his adventures, and
put in its place the faithful record of the adventures
of Mr. Barry Lyndon, when that modest youth left his
mother’s house and rode to Dublin, with a certain
number of guineas in his pocket. But whether Uncle
Contarine believed the story or no, he was ready to give
the young gentleman another chance ; and this time it
was the legal profession that was chosen. Goldsmith got
fifty pounds from his uncle, and reached Dublin. In a
remarkably brief space of time he had gambled away the
fifty pounds, and was on his way back to Ballymahon,
where his mother’s reception of him was not very
cordial, though his uncle forgave him, and was once
more ready to start him in life. But in what direction 1
Teaching, the Church, and the law had lost their attrac-
tions for him. Well, this time it was medicine. In
fact, any sort of project was capable of drawing forth
the good old uncle’s bounty. The funds were again
forthcoming ; Goldsmith started for Edinburgh, and
now (1752) saw Ireland for the last time.

He lived, and he informed his uncle that he studied,
in Edinburgh for a year and a half ; at the end of
which time it appeared to him that his knowledge of
medicine would be much improved by foreign travel.
There was Albinus, for example, “ the great professor
of Leyden,” as he wrote to the credulous uncle, from

o

18

goldsmith-

[chap.

whom he would doubtless learn much. When, having
got another twenty pounds for travelling expenses, he did
reach Leyden (1754), he mentioned Gaubius, the chemical
professor. Gaubius is also a good name. That his inter-
course with these learned persons, and the serious nature
of his studies, were not incompatible with a little light
relaxation in the way of gambling is not impossible.
On one occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he
came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money ;
and was induced to resolve never to play again — a
resolution broken about as soon as made. Of course
he lost all his winnings, and more ; and had to borrow
a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then
an incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the
better side of Goldsmith’s nature. He had just got
this money, and was about to leave Leyden, when, as
Mr. Forster writes, “ he passed a florist’s garden on his
return, and seeing some rare and high-priced flower,
which his uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such things,
had often spoken and been in search of, he ran in with-
out other thought than of immediate pleasure to his
kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent
them off to Ireland.” He had a guinea in his pocket
when he started on the grand tour.

Of this notable period in Goldsmith’s life (1755-6) very
little is known, though a good deal has been guessed. A
minute record of all the personal adventures that befell
the wayfarer as he trudged from country to country, a
diary of the odd humours and fancies that must have
occurred to him in his solitary pilgrimages, would be of
quite inestimable value ; but even the letters that Gold-
smith wrote home from time to time are lost ; while The

in.] IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVELS. 19

Traveller consists chiefly of a series of philosophical
reflections on the government of various states, more
likely to have engaged the attention of a Fleet street
author, living in an atmosphere of books, than to have
occupied the mind of a tramp anxious about his supper
and his night’s lodging. Boswell says he “ disputed ”
his way through Europe. It is much more probable
that he begged his way through Europe. The romantic
version, which has been made the subject of many a
charming picture, is that he was entertained by the
peasantry whom he had delighted with his playing on
the flute. It is quite probable that Goldsmith, whose
imagination had been captivated by the story of how
Baron von Holberg had as a young man really passed
through France, Germany, and Holland in this Orpheus-
like manner, may have put a flute in his pocket when he
left Leyden ; but it is far from safe to assume, as is
generally done, that Goldsmith was himself the hero of
the adventures described in Chapter xx. of the Vicar of
Wakefield. It is the more to be regretted that we have
no authentic record of these devious wanderings, that
by this time Goldsmith had acquired, as is shown in
other letters, a polished, easy, and graceful style, with
a very considerable faculty of humorous observation.
Those ingenious letters to his uncle (they usually
included a little hint about money) were, in fact, a
trifle too literary both in substance and in form ; we
could even now, looking at them with a pardonable
curiosity, have spared a little of their formal antithesis
for some more precise information about the writer and
his surroundings.

The strangest thing about this strange journey all over

c 2

20

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

Europe was the failure of Goldsmith to pick up even a
common and ordinary acquaintance with the familiar facts
of natural history. The ignorance on this point of the
author of the Animated Nature was a constant subject of
jest among Goldsmith’s friends. They declared he could
not tell the difference between any two sorts of barndoor
fowl until he saw them cooked and on the table. But it
may be said prematurely here that, even when he is
wrong as to his facts or his sweeping generalisations,
one is inclined to forgive him on account of the quaint
gracefulness and point of his style. When Mr. Burchell
says, “ This rule seems to extend even to other animals:
the little vermin race are ever treacherous, cruel, and
cowardly, whilst those endowed with strength and
power are generous, brave, and gentle,” we scarcely
stop to reflect that the merlin, which is not much bigger
than a thrush, has an extraordinary courage and spirit,
while the lion, if all stories be true, is, unless when
goaded by hunger, an abject skulker. Elsewhere, indeed,
in the Animated Nature , Goldsmith gives credit to the
smaller birds for a good deal of valour, and then
goes on to say, with a charming freedom, — uBut their
contentions are sometimes of a gentler nature. Two
male birds shall strive in song till, after a long
struggle, the loudest shall entirely silence the other.
During these contentions the female sits an attentive
silent auditor, and often rewards the loudest songster
with her company during the season.” Yet even this
description of the battle of the bards, with the queen of
love as arbiter, is scarcely so amusing as his happy-
go-lucky notions with regard to the variability of
species. The philosopher, flute in hand, who went

hi.] IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVELS. 21

wandering from the canals of Holland to the ice ribbed
falls of the Rhine, may have heard from time to time
that contest between singing-birds which he so imagin-
atively describes ; but it was clearly the Fleet-Street
author, living among books, who arrived at the con-
clusion that intermarriage of species is common among
small birds and rare among big birds. Quoting some
lines of Addison’s which express the belief that birds
are a virtuous race — that the nightingale, for example,
does not covet the wife of his neighbour, the blackbird
— Goldsmith goes on to observe, — “But whatever may
be the poet’s opinion, the probability is against this
fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The
great birds are much more true to their species than
these; and, of consequence, the varieties among them
are more few. Of the ostrich, the cassowary, and the
eagle, there are but few species ; and no arts that man
can use could probably induce them to mix with each
other.”

What he did bring back from his foreign travels
was a medical degree. Where he got it, and how
he got it, are alike matters of pure conjecture ; but
it is extremely improbable that — whatever he might
have been willing to write home from Padua or
Louvain, in order to coax another remittance from his
Irish friends — he would afterwards, in the presence of
such men as Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds, wear sham
honours. It is much more probable that, on his finding
those supplies from Ireland running ominously short,
the philosophic vagabond determined to prove to his
correspondents that he was really at work somewhere,
instead of merely idling away his time, begging or

22

GOLDSMITH.

[CH. III.

borrowing the wherewithal to pass him from town to
town. That he did see something of the foreign univer-
sities is evident from his own writings ; there are touches
of description here and there which he could not well have
got from books. With this degree, and with such book-
learning and such knowledge of nature and human
nature as he had chosen or managed to pick up during
all those years, he was now called upon to begin life
for himself. The Irish supplies stopped altogether.
His letters were left unanswered. And so Goldsmith
somehow or other got back to London (February 1, 1756),
and had to cast about for some way of earning his
daily bread.

CHAPTER IV,

EARLY STRUGGLES. — HACK-WRITING.

Here ensued a very dark period in his life. He was
alone in London, without friends, without money, with-
out introductions ; his appearance was the reverse of pre-
possessing ; and, even despite that medical degree and
his acquaintance with the learned Albinus and the
learned Gaubius, he had practically nothing of any
value to offer for sale in the great labour-market of the
world. How he managed to live at all is a mystery : it
is certain that he must have endured a great deal of
want ; and one may well sympathise with so gentle and
sensitive a creature reduced to such straits, without in-
quiring too curiously into the causes of his misfortunes.
If, on the one hand, we cannot accuse society, or
Christianity, or the English government of injustice and
cruelty because Goldsmith had gambled away his chances
and was now called on to pay the penalty, on the other
hand, we had better, before blaming Goldsmith himself,
inquire into the origin of those defects of character which
produced such results. As this would involve an excur-
sus into the controversy between Necessity and Free-wilL
probably most people would rather leave it alone. It may

24

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

safely be said in any case that, while Goldsmith’s faults
and follies, of which he himself had to suffer the conse-
quences, are patent enough, his character on the whole
was distinctly a lovable one. Goldsmith was his own
enemy, and everybody else’s friend : that is not a
serious indictment, as things go. He was quite well
aware of his weaknesses ; and he was also — it may be
hinted — aware of the good-nature which he put forward
as condonation. If some foreigner were to ask how it
is that so thoroughly a commercial people as the English
are — strict in the acknowledgment and payment of debt
— should have always betrayed a sneaking fondness for
the character of the good-humoured scapegrace whose
hand is in everybody’s pocket, and who throws away other
people’s money with the most charming air in the world,
Goldsmith might be pointed to as one of many literary
teachers whose own circumstances were not likely to
make them severe censors of the Charles Surfaces, or
lenient judges of the Joseph Surfaces of the world.
Be merry while you may ; let to-morrow take care
of itself ; share your last guinea with any one, even
if the poor drones of society — the butcher, and baker,
and milkman with his score — have to suffer ; do any-
thing you like, so long as you keep the heart warm.
All this is a delightful philosophy. It has its moments
of misery — its periods of reaction — but it has its
moments of high delight. When we are invited to
contemplate the “ evil destinies of men of letters,”
we ought to be shown the flood-tides as well as the
ebb-tides. The tavern gaiety ; the brand new coat
and lace and sword ; the midnight frolics, with jolly
companions every one — these, however brief and inter-

IV.]

EARLY STRUGGLES.— HACK-WRITING.

25

mittent, should not be wholly left out of the picture.
Of course it is very dreadful to hear of poor Boyse
lying in bed with nothing but a blanket over him, and
with his arms thrust through two holes in the blanket,
so that he could write — perhaps a continuation of his poem
on the Deity . But then we should be shown Boyse when
he was spending the money collected by Dr. Johnson
to get the poor scribbler’s clothes out of pawn ; and we
should also be shown him, with his hands through the
holes in the blanket, enjoying the mushrooms and
truffles on which, as a little garniture for “ his last scrap
of beef,” he had just laid out his last half-guinea.

There were but few truffles — probably there was but
little beef — for Goldsmith during this sombre period.
“ His threadbare coat, his uncouth figure, and Hibernian
dialect caused him to meet with repeated refusals.”
But at length he got some employment in a chemist’s
shop, and this was a start. Then he tried practising in
a small way on his own account in Southwark. Here he
made the acquaintance of a printer’s workman ; and
through him he was engaged as corrector of the press in
the establishment of Mr. Samuel Bichardson. Being so
near to literature, he caught the infection ; and naturally
began with a tragedy. This tragedy was shown to the
author of Clarissa Harlowe ; but it only went the way of
many similar first inspiritings of the Muse. Then Gold-
smith drifted to Peckham, where we find him (1757)
installed as usher at Dr. Milner’s school. Goldsmith
as usher has been the object of much sympathy ; and
he would certainly deserve it, if we are to assume that
his description of an usher’s position in the Bee , and in
George Primrose’s advice to his cousin, was a full and

26

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

accurate description of his life at Peckham. “ Browbeat
by the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress,
worried by the boys ” — if that was his life, he was much
to be pitied. But we cannot believe it. The Milners
were exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. It was at the
intercession of young Milner, who had been his fellow-
student at Edinburgh, that Goldsmith got the situation,
which at all events kept him out of the reach of im-
mediate want. It was through the Milners that he
was introduced to Griffiths, who gave him a chance of
trying a literary career — as a hack-writer of reviews and
so forth. When, having got tired of that, Goldsmith
was again floating vaguely on the waves of chance,
where did he find a harbour but in that very school at
Peckham % And we have the direct testimony of the
youngest of Dr. Milner’s daughters, that this Irish
usher of theirs was a remarkably cheerful, and even
facetious person, constantly playing tricks and practical
jokes, amusing the boys by telling stories and by per-
formances on the flute, living a careless life, and
always in advance of his salary. Any beggars, or group
of children, even the very boys who played back practical
jokes on him, were welcome to a share of what small
funds he had ; and we all know how Mrs. Milner good-
naturedly said one day, “You had better, Mr. Gold-
smith, let me keep your money for you, as I do for some
of the young gentlemen ; ” and how he answered with
much simplicity, “ In truth, Madam, there is equal
need.” With Goldsmith’s love of approbation and
extreme sensitiveness he no doubt suffered deeply from
many slights, now as at other times ; but what we know
of his life in the Peckham school does not incline us to

IV.]

EARLY STRUGGLES. — HACK-WRITING.

27

believe that it was an especially miserable period of his
existence. His abundant cheerfulness does not seem to
have at any time deserted him ; and what with tricks,
and jokes, and playing of the flute, the dull routine of
instructing the unruly young gentlemen at Dr. Milner’s
was got through somehow.

When Goldsmith left the Peckham school to try
hack- writing in Paternoster Row, he was going further
to fare worse. Griffiths the bookseller, when he met
Goldsmith at Dr. Milner’s dinner-table and invited him
to become a reviewer, was doing a service to the English
nation — for it was in this period of machine-work that
Goldsmith discovered that happy faculty of literary ex-
pression that led to the composition of his masterpieces—
but he was doing little immediate service to Goldsmith.

The newly-captured hack was boarded and lodged at
Griffiths’ house in Paternoster Row (1757); he was to
have a small salary in consideration of remorselessly
constant work ; and — what was the hardest condition of
all — he was to have his writings revised by Mrs. Griffiths.
Mr. Forster justly remarks that though at last Goldsmith
had thus become a man-of -letters, he “ had gratified no
passion and attained no object of ambition.” He had
taken to literature, as so many others have done, merely
as a last resource. And if it is true that literature at
first treated Goldsmith harshly, made him work hard,
and gave him comparatively little for wffiat he did, at
least it must be said that his experience was not a
singular one. Mr. Forster says that literature was at
that time in a transition state : “ The patron was gone,
and the public had not come.” But when Goldsmith
began to do better than hack-work, he found a public

28

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

speedily enough. If, as Lord Macaulay computes, Gold-
smith received in the last seven years of his life what
was equivalent to £5,600 of our money, even the villain
booksellers cannot be accused of having starved him.
At the outset of his literary career he received no large
sums, for he had achieved no reputation ; but he got
the market rate for his work. We have around us at this
moment plenty of hacks who do not earn much more
than their board and lodging with a small salary.

For the rest, we have no means of knowing whether
Goldsmith got through his work with ease or with diffi-
culty ; but it is obvious, looking over the reviews which
he is believed to have written for Griffiths’ magazine,
that he readily acquired the professional critic’s airs
of superiority, along with a few tricks of the trade, no
doubt taught him by Griffiths. Several of these reviews,
for example, are merely epitomes of the contents of the
books reviewed, with some vague suggestion that the
writer might, if he had been less careful, have done
worse, and, if he had been more careful, might have
done better. Who does not remember how the philo-
sophic vagabond was taught to become a cognoscento ?
“ The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to
two rules : the one always to observe that the picture
might have been better if the painter had taken more
pains ; and the other to praise the works of Pietro
Perugino.” It is amusing to observe the different
estimates formed of the function of criticism by Gold-
smith the critic, and by Goldsmith the author. Gold-
smith, sitting at Griffiths’ desk, naturally magnifies his
office, and announces his opinion that “to direct our
taste, and conduct the poet up to perfection, has ever

IV.]

EARLY STRUGGLES. — HACK-WRITING.

29

been the true critic’s province.” But Goldsmith the
author, when he comes to inquire into the existing state
of Polite Learning in Europe, finds in criticism not a
help but a danger. It is “ the natural destroyer of
polite learning.” And again, in the Citizen of the World ,
he exclaims against the pretensions of the critic. “ If
any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics ;
and from that time forward they become invested with
full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at
their instruction or entertainment.”

This at least may be said, that in these early essays
contributed to the Monthly Review there is much more of
Goldsmith the critic than of Goldsmith the author. They
are somewhat laboured performances. They are almost
devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards
marked Goldsmith’s best prose work. We find throughout
his trick of antithesis ; but here it is forced and formal,
whereas afterwards he lent to this habit of writing
the subtle surprise of epigram. They have the true
manner of authority, nevertheless. He says of Home’s
Douglas — “ Those parts of nature, and that rural sim-
plicity with which the author was, perhaps, best ac-
quainted, are not unhappily described ; and hence we
are led to conjecture, that a more universal knowledge
of nature will probably increase his powers of de-
scription.” If the author had written otherwise, he
would have written differently ; had he known more, he
would not have been so ignorant ; the tragedy is a
tragedy, but why did not the author make it a comedy
- — this sort of criticism has been heard of even in our
own day. However, Goldsmith pounded away at his
newly-found work, under the eye of the exacting book-

30

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

seller and his learned wife. We find him dealing with
Scandinavian (here called Celtic) mythology, though he
does not adventure on much comment of his own ; then
he engages Smollett’s History of England , but mostly in
the way of extract ; anon we find him reviewing A Journal
of Eight Bays' Journey , by Jonas Han way, of whom
Johnson said that he made some reputation by travelling
abroad, and lost it all by travelling at home. Then again
we find him writing a disquisition on Some Enquiries
concerning the First Inhabitants , Language , Religion ,
Learning , and Letters of Europe , by a Mr. Wise, who,
along with his critic, appears to have got into hopeless
confusion in believing Basque and Armorican to be the
remains of the same ancient language. The last phrase
of a note appended to this review by Goldsmith probably
indicates his own humble estimate of his work at this
time. “ It is more our business, ” he says, “to exhibit
the opinions of the learned than to controvert them/ 1
In fact he was employed to boil down books for
people who did not wish to spend more on literature
than the price of a magazine. Though he was new to
the trade, it is probable he did it as well as any other.

At the end of five months, Goldsmith and Griffiths
quarrelled and separated. Griffiths said Goldsmith was
idle ; Goldsmith said Griffiths was impertinent ; probably
the editorial supervision exercised by Mrs. Griffiths had
something to do with the dire contention. From Pater-
noster Row Goldsmith removed to a garret in Fleet
Street ; had his letters addressed to a coffee-house ; and
apparently supported himself by further hack-work, his
connection with Griffiths not being quite severed. Then
he drifted back to Peckham again ; and was once more

31

iv.] EARLY STRUGGLES.— HACK-WRITING.

installed as usher, Dr. Milner being in especial want of
an assistant at this time. Goldsmith’s lingering about
the gates of literature had not inspired him with any
great ambition to enter the enchanted land. But at the
same time he thought he saw in literature a means by
which a little ready money might be made, in order to
help him on to something more definite and substantial ;
and this goal was now put before him by Dr. Milner, in
the shape of a medical appointment on the Coromandel
coast. It was in the hope of obtaining this appointment,
that he set about composing that Enquiry into the
Present State of Polite Learning in Europe, which is now
interesting to us as the first of his more ambitious works.
As the book grew under his hands, he began to cast
about for subscribers ; and from the Fleet-Street coffee-
house— he had again left the Peckham school— he
addressed to his friends and relatives a series of letters
of the most charming humour, which might have drawn
subscriptions from a millstone. To his brother-in-law,
Mr. Hodson, he sent a glowing account of the great
fortune in store for him on the Coromandel coast. “ The
salary is but trifling, ” he writes, “namely £100 per
annum, but the other advantages, if a person be prudent,
are considerable. The practice of the place, if I am
rightly informed, generally amounts to not less than
£1,000 per annum, for which the appointed physician
has an exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages
resulting from trade, and the high interest which money
bears, viz. £20 per cent., are the inducements which
persuade me to undergo the fatigues of sea, the dangers
of war, and the still greater dangers of the climate
which induce me to leave a place where I am every day

GOLDSMITH.

32

[chap iy.

gaining friends and esteem, and where I might enjoy ail
the conveniences of life.”

The surprising part of this episode in Goldsmiths
life is that he did really receive the appointment ; in
fact he was called upon to pay £10 for the appoint-
ment-warrant. In this emergency he went to the
proprietor of the Critical Review , the rival of the
Monthly , and obtained some money for certain anony-
mous work which need not be mentioned in detail
here. He also moved into another garret, this time
in Green-Arbour Court, Fleet Street, in a wilderness
of slums. The Coromandel project, however, on which
so many hopes had been built, fell through. No ex-
planation of the collapse could be got from either Gold-
smith himself, or from Dr. Milner. Mr. Forster suggests
that Goldsmith’s inability to raise money for his outfit
may have been made the excuse for transferring the
appointment to another ; and that is probable enough ;
but it is also probable that the need for such an excuse
was based on the discovery that Goldsmith was not
properly qualified for the post. And this seems the more
likely, that Goldsmith immediately afterwards resolved
to challenge examination at Surgeons’ Hall. He under-
took to write four articles for the Monthly Review;
Griffiths became surety to a tailor for a fine suit of
clothes ; and thus equipped, Goldsmith presented him-
self at Surgeons’ Hall. He only wanted to be passed as
hospital mate ; but even that modest ambition was un-
fulfilled. He was found not qualified ; and returned,
with his fine clothes, to his Fleet-Street den. He was
now thirty years of age (1758) ; and had found no definite
occupation in the world.

CHAPTER V.

BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP. — THE BEE.

During the period that now ensued, and amid much
quarrelling with Griffiths and hack-writing for the
Critical Review , Goldsmith managed to get his En-
quiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in
Europe completed ; and it is from the publication of
that work, on the 2nd of April, 1759, that we may date
the beginning of Goldsmith’s career as an author. The
book was published anonymously; but Goldsmith was
not at all anxious to disclaim the parentage of his first-
born ; and in Grub Street and its environs, at least, the
authorship of the book was no secret. Moreover there
was that in it which was likely to provoke the literary
tribe to plenty of fierce talking. The Enquiry is neither
more nor less than an endeavour to prove that criticism
has in all ages been the deadly enemy of art and litera-
ture ; coupled with an appeal to authors to draw their
inspiration from nature rather than from books, and
varied here and there by a gentle sigh over the loss of
that patronage, in the sunshine of which men of genius
were wont to bask. Goldsmith, not having been an
author himself, could not have suffered much at the

D

34

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

hands of the critics ; so that it is not to be supposed that
personal feeling dictated this fierce onslaught on the
whole tribe of critics, compilers, and commentators.
They are represented to us as rank weeds, growing up
to choke all manifestations of true art. “ Ancient
learning,’ ’ we are told at the outset, “ may be dis-
tinguished into three periods : its commencement, or
the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philo-
sophers ; and its decline, or the age of critics.” Then
our guide carries us into the dark ages ; and, with
lantern in hand, shows us the creatures swarming
there in the sluggish pools — “ commentators, compilers,
polemic divines, and intricate metaphysicians.” We
come to Italy : look at the affectations with which the
Virtuosi and Filosofi have enchained the free spirit of
poetry. “ Poetry is no longer among them an imitation
of what we see, but of what a visionary might wish.
The zephyr breathes the most exquisite perfume ; the
trees wear eternal verdure ; fawns, and dryads, and
hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess,
who has forgot, indeed, the prettiness with which
Guarini’s shepherdesses have been reproached, bat is
so simple and innocent as often to have no meaning.
Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to re-
vive ! — where the wits even of Pome are united into a
rural group of nymphs and swains, under the appellation
of modern Arcadians ! — where in the midst of porticoes,
processions, and cavalcades, abbes turned shepherds
and shepherdesses without sheep indulge their innocent
divertimenti ! ”

In Germany the ponderous volumes of the commen-
tators next come in for animadversion ; and here we

v.] BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.— THE BEE.

find an epigram, the quaint simplicity of which is
peculiarly characteristic of Goldsmith. “ Were angels
to write books,’’ he remarks, “ they never would write
folios.” But Germany gets credit for the money spent
by her potentates on learned institutions ; and it is
perhaps England that is delicately hinted at in these
words : “ Had the fourth part of the immense sum
above-mentioned been given in proper rewards to
genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would have
rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added
to the real interests of society.” Indeed, when we
come to England, we find that men of letters are in
a bad way, owing to the prevalence of critics, the
tyranny of booksellers, and the absence of patrons.
“ The author, when unpatronized by the great, has
naturally recourse to the bookseller. There cannot
perhaps be imagined a combination more prejudicial
to taste than this. It is the interest of the one to
allow as little for writing, and of the other to write
as much as possible. Accordingly, tedious compilations
and periodical magazines are the result of their joint
endeavours. In these circumstances the author bids
adieu to fame, writes for bread, and for that only.
Imagination is seldom called in. He sits down to
address the venal muse with the most phlegmatic
apathy ; and, as we are told of the Russian, courts
his mistress by falling asleep in her lap. His repu-
tation never spreads in a wider circle than that of the
trade, who generally value him, not for the fineness
of his compositions, but the quantity he works off in
a given time.

“ A long habit of writing for bread thus turns the

d 2

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

36

ambition of every author at last into avarice. He finds
that he has written many years, that the public are
scarcely acquainted even with his name ; he despairs of
applause, and turns to profit, which invites him. He
finds that money procures all those advantages, that
respect, and that ease which he vainly expected from
fame. Thus the man who, under the protection of the
great, might have done honour to humanity, when only
patronized by the bookseller, becomes a thing little
superior to the fellow who works at the press.”

Nor was he afraid to attack the critics of his own
day, though he knew that the two Reviews for which he
had recently been writing would have something to say
about his own Enquiry . This is how he disposes of
the Critical and the Monthly : “ We have two literary
Reviews in London, with critical newspapers and maga-
zines without number. The compilers of these resemble
the commoners of Rome ; they are all for levelling
property, not by increasing their own, but by diminish-
ing that of others. The man who has any good-
nature in his disposition must, however, be somewhat
displeased to see distinguished reputations often the
sport of ignorance, — to see, by one false pleasantry,
the future peace of a worthy man’s life disturbed, and
this only because he has unsuccessfully attempted to
instruct or amuse us. Though ill-nature is far from
being wit, yet it is generally laughed at as such. The
critic enjoys the triumph, and ascribes to his parts what
is only due to his effrontery. I fire with indignation,
when I see persons wholly destitute of education and
genius indent to the press, and thus turn book-makers,
adding to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance also ;

v.] BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP. — THE BEE. 37

whose trade is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in
the trade.” Indeed there was a good deal of random
hitting in the Enquiry , which was sure to provoke
resentment. Why, for example, should he have gone
out of his way to insult the highly respectable class
of people who excel in mathematical studies 'l “ This
seems a science,” he observes, “to which the meanest
intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says 4 All
men might understand mathematics if they would.’ ”
There was also in the first edition of the Enquiry a.
somewhat ungenerous attack on stage-managers, actor*,,
actresses, and theatrical things in general ; but this was
afterwards wisely excised. It is not to be wondered
at that, on the whole, the Enquiry should have been
severely handled in certain quarters. Smollett, who
reviewed it in the Critical Review , appears to have kept
his temper pretty well for a Scotchman ; but Kenrick,
a hack employed by Griffiths to maltreat the book in
the Monthly Review , flourished his bludgeon in a brave
manner. The coarse personalities and malevolent in-
sinuations of this bully no doubt hurt Goldsmith
considerably; but, as we look at them now, they
are only remarkable for their dulness. If Griffiths
had had another Goldsmith to reply to Goldsmith,
the retort would have been better worth reading : one
can imagine the playful sarcasm, that would have been
dealt out to this new writer, who, in the very act of
protesting against criticism, proclaimed himself a critic.
But Goldsmiths are not always to be had when
wanted ; while Kenricks can be bought at any moment
for a guinea or two a head.

Goldsmith had not chosen literature as the occupation

38

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

of his life ; he had only fallen back on it, when other
projects failed. But it is quite possible that now, as
he began to take up some slight position as an author,
the old ambition of distinguishing himself — which had
flickered before his imagination from time to time—
began to enter into his calculations along with the more
pressing business of earning a livelihood. And he was
soon to have an opportunity of appealing to a wider
public than could have been expected for that erudite
treatise on the arts of Europe. Mr. Wilkie, a book-
seller in St. Paul’s Churchyard, proposed to start a
weekly magazine, price threepence, to contain essays,
short stories, letters on the topics of the day, and so
forth, more or less after the manner of the Spectator .
He asked Goldsmith to become sole contributor. Here,
indeed, was a very good opening ; for, although there
were many magazines in the field, the public had just
then a fancy for literature in small doses ; while Gold-
smith, in entering into the competition, would not be
hampered by the dulness of collaborateurs. He closed
with Wilkie’s offer ; and on the 6th of October, 1759,
appeared the first number of the Bee.

For us now there is a curious autobiographical interest
in the opening sentences of the first number ; but surely
even the public of the day must have imagined that the
new writer who was now addressing them, was not to be
confounded with the common herd of magazine-hacks.
What could be more delightful than this odd mixture of
modesty, humour, and an anxious desire to please? —
5 ‘ There is not, perhaps, a more whimsically dismal figure
in nature than a man of real modesty, who assumes
cn air of impudence — who, while his heart beats with

v.] BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.— THE BEE. 39

anxiety, studies ease and affects good-humour. Tn this
situation, however, a periodical writer often finds himself
upon his first attempt to address the public in form.
All his power of pleasing is damped by solicitude, and
his cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed
with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is going
to appear, his natural humour turns to pertness, and for
real wit he is obliged to substitute vivacity. His first
publication draws a crowd ; they part dissatisfied ; and
the author, never more to be indulged with a favourable
hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own
address or their want of discernment. For my part, as I
was never distinguished for address, and have often even
blundered in making my bow, such bodings as these had
like to have totally repressed my ambition. I was at a
loss whether to give the public specious promises, or give
none ; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn occa-
sion. If I should decline all merit, it was too probabje
the hasty reader might have taken me at my word. If,
on the other hand, like labourers in the magazine trade,
I had, with modest impudence, humbly presumed to
promise an epitome of all the good things that ever were
said or written, this might have disgusted those readers
I most desire to please. Had I been merry, I might
have been censured as vastly low ; and had I been
sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude
and silence ; in short, whichever way I turned, nothing
presented but prospects of terror, despair, chandlers’
shops, and waste paper.”

And it is just possible that if Goldsmith had kept to
this vein of familiar causerie , the public might in time
have been attracted by its quaintness. But no doubt

40

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

Mr. Wilkie would have stared aghast ; and so we find
Goldsmith, as soon as his introductory bow is made,
setting seriously about the business of magazine-making.
Very soon, however, both Mr. Wilkie and his editor
perceived that the public had not been taken by their
venture. The chief cause of the failure, as it appears
to any one who looks over the magazine now, would
seem to be the lack of any definite purpose. There was
no marked feature to arrest public attention, while
many things were discarded on which the popularity
of other periodicals had been based. There was no
scandal to appeal to the key-hole and back door
element in human nature ; there were no libels and
gross personalities to delight the mean and envious ;
there were no fine airs of fashion to charm milliners
anxious to know how the great talked, and posed, and
dressed ; and there was no solemn and pompous erudi-
tion to impress the minds of those serious and sensible
people who buy literature as they buy butter, by its
weight. At the beginning of No. IY. he admits that
the new magazine has not been a success ; and, in doing
so, returns to that vein of whimsical, personal humour
with which he had started : “ Were I to measure the
merit of my present undertaking by its success or the
rapidity of its sale, I might be led to form conclusions
by no means favourable to the pride of an author.
Should I estimate my fame by its extent, every news-
paper and magazine would leave me far behind. Their
fame is diffused in a very wide circle — that of some as
far as Islington, and some yet farther still ; while mine,
I sincerely believe, has hardly travelled beyond the
sound of Bow Bell ; and, while the works of others fly

v.] BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.— THE BEE. 41

like unpinioned swans, I find my own move as heavily
as a new-plucked goose. Still, however, I have as much
pride as they who have ten times as many readers. It
is impossible to repeat all the agreeable delusions in
which a disappointed author is apt to find comfort. I
conclude, that what my reputation wants in extent is
made up by its solidity. Minus juvat gloria lata quam
magna . I have great satisfaction in considering the
delicacy and discernment of those readers I have, and in
ascribing my want of popularity to the ignorance or
inattention of those 1 have not. All the world may
forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him.
Yet, notwithstanding so sincere a confession, I was once
induced to show my indignation against the public, by
discontinuing my endeavours to please ; and was bravely
resolved, like Haleigh, to vex them by burning my manu-
script in a passion. Upon recollection, however, I con-
sidered what set or body of people would be displeased
at my rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident,
might shine next morning as bright as usual ; men
might laugh and sing the next day, and transact busi-
ness as before, and not a single creature feel any regret
but myself.”

Goldsmith was certainly more at home in this sort of
writing, than in gravely lecturing people against the
vice of gambling; in warning tradesmen how ill it
became them to be seen at races ; in demonstrating
that justice is a higher virtue than generosity; and
in proving that the avaricious are the true bene-
factors of society. But even as he confesses the failure
of his new magazine, he seems determined to show the
public what sort of writer this is, whom as yet they have

42

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

not regarded too favourably. It is in No. IV. of the Bee
that the famous City Night Piece occurs. No doubt
that strange little fragment of description was the
result of some sudden and aimless fancy, striking the
occupant of the lonely garret in the middle of the
night. The present tense, which he seldom used — and
the abuse of which is one of the detestable vices of
modern literature — adds to the mysterious solemnity of
the recital : —

“ The clock has just struck two, the expiring taper
rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the
hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest,
and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and
despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying
bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the
suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred
person.

“ Let me no longer waste the night over the page of
antiquity or the sallies of contemporary genius, but
pursue the solitary walk, where Vanity, ever changing,
but a few hours past walked before me — where she kept
up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems
hushed with her own importunities.

“ What a gloom hangs all around ! The dying lamp
feebly emits a yellow gleam ; no sound is heard but of
the chiming clock, or the distant watch-dog. All the
bustle of human pride is forgotten ; an hour like this
may well display the emptiness of human vanity.

“ There will come a time, when this temporary solitude
may be made continual, and the city itself, like its in-
habitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room.

“ What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in

V.]

BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP. — THE BEE.

43

existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as
unbounded ; and, with short sighted presumption, pro-
mised themselves immortality ! Posterity can hardly
trace the situation of some ; the sorrowful traveller
wanders over the awful ruins of others ; and, as he
beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of
every sublunary possession.

“ ‘ Here,’ he cries, ‘ stood their citadel, now grown
over with weeds ; there their senate-house, but now the
haunt of every noxious reptile ; temples and theatres
stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin.
They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them
feeble. The rewards of the state were conferred on
amusing, and not on useful, members of society. Their
riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at
first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance,
and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished
destruction/ ”

CHAPTER VI.

PERSONAL TRAITS.

The foregoing extracts will sufficiently show what
were the chief characteristics of Goldsmith’s writing
at this time — the grace and ease of style, a gentle
and sometimes pathetic thoughtfulness, and, above all,
when he speaks in the first person, a delightful vein
of humorous self- disclosure. Moreover, these quali-
ties, if they were not immediately profitable to the
booksellers, were beginning to gain for him the recog-
nition of some of the well-known men of the day.
Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, had made his way
to the miserable garret of the poor author. Smollett,
whose novels Goldsmith preferred to his History, was
anxious to secure his services as a contributor to the
forthcoming British Magazine . Burke had spoken of
the pleasure given him by Goldsmith’s review of the
Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful . But, to crown all, the great Cham himself
sought out this obscure author, who had on several
occasions spoken with reverence and admiration of his
works ; and so began what is perhaps the most inter-
esting literary friendship on record. At what precise
date Johnson first made Goldsmith’s acquaintance, is not

CH. VI.]

PERSONAL TRAITS.

45

known ; Mr. Forster is right in assuming that they
had met before the supper in Wine-Office Court, at
which Mr. Percy was present. It is a thousand pities
that Boswell had not by this time made his appearance
in London. Johnson, Goldsmith, and all the rest of
them are only ghosts until the pertinacious young laird
of Auchinleck comes on the scene to give them colour,
and life, and form. It is odd enough that the very first
remarks of Goldsmith’s which Boswell jotted down in
his notebook, should refer to Johnson’s systematic
kindness towards the poor and wretched. “ He had
increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson’s
heart by incidental remarks in the course of con-
versation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom
he entertained under his roof, ‘ He is poor and honest,
which is recommendation enough to J ohnson ’ ; and
when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of
whom I had heard a very bad character, ‘ He is now
become miserable, and that ensures the protection of
Johnson.’ ”

d or the rest, Boswell was not well-disposed towards
Goldsmith, whom he regarded with a jealousy equal to
his admiration of Johnson ; but it is probable that his
description of the personal appearance of the awkward
and ungainly Irishman is in the main correct. And
here also it may be said that Boswell’s love of truth
and accuracy compelled him to make this admission :
“ It has been generally circulated and believed that he
(Goldsmith) was a mere fool in conversation ; but, in
truth, this has been greatly exaggerated.” On this ex-
aggeration— seeing that the contributor to the British
Magazine and the Public Ledger was now becoming better

46

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

known among his fellow authors — a word or two may
fitly be said here. It pleased Goldsmith’s contempo-
raries, who were not all of them celebrated for their
re idy wit, to regard him as a hopeless and incurable
fool, who by some strange chance could produce liter-
ature, the merits of which he could not himself under-
stand. To Horace Walpole we owe the phrase which
describes Goldsmith as an “inspired idiot.” Innumer-
able stories are told of Goldsmith’s blunders ; of his
forced attempts to shine in conversation ; of poor Poll
talking nonsense, when all the world was wondering
at the beauty of his writing. In one case we are told he
was content to admit, when dictated to, that this, and
not that, was what he really had meant in a particular
phrase. Now there can be no question that Gold-
smith, conscious of his pitted face, his brogue, and his
ungainly figure, was exceedingly nervous and sensitive
in society, and was anxious, as such people mostly are,
to cover his shyness by an appearance of ease, if
not even of swagger ; and there can be as little question
that he occasionally did and said very awkward and
blundering things. But our Japanese friend, whom we
mentioned in our opening pages, looking through the
record that is preserved to us of those blunders
which are supposed to be most conclusive as to
this aspect of Goldsmith’s character, would certainly
stare. “ Good heavens,” he would cry, “ did men ever
live who were so thick headed as not to see the humour
of this or that ‘ blunder ’ ; or were they so beset with
the notion that Goldsmith was only a fool, that they
must needs be blind ] ” Take one well-known instance.
He goes to France with Mrs. Horneck and her two

VI.]

PERSONAL TRAITS.

47

daughters, the latter very handsome young ladies. At
Lille the two girls and Goldsmith are standing at
the window of the hotel, overlooking the square in
which are some soldiers ; and naturally the beautiful
young Englishwomen attract some attention. There-
upon Goldsmith turns indignantly away, remarking that
elsewhere he also has his admirers. Now what surgical
instrument was needed to get this harmless little joke
into any sane person’s head % Boswell may perhaps be
pardoned for pretending to take the incident an serieux ;
for as has just been said, in his profound adoration of
J ohnson, he was devoured by jealousy of Goldsmith ;
but that any other mortal should have failed to see
what was meant by this little bit of humorous flattery
is almost incredible. No wonder that one of the sisters
afterwards referring to this “ playful jest,” should have
expressed her astonishment at finding it put down as a
proof of Goldsmith’s envious disposition. But even after
that disclaimer, we find Mr. Croker, as quoted by Mr.
Forster, solemnly doubting “ whether the vexation so
seriously exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed” !

Of course this is an extreme case ; but there are others
very similar. “ He affected,” says Hawkins, “ Johnson’s
style and manner of conversation, and, when he had
uttered, as he often would, a laboured sentence, so
tumid as to be scarce intelligible, would ask if that was
not truly Johnsonian % ” Is it not truly dismal to find
such an utterance coming from a presumably reasonable
human being % It is not to be wondered at that Gold-
smith grew shy — and in some cases had to ward off the
acquaintance of certain of his neighbours as being too
intrusive — if he ran the risk of having his odd and grave

48

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

humours so densely mistranslated. The fact is this,
that Goldsmith was possessed of a very subtle quality
of humour, which is at all times rare, but which is
perhaps more frequently to be found in Irishmen
than among other folks. It consists in the satire of the
pretence and pomposities of others by means of a sort
of exaggerated and playful self-depreciation. It is a
most delicate and most delightful form of humour ; but
it is very apt to be misconstrued by the dull. Who
can doubt that Goldsmith was good-naturedly laugh-
ing at himself, his own plain face, his vanity, and
his blunders, when he professed to be jealous of the
admiration excited by the Miss Hornecks ; when he
gravely drew attention to the splendid colours of his
coat ; or when he no less gravely informed a company of
his friends that he had heard a very good story, but
would not repeat it, because they would be sure to miss
the point of it %

This vein of playful and sarcastic self-depreciation is
continually cropping up in his essay writing, as, for
example, in the passage already quoted from No. IV.
of the Bee : “I conclude, that what my reputation
wants in extent, is made up by its solidity. Minus
jurat gloria lata quam magna . I have great satis-
faction in considering the delicacy and discernment
of those readers I have, and in ascribing my want of
popularity to the ignorance or inattention of those I
have not.” But here, no doubt, he remembers that he
is addressing tbe world at large, which contains many
foolish persons ; and so, that the delicate raillery may
not be mistaken, he immediately adds, “ All the world
may forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake

PERSONAL TRAITS.

40

VL]

him.” That ho expected a quicker apprehension on the
part of his intimates and acquaintances, and that he
was frequently disappointed, seems pretty clear from
those very stories of his “ blunders.” We may reason-
ably suspect, at all events, that Goldsmith was not quite so
much of a fool as he looked ; and it is far from improbable
that when the ungainly Irishman was called in to make
sport for the Philistines — and there were a good many
Philistines in those days, if all stories be true —
and when they imagined they had put him out of
countenance, he was really standing aghast, and
wondering how it could have pleased Providence to
create such helpless stupidity.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. — BEAU NASH.

Meanwhile, to return to his literary work, the Citizen
of the World had grown out of his contributions to the
Public Ledger , a daily newspaper started by Mr. New-
bery, another bookseller in St. Paul’s Churchyard.
Goldsmith was engaged to write for this paper two
letters a week at a guinea a-piece ; and these letters
were, after a short time (1760), written in the character of
a Chinese who had come to study European civilisation.
It may be noted that Goldsmith had in the Monthly
Review , in mentioning Voltaire’s memoirs of French
writers, quoted a passage about Montesquieu’s Lettres
Persanes as follows : “ It is written in imitation of
the Siamese Letters of Du Freny and of the Turkish
Spy; but it is an imitation wThich shows what the
originals should have been. The success their works
met with was, for the most part, owing to the foreign
air of their performances ; the success of the Persian
Letters arose from the delicacy of their satire. That
satire which in the mouth of an Asiatic is poignant,
would lose all its force when coming from an European.”
And it must certainly be said that the charm of the

CH. vii.] THE CITIZEN OF THE 'WORLD. — BEAU NASH. 51

strictures of the Citizen of the World lies wholly in their
delicate satire, and not at all in any foreign air which
the author may have tried to lend to these perform-
ances. The disguise is very apparent. In those gar-
rulous, vivacious, whimsical, and sometimes serious
papers, Lien Chi Altangi, writing to Fum Hoam in
Pekin, does not so much describe the aspects of European
civilisation which would naturally surprise a Chinese,
as he expresses the dissatisfaction of a European with
certain phases of the civilisation visible everywhere
around him. It is not a Chinaman, but a Fleet-Street
author by profession, who resents the competition of
noble amateurs whose works — otherwise bitter pills
enough — are gilded by their titles : — “A nobleman has
but to take a pen, ink, and paper, write away through
three large volumes, and then sign his name to the title-
page ; though the whole might have been before more
disgusting than his own rent-roll, yet signing his name
and title gives value to the deed, title being alone equi-
valent to taste, imagination, and genius. As soon as a
piece, therefore, is published, the first questions are —
Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where
lies his estate ? What sort of a table does he keep ?
If he happens to be poor and unqualified for such a
scrutiny, he and his works sink into irremediable
obscurity, and too late he finds, that having fed upon
turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested
Tully. The poor devil against whom fashion has set its
face vainly alleges that he has been bred in every part
of Europe wdiere knowledge was to be sold ; that he has
grown pale in the study of nature and himself. His
works may pleare upon the perusal, but his pretensions

E 2

52

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

to fame are entirely disregarded. He is treated like a
fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised,
because he lives by it ; while a gentleman performer,
though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the
audience into raptures. The fiddler, indeed, may in
such a case console himself by thinking, that while the
other goes off with all the praise, he runs away with all
the money. But here the parallel drops ; for while the
nobleman triumphs in unmerited applause, the author
by profession steals off with — nothing.”

At the same time it must be allowed that the utterance
of these strictures through the mouth of a Chinese admits
of a certain naivete, which on occasion heightens the sar-
casm. Lien Chi accompanies the Man in Black to a
theatre to see an English play. Here is part of the
performance : — “ I was going to second his remarks,
when my attention was engrossed by a new object ; a
man came in balancing a straw upon his nose, and the
audience were clapping their hands in all the raptures of
applause. ‘ To what purpose/ cried I, ‘ does this un-
meaning figure make his appearance*? is he a part of
the plot? 7 — ‘Unmeaning do you call him? 7 replied my
friend in black ; ‘ this is one of the most important
characters of the whole play ; nothing pleases the
people more than seeing a straw balanced : there is a
great deal of meaning in a straw : there is something
suited to every apprehension in the sight ; and a fellow
possessed of talents like these is sure of making his
fortune.7 The third act now began with an actor who
came to inform us that he was the villain of the play,
and intended to show strange things before all was
over. He was joined by another who seemed as much

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.— BEAU NASH. 53

disposed for mischief as he ; their intrigues continued
through this whole division. 4 If that be a villain/
said I, 4 he must be a very stupid one to tell his secrets
without being asked ; such soliloquies of late are never
admitted in China/ The noise of clapping interrupted
me once more ; a child six years old was learning to
dance on the stage, which gave the ladies and mandarins
infinite satisfaction. 4 1 am sorry/ said I, 4 to see the
pretty creature so early learning so bad a trade ; dancing
being, I presume, as contemptible here as in China/ —
4 Quite the reverse/ interrupted my companion ; 4 dancing
is a very reputable and genteel employment here ; men
have a greater chance for encouragement from the merit
of their heels than their heads. One who jumps up and
flourishes his toes three times before he comes to the
ground may have three hundred a year : he who
flourishes them four times, gets four hundred ; but he
who arrives at five is inestimable, and may demand
what salary he thinks proper. The female dancers,
too, are valued foi this sort of jumping and crossing ;
and it is a cant word amongst them, that she deserves
most who shows highest. But the fourth act is begun ;
let us be attentive/ ”

The Man in Black here mentioned is one of the
notable features of this series of papers. The mys-
terious person whose acquaintance the Chinaman made
in Westminster Abbey, and who concealed such a
wonderful goodness of heart under a rough and for-
bidding exterior, is a charming character indeed ; and
it is impossible to praise too highly the vein of subtle
sarcasm in which he preaches worldly wisdom. But to
assume that any part of his history which he disclosed

54

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAP.

to the Chinaman was a piece of autobiographical
writing on the part of Goldsmith, is a very hazardous
thing. A writer of fiction must necessarily use such
materials as have come within his own experience ; and
Goldsmiths experience — or his use of those materials —
was extremely limited : witness how often a pet fancy,
like his remembrance of Johnny Armstrong's Last Good
Night , is repeated. “ That of these simple elements,”
writes Professor Masson, in his Memoir of Goldsmith,
prefixed to an edition of his works, “ he made so many
charming combinations, really differing from each other,
and all, though suggested by fact, yet hung so sweetly
in an ideal air, proved what an artist he was, and was
better than much that is commonly called invention.
In short, if there is a sameness of effect in Goldsmith’s
writings, it is because they consist of poetry and truth,
humour and pathos, from his own life, and the supply
from such a life as his was not inexhaustible. ”

The question of invention is easily disposed of. Any
child can invent a world transcending human experience
by the simple combination of ideas which are in them-
selves incongruous — a world in which the horses have
each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky
green, in which seas are balanced on the peaks of
mountains. The result is unbelievable and worthless.
But the writer of imaginative literature uses his own
experiences and the experiences of others, so that his
combination of ideas in themselves compatible shall
appear so natural and believable that the reader —
although these incidents and characters never did
actually exist — is as much interested in them as if they
had existed. The mischief of it is that the reader

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WOULD.— BEAU NASH. 55

sometimes thinks himself very clever, and, recognising
a little bit of the story as having happened to the
author, jumps to the conclusion that such and such a
passage is necessarily autobiographical. Hence it is
that Goldsmith has been hastily identified with the
Philosophic Vagabond in the Vicar of Wakefield , and
with the Man in Black in the Citizen of the World .
That he may have used certain experiences in the one,
and that he may perhaps have given in the other a sort
of fancy sketch of a person suggested by some trait in
his own character, is possible enough ; but further
assertion of likeness is impossible. That the Man in
Black had one of Goldsmith’s little weaknesses is
obvious enough : we find him just a trifle too conscious
of his own kindliness and generosity. The Vicar
of Wakefield himself is not without a spice of this
amiable vanity. As for Goldsmith, every one must
remember his reply to Griffiths’ accusation : “No, sir,
had I been a sharper, had I been possessed of less good
nature and native generosity , I might surely now have
been in better circumstances. ”

The Man in Black, in any case, is a delightful character.
We detect the warm and generous nature even in his pre-
tence of having acquired worldly wisdom : “ I now there-
fore pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldom
wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to
twenty. I soon began to get the character of a sav’ng
hunks that had money, and insensibly grew into esteem.
Neighbours have asked my advice in the disposal of
their daughters ; and I have always taken care not to
give any. I have contracted a friendship with an
alderman, only by observing, that if we take a farthing

56

GOLDSMITH.

[ciiap.

from a thousand pounds it will be a thousand pounds
no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker’s
table, by pretending to hate gravy ; and am now
actually upon treaty of marriage with a rich widow,
for only having observed that the bread was rising.
If ever I am asked a question, whether I know
it or not, instead of answering, I only smile and look
wise. If a charity is proposed I go about with the
hat, but put nothing in myself. If a wretch solicits my
pity, I observe that the world is filled with impostors,
and take a certain method of not being deceived by
never relieving. In short, I now find the truest way
of finding esteem, even from the indigent, is to give
away nothing, and thus have much in our power to
give.” This is a very clever piece of writing, whether
it is in strict accordance with the character of the Man
in Black, or not. But there is in these Public Ledger
papers another sketch of character, which is not only
consistent in itself, and in every way admirable, but is
of still further interest to us when we remember that
at this time the various personages in the Vicar of
Wakefield were no doubt gradually assuming definite
form in Goldsmith's mind. It is in the figure of Mr.
Tibbs, introduced apparently at haphazard, but at once
taking possession of us by its quaint relief, that we
find Goldsmith showing a firmer hand in character-
drawing. With a few happy dramatic touches Mr.
Tibbs starts into life ; he speaks for himself ; he be-
comes one of the people wdiom we know. And yet,
with this concise and sharp portraiture of a human
being, look at the graceful, almost garrulous, ease of the
style : —

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.— BEAU NASH. 57

“ Our pursuer soon came up and joined us with all
the familiarity of an old acquaintance. ‘ My dear
Dry bone,’ cries he, shaking my friend’s hand, 6 where
have you been hiding this half a century ? Positively
I had fancied you were gone to cultivate matrimony
and your estate in the country.’ During the reply I
had an opportunity of surveying the appearance of our
new companion : his hat was pinched up with peculiar
smartness ; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp ; round
his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his
bosom a buckle studded with glass ; his coat was
trimmed with tarnished twist ; he wore by his side a
sword with a black hilt ; and his stockings of silk,
though newly washed, w^ere grown yellow by long
service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity
of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of
my friend’s reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs
on the taste of his clothes and the bloom in his counte-
nance. ‘ Pshaw, pshaw, Will,’ cried the figure, ‘ no
more of that, if you love me : you know I hate flattery,
— on my soul I do ; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy
with the great will improve one’s appearance, and a
course of venison will fatten ; and yet, faith, I despise
the great as much as you do ; but there are a great
many damn’d honest fellows among them, and we must
not quarrel with one half, because the other wants
weeding. If they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one
of the most good-natured creatures that ever squeezed
a lemon, I should myself be among the number of their
admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess
of Piccadilly’s. My lord was there. “Ned,” says
he to me, “Ned,” says he, “I’ll hold gold to silver,

58

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAr.

I can tell you where you were poaching last night.”
“ Poaching, my lord?” says I: “ faith, you have

missed already ; for I staid at home and let the girls
poach for me. That’s my way : I take a fine woman
as some animals do their prey — stand still, and, swoop,
they fall into my mouth.” ’ ‘Ah, Tibbs, thou art a
happy fellow/ cried my companion, with looks of
infinite pity ; ‘ I hope your fortune is as much im-
proved as your understanding, in such company ? ’
‘ Improved! 5 replied the other: ‘ you shall know, —
but let it go no farther — a great secret — five hundred
a year to begin with — my lord’s word of honour for it.
His lordship took me down in his own chariot yesterday,
and we had a tete-a-tete dinner in the country, where
we talked of nothing else.’ — ‘I fancy you forget, sir,’
cried I ; ‘ you told us but this moment of your dining
yesterday in town.’ — ‘Did I say so L replied he,
coolly; ‘to be sure, if I said so, it was so. Dined in
town ! egad, now I do remember, I did dine in town ;
but I dined in the country too ; for you must know,
my boys, I ate two dinners. By the bye, I am grown
as nice as the devil in my eating. I’ll tell you a
pleasant affair about that : we were a select party of
us to dine at Lady Grogram’s, — an affected piece, but
let it go no farther — a secret. — Well, there happened
to be no asafoetida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which,
says I, I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say done, first,
that — But, dear Drybone, you are an honest creature ;
lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just

till ; but hearkee, ask me for it the next time

we meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget to
pay you.’ ”

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.— BEAU NASH. 59

Returning from these performances to the author of
them, we find him a busy man of letters, becoming more
and more in request among the booksellers, and obtaining
lecognition among his fellow-writers. He had moved
into better lodgings in Wine Office Court (17 GO-2) ; and it
was here that he entertained at supper, as has already
been mentioned, no less distinguished guests than
Bishop, then Mr., Percy, and Dr., then Mr., Johnson.
Every one has heard of the surprise of Percy, on calling
for Johnson, to find the great Cham dressed with quite
unusual smartness. On asking the cause of this
“ singular transformation,” Johnson replied, “ Why,
sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven,
justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by
quoting my practice ; and I am desirous this night to
show him a better example.” That Goldsmith profited
by this example — though the tailors did not — is clear
enough. At times, indeed, he blossomed out into the
splendours of a dandy ; and laughed at himself for
doing so. But whether he was in gorgeous cr in mean
attire, he remained the same sort of ha ppy-go lucky
creature ; working hard by fits and starts ; continually
getting money in advance from the booksellers ; enjoying
the present hour ; and apparently happy enough when
not pressed by debt. That he should have been thus
pressed was no necessity of the case ; at all events we
need not on this score begin now to abuse the book-
sellers or the public of that day. We may dismiss once
for all the oft-repeated charges of ingratitude and neglect.

When Goldsmith was writing those letters in the Public
Ledger — with “ pleasure and instruction for others,”
Mr. Forster says? “ though at the cost of suffering to

60

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

himself ” — he was receiving for them alone what would
be equivalent in our day to <£200 a year. No man can
affirm that £200 a year is not amply sufficient for all the
material wants of life. Of course there are fine things in
the world that that amount of annual wage cannot pur-
chase. It is a fine thing to sit on the deck of a yacht on
a summer’s day, and watch the far islands shining over the
blue ; it is a fine thing to drive four-in-hand to Ascot — -
if you can do it ; it is a fine thing to cower breathless
behind a rock and find a splendid stag coming slowly
within sure range. But these things are not necessary
to human happiness : it is possible to do without them
and yet not “ suffer.” Even if Goldsmith had given
half of his substance away to the poor, there was enough
left to cover all the necessary wants of a human being ;
and if he chose so to order his affairs as to incur the
suffering of debt, why, that was his own business,
about which nothing further needs be said. It is to be
suspected, indeed, that he did not care to practise those
excellent maxims of prudence and frugality which he
frequently preached ; but the world is not much con-
cerned about that now. If Goldsmith had received ten
times as much money as the booksellers gave him, he
would still have died in debt. And it is just possible
that we may exaggerate Goldsmith’s sensitiveness on
this score. He had had a life-long familiarity with
duns and borrowing ; and seemed very contented when
the exigency of the hour was tided over. An angry
landlady is unpleasant, and an arrest is awkward ; but
in comes an opportune guinea, and the bottle of Madeira
is opened forthwith.

In these rooms in Wine Office Court, and at the

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.— BEAU NASH. 61

suggestion or entreaty of Newbery, Goldsmith produced
a good deal of miscellaneous writing — pamphlets, tracts,
compilations, and what not — of a more or less market-
able kind. It can only be surmised that by this time
he may have formed some idea of producing a book not
solely meant for the market, and that the characters in
the Vicar of Wakefield were already engaging his atten-
tion ; but the surmise becomes probable enough when
we remember that his project of writing the Traveller ,
which was not published till 1764, had been formed as
far back as 1755, while he was wandering aimlessly
about Europe, and that a sketch of the poem was actually
forwarded by him then to his brother Henry in Ireland.
But in the meantime this hack-work, and the habits of
life connected with it, began to tell on Goldsmith’s
health; and so, for a time, he left London (1762), and
went to Tunbridge and then to Bath. It is scarcely
possible that his modest fame had preceded him to the
latter place of fashion ; but it may be that the distin-
guished folk of the town received this friend of the great
Dr. Johnson with some small measure of distinction ;
for we find that his next published work, Tlie Life of
Richard Nash, Esq., is respectfully dedicated to the
Bight Worshipful the Mayor, Becorder, Aldermen, and
Common Council of the City of Bath. The Life of the
recently deceased Master of Ceremonies was published
anonymously (1762) ; but it was generally understood to
be Goldsmith’s ; and indeed the secret of the author-
ship is revealed in every successive line. Among the
minor writings of Goldsmith there is none more delight-
ful than this : the mock-heroic gravity, the half-familiar
contemptuous good-nature with which he composes

62

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

this Funeral March of a Marionette, are extremely
whimsical and amusing. And then what an admirable
picture we get of fashionable English society in the
beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bath and
Nash were alike in the heyday of their glory — the fine
ladies with their snuff-boxes, and their passion for play,
and their extremely effective language when they got
angry ; young bucks come to flourish away their money,
and gain by their losses the sympathy of the fair ;
sharpers on the look-out for guineas, and adventurers
on the look-out for weak-minded heiresses ; duchesses
writing letters in the most doubtful English, and chair-
men swearing at any one who dared to walk home on
foot at night.

No doubt the Life of Beau Nash was a bookseller’s
book ; and it was made as attractive as possible by the
recapitulation of all sorts of romantic stories about

Miss S — - — n, and Mr. C e, and Captain K g;

but throughout we find the historian very much in-
clined to laugh at his hero, and only refraining now and
again in order to record in serious language traits
indicative of the real goodness of disposition of that fop
and gambler. And the fine ladies and gentlemen, who
lived in that atmosphere of scandal, and intrigue, and
gambling, are also from time to time treated to a little
decorous and respectful raillery. Who does not re-
member the famous laws of polite breeding written out
by Mr. Nash — Goldsmith hints that neither Mr. Nash
nor his fair correspondent at Blenheim, the Duchess of
Marlborough, excelled in English composition — for the
guidance of the ladies and gentlemen who were under
the sway of the King of Bath ? “ But were we to give

VII.] THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. — BEAU NASH. 63

laws to a nursery, we should make them childish laws,”
Goldsmith writes gravely. “ His statutes, though stupid,
were addressed to fine gentlemen and ladies, and were
probably received with sympathetic approbation. It is
certain they were in general religiously observed by his
subjects, and executed by him with impartiality ; neither
rank nor fortune shielded the refractory from his re-
sentment. ” Nash, however, was not content with prose
in enforcing good manners. Having waged deadly war
against the custom of wearing boots, and having found
his ordinary armoury of no avail against the obduracy
of the country squires, he assailed them in the im-
passioned language of poetry, and produced the following
“Invitation to the Assembly/’ which, as Goldsmith
remarks, was highly relished by the nobility at Bath on
account of its keenness, severity, and particularly its
good rhymes.

“ Come, one and all, to Hoyden Hall,

For there’s the assembly this night ;

None but prude fools
Mind manners and rules ;

We Hoydens do decency slight.

Come, trollops and slatterns,

Cocked bats and white aprons,

This best our modesty suits ;

For why should not we
In dress be as free
As Hogs-Norton squires in boots ?”

The sarcasm was too much for the squires, who yielded
in a body ; and when any stranger through inadvertence
presented himself in the assembly-rooms in boots, Nash
was so completely master of the situation that he would

64 GOLDSMITH. t [chap.

politely step up to the intruder and suggest that he had
forgotten his horse.

Goldsmith does not magnify the intellectual capacity
of his hero ; but he gives him credit for a sort of
rude wit that was sometimes effective enough. His
physician, for example, having called on him to see
whether he had followed a prescription that had been
sent him the previous day, was greeted in this fashion :
“ Followed your prescription % Ho. Egad, if I had,
1 should have broken my neck, for I flung it out
of the two pair of stairs window.” For the rest, this
diverting biography contains some excellent warnings
against the vice of gambling ; with a particular account
of the manner in which the Government of the day tried
by statute after statute to suppress the tables at Tun-
bridge and Bath, thereby only driving the sharpers to
new subterfuges. That the Beau was in alliance with
sharpers, or, at least, that he was a sleeping partner in
the firm, his biographer admits ; but it is urged on his
behalf that he was the most generous of winners, and
again and again interfered to prevent the ruin of some
gambler by whose folly he would himself have profited.
His constant charity was well known ; the money so
lightly come by was at the disposal of any one who
could prefer a piteous tale. Moreover he made no
scruple about exacting from others that charity which
they could well afford. One may easily guess who was
the duchess mentioned in the following story of Gold-
smith’s narration : —

“ The sums he gave and collected for the Hospital were
great, and his manner of doing it was no less admirable.
I am told that he was once collecting money in Wilt-

vii.] THE CITIZEN OF TIIE WORLD.-BEAU NASH. 65

shire’s room for that purpose, when a lady entered, who
is more remarkable for her wit than her charity, and
not being able to pass by him unobserved, she gave him
a pat with her fan, and said, 4 You must put down a
trifle for me, Nash, for I have no money in my pocket.’
4 Yes, madam,’ says he, 4 that I will with pleasure, if
your grace will tell me when to stop ; ’ then taking an
handful of guineas out of his pocket, he began to tell
them into his white hat — 4 One, two, three, four,

five ’ 4 Hold, hold ! ’ says the duchess, 4 consider

what you are about.’ ‘Consider your rank and fortune,
madam,’ says Nash, and continues telling — 4 six, seven,
eight, nine, ten.’ Here the duchess called again, and
seemed angry. 4 Pray compose yourself, madam,’ cried
Nash, 4 and don’t interrupt the work of charity, — eleven,
twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.’ Here the duchess
stormed, and caught hold of his hand. 4 Peace, madam,’
says Nash, ‘you shall have your name written in letters
of gold, madam, and upon the front of the building,
madam, — sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.’
4 1 won’t pay a farthing more,’ says the duchess.

4 Charity hides a multitude of sins,’ replies Nash,*—
‘twenty-one, twenty- two, twenty-three, twenty-four,
twenty-five.’ 4 Nash,’ says she, 4 1 protest you frighten
me out of my wits. L — d, I shall die I ’ 4 Madam,

you will never die with doing good ; and if you do, it
will be the better for you,’ answered Nash, and was
about to proceed ; but perceiving her grace had lost all
patience, a parley ensued, when he, after much alterca-
tion, agreed to stop his hand and compound with her
grace for thirty guineas. The duchess, however, seemed
displeased the whole evening, and when he came to the

F

66

GOLDSMITH.

[oh. VII.

table where she was playing, bid him, ‘ Stand farther,
an ugly devil, for she hated the sight of him/ But her
grace afterwards having a run of good luck, called Nash
to her. ‘ Come/ says she, i I will be friends with you,
though you are a fool; and to let you see I am not
angry, there is ten guineas more for your charity. But
this I insist on, that neither my name nor the sum shall
be mentioned/ ”

At the ripe age of eighty- seven the “ beau of three
generations” breathed his last (1761); and, though he
had fallen into poor ways, there were those alive who
remembered his former greatness, and who chronicled
it in a series of epitaphs and poetical lamentations.
“ One thing is common almost with all of them,” says
Goldsmith, “ and that is that Yenus, Cupid, and the
Graces are commanded to weep, and that Bath shall
never find such another.” These effusions are forgotten
now; and so wmuld Beau Nash be also, but for this
biography, which, no doubt meant merely for the book-
market of the day, lives and is of permanent value by
reason of the charm of its style, its pervading humour,
and the vivacity of its descriptions of the fashionable
follies of the eighteenth century. Nullum fere genus
scribendi non tetigit. Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.
Who but Goldsmith could have written so delightful
a book about such a poor creature as Beau Nash?

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ARREST.

It was no doubt owing to Newbery that Goldsmith,
after his return to London, was induced to abandon,
temporarily or altogether, his apartments in Wine Office
Court, and take lodgings in the house of a Mrs. Fleming,
who lived somewhere or other in Islington. Newbery
had rooms in Canonbury House, a curious old building
that still exists ; and it may have occurred to the
publisher that Goldsmith, in this suburban district,
would not only be nearer him for consultation and so
forth, but also might pay more attention to his duties
than when he was among the temptations of Fleet Street.
Goldsmith was working industriously in the service of
Newbery at this time (1763-4) ; in fact, so completely was
the bookseller in possession of the hack, that Goldsmith’s
board and lodging in Mrs. Fleming’s house, arranged for
at i>50 a year, was paid by Newbery himself. Writing
prefaces, revising new editions, contributing reviews —
this was the sort of work he undertook, with more or
less content, as the equivalent of the modest sums Mr.
Newbery disbursed for him or handed over as pocket-
money. In the midst of all this drudgery he was
now secretly engaged on work that aimed at something

f 2

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

higher than mere payment of bed and board. The
smooth lines of the Traveller were receiving further
polish ; the gentle-natured Vicar was writing his simple,
quaint, tender story. And no doubt Goldsmith was
spurred to try something better than hack-work by the
associations that he was now forming, chiefly under the
wise and benevolent friendship of Johnson.

Anxious always to be thought well of, he was now be-
ginning to meet people whose approval was worthy of being
sought. He had been introduced to Reynolds. He had
become the friend of Hogarth. He had even made the
acquaintance of Mr. Boswell, from Scotland. Moreover,
he had been invited to become one of the original members
of the famous Club of which so much has been written ;
his fellow-members being Reynolds, Johnson, Burke,
Hawkins, Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, and Dr. Nugent.
It is almost certain that it was at Johnson’s instiga-
tion that he had been admitted into this choice fellow-
ship. Long before either the Traveller or the Vicar had
been heard of, Johnson had perceived the literary genius
that obscurely burned in the uncouth figure of this
Irishman ; and was anxious to impress on others Gold-
smith’s claims to respect and consideration. In the
minute record kept by Boswell of his first evening with
Johnson at the Mitre Tavern, we find Johnson saying,
“ Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as
an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has
been loose in his principles, but he is coming right.”
Johnson took walks with Goldsmith; did him the honour
of disputing with him on all occasions ; bought a copy of
the Life of Nash when it appeared — an unusual compli-
ment for one author to pay another, in their day or in

VIIT.]

THE ARREST.

69

ours ; allowed liim to call on Miss Williams, the blind old
lady in Bolt Court ; and generally was his friend, coun-
sellor, and champion. Accordingly, when Mr. Boswell
entertained the great Cham to supper at the Mitre — a
sudden quarrel with his landlord having made it im-
possible for him to order the banquet at his own house —
he was careful to have Dr. Goldsmith of the company.
His guests that evening were Johnson, Goldsmith, Davies
(the actor and bookseller who had conferred on Boswell
the invaluable favour of an introduction to Johnson),
Mr. Eccles, and the Bev. Mr. Ogilvie, a Scotch poet
who deserves our gratitude because it was his inoppor-
tune patriotism that provoked, on this very evening,
the memorable epigram about the high-road leading to
England. “ Goldsmith,” says Boswell, who had not
got over his envy at Goldsmith’s being allowed to visit
the blind old pensioner in Bolt-court, “ as usual, en-
deavoured with too much eagerness to shine, and disputed
very warmly with Johnson against the well-known
maxim of the British constitution, 4 The king can do no
wrong.’ ” It was a dispute not so much about facts as
about phraseology ; and, indeed, there seems to be no
great warmth in the expressions used on either side.
Goldsmith affirmed that u what was morally false could
not be politically true ; ” and that, in short, the king
could by the misuse of his regal power do wrong.
Johnson replied, that, in such a case, the immediate
agents of the king were the persons to be tried and
punished for the offence. “The king, though he should
command, cannot force a judge to condemn a man
unjustly ; therefore it is the judge whom we prosecute
and punish.” But when he stated that the king “ is

70

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

above everything, and there is no power by which he can
be tried,” he was surely forgetting an important chapter
in English history. “What did Cromwell do for his
country1?” he himself asked, during his subsequent visit
to Scotland, of old Auchinleck, Boswell’s father. “ God,
Doctor,” replied the vile Whig, “he garred kings ken
they had a lith in their necks.”

For some time after this evening Goldsmith drops
out of Boswell’s famous memoir ; perhaps the compiler
was not anxious to give him too much prominence.
They had not liked each other from the outset.
Boswell, vexed by the greater intimacy of Goldsmith
with Johnson, called him a blunderer, a feather-brained
person ; and described his appearance in no flattering
terms. Goldsmith, on the other hand, on being asked
who was this Scotch cur that followed Johnson’s heels,
answered, “ He is not a cur : you are too severe — he is
only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport,
and he has the faculty of sticking.” Boswell would
probably have been more tolerant of Goldsmith as a
rival, if he could have known that on a future day he
was to have Johnson all to himself — to carry him to
remote wilds and exhibit him as a portentous literary
phenomenon to Highland lairds. It is true that
Johnson, at an early period of his acquaintance with
Boswell, did talk vaguely about a trip to the Hebrides ;
but the young Scotch idolater thought it was all too
good to be true. The mention of Sir James Macdonald,
says Boswell, “ led us to talk of the Western Islands
of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that
then appeared to me a very romantic fancy, which I
little thought would be afterwards realised. He told

VIII.]

THE ARREST.

71

me that his father had put Martin’s account of those
islands into his hands when he was very young, and
that he was highly pleased with it ; that he was par-
ticularly struck with the St. Kilda man’s notion that
the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of
a rock ; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had
directed his attention.” Unfortunately Goldsmith not
only disappears from the pages of Boswell’s biography
at this time, but also in great measure from the ken
of his companions. He was deeply in debt ; no doubt
the fine clothes he had been ordering from Mr. Filby
in order that he might “ shine ” among those notable
persons, had something to do with it ; he had tried the
patience of the booksellers ; and he had been devoting
a good deal of time to work not intended to elicit
immediate payment. The most patient endeavours to
trace out his changes of lodgings, and the fugitive
writings that kept him in daily bread, have not been
very successful. It is to be presumed that Goldsmith
had occasionally to go into hiding to escape from his
creditors ; and so was missed from his familiar haunts.
We only reach daylight again, to find Goldsmith being
under threat of arrest from his landlady ; and for the
particulars of this famous affair it is necessary to return
to Boswell.

Boswell was not in London at that time ; but his
account was taken down subsequently from Johnson’s
narration ; and his accuracy in other matters, his extra-
ordinary memory, and scrupulous care, leave no doubt
in the mind that his version of the story is to be pre-
ferred to those of Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins.
We may take it that these are Johnson’s own words : —

72

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

“ I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith
that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his
power to come to me, begging that I would come to him
as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised
to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon
as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had
arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent
passion. I perceived that he had already changed my
guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass
before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he
would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by
which he might be extricated. He then told me that
he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced
to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit ; told the
landlady I should soon return ; and, having gone to a
bookseller, sold it for £60. I brought Goldsmith the
money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating
his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill.”
We do not know who this landlady was — it cannot
now be made out whether the incident occurred at Isling-
ton, or in the rooms that Goldsmith partially occupied in
the Temple ; but even if Mrs. Fleming be the landlady
in question, she was deserving neither of Goldsmith’s
rating nor of the reprimands that have been bestowed
upon her by later writers. Mrs. Fleming had been
exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. Again and again in
her bills we find items significantly marked £0 Os. 0 d.
And if her accounts with her lodger did get hopelessly
into arrear ; and if she was annoyed by seeing him go
out in fine clothes to sup at the Mitre; and if, at
length, her patience gave way, and she determined to
have her rights in one way or another, she was no worse

VIII.]

THE ARREST.

73

than landladies — who are only human beings, and not
divinely appointed protectresses of genius— ordinarily
are. Mrs. Piozzi says that when Johnson came back
with the money, Goldsmith “ called the woman of the
house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time
in merriment/’ This would be a dramatic touch ; but,
after Johnson’s quietly corking the bottle of Madeira,
it is more likely that no such thing occurred ; especially
as Boswell quotes the statement as an “ extreme in-
accuracy.”

The novel which Johnson had taken away and sold
to Francis Newbery, a nephew of the elder bookseller,
was, as every one knows, the Vicar of Wakefield . That
Goldsmith, amidst all his pecuniary distresses, should
have retained this piece in his desk, instead of pawning
or promising it to one of his bookselling patrons, points
to but one conclusion — that he was building high hopes
on it, and was determined to make it as good as lay
within his power. Goldsmith put an anxious finish into
all his better work ; perhaps that is the secret of the
graceful ease that is now apparent in every line. Any
young writer who may imagine that the power of clear
and concise literary expression comes by nature, cannot
do better than study, in Mr. Cunningham’s big collec-
tion of Goldsmith’s writings, the continual and minute
alterations which the author considered necessary even
after the first edition— sometimes when the second and
third editions — had been published. Many of these,
especially in the poetical works, were merely improve-
ments in sound as suggested by a singularly sensitive
ear, as when he altered the line

“ Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,”

GOLDSMITH.

74

[CH. VIII.

which had appeared in the first three editions of the
Traveller , into

“ There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,”

which appeared in the fourth. But the majority of the
omissions and corrections were prompted by a careful
taste, that abhorred everything redundant or slovenly.
It has been suggested that when Johnson carried off the
Vicar of Wakefield to Francis Newbery, the manuscript
was not quite finished, but had to be completed after-
wards. There was at least plenty of time for that.
Newbery does not appear to have imagined that he
had obtained a prize in the lottery of literature. He
paid the £60 for it — clearly on the assurance of the
great father of learning of the day, that there was
merit in the little story — somewhere about the end
of 1764; but the tale was not issued to the public
until March, 1766. “ And, sir,” remarked Johnson to

Boswell, with regard to the sixty pounds, “ a sufficient
price too, when it was sold ; for then the fame of
Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was,
by his Traveller ; and the bookseller had such faint
hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the
manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it
till after the Traveller had appeared. Then, to be sure,
it was accidentally worth more money.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE TRAVELLER,

This poem of the Traveller , the fruit of much secret
labour and the consummation of the hopes of many
years, was lying completed in Goldsmith’s desk when
the incident of the arrest occurred ; and the elder
Xewbery had undertaken to publish it. Then, as at
other times, Johnson lent this wayward child of genius
a friendly hand. He read over the proof-sheets for
Goldsmith : was so kind as to put in a line here or
there where he thought fit ; and prepared a notice of the
poem for the Critical Review . The time for the appear-
ance of this new claimant for poetical honours was
propitious. “There was perhaps no point in the
century,” says Professor Masson, “ when the British
Muse, such as she had come to be, was doing less, or
had so nearly ceased to do anything, or to have any
good opinion of herself, as precisely about the year
1764. Young was dying; Gray was recluse and in-
dolent ; Johnson had long given over his metrical
experimentations on any except the most inconsiderable
scale ; Akenside, Armstrong, Smollett, and others less
known, had pretty well revealed the amount of their

76

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAF.

worth in poetry ; and Churchill, after his ferocious blaze
of what was really rage and declamation in metre,
though conventionally it was called poetry, was pre-
maturely defunct. Into this lull came Goldsmiths
short but carefully finished poem.,, “ There has not
been so fine a poem since Pope’s time,” remarked
Johnson to Boswell, on the very first evening after the
return of young Auchinleck to London. It would have
been no matter for surprise had Goldsmith dedicated this
first work that he published under his own name to
Johnson, who had for so long been his constant friend
and adviser ; and such a dedication would have carried
weight in certain quarters. But there was a finer touch
in Goldsmith’s thought of inscribing the book to his
brother Henry ; and no doubt the public were surprised
and pleased to find a poor devil of an author dedicating
a work to an Irish parson with £40 a year, from whom
he could not well expect any return. It will be
remembered that it was to this brother Henry that
Goldsmith, ten years before, had sent the first sketch
of the poem ; and now the wanderer,

“ Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,”
declares how his heart untravelled

“ Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,

And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.”

The very first line of the poem strikes a key-note —
there is in it a pathetic thrill of distance, and regret, and
longing ; and it has the soft musical sound that pervades
the whole composition. It is exceedingly interesting to

IX.]

THE TRAVELLER.

77

note, as lias already been mentioned, how Goldsmith
altered and altered these lines until he had got them
full of gentle vowel sounds. Where, indeed, in the
English language could one find more graceful melody
than this ? — -

“ The naked negro, panting at the line,

Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,

Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,

And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.”

It has been observed also that Goldsmith was the first
to introduce into English poetry sonorous American
— or rather Indian — names, as when he writes in this
poem,

“ Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,

And Niagara stuns with thundering sound,”

—and if it be charged against him that he ought to
have known the proper accentuation of Niagara, it may
be mentioned as a set-off that Sir Walter Scott, in
dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated “ Glena-
ladale,” to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath
an island. Another characteristic of the Traveller is
the extraordinary choiceness and conciseness of the
diction, which, instead of suggesting pedantry or affec-
tation, betrays on the contrary nothing but a delightful
ease and grace.

The English people are very fond of good English ;
and thus it is that couplets from the Traveller and the
Deserted Village have come into the common stock of
our language, and that sometimes not so much on
account of the ideas they convey, as through their

78

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

singular precision of epithet and musical sound. It is
enough to make the angels weep, to find such a couplet
as this —

“ Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes,”

murdered in several editions of Goldsmith’s works by
the substitution of the commonplace “ breathes ” for
“ breasts ” — and that, after Johnson had drawn particular
attention to the line by quoting it in his Dictionary.
Perhaps, indeed, it may be admitted that the literary
charm of the Traveller is more apparent than the value
of any doctrine, however profound or ingenious, which
the poem was supposed to inculcate. We forget all about
the “ particular principle of happiness possessed by
each European state, in listening to the melody of the
singer, and in watching the successive and delightful
pictures that he calls up before the imagination.

“ As in those domes where Csesars once bore sway,
Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,

There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ;

And, wondering man could want the larger pile,

Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.”

Then notice the blaze of patriotic idealism that bursts
forth when he comes to talk of England. What sort of
England had he been familiar with when he was con-
sorting with the meanest wretches — the poverty stricken,
the sick, and squalid — in those Fleet-Street dens % But
it is an England of bright streams and spacious lawns

IX.]

THE TRAVELLER.

79

of which he writes; and as for the people who inhabit
the favoured land —

“ Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state,

With daring aims irregularly great ;

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by.”

“Whenever I write anything,” Goldsmith had said,
with a humorous exaggeration which Boswell, as usual,
takes au serieux , “ the public make a point to know
nothing about it.” But we have Johnson’s testimony
to the fact that the Traveller “ brought him into high
reputation.” No wonder. When the great Cham de-
clares it to be the finest poem published since the time
of Pope, we are irresistibly forced to think of the
Essay on Man. What a contrast there is between that
tedious and stilted effort, and this clear burst of bird-
song ! The Traveller , however, did not immediately
become popular. It was largely talked about, naturally,
among Goldsmith’s friends ; and Johnson would scarcely
suffer any criticism of it. At a dinner given long after-
wards at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, and fully reported by the
invaluable Boswell, Reynolds remarked, “I was glad
to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems
in the English language.” “Why were you glad?”
said Langton. “You surely had no doubt of this
before?” Hereupon Johnson struck in: “No; the
merit of the Traveller is so well established, that
Mr. Fox’s praise cannot augment it, nor his censure
diminish it.” And he went on to say — Goldsmith
having died and got beyond the reach of all critics and
creditors some three or four years before this time —

80

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

“Goldsmith was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it
better than any other man could do. He deserved
a place in Westminster Abbey ; and every year he
lived would have deserved it better.”

Presently people began to talk about the new poem. A
second edition was issued ; a third ; a fourth. It is not
probable that Goldsmith gained any pecuniary benefit
from the growing popularity of the little book ; but he
had “ struck for honest fame,” and that was now coming
to him. He even made some slight acquaintance with
“the great ; ” and here occurs an incident which is one
of many that account for the love that the English people
have for Goldsmith. It appears that Hawkins, calling
one day on the Earl of Northumberland, found the
author of the Traveller waiting in the outer room, in
response to an invitation. Hawkins, having finished
his own business, retired, but lingered about until the
interview between Goldsmith and his lordship was over,
having some curiosity about the result. Here follows
Goldsmith’s report to Hawkins. “ His lordship told
me he had read my poem, and was much delighted with
it ; that he was going to be Lord-lieutenant of Ireland ;
and that, hearing that I was a native of that country,
he should be glad to do me any kindness.” “What did
you answer'?” says Hawkins, no doubt expecting to
hear of some application for pension or post. “Why,”
said Goldsmith, “ I could say nothing but that I had a
brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help,”
— and then he explained to Hawkins that he looked to
the booksellers for support, and was not inclined to
place dependence on the promises of great men. “ Thus
did this idiot in the affairs of the world,” adds Hawkins,

IX.]

THE TRAVELLER.

81

with a fatuity that is quite remarkable in its way, “ trifle
with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held
out to assist him ! Other offers of a like kind he either
rejected or failed to improve, contenting himself with
the patronage of one nobleman, whose mansion afforded
him the delights of a splendid table and a retreat for
a few days from the metropolis.” It is a great pity we
have not a description from the same pen of Johnson’s
insolent ingratitude in flinging the pair of boots dowrn
stairs.

CHAPTER X.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITING.

But one pecuniary result of this growing fame was a
joint offer on the part of Griffin and Xewbery of £20
for a selection from his printed essays ; and this selec-
tion was forthwith made and published, with a preface
written for the occasion. Here at once we can see that
Goldsmith takes firmer ground. There is an air of
confidence — of gaiety, even — in his address to the
public ; although, as usual, accompanied by a whimsical
mock-modesty that is extremely odd and effective.
“ Whatever right I have to complain of the public,” he
says, “ they can, as yet, have no just reason to complain
of me. If I have written dull Essays, they have
hitherto treated them as dull Essays. Thus far we are
at least upon par, and until they think fit to make me
their humble debtor by praise, I am resolved not to lose
a single inch of my self-importance. Instead, there-
fore, of attempting to establish a credit amongst them,
it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more distant
correspondent ; and as my drafts are in some danger of
being protested at home, it may not be imprudent, upon
this occasion, to draw my bills upon Posterity.

CH. X.]

MISCELLANEOUS AVRITING.

83

“ Mr. Posterity,

“ Sir, — Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight
hereof pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds worth
of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, it being
a commodity that will then be very serviceable to him,
and place it to the account of, &c.”

The bill is not yet due ; but there can in the meantime
be no harm in discounting it so far as to say that these
Essays deserve very decided praise. They deal with all
manner of topics, matters of fact, matters of imagination,
humorous descriptions, learned criticisms ; and then,
whenever the entertainer thinks he is becoming dull, he
suddenly tells a quaint little story and walks off amidst
the laughter he knows he has produced. It is not a very
ambitious or sonorous sort of literature ; but it was
admirably fitted for its aim — the passing of the
immediate hour in an agreeable and fairly intellectual
way. One can often see, no doubt, that these Essays
are occasionally written in a more or less perfunctory
fashion, the writer not being moved by much enthu-
siasm in his subject ; but even then a quaint literary
grace seldom fails to atone, as when, writing about the
English clergy, and complaining that they do not
sufficiently in their addresses stoop to mean capacities,
he says — “ Whatever may become of the higher orders
of mankind, who are generally possessed of collateral
motives to virtue, the vulgar should be particularly
regarded, whose behaviour in civil life is totally hinged
upon their hopes and fears. Those who constitute the
basis of the great fabric of society should be particularly
regarded ; for in policy, as in architecture, ruin is most
fatal when it begins from the bottom/7 There was.

G 2

84

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

indeed, throughout Goldsmith’s miscellaneous writing
much more common sense than might have been expected
from a writer who was supposed to have none.

As regards his chance criticisms on dramatic and
poetical literature, these are generally found to be inci-
sive and just ; while sometimes they exhibit a wholesome
disregard of mere tradition and authority. “ Milton’s
translation of Horace’s Ode to Pyrrha,” he says, for
example, u is universally known and generally admired,
in our opinion much above its merit.” If the present
writer might for a moment venture into such an arena,
he would express the honest belief that that translation
is the very worst translation that was ever made of
anything. But there is the happy rendering of simplex
munditiis , which counts for much.

By this time Goldsmith had also written his charm-
ing ballad of Edwin and Angelina , which was privately
“ printed for the amusement of the Countess of North-
umberland,” and which afterwards appeared in the
Vicar of Wakefield . It seems clear enough that this
quaint and pathetic piece was suggested by an old ballad
beginning,

u Gentle heardsman, tell to me,

Of curtesy I thee pray,

Unto the towne of W alsingham
Which is the right and ready way,”

which Percy had shown to Goldsmith, and which, patched
up, subsequently appeared in the Reliques. But Gold-
smith’s ballad is original enough to put aside all the
discussion about plagiarism which was afterwards started.

X.]

MISCELLANEOUS WRlTfNG.

85

In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim receives direc-
tions from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we
hear of her no more ; in Edwin and Angelina the
forlorn and despairing maiden suddenly finds herself
confronted by the long-lost lover whom she had so
cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that reveals
the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to
note the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised
his writings. The ballad originally ended with these
two stanzas : —

“ Here amidst sylvan bowers we’ll rove,

From lawn to woodland stray ;

Blest as the songsters of the grove,

And innocent as they.

u To all that want, and all that wail,

Our pity shall be given,

And when this life of love shall fail,

We’ll love again in heaven.”

But subsequently it must have occurred to the author
that, the dramatic disclosure once made, and the lovers
restored to each other, any lingering over the scene only
weakened the force of the climax ; hence these stanzas
were judiciously excised. It may be doubted, however,
whether the original version of the last couplet :

“ And the last sigh that rends the heart
Shall break thy Edwin’s too,”

was improved by being altered into

“ The sigh that rends thy constant heart
Shall break thy Edwin’s too.”

86 GOLDSMITH. [ch. x.

Meanwhile Goldsmith had resorted to hack-work
again ; nothing being expected from the Vicar of Wake-
field, now lying in Newbery’s shop, for that had been
paid for, and his expenses were increasing, as became
his greater station. In the interval between the
publication of the Traveller and of the Vicar , he moved
into better chambers in Garden Court ; he hired a man-
servant, he blossomed out into very fine clothes. In-
deed, so effective did his first suit seem to be — the
purple silk small-clothes, the scarlet roquelaure, the
wig, sword, and gold-headed cane — that, as Mr. Forster
says, he “ amazed his friends with no less than three
similar suits, not less expensive, in the next six months/'
Part of this display was no doubt owing to a suggestion
from Reynolds that Goldsmith, having a medical degree,
might just as well add the practice of a physician to
his literary work, to magnify his social position. Gold-
smith, always willing to please his friends, acceded ;
but his practice does not appear to have been either
extensive or long- continued. It is said that he drew
out a prescription for a certain Mrs. Sidebotham which
so appalled the apothecary that he refused to make it
up ; and that, as the lady sided with the apothecary, he
threw up the case and his profession at the same time. If
it was money Goldsmith wanted, he was not likely to get
it in that way ; he had neither the appearance nor the
manner fitted to humour the sick and transform healthy
people into valetudinarians. If it was the esteem of his
friends and popularity outside that circle, he was soon
to acquire enough of both. On the 27th March, 1766,
fifteen months after the appearance of the Traveller ,
the Vicar of Wakefield was published.

CHAPTER XL

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

The Vicar of Wakefield , considered structurally, follows
the lines of the Book of Job, You take a good man,
overwhelm him with successive misfortunes, show the
pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of the
darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and
fortitude and submission, restore him gradually to
happiness, with even larger flocks and herds than
before. The machinery by which all this is brought
about is, in the Vicar of Wakefield , the weak part of the
story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities ; in fact,
the expedients by which all the members of the family
are brought together and made happy at the same time,
are nothing short of desperate. It is quite clear, too,
that the author does not know what to make of the
episode of Olivia and her husband ; they are allowed to
drop through ; we leave him playing the French horn
at a relation’s house ; while she, in her father’s home, is
supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they all taken up
with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had
no very definite plot concocted ; and that it was only

88

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

when the much-persecuted Vicar had to be restored to
happiness, that he found the entanglements surrounding
him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot
that people now read the Vicar of Wakefield ; it is not
the intricacies of the story that have made it the
delight of the world. Surely human nature must be
very much the same when this simple description of n
quiet English home went straight to the heart of nations
in both hemispheres.

And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should
have produced such a perfect picture of domestic life.
What had his own life been but a moving about
between garret and tavern, between bachelor’s lodgings
and clubs *1 Where had he seen — unless, indeed, he
looked back through the mist of years to the scenes
of his childhood — all this gentle government, and
wise blindness ; all this affection, and consideration,
and respect % There is as much human nature in
the character of the Vicar alone as would have fur-
nished any fifty of the novels of that day, or of this.
Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even
by the little secrets he reveals to us of his paternal
rule. “ ‘ Ay/ returned I, not knowing well what to
think of the matter, ‘ heaven grant they may be both
the better for it this day three months ! ’ This was one
of those observations I usually made to impress my
wife with an opinion of my sagacity ; for if the girls
succeeded, then it was a pious wish fulfilled ; but if
anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked
on as a prophecy.” We know how Miss Olivia was

XI]

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

89

answered, when, at her mother’s prompting, she set up
for being well skilled in controversy : —

“ ‘ Why, my dear, what controversy can she have
read 1 ’ cried I. ‘ It does not occur to me that I ever
put such books into her hands : you certainly overrate
her merit.’ — ‘Indeed, papa,’ replied Olivia, ‘she does
not ; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have
read the disputes between Thwackum and Square ; the
controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the
savage ; and I am now employed in reading the con-
troversy in Religious Courtship.’ — ‘ Very well,’ cried
I, ‘ that’s a good girl ; I find you are perfectly qualified
for making converts, and so go help your mother to
make the gooseberry pie.’ ”

It is with a great gentleness that the good man
reminds his wife and daughters that, after their sudden
loss of fortune, it does not become them to wear much
finery. “The first Sunday, in particular, their behaviour
served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the pre-
ceding night to be dressed early the next day; for I
always loved to be at church a good while before the
rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my
directions ; but when we were to assemble in the
morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters,
dressed out in all their former splendour ; their hair
plastered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste,
their trains bundled up in a heap behind, and rustling
at every motion. I could not help smiling at their
vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I
expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore,
my only resource was to order my son, with an im-
portant air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed

90

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

at the command ; but I repeated it with more solemnity
than before. ‘ Surely, my dear, you jest/ cried my
wife ; ‘ we can walk it perfectly well : we want no
coach to carry us now/ — ‘ You mistake, child/ returned
I, 6 we do want a coach ; for if we walk to church in
this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
us/ — ‘ Indeed/ replied my wife, 6 1 always imagined
that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat
and handsome about him.’ — ‘ You may be as neat as
you please/ interrupted I, ‘and I shall love you the
better for it ; but all this is not neatness, but frippery.
These rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only
make us hated by all the wives of our neighbours. No,
my children/ continued I, more gravely, ‘ those gowns
may be altered into something of a plainer cut ; for finery
is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of
decency. I do not know whether such flouncing and
shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider,
upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the
indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of
the vain/

‘ ‘ This remonstrance had the proper effect : they went
with great composure, that very instant, to change their
dress ; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding
my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting
up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and
Bill, the two little ones ; and, what was still more
satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this cur-
tailing/’ And again when he discovered the two girls
making a wash for their faces : — “ My daughters seemed
equally busy with the rest ; and I observed them for a
good while cooking something over the fire. I at first

xi- J

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

91

supposed they were assisting their mother, but little
Dick informed me, in a whisper, that they were making
a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a
natural antipathy to ; for I knew that, instead of
mending the complexion, they spoil it. I therefore
approached my chair by sly degrees to the fire, and
grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending, seemingly
by accident overturned the whole composition, and it
was too late to begin another.”

All this is done with such a light, homely touch,
that one gets familiarly to know these people without
being aware of it. There is no insistance. There is no
dragging you along by the collar ; confronting you with
certain figures ; and compelling you to look at this and
study that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in
his quiet way ; and you are laughing too, when suddenly
you find that human beings have silently come into the
void before you ; and you know them for friends ; and
even after the vision has faded away, and the beautiful
light and colour and glory of romance-land have
vanished, you cannot forget them. They have become
part of your life ; you will take them to the grave
with you.

The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious
blemishes. “ There are an hundred faults in this Thing,”
says Goldsmith himself, in the prefixed Advertisement.
But more particularly, in the midst of all the impossi-
bilities taking place in and around the jail, when that
chameleon-like deus ex macliind , Mr. Jenkinscn, winds
up the tale in hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a
sort of apology. “ Nor can I go on without a reflection,’ 7
he says gravely, “ on those accidental meetings, which,

92

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

though they happen every day, seldom excite our
surprise but upon some extraordinary occasion. To
what a fortuitous concurrence do we not owe every
pleasure and convenience of our lives ! How many
seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed
or fed ! The peasant must be disposed to labour, the
shower must fall, the wind fill the merchant’s sail, or
numbers must want the usual supply.” This is Mr.
Thackeray’s “ simple rogue” appearing again in adult
life. Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing
depended on such accidents as happened to make the
Vicar’s family happy all at once, there would be a good
deal of shivering and starvation in the world. More-
over it may be admitted that on occasion Goldsmith’s
fine instinct deserts him ; and even in describing those
domestic relations which are the charm of the novel, he
blunders into the unnatural. When Mr. Burchell, for
example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel
with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar questions his daughter as
to whether she had received from that poor gentleman
any testimony of his affection for her. She replies No ;
but remembers to have heard him remark that he never
knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was
poor. “ Such, my dear,” continued the Vicar, “ is the
common cant of all the unfortunate or idle. But I
hope you have been taught to judge properly of such
men, and that it would be even madness to expect
happiness from one who has been so very bad an
economist of his own. Your mother and I have now
better prospects for you. The next winter, which you
will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities
of making a more prudent choice.” Now it is not at

XI.]

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

93

all likely that a father, however anxious to have his
daughter well married and settled, would ask her so
delicate a question in op?n domestic circle, and would
then publicly inform her that she was expected to choose
a husband on her forthcoming visit to town.

Whatever may be said about any particular incident
like this, the atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to
whom a German translation of the Vicar was read by
Herder some four years after the publication in England,
not only declared it at the time to be one of the best
novels ever written, but again and again throughout his
life reverted to the charm and delight with which he
had made the acquaintance of the English “ prose-idyll,”
and took it for granted that it was a real picture of
English life. Despite all the machinery of Mr. Jenkin-
son’s schemes, who could doubt it % Again and again
there are recurrent strokes of such vividness and natural-
ness that we yield altogether to the necromancer. Look
at this perfect picture— of human emotion and outside
nature — put in in a few sentences. The old clergyman,
after being in search of his daughter, has found her,
and is now — having left her in an inn — returning to his
family and his home. “ And now my heart caught new
sensations of pleasure, the nearer I approached that
peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted
from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and
hovered round my little fireside with all the rapture of
expectation. I called up the many fond things I had to
say, and anticipated the welcome I was to receive. I
already felt my wife’s tender embrace, and smiled at
the joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the
night waned apace. The labourers of the day were all

94

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

retired to rest ; the lights were out in every cottage ; no
sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock, and the
deep-mouthed watch dog at hollow distance. I ap-
proached my little abode of pleasure, and, before I was
within a furlong of the place, our honest mastiff came
running to welcome me.” “ The deep-mouthed watch-dog
at hollow distance ; ” — what more perfect description of
the stillness of night was ever given ]

And then there are other qualities in this delightful
Vicar of Wakefield than merely idyllic tenderness, and
pathos, and sly humour. There is a firm presentation of
the crimes and brutalities of the world. The pure light
that shines within that domestic circle is all the brighter
because of the black outer ring that is here and there
indicated rather than described. How could we ap-
preciate all the simplicities of the good man’s household,
but for the rogueries with which they are brought in
contact 1 And although we laugh at Moses and his gross
of green spectacles, and the manner in which the Vicar’s
wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina
Skeggs and Lady Blarney, with their lords and ladies
and their tributes to virtue, there is no laughter de-
manded of us when we find the simplicity and moral
dignity >of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and
taunts of the abandoned wretches in the prison. This
is really a remarkable episode. The author was under
the obvious temptation to make much comic material
out of the situation ; while another temptation, towards
the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar
undertakes the duty of reclaiming these castaways
with a modest patience and earnestness in every way in
keeping with his character ; while they, on the other

»

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

95

XL]

hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance.
His first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too
successful. “ Their insensibility excited my highest com-
passion, and blotted my own uneasiness from my mind.
It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to attempt
to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to
return, and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my
advice, and conquer them by my perseverance. Going,
therefore, among them again, I informed Mr. Jenkinson
of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but com-
municated it to the rest. The proposal was received
with the greatest good humour, as it promised to afford
a new fund of entertainment to persons who had now
no other resource for mirth but what could be derived
from ridicule or debauchery.

“ I therefore read them a portion of the service with a
loud, unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly
merry upon the occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of
contrition burlesqued, winking and coughing, alternately
excited laughter. However, I continued with my natural
solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might
mend some, but could itself receive no contamination
from any.

“ After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which
was rather calculated at first to amuse them than to re-
prove. I previously observed, that no other motive but
their welfare could induce me to this ; that I was their
fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by preaching. I
was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane ; because
they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal :
‘For be assured, my friends,’ cried I, — ‘for you are my
friends, however the world may disclaim your friendship,

96

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

— though you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it
would not put one penny in your purse. Then what
signifies calling every moment upon the devil, and court-
ing his friendship, since you find how scurvily he uses
you ? He has given you nothing here, you find, but a
mouthful of oaths and an empty belly ; and, by the best
accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that’s
good hereafter.

“ 6 If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally
go elsewhere. Were it not worth your while, then, just
to try how you may like the usage of another master,
who gives you fair promises at least to come to him ‘l
Surely, my friends, of all stupidity in the world, his
must be the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs
to the thief-takers for protection. And yet, how are you
more wise 1 You are all seeking comfort from one that
has already betrayed you, applying to a more malicious
being than any thief-taker of them all ; for they only
decoy and then hang you ; but he decoys and hangs, and,
what is worst of all, will not let you loose after the
hangman has done/

“ When I had concluded, I received the compliments of
my audience, some of whom came and shook me by the
hand, swearing that I was a very honest fellow, and that
they desired my further acquaintance. I therefore pro-
mised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually con-
ceived some hopes of making a reformation here ; for it
had ever been my opinion, that no man was past the
hour of amendment, every heart lying open to the shafts
of reproof, if the archer could but take a proper aim.”

His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from
an effort which seemed to them only to bring ridicule

XI.]

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

97

upon him, are met by a grave rebuke ; and on the next
morning he descends to the common prison, where, he
says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his
arrival, and each prepared to play some gaol-trick on
the Doctor.

“ There was one whose trick gave more universal
pleasure than all the rest ; for, observing the manner in
which I had disposed my books on the table before me,
he very dexterously displaced one of them, and put an
obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I
took no notice of all that this mischievous group of little
beings could do, but went on, perfectly sensible that what
was ridiculous in my attempt would excite mirth only
the first or second time, while what was serious would
be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than
six days some were penitent, and all attentive.

“ It was now that I applauded my perseverance and
address, at thus giving sensibility to wretches divested
of every moral feeling, and now began to think of doing
them temporal services also, by rendering their situation
somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot
and bitter repining. Their only employment was quar-
relling among each other, playing at cribbage, and
cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode of idle
industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to
work at cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers,
the proper wood being bought by a general subscription,
and, when manufactured, sold by my appointment ; so
that each earned something every day — a trifle indeed,
but sufficient to maintain him.

“ I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punish-

H

98

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

ment of immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry.
Thus, in less than a fortnight I had formed them into
something social and humane, and had the pleasure of
regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience.”
Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calcu-
lated to shock the nerves of those who liked their
literature perfumed with rose-water. Madame Ricco-
boni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote to
Garrick, “ Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des
petits larrons, des gens de mauvaises mceurs, est fort
eloign e de me plaire.” Others, no doubt, considered
the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady Blarney as
“ vastly low.5’ But the curious thing is that the literary
critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent
about the book — perhaps they were “ puzzled” by it,
as Southey has suggested. Mr. Forster, who took the
trouble to search the periodical literature of the time,
says that, “ apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a
word was said in the way of criticism about the book,
either in praise or blame.” The St. James's Chronicle did
not condescend to notice its appearance, and the Monthly
Review confessed frankly that nothing was to be made
of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the
patronage of Lloyd's Evening Post , the London Chronicle ,
and journals of that class ; which simply informed their
readers that a new novel, called the Vicar of Wake-
field, had been published, that “the editor is Doctor
Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
Advertisement, and that such and such were the inci-
dents of the story.” Even his friends, with the excep-

XI.]

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

99

tion of Burke, did not seem to consider that any re-
markable new birth in literature had occurred • and it
is probable that this was a still greater disappointment
to Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of
at the Club. However, the public took to the story.
A second edition was published in May ; a thii d in
August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no pecuniary
gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson
had sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery ; but
his name was growing in importance with the book-
sellers.

There was need that it should, for his increasing
expenses — his fine clothes, his suppers, his whist at
the Devil Tavern — were involving him in deeper
and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate him-
self ? — or rather the question that would naturally
occur to Goldsmith was how was he to continue that
hand to-mouth existence that had its compensations
along with its troubles 2 Hovels like the Vicar of
Wakefield are not written at a moment’s notice, even
though any Newbery, judging by results, is willing to
double that £60 which Johnson considered to be a fair
price for the story at the time. There was the usual
resource of hack- writing ; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder
Newbery, in whose debt he was, in a good humour. But
the author of the Vicar of Wakefield may be excused if
he looked round to see if there was not some more
profitable work for him to turn his hand to It was at
this time that he began to think of writing a comedy.

CHAPTER XII.

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compila-
tion order, the play of the Good-natured Man began to
assume concrete form • insomuch that Johnson, always
the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised to
write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this Pro-
logue that Boswell tells a foolish and untrustworthy
story about Goldsmith. Dr. Johnson had recently been
honoured by an interview with his Sovereign ; and the
members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him
by begging for a repetition of his account of that famous
event. On one occasion, during this recital, Boswell
relates, Goldsmith “ remained unmoved upon a sofa at
some distance, affecting not to join in the least in the
eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a
reason for his gloom and seeming inattention that he
apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of
furnishing him with a Prologue to his play, with the
hopes of which he had been flattered ; but it was
strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin
and envy at the singular honour Doctor Johnson had
lately enjoyed. At length the frankness and simplicity

CIT. XIT.]

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

101

of his natural character prevailed. He sprang from
the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and. in a kind of flutter,
from imagining himself in the situation which he had
just been hearing described, exclaimed, ‘ Well, you
acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I
should have done ; for I should have bowed and stam-
mered through the whole of it.’ ” It is obvious enough
that the only part of this anecdote which is quite
worthy of credence is the actual phrase used b}
Goldsmith, which is full of his customary generosity
and self-depreciation. All those “ suspicions” of his
envy of his friend may safely be discarded, for they
are mere guesswork ; even though it might have been
natural enough for a man like Goldsmith, conscious of
his singular and original genius, to measure himself
against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen percep-
tion and shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference
paid to Johnson with the scant courtesy shown to
himself.

As a matter of fact, the Prologue was written oy
Dr. Johnson; and the now complete comedy was, after
some little arrangement of personal differences between
Goldsmith and Garrick, very kindly undertaken by
Reynolds, submitted for Garrick’s approval. But
nothing came of Reynolds’s intervention. Perhaps
Goldsmith resented Garrick’s airs of patronage towards
a poor devil of an author; perhaps Garrick was sur-
prised by the manner in which well-intentioned criti-
cisms were taken ; at all events, after a good deal of
shilly-shallying, the play was taken out of Garrick’s
hands. Fortunately, a project was just at this moment
on foot for starting the rival theatre in Covent Garden,

102

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

under the management of George Col man ; and to
Colman Goldsmith’s play was forthwith consigned.
The play was accepted ; but it was a long time before
it was produced ; and in that interval it may fairly
be presumed the res angusta domi of Goldsmith did not
become any more free and generous than before. It
was in this interval that the elder Newbery died ;
Goldsmith had one patron the less. Another patron
who offered himscdf was civilly bowed to the door.
This is an incident in Goldsmith’s career which, like his
interview with the Earl of Northumberland, should
ever be remembered in his honour. The Government
of the day were desirous of enlisting on their behalf
the services of writers of somewhat better position than
the mere libellers whose pens were the slaves of any-
body’s purse ; and a Mr. Scott, a chaplain of Lord
Sandwich, appears to have imagined that it would be
be worth while to buy Goldsmith. He applied to
Goldsmith in due course ; and this is an account of the
interview. “ I found him in a miserable set of chambers
in the Temple. I told him my authority ; I told him
I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions ;
and, would you believe it ! he was so absurd as to say,
4 1 can earn as much as will supply my wants without
writing for any party ; the assistance you offer is there-
fore unnecessary to me.’ And I left him in his garret.”
Needy as he was, Goldsmith had too much self-respect
to become a paid libeller and cutthroat of public
reputations.

On the evening of Friday, the 29th of January, 1768,
when Goldsmith had now reached the age of forty, the
comedy of The Good-natured Man was produced at

XII.]

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

103

Covent Garden Theatre. The Prologue had, according
to promise, been written by Johnson ; and a very
singular prologue it was. Even Boswell was struck by
the odd contrast between this sonorous piece of melan-
choly and the fun that was to follow. “ Tho first lines
of this Prologue,” he conscientiously remarks, “ are
strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his
mind ; which, in his case, as in the case of all who are
distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers
to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was
to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly
began —

“ ‘ Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of humankind ’ ?

But this dark ground might make Goldsmith’s humour
shine the more.” When we come to the comedy itself,
we find but little bright humour in the opening passages.
The author is obviously timid, anxious, and constrained.
There is nothing of the brisk, confident viv icity with
which She Stoops to Conquer opens. The novice does
not yet understand the art of making his characters
explain themselves ; and accordingly the benevolent
uncle and honest Jarvis indulge in a conversation which,
laboriously descriptive of the character of young
Honeywood, is spoken “ at ” the audience. With the
entrance of young Honeywood himself, Goldsmith
endeavours to become a little more sprightly ; but there
is still anxiety hanging over him, and the epigrams are
little more than merely formal antitheses.

u Jarvis. This bill from your tailor ; this from your mercer ;
and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He says he

GOLDSMITH.

104

[chap.

has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money
you borrowed.

Hon. That I don’t know ; but I’m sure we were at a great
deal of trouble in getting him to lend it.

Jar. He has lost all patience.

Hon. Then be has lost a very good thing.

Jar. There’s that ten guineas you were sending to the poor
gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would
stop his mouth for a while at least.

Hon. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the
mean time ? ”

This young Honeywood, the hero of the play, is, and
remains throughout, a somewhat ghostly personage. He
has attributes ; but no flesh or blood. There is much
more substance in the next character introduced — the
inimitable Croaker, who revels in evil forebodings and
drinks deep of the luxury of woe. These are the two
chief characters ; but then a play must have a plot.
And perhaps it would not be fair, so far as the plot is
concerned, to judge of The Good-natured Man merely
as a literary production. Intricacies that seem tedious
and puzzling on paper appear to be clear enough on the
stage : it is much more easy to remember the history
and circumstances of a person whom we see before us,
than to attach these to a mere name — especially as the
name is sure to be clipped down from Honeywood to
Hon. and from Leontine to Leon. However, it is in the
midst of all the cross-purposes of the lovers that we
once more come upon our old friend Beau Tibbs — though
Mr. Tibbs is now in much better circumstances, and
has been re named by his creator Jack Lofty. Garrick
had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground
that he was only a distraction. But Goldsmith, whether

XII.]

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

105

in writing a novel or a play, was more anxious to re-
present human nature than to prune a plot, and paid
but little respect to the unities, if only he could
arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with
this Jack Lofty and his “ duchessy ” talk — his airs of
patronage, his mysterious hints, his gay familiarity with
the great, his audacious lying ?

u Lofty. Waller? Waller? Is he of the house ?

Mrs. Croaker . The modern poet of that name, sir.

Lof. Oh, a modern ! We men of business despise the
moderns ; and as for the ancients, we have no time to read
them. Poetry is a pretty thing enough for our wives and
daughters ; but not for us. Why now, here I stand that
know nothing of books. I say, madam, I know nothing of
books ; and yet, I believe, upon a land-carriage fishery, a
stamp act, or a jag-hire, I can talk my two hours without
feeling the want of them.

Mrs. Cro. The world is no stranger to Mr. Lofty’s eminence
in every capacity.

Lof. I vow to gad, madam, you make me blush. I’m
nothing, nothing, nothing in the world ; a mere obscure
gentleman. To be sure, indeed, one or two of the present
ministers are pleased to represent me as a formidable man.
I know they are pleased to bespatter me at all their little
dirty levees. Yet, upon my soul, I wonder what they see
in me to treat me so ! Measures, not men, have always been
my mark ; and 1 vow, by all that’s honourable, my resent-
ment has never done the men, as mere men, any manner of
harm — that is, as mere men.

Mrs. Cro. What importance, and yet what modesty !

Lof. Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I’m
accessible to praise : modesty is my foible : it was so the
Duke of Brentford used to say of me. 1 I love Jack Lofty,’
he used to say : ‘ no man has a finer knowledge of things ;
quite a man of information ; and when he speaks upon liis

106

GOLDSMITH.

[ciiap.

legs, by the Lord he’s prodigious, he scouts them ; and yet all
men have their faults ; too much modesty is his/ says his
grace.

Mrs. Cro. And yet, I dare say, you don’t want assurance
when you come to solicit for your friends.

Lof. Oh, there indeed I’m in bronze. Apropos ! I have
just been mentioning Miss Richland’s case to a certain per-
sonage ; we must name no names. When I ask, I am not to
be put off, madam. No, no, I take my friend by the button.
A fine girl, sir ; great justice in her case. A friend of mine
— borough interest — business must be done, Mr. Secretary. —
I say, Mr. Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That’s
my way, madam.

Mrs. Cro. Bless me ! you said all this to the Secretary of
State, did you ?

Lof. I did not say the Secretary, did 1 1 Well, curse it,
since you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to
the Secretary.”

Strangely enough, what may now seem to some of us
the very best scene in the Good-natured Man — the scene,
that is, in which young Honeywood, suddenly finding
Miss Richland without, is compelled to dress up the two
bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce them to
her as gentlemen friends — was very nearly damning the
play on the first night of its production. The pit was
of opinion that it was “low; ” and subsequently the
critics took up the cry, and professed themselves to be
so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the bailiffs
that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the open-
ing night the anxious author, who had been rendered
nearly distracted by the cries and hisses produced by
this scene, was somewhat reassured when the audience
began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr.
Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed

XII.]

THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.

107

his warm gratitude when the piece was over ; assuring
him that he had exceeded his own conception of the
character, and that “ the fine comic richness of his
colouring made it almost appear as new to him as to
any other person in the house.”

The new play had been on the whole favourably
received ; and, when Goldsmith went along afterwards
to the Club, his companions were doubtless not at all
surprised to find him in good spirits. He was even
merrier than usual ; and consented to sing his favourite
> ballad about the Old Woman tossed in a Blanket. But
those hisses and cries were still rankling in his memory ;
and he himself subsequently confessed that he was
“ suffering horrid tortures.” Hay, when the other mem-
bers of the Club had gone, leaving him and Johnson

together, he “ burst out a-crying, and even swore by

that he would never write again.” When Goldsmith
told this story in after- days, Johnson was naturally
astonished ; perhaps — himself not suffering much from
an excessive sensitiveness — he may have attributed that
little burst of hysterical emotion to the excitement of
the evening increased by a glass or two of punch, and
determined therefore never to mention it. “ All which,
Doctor,” he said, “ I thought had been a secret between
you and me ; and I am sure I would not have said any-
thing about it for the world.” Indeed there was little
to cry over, either in the first reception of the piece or
in its subsequent fate. With the offending bailiffs cut
out, the comedy would seem to have been very fairly
successful. The proceeds of three of the evenings were
Goldsmith’s payment ; and in this manner he received
£400. Then Griffin published the play ; and from this

108

GOLDSMITH.

[CH, XII„

source Goldsmith received an additional £100 ; so that
altogether he was very well paid for his work. More-
over he had appealed against the judgment of the pit and
the dramatic critics, by printing in the published edition
the bailiff scene which had been removed from the stage ;
and the Monthly Review was so extremely kind as to say
that 44 the bailiff and his blackguard follower appeared
intolerable on the stage, yet we are not disgusted with
them in the perusal.” Perhaps we have grown less
scrupulous since then ; but at all events it would be
difficult for anybody nowadays to find anything but good-
natured fun in that famous scene. There is an occasional
‘‘damn/’ it is true; but then English officers have
always been permitted that little playfulness, and these
two gentlemen were supposed to 4 4 serve in the Fleet ; ”
while if they had been particularly refined in their
speech and manner, how could the author have aroused
Miss Kichland’s suspicions ? It is possible that the two
actors who played the bailiff and his follower may have
introduced some vulgar “gag” into their parts; but
there is no warranty for anything of the kind in the
play as we now read it.

CHAPTER XIII.

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.

The appearance of the Good-natured Man ushered in
a halcyon period in Goldsmith’s life. The Traveller and
the Vicar had gained for him only reputation : this new
comedy put £500 in his pocket. Of course that was
too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long.
Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase
and decoration of a set of chambers in Brick Court,
Middle Temple ; with the remainder he appears to have
begun a series of entertainments in this new abode,
which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth
than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in
which Goldsmith would not indulge for the amusement
of his guests ; he would sing them songs ; he would
throw his wig to the ceiling ; he would dance a minuet.
And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man’s-buff,
until Mr. Blackstone, then engaged on his Commentaries
in the rooms below, was driven nearly mad by the
uproar. These parties would seem to have been of a
most nondescript character — chance gatherings of any
obscure authors or actors whom he happened to meet ;
but from time to time there were more formal enter-

110

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

tainments, at which Johnson, Percy, and similar distin-
guished persons were present. Moreover, Dr. Goldsmith
himself was much asked out to dinner too ; and so, not
content with the “ Tyrian bloom, satin grain and garter,
blue-silk breeches,’ ’ which Mr. Filby had provided for
the evening of the production of the comedy, he now
had another suit “ lined with silk, and gold buttons,”
that he might appear in proper guise. Then he had his
airs of consequence too. This was his answer to an
invitation from Kelly, who was his rival of the hour :
“ I would with pleasure accept your kind invitation, but
to tell you the truth, my dear boy, my Traveller has
found me a home in so many places, that I am engaged,
I believe, three days. Let me see. To-day I dine with
Edmund Burke, to-morrow with Dr. Nugent, and the
next day with Topham Beauclerc ; but I’ll tell you
what I’ll do for you, I’ll dine with you on Saturday.”
Kelly told this story as against Goldsmith ; but surely
there is not so much ostentation in the reply. Directly
after Tristram Shandy was published, Sterne found
himself fourteen deep in dinner engagements : why
should not the author of the Traveller and the Vicar
and the Good-natured Man have his engagements also %
And perhaps it was but right that Mr. Kelly, who was
after all only a critic and scribbler, though he had
written a play which was for the moment enjoying an
undeserved popularity, should be given to understand
that Dr. Goldsmith was not to be asked to a hole-
and-corner chop at a moment’s notice. To-day he dines
with Mr. Burke ; to morrow with Dr. Nugent ; the
day after with Mr. Beauclerc. If you wish to have the
honour of his company, you may choose a day after

XIII.]

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.

Ill

that ; and then, with his new wig, with his coat of
Tyrian bloom and blue silk breeches, with a smart
sword at his side, his gold-headed cane in his hand,
and his hat under his elbow, he will present himself
in due course. Dr. Goldsmith is announced, and
makes his grave bow : this is the man of genius about
whom all the town is talking ; the friend of Burke, of
Reynolds, of Johnson, of Hogarth ; this is not the ragged
Irishman who was some time ago earning a crust by
running errands for an apothecary.

Goldsmith’s grand airs, however, were assumed but
seldom ; and they never imposed on anybody. His
acquaintances treated him with a familiarity which
testified rather to his good-nature than to their good
taste. IsTow and again, indeed, he was prompted to
resent this familiarity ; but the effort was not successful.
In the “ high jinks ” to which he good-humouredly re-
sorted for the entertainment of his guests he permitted
a freedom which it was afterwards not very easy to
discard ; and as he was always ready to make a butt of
himself for the amusement of his friends and acquaint-
ances, it came to be recognised that anybody was allowed
to play off a joke on “ Goldy.” The jokes, such of them
as have been put on record, are of the poorest sort. The
horse collar is never far off. One gladly turns from
these dismal humours of the tavern and the club to the
picture of Goldsmith’s enjoying what he called a “ Shoe-
maker’s Holiday ” in the company of one or two chosen
intimates. Goldsmith, baited and bothered by the wits
of a public-house, became a different being when he had
assumed the guidance of a smal] party of chosen friends
bent on having a day’s frugal pleasure. We are indebted

112

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAK

to one Cooke, a neighbour of Goldsmith’s in the Temple,
not only for a most interesting description of one of
those shoemaker’s holidays, but also for the knowledge
that Goldsmith had even now begun writing the Deserted
Village , which was not published till 1770, two years
later. Goldsmith, though he could turn out plenty of
manufactured stuff for the booksellers, worked slowly
at the special story or poem with which he meant to
“ strike for honest fame.” This Mr. Cooke, calling on
him one morning, discovered that Goldsmith had that
day written these ten lines of the Deserted Village : —

“ Dear-lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,

How often have I loitered o’er thy green,

Where humble happiness endeared each scene !

How often have I paused on every charm,

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church, that topt the neighbouring hill,

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,

For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 39

“ Come,” said he, “ let me tell you this is no bad
morning’s work ; and now, my dear boy, if you are
not better engaged, I should be glad to enjoy a shoe-
maker s holiday with you.” “ A shoemaker’s holiday,”
continues the writer of these reminiscences, “ was a
day of great festivity to poor Goldsmith, and was spent
in the following innocent manner. Three or four of
his intimate friends rendezvoused at his chambers to
breakfast about ten o’clock in the morning; at eleven
they proceeded by the City Hoad and through the fields

XIII.]

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.

11

to Highbury Barn to dinner ; about six o’clock in the
evening they adjourned to White Conduit House to drink
tea ; and concluded by supping at the Grecian or Temple
Exchange coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street.
There was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry
kept at Highbury Barn about this time at tenpence per
head, including a penny to the waiter ; and the company
generally consisted of literary characters, a few Templars,
and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole
expenses of the day’s fete never exceeded a crown, and
oftener were from three-and-sixpence to four shillings ;
for which the party obtained good air and exercise,
good living, the example of simple manners, and good
conversation.”

It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he
been possessed of sufficient strength of character to
remain satisfied with these simple pleasures, and to
have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of letters
on such income as he could derive from the best work
he could produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who
gives decisive testimony as to Goldsmith’s increasing
desire to “ shine” by imitating the expenditure of the
great ; the natural consequence of which was that he
only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances,
contracts for hack-work, and misery. “ His debts ren-
dered him at times so melancholy and dejected, that I
am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man.” Perhaps
it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation,
and grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he,
in conjunction with another Temple neighbour, Mr.
Bott, rented a cottage some eight miles down the Edgware
Hoad ; and here he set to work on the History of Rome ,

i

114

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this
hack-work, now rendered necessary by his debt, it is
probable that one strong inducement leading him to
this occasional seclusion was the progress he might be
able to make with the Deserted Village . Amid all his
town gaieties and country excursions, amid his dinners
and suppers and dances, his borrowings, and contracts,
and the hurried literary produce of the moment, he
never forgot what was due to his reputation as an English
poet. The journalistic bullies of the day might vent
their spleen and envy on him ; his best friends might
smile at his conversational failures ; the wits of the
tavern might put up the horse-collar as before ; but at
least he had the consolation of his art. No one better
knew than himself the value of those finished and musical
lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem,
the grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic charm of
which make it one of the literary treasures of the Eng-
lish people.

The sorrows of debt were not Goldsmith’s only
trouble at this time. For some reason or other he seems
to have become the especial object of spiteful attack on
the part of the literary cut-throats of the day. And
Goldsmith, though he might listen with respect to the
wise advice of Johnson on such matters, was never able
to cultivate Johnson’s habit of absolute indifference to
anything that might be said or sung of him. “ The
Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons,”
says Lord Macaulay — speaking of Johnson, “ did their
best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them
importance by answering them. But the reader will in
vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or

XIII.]

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY-.

115

Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotch-
man, bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning,
defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexa-
meter—

‘ Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum. ’

But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had
learned, both from his own observation and from literary
history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of
books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is
written about them, but by what is written in them ;
and that an author whose works are likely to live, is
very unwise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors
whose works are certain to die. He always maintained
that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only
by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and
which would soon fall if there were only one battledore.
No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine
apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written
down but by himself/’

It was not given to Goldsmith to feel “like the
Monument ” on any occasion whatsoever. He was
anxious to have the esteem of his friends ; he was
sensitive to a degree ; denunciation or malice, be-
gotten of envy that Johnson would have passed un-
heeded, wounded him to the quick. “ The insults to
which he had to submit,” Thackeray wrote with a quick
and warm sympathy, “ are shocking to read of — slander,
contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting
his commonest motives and actions : he had his share
of these, and one's anger is roused at reading of them,
as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child assaulted,

i 2

116

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

at the notion that a creature so very gentle, and weak,
and full of love should have had to suffer so.” Gold-
smith’s revenge, his defence of himself, his appeal to the
public, were the Traveller , the Vicar of Wakefield , the
Deserted Village ; but these came at long intervals ; and
in the meantime he had to bear with. the anonymous
malignity that pursued him as best he might. No
doubt, when Burke was entertaining him at dinner ) and
when Johnson was openly deferring to him in conversa-
tion at the Club ; and when Reynolds was painting his
portrait, he could afford to forget Mr. Kenrick and the
rest of the libelling clan.

The occasions on which Johnson deferred to Goldsmith
in conversation were no doubt few ; but at all events
the bludgeon of the great Cham would appear to have
come down less frequently on “ honest Goldy ” than on
the other members of that famous coterie. It could
come down heavily enough. “ Sir,” said an incautious
person, “ drinking drives away care, and makes us forget
whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man to
drink for that reason % ” “ Yes, sir,” was the reply, “ if

he sat next you.” Johnson, however, was considerate
towards Goldsmith, partly because of his affection for
him, and partly because he saw under what disadvantages
Goldsmith entered the lists. For one thing, the conver-
sation of those evenings would seem to have drifted con-
tinually into the mere definition of phrases. Now
Johnson had spent years of his life, during the com-
pilation of his Dictionary, in doing nothing else but
defining ; and, whenever the dispute took a phraseological
turn, he had it all his own way. Goldsmith, on the
other hand, was apt to become confused in his eager

XIII.]

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.

117

self-consciousness. “Goldsmith,” said Johnson to Bos-
well, “ should not be for ever attempting to shine in
conversation ; he has not temper for it, he is so much
mortified when he fails. . . When he contends, if he
gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of
his literary reputation : if he does not get the better, he
is miserably vexed.” Boswell, nevertheless, admits that
Goldsmith was “ often very fortunate in his witty con-
tests, even when he entered the lists with Johnson
himself,” and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating
the fable of the little fishes who petitioned J upiter, and
perceiving that J ohnson was laughing at him, immediately
said, “ Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you
seem to think ; for if you were to make little fishes talk,
they would talk like whales." Who but Goldsmith
would have dared to play jokes on the sage ? At supper
they have rumps and kidneys. The sage expresses his
approval of “the pretty little things ; ” but profoundly
observes that one must eat a good many of them before
being satisfied. “ Ay, but how many of them,” asks
Goldsmith, “would reach to the moon?" The sage
professes his ignorance ; and, indeed, remarks that that
would exceed even Goldsmith’s calculations ; when the
practical joker observes, “ Why, one , sir, if it were
long enough." Johnson was completely beaten on this
occasion. “Well, sir, I have deserved it. I should
not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a
question.”

It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story
of Goldsmith and himself being in Poets’ Corner ; of his
saying to Goldsmith

“ Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,”

GOLDSMITH.

118

[chap.

and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation
when, having walked towards Fleet Street, they were
confronted by the heads on Temple Bar. Even when
Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson’s con-
tradiction was in a manner gentle. “ If you put a tub
full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go
mad,” observed Goldsmith. “I doubt that,” was John-
son’s reply. “ Ha y, sir, it is a fact well authenticated.”
Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith should
have the experiment tried in the stable ; but Johnson
merely said that, if Goldsmith began making these ex-
periments, he would never get his book written at all.
Occasionally, of course, Goldsmith was tossed and gored
just like another. “ But, sir,” he had ventured to say,
in opposition to Johnson, “ when people live together
who have something as to which they disagree, and
which they want to shun, they will be in the situation
mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, 4 You may look
into all the chambers but one.’ But we should have the
greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk
of that subject.” Here, according to Boswell, Johnson
answered in aloud voice, “ Sir, lam not saying that you
could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ
as to one point ; I am only saying that I could do it.”
But then again he could easily obtain pardon from the
gentle Goldsmith for any occasional rudeness. One
evening they had a sharp passage of arms at dinner ;
and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where
Goldsmith sate silent and depressed. “ Johnson per-
ceived this,” says Boswell, “and said aside to some of
us, 4 I’ll make Goldsmith forgive me ’ ; and then called to
him in a loud voice, 4 Dr. Goldsmith, something passed

XIII.]

GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.

119

to-day where you and I dined : I ask your pardon.’
Goldsmith answered placidly, ‘ It must be much from
you, sir, that I take ill.’ And so at once the difference
was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and
Goldsmith rattled away as usual.” For the rest, Johnson
was the constant and doughty champion of Goldsmith
as a man of letters. He would suffer no one to doubt
the power and versatility of that genius which he had
been amongst the first to recognise and encourage.
“ Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic
writer, cr as an historian,” he announced to an assem-
blage of distinguished persons met together at dinner at
Mr. Beauclerc’s, “ he stands in the first class.” And there
was no one living who dared dispute the verdict — at
least in Johnson’s hearing.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

But it is time to return to the literary performances
that gained for this uncouth Irishman so great an
amount of consideration from the first men of his time.
The engagement with Griffin about the History of
Animated Nature was made at the beginning of 1769.
The work was to occupy eight volumes ; and Dr.
Goldsmith was to receive eight hundred guineas for the
complete copyright. Whether the undertaking was
originally a suggestion of Griffin’s, or of Goldsmith’s own,
does not appear. If it was the author’s, it was probably
only the first means that occurred to him of getting
another advance ; and that advance — £500 on account
— he did actually get. But if it was the suggestion of
the publisher, Griffin must have been a bold man. A
writer whose acquaintance with animated nature was
such as to allow him to make the “ insidious tiger ” a
denizen of the backwoods of Canada,1 was. not a very
safe authority. But perhaps Griffin had consulted
Johnson before making this bargain ; and we know that
Johnson, though continually remarking on Goldsmith’s
1 See Citizen of the World , Letter XVII.

CH. XIV.]

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

121

extraordinary ignorance of facts, was of opinion that
the History of Animated Nature would be “as entertain-
ing as a Persian tale.” However, Goldsmith — no doubt

after he had spent the five hundred guineas — tackled the
work in earnest. When Boswell subsequently went out
to call on him at another rural retreat he had taken on
the Edgware Boad, Boswell and Mickle, the translator
of the Lusiad , found Goldsmith from home ; “ but,
having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in and
found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled
upon the wall with a black-lead pencil. ” Meanwhile,

this Animated Nature being in hand, the Roman History
was published, and was very well received by the critics
and by the public. “ Goldsmith’s abridgment,” Johnson
declared, “is better than that of Lucius Elorus or
Eutropius ; and I will venture to say that if you
compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the
Roman History , you will find that he excels Yertot.
Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying every-
thing he has to say in a pleasing manner.”

So thought the booksellers too ; and the success of the
Roman History only involved him in fresh projects of
compilation. By an offer of £500 Davies induced him to
lay aside for the moment the Animated Nature and begin
“An History of England, from the Birth of the British
Empire to the death of George the Second, in four
volumes octavo.” He also about this time undertook to
write a Life of Thomas Parnell. Here, indeed, was
plenty of work, and work promising good pay ; but the
depressing thing is that Goldsmith should have been the
man who had to do it. He may have done it better
than any one else could have done — indeed, looking over

122

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

the results of all that drudgery, we recognise now the
happy turns of expression which were never long absent
from Goldsmith’s prose- writing — but the world could
well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through
for another poem like the Deserted Village or the Traveller.
Perhaps Goldsmith considered he was making a fair com-
promise when, for the sake of his reputation, he. devoted
a certain portion of his time to his poetical work, and
then, to have money for fine clothes and high jinks, gave
the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appear-
ance of the Roman History , referred to the Traveller ,
and remarked that it was a pity that the “ author of one
of the best poems that has appeared since those of Mr.
Pope, should not apply wholly to works of imagination.”
We may echo that regret now ; but Goldsmith would at
the time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to
his poems, he would never have been able to pay £400
for chambers in the Temple. In fact he said as much
to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners : “ I
cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord ;
they would let me starve ; but by my other labours I
can make shift to eat, and drink, and have good clothes.”
And there is little use in our regretting now that Gold-
smith was not cast in a more heroic mould ; we have to
take him as he is; and be grateful for what he has
left us.

It is a grateful relief to turn from these booksellers’
contracts and forced labours to the sweet clear note
of singing that one finds in the Deserted Village.
This poem, after having been repeatedly announced and
as often withdrawn for further revision, was at last
published on the 26th of May, 1770, when Goldsmith

XIV.]

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

123

was in his forty-second year. The leading idea of it
he had already thrown out in certain lines in the

Traveller : —

“ Have we not seen, round Britain’s peopled shore,

Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore ?

Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,

Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste ?

Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,

Lead stern depopulation in her train,

And over fields where scattered hamlets rose
In barren solitary pomp repose ?

Have we not seen at pleasure’s lordly call
The smiling long-frequented village fall ?

Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,

The modest matron, and the blushing maid,

Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,

To traverse climes beyond the western main ;

Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,

And Niagara stuns with thundering sound ?”

— and elsewhere, in recorded conversations of his, we
find that he had somehow got it into his head that the
accumulation of wealth in a country was the parent of
all evils, including depopulation. We need not stay
here to discuss Goldsmith’s position as a political econo-
mist ; even although Johnson seems to sanction his
theory in the four lines he contributed to the end of the
poem. Nor is it worth while returning to that objection
of Lord Macaulay’s which has already been mentioned
in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor Irish
village in which Goldsmith was brought up, no doubt
looked to him as charming as any Auburn, when he
regarded it through the softening and beautifying mist

124

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

of years. It is enough that the abandonment by a
number of poor people of the homes in which they and
theirs have lived their lives, is one of the most pathetic
facts in our civilisation ; and that out of the various
circumstances surrounding this forced migration Gold-
smith has made one of the most graceful and touching
poems in the English language. It is clear bird-singing ;
but there is a pathetic note in it. That imaginary
ramble through the Lissoy that is far away has recalled
more than his boyish sports ; it has made him look back
over his own life— the life of an exile.

“ I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,

Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ;

To husband out life’s taper at the close,

And keep the flame from wasting by repose :

I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,

Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,

And tell of all I felt, and all I saw ;

And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,

I still had hopes, my long vexations past,

Here to return — and die at home at last.”

Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking %
Sir Walter Scott, writing a generation ago, said that
“ the church which tops the neighbouring hill,” the
mill and the brook were still to be seen in the Irish
village ; and that even

The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
For talking age and whispering lovers made,”

XIV.]

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

125

had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and
was of course being cut to pieces to make souvenirs.
But indeed it is of little consequence whether we say
that Auburn is an English village, or insist that it is
only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true in
itself. And we know that this is true : it is not that
one sees the place as a picture, but that one seems to
be breathing its very atmosphere, and listening to
the various cries that thrill the “ hollow silence.”

“ Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening’s close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.

There, as I past with careless steps and slow,

The mingling notes came softened from below ;

The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,

The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,

The noisy geese that gabbled o’er the pool,

The playful children just let loose from school,

The watch- dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind.”

Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that
is gradually brought before us. There are noNorvalsin
Lissoy. There is the old woman — Catherine Geraghty,
they say, was her name — who gathered cresses in the
ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher
whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a
portrait of their father ; but whom others have identified
as Henry Goldsmith, and even as the uncle Contarine :
they may all have contributed. And then comes Paddy
Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem
this description of the schoolmaster, with its strokes of
demure humour, is introduced with delightful effect.

126

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

“ Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,

With blossom’d furze unprofitably gay,

There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,

The village master taught his little school.

A man severe lie was, and stern to view ;

I knew him well, and every truant knew :

Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day’s disasters in his morning face ;

Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ;

Full well the busy whisper circling round
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.

Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,

The love he bore to learning was in fault ;

The village all declared how much he knew :

’Twas certain he could write, and cipher too :

Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,

And e’en the story ran that he could gauge :

In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill ;

For e’en though vanquished, he could argue still ;

While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.”

All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to
believe in the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever
the village may be supposed to be. We visit the clergy-
man’s cheerful fireside ; and look in on the noisy school ;
and sit in the evening in the ale house to listen to the
profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes.
Auburn clelenda est. Here, no doubt, occurs the least
probable part of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common
cause of emigration ; land that produces oats (when
it can produce oats at all) three-fourths mixed with
weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally

XIV. 1

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

127

discharges its surplus population as families increase ;
and though the wrench of parting is painful enough,
the usual result is a change from starvation to com-
petence. It more rarely happens that a district of
peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see
around it, is depopulated to add to a great man’s estate.

“ The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied ;

Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds,

Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds :

O O 0 0 0

His seat, where solitary sports are seen,

Indignant spurns the cottage from the green : ”

— and so forth. This seldom happens ; but it does
happen ; and it has happened, in our own day, in
England. It is within the last twenty years that an
English landlord, having faith in his riches, bade a
village be removed and cast elsewhere, so that it should
no longer be visible from his windows : and it was forth •
with removed. But any solitary instance like this is
not sufficient to support the theory that wealth and
luxury are inimical to the existence of a hardy peasan-
try ; and so we must admit, after all, that it is poetical
exigency rather than political economy that has decreed
the destruction of the loveliest village of the plain.
Where, asks the poet, are the driven poor to find refuge,
when even the fenceless commons are seized upon and
divided by the rich ? In the great cities ? —

“ To see profusion that he must not share ;

To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind.”

128

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

It is in this description of a life in cities that there
occurs an often-quoted passage, which has in it one of
the most perfect lines in English poetry : —

“ Ah, turn thine eyes

Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.

She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,

Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ;

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,

/ Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ;

Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled,

Near her betrayer’s door she lays her head.

And, pinch’d with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,

When idly first, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel and robes of country brown.”

Goldsmith wrote in a pre- Wordsworthian age, when,
even in the realms of poetry, a primrose was not much
more than a primrose ; but it is doubtful whether, either
before, during, or since Wordsworth’s time the senti-
ment that the imagination can infuse into the common
and familiar things around us ever received more happy
expression than in the well-known line,

“ Sweet as the 'primrose peeps beneath the thorn?

No one has as yet succeeded in defining accurately and
concisely what poetry is ; but at all events this line is
surcharged with a certain quality which is conspicuously
absent in such a production as the Essay on Man.
Another similar line is to be found further on in the
description of the distant scenes to which the proscribed
people are driven :

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

129

XTY. ]

“ Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe A

Indeed, the pathetic side of emigration has never been
so powerfully presented to us as in this poem —

“ When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main,

And shuddering still to face the distant deep,

Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.

Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,

I see the rural virtues leave the land.

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,

That idly waiting Haps with every gale,

Downward they move a melancholy band,

Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.

Contented toil, and hospitable care,

And kind connubial tenderness are there ;

And piety with wishes placed above,

And steady loyalty, and faithful love.”

And worst of all, in this imaginative departure, we find
that Poetry herself is leaving our shores. She is now to
try her voice

“ On Torno’s cliffs or Pambamarca’s side ; ”

and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her
a passionate and tender farewell : —

“ And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,

Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ;

K

130

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ;

Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,

My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ;

Thou source of . all my bliss, and all my woe,

That found’st me poor at first, and keep’st me so ;

Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,

Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well !

Farewell, and 0 ! where’er thy voice be tried,

On Torno’s clitfs, or Pambamarca’s side,

Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,

Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,

Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,

Redress the rigours of the inclement clime ;

Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain ;

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain :

Teach him, that states of native strength possest,
Though very poor, may still be very blest ;

That trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay,

As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away ;

While self-dependent power can time defy,

As rocks resist the billows and the sky.”

So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the posi-
tion of which in English literature, and in the estimation
of all who love English literature, has not been disturbed
by any fluctuations of literary fashion. We may give more
attention at the moment to the new experiments of the
poetic method ; but we return only with renewed grati-
tude to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of
which is that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or
graces. In English literature there is nothing more
thoroughly English than these writings produced by an
Irishman And whether or not it was Paddy Byrne,
and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that

XIV.] THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 131

Goldsmith had in his mind when ho was writing the
poem, is not of much consequence : the manner and
language and feeling are all essentially English ; so that
we never think of calling Goldsmith anything but an
English poet.

The poem met with great and immediate success. Of
course everything that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote
was read by the public ; he had not to wait for the
recommendation of the reviews ; but, in this case, even
the reviews had scarcely anything but praise in the
welcome of his new book. It was dedicated, in grace-
ful and ingenious terms, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
returned the compliment by painting a picture and
placing on the engraving of it this inscription : “ This
attempt to express a character in the Deserted Village is
dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith by his sincere friend and
admirer, Sir Joshua Reynolds.’ ’ What Goldsmith got
from Griffin for the poem is not accurately known ; and
this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have
enabled us to judge whether at that time it was possible
for a poet to court the draggle-tail muses without risk
of starvation. But if fame were his chief object in the
composition of the poem, he was sufficiently rewarded ;
and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in
Ireland — no longer implored to get subscribers — had
heard of the proud position won by the vagrant youth
who had “ taken the world for his pillow” some eigh-
teen years before.

That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered
back to the scenes and friends of his youth during
this labour of love, we know from his letters. In
January of this year, while as yet the Deserted

k 2

132

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAP.

Village was not quite through the press, he wrote
to his brother Maurice ; and expressed himself as most
anxious to hear all about the relatives from whom he
had been so long parted. He has something to say
about himself too ; wishes it to be known that the King
has lately been pleased to make him Professor of Ancient
History ain a Royal Academy of Painting which he has
just established ; ” but gives no very flourishing -account
of his circumstances. “ Honours to one in my situation
are something like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt/ ’
However, there is some small legacy of fourteen or
fifteen pounds left him by his uncle Contarine, which
he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin
Lawder ; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing
all claim : his relations must settle how it may be best
expended. But there is not a reference to his literary
achievements, or the position won by them ; not the
slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity ; it is a
modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice
Goldsmith receives of the esteem in which his brother
is held in London, is contained in a brief mention of
Johnson, Burke, and others as his friends. “ I have
sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself,
as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer.
I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor’s,
folded in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly
enough ; but it is finely painted. I will shortly also
send my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto
prints of myself, and some more of my friends here,
such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I
believe I have written an hundred letters to different
friends in your country, and never received an answer

XIV.]

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

133

from any of them. I do not know how to account for
this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those
regards which I must ever retain for them.,, The
letter winds up with an appeal for news, news,

news.

CHAPTER XY.

OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.

Some two months after the publication of the De-
serted Village , when its success had been well assured,
Goldsmith proposed to himself the relaxation of a little
Continental tour ; and he was accompanied by three
ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty daughters,
who doubtless took more charge of him than he did
of them. This Mrs Horneck, the widow of a certain
Captain Horneck, was connected with Reynolds, while
Burke was the guardian of the two girls ; so that it
was natural that they should make the acquaintance
of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt has been made
to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between
the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary
romance ; but there is not the slightest actual founda-
tion for anything of the kind. Indeed the best guide
we can have to the friendly and familiar terms on which
he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle,
is the following careless and jocular reply to a chance
invitation sent him by the two sisters : —

u Your mandate I got,

You may all go to pot ;

CH. XV.]

OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.

135

Had your senses been right,

You’d have sent before night ;

As I hope to be saved,

I put off being shaved ;

For I could not make bold,

While the matter was cold,

To meddle in suds,

Or to put on my duds ;

So tell Horneck and Nesbitt
And Baker and his bit,

And Kauffman beside,

And the Jessamy bride ;

With the rest of the crew,

The Reynoldses two,

Little Comedy’s face
And the Captain in lace,
o « o

Yet how can I when vext
Thus stray from my text ?

Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,

For sending so late
To one of my state.

But ’tis Reynolds’s way
From wisdom to stray,

And Angelica’s whim
To be frolic like him.

But, alas ! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoiled in to-day’s Advertiser f ”

“ The Jessamy Bride ” was the pet nickname he had
bestowed on the younger Miss Horneck — the heroine of
the speculative romance just mentioned ; “ Little
Comedy ” was her sister; “ the Captain in lace ” their
brother, who was in the Guards. Ko doubt Mrs.
Horneck and her daughters were very pleased to have

136

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

with them on this Continental trip so distinguished a
person as Dr. Goldsmith ; and he must have been
very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with
such charming companions. The story of the sudden
envy he displayed of the admiration excited by the two
handsome young Englishwomen as they stood at a
hotel-window in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it
needs scarcely be repeated here ; unless to repeat the
warning that, if ever anybody was so dense as not to
see the humour of that piece of acting, one had better
look with grave suspicion on every one of the stories
told about Goldsmith’s vanities and absurdities.

Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris
was not everything he had hoped. “ I find,” he wrote
to Reynolds from Paris, “ that travelling at twenty and
at forty are very different things. I set out with all
my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing
on the Continent so good as when I formerly left it.
One of our chief amusements here is scolding at every-
thing we meet with, and praising every thing and every
person we left at home. You may judge therefore
whether your name is not frequently bandied at table
among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I
could regret your absence so much, as our various
mortifications on the road have often taught me to do.
I could tell you of disasters and adventures without
number, of our lying in barns, and of my being half
poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our quarrelling
with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but
I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to
share with you upon my return.” The fact is that
although Goldsmith had seen a good deal of foreign

XV ]

OCCASIONAL WHITINGS.

137

travel, the manner of his making the grand tour in his
youth was not such as to fit him for acting as courier to
a party of ladies. However, if they increased his
troubles, they also shared them ; and in this same letter
he bears explicit testimony to the value of their com-
panionship. “ I will soon be among you, better pleased
with my situation at home than I ever was before. And
yet I must say, that if anything could make France
pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at
present would certainly do it. I could say more about
that, but I intend showing them this letter before I
send it away.” Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the
Jessamy Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at
the Boyal Academy, all returned to London ; the last to
resume his round of convivialities at taverns, excursions
into regions of more fashionable amusement along
with Reynolds, and task-work aimed at the pockets of
the booksellers.

It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him
now showing off his fine clothes and his sword and wig
at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut up in his chambers
compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste ; now the
guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again
delighting some small domestic circle by his quips and
cranks; playing jokes for the amusement of children,
and writing comic letters in verse to their elders ;
everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-
natured. And, of course, we find also his humorous
pleasantries being mistaken for blundering stupidity.
In perfect good faith Boswell describes how a number
of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly
complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord

138

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

Clare’s house in the country, “ and he took no more
notice of me than if 1 had been an ordinary man.”
Goldsmith’s claiming to be a very extraordinary person
was precisely a stroke of that humorous self- deprecia-
tion in which he was continually indulging ; and the
Jessamy Bride has left it on record that “on many
occasions, from the peculiar manner of his humour, and
assumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered
in jest was mistaken by those who did not know him
for earnest.” This would appear to have been one of
those occasions. The company burst out laughing at
Goldsmith’s having made a fool of himself ; and Johnson
was compelled to come to his rescue. “Nay, gentlemen,
Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought
to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith ; and I
think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected
him.”

Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the Haunch
of Venison. Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing
bright and airy verses ; the grace and lightness of his
touch has rarely been approached. It must be confessed,
however, that in this direction he was somewhat of an
Autolycus ; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated ;
but he committed these thefts with scarcely any con-
cealment, and with the most charming air in the world.
In fact some of the snatches of verse which he con-
tributed to the Bee scarcely profess to be anything else
than translations, though the originals are not given.
But who is likely to complain when we get as the result
such a delightful piece of nonsense as the famous Elegy
on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize, which has
been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith’s time ?

XV.] OCCASIONAL WRITINGS. 139

u Good people all, with one accord
Lament for Madam Blaize,

Who never wanted a good word,

From those who spoke her praise.

° The needy seldom passed her door,

And always found her kind ;

She freely lent to all the poor, —

Who left a pledge behind.

u She strove the neighbourhood to please,

With manners wondrous winning ;

And never followed wicked ways,—

Unless when she was sinning.

u At church, in silks and satins new,

With hoop of monstrous size,

She never slumbered in her pew, —

But when she shut her eyes.

u Her love was sought, I do aver,

By twenty beaux and more ;

The king himself has followed her, —

When she has walked before.

a But now her wealth and finery fled,

Her hangers-on cut short all ;

The doctors found, when she was dead, —

Her last disorder mortal.

u Let us lament, in sorrow sore.

For Kent Street well may say,

That had she lived a twelvemonth more, —

She had not died to-day.”

The Haunch of Venison , on the other hand, is a poetical
letter of thanks to Lord Clare — an easy, jocular epistle,
in which the writer has a cut or two at certain of his
literary brethren. Then, as he is looking at the venison,

140

GOLDSMITH.

[CH. XV.

and determining not to send it to any such people as
Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old
friend Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in
manner and speech ? —

“ While thus I debated, in reverie centred,

An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered ;

An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,

And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.

1 What have we got here ? — Why this is good eating !

Your own, I suppose — or is it in waiting ? ’

‘Why, whose should it be ?’ cried I with a flounce ;

‘ I get these things often ’ — but that was a bounce :

‘ Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,

Are pleased to be kind — but I hate ostentation.’

‘ If that be the case then,’ cried he, very gay,

‘ I’m glad I have taken this house in my way.

To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me ;

No words — I insist on’t — precisely at three ;

We’ll have Johnson, and Burke ; all the wits will be there ,*
My acquaintance is slight, or I’d ask my Lord Clare.

And now that I think on’t, as I am a sinner !

We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.

What say you — a pasty ? It shall, and it must,

And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.

Here, porter ! this venison with me to Mile End ;

No stirring — I beg — my dear friend — my dear friend ! ’
Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,

And the porter and eatables followed behind.”

We need not follow the vanished venison — which did
not make its appearance at the banquet any more than
did Johnson or Burke — further than to say that if Lord
Clare did not make it good to the poet he did not deserve
to have his name associated with such a clever and
careless jeu d' esprit.

CHAPTER XVI.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

But the writing of smart verses could not keep
Dr. Goldsmith alive, more especially as dinner-
parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar diversions
pressed heavily on his finances. When his History of
England appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day
accused him of having been bribed by the Government
to betray the liberties of the people : 1 a foolish charge.
What Goldsmith got for the English History was the
sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all
spent ; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an
abridgment of the work. Then, by this time, he had
persuaded Griffin to advance him the whole of the
eight hundred guineas for the Animated Nature , though
he had only done about a third part of the book. At
the instigation of Newbery he had begun a story after
the manner of the Vicar of Wakefield ; but it appears
that such chapters as he had written were not deemed

1 “ God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my head ;
my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as
Squire Richard says, ‘ would do no harm to nobody.’ ” — Goldsmith
to Langton, September, 1771.

142

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

to be promising ; and the undertaking was abandoned.
The fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another
method of replenishing his purse. The Vicar of Wakefield
had brought him little but reputation ; the Good-natured
Man had brought him £500. It was to the stage that
he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough
in which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a
comedy ; and that comedy was She Stoops to Conquer .

In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to
this play on its appearance in type, Goldsmith hints
that the attempt to write a comedy not of the senti-
mental order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing ;
and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various
stages, was of this opinion too. Colman threw cold
water on the undertaking from the very beginning.
It was only extreme pressure on the part of Gold-
smith’s friends that induced — or rather compelled —
him to accept the comedy ; and that, after he had
kept the unfortunate author in the tortures of suspense
for month after month. But although Goldsmith
knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He
hated the sentimentalists and all their works ; and
determined to keep his new comedy faithful to nature,
whether people called it low or not. His object
was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh ; not to write a
piece for school declamation ; and he had enough con-
fidence in himself to do the work in his own way. More
over he took the earliest possible opportunity, in writing
this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive creatures who
had been shocked by the “ vulgarity ” of The Good-
natured Man. “ Bravo ! Bravo ! ” cry the jolly com-
panions of Tony Lumpkin, when that promising buckeen

XVI.] SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. 143

has finished his song at the Three Pigeons ; then follows
criticism : —

“ First Fellow . The squire has got spunk in him.

Second Fel. I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives
us nothing that’ s low.

Third Fel. 0 damn anything that’s low, I cannot bear it.

Fourth Fel. The genteel thing is the genteel thing any
time : if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation
accordingly.

Third Fel. I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins.
What, though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be
a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear
ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes ; 4 Water
Parted,’ or the 1 The Minuet in Ariadne.’ ”

Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society,
was always capable of holding his own when he had his
pen in his hand. And even at the outset of this comedy
one sees how much he has gained in literary confidence
since the writing of the Good-natured Man. Here
there is no anxious stiffness at all ; but a brisk, free
conversation, full of point that is not too formal, and
yet conveying all the information that has usually to be
crammed into a first scene. In taking as the ground-
work of his plot that old adventure that had befallen
himself — his mistaking a squire’s house for an inn — he
was hampering himself with something that was not the
less improbable because it had actually happened ; but
we begin to forget all the improbabilities through the
naturalness ci the people to whom we are introduced,
and the brisk movement and life of the piece.

Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go ; but
the whole some good-natured fun of She Stoops to Conquer

144

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

is as capable of producing a hearty laugh now, as it was
when it first saw the light in Covent Garden. Tony
Lumpkin is one of the especial favourites of the theatre-
going public ; and no wonder. With all the young cub’s
jibes and jeers, his impudence and grimaces, one has a
sneaking love for the scapegrace ; we laugh with him,
rather than at him ; how can we fail to enjoy those
malevolent tricks of his when he so obviously enjoys
them himself ? And Diggory — do we not owe an eternal
debt of gratitude to honest Diggory for telling us about
Ould Grouse in the gunroom, that immortal joke at
which thousands and thousands of people have roared
with laughter, though they never any one of them could
tell what the story was about ? The scene in which
the old squire lectures his faithful attendants on their
manners and duties, is one of the truest bits of comedy
on the English stage :

“ Mr. Hard castle. But you’re not to stand so, with your
hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets,
Koger ; and from your head, you blockhead you. See how
Diggory carries his hands. They’re a little too stiff, indeed,
but that’s no great matter.

Diggory. Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold
my hands this way when I was upon drill for the militia.
And so being upon drill

Hard. You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You
must be all attention to the guests. Yen must hear us talk,
and not think of talking ; you must see us drink, and not
think of drinking ; you must see us eat, and not think of
eating.

Dig. By the laws, your worship, that’s parfectly unpossible,
Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward ecod, he’s
always wishing for a mouthful himself.

XVI.]

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

145

Hard. B1 ockhead ! Is not a bellyful] in the kitchen as
good as a bellyfull in the parlour ? Stay your stomach with
that reflection.

Dig. Ecod, I thank your worship, I’ll make a shift to stay
my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.

Hard. Diggory, you are too talkative. — Then, if 1 happen
to say a good thing, or tell a good story at table, you must
not all burst out a-laughing, as if you made part of the
company.

Dig. Then ecod your worship must not tell the story of
Ould Grouse in the gunroom : I can’t help laughing at that
— he ! he ! he ! — for the soul of me. We have laughed at
that these twenty years — ha ! ha ! ha !

Hard. Ha ! ha ! ha ! The story is a good one. Well,
honest Diggory, you may laugh at that — but still remember
to be attentive. Suppose one of the company should call for
a glass of wine, how will you behave ? A glass of wine, sir,
if you please (to Diggory). — Eh, why don’t you move ?

Dig. Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see
the eatables and drinkables brought upo’ the table, and then
Pm as bauld as a lion.

Hard. What, will nobody move ?

First Serv. I’m not to leave this pleace.

Second Serv. I’m sure it’s no pleace of mine.

Third, Serv. Nor mine, for sartain.

Dig. Wauns, and I’m sure it canna be mine.”

No doubt all this is very “ low ” indeed; and per-
haps Mr. Colman may be forgiven for suspecting that
the refined wits of the day would be shocked by these
rude humours of a parcel of servants. But all that can
be said in this direction was said at the time by Horace
Walpole, in a letter to a friend of his ; and this criti-
cism is so amusing in its pretence and imbecility that it
is worth quoting at large “Dr. Goldsmith has written
a comedy, 7 says this profound critic. “ — no, it is the

L

14G

GOLDSMITH.

[CHAP.

lowest of all farces ; it is not the subject I condemn,
though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends
to no moral, no edification of any kind — the situations,
however, are well imagined, and make one laugh in spite ;
of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms,
and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct.

But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters
are very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them
says a sentence that is natural, or marks any character
at all.” Horace Walpole sighing for edification — from a
Covent Garden comedy ! Surely, if the old gods have
any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what
is done in the literary world here below, there must
have rumbled through the courts of Olympus a guffaw of
sardonic laughter, when that solemn criticism was put
down on paper.

Meanwhile Colman’s original fears had developed into
a sort of stupid obstinacy. He was so convinced that
the play would not succeed, that he would spend no
money in putting it on the stage ; while far and wide he
announced its failure as a foregone conclusion. Under
this gloom of vaticination the rehearsals were neverthe-
less proceeded with— the brunt of the quarrels among
the players falling wholly on Goldsmith, for the manager
seems to have withdrawn in despair ; while all the
Johnson confraternity were determined to do what they
could for Goldsmith on the opening night. That was the
15th of March, 1773. His friends invited the author to
dinner as a prelude to the play ; Dr. Johnson was in the
chair ; there was plenty of gaiety. But this means of
keeping up the anxious author’s spirits was nrot very suc-
cessful. Goldsmiths mouth, we are told by Reynolds,

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

147

xvi. ]

became so parched “ from the agitation of his mind,
that he was unable to swallow a single mouthful.”
Moreover, he could not face the ordeal of sitting through
the play ; when his friends left the tavern and betook
then^selves to the theatre, he went away by himself ;
and was subsequently found walking in St. J ames's Park.
The friend who discovered him there, persuaded him that
his presence in the theatre might be useful in case of
an emergency ; and ultimately got him to accompany
him to Co vent Garden. When Goldsmith reached the
theatre, the fifth act had been begun.

Oddly enough, the first thing he heard on entering the
stage door was a hiss. The story goes that the poor
author was dreadfully frightened ; and that in answer to
a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, “ Psha ! Doctor,
don’t be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting
these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder.” If this
was meant as a hoax, it was a cruel one ; if meant
seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had turned out
a great hit. From beginning to end of the performance
the audience wt re in a roar of laughter ; and the single
hiss that Goldsmith unluckily heard was so markedly
exceptional, that it became the talk of the town, and
was variously attributed to one or other of Goldsmith’s
rivals. Colman, too, suffered at the har.ds of the wits
for his gloomy and falsified predictions,; and had, indeed,
to beg Goldsmith to intercede for him. It is a great pity
that Boswell was not in London at this time ; for the n
we might have had a description of the supper that
naturally would follow the play, and of Goldsmith’s
demeanour under this new success. Besides the gratifi-
cation, moreover, of his choice of mat rials being

148

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

approved by the public, there was the material benefit
accruing to him from the three “ author's nights.”
These are supposed to have produced nearly five hundred
pounds — a substantial sum in those days.

Boswell did not come to London till the second of
April following ; and the first mention we find of Gold-
smith is in connection with an incident which has its
ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect. The further
success of She Stoops to Conquer was not likely to pro-
pitiate the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that in-
fested the journalism of that day. More especially was
Kenrick driven mad with envy ; and so, in a letter ad-
dressed to the London Packet , this poor creature deter-
mined once more to set aside the judgment of the public,
and show Dr. Goldsmith in his true colours. The
letter is a wretched production, full of personalities
only fit for an angry washerwoman, and of rancour
without point. But there was one passage in it that
effectually roused Goldsmith’s rage ; for here the J essamy
Bride was introduced as “ the lovely H — k.” The letter
was anonymous ; but the publisher of the print, a man
called Evans, was known ; and so Goldsmith thought
he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had
asked Johnson’s advice about the matter, he would no
doubt have been told to pay no heed at all to anonymous
scurrility — certainly not to attempt to reply to it with
a cudgel. When Johnsor heard that Foote meant to
“ take him off,” he turned to Davies and asked him what
was the common price of an oak stick ; but an oak stick
in Johnson’s hands, and an oak stick in Goldsmith’s
hands were two different things. However, to the book-
seller’s shop the indignant poet proceeded, in company

XVI.]

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

149

with a friend ; got hold of Evans ; accused him of hav-
ing insulted a young lady by putting her name in his
paper ; and, when the publisher would fain have shifted
the responsibility on to the editor, forthwith denounced
him as a rascal, and hit him over the back with his cane.
The publisher, however, was quite a match for Gold-
smith ; and there is no saying how the deadly combat
might have ended, had not a lamp been broken overhead,
the oil of which drenched both the warriors. This in-
tervention of the superior gods was just as successful as
a Homeric cloud ; the fray ceased ; Goldsmith and his
friend withdrew ; and ultimately an action for assault
was compromised by Goldsmith’s paying fifty pounds to
a charity. Then the howl of the journals arose. Their
prerogative had been assailed. “ Attacks upon private
character were the most liberal existing source of news-
paper income,” Mr. Forster writes ; and so the pack
turned with one cry on the unlucky poet. There was
nothing 4 of “ the Monument” about poor Goldsmith;
and at last he was worried into writing a letter of de
fencj addressed to the public. “ He has indeed done it
very well,” said Johnson to Boswell, “ but it is a foolish
thing well done.” And further he remarked, “ Why,
sir, I believe it is the first time he has beat ; he may have
been beaten before. This, sir, is a new plume to aim.”

CHAPTER XYII.

INCREASING DIFFICULTIES. — THE END,

The pecuniary success of She Stoops to Conquer did
but little to relieve Goldsmith from those financial
embarrassments which were now weighing heavily on his
mind. And now he had less of the old high spirits that
had enabled him to laugh off the cares of debt. His
health became disordered ; an old disease renewed its
attacks, and was grown more violent because of his
long-continued sedentary habits. Indeed, from this
point to the day of his death — not a long interval,
either— we find little but a record of successive en-
deavours, some of them wild and hopeless enough, to
obtain money anyhow. Of course he went to the Club,
us usual ; and gave dinner-parties ; and had a laugh or
a song ready for the occasion. It is possible, also, to
trace a certain growth of confidence in himself, no
doubt the result of the repeated proofs of his genius
he had put before his friends. It was something more
than mere personal intimacy that justified the rebuke
he administered to Reynolds, when the latter painted an
allegorical picture representing the triumph of Beattie
and Truth over Voltaire and Scepticism. “ It very ill

cii. xvii.] INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.— THE END. 151

becomes a man of your eminence and character/’ he
said, “ to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so
mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be
forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire’s fame will last
for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture,
to the shame of such a man as you.” He was aware,
too, of the position he had won for himself in English
literature He knew that people in after-days would
ask about him ; and it was with no sort of unwarrant-
able vainglory that he gave Percy certain materials for
a biography which he wished him to undertake. Hence
the Percy Memoir .

He was only forty-five when he made this request ;
and he had not suffered much from illness during his
life ; so that there was apparently no grounds for
imagining that the end was near. But at this time
Goldsmith began to suffer severe fits of depression ; and
he grew irritable and capricious of temper— no doubt
another result of failing health. He was embroiled in
disputes with the booksellers ; and, on one occasion,
seems to have been much hurt because Johnson, who
had been asked to step in as arbiter, decided against
him. He was offended with Johnson on another occa-
sion because of his sending away certain dishes at a
dinner given to him by Goldsmith, as a hint that these
entertainments were too luxurious for one in Goldsmith’s
position. It was probably owing to some temporary
feeling of this sort —perhaps to some expression of it on
Goldsmith’s part — that Johnson spoke of Goldsmith’s
“ malice ” towards him. Mrs. Thrale had suggested that
Goldsmith would be the best person to write Johnson’s
biography. “ The dog would write it best, to be sure,’

152

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

said Johnson, “ but his particular malice towards me,
and general disregard of truth, would make the book
useless to all and injurious to my character.” Of course
it is always impossible to say what measure of jocular
exaggeration there may not be in a chance phrase such
as this : of the fact that there was no serious or perma-
nent quarrel between the two friends we have abundant
proof in Boswell’s faithful pages.

To return to the various endeavours made by Gold-
smith and his friends to meet the difficulties now
closing in around him, we find, first of all, the familiar
hack-work. For two volumes of a History of Greece
he had received from Griffin £250. Then his friends
tried to get him a pension from the Government ; but
this was definit3ly refused. An expedient of his own
seemed to promise wTell at first. He thought of bringing
out a Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , a series
of contributions mostly by his friends, with himself as
editor ; and among those who offered to assist him were
Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Dr. Burney. But the
booksellers were afraid. The project would involve a
large expense ; and they had no high opinion of Gold
smith’s business habits. Then he offered to alter Tlie
Good-natured Man for Garrick ; but Garrick preferred
to treat with him for a new comedy, and generously
allowed him to draw on him for the money in advance.
This last h?lp enabled him to go to Barton for a brief
holiday ; but the relief was only temporary. On his
return to London even his nearest friends began to
observe the change in his manner. In the old days
Goldsmith had faced pecuniary difficulties with a light
heart ; bat now, his health broken, and every avenue

XVII. j INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.— TIIE END.

153

of escape apparently closed, he was giving way to despair.
His friend Cradock, coming up to town, found Goldsmith
in a most despondent condition ; and also hints that
the unhappy author was trying to conceal the true state
of affairs. “ I believe/’ says Cradock, “ he died miser-
able, and that his friends were not entirely aware of
his distress.”

And yet it was during this closing period of anxiety,
despondency, and gloomy foreboding, that the brilliant
and humorous lines of Retaliation were written — that
last scintillation of the bright and happy genius that
was soon to be extinguished for ever. The most varied
accounts have been given of the origin of this jeu
d’ esprit ; and even Garrick’s, which was meant to super-
sede and correct all others, is self contradictory. For
according to this version of the story, which was found
among the Garrick papers, and which is printed in
Mr. Cunningham’s edition of Goldsmith’s works, the
whole thing arose out of Goldsmith and Garrick resolv-
ing one evening at the St. James’s Coffee House to write
each other’s epitaph Garrick’s well-known couplet was
instantly produced :

“ Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,

Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll.”

Goldsmith, according to Garrick, either would not or
could not retort at the moment ; “ but went to work,
and some weeks after produced the following printed
poem, called Retaliation .” But Garrick himself goes on
to say, “ The following poems in manuscript were written
by several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the

154

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

Doctor to an answer, which came forth at last with great
credit to him in Retaliation .” The most probable
version of the story, which may be pieced together from
various sources, is that at the coffee house named this
business of writing comic epitaphs was started some
evening or other by the whole company ; that Goldsmith
and Garrick pitted themselves against each other ; that
thereafter Goldsmith began as occasion served to write
similar squibs about his friends, which were shown
about as they were written ; that thereupon those
gentlemen, not to be behindhand, composed more
elaborate pieces in proof of their wit : and that, finally,
Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive lines of his
together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which,
under the name of Retaliation , was published after his
death. This hypothetical account receives some con-
firmation from the fact that the scheme of the poem and
its component parts do not fit together well ; the intro-
duction looks like an after thought ; and has not the
freedom and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An
imaginary dinner is described, the guests being Garrick,
Reynolds, Burke, Cumberland, and the rest of them,
Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for, until
tiie whole of his companions have fallen beneath the
table :

u Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,

Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead .”

This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a
series of epitaphs ; but the epitaphs amply atone for it.
That on Garrick is especially remarkable as a bit of

XVII.] INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.— THE END.

155

character-sketching; its shrewd hints — all in perfect
courtesy and good humour — going a little nearer to the
truth than is common in epitaphs of any sort : —

“ Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can ;

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.

As an actor, confessed without rival to shine :

As a wit, if not first, in the very first line :

Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,

The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.

Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,

And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ;

’Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.

With no reason on earth to go out of his way,

He turned and he varied full ten times a day :

Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick ;

He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,

For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came ;

And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame ;

Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,

Who peppered the highest was surest to please.

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind :

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave\
How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,

To act as an angel and mix with the skies :

Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will ;

Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.”

156

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to
bless his “ honest little man ” when he received from
him sixty pounds in advance for a comedy not begun,
never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of his
other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination
at all, for example, in the lines devoted in this poem to
Eeynolds. All the generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith’s
Irish nature appears here ; he will admit of no possible
rival to this especial friend of his : —

“ Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,

He has not left a wiser or better behind.”

There is a tradition that the epitaph on Eeynolds,
ending with the unfinished line

“ By flattery unspoiled 0 0 0 ”

was Goldsmith’s last piece of writing. One would like
to believe that, in any case.

Goldsmith had returned to his Edgware lodgings, and
had, indeed, formed some notion of selling his chambers
in the Temple, and living in the country for at least ten
months in the year, when a sudden attack of his old
disorder drove him into town again for medical advice.
He would appear to have received some relief ; but a
nervous fever followed ; and on the night of the 25th
March, 1774, when he was but forty-six years of age,
he took to his bed for the last time. At first he refused
to regard his illness as serious ; and insisted on dosing
himself with certain fever- powders from which he had
received benefit on previous occasions ; but by and by
as his strength gave way, he submitted to the advice of
the physicians who were in attendance on him. Day

xvn.] INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.— THE END.

157

after day passed ; his weakness visibly increasing,
though, curiously enough, the symptoms of fever were
gradually abating. At length one of the doctors, re-
marking to him that his pulse was in greater disorder
than it should be from the degree of fever, asked him
if his mind was at ease. “No, it is not,” answered
Goldsmith; and these were his last words. Early in
the morning of Monday, April 4, convulsions set in ;
these continued for rather more than an hour ; then the
troubled brain and the sick heart found rest for ever.

When the news was carried to his friends, Burke, it
is said, burst into tears, and Reynolds put aside his
work for the day. But it does not appear that they
had visited him during his illness ; and neither Johnson,
nor Reynolds, nor Burke, nor Garrick followed his body
to the grave. It is true, a public funeral was talked of ;
and, among others, Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick were
to have carried the pall ; but this was abandoned ; and
Goldsmith was privately buried in the ground of the
Temple Church on the 9th of April, 1774. Strangely
enough, too, Johnson seems to have omitted all mention
of Goldsmith from his letters to Boswell. It was not
until Boswell had written to him on June 24th, “ You
have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith,” that
Johnson, writing on July 4, answered as follows : —
“Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be
told, more than the papers have made public. He died
of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by un-
easiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all
his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion
that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was
ever poet so trusted before ? ”

158

GOLDSMITH.

[chap.

But if the greatest grief at the sudden and premature
death of Goldsmith would seem to have been shown
at the moment by certain wretched creatures who were
found weeping on the stairs leading to his chambers, it
must not be supposed that his fine friends either forgot
him, or ceased to regard his memory wfith a great
gentleness and kindness. Some two years after, when
a monument was about to be erected to Goldsmith in
Westminster Abbey, Johnson consented to write “the
poor dear Doctor’s epitaph and so anxious were the
members of that famous circle in which Goldsmith
had figured, that a just tribute should be paid to his
genius, that they even ventured to send a round robin
to the great Cham desiring him to amend his first
draft. Now, perhaps, we have less interest in John-
son’s estimate of Goldsmith’s genius — though it con-
tains the famous Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit —
than in the phrases which tell of the honour paid to
the memory of the dead poet by the love of his com-
panions and the faithfulness of his friends It may
here be added that the precise spot where Goldsmith was
buried in the Temple churchyard is unknown. So lived
and so died Oliver Goldsmith.

In the foregoing pages the writings of Goldsmith
have been given so prominent a place in the history
of his life that it is unnecessary to take them here
collectively and endeavour to sum up their distinc •
tive qualitres As much as could be said within the
limited space has, it is hoped, been said about their
genuine and tender pathos, that never at any time

XVII.] INCREASING DIFFICULTIES. -THE END. 159

verges on the affected or theatrical ; about their quaint
delicate, delightful humour; about that broader humour
that is not afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of
mankind by dealing with common and familirr ways,
and manners, and men ; about that choiceness of diction,
that lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm
even to Goldsmith’s ordinary hack-work.

Still less necessary, perhaps, is it to review the facts
and circumstances of Goldsmith’s life ; and to make of
them an example, a warning, or an accusation. That has
too often been done. His name has been used to glorify
a sham Bohemianism — a Bohemianism that finds it easy
to live in taverns, but does not find it easy, so far as
one sees, to write poems like the Deserted Village. Bis
experiences as an author h .ve been brought forward to
swell the cry about neglected genius — that is, by writers
who assume their genius in order to prove the neglect.
The misery that occasionally befell him during his way-
ward career has been made the basis of an accusation
against society, the English constitution, Christianity —
Heaven knows what. It is time to have done with all
this nonsense. Goldsmith resorted to the hack-work of
literature when everything else had failed him ; and he
was fairly paid for it. When he did better work, when
he “ struck for honest fame,” the nation gave him all
the honour that he could have desired With an assured
reputation, and with ample means of subsistence, he
obtained entrance into the most distinguished society
then in England — he was made the friend of England’s
greatest in the arts and literature — and could have
confined himself to that society exclusively if he had
chosen. His temperament, no doubt, exposed him to

160

GOLDSMITH.

[CH. XVII.

suffering ; and the exquisite sensitiveness of a man of
genius may demand our sympathy ; but in far greater
measure is our sympathy demanded for the thousands
upon thousands of people who, from illness or nervous
excitability, suffer from quite as keen a sensitiveness
without the consolation of the fame that genius brings.

In plain truth. Goldsmith himself would have been
the last to put forward pleas humiliating alike to himself
and to his calling. Instead of beseeching the State to
look after authors ; instead of imploring society to grant
them “ recognition instead of saying of himself “ he
wrote, and paid the penalty ; ” he would frankly have
admitted that he chose to live his life his own way, and
therefore paid the penalty. This is not written with
any desire of upbraiding Goldsmith. He did choose to
live his own life his own way, and we now have the
splendid and beautiful results of his work ; and the
world — looking at these with a constant admiration, and
with a great and lenient love for their author — is not
anxious to know what he did with his guineas, or
whether the milkman was ever paid. “ He had raised
money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition
and folly of expense. But let not his frailties be

REMEMBERED : HE WAS A VERY GREAT MAN.” This is

Johnson’s wise summing up ; and with it we may here
take leave of gentle Goldsmith.

INDEX

A

Addison, 21
Akenside, 75
Albinus, 17, 23
Armstrong, 75

Auchinleck (Boswell’s father),
70

B

Bally mahon, 16, 17
Bath, 61, 137

Beauclerk, Topham, 68, 110,
119

Bee , the (weekly magazine),
38 ; Goldsmith’s contribu-
tions to, 40, 41, 42, 43, 48,
49, 138
Bentley, 115

Boswell, 19, 45, 47, 68, 69, 70,
71, 73, 74, 79, 100, 103, 117,
118, 137, 152, 157
Bott, Mr., 113
British Magazine , the , 44, 45
Burke, Mr., 21, 44, 68, 98,
99, 110, 111, 116; 132, 134,
140, 152, 154, 157
Burney, Dr., 152

C

Camden, Lord, 137
Churchill, 76

Citizen of the World , the , 29 ;

quotation from, 51-55
City Night Piece , the , quota-
tion from, 42, 43
Clare, Lord, 137, 138, 139, 140
Colman, George, 102, 132, 142,
145, 146, 147

Contarine (Goldsmith’s uncle),
12, 13, 16, 17, 132

Cooke, Mr., 112
Cork, 16

Coromandel, coast of, 31, 32
Cradock, 153

Critical Review , the, 32, 33 ;

criticism of, 36, 37, 75
Croker, Mr., 47
Cumberland, Mr., 154
Cunningham, Mr., 73

D

Davies, Tom, 69, 70, 114, 121,
148

Deserted Village , the , 7, 77 ;
quotation from, 112 ; public-
ation of, 1770, 114, 116, 122,
131, 132, 159

Douglas (Hone’s) Goldsmith’s
criticism of, 29

Dromore, Bishop of (Mr.

Percy), 44
Dublin, 12, 17

E

Edinburgh, 17, 26
Edwin and Angelina , ballad of,
quotation from, 84, 85
Elphin, Bishop of, 16
England, 35, 69, 78, 93, 127,
159

Enquiries concerning the first
Inhabitants , Language , Re-
ligion, Learning , and Letters
of Europe, Some, 30
Enquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful , the, 44
Enquiry into the Present State
of Polite Learning in Europe ,
the, 31 ; publication of , 1759,
33 ; severely criticised, 37

M

162

GOLDSMITH.

Essay on Man , allusion to, 79,
128

Europe, 19, 20, 38, 61

F

Featherston, Squire, 12
Fleming, Mrs., 67, 72
Forster, Mr., 2, 3, 18, 27, 32,
45, 47, 59, 98
Fox, Charles, 79
France, 46

G

Garrick, David, 101, 152, 153,
154, 155, 157
Gaubius, 18, 23
Glasgow, 71

Goethe, his opinion of Vicar
of Wakefield , 93
Goldsmith, Rev. Charles (Oli-
ver’s father), 7 ; death of, 13
Goldsmith, Henry, 61, 76, 125
Goldsmith, Maurice, 132
Goldsmith, Oliver, 1-6
Birth of, 7, 8 ; school

days, 9-11; sent to college
as a sizar, 12 ; went to Dub-
lin, 12 ; entered Trinity
College, 12 ; death of his
father, 13 ; pecuniary dif-
ficulties, 13 ; gains an Ex-
hibition, 13 ; runs away
from college, 13 ; returns,
13-14 ; takes degree, 14 ;
fails to enter Church, 16 ;
obtains a tutorship, 16 ;
legal profession, 17 ; medi-
cine, 18-21 ; London, 1756,
22, 24 ; usher, 25, 26 ;
hack work ,27-31; q uarrels
with Griffiths, 30 ; in-
stalled as usher once more
at Peckham, 31 ; begins
career as author, 1759,
33-39 ; editor of The Bee ,
40, 41 ; writings, 42-49 ;

Goldsmith, Oliver [cont. ) —
goes to France with Mrs.
Horneck, 47 ; weekly
letters to Public Ledger ,
50-55 ; extract, 55-60 ; in-
different health, 61 ; goes
to Tunbridge and thence
to Bath, 61 ; publishes
Beau Nash, 61 ; Bath. Life
of Nash, 61-66 ; returns to
London, 67; takes lodgings
in Islington, 67 ; works
for Newbery, 67 ; threat
of arrest, 71-72; novel,
1766, 73 ; poem, 75-79 ;
incident, 80, 82 ; interview
with Earl of Northum-
berland, 80 ; letter to
“Mr. Posterity,” 83;
criticisms, 84 ; publishes
ballad of Edwin and
Angelina, 84 ; resorts to
hack work, 86 ; moves
into Garden Court, 86 ;
publishes Vicar of Wake-
field, 1766, 86 ; his services
as a writer solicited by
Government, 102 ; inter-
view with Mr. Scott,
102 ; production of Good-
natured Alan at Covent
Garden, 102 : attends first
night, 106 ; anxiety and
excitement, 106, 107; pur-
chases and decorates set
of chambers in Brick
Court, 109 ; entertertain-
ments, 109, 110; letter to
brother, 132 ; Continental
tour, 134-136 ; London,
137, 138, 141 143, 145;
comedy, 1773, 146-149; ill-
health, 150 ; gives Percy
materials for Memoir, 151,

152 ; story re Retaliation ,

153 ; illness, 156 ; death,
157, 158 ; review of works,
159 ; of life, 160

INDEX

163

Goldsmith, Oliver ( cont .) —
Suffers from want of self-
confidence, 11 ; nervous
and sensitive, 46 ; adopts
appearance of ease and
swagger, 46 ; envious dis-
position, 47 ; humour, 48 ;
his sensitiveness, 115;
wounded by critics, 114-
115; depressed, 151
Good-natured Man, the, 5, 100 ;
Johnson writes Prologue
for, 102 ; produced at Covent
Garden Theatre, 1768, 102,
103; quotation from, 103-
106, 107, 109, 110, 142, 143,
152

Gray (poet), 75
Griffin, 20, 107, 141, 152
Griffin and Newbery, 82
Griffiths, Mr., 26-28, 30, 32,
33, 37, 55

H

Haunch of Venison, 138 ; quo-
tation from, 139-140
Hawkins, Sir John, 47, 68, 71,
80

History of Animated Nature,
the, 120, 121, 141
History of England from the
Birth of the British Empire,

121, 141

History of Greece, a, 152
History of Rome, the, 113
Hodson, Mr., 8, 31
Hodson, Mrs., 125
Hogarth, 68, 111
Holland, 21
Horneck, Captain, 134
Horneck, Miss (“ Little

Comedy the elder, 135, 137

Horneck, Miss (“ The Jessamy
Bride”), 135, 137, 148
Horneck, Mrs. 46, 134, 135
137

Hornecks, the Misses, 47

I

Ireland, 7, 17, 18, 21,61
Islington, 67, 72

J

Johnson, Dr., 21, 25, 30, 44,
45, 47, 59; 61, 68, 69, 70-76,
78, 79, 81,99, 100, 101, 103,
107, 110, 111, 114-120, 123,
132, 138, 140, 142, 146. 148,
149, 151, 157, 160

K

Kelly, Mr., Goldsmith’s letter
to, 110

Kenrick, Mr., 37

L

Langton, Bennet, 68, 79
Leyden, 17, 18, 19
Life of Richard Nash, Esq.,
The, anonymous publication
of, 1762, 61-66, 68
Life of Thomas Parnell, A,
Goldsmith undertakes to
write, 121
Lille, 47, 136
Lissoy, 7, 8, 13, 124, 125
Longford, 7
Louvain, 21

M

Macaulay, Lord. 7, 28, 114,
123

Memoir of Goldsmith, allusion
to Professor Masson’s. 54
Milner, Dr. 25-27, 31, 32
Milner, Mrs., 26
Monthly Review, the, 29, 32 ;
criticism of, 36, 37, 50, 98,
108

164

GOLDSMITH.

N

Newbery, Mr., 50, 61, 67, 75,
86, 141

Newbery, Mr. Francis, 50, 73,
74, 86, 99

Northumberland, Earl of,
Goldsmith’s interview with,
80, 102

Nugent, Dr., 68, 110

P

Pallas (or Pallasmore), Gold-
smith born at, 1728, 7
Paris, 136

Peckham, Goldsmith’s life at,
25, 26, 27, 30, 31
Percy Memoir , the, 151
Percy, Mr., 45, 59, 110, 151
Piozzi, Mrs., 71, 73
Pope, allusion to, 76, 79, 122
Public Ledger , the, 45, 50 ;
quotations from Goldsmith’s
contributions to, 56-59

R

Retaliation , origin of, 153 ;
story re, 154 ; quotation
from, 155, 156

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 21, 68,
79, 101, 111, 116; returns
compliment for dedication
of Deserted Village, 131, 134,
136, 137, 146, 150, 152, 154,
156, 157

Riccoboni, Madam, criticism on
Vicar of Wakefield, 98

Roman History , the, 121, 122

S

Scotland, 68, 70
Scott, Mr. , interview with
Goldsmith, 102
Scott, Sir Walter, 124

She Stoops to Conquer (comedy),
11, 12, 103, 142; produced
at Covent Garden Theatre,
March,* 1773, 146; quotation
from, 143-145 ; success of,
147, 148

“ Shoemaker’s Holiday, A,”
description of, 112, 113
Smollett, 37, 44

T

Thackeray, Mr., 1, 16

Traveller, the (poem), 61, 68;
publication of, 1764, 74, 75 ;
quotations from and review
of, 76-79, 80, 109, 110, 116,
122, 123

Trinity College (Dublin),
Goldsmith at, 12-14

Tunbridge, 61

V

Vicar of Wakefield, the, 19, 55,
61, 68; manuscript sold to
Newbery, 73, 74, 84 ; pub-
lication of, 1766, 86 ; review
of and quotations from, 87-
99, 109, 110, 116

W

Walpole, Horace, his descrip-
tion of Goldsmith, 46, 145,
146

Westmeath, 7

Wilkie, Mr., founder of The
Bee, 38, 40

Williams, Miss (Johnson’s
friend), 69

Wine Office Court, 39

Wise, Mr., 30

Wordsworth, 128

Y

Young, 75

R CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BREAD ST. HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

Citgltef) JHnt of iletters

EDITED BY JOHN MOELEY

COWPEE

COWPEIl

BY

GOLDWIN SMITH

ILontion

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1904

A ll rights reserved

First printed 1880
Reprinted 1881, 1885
New Issue 1888. Reprinted 1898, 1904

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Early Life 1

CHAPTER II.

At Huntingdon — The Unwins 22

CHAPTER III.

At Olney — Mr. Newton . . * . . . 35

CHAPTER IV.

Authorship— -The Moral Satires 48

CHAPTER V.

The Task 61

CHAPTER VI.

Short Poems and Translations 82

CHAPTER VII.

The Letters 96

CHAPTER VIII.

Close of Life 122

Index

133

COWPEB.

COWPER

CHAPTER I.

EARLY LIFE.

Cowper is the most important English poet of the period
between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Words-
worth, Byron, and Shelley, which arose out of the in-
tellectual ferment of the European Revolution. As a
reformer of poetry, who called it back from conventionality
to nature, and at the same time as the teacher of a new
school of sentiment which acted as a solvent upon the
existing moral and social system, he may perhaps himself
be numbered among the precursors of the Revolution,
though he was certainly the mildest of them all. As a
sentimentalist he presents a faint analogy to Rousseau,-
whom in natural temperament he somewhat resembled
He was also the great poet of the religious revival which
marked the latter part of the eighteenth century in
England, and which was called Evangelicism within the
establishment and Methodism without. In this way he
is associated with Wesley and Whitefield, as well as with
the philanthropists of the movement, such as Wilberforce,
Thornton, and Clarkson. As a poet he touches, on dif-

B

2

COWPER.

[chap.

ferent sides of his character, Goldsmith, Crabhe, and
Bums. With Goldsmith and Crabhe he shares the honour
of improving English taste in the sense of truthfulness
and simplicity. To Burns he felt his affinity, across a
gulf of social circumstance, and in spite of a dialect not
yet made fashionable by Scott. Besides his poetry, he
holds a high, perhaps the highest place, among English
letter writers : and the collection of his letters appended
to Southey’s biography forms, with the biographical por-
tions of his poetry, the materials for a sketch of his life.
Southey’s biography itself is very helpful, though too
prolix and too much filled out with dissertations for com-
mon readers. Had its author only done for Cowper what
he did for Kelson ! 1

William Cowper came of the Whig nobility of the robe.
His great-uncle, after whom he was named, was the Whig
Lord Chancellor of Anne and George I. His grandfather
was that Spencer Cowper, judge of the Common Pleas,
for love of whom the pretty Quakeress drowned herself,
and who, by the rancour of party, was indicted for her
murder. His father, the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., was
chaplain to George II. His mother was a Donne, of the
race of the poet, and descended by several lines from
Henry III. A Whig and a gentleman he was by birth, a
Whig and a gentleman he remained to the end. He was
born on the 15th November (old style), 1731, in his father’s
rectory of Berkhampstead. From nature he received,
with a large measure of the gifts of genius, a still larger
measure of its painful sensibilities. In his portrait by
Romney the brow bespeaks intellect, the features feeling

1 Our acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Benharn, the writer
of the Memoir prefixed to the Globe Edition of Cowper.

EARLY LIFE.

3

i.]

and refinement, the eye madness. The stronger parts of
character, the combative and propelling forces he evidently
lacked from the beginning. For the battle of life he was
totally unfit. His judgment in its healthy state was,
even on practical questions, sound enough, as his letters
abundantly prove ; but his sensibility not only rendered
him incapable of wrestling with a rough world, hut kept
him always on the verge of madness, and frequently
plunged him into it. To the malady which threw him
out of active life we owe not the meanest of English
poets.

At the age of thirty-two, writing of himself, he says, “ I
am of a very singular temper, and very unlike all the
men that I have ever conversed with. Certainly I am
not an absolute fool, hut I have more weakness than the
greatest of all the fools I can recollect at present. In
short, if I was as fit for the next world as I am unfit for
this — and God forbid I should speak it in vanity — I would
not change conditions with any saint in Christendom.”
Folly produces nothing good, and if Cowper had been an
absolute fool, he would not have written good poetry.
But he does not exaggerate his own weakness, and that
he should have become a power among men is a remark-
able triumph of the influences which have given birth to
Christian civilization.

The world into which the child came was one very
adverse to him, and at the same time very much in need
of him. It was a world from which the spirit of poetry
seemed to have fled. There could he no stronger proof of
this than the occupation of the throne of Spenser, Shake-
speare, and Milton by the arch-versifier Pope. The
Revolution of 1688 was glorious, but unlike the Puritan

COWPEK.

[chap.

4

Revolution which it followed, and in the political sphere
partly ratified, it was profoundly prosaic. Spiritual reli-
gion, the source of Puritan grandeur and of the poetry of
Milton, was almost extinct ; there was not much more of
it among the Nonconformists, who had now become to a
great extent mere Whigs, with a decided Unitarian ten-
dency. The Church was little better than a political
force, cultivated and manipulated by political leaders for
their own purposes. The Bishops were either politicians
or theological polemics collecting trophies of victory over
free-thinkers as titles to higher preferment. The inferior
clergy as a body were far nearer in character toTrulliber than
to Dr. Primrose ; coarse, sordid, neglectful of their duties,
shamelessly addicted to sinecurism and pluralities, fanatics
in their Toryism and in attachment to their corporate
privileges, cold, rationalistic and almost heathen in their
preachings, if they preached at all. The society of the
day is mirrored in the pictures of Hogarth, in the works
of Fielding and Smollett ; hard and heartless polish was
the best of it ; and not a little of it was Marriage a la
Mode . Chesterfield, with his soulless culture, his court

graces, and his fashionable immoralities, was about the
highest type of an English gentleman ; but the Wilkeses,
Potters, and Sandwiches, whose mania for vice culminated
in the Hell-fire Club, were more numerous than the Ches-
terfields. Among the country squires, for one Allworthy
or Sir Roger de Coverley there were many Westerns.
Among the common people religion was almost extinct,
and assuredly no new morality • or sentiment, such as
Positivists now promise, had taken its place. Sometimes
the rustic thought for himself, and scepticism took
formal possession of his mind ; but, as we see from one of

EARLY LIFE.

5

ij

Cowper’s letters, it was a coarse scepticism which desired
to be buried with its hounds. Ignorance and brutality
reigned in the cottage. Drunkenness reigned in palace
and cottage alike. Gambling, cockfighting, and bull-
fighting were the amusements of the people. Political
life, which, if it had been pure and vigorous, might have
made up for the absence of spiritual influences, was cor-
rupt from the top of the scale to the bottom : its effect on
national character is pour tray ed in Hogarth's Election.
That property had its duties as well as its rights, nobody had
yet ventured to say or think. The duty of a gentleman
towards his own class was to pay his debts of honour and
to fight a duel whenever he was challenged by one of his
own order ; towards the lower class his duty was none.
Though the forms of government were elective, and Cow-
per gives us a description of the candidate at election
time obsequiously soliciting votes, society was intensely
aristocratic, and each rank was divided from that below
it by a sharp line which precluded brotherhood or sym-
pathy. Says the Duchess of Buckingham to Lady Hun-
tingdon, who had asked her to come and hear Whitefield,
“ I thank your ladyship for the information concerning
the Methodist preachers ; their doctrines are most re-
pulsive, and strongly tinctured with disrespect towards
their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all
ranks and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous
to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common
wretches that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive
and insulting ; and I cannot but wonder that your lady-
ship should relish any sentiments so much at variance
with high rank and good breeding. I shall be most
happy to come and hear your favourite preacher." Her

6

COWPER.

[chap.

Grace’s sentiments towards the common wretches that
crawl on the earth were shared, we may he sure, by her
Grace’s waiting-maid. Of humanity there was as little as
there was of religion. It was the age of the criminal law
which hanged men for petty thefts, of life-long imprison-
ment for debt, of the stocks and the pillory, of a Temple
Bar garnished with the heads of traitors, of the unre-
formed prison system, of the press-gang, of unrestrained
tyranny and savagery at public schools. That the slave
trade was iniquitous hardly any one suspected ; even men
who deemed themselves religious took part in it without
scruple. But a change was at hand, and a still mightier
change was in prospect. At the time of Cowper’s birth,
John Wesley was twenty-eight and Whitefield was seven-
teen. With them the revival of religion was at hand.
Johnson, the moral reformer, was twenty-two. Howard
was born, and in less than a generation Wilberforce was
to come.

When Cowper was six years old his mother died ; and
seldom has a child, even such a child, lost more, even in
a mother. Fifty years after her death he still thinks of
her, he says, with love and tenderness every day. Late
in his life his cousin Mrs. Anne Bodham recalled herself
to his remembrance by sending him his mother’s picture.
“ Every creature,” he writes, “ that has any affinity to
my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her
brother, are but one remove distant from her ; I love you
therefore, and love you much, both for her sake and for
your own. The world could not have furnished you with
a present so acceptable to me as the picture which you
have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before
last, and received it with a trepidation of nerves and

!•]

EARLY LIFE.

7

spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt had its
dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed
it and hung it where it is the last object which I see at
night, and the first on which I open my eyes in the
morning. She died when I completed my sixth year ; yet
I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the
great fidelity of the copy. I remember too a multitude
of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her,
and which have endeared her memory to me beyond ex-
pression. There is in me, I believe, more of the Donne
than of the Cowper, and though I love all of both names,
and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own
name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently
to your side.” VAs Cowper never married, there was
nothing to take the place in his heart which had been
left vacant by his mother.

My mother! when I learn’ d that thou wast dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ?

Hover’d thy spirit o’er thy sorrowing son,

Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ?

Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss ;

Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss —

Ah, that maternal smile ! — it answers — Yes.

I heard the bell toll’d on thy burial day,

I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,

And, turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu !

But was it such ? — It was. — Where thou art gone
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.

May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,

The parting word shall pass my lips no more !

Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.

What ardently I wish’d, I long believed,

And disappointed still, was still deceived ;

8

COWPER.

[chap,

By expectation every day beguiled,

Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went.

Till, all my stock of infant sorrows spent,

I learn’ d at last submission to my lot,

But, though I less deplored thee, ne’er forgot.

In the years that followed no doubt he remembered her
too well. At six years of age this little mass of timid
and quivering sensibility was, in accordance with the
cruel custom of the time, sent to a large hoarding school.
The change from home to a hoarding school is had enough
now ; it was much worse in those days.

“ I had hardships,” says Cowper, “ of various kinds to
conflict with, which I felt more sensibly in proportion to
the tenderness with which I had been treated at home.
But my chief affliction consisted in my being singled out
from all the other hoys by a lad of about fifteen years of
age as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the
cruelty of his temper. I choose to conceal a particular
recital of the many acts of barbarity with which he made
it his business continually to persecute me. It will be suf-
ficient to say that his savage treatment of me impressed such
a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember
being afraid to lift my eyes upon him higher than to his
knees, and that I knew him better by his shoe-buckles
than by any other part of his dress. May the Lord
pardon him, and may we meet in glory ! ” Cowper
charges himself, it may be in the exaggerated style of a
self-accusing saint, with having become at school an adept
in the art of lying. Southey says this must be a mistake,
since at English public schools boys do not learn to lie.
But the mistake is on Southey’s part ; bullying, such as

*0

EARLY LIFE.

9

this child endured, while it makes the strong boys
tyrants, makes the weak boys cowards, and teaches them
to defend themselves by deceit, the fist of the weak.
The recollection of this boarding school mainly it was
that at a later day inspired the plea for a home education
in Tirocinium.

Then why resign into a stranger’s hand
A task as much within your own command,

That God and nature, and your interest too,

Seem with one voice to delegate to you ?

Why hire a lodging in a house unknown

For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round your own ?
This second weaning, needless as it is,

How does it lacerate both your heart and his !

The indented stick that loses day by day
Notch after notch, till all are smooth’d away,

Bears witness long ere his dismission come,

With what intense desire he wants his home.

But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof
Bid fair enough to answer in the proof,

Harmless, and safe, and natural as they are,

A disappointment waits him even there :

Arrived, he feels an unexpected change,

He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange.

No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease,

His favourite stand between his father’s knees,

But seeks the corner of some distant seat,

And eyes the door, and watches a retreat,

And, least familiar where he should be most.

Feels all his happiest privileges lost.

Alas, poor boy ! — the natural effect
Of love by absence chill’d into respect.

From the boarding school, the boy, his eyes being liable
to inflammation, was sent to live with an oculist, in
whose house he spent two years, enjoying at all events
a respite from the sufferings and the evils of the boarding

10

COWPER.

[chap.

school. He was then sent to Westminster School, at
that time in its glory. That Westminster in those days
must have been a scene not merely of hardship, but of
cruel suffering and degradation to the younger and weaker
boys, has been proved by the researches of the Public
Schools Commission. There was an established system
and a regular vocabulary of bullying. Yet Cowper seems
not to have been so unhappy there as at the private
school ; he speaks of himself as having excelled at cricket
and football ; and excellence in cricket and football at a
public school generally carries with it, besides health
and enjoyment, not merely immunity from bullying, but
high social consideration. With all Cowper’s delicacy
and sensitiveness, he must have had a certain fund of
physical strength, or he could hardly have borne the
literary labour of his later years, especially as he was
subject to the medical treatment of a worse than empirical
era. At one time he says, while he was at Westminster,
his spirits were so buoyant that he fancied he should
never die, till a skull thrown out before him by a grave-
digger as he was passing through St. Margaret’s church-
yard in the night recalled him to a sense of his mortality.

The instruction at a public school in those days was
exclusively classical. Cowper was under Vincent Bourne,
his portrait of whom is in some respects a picture not
only of its immediate subject, but of the schoolmaster
of the last century. “ I love the memory of Vinny
Bourne. I think him a better Latin poet than Tibullus,
Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his way,
except Ovid, and not at all inferior to him. I love him
too with a love of partiality, because he was usher of the
fifth form at Westminster when I passed through it. He

EARLY LIFE.

II

!•]

was so good-natured and so indolent that I lost more than
I got by him, for he made me as idle as himself. He
was such a sloven, as if he had trusted to his genius as a
cloak for everything that could disgust you in his person ;
and indeed in his writings he has almost made amends

for all I remember seeing the Duke of Bichmond

set fire to his greasy locks and box his ears to put it out
again.” Cowper learned, if not to write Latin verses as
well as Yinny Bourne himself, to write them very well,
as his Latin versions of some of his own short poems hear
witness. Not only so, hut he evidently became a good
classical scholar, as classical scholarship was in those days,
and acquired the literary form of which the classics are
the best school. Out of school hours he studied inde-
pendently, as clever hoys under the unexacting rule of
the old public schools often did, and read through the
whole of the Iliad and Odyssey with a friend. He also
probably picked up at Westminster much of the little
knowledge of the world which he ever possessed. Among
his schoolfellows was Warren Hastings, in whose guilt as
proconsul he afterwards, for the sake of Auld Lang Syne,
refused to believe, and Impey, whose character has had
the ill-fortune to be required as the shade in Macaulay’s
fancy picture of Hastings.

On leaving Westminster, Cowper, at eighteen, went
to live with Mr. Chapman, an attorney, to whom he
was articled, being destined for the Law. He chose that
profession, he says, not of his own accord, but to gratify
an indulgent father, who may have been led into the(
error by a recollection of the legal honours of the family,
as well as by the “ silver pence ” which his promising son
had won by his Latin verses at Westminster School.

12

COWPER.

[chap.

The youth duly slept at the attorney’s house in Ely Place.
His days were spent in “ giggling and making giggle ”
with his cousins, Theodora and Harriet, the daughters of
Ashley Cowper, in the neighbouring Southampton Eow.
Ashley Cowper was a very little man in a white hat lined
with yellow, and his nephew used to say that he would
one day he picked by mistake for a mushroom. His fel-
low-clerk in the office, and his accomplice in giggling and
making giggle, was one strangely mated with him; the
strong, aspiring, and unscrupulous Thurlow, who though
fond of pleasure was at the same time preparing himself
to push his way to wealth and power. Cowper felt that
Thurlow would reach the summit of ambition, while he
would himself remain below, and made his friend promise
when he was Chancellor to give him something. When
Thurlow was Chancellor, he gave Cowper his advice on
translating Homer.

At the end of his three years with the attorney, Cowper
took chambers in the Middle, from which he afterwards
removed to the Inner Temple. The Temple is now a pile
of law offices. In those days it was still a Society. One
of Cowper’s set says of it : “ The Temple is the barrier
that divides the City and suburbs ; and the gentlemen
who reside there seem influenced by the situation of the
place they inhabit. Templars are in general a kind of
citizen courtiers. They aim at the air and the mien of
the drawing-room ; but the holy-day smoothness of a
’prentice, heightened with some additional touches of the
rake or coxcomb, betrays itself in everything they do.
The Temple, however, is stocked with its peculiar beaux,
wits, poets, critics, and every character in the gay world ;
and it is a thousand pities that so pretty a society should

EARLY LIFE.

13

be disgraced with a few dull fellows, who can submit to
puzzle themselves with cases and reports, and have not taste
enough to follow the genteel method of studying the law.”
Cowper at all events studied law by the genteel method ;
he read it almost as little in the Temple as he had in the
attorney’s office, though in due course of time he was for-
mally called to the Bar, and even managed in some way
to acquire a reputation, which when he had entirely given
up the profession brought him a curious offer of a reader-
ship at Lyons Inn. His time was given to literature, and
he became a member of a little circle of men of letters
and journalists which had its social centre in the Non-
sense Club, consisting of seven Westminster men who
dined together every Thursday. In the set were Bonnell
Thornton and Colman, twin wits, fellow-writers of the
periodical essays which were the rage in that day, joint
proprietors of the St. James's Chronicle , contributors both
of them to the Connoisseur , and translators, Colman of
Terence, Bonnell Thornton of Plautus, Colman being a
dramatist besides. In the set was Lloyd, another wit and
essayist and a poet, with a character not of the best. On
the edge of the set, but apparently not in it, was Churchill,
who was then running a course which to many seemed
meteoric, and of whose verse, sometimes strong but always
turbid, Cowper conceived and retained an extravagant ad-
miration. Churchill was a link to Wilkes ; Hogarth too
was an ally of Colman, and helped him in his exhibition of
Signs. The set was strictly confined to Westminsters. Gray
and Mason, being Etonians, were objects of its literary
hostility and butts of its satire. It is needless to say
much about these literary companions of Cowper’s youth ;
his intercourse with them was totally broken off, and

14

COWPER.

[chap.

before he himself became a poet its effects had been
obliterated by madness, entire change of mind, and the
lapse of twenty years. If a trace remained, it was in his
admiration of Churchill’s verses, and in the general results
of literary society, and of early practice in composition.
Cowper contributed to the Connoiseur and the St. James's
Chronicle . His papers in the Connoisseur have been pre-
served ; they are mainly imitations of the lighter papers
of the Spectator by a student who affects the man of the
world. He also dallied with poetry, writing verses to
“ Delia,” and an epistle to Lloyd. He had translated
an elegy of Tibullus when he was fourteen, and at West-
minster he had written an imitation of Phillips’s Splendid
Shilling , which, Southey says, shows his manner formed.
He helped his Cambridge brother, John Cowper, in a
translation of the Henriade. He kept up his classics,
especially his Homer. In his letters there are proofs of
his familiarity with Kousseau. Two or three ballads
which he wrote are lost, but he says they were popular,
and we may believe him. Probably they were patriotic.
“ When poor Bob White,” he says, “ brought in the
news of Boscawen’s success off the coast of Portugal, how
did I leap for joy ! When Hawke demolished Conflans,
I was still more transported. But nothing could express
my rapture when Wolfe made the conquest of Quebec.”
The “ Delia ” to whom Cowper wrote verses was his
cousin Theodora, with whom he had an unfortunate love
affair. Her father, Ashley Cowper, forbade their marriage,
nominally on the ground of consanguinity, really, as
Southey thinks, because he saw Cowper’s unfitness for
business and inability to maintain a wife. Cowper felt
the disappointment deeply at the time, as well he might

EARLY LIFE.

15

l.]

do if Theodora resembled her sister, Lady Hesketh.
Theodora remained unmarried, and, as we shall see, did
not forget her lover. His letters she preserved till her
death in extreme old age.

In 1756 Cowper’s father died. There does not seem
to have been much intercourse between them, nor does
the son in after-years speak with any deep feeling of his
loss : possibly his complaint in Tirocinium of the effect
of boarding-schools, in estranging children from their
parents, may have had some reference to his own case.
His local affections, however, were very strong, and he
felt with unusual keenness the final parting from his old
home, and the pang of thinking that strangers usurp our
dwelling and the familiar places will know us no more.

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor ;

And where the gardener Robin, day by day,

Drew me to school along the public way,

Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp’d
In scarlet mantle warm and velvet capp’d.

*Tis now become a history little known,

That once we call’d the pastoral house our own.

Before the rector’s death, it seems, his pen had hardly
realized the cruel frailty of the tenure by which a home in
a parsonage is held. Of the family of Berkhampstead
Rectory there was now left besides himself only his
brother John Cowper, Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge,
whose birth had cost their mother’s life.

When Cowper was thirty-two and still living in the
Temple, came the sad and decisive crisis of his life. He
went mad and attempted suicide. What was the source
of his madness ? There is a vague tradition that it arose

16

COWPER.

[chap.

from licentiousness, which no doubt is sometimes the
cause of insanity. But in Cowper’s case there is no proof
of anything of the kind : his confessions, after his con-
version, of his own past sinfulness point to nothing worse
than general ungodliness and occasional excess in wine ;
and the tradition derives a colour of probability only from
the loose lives of one or two of the wits and Bohemians
with whom he had lived. His virtuous love of Theodora
was scarcely compatible with low and gross amours.
Generally, his madness is said to have been religious, and
the blame is laid on the same foe to human weal as that
of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. But when he first went
mad, his conversion to Evangelicism had not taken place ;
he had not led a particularly religious life, nor been greatly
given to religious practices, though as a clergyman’s son
he naturally believed in religion, had at times felt religious
emotions, and when he found his heart sinking had tried
devotional books and prayers. The truth is his malady
was simple hypochondria, having its source in delicacy
of constitution and weakness of digestion, combined with
the influence of melancholy surroundings. It had begun to
attack him soon after his settlement in his lonely chambers
in the Temple, when his pursuits and associations, as we
have seen, were far from Evangelical. When its Crisis
arrived, he was living by himself without any society
of the kind that suited him (for the excitement of the
Nonsense Club was sure to be followed by reaction) ; he
had lost his love, his father, his home, and as it happened
also a dear friend ; his little patrimony was fast dwindling
away ; he must have despaired of success in his pro-
fession ; and his outlook was altogether dark. It yielded
to the remedies to which hypochondria usually yields,

EARLY LIFE.

17

I.]

air, exercise, sunshine, cheerful society, congenial occupa-
tion. It came with January and went with May. Its
gathering gloom was dispelled for a time by a stroll in
fine weather on the hills above Southampton Water, and
Cowper said that he was never unhappy for a whole day
in the company of Lady Hesketh. When he had become
a Methodist, his hypochondria took a religious form, but
so did his recovery from hypochondria ; both must be set
down to the account of his faith, or neither. This double
aspect of the matter will plainly appear further on. A
votary of wealth when his brain gives way under disease
or age fancies that he is a beggar. A Methodist when
his brain gives way under the same influences fancies
that he is forsaken of God. In both cases the root of
the malady is physical.

In the lines which Cowper sent on his disappointment
to Theodora’s sister, and which record the sources of his
despondency, there is not a touch of religious despair, or
of anything connected with religion. The catastrophe was
brought on by an incident with which religion had
nothing to do. The office of clerk of the Journals in the
House of Lords fell vacant, and was in the gift of
Cowper’s kinsman Major Cowper, as patentee. Cowper
received the nomination. He had longed for the office,
sinfully as he afterwards fancied ; it would exactly have
suited him and made him comfortable for life. But his
mind had by this time succumbed to his malady. His
fancy conjured up visions of opposition to the appoint-
ment in the House of Lords ; of hostility in the office
where he had to study the Journals ; of the terrors of an
examination to be undergone before the frowning peers.
After hopelessly poring over the Journals for some months

o

18

COWPER.

[chap.

lie became quite mad, and his madness took a suicidal
form. He has told with unsparing exactness the story
of his attempts to kill himself. In his youth his father
had unwisely given him a treatise in favour of suicide to
read, and when he argued against it, had listened to his
reasonings in a silence which he construed as sympathy
with the writer, though it seems to have been only un-
willingness to think too badly of the state of a departed
friend. This now recurred to his mind, and talk with
casual companions in taverns and chophouses was enough
in his present condition to confirm him in his belief that
self-destruction was lawful. Evidently he was perfectly
insane, for he could not take up a newspaper without
reading in it a fancied libel on himself. First he bought
laudanum, and had gone out into the fields with the
intention of swallowing it, when the love of life suggested
another way of escaping the dreadful ordeal. He might
sell all he had, fly to France, change his religion, and
bury himself in a monastery. He went home to pack up ;
but while he was looking over his portmanteau, his
mood changed, and he again resolved on self-destruction.
Taking a coach he ordered the coachman to drive to the
Tower Wharf, intending to throw himself into the river.
But the love of life once more interposed, under the guise
of a low tide and a porter seated on the quay. Again in
the coach, and afterwards in his chambers, he tried to
swallow the laudanum ; but his hand was paralysed by
“the convincing Spirit,” aided by seasonable interruptions
from the presence of his laundress and her husband, and
at length he threw the laudanum away. On the night
before the day appointed for the examination before the
Lords, he lay some time with the point of his penknife

EARLY LIFE.

19

'•3

pressed against his heart, but without courage to drive it
home. Lastly he tried to hang himself ; and on this
occasion he seems to have been saved not by the love of
life, or by want of resolution, hut by mere accident. He
had become insensible, when the garter by which he was
suspended broke, and his fall brought in the laundress,
who supposed him to be in a fit. He sent her to a friend,
to whom he related all that had passed, and despatched
him to his kinsman. His kinsman arrived, listened with
horror to the story, made more vivid by the sight of the
broken garter, saw at once that all thought of the appoint-
ment was at end, and carried away the instrument of
nomination. Let those whom despondency assails read
this passage of Cowper’s life, and remember that he lived
to write John Gilpin and The Task.

Cowper tells us that “ to this moment he had felt no
concern of a spiritual kind ; ” that “ ignorant of original
sin, insensible of the guilt of actual transgression, he
understood neither the Law nor the Gospel; the con-
demning nature of the one, nor the restoring mercies of
of the other.” But after attempting suicide he was seized,
as he well might be, with religious horrors./ How it was
that he began to ask himself whether he had been guilty of
the unpardonable sin, and was presently persuaded that he
had, though it would be vain to inquire what he imagined
the unpardonable sin to be. In this mood, he fancied
that if there was any balm for him in Gilead, it would be
found in the ministrations of his friend Martin Madan, an
Evangelical clergyman of high repute, whom he had been
wont to regard as an enthusiast. His Cambridge brother,
John, the translator of the Henriade, seems to have had
some philosophic doubts as to the efficacy of the proposed

20

COWPER.

[chap.

remedy ; but, like a philosopher, he consented to the ex-
periment. Mr. Madan came and ministered, but in that
distempered soul his balm turned to poison ; his religious
conversations only fed the horrible illusion. A set of
English Sapphics, 'written by Cowper at this time, and
expressing his despair, were unfortunately preserved; they
are a ghastly play of the poetic faculty in a mind utterly
deprived of self-control, and amidst the horrors of inrush-
ing madness. Diabolical, they might be termed more
truly than religious.

There was nothing for it but a madhouse. ) The sufferer
was consigned to the private asylum of Dr. Cotton, at St.
Alban's. An ill-chosen physician Dr. Cotton would have
been, if the malady had really had its source in religion ;
for he was himself a pious man, a writer of hymns, and
was in the habit of holding religious intercourse with his
patients. Cowper, after his recovery, speaks of that
intercourse with the keenest pleasure and gratitude ;
so that in the opinion of the two persons best qualified
to judge, religion in this case was not the bane. Cowper
has given us a full account of his recovery. It was
brought about, as we can plainly see, by medical treat-
ment wisely applied; but it came in the form of a
burst of religious faith and hope. He rises one morning
feeling better; grows cheerful over his breakfast, takes
up the Bible, which in his fits of madness he always
threw aside, and turns to a verse in the Epistle to the
Romans. “ Immediately I received strength to believe,
and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone
upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had
made, my pardon in His blood, and the fulness and com-
pleteness of His justification. In a moment I believed

I.]

EARLY LIFE.

21

and received the Gospel.” Cotton at first mistrusted the
sudden change, hut he was at length satisfied, pronounced
his patient cured, and discharged him from the asylum,
after a detention of eighteen months. Cowper hymned
his deliverance in The Happy Change , as in the hideous
Sapphics he had given religious utterance to his despair.

The soul, a dreary province once
Of Satan’ s dark domain,

Feels a new empire form’d within,

And owns a heavenly reign.

The glorious orb whose golden beams
The fruitful year control,

Since first obedient to Thy word,

He started from the goal,

Has cheer’d the nations with the joys
His orient rays impart ;

But, Jesus, ’tis Thy light alone
Can shine upon the heart.

Once for all, the reader of Cowper’s life must make up
his mind to acquiesce in religious forms of expression.
If he does not sympathize with them, he will recognize
them as phenomena of opinion, and bear them like a
philosopher. He can easily translate them into the lan-
guage of psychology, or even of physiology, if he thinks
fit.

CHAPTEE H.

AT HUNTINGDON — THE UNWINS.

The storm was over ; but it bad swept away a great part
of Cowper's scanty fortune, and almost all his friends. At
thirty ^five he was stranded and desolate. He was obliged
to resign a Commissionership of Bankruptcy which he
held, and little seems to have remained to him but the
rent of his chambers in the Temple. A return to his
profession was, of course, out of the question. His re-
lations, however, combined to make up a little income for
him, though from a hope of his family, he had become a
melancholy disappointment ; even the Major contributing,
in spite of the rather trying incident of the nomination.
His brother was kind and did a brother's duty, but there
does not seem to have been much sympathy between
them ; John Cowper did not become a convert to Evan-
gelical doctrine till he was near his end, and he was
incapable of sharing William's spiritual emotions. Of
his brilliant companions, the Bonnell Thorntons and the
Colmans, the quondam members of the Nonsense Club,
he heard no more, till he had himself become famous.
But he still had a staunch friend in a less brilliant member
of the Club, Joseph Hill, the lawyer, evidently a man
who united strong sense and depth of character with

ch. ii.] AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS.

2a

literary tastes and love of fun, and who was throughout
Cowper’s life his Mentor in matters of business, with
regard to which he was himself a child. He had brought
with him from the asylum at St. Albans the servant who
had attended him there, and who had been drawn by the
singular talisman of personal attraction which partly made
up to this frail and helpless being for his entire lack of
force. He had also brought from the same place an outcast
boy whose case had excited his interest, and for whom he
afterwards provided by putting him to a trade. The main-
tenance of these two retainers was expensive and led to
grumbling among the subscribers to the family subsidy, the
Major especially threatening to withdraw his contribution.
While the matter was in agitation, Cowper received an
anonymous letter couched in the kindest terms, bidding
him not distress himself, for that whatever deduction from
his income might be made, the loss would be supplied by
one who loved him tenderly and approved his conduct.
In a letter to Lady Hesketh, he says that he wishes he
knew who dictated this letter, and that he had seen not
long before a style excessively like it. He can scarcely
have failed to guess that it came from Theodora.

It is due to Cowper to say that he accepts the assistance
of his relatives and all acts of kindness done to him with
sweet and becoming thankfulness ; and that whatever
dark fancies he may have had about his religious state,
when the evil spirit was upon him, he always speaks
with contentment and cheerfulness of his earthly lot.
Nothing splenetic, no element of suspicious and irritable
self-love, entered into the composition of his character.

On his release from the asylum he was taken in hand by
his brother John, who first tried to find lodgings for him

24

COWPER.

[chap.

at or near Cambridge, and failing in this, placed him at
Huntingdon, within a long ride, so that William becoming
a horseman for the purpose, the brothers could meet once
a week. Huntingdon was a quiet little town with less
than two thousand inhabitants, in a dull country, the
best part of which was the Ouse, especially to Cowper,
who was fond of bathing. Life there, as in other
English country towns in those days, and indeed till
railroads made people everywhere too restless and mi-
gratory for companionship or even for acquaintance,
was sociable in an unrefined way. There were assem-
blies, dances, races, card-parties, and a bowling-green, at
which the little world met and enjoyed itself. From
these the new convert, in his spiritual ecstasy, of
course turned away as mere modes of murdering time.
Three families received him with civility, two of them
with cordiality ; but the chief acquaintances he made
were with “odd scrambling fellows like himself an
eccentric water-drinker and vegetarian who was to be met
by early risers and walkers every morning at six o’clock
by his favourite spring ; a char-parson, of the class common
in those days of sinecurism and non-residence, who walked
sixteen miles every Sunday to serve two churches, besides
reading daily prayers at Huntingdon, and who regaled
his friend with ale brewed by his own hands. In his
attached servant the recluse boasted that he had a friend ;
a friend he might have, but hardly a companion.

For the first days and even weeks, however, Hunting-
don seemed a paradise. The heart of its new inhabitant
was full of the unspeakable happiness that comes with
calm after storm, with health after the most terrible
of maladies, with repose after the burning fever of the

n.J AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS. 25

brain. When first he went to church he was in a spiritual
ecstasy; it was with difficulty that he restrained his
emotions ; though his voice was silent, being stopped by
the intensity of his feelings, his heart within him sang
for joy ; and when the Gospel for the day was read, the
sound of it was more than he could well bear. This
brightness of his mind communicated itself to all the
objects round him, to the sluggish waters of the Ouse,
to dull, fenny Huntingdon, and to its commonplace
inhabitants.

For about three months his cheerfulness lasted, and
with the help of books, and his rides to meet his brother,
he got on pretty well ; but then “ the communion
which he had so long been able to maintain with
the Lord was suddenly interrupted.” This is his theo-
logical version of the case ; the rationalistic version
immediately follows : “I began to dislike my solitary
situation, and to fear I should never be able to weather
out the winter in so lonely a dwelling.” Ho man could be
less fitted to bear a lonely life ; persistence in the attempt
would soon have brought back his madness. He was long-
ing for a home ; and a home was at hand to receive him.
It was not perhaps one of the happiest kind ; but the
influence which detracted from its advantages was the
one which rendered it hospitable to the wanderer. If
Christian piety was carried to a morbid excess beneath
its roof, Christian charity opened its door.

The religious revival was now in full career, with
Wesley for its chief apostle, organizer, and dictator,
Whitefield for its great preacher, Fletcher of Madeley for
its typical saint, Lady Huntingdon for its patroness among
the aristocracy and the chief of its “ devout women.”

26

OOWPEE.

[chap.

From the pulpit, but still more from the stand of the
field-preacher and through a well-trained army of social
propagandists, it was assailing the scepticism, the coldness,
the frivolity, the vices of the age. English society was
deeply stirred; multitudes were converted, while among
those who were not converted violent and sometimes cruel
antagonism was aroused. The party had two wings, the
Evangelicals, people of the wealthier class or clergymen
of the Church of England, who remained within the
Establishment ; and the Methodists, people of the lower
middle class or peasants, the personal converts and fol-
lowers of Wesley and Whitefield, who, like their leaders,
without a positive secession, soon found themselves
organizing a separate spiritual life in the freedom of
Dissent. In the early stages of the movement the Evan-
gelicals were to he counted at most by hundreds, the
Methodists by hundreds of thousands. So far as the
masses were concerned, it was in fact a preaching of
Christianity anew. There was a cross division of the
party into the Calvinists and those whom the Calvinists
called Arminians ; Wesley belonging to the latter section,
while the most pronounced and vehement of the Cal-
vinists was “ the fierce Toplady.” As a rule, the darker
and sterner element, that which delighted in religious
terrors and threatenings was Calvinist, the milder and
gentler, that which preached a gospel of love and hope,
continued to look up to Wesley, and to bear with him
the reproach of being Arminian.

It is needless to enter into a minute description of
Evangelicism and Methodism ; they are not things of the
past. If Evangelicism has now been reduced to a narrow
domain by the advancing forces of Ritualism on one side

ii.] AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS. 27

and of Rationalism on the other, Methodism is still the
great Protestant Chnrch, especially beyond the Atlantic.
The spiritual fire which they have kindled, the character
which they have produced, the moral reforms which they
have wrought, the works of charity and philanthropy
to which they have given birth, are matters not only of
recent memory, hut of present experience. Like the
great Protestant revivals which had preceded them in
England, like the Moravian revival on the Continent, to
which they were closely related, they sought to bring the
soul into direct communion with its Maker, rejecting the
intervention of a priesthood or a sacramental system.)
Unlike the previous revivals in England, they warred
not against the rulers of the Church or State, hut only
against vice or irreligion. Consequently in the characters
which they produced, as compared with those produced
by Wycliffism, by the Reformation, and notably by
Puritanism, there was less of force and the grandeur
connected with it, more of gentleness, mysticism, and
religious love. Even Quietism, or something like it,
prevailed, especially among the Evangelicals, who were
not like the Methodists, engaged in framing a new or-
ganization or in wrestling with the barbarous vices of the
lower orders. No movement of the kind has ever been
exempt from drawbacks and follies, from extravagance,
exaggeration, breaches of good taste in religious matters,
unctuousness, and cant — from chimerical attempts to get
rid of the flesh and live an angelic life on earth — from
delusions about special providences and miracles — from a
tendency to over-value doctrine and undervalue duty- —
from arrogant assumption of spiritual authority by leaders
and preachers — from the self-righteousness which fancies

28

COWPEB.

[chap.

itself the object of a divine election, and looks out with a
sort of religious complacency from the Ark of Salvation
in which it fancies itself securely placed, upon the drown-
ing of an unregenerate world. Still it will hardly be
doubted that in the effects produced by Evangelicism and
Methodism the good has outweighed the evil. Had Jan-
senism prospered as well, France might have had more of
reform and less of revolution. The poet of the movement
will not be condemned on account of his connexion with
it, any more than Milton is condemned on account of his
connexion with Puritanism, provided it be found that he
also served art well.

Cowper, as we have seen, was already converted. In a
letter written at this time to Lady Hesketh, he speaks of
himself with great humility “ as a convert made in Bed-
lam, who is more likely to be a stumblingblock to others,
than to advance their faith,” though he adds, with reason
enough, “ that he who can ascribe an amendment of life
and manners, and a reformation of the heart itself, to
madness is guilty of an absurdity, that in any other case
would fasten the imputation of madness upon himself.”
It is hence to be presumed that he traced his conversion
to his spiritual intercourse with the Evangelical physician
of St. Albans, though the seed sown by Martin Madan
may perhaps also have sprung up in his heart when the
more propitious season arrived. However that may have
been, the two great factors of Cowper’s life were the
malady which consigned him to poetic seclusion and the
conversion to Evangelicism, which gave him his inspira-
tion and his theme.

At Huntingdon dwelt the Eev. William Unwin, a clergy-
man, taking pupils, his wife, much younger than himself,

ii.] AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS. 29

and their son and daughter. It was a typical family
of the Revival. Old Mr. Unwin is described by
Cowper as a Parson Adams. The son, William Unwin,
was preparing for holy orders. He was a man of some
mark, and received tokens of intellectual respect from
Paley, though he is best known as the friend to whom
many of Cowper’s letters are addressed. He it was who,
struck by the appearance of the stranger, sought an oppor-
tunity of making his acquaintance. He found one, after
morning church, when Cowper was taking his solitary
walk beneath the trees. Under the influence of religious
sympathy the acquaintance quickly ripened into friend-
ship ; Cowper at once became one of the Unwin circle,
and soon afterwards, a vacancy being made by the de-
parture of one of the pupils, he became a boarder in the
house. This position he had passionately desired on
religious grounds ; but in truth he might well have
desired it on economical grounds also, for he had begun
to experience the difficulty and expensiveness, as well as
the loneliness, of bachelor housekeeping, and financial
deficit was evidently before him. To Mrs. Unwin he was
from the first strongly drawn. “ I met Mrs. Unwin in
the street,” he says, “ and went home with her. She
and I walked together near two hours in the garden, and
had a conversation which did me more good than I should
have received from an audience with the first prince in
Europe. That woman is a blessing to me, and I never
see her without being the better for her company.” Mrs.
Unwin’s character is written in her portrait with its
prim but pleasant features ; a Puritan and a precisian
she was ; but she was not morose or sour, and she
had a boundless capacity for affection. Lady Hesketh,

30

COWPER.

[chap.

a woman of the world, and a good judge in every
respect, says of her at a later period, when she had
passed with Cowper through many sad and trying
years : “ She is very far from grave ; on the contrary, she
is cheerful and gay, and laughs de bon coeur upon the
smallest provocation. Amidst all the little puritanical
words which fall from her de temps en temps , she seems
to have by nature a quiet fund of gaiety ; great indeed
must it have been, not to have been wholly overcome by
the close confinement in which she has lived, and the
anxiety she must have undergone for one whom she
certainly loves as well as one human being can love
another. I will not say she idolizes him, because that
she would think wrong ; but she certainly seems to
possess the truest regard and affection for this excellent
creature, and, as I said before, has in the most literal
sense of those words, no will or shadow of inclination but
what is his. My account of Mrs. Unwin may seem
perhaps to you, on comparing my letters, contradictory ;
but when you consider that I began to write at the first
moment that I saw her, you will not wonder. Her
character develops itself by degrees ; and though I might
lead you to suppose her grave and melancholy, she is
not so by any means. When she speaks upon grave
subjects, she does express herself with a puritanical tone,
and in puritanical expressions, but on all subjects she
seems to have a great disposition to cheerfulness and
mirth ; and indeed had she not, she could not have gone
through all she has. I must say, too, that she seems to
be very well read in the English poets, as appears by
several little quotations, which she makes from time to
time, and has a true taste for what is excellent in that way.”

II.] AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS. 31

When Cowper became an author he paid the highest
respect to Mrs. Unwin as an instinctive critic, and called
her his Lord Chamberlain, whose approbation was his
sufficient licence for publication.

Life in the Unwin family is thus described by the new
inmate : — “ As to amusements, I mean what the world calls
such, we have none. The place indeed swarms with them ;
and cards and dancing are the professed business of
almost all the gentle inhabitants of Huntingdon. We
refuse to take part in them, or to be accessories to this
way of murdering our time, and by so doing have acquired
the name of Methodists. Having told you how we do
not spend our time, I will next say how we do. We
breakfast commonly between eight and nine ; till eleven,
we read either the scripture, or the sermons of some
faithful preacher of those holy mysteries ; at eleven we
attend divine service, which is performed here twice
every day, and from twelve to three we separate, and
amuse ourselves as we please. During that interval, I
either read in my own apartment, or walk or ride, or
work in the garden. We seldom sit an hour after dinner,
but, if the weather permits, adjourn to the garden, where,
with Mrs. Unwin and her son, I ‘have generally the
pleasure of religious conversation till tea-time. If it
rains, or is too windy for walking, we either converse
within doors or sing some hymns of Martin’s collection,
and by the help of Mrs. Unwin’s harpsichord, make up
a tolerable concert, in which our hearts I hope are the
best performers. After tea we sally forth to walk in
good earnest. Mrs. Unwin is a good walker, and we
have generally travelled about four miles before we see
home again. When the days are short we make this

32

COW PER.

[chap.

excursion in the former part of the day, between church-
time and dinner. At night we read and converse as
before till supper, and commonly finish the evening either
with hymns or a sermon, and last of all the family are
called to prayers. I need not tell you that such a life as
this is consistent with the utmost cheerfulness ; accord-
ingly we are all happy, and dwell together in unity as
brethren.”

Mrs. Cowper, the wife of Major (now Colonel) Cowper,
to whom this was written, was herself strongly Evan-
gelical ; Cowper had, in fact, unfortunately for him, turned
from his other relations and friends to her on that account.
She, therefore, would have no difficulty in thinking that
such a life was consistent with cheerfulness, but ordinary
readers will ask how it could fail to bring on another fit
of hypochondria. The answer is probably to be found
in the last words of the passage. Overstrained and
ascetic piety found an antidote in affection. The Unwins
were Puritans and enthusiasts, but their household was a
picture of domestic love.

With the name of Mrs. Cowper is connected an incident
which occurred at this time, and which illustrates the
propensity to self-inspection and self-revelation which
Cowper had in common with Rousseau. Huntingdon,
like other little towns, was all eyes and gossip ; the new
comer was a mysterious stranger who kept himself aloof
from the general society, and he naturally became the
mark for a little stone-throwing. Young Unwin happen-
ing to be passing near “ the Park ” on his way from
London to Huntingdon, Cowper gave him an introduction
to its lady, in a fetter to whom he afterwards disclosed
his secret motive. “My dear Cousin, — You sent my

ii.] AT HUNTINGDON— THE UNWINS. 33

friend Unwin home to us charmed with your kind recep-
tion of him, and with everything he saw at the Park.
Shall I once more give you a peep into my vile and
deceitful heart ? What motive do you think lay at the
bottom of my conduct when I desired him to call upon
you? I did not suspect, at first, that pride and vain-
glory had any share in it ; but quickly after I had recom-
mended the visit to him, I discovered, in that fruitful
soil, the very root of the matter. You know T am a
stranger here ; all such are suspected characters, unless
they bring their credentials with them. To this moment,
I believe, it is a matter of speculation in the place,
whence I came, and to whom I belong. Though my
friend, you may suppose, before I was admitted an
inmate here, was satisfied that I was not a mere vaga-
bond, and has, since that time, received more con-
vincing proofs of my sponsibility ; yet I could not
resist the opportunity of furnishing him with ocular
demonstration of it, by introducing him to one of my
most splendid connexions ; that when he hears me called
‘ that fellow Cowper,’ which has happened heretofore, he
may be able, upon unquestionable evidence, to assert my
gentlemanhood, and relieve me from the weight of that
opprobrious appellation. Oh pride ! pride ! it deceives with
the subtlety of a serpent, and seems to walk erect, though
it crawls upon the earth. How will it twist and twine
itself about to get from under the Cross, which it is the
glory of our Christian calling to be able to bear with
patience and goodwill. They who can guess at the heart
of a stranger, — and you especially, who are of a com-
passionate temper,— will be more ready, perhaps, to excuse
me, in this instance, than I can be to excuse myself But,

D

COWPER.

34

[CH. II.

in good truth, it was abominable pride of heart, indig-
nation, and vanity, and deserves no better name.”

Once more, however obsolete Cowper’s belief, and the
language in which be expresses it may have become for
many of us, we must take it as bis philosophy of life.
At this time, at all events, it was a source of happiness.
“ The storm being passed, a quiet and peaceful serenity
of soul succeeded;” and the serenity in this case was
unquestionably produced in part by the faith.

I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since ; with many an arrow deep infixed
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.

There was I found by one who had himself
Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore
And in his hands and feet the cruel scars,

With gentle force soliciting the darts,

He drew them forth and healed and bade me live.

Cowper thought for a moment of taking orders, hut his
dread of appearing in public conspired with the good sense
which lay beneath his excessive sensibility to put a veto
on the design. He, however, exercised the zeal of a
neophyte in proselytism to a greater extent than his
own judgment and good taste approved when his enthu-
siasm had calmed down.

CHAPTEK IIL

AT OLNEY — MR. NEWTON.

Cowper had not been two years with the Unwins when
Mr. Unwin, the father, was killed by a fall from his
horse ; this broke np the household. But between
Cowper and Mrs. Unwin an indissoluble tie had been
formed. It seems clear, notwithstanding Southey’s asser-
tion to the contrary, that they at one time meditated
marriage, possibly as a propitiation to the evil tongues
which did not spare even this most innocent connexion ;
but they were prevented from fulfilling their intention by j
a return of Cowper’s malady. They became companions
for life. Cowper says they were as mother and son to
each other; but Mrs. Unwin was only seven years older
than he. To label their connexion is impossible, and
to try to do it would be a platitude. In his poems
Cowper calls Mrs. Unwin Mary; she seems always to
have called him Mr. Cowper. It is evident that her son,
a strictly virtuous and religious man, never had the
slightest misgiving about his mother’s position.

The pair had to choose a dwelling-place; they chose
Olney in Buckinghamshire, on the Ouse. The Ouse was
“a slow winding river,” watering low meadows, from
which crept pestilential fogs. Olney was a dull town, or

36

COWPER.

[chap.

rather village, inhabited by a population of lace-makers,
ill-paid, fever-stricken, and for the most part as brutal as
they were poor. There was not a woman in the place
excepting Mrs. Newton with whom Mrs. Unwin could
associate, or to whom she could look for help in sickness
or other need. The house in which the pair took up their
abode was dismal, prison-like, and tumble-down ; when
they left it, the competitors for the succession were a
cobbler and a publican. It looked upon the Market
Place, but it was in the close neighbourhood of Silver
End, the worst part of Olney. In winter the cellars
were full of water. There were no pleasant walks
within easy reach, and in winter Cowper’s only exer-
cise was pacing thirty yards of gravel, with the dreary
supplement of dumb-bells. What was the attraction to
this “well,” this “abyss,” as Cowper himself called it,
and as, physically and socially, it was ?

The attraction was the presence of the Rev. John New-
ton, then curate of Olney. The vicar was Moses Brown, an
Evangelical and a religious writer, who has even deserved
a place among the worthies of the revival ; but a family
of thirteen children, some of whom it appears too closely
resembled the sons of Eli, had compelled him to take
advantage of the indulgent character of the ecclesiastical
polity of those days by becoming a pluralist and a non-
resident, so that the curate had Olney to himself. The
patron was the Lord Dartmouth, who, as Cowper says,
“ wore a coronet and prayed.” John Newton was one
of the shining lights and foremost leaders and preachers
of the revival. His name was great both in the
Evangelical churches within the pale of the Establish-
ment, and in the Methodist churches without it. He

III.]

AT OLNEY— MR. NEWTON.

37

was a brand plucked from the very heart of the burning.
We have a memoir of his life, partly written by himself,
in the form of letters, and completed under his super-
intendence. It is a monument of the age of Smollett
and Wesley, not less characteristic than is Cellini’s
memoir of the times in which he lived. His father
was master of a vessel, and took him to sea when he
was eleven. His mother was a pious Dissenter, who was
at great pains to store his mind with religious thoughts
and pieces. She died when he was young, and his step-
mother was not pious. He began to drag his religious
anchor, and at length, having read Shaftesbury, left
his theological moorings altogether, and drifted into a
wide sea of ungodliness, blasphemy, and recklessness of
living. Such at least is the picture drawn by the sinner
saved of his own earlier years. While still but a strip-
ling he fell desperately in love with a girl of thirteen ;
his affection for her was as constant as it was romantic ;
through all his wanderings and sufferings he never ceased
to think of her, and after seven years she became his
wife. His father frowned on the engagement, and he
became estranged from home. He was impressed; nar-
rowly escaped shipwreck, deserted, and was arrested and
flogged as a deserter. Eeleased from the navy, he was
taken into the service of a slave-dealer on the coast of
Africa, at whose hands, and those of the man’s negro
mistress, he endured every sort of ill-treatment and con-
tumely, being so starved that he was fain sometimes to
devour raw roots to stay his hunger. His constitution
must have been of iron to carry him through all that he
endured. In the meantime his indomitable mind was
engaged in attempts at self-culture ; he studied a Euclid

38

COWPER.

[chap.

which he had brought with him, drawing his diagrams
on the sand, and he afterwards managed to teach himself
Latin by means of a Horace and a Latin Bible, aided by
some slight vestiges of the education which he had
received at a grammar school. His conversion was
brought about by the continued influences of Thomas
a Kempis, of a very narrow escape, after terrible suffer-
ings, from shipwreck, of the impression made by the
sights of the mighty deep on a soul which, in its weather-
beaten casing, had retained its native sensibility, and,
we may safely add, of the disregarded but not forgotten
teachings of his pious mother. Providence was now kind
to him ; he became captain of a slave-ship, and made
several voyages on the business of the trade. That it
was a wicked trade he seems to have had no idea : he
says he never knew sweeter or more frequent hours of
divine communion than on his two last voyages to
Guinea. Afterwards it occurred to him that though his
employment was genteel and profitable, it made him a
sort of gaoler, unpleasantly conversant with both chains
and shackles ; and he besought Providence to fix him in
a more humane calling.

In answer to his prayer came a fit of apoplexy, which
made it dangerous for him to go to sea again. He
obtained an office in the port of Liverpool, but soon he
set his heart on becoming a minister of the Church of
England. He applied for ordination to the Archbishop
of York, but not having the degree required by the rules
of the Establishment, he received through his Grace’s
secretary " the softest refusal imaginable.” The Arch-
bishop had not had the advantage of perusing Lord
Macaulay’s remarks on the difference between the policy

Hi.] AT OLNEY— MR. NEWTON. 39

of the Church of England and that of the Church of
Koine, with regard to the utilization of religious enthu-
siasts. In the end Newton was ordained by the Bishop
of Lincoln, and threw himself with the energy of a new-
born apostle upon the irreligion and brutality of Olney.
No Carthusian’s breast could glow more intensely with
the zeal which is the offspring of remorse. Newton was
a Calvinist of course, though it seems not an extreme one,
otherwise he would probably have confirmed Cowper in
the darkest of hallucinations. His religion was one of
mystery and miracle, full of sudden conversions, special
providences and satanic visitations. He himself says that
“ his name was up about the country for preaching people
mad it is true that in the eyes of the profane Methodism
itself was madness ; but he goes on to say “ whether it
is owing to the sedentary life the women live here, poring
over their (lace) pillows for ten or twelve hours every day,
and breathing confined air in their crowded little rooms,
or whatever may be the immediate cause, I suppose we
have near a dozen in different degrees disordered in their
heads, and most of them I believe truly gracious people.”
He surmises that “ these things are permitted in judg-
ment, that they who seek occasion for cavilling and
stumbling may have what they want.” Nevertheless
there were in him not only force, courage, burning zeal
for doing good, but great kindness, and even tenderness
of heart. “I see in this world,” he said, “two heaps of
human happiness and misery ; now if I can take but the
smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other I carry
a point — if, as I go home, a child has dropped a half-
penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its
tears, I feel I have done something.” There was even

40

CJOWPER.

[chap.

in him a strain, if not of humour, of a shrewdness which
was akin to it, and expressed itself in many pithy sayings.
“ If two angels came down from heaven to execute a
divine command, and one was appointed to conduct an
empire and the other to sweep a street in it, they would
feel no inclination to change employments.” “ A Chris-
tian should never plead spirituality for being a sloven ;
if he he hut a shoe- cleaner, he should he the best in the
parish.” “ My principal method for defeating heresy is
by establishing truth. One proposes to fill a bushel with
tares ; now if I can fill it first with wheat, I shall defy
his attempts.” That his Calvinism was not very dark
or sulphureous, seems to he shown from his repeating
with gusto the saying of one of the old women of Olney
when some preacher dwelt on the doctrine of predes-
tination— “Ah, I have long settled that point; for if
God had not chosen me before I was horn, I am sure he
would have seen nothing to have chosen me for after-
wards.” That he had too much sense to take mere
profession for religion appears from his describing the
Calvinists of Olney as of two sorts, which reminded him
of the two baskets of Jeremiah’s figs. The iron con-
stitution which had carried him through so many hard-
ships, enabled him to continue in his ministry to extreme
old age. A friend at length counselled him to stop
before he found himself stopped by being able to speak
no longer. “I cannot stop,” he said, raising his voice.
“ What ! shall the old African blasphemer stop while he
can speak ? ”

At the instance of a common friend, Newton had paid
Mrs. Unwin a visit at Huntingdon, after her husband’s
death, and had at once established the ascendancy of a

III.]

AT OLNEY— MR. NEWTON.

41

powerful character over her and Cowper. He now
beckoned the pair to his side, placed them in the house
adjoining his own, and opened a private door between
the two gardens, so as to have his spiritual children
always beneath his eye. Under this, in the most essential
respect, unhappy influence, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin
together entered on “ a decided course of Christian happi-
ness. That is to say they spent all their days in a round
of religious exercises without relaxation or relief. On fine
summer evenings, as the sensible Lady Hesketh saw with
dismay, instead of a walk, there was a prayer-meeting.
Cowper himself was made to do violence to his intense
shyness by leading in prayer. He was also made to visit
the poor at once on spiritual missions, and on that of
almsgiving, for which Thornton, the religious philanthro-
pist, supplied Newton and his disciples with means.
This, which Southey appears to think about the worst
part of Newton’s regimen, was probably its redeeming
feature. The effect of doing good to others on any mind
was sure to be good ; and the sight of real suffering was
likely to banish fancied ills. Cowper in this way gained
at all events a practical knowledge of the poor, and
learned to do them justice, though from a rather too
theological point of view. Seclusion from the sinful
world was as much a part of the system of Mr. Newton,
as it was of the system of Saint Benedict. Cowper was
almost entirely cut off from intercourse with his friends
and people of his own class. He dropped his correspon-
dence even with his beloved cousin, Lady Hesketh, and
would probably have dropped his correspondence with
Hill, had not Hill’s assistance in money matters been
indispensable. To complete his mental isolation it appears

42

COWPER.

[chap.

that having sold his library he had scarcely any books.
Such a course, of Christian happiness as this could only
end in one way ; and Newton himself seems to have had
the sense to see that a storm was brewing, and that there
was no way of conjuring it but by contriving some more
congenial occupation. So the disciple was commanded
to employ his poetical gifts in contributing to a hymn-
book which Newton was compiling. Cowper’s Olney
hymns have not any serious value as poetry. Hymns
rarely have. The relations of man with Deity transcend
and repel poetical treatment. There is nothing in them
on which the creative imagination can be exercised.
Hymns can be little more than incense of the worship-
ping soul. Those of the Latin church are the best ; not
because they are better poetry than the rest (for they are
not), but because their language is the most sonorous.
Cowper’s hymns were accepted by the religious body
for which they were written, as expressions of its spiritual
feeling and desires ; so far they were successful. They
are the work of a religious man of culture, and free
from anything wild, erotic, or unctuous. But on the
other hand there is nothing in them suited to be the
vehicle of lofty devotion, nothing, that we can con-
ceive a multitude or even a prayer-meeting uplifting to
heaven with voice and heart. Southey has pointed to
some passages on which the shadow of the advancing
malady falls ; but in the main there is a predominance
of religious joy and hope. The most despondent hymn
of the series is Temptation , the thought of which resembles
that of The Castaway .

Cowper’s melancholy may have been aggravated by the
loss of his only brother, who died about this time, and

III.]

AT OLNEY— MR. NEWTON.

43

at whoso death-bed he was present ; though in the narra-
tive which he wrote, joy at John’s conversion and the
religious happiness of his end seems to exclude the
feelings by which hypochondria was likely to be fed.
But his mode of life under Newton was enough
to account for the return of his disease, which in this
sense may be fairly laid to the charge of religion. He
again went mad, fancied as before that he was rejected
of heaven, ceased to pray as one helplessly doomed, and
again attempted suicide. Newton and Mrs. Unwin at first
treated the disease as a diabolical visitation, and “ with
deplorable consistency,” to borrow the phrase used by one
of their friends in the case of Cowper’s desperate absti-
nence from prayer, abstained from calling in a physician.
Of this again their religion must bear the reproach. In
other respects they behaved admirably. Mrs. Unwin, shut
up for sixteen months with her unhappy partner, tended
him with unfailing love ; alone she did it, for he could
bear no one else about him; though to make her part
more trying he had conceived the insane idea that she
hated him. Seldom has a stronger proof been given of
the sustaining power of affection. Assuredly of what-
ever Cowper may have afterwards done for his kind, a
great part must be set down to the credit of Mrs.
Unwin.

Mary ! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew,

An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,

That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,

I may record thy worth with honour due,

In verse as musical as thou art true,

And that immortalizes whom it sings.

44

COWPER.

[chap.

But thou hast little need. There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,

On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright ;

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary shine,

And, since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.

Newton’s friendship too was sorely tried. In the
midst of the malady the lunatic took it into his head to
transfer himself from his own house to the Vicarage, which
he obstinately refused to leave; and Newton bore this
infliction for several months without repining, though he
might well pray earnestly for his friend’s deliverance.
“ The Lord has numbered the days in which I am
appointed to wait on him in this dark valley, and he has
given us such a love to him, both as a believer and a
friend, that I am not weary ; hut to be sure his deliver-
ance would be to me one of the greatest blessings my
thoughts can conceive.” Dr. Cotton was at last called
in, and under his treatment, evidently directed against
a bodily disease, Cowper was at length restored to sanity.

Newton once compared his own walk in the world to
that of a physician going through Bedlam. But he was
not skilful in his treatment of the literally insane. He
thought to cajole Cowper out of his cherished horrors by
calling his attention to a case resembling his own. The
case was that of Simon Browne, a Dissenter, who had
conceived the idea that, being under the displeasure of
Heaven, he had been entirely deprived of his rational
being and left with merely his animal nature. He had
accordingly resigned his ministry, and employed himself
in compiling a dictionary, which, he said, was doing
nothing that could require a reasonable soul. He seems

in.] AT OLNEY— MR. NEWTON. 45

to have thought that theology fell under the same cate-
gory, for he proceeded to write some theological treatises,
which he dedicated to Queen Caroline, calling her
Majesty's attention to the singularity of the authorship as
the most remarkable phenomenon of her reign. Cowper,
however, instead of falling into the desired train of rea-
soning, and being led to suspect the existence of a similar
illusion in himself, merely rejected the claim of the pre-
tended rival in spiritual affliction, declaring his own case
to be far the more deplorable of the two.

Before the decided course of Christian happiness had
time again to culminate in madness, fortunately for Cow-
per, Newton left Olney for St. Mary Woolnoth. He was
driven away at last by a quarrel with his barbarous
parishioners, the cause of which did him credit. A fire
broke out at Olney, and burnt a good many of its straw-
thatched cottages. Newton ascribed the extinction of the
fire rather to prayer than water, but he took the lead in
practical measures of relief, and tried to remove the
earthly cause of such visitations by putting an end to
bonfires and illuminations on the 5 th of November.
Threatened with the loss of their Guy Fawkes, the bar-
barians rose upon him, and he had a narrow escape from
their violence. We are reminded of the case of Cotton
Mather, who, after being a leader in witch-burning,
nearly sacrificed his life in combatting the fanaticism
which opposed itself to the introduction of inoculation.
Let it always be remembered that besides its theo-
logical side, the Bevival had its philanthropic and moral
side; that it abolished the slave trade, and at last slavery ;
that it waged war, and effective war, under the standard
of the gospel, upon masses of vice and brutality, which

46

COWPER.

[chap.

had been totally neglected by the torpor of the Establish-
ment ; that among large classes of the people it was the
great civilizing agency of the time.

Newton was succeeded as curate of Olney by his dis-
ciple, and a man of somewhat the same cast of mind and
character, Thomas Scott the writer of the Commentary on
the Bible and The Force of Truth . To Scott Cowper
seems not to have greatly taken. He complains that, as
a preacher, he is always scolding the congregation. Per-
haps Newton had foreseen that it would be so, for he
specially commended the spiritual son whom he was
leaving, to the care of the Eev. William Bull, of the
neighbouring town of Newport Pagnell, a dissenting
minister, but a member of a spiritual connexion which
did not stop at the line of demarcation between Noncon-
formity and the Establishment. To Bull Cowper did
greatly take ; he extols him as “ a Dissenter, but a liberal
one,” a man of letters and of genius, master of a fine
imagination — or, rather, not master of it — and addresses
him as Carissime Taurorum. It is rather singular that
Newton should have given himself such a successor.
Bull was a great smoker, and had made himself a cozy
and secluded nook in his garden for the enjoyment of his
pipe. He was probably something of a spiritual as well
as of a physical Quietist, for he set Cowper to translate
the poetry of the great exponent of Quietism, Madame
Guyon. The theme of all the pieces which Cowper has
translated is the same — Divine Love and the raptures of
the heart that enjoys it — the blissful union of the drop
with the Ocean — the Evangelical Nirvana. If this line
of thought was not altogether healthy, or conducive to
the vigorous performance of practical duty, it was at all

m.j

AT OLNEY— Mil. NEWTON.

47

events better than the dark fancy of Reprobation. In
his admiration of Madame Guyon, her translator showed
his affinity, and that of Protestants of the same school, to
Fenelon and the Evangelical element which has lurked in
the Roman Catholic church since the days of Thomas &
Kempis.

CHAPTER IY.

AUTHORSHIP. THE MORAL SATIRES.

Since his recovery, Cowper had been looking out for
what he most needed, a pleasant occupation. He tried
drawing, carpentering, gardening. Of gardening he had
always been fond ; and he understood it as shown by the
loving though somewhat “ stercoraceous ” minuteness of
some passages in The Task . A little greenhouse, used as
a parlour in summer, where he sat surrounded by beauty
and fragrance, and lulled by pleasant sounds, was another
product of the same pursuit, and seems almost Elysian
in that dull dark life. He also found amusement in
keeping tame hares, and he fancied that he had reconciled
the hare to man and dog. His three tame hares are
among the canonized pets of literature, and they were to
his genius what “ Sailor” was to the genius of Byron. But
Mrs. Unwin, who had terrible reason for studying his
case, saw that the thing most wanted was congenial em
ployment for the mind, and she incited him to try his
hand at poetry on a larger scale. He listened to her
advice, and when he was nearly fifty years of age became
a poet. He had acquired the faculty of verse-writing, as
we have seen ; he had even to some extent formed his
manner when he was young. Age must by this time
have quenched his fire, and tamed his imagination, so

CH. IV.]

AUTHORSHIP.

49

that the didactic style would suit him best. In the
length of the interval between his early poems and his
great work he resembles Milton ; hut widely different in
the two cases had been the current of the intervening years.

Poetry written late in life is of course free from youth-
ful crudity and extravagance. It also escapes the youth-
ful tendency to imitation. Cowper’s authorship is ushered
in by Southey with a history of English poetry ; but
this is hardly in place ; Cowper had little connexion
with anything before him. Even his knowledge of poetry
was not great. In his youth he had read the great poets,
and had studied Milton especially with the ardour of
intense admiration. Nothing ever made him so angry as
Johnson’s Life of Milton. “ Oh !” he cries, “I could
thrash his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in
his pocket.” Churchill had made a great — far too great
— an impression on him, when he was a Templar. Of
Churchill, if of anybody, he must be regarded as a fol-
lower, though only in his earlier and less successful poems.
In expression he always regarded as a model the neat
and gay simplicity of Prior. But so little had he kept
up his reading of anything but sermons and hymns, that
he learned for the first time from Johnson’s Lives the
existence of Collins. (He is the offspring of the Religious
Revival rather than of any school of art. His most im-
portant relation to any of his predecessors is, in fact, one
of antagonism to the hard glitter of Pope.

In urging her companion to write poetry, Mrs. Unwin
was on the right path ; her puritanism led her astray in
the choice of a theme. She suggested The Progress of
Error as a subject for a “ Moral Satire.” It was un-
happily adopted, and The Progress of Error was followed

E

50

COWPER.

[chap.

by Truth , Table Talk , Expostulation , Hope, Charity ,
Conversation , and Retirement . When the series was
published, Table Talk was put first, being supposed to be
the lightest and the most attractive to an unregenerate
world. The judgment passed upon this set of poems at
the time by the Critical Review seems blasphemous to
the fond biographer, and is so devoid of modern smart-
ness as to be almost interesting as a literary fossil. But
it must be deemed essentially just, though the reviewer
errs, as many reviewers have erred, in measuring the writer's
capacity by the standard of his first performance. “ These
poems," said the Critical Review , “are written, as we learn
from the title-page, by Mr. Cowper of the Inner Temple,
who seems to be a man of a sober and religious turn of
mind, with a benevolent heart, and a serious wish to
inculcate the precepts of morality ; he is not, how-
ever, possessed of any superior abilities or the power of
genius requisite for so arduous an undertaking. ....
He says what is incontrovertible and what has been
said over and over again with much gravity, but says
nothing new, sprightly or entertaining; travelling on a
plain level flat road, with great composure almost through
the whole long and tedious volume, which is little better
than a dull sermon in very indifferent verse on Truth,
the Progress of Error, Charity, and some other grave
subjects. If this author had followed the advice given
by Caraccioli, and which he has chosen for one of the
mottoes prefixed to these poems, he would have clothed
his indisputable truths in some more becoming disguise,
and rendered his work much more agreeable. In its
present shape we cannot compliment him on its beauty ;
for as this bard himself sweetly sings : —

IV.]

THE MORAL SATIRES.

61

The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,

Falls soporific on the listless ear.”

In justice to the bard it ought to he said that he wrote
under the eye of the Rev. John Newton, to whom the
design had been duly submitted, and who had given his
imprimatur in the shape of a preface which took Johnson
the publisher aback by its gravity. Newton would not
have sanctioned any poetry which had not a distinctly
religious object, and he received an assurance from the
poet that the lively passages were introduced only as
honey on the rim of the medicinal cup, to commend its
healing contents to the lips of a giddy world. The Rev.
John Newton must have been exceedingly austere if he
thought that the quantity of honey used was excessive.

A genuine desire to make society better is always pre-
sent in these poems, and its presence lends them the
only interest which they possess except as historical
monuments of a religious movement. Of satirical vigour
they have scarcely a semblance. There are three kinds
of satire, corresponding to as many different views of
humanity and life ; the Stoical, the Cynical, and the Epi-
curean. Of Stoical satire, with its strenuous hatred of
vice and wrong, the type is Juvenal. Of Cynical satire,
springing from bitter contempt of humanity, the type is
Swift’s Gulliver, while its quintessence is embodied in
his lines on the Day of Judgment. Of Epicurean satire,
flowing from a contempt of humanity which is not bitter,
and lightly playing with the weakness and vanities of
mankind, Horace is the classical example. To the first
two kinds, Cowper’s nature was totally alien, and when
he attempts anything in either of those lines, the only

52

COWPER.

[chap.

result is a querulous and censorious acerbity, in which
his real feelings had no part, and which on mature re-
flection offended his own better taste. In the Horatian
kind he might have excelled, as the episode of the Retired
Statesman in. one of these poems shows. He might have
excelled, that is, if like Horace he had known the world.
But he did not know the world. He saw the “ great
Babel ” only “ through the loopholes of retreat,” and in the
columns of his weekly newspaper. Even during the years,
long past, which he spent in the world, his experience
had been confined to a small literary circle. Society was
to him an abstraction on which he discoursed like a
pulpiteer. His satiric whip not only has no lash, it is
brandished in the air.

No man was ever less qualified for the office of a censor;
his judgment is at once disarmed, and a breach in his
principles is at once made by the slightest personal in-
fluence. Bishops are bad ; they are like the Cretans,
evil beasts and slow bellies • but the bishop whose brother
Cowper knows is a blessing to the Church. Deans and
Canons are lazy sinecurists, but- there is a bright exception
in the case of the Cowper who held a golden stall at
Durham. Grinding India is criminal, but Warren Hastings
is acquitted, because he was with Cowper at Westminster.
Discipline was deplorably relaxed in all colleges except
that of which Cowper’s brother was a fellow. Pluralities
and resignation bonds, the grossest abuses of the Church,
were perfectly defensible in the case of any friend or
acquaintance of this Church Reformer. Bitter lines
against Popery inserted in The Task were struck out,
because the writer had made the acquaintance of Mr. and
Mrs. Throckmorton, who were Roman Catholics. Smoking

IV.]

THE MORAL SATIRES.

63

was detestable, except when practised by dear Mr. Bull.
Even gambling, the blackest sin of fashionable society, is
not to prevent Fox, the great Whig, from being a ruler in
Israel. Besides, in all his social judgments, Cowper is
at a wrong point of view. He is always deluded by the
idol of his cave. He writes perpetually on the twofold
assumption that a life of retirement is more favourable
to virtue than a life of action, and that “God made
the country, while man made the town.” Both parts
of the assumption are untrue. A life of action is more
favourable to virtue, as a rule, than a life of retirement,
and the development of humanity is higher and richer,
as a rule, in the town than in the country. If Cowper’s
retirement was virtuous, it was so because he was actively
employed in the exercise of his highest faculties : had
he been a mere idler, secluded from his kind, his re-
tirement would not have been virtuous at all. His
flight from the world was rendered necessary by his
malady, and respectable by his literary work ; but it was
a flight and not a victory. His misconception was fostered
and partly produced by a religion which was essentially
ascetic, and which, while it gave birth to characters of the
highest and most energetic beneficence, represented salva-
tion too little as the reward of effort, too much as the
reward of passive belief and of spiritual emotion.

The most readable of the Moral Satires is Retirement ,
in which the writer is op his own ground expressing his
genuine feelings, and which is, in fact, a foretaste of The
Task. Expostulation , a warning to England from the
example of the Jews, is the best constructed : the rest are
totally wanting in unity, and even in connexion. In ail
there are flashes of epigrammatic smartness.

64

COWPER.

[chap.

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address,

Thou God of our idolatry, the press ?

By thee, religion, liberty, and laws

Exert their influence, and advance their cause ;

By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh’s land befel,

Diffused, make earth the vestibule of hell :

Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise,

Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies,

Like Eden’s dread probationary tree,

Knowledge of good and evil is from thee.

Occasionally there are passages of higher merit. The
episode of statesmen in Retirement has been already men-
tioned. The lines on the two disciples going to Emmaus
in Conversation , though little more than a paraphrase of
the Gospel narrative, convey pleasantly the Evangelical
idea of the Divine Friend. Cowper says in one of his
letters that he had been intimate with a man of fine taste
who had confessed to him that though he could not sub-
scribe to the truth of Christianity itself, he could never
read this passage of St. Luke without being deeply affected
by it, and feeling that if the stamp of divinity was im-
pressed upon anything in the Scriptures, it was upon that
passage.

It happen’d on a solemn eventide,

Soon after He that was our surety died,

Two bosom friends, each pensively inclined,

The scene of all those sorrows left behind,

Sought their own village, busied as they went
In musings worthy of the great event :

They spake of him they loved, of him whose life,

Though blameless, had incurr’d perpetual strife,

Whose deeds had left, in spite of hostile arts,

A deep memorial graven on their hearts.

The recollection, like a vein of ore,

The farther traced enrich’d them still the more ;

IV.J

THE MORAL SATIRES.

65

They thought him, and they justly thought him, ono
Sent to do more than he appear’d to have done,

To exalt a people, and to place them high
Above all else, and wonder’d he should die.

Ere yet they brought their journey to an end,

A stranger join’d them, courteous as a friend,

And ask’d them with a kind engaging air
What their affliction was, and begg’d a share.

Inform’d, he gather’d up the broken thread,

And truth and wisdom gracing all he said,

Explain’d, illustrated, and search’d so well
The tender theme on which they chose to dwell,

That reaching home, the night, they said is near,

We must not now be parted, sojourn here. —

The new acquaintance soon became a guest,

And made so welcome at their simple feast,

He bless’d the bread, but vanish’d at the word,

And left them both exclaiming, ’Twas the Lord !

Did not our hearts feel all he deign’d to say,

Did they not burn within us by the way ?

The prude going to morning church in Truth is a good
rendering of Hogarth’s picture : —

Yon ancient prude, whose wither’d features show
She might be young some forty years ago,

Her elbows pinion’d close upon her hips,

Her head erect, her fan upon her lips,

Her eyebrows arch’d, her eyes both gone astray
To watch yon amorous couple in their play,

With bony and unkerchief’d neck defies
The rude inclemency of wintry skies,

And sails with lappet-head and mincing airs
Daily at clink of bell, to morning prayers.

To thrift and parsimony much inclined.

She yet allows herself that boy behind ;

The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,

With slipshod heels, and dew-drop at his nose*

His predecessor’s coat advanced to wear,

Which future pages are yet doom’d to share ;

56

COWPEE.

[chap.

Carries her Bible tuck’d beneath his arm,

And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm.

Of personal allusions there are a few ; if the satirist
had not been prevented from indulging in them by his
taste, he would have been debarred by his ignorance.
Lord Chesterfield, as the incarnation of the world and
the most brilliant servant of the arch-enemy, comes in for
a lashing under the name of Petronius.

Petronius ! all the muses weep for thee,

But every tear shall scald thy memory.

The graces too, while virtue at their shrine
Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine,

Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast,

Abhorr’d the sacrifice, and cursed the priest.

Thou polish’d and high- finish’d foe to truth.

Gray -beard corrupter of our listening youth,

To purge and skim away the filth of vice,

That so refined it might the more entice,

Then pour it on the morals of thy son
To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own .

This is about the nearest approach to Juvenal that the
Evangelical satirist ever makes. In Hope there is a vehe-
ment vindication of the memory of Whitefield. It is
rather remarkable that there is no mention of Wesley.
But Cowper belonged to the Evangelical rather than
to the Methodist section. It may be doubted whether
the living Whitefield would have been much to his taste.

In the versification of the moral satires there are
frequent faults, especially in the earlier poems of the
series ; though Cowper’s power of writing musical verse
is attested both by the occasional poems and by The
Task .

IV.]

THE MORAL SATIRES.

57

With the Moral Satires may ho coupled, though written
later, Tirocinium , or a Review of Schools. Here Cowper
has the advantage of treating a subject which he. under-
stood, about which he felt strongly, and desired for a
• practical purpose to stir the feelings of his readers. He
set to work in bitter earnest. “ There is a sting, ” he
says, “ in verse that prose neither has nor can have ; and
I do not know that schools in the gross, and especially
public schools, have ever been so pointedly condemned
before. But they are become a nuisance, a pest, an
abomination, and it is fit that the eyes and noses of man-
kind should be opened if possible to perceive it.” His
descriptions of the miseries which children in his day
endured, and, in spite of all our improvements, must still
to some extent endure in boarding schools, and of the
effects of the system in estranging boys from their parents
and deadening home affections, are vivid and true. Of
course the Public School system was not to be overturned
by rhyming, but the author of Tirocinium awakened at-
tention to its faults, and probably did something towards
amending them. The best lines, perhaps, have been
already quoted in connexion with the history of the
writer’s boyhood. There are, however, other telling pas-
sages such as that on the indiscriminate use of emulation
as a stimulus : —

Our public hives of puerile resort

That are of chief and most approved report,

To such base hopes in many a sordid soul
Owe their repute in part, but not the whole.

A principle, whose proud pretensions pass
Unquestion’d, though the jewel be but glass,

That with a world not often over-nice
Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a vice,

68

COWPER.

[chap

Or rather a gross compound, justly tried,

Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride,

Contributes most perhaps to enhance their fame,

* And Emulation is its precious name.

Boys once on fire with that contentious zeal
Feel all. the rage that female rivals feel;

The prize of beauty in a woman's eyes
Not brighter than in theirs the scholar's prize.

The spirit of that competition burns
With all varieties of ill by turns,

Each vainly magnifies his own success,

Resents his fellow's, wishes it were less,

Exults in his miscarriage if he fail,

Deems his reward too great if he prevail,

And labours to surpass him day and night,

Less for improvement, than to tickle spite.

The spur is powerful, and I grant its force j
It pricks the genius forward in its course,

Allows short time for play, and none for sloth,

And felt alike by each, advances both,

But judge where so much evil intervenes,

The end, though plausible, not worth the means.

Weigh, for a moment, classical desert
Against a heart depraved and temper hurt,

Hurt, too, perhaps for life, for early wrong
Done to the nobler part, affects it long,

And you are staunch indeed in learning’s cause,

If you can crown a discipline that draws
Such mischiefs after it, with much applause.

He might have done more, if he had been able to point
to the alternative of a good day school, as a combination
of home affections with the superior teaching hardly to
be found, except in a large school, and which Cowper, in
drawing his comparison between the two systems, fails to
take into account.

To the same general class of poems belongs Anti -
Thelypthora , which it is due to Cowper’s memory to say

IV.]

THE MORAL SATIRES.

69

was not published in his lifetime. It is an angry pas-
quinade on an absurd book advocating polygamy on
Biblical grounds, by the Rev. Martin Madan, Cowper’s
quondam spiritual counsellor. Alone among Cowper’s
works it has a taint of coarseness.

The Moral Satires pleased Franklin, to whom their
social philosophy was congenial, as at a later day, in
common with all Cowper’s works, they pleased Cobden,
who no doubt specially relished the passage in Charity ,
embodying the philanthropic sentiment of Free Trade.
There was a trembling consultation as to the expediency
of bringing the volume under the notice of Johnson.
“ One of his pointed sarcasms, if he should happen to be
displeased, would soon find its way into all companies and
spoil the sale.” “ I think it would be well to send in our
joint names, accompanied with a handsome card, such an
one as you will know how to fabricate, and such as may
predispose him to a favourable perusal of the book, by
coaxing him into a good temper ; for he is a great bear,
with all his learning and penetration.” Fear prevailed ;
but it seems that the book found its way into the dictator’s
hands, that his judgment on it was kind, and that he
even did something to temper the wind of adverse criti-
cism to the shorn lamb. Yet parts of it were likely to
incur his displeasure as a Tory, as a Churchman, and as
one who greatly preferred Fleet Street to the beauties of
nature ; while with the sentimental misery of the writer,
he could have had no sympathy whatever. Of the incom-
pleteness of Johnson’s view of character there could be no
better instance than the charming weakness of Cowper.
Thurlow and Colman did not even acknowledge their
copies, and were lashed for their breach of friendship with

60

OOWPER.

[oh. iy.

rather more vigour than the Moral Satires display, in The
Valedictory , which unluckily survived for posthumous
publication when the culprits had made their peace.

Cowper certainly misread himself if he believed that
ambition, even literary ambition, was a large element in
his character. But having published, he felt a keen
interest in the success of his publication. Yet he took
its failure and the adverse criticism very calmly. With
all his sensitiveness, from irritable and suspicious egotism,
such as is the most common cause of moral madness, he
was singularly free. In this respect his philosophy
served him well.

It may safely be said that the Moral Satires would
have sunk into oblivion if they had not been buoyed up
by The Task.

CHAPTEE V.

THE TASK.

Mrs. Unwin’s influence produced the Moral Satires. The
Task was born of a more potent inspiration. One day
Mrs. Jones, the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, came
into Olney to shop, and with her came her sister, Lady
Austen, the widow of a Baronet, a woman of the world,
who had lived much in France, gay, sparkling and
vivacious, hut at the same time full of feeling even to
overflowing. The apparition acted like magic on the
recluse. He desired Mrs. Unwin to ask the two ladies to
stay to tea, then shrank from joining the party which he
had himself invited, ended by joining it, and, his shyness
giving way with a rush, engaged in animated conversation
with Lady Austen, and walked with her part of the way
home. On her an equally great effect appears to have been
produced. A warm friendship at once sprang up, and before
long Lady Austen had verses addressed to her as Sister
Anne. Her ladyship, on her part, was smitten with a
great love of retirement, and at the same time with great
admiration for Mr. Scott, the curate of Olney, as a
preacher, and she resolved to fit up for herself u that
part of our great building which is at present occupied
by Dick Coleman, his wife and child, and a thousand
rats.” That a woman of fashion, accustomed to French

62

COWPER.

[chap.

salons, should choose such an abode, with a pair of
Puritans for her only society, seems to show that one
of the Puritans at least must have possessed great powers
of attraction. Better quarters were found for her in the
Vicarage ; and the private way between the gardens,
which apparently had been closed since Newton’s de-
parture, was opened again.

Lady Austen’s presence evidently wrought on Cowper
like an elixir: “From a scene of the most uninterrupted
retirement,” he writes to Mrs. Unwin, “ we have passed
at once into a state of constant engagement. Not that
our society is much multiplied ; the addition of an indi-
vidual has made all this difference. Lady Austen and
we pass our days alternately at each other’s Chateau. In
the morning I walk with one or other of the ladies, and
in the evening wind thread. Thus did Hercules, and
thus probably did Samson, and thus do I ; and were both
those heroes living, I should not fear to challenge them
to a trial of skill in that business, or doubt to beat them
both.” It was perhaps while he was winding thread that
Lady Austen told him the story of John Gilpin. He lay
awake at night laughing over it, and next morning pro-
duced the ballad. It soon became famous, and was recited
by Henderson, a popular actor, on the stage, though, as its
gentility was doubtful, its author withheld his name. He
afterwards fancied that this wonderful piece of humour
had been written in a mood of the deepest depression.
Probably he had written it in an interval of high spirits
between two such moods. Moreover he sometimes exag-
gerated his own misery. He will begin a letter with a
de profundis , and towards the end forget his sorrows,
glide into commonplace topics, and write about them in

THE TASK.

63

v0

the ordinary strain. Lady Austen inspired John Gilpin .
She inspired, it seems, the lines on the loss of the Eoyal
George. She did more : she invited Cowper to try his /
hand at something considerable in blank verse. When
he asked her for a subject, she was happier in her choice
than the lady who had suggested the Progress of Error.
She bade him take the sofa on which she was reclining,
and which, sofas being then uncommon, was a more
striking and suggestive object than it would be now.
The right chord was struck ; the subject was accepted ;
and The Sofa grew into The Task ; the title of the song
reminding us that it was “commanded by the fair.,, As
Paradise Lost is to militant Puritanism, so is The Task
to the religious movement of its author’s time. To its
character as the poem of a sect it no doubt owed and
still owes much of its popularity. Not only did it give
beautiful and effective expression to the sentiments of a
large religious party, but it was about the only poetry
that a strict Methodist or Evangelical could read ; while
to those whose worship was unritualistic and who were
debarred by their principles from the theatre and the
concert, anything in the way of art that was not illicit
must have been eminently welcome. But The Task has
merits of a more universal and enduring kind. Its author
himself says of it : — “ If the work cannot boast a regular
plan (in which respect, however, I do not think it
altogether indefensible), it may yet boast, that the reflec-
tions are naturally suggested always by the preceding
passage, and that, except the fifth book, which is rather
of a political aspect, the whole has one tendency, to dis-
countenance the modern enthusiasm after a London life,
and to recommend rural ease and leisure as friendly to

64

COWPER,.

[chap.

the cause of piety and virtue.” A regular plan, assuredly,
The Task has not. It rambles through a vast variety of
subjects, religious, political, social, philosophical, and
horticultural, with as little of method as its author used
in taking his morning walks. Nor as Mr. Benham has
shown, are the reflections, as a rule, naturally suggested
by the preceding passage. From the use of a sofa by the
gouty to those, who being free from gout, do not need
sofas, — and so to country walks and country life is hardly
a natural transition. It is hardly a natural transition
from the ice palace built by a Kussian despot, to despotism
and politics in general. But if Cowper deceives himself
in fancying that there is a plan or a close connexion of
parts, he is right as to the existence of a pervading
tendency. The praise of retirement and of country life
as most friendly to piety and virtue, is the perpetual
refrain of The Task , if not its definite theme. From this
idea immediately flow the best and the most popular
passages : those which please apart from anything peculiar
to a religious school ; those which keep the poem alive ;
those which have found their way into the heart of the
nation, and intensified the taste for rural and domestic
happiness, to which they most winningly appeal. In
these Cowper pours out his inmost feelings, with the
liveliness of exhilaration, enhanced by contrast with pre-
vious misery. The pleasures of the country and of home,
the walk, the garden, but above all the “ intimate de-
lights ” of the winter evening, the snug parlour, with its
close-drawn curtains shutting out the stormy night, the
steaming and bubbling tea-urn, the cheerful circle, the
book read aloud, the newspaper through which we look
out into the unquiet world, are painted by the writei

THE TASK.

65

*0

with a heartfelt enjoyment, which infects the reader.
These are not the joys of a hero, nor are they the joys
of an Alcaeus “ singing amidst the clash of arms, or when
he had moored on the wet shore his storm-tost barque.”
But they are pure joys, and they present themselves in
competition with those of Ranelagh and the Basset Table,
which are not heroic or even masculine, any more than
they are pure.

The well-known passages at the opening of The Winter
Evening , are the self -portraiture of a soul in bliss — such
bliss as that soul could know — and the poet would have
found it very difficult to depict to himself by the utmost
effort of his religious imagination any paradise which he
would really have enjoyed more.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud- hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

* * * *

This folio of four pages, happy work !

Which not even critics criticise, that holds
Inquisitive attention while I read
Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break,
What is it but a map of busy life,

Its fluctuations and its vast concerns ?

* * * *

’Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat
To peep at such a world. To see the stir
Of the great Babel and not feel the crowd.

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the injured ear.

F

66

COWPER.

[chap.

Thus sitting and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,

That liberates and exempts me from them all.

It turns submitted to my view, turns round
With all its generations ; I behold
The tumult and am still The sound of war
Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me,

Grieves but alarms me not. I mourn the pride
And avarice that make man a wolf to man,

Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats
By which he speaks the language of his heart,

And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.

He travels and expatiates, as the bee

From flower to flower, so he from land to land ;

The manners, customs, policy of all
Pay contribution to the store he gleans ;

He sucks intelligence in every clime,

And spreads the honey of his deep research
At his return, a rich repast for me.

He travels, and I too. I tread his deck,

Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes
Discover countries, with a kindred heart
Suffer his woes and share in his escapes,

While fancy, like the finger of a clock,

Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

Oh winter ! ruler of the inverted year,

Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d,

Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age ; thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car indebted to no wheels,

And urged by storms along its slippery way ;

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,

And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold’st the sun
A prisoner in the yet un dawning East,

Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him impatient of his stay
Down to the rosy West. But kindly still

V.]

THE TASK.

67

Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,

And gathering at short notice in one group
The family dispersed, and fixing thought,

Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.

I crown thee king of intimate delights,

Fire-side enjoyments, home-bom happiness,

And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening know.

The writer of The Task also deserves the crown which
he has himself claimed as a close observer and truthful
painter of nature. In this respect, he challenges com-
parison with Thomson. The range of Thomson is far
wider ; he paints nature in all her moods, Cowper only
in a few and those the gentlest, though he has said of
himself that “he was always an admirer of thunder-
storms, even before he knew whose voice he heard in
them, but especially of thunder rolling over the great
waters.” The great waters he had not seen for many
years ; he had never, so far as we know, seen mountains,
hardly even high hills ; his only landscape was the flat
country watered by the Ouse. On the other hand he is
perfectly genuine, thoroughly English, entirely emanci-
pated from false Arcadianism, the yoke of which still
sits heavily upon Thomson, whose “ muse ” moreover
is perpetually “ wafting ” him away from the country and
the climate which he knows to countries and climates
which he does not know, and which he describes in the
style of a prize poem. Cowper’s landscapes, too, are
peopled with the peasantry of England ; Thomson’s,
with Damons, Palaemons, and Musidoras, tricked out in
the sentimental costume of the sham idyl. In Thomson,
you always find the effort of the artist working up a

68

COWPER.

[chap.

description ; in Cowper, you find no effort ; the scene is
simply mirrored on a mind of great sensibility and high
pictorial power.

And witness, dear companion of my walks,

Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive
Fast lock’d in mine, with pleasure such as love,
Confirm’d by long experience of thy worth
And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire —

Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.

Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere,

And that my raptures are not conjured up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine, and art partner of them all.

How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken’d to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While Admiration, feeding at the eye,

And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene !

Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned
The distant plough slow moving, and beside
His labouring team that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminish’d to a boy !

Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o’er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,

Stand, never overlook’d, our favourite elms,

That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut ;

While far beyond, and overthwart the stream,

That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,

The sloping land recedes into the clouds ;

Displaying on its varied side the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,

Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote.

Scenes must be beautiful, which, daily viewed,

Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years —

Praise justly due to those that I describe.

THE TASK.

69

v-]

This is evidently genuine and spontaneous. We stand
with Cowper and Mrs. Unwin on the hill in the ruffling
wind, like them, scarcely conscious that it blows, and
feed admiration at the eye upon the rich and thoroughly
English champaign that is outspread below.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid Nature. Mighty winds,

That sweep the shirt of some far- spreading wood
Of ancient growth , make music not unlike
The dash of Ocean on his winding shore,

And lull the spirit while they fill the mind ;
Unnumber’d branches waving in the blast,

And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at onco.
Nor less composure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods, or on the softer voice
Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip
Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles , lose themselves at length
In matted grass that with a livelier green
Betrays the secret of their silent course.

Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,

But animated nature sweeter still,

To soothe and satisfy the human ear.

Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The livelong night : nor these alone, whose notea
Nice-finger’d Art must emulate in vain,

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still-repeated circles, screaming loud,

The jay, the pie, and e’en the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake.

Affection such as the last lines display for the in-
harmonious as well as the harmonious, for the uncomely,
as well as the comely parts of nature has been made

70

COWPER.

[chap.

familiar by Wordsworth, but it was new in the time of
Cowper. Let us compare a landscape painted by Pope
in his Windsor forest, with the lines just quoted, and we
shall see the difference between the art of Cowper, and
that of the Augustan age.

Here waving groves a checkered scene display,

And part admit and part exclude the day,

As some coy nymph her lover’s warm address
Not quite indulges, nor can quite repress.

There interspersed in lawns and opening glades
The trees arise that share each other’s shades ;

Here in full light the russet plains extend,

There wrapt in clouds, the bluish hills ascend,

E’en the wild heath displays her purple dyes,

And midst the desert fruitful fields arise.

That crowned with tufted trees and springing com,

Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn.

The low Berkshire hills wrapt in clouds on a sunny
day ; a sable desert in the neighbourhood of Windsor ;
fruitful fields arising in it, and crowned with tufted trees
and springing corn — evidently Pope saw all this, not on
an eminence, in the ruffling wind, but in his study with
his back to the window, and the Georgies or a translation
of them before him.

Here again is a little picture of rural life from the
Winter Morning Walk.

The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half-petrified to sleep
In unrecu/mbent sadness . There they wait
Their wonted fodder ; not like hungering man,

Fretful if unsupplied ; but silent, meek,

And patient of the slow-paced swain’s delay.

He from the stack carves out the accustomed load.

THE TASK.

71

*•]

Deep-plunging , and again deep-phmging oft ,

His broad keen knife into the solid mass:

Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands ,

With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away : no needless care,

Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.

Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern’d
The cheerful haunts of man ; to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,

From morn to eve, his solitary task.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears
And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur,

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow ; and now, with many a frisk
Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout ;

Then shakes his powder’d coat, and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark ; nor stops for aught
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,

That fumes beneath his nose : the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.

The minutely faithful description of the man carving
the load of hay out of the stack, and again those of the
gambolling dog, and the woodman smoking his pipe with
the stream of smoke trailing behind him, remind us of
the touches of minute fidelity in Homer. The same may
be said of many other passages.

The sheepfold here

Pours out its fleecy tenants o’er the glebe.

At fir st} progressive as a stream they seek
The middle field : but, scatter’d by degrees ,

Each to his choice, soon whiten all the la/nd.

There from the sun-burnt hay -field homeward creeps

72

COWPER.

[chap.

The loaded wain: while lighten’d of its charge,

The wain that meets it passes swiftly by ;

The boorish driver leaning o’er his team
Vociferous and impatient of delay.

A specimen of more imaginative and distinctly poetical
description is the well-known passage on evening, in
writing which Cowper would seem to have had Collins
in his mind.

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ;

Return, sweet Evening, and continue long !

Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,

With matron-step slow-moving, while the Night
Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed
In letting fall the curtain of repose
On bird and beast, the other charged for man
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day :

Not sumptuously adorn’d, nor needing aid,

Like homely -featured Night, of clustering gems !

A star or two just twinkling on thy brow
Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine
No less than hers, not worn indeed on high
With ostentatious pageantry, but set
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,

Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.

Beyond this line Cowper does not go, and had no idea
of going ; he never thinks of lending a soul to material
nature as Wordsworth and Shelley do. He is the poetic
counterpart of Gainsborough, as the great descriptive
poets of a later and more spiritual day are the counter-
parts of Turner. We have said that Cowper’s peasants
are genuine as well as his landscape ; he might have been
a more exquisite Crabbe if he had turned his mind that
way, instead of writing sermons about a world which to
him was little more than an abstraction, distorted more-
over, and discoloured by his religious asceticism.

v-]

THE TASK.

73

Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,

Such claim compassion in a night like this,

And have a friend in every feeling heart.

Warm’d, while it lasts, by labour, all day long
They brave the season, and yet find at eve,

111 clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool.

The frugal housewife trembles when she lights
Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear,

But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.

The few small embers left, she nurses well ;

And, while her infant race, with outspread hands
And crowded knees sit cowering o'er the sparks,
Retires, content to quake, so they be warm’d.

The man feels least, as more inured than she
To winter, and the current in his veins
More briskly moved by his severer toil ;

Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs.

The taper soon extinguish’d, which I saw
Dangled along at the cold finger’s end
Just when the day declined * and the brown loaf
Lodged on the shelf, half eaten without sauce
Of savoury cheese, or butter, costlier still :

Sleep seems their only refuge : for, alas !

Where penury is felt the thought is chained,

And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few S
With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care
Ingenious Parsimony takes, but j'ust
Saves the small inventory, bed and stool,

Skillet, and old carved chest, from public sale.
They live, and live without extorted alms
From grudging hands : but other boast have none
To soothe their honest pride that scorns to beg,
Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love.

Here we have the plain, unvarnished record of visitings
among the poor of Olney. The last two lines are simple
truth as well as the rest.

“ In some passages, especially in the second hook, you
will observe me very satirical.” In the second book of

74

COWPER.

[CHA.P.

The Task , there are some bitter things about the clergy,
and in the passage pourtraying a fashionable preacher,
there is a touch of satiric vigour, or rather of that power
of comic description which was one of the writer’s gifts.
But of Cowper as a satirist enough has been said.

" What there is of a religious cast in the volume I
have thrown towards the end of it, for two reasons ; first,
that I might not revolt the reader at his entrance, and
secondly, that my best impressions might be made last.
Were I to write as many volumes as Lope de Yega or
Voltaire, not one of them would be without this tincture.
If the world like it not, so much the worse for them. I
make all the concessions I can, that I may please them,
but I will not please them at the expense of conscience.”
The passages of The Task penned by conscience, taken
together, form a lamentably large proportion of the poem.
An ordinary reader can be carried through them, if at all,
only by his interest in the history of opinion, or by the
companionship of the writer, who is always present, as
Walton is in his Angler, as White is in his Selbourne.
Cowper, however, even at his worst, is a highly culti-
vated methodist; if he is sometimes enthusiastic, and
possibly superstitious, he is never coarse or unctuous.
He speaks with contempt of “ the twang of the conventi-
cle.” Even his enthusiasm had by this time been some-
what tempered. Just after his conversion he used to
preach to everybody. He had found out, as he tells us
himself, that this was a mistake, that “ the pulpit was for
preaching ; the garden, the parlour, and the walk abroad
were for friendly and agreeable conversation.” It may
have been his consciousness of a certain change in himself
that deterred him from taking Newton into his confidence

THE TASK.

76

when he was engaged upon The Task. The worst
passages are those which betray a fanatical antipathy to
natural science, especially that in the third book (150 —
190). The episode of the judgment of heaven on the
young atheist Misagathus, in the sixth book, is also
fanatical and repulsive.

Puritanism had come into violent collision with the
temporal power, and had contracted a character fiercely
political and revolutionary. Methodism fought only
against unbelief, vice, and the coldness of the establish-
ment ; it was in no way political, much less revolutionary;
by the recoil from the atheism of the French Ee volution
its leaders, including Wesley himself, were drawn rather
to the Tory side. Cowper, we have said, always remained
in principle what he had been born, a Whig, an unrevolu-
tionary Whig, an “ Old Whig ” to adopt the phrase made
canonical by Burke.

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,

And we are weeds without it. All constraint
Except what wisdom lays on evil men
Is evil.

The sentiment of these lines, which were familiar and
dear to Cobden, is tempered by judicious professions of
loyalty to a king who rules in accordance with the law.
At one time Cowper was inclined to regard the govern-
ment of George III. as a repetition of that of Charles I.,
absolutist in the State and reactionary in the Church ;
but the progress of revolutionary opinions evidently in-
creased his loyalty, as it did that