Lives Of The Poets, Vol. 1 (fiscle part-III), Samuel Johnson [good summer reads .TXT] 📗
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Treat Of Physical Subjects; Such As The Georgick, And Astronomical
Treatises Of The Ancients. This Was A Scheme Of Improvement Which Seems
To Have Busied many Literary Projectors Of That Age. Cowley, Who Had
More Means Than Milton Of Knowing what Was Wanting to The Embellishments
Of Life, Formed the Same Plan Of Education In his Imaginary College.
But The Truth Is, That The Knowledge Of External Nature, And The
Sciences Which That Knowledge Requires Or Includes, Are Not The Great Or
The Frequent Business Of The Human Mind. Whether We Provide For Action
Or Conversation, Whether We Wish To Be Useful Or Pleasing, The First
Requisite Is The Religious And Moral Knowledge Of Right And Wrong; The
Next Is An Acquaintance With The History Of Mankind, And With Those
Examples Which May Be Said To Embody Truth, And Prove, By Events,
The Reasonableness Of Opinions. Prudence And Justice Are Virtues
And Excellencies Of All Times And Of All Places; We Are Perpetually
Moralists, But We Are Geometricians Only By Chance. Our Intercourse
With Intellectual Nature Is Necessary; Our Speculations Upon Matter
Are Voluntary, And At Leisure. Physiological Learning is Of Such Rare
Emergence, That One May Know Another Half His Life, Without Being able
To Estimate His Skill In hydrostaticks Or Astronomy; But His Moral And
Prudential Character Immediately Appears.
Those Authors, Therefore, Are To Be Read At Schools That Supply Most
Axioms Of Prudence, Most Principles Of Moral Truth, And Most Materials
For Conversation; And These Purposes Are Best Served by Poets, Orators,
And Historians. Let Me Not Be Censured for This Digression, As Pedantick
Or Paradoxical; For, If I Have Milton Against Me, I Have Socrates On My
Side. It Was His Labour To Turn Philosophy From The Study Of Nature To
Speculations Upon Life; But The Innovators Whom I Oppose Are Turning off
Attention From Life To Nature. They Seem To Think, That We Are Placed
Here To Watch The Growth Of Plants, Or The Motions Of The Stars.
Socrates Was Rather Of Opinion, That What We Had To Learn Was, How To Do
Good, And Avoid Evil:
'Oti Toi En Megaroisi Kakon T Agathon Te Tetukta']
Of Institutions We May Judge By Their Effects. From This Wonder-Working
Academy, I Do Not Know That There Ever Proceeded any Man Very Eminent
For Knowledge: Its Only Genuine Product, I Believe, Is A Small History
Of Poetry, Written In latin By His Nephew Philips, Of Which, Perhaps,
None Of My Readers Has Ever Heard[32].
That In his School, As In every Thing else Which He Undertook, He
Laboured with Great Diligence, There Is No Reason For Doubting. One Part
Of His Method Deserves General Imitation. He Was Careful To Instruct His
Scholars In religion. Every Sunday Was Spent Upon Theology; Of Which
He Dictated a Short System, Gathered from The Writers That Were Then
Fashionable In the Dutch Universities.
He Set His Pupils An Example Of Hard Study And Spare Diet; Only Now And
Then He Allowed himself To Pass A Day Of Festivity And Indulgence With
Some Gay Gentlemen Of Gray'S Inn.
He Now Began To Engage In the Controversies Of The Times, And Lent
His Breath To Blow The Flames Of Contention. In 1641, He Published a
Treatise Of Reformation, In two Books, Against The Established church;
Being willing to Help The Puritans, Who Were, He Says, "Inferior To The
Prelates In learning."
Hall, Bishop Of Norwich, Had Published an Humble Remonstrance, In
Defence Of Episcopacy; To Which, In 1641, Five Ministers[33], Of Whose
Names The First Letters Made The Celebrated word Smectymnuus, Gave Their
Answer. Of This Answer A Confutation Was Attempted by The Learned usher;
And To The Confutation Milton Published a Reply, Entitled, Of Prelatical
Episcopacy, And Whether It May Be Deduced from The Apostolical Times, By
Virtue Of Those Testimonies Which Are Alleged to That Purpose In some
Late Treatises, One Whereof Goes Under The Name Of James, Lord Bishop Of
Armagh.
I Have Transcribed this Title To Show, By His Contemptuous Mention Of
Usher, That He Had Now Adopted the Puritanical Savageness Of Manners.
His Next Work Was, The Reason Of Church Government Urged against
Prelacy, By Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this Book He Discovers, Not With
Ostentatious Exultation, But With Calm Confidence, His High Opinion Of
His Own Powers; And Promises To Undertake Something, He Yet Knows Not
What, That May Be Of Use And Honour To His Country. "This," Says He, "Is
Not To Be Obtained but By Devout Prayer To That Eternal Spirit That Can
Enrich With All Utterance And Knowledge, And Sends Out His Seraphim,
With The Hallowed fire Of His Altar, To Touch And Purify The Lips Of
Whom He Pleases. To This Must Be Added, Industrious And Select Reading,
Steady Observation, And Insight Into All Seemly And Generous Arts And
Affairs; Till Which In some Measure Be Compast, I Refuse Not To Sustain
This Expectation." From A Promise Like This, At Once Fervid, Pious, And
Rational, Might Be Expected the Paradise Lost.
He Published, The Same Year, Two More Pamphlets, Upon The Same Question.
To One Of His Antagonists, Who Affirms That He Was "Vomited out Of The
University," He Answers, In general Terms: "The Fellows Of The College,
Wherein I Spent Some Years, At My Parting, After I Had Taken Two
Degrees, As The Manner Is, Signified, Many Times, How Much Better It
Would Content Them That I Should Stay. As For The Common Approbation Or
Dislike Of That Place, As Now It Is, That I Should Esteem Or Disesteem
Myself The More For That, Too Simple Is The Answerer, If He Think To
Obtain With Me. Of Small Practice Were The Physician Who Could Not
Judge, By What She And Her Sister Have Of Long Time Vomited, That The
Worser Stuff She Strongly Keeps In her Stomach, But The Better She Is
Ever Kecking at, And Is Queasy; She Vomits Now Out Of Sickness; But,
Before It Will Be Well With Her, She Must Vomit By Strong Physick. The
University, In the Time Of Her Better Health, And My Younger Judgment, I
Never Greatly Admired, But Now Much Less."
This Is Surely The Language Of A Man Who Thinks That He Has Been
Injured. He Proceeds To Describe The Course Of His Conduct, And
The Train Of His Thoughts; And, Because He Has Been Suspected of
Incontinence, Gives An Account Of His Own Purity: "That If I Be Justly
Charged," Says He, "With This Crime, It May Come Upon Me With Tenfold
Shame."
The Style Of His Piece Is Rough, And Such, Perhaps, Was That Of His
Antagonist. This Roughness He Justifies, By Great Examples, In a Long
Digression. Sometimes He Tries To Be Humorous: "Lest I Should Take Him
For Some Chaplain In hand, Some Squire Of The Body To His Prelate, One
Who Serves Not At The Altar Only, But At The Court-Cupboard, He Will
Bestow On Us A Pretty Model Of Himself; And Sets Me Out Half A Dozen
Ptisical Mottoes, Wherever He Had Them, Hopping short In the Measure Of
Convulsion Fits; In which Labour The Agony Of His Wit Having escaped
Narrowly, Instead Of Well-Sized periods, He Greets Us With A Quantity Of
Thumb-Ring poesies. And Thus Ends This Section, Or Rather Dissection,
Of Himself." Such Is The Controversial Merriment Of Milton; His Gloomy
Seriousness Is Yet More Offensive. Such Is His Malignity, "That Hell
Grows Darker At His Frown." His Father, After Reading was Taken By
Essex, Came To Reside In his House; And His School Increased. At
Whitsuntide, In his Thirty-Fifth Year, He Married mary, The Daughter Of
Mr. Powel, A Justice Of The Peace In oxfordshire. He Brought Her To Town
With Him, And Expected all The Advantages Of A Conjugal Life. The Lady,
However, Seems Not Much To Have Delighted in the Pleasures Of Spare
Diet And Hard Study; For, As Philips Relates, "Having for A Month Led a
Philosophick Life, After Having been Used at Home To A Great House, And
Much Company And Joviality, Her Friends, Possibly By Her Own Desire,
Made Earnest Suit To Have Her Company The Remaining part Of The Summer;
Which Was Granted, Upon A Promise Of Her Return At Michaelmas."
Milton Was Too Busy To Much Miss His Wife: He Pursued his Studies; And
Now And Then Visited the Lady Margaret Leigh, Whom He Has Mentioned in
One Of His Sonnets. At Last Michaelmas Arrived; But The Lady Had No
Inclination To Return To The Sullen Gloom Of Her Husband'S Habitation,
And, Therefore, Very Willingly Forgot Her Promise. He Sent Her A Letter,
But Had No Answer: He Sent More With The Same Success. It Could Be
Alleged that Letters Miscarry; He, Therefore, Despatched a Messenger,
Being by This Time Too Angry To Go Himself. His Messenger Was Sent Back
With Some Contempt. The Family Of The Lady Were Cavaliers.
In A Man Whose Opinion Of His Own Merit Was Like Milton'S, Less
Provocation Than This Might Have Raised violent Resentment. Milton Soon
Determined to Repudiate Her For Disobedience; And, Being one Of Those
Who Could Easily Find Arguments To Justify Inclination, Published, In
1644, The Doctrine And Discipline Of Divorce; Which Was Followed by The
Judgment Of Martin Bucer Concerning divorce; And The Next Year, His
Tetrachordon, Expositions Upon The Four Chief Places Of Scripture Which
Treat Of Marriage.
This Innovation Was Opposed, As Might Be Expected, By The Clergy, Who,
Then Holding their Famous Assembly At Westminster, Procured that The
Author Should Be Called before The Lords; But "That House," Says Wood,
"Whether Approving the Doctrine, Or Not Favouring his Accusers, Did Soon
Dismiss Him."
There Seems Not To Have Been Much Written Against Him, Nor Any Thing by
Any Writer Of Eminence[34]. The Antagonist That Appeared, Is Styled by
Him "A Serving man Turned solicitor." Howell, In his Letters, Mentions
The New Doctrine With Contempt[35]: And It Was, I Suppose, Thought More
Worthy Of Derision Than Of Confutation. He Complains Of This Neglect
In Two Sonnets, Of Which The First Is Contemptible And The Second Not
Excellent.
From This Time It Is Observed, That He Became An Enemy To The
Presbyterians, Whom He Had Favoured before. He That Changes His Party
By His Humour, Is Not More Virtuous Than He That Changes It By His
Interest: He Loves Himself Rather Than Truth.
His Wife And Her Relations Now Found That Milton Was Not An Unresisting
Sufferer Of Injuries; And, Perceiving that He Had Begun To Put
His Doctrine In practice, By Courting a Young Woman Of Great
Accomplishments, The Daughter Of One Doctor Davis, Who Was, However, Not
Ready To Comply, They Resolved to Endeavour A Reunion. He Went Sometimes
To The House Of One Blackborough, His Relation, In the Lane Of St.
Martin-Le-Grand, And At One Of His Usual Visits Was Surprised to See His
Wife Come From Another Room, And Implore Forgiveness On Her Knees. He
Resisted her Entreaties For Awhile; "But Partly," Says Philips, "His Own
Generous Nature, More Inclinable To Reconciliation Than To Perseverance
In Anger Or Revenge, And Partly The Strong Intercession Of Friends On
Both Sides, Soon Brought Him To An Act Of Oblivion And A Firm League Of
Peace." It Were Injurious To Omit, That Milton Afterwards Received her
Father And Her Brothers In his Own House, When They Were Distressed,
With Other Royalists.
He Published, About The Same Time, His Areopagitica, A Speech Of Mr.
John Milton, For The Liberty Of Unlicensed printing. The Danger Of
Such Unbounded liberty, And The Danger Of Bounding it, Have Produced a
Problem In the Science Of Government, Which Human Understanding seems,
Hitherto, Unable To Solve. If Nothing may Be Published but What Civil
Authority Shall Have Previously Approved, Power Must Always Be The
Standard Of Truth; If Every Dreamer Of Innovations May Propagate His
Projects, There Can Be No Settlement; If Every Murmurer At Government
May Diffuse Discontent, There Can Be No Peace; And If Every Skeptick In
Theology May Teach His Follies, There Can Be No Religion. The Remedy
Against These Evils Is To Punish The Authors; For It Is Yet Allowed
That Every Society May Punish, Though Not Prevent, The Publication Of
Opinions Which That Society Shall Think Pernicious; But This Punishment,
Though It May Crush The Author, Promotes The Book; And It Seems Not More
Reasonable To Leave The Right Of Printing unrestrained, Because Writers
May Be Afterwards Censured, Than It Would Be To Sleep With Doors
Unbolted, Because By Our Laws We Can Hang A Thief.
But Whatever Were His Engagements, Civil Or Domestick, Poetry Was Never
Long Out Of His Thoughts. About This Time (1645) A Collection Of His
Latin And English Poems Appeared, In which The Allegro And Penseroso,
With Some Others, Were First Published.
He Had Taken A Large House In barbican, For The Reception Of Scholars;
But The Numerous Relations Of His Wife, To Whom He Generously Granted
Refuge For Awhile, Occupied his Rooms. In time, However, They Went Away;
"And The House Again," Says Philips, "Now Looked like A House Of The
Muses Only, Though The
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