country; revere the looks and wounds of your brave companions in arms, who, under your banners, have so strenuously fought for liberty; revere the shades of those who perished in the contest; revere also the opinions and the hopes which foreign states entertain concerning us, who promise to themselves so many advantages from that liberty, which we have so bravely acquired, from the establishment of that new government, which has begun to shed its splendour on the world, which, if it be suffered to vanish like a dream, would involve us in the deepest abyss of shame; and lastly, revere yourself; and, after having endured so many sufferings and encountered so many perils for the sake of liberty, do not suffer it, now it is obtained, either to be violated by yourself, or in any one instance impaired by others. "You cannot be truly free unless we are free too; for such is the nature of things, that he, who entrenches on the liberty of others, is the first to lose his own, and become a slave. But, if you, who have hitherto been the patron and tutelary genius of liberty; if you, who are exceeded by no one in justice, in piety, and goodness, should hereafter invade that liberty which you have defended, your conduct must be fatally operative, not only against the cause of liberty, but the general interests of piety and virtue. Your integrity and virtue will appear to have evaporated, your faith in religion to have been small; your character with posterity will dwindle into insignificance, by which a most destructive blow will be levelled against the happiness of mankind. The work which you have undertaken is of incalculable moment, which will thoroughly sift and expose every principle and sensation of your heart, which will fully display the vigour and genius of your character, which will evince whether you really possess those great qualities of piety, fidelity, justice, and self-denial, which made us believe that you were elevated by the special direction of the Deity to the highest pinnacle of power. At once wisely and discreetly to hold the sceptre over three powerful nations, to persuade people to relinquish inveterate and corrupt for new and more beneficial maxims and institutions, to penetrate into the remotest parts of the country, to have the mind present and operative in every quarter, to watch against surprise, to provide against danger, to reject the blandishments of pleasure and the pomp of power;these are exertions compared with which the labour of war is a mere pastime; which will require every energy and employ every faculty that you possess; which demand a man supported from above, and almost instructed by immediate inspiration." I add to this some important queries, applicable to all times, addressed by the great politician to the people themselves. They will be read at this time with the deepest interest :— "For who would vindicate your right of unrestrained suffrage, or of choosing what representatives you liked best, merely that you might elect the creatures of your own faction, whoever they might be, or him, however small might be his worth, who would give you the most lavish feasts, and enable you to drink to the greatest excess! Thus not wisdom and authority, but turbulence and gluttony, would soon exalt the vilest miscreants from our taverns and our brothels, from our towns and villages, to the rank and dignity of senators. For, should the management of the republic be entrusted to persons to whom no one would willingly entrust the management of his private concerns? and the treasury of the state be left to the care of those who had lavished their own fortunes in an infamous prodigality? Should they have the charge of the public purse, which they would soon convert into a private, by their unprincipled peculations? Are they fit to be the legislators of a whole people who themselves know not what law, what reason, what right and wrong, what crooked and straight, what licit and illicit means? who think that all power consists in outrage, all dignity in the parade of insolence? who neglect every other consideration for the corrupt gratification of their friendships, or the prosecution of their resentments? who disperse their own relations and creatures through the provinces, for the sake of levying taxes and confiscating goods; men, for the greater part, the most profligate and vile, who buy up for themselves what they pretend to expose to sale, who thence collect an exorbitant mass of wealth, which they fraudulently divert from the public service; who thus spread their pillage through the country, and in a moment emerge from penury and rags, to a state of splendour and of wealth! Who could endure such thievish servants, such vicegerents of their lords? Who could believe that the masters and the patrons of a banditti could be the proper guardians of liberty? or who would suppose that he should ever be made one hair more free by such a set of public functionaries, (though they might amount to five hundred elected in this manner from the counties and boroughs,) when among them who are the very guardians of liberty, and to whose custody it is committed, there must be so many, who know not either how to use or to enjoy liberty, who either understand the principles or merit the possession?" I now resume my remarks upon the poet's genius and acquirements. Milton's knowledge of human nature was confined to general traits: he had not detected the minute foldings and smaller particularities, nor opened those secret movements of the passions which familiarise us with private life. All was drawn with the enlarged eye of his own magnificent mind. In this respect he was utterly dissimilar to Shakspeare: he had none of the dramatist's playfulness and flexibility. Milton was always Milton, as Byron was always Byron: neither of them could transport himself into other characters. He spoke of others as an observer; not as identified with them. It appears to me, that this individuality will be found to go through all Milton's writings, and all the conduct of his life: he lived among a world of inferior beings, to whom his stern sublimity could not conform. This showed itself in the very outset of his career,- -at college,-where he rebelled against academical discipline; and to this in a great degree may be attributed the vehement and relentless part he took against royalty, and also his separation from the sect with whom he commenced his warfare against the throne. Villemain, in his life of the poet in the "Biographie Universelle," notices this inflexibility, and the unfitness for practical commerce with the world which it caused. Yet hence arose many of the grand thoughts and gigantic images that adorned and exalted his poetry: thus he never fell beneath his lofty sphere. Such is the view I take of him in his private character: my business is not to repeat what I find in other books, but to examine for myself. I do not undertake to bring together all which has been said already; on the contrary, much which has been said before seems to me to be on that account not necessary to be said again: I do not desire to supersede other biographers, but rather wish to be admitted among them. I have the hope of saying something which is not to be found elsewhere, and such as will gain the assent of others at least for its probability; for I scorn to seek for novelty at the expense of truth. All the facts of Milton's life have been laboriously searched for, and brought forward already: opinions upon them are not yet exhausted: unfortunately too many biographers copy each other in this portion of their task: they are either incapable of thinking for themselves, or they do not venture it: they scarcely even vary the expressions. The effect of this is nausea to the purchaser of such books: the "decies repetita " is always repulsive. Perhaps it will be answered, that what had been before observed was just, and therefore required no alteration: if so, the public did not want the renewal of that of which it was in possession. Johnson is a critic who has always been a favourite with English readers: his piquancy and severity please; but these, when applied to Milton, are by persons of imagination or taste read with distaste from their perverse and wilful malignity. They often show the vigour of the critic's intellect and the ingenuity of his pointed language, but they are false or exaggerated in decision, and irreverent and harsh in language. The splendour of Milton's genius ought to have kept aloof such pedantic petulance. If such faults could have been justly imputed to him, still the author of "Paradise Lost" should have been approached with awe, and commented on with the most decorous and profound respect. What right had Johnson to attack and blacken the poet's moral character by imputing motives of passion and ill-humour to him, which he has himself in the most positive and solemn manner denied? He saw the abuses of the existing government, he deluded himself with the hope that by a grand change his own ideal views of perfection might be accomplished. If we believe him,—and he must have a most ungenerous and corrupt mind who can doubt, his heart was the seat of all earthly integrity, and exalted by the most purified and spiritual aspirations. Of all mean passions, envy could least enter a bosom which had so lofty and calm a confidence in the superiority of its own intellectual gifts: no man envies what he scorns and estimates at nothing. CHAPTER XIV. MILTON'S BLINDNESS, AND OCCUPATIONS AFTER THE RESTORATION. MILTON's enemies had had the baseness to charge his blindness as a judgment upon him he repels this charge with a just indignation, at the opening of his "Second Defence for the People of England." : "I wish," commences this magnificent passage, "that I could with equal facility refute what this barbarous opponent has said of my blindness; but I cannot do it, and I must submit to the affliction. It is not so wretched to be blind, as it is not to be capable of enduring blindness. But why should I not endure a misfortune, which it behoves every one to be prepared to endure if it should happen; which may, in the common course of things, happen to any man, and which has been known to have happened to the most distinguished and virtuous persons in history? What is reported of the Augur Tiresias is well known; of whom Apollonius sung thus in his 'Argonautics' To men he dared the will divine disclose, Nor fear'd what Jove might in his wrath impose. But God Himself is truth; in propagating which, as men display a greater integrity and zeal, they approach nearer to the similitude of God, and possess a greater portion of His love. We cannot suppose the Deity envious of truth, or unwilling that it should be freely communicated to mankind: the loss of sight, therefore, which this inspired sage, who was so eager in promoting knowledge among men, sustained, cannot be considered as a judicial punishment: and did not our Saviour himself declare that that poor man whom he had restored to sight had not been born blind, either on account of his own sins, or those of his progenitors? "And with respect to myself, though I have accurately examined my conduct, and scrutinised my soul, I call thee, O God, the searcher of hearts, to witness, that I am not conscious, either in the more early or in the later periods of my life, of having committed any enormity which might deservedly have marked me out as a fit object for such a calamitous visitation: but since my enemies boast that this affliction is only a retribution for the transgressions of my pen, I again invoke the Almighty to witness that I never at any time wrote anything which I did not think agreeable to truth, to justice, and to piety. This was my persuasion then, and I feel the same persuasion now. Thus, therefore, when I was publicly solicited to write a reply to the defence of the royal cause, when I had to contend with the pressure of sickness, and with the apprehension of soon losing the sight of my remaining eye, and when my medical attendants clearly announced, that if I did engage in this work it would be irreparably lost, their premonitions caused no hesitation and inspired no dismay; I would not have listened to the voice even of Esculapius himself from the shrine of Epidaurus, in preference to the suggestions of the heavenly monitor within my breast: my resolution was unshaken, though the alternative was either the loss of my sight or the desertion of my duty; and I called to mind those two destinies which the oracle of Delphi announced to the son of Thetis. "I considered that many had purchased a less good by a greater evil, the meed of glory by the loss of life; but that I might procure great good by little suffering; that, though I am blind, I might still discharge the most honourable duties, the performance of which, as it is something more durable than glory, ought to be an object of superior admiration and esteem; I resolved, therefore, to make the short interval of sight which was left me to enjoy as beneficial as possible to the public interest. "But, if the choice were necessary, I would, sir, prefer my blindness to yours; yours is a cloud spread over the mind, which darkens both the light of reason and of conscience; mine keeps from my view only the coloured surfaces of things, while it leaves me at liberty to contemplate the beauty and stability of virtue and of truth. How many things are there besides which I would not willingly see; how many which I must see against my will; and how few which I feel any anxiety to see ! There is, as the Apostle has remarked, a way to strength through weakness. Let me then be the most feeble creature alive, as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immortal spirit; as long as in that obscurity in which I am enveloped, the light of the divine presence more clearly shines! And, indeed, in my blindness, I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favour of the Deity; who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in proportion as I am able to behold nothing but Himself. Alas! for him who insults me, who maligns and merits public execration! For the Divine law not only shields me from injury, but almost renders me too sacred to attack; not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, as from the overshadowing of those heavenly wings, which seem to have occasioned this obscurity. To this I ascribe the more tender assiduities of my friends, their soothing attentions, their kind visits, their reverential observances." Every one is familiar with the poet's twenty-second sonnet on this subject. Cyriac, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear,― Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied In liberty's defence, my noble task. One is a little surprised that he could so long endure this laborious and tedious office of secretary, especially after his sight began to fail him. Edward Philips, for some time assisted him. In 1652 he entirely lost his sight. His nephew, Todd has recovered a curious letter of Milton from the State-Paper Office, recommending his friend Andrew Marvell, the poet, for some employment :- "A gentleman, whose name is Mr. Marvell,—a man, both by report and the converse I have had with him, of singular desert for the state to make use of; who also offers himself, if there be any employment for him. His father was the minister of Hull, and he hath spent four years abroad in Holland, France, Italy, and Spain, to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaining of these four languages;-besides he is a scholar, and well read in the Latin and Greek authors; and no doubt, of an approved conversation; for he comes now lately out of the house of the Lord Fairfax, who was general, where he was entrusted to give some instructions in the languages to the lady, his daughter." This letter of Milton was written in 1653: but Marvell was not joined to Milton in the office of Latin secretary, till 1657. Marvell's commendatory poem on the "Paradise Lost," is well known : When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold, In slender book his vast design unfold; &c. Milton's salary as Latin secretary was £288 18s. 6d. a year. In 1659, he was only paid at the rate of £200 a year, having then retired. In this retirement, about two years before the Restoration, he began the "Paradise Lost." Though retired he was visited by all foreigners of distinction, and some persons of rank at home; but he was known and admired more for his political services than for his poetry. He had, as has been mentioned, done little in poetry for the last twenty years, except his few sonnets: of these, Johnson speaks with a tasteless and unworthy contempt: that they are rich in thought, sentiment, and naked sublimity of language, is now undisputed. It appears that Milton yet relaxed nothing of his mental activity. After the death of Cromwell he must have seen the incumbent danger of that republican form of government, which he had spent so much zeal and such gigantic talents to establish. Not only his head but his heart was involved in this establishment. He had worked himself to a fury against kings, and what he supposed to be the tyranny inseparable from their power. His ambition does not appear to have been in the least degree selfish ;—he had no views of personal aggrandisement: he did not look to riches or political honours: he had no familiarity with those who were called the great: even with Cromwell, his idol, he seems to have had no individual intimacy. Lawrence, "of virtuous father virtuous son," and Cyriac Skinner, were his chief friends. Of the former he says,— Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire From the hard season gaining? He, who of those delights can judge, and spare, To interpose them oft, is not unwise. Even the genius of Milton could not have made the progress he did either in production or in learning, if he had admitted the frequent distractions of society. The history of his day is given by the biographers;-but it will not account for the immensity of his reading. The processes of such a mind it is too hazardous to attempt to analyse. His vast memory tempted him sometimes to encumber himself with abstruse and useless literature. One is a little astonished that a creative brain, which is constantly working its materials into new shapes, and combinations, can reflect things precisely in the form and colours in which it receives them.-Even the "Paradise Lost" is occasionally patched with allusions of this kind.—There is, however, an unaccountable charm in the manner in which the poet occasionally mentions remote names of persons and places. A single word calls up a whole train of ideas :-but then this is a mere reference to an instructed and rich memory. Milton's whole life ought to have been employed in creation, not reproduction.— But this opinion will not perhaps be commonly assented to, or even understood. The poet was a powerful reasoner in his political and theological discussions, but not always free from obscurity or sophistry. His heated mind saw certain questions in an exaggerated or partial view. The time was now arriving, when it was necessary to throw away and forget politics. In spite of all his efforts, the monarchy was at length restored. He had now reason to dread the fate of the other regicides: it was necessary for a time to conceal himself: Vane and others were taken, condemned, and put to death. The part which Milton had taken in justifying the decapitation of the late king, by arguments and in language insulting and contemptuous, might reasonably have been expected to have marked him out to the Court for a signal object of vengeance. He was finally spared: by what influences this was effected, is now little known : this act of mercy reflects great honour on the government. Though there are many reasons to suppose that Milton's poetical fame was yet but little acknowledged, this extraordinary regard shown to him by sparing his life raises a contrary inference. He had no claims for forbearance from the King on account of his political talents:-these were powers which it must have been desirable to crush. The greater part of those who had the monarch's ear were profligate men, who, even if they had been well acquainted with the poetry which the bard had hitherto put forth, would not have enjoyed it: even Lord Clarendon seems to have had no taste for this sort of genius: he commends Cowley as having taken a flight beyond other votaries of the Muses; and the historian's warm loyalism, in theory as well as personal attachment, would have felt abhorrence beyond other men for the immortal bard's political writings. We are constrained to leave the cause of this mercy in the dark, and give the glory to those who exerted it. Now came in a flood of poetasters from the French school; dissolute, baseminded, and demoralising, with little genius, but some wit,-epigrammatists, satirists, and buffoons,-ridiculing all that was grave, praising nothing but what was worldly and unprincipled. It is true that Dryden was now beginning to work himself into fame, but on the French model; which, however, he improved by the force of thought and language, and harmony of vigorous versification. I need not observe how unlike was the genius of Milton and of Dryden: Johnson has admirably analysed the latter, to which his own taste inclined. He who is partial to Dryden will never, I think, much relish Milton; though it will be objected that the case was otherwise with Gray, who is said to have united his admiration of both. There is a want of grandeur, of sentiment, of creation, of visionariness in Dryden. His style is clear, powerful, and buoyant; but his thoughts are often common, and his imagery is unpicturesque and vague: he was more intellectual than imaginative: his mind was turned to the world, and the observances of actual and daily life: he was often happy in acuteness of discrimination upon the manners and characters of the time: witness his portrait of Achitophel (Lord Shaftesbury). Here the extreme subtlety of his understanding displayed itself in full force. This was exactly what suited the reigning taste at this epoch. Let us contemplate Milton while such things were the rage. He had now withdrawn himself from the angry and harsh contests in which he had been so many years engaged, and was |