SECOND GALLERY

OF

LITERARY PORTRAITS.

JOHN MILTON.

PERHAPS Some may be astonished at the subject selected— John Milton. Can any thing new, that is true-or true that is new, be said on such a theme? Have not the ages been gazing upon this "mighty orb of song" as at the sun? and have not almost all its gifted admirers uttered each his glowing panegyric, till now they seem to be ranged like planetary bodies round his central blaze? What more can be said or sung? Is it not impossible to add to, however easy to diminish, our sense of his greatness? Is not the ambition rash and presumptuous which seeks to approach the subject anew? Surely the language of apology, at least, is the fit preface to such a deed of daring.

No apology, however, do we intend to make. We hold that every one who has been delighted, benefited, or elevated by a great author, may claim the privilege of gratitude, to tell the world that, and how, he has. We hold, too, that the proof of the true greatness of a man lies in this, that every new encomiast, if in any measure qualified for the task, is sure to find in him some new proof that the praises of all time have not been wasted or exaggerated. Who that reads or thinks at all, has not frequent occasions to pass by the cairn which a thankful word has reared to Milton's memory and who can, at one time or other, resist the impulse to cast

?

on it another stone, however rough and small that stone may be? Such is all we at present propose.

Every man is in some degree the mirror of his times. A man's times stand over him, as the sun above the earth, compelling an image from the dewdrop, as well as from the great deep. The difference is, that while the small man is a small, the great man is a broad and full, reflection of his day. But the effect of the times may be seen in the baby's bauble and cart, as well as in the style of the painter's pencil and the poet's song. The converse is equally true. A man's times

are reflective of the man, as well as a man of the times. Every man acts on, as well as is acted on by, every other man. The cry of the child who falls in yonder gutter, as really affects the progress of society as the roar of the French Revolution. There is a perpetual process going on of action and reaction, between each on the one side, and all on the other. The characteristic of the great man is, that his reaction on his age is more than equal to its action upon him. No man is wholly a creator, nor wholly a creature of his age. The Milton or the Shakspeare is more the creator than he is the creature

Some men pass through the atmosphere of their time as meteors through the air, or comets through the heavensleaving as little impression, and having with it a connection equally slight; while others interpenetrate it so entirely that the age becomes almost identified with them. Milton was

intensely the man of his time; and, although he shot far before it, it was simply because he more fully felt and understood what its tendencies really were; he spread his sails in its breath, as in a favorable gale, which propelled him far beyond the point where the impulse was at first given.

A glance at the times of Milton would require to be a profound and comprehensive one; for the times that bore such a product must have been extraordinary. One feature, perhaps the chief, in them was this: Milton's age was an age attempting, with sincere, strong, though baffled endeavor, to be earnest, holy, and heroic. The church had, in the previous age, been partially and nominally reformed; but it had failed in accomplishing its own full deliverance, or the full deliverance of the world. It had shaken off the nightmare of popery, but had settled itself down into a sleep, more

composed, less disturbed, but as deadly. Is the Reformation, thought the high hearts which then gave forth their thunder throbs in England, to turn out a mere sham? Has all that bloody seed of martyrdom been sown in vain? Whether is

worse, after all, the incubus of superstition, or the sleep of death? We have got rid of the Pope, indeed, but not of the world, or of the devil, or the flesh; we must, therefore, repair our repairs-amend our amendments-reform our Reformation-and try, in this way, to get religion to come down, as a practical living power, into the hearts and lives of Englishmen. We must squeeze our old folios into new facts -we must see the dead blood of the martyrs turned into living trees of righteousnesss-we must have character as well as controversies-life, life at all hazards, we must have, even though it be through the destruction of ceremonies, the damage of surplices, the dismissal of bishops-aye, or the death of kings. Such was the spirit of that age. We speak of its real onward tendency-the direction of the main stream. We stay not to count the numerous little obstinate opposing eddies that were taking chips and straws-Lauds and Clarendons-backwards; thus and no otherwise, ran the master current of the brain, the heart, and the hand of that magnificent era.

no

Are we not standing near the brink of another period, in some points very similar to that of English Puritanism? Is not our age getting tired of names, words, pretensions; and anxious for things, deeds, realities? It cares thing now for such terms as Christendom-Reformed Churches-Glorious Constitution of 1688. It wants a Christendom where the character of Christ-like that of Hamlet is not omitted by special desire; it wants re-reformed churches, and a glorious constitution, that will do a little more to feed, clothe, and educate those who sit under its shadow, and have long talked of, without tasting, its blessed fruits. It wants, in short, those big, beautiful words -Liberty, Religion, Free Government, Church and State, taken down from our flags, transparencies, and triumphal arches, and introduced into our homes, hearths, and hearts. And, although we have now no Cromwell and no Milton, yet, thank God, we have thousands of gallant hearts, and gifted spirits, and eloquent tongues. who have vowed loud

and deep, in all the languages of Europe, that falsehoods and deceptions, of all sorts and sizes, of all ages, statures, and complexions, shall come to a close.

To Milton's time we may apply the words of inspiration "The children are brought to the birth, but there is not strength to bring forth." The great purpose of the age was formed, begun, but left unfinished-nay, drowned in slavery and blood. How mortifying to a spirit such as his! It was as if Moses had been taken up to Pisgah, but had been struck dead before he saw the land of milk and honey. So Milton had labored, and climbed to the steep summit, whence he expected a new world of liberty and truth to expand before him, but found instead a wilder chaos and a fouler hell than before. But dare we pity him, and need we pity ourselves? But for Milton's disappointment, and disgust with the evil days and evil tongues on which he latterly fell, he would not have retired into the solitude of his own soul; and had he not so retired, the world would have wanted its greatest poem-the "Paradise Lost." That was the real fruit of the Puritanic contest-of all its tears, and all its blood; and let those who are still enjoying a result so rich, in gratitude declare "how that red rain did make the harvest grow." No life of Milton, worthy of the name, has hitherto been written. Fenton's sketch is an elegant trifle. Johnson's is, in parts, a heavy invective -in parts, a noble panegyric; but in nowise a satisfactory life. Sir Egerton Brydges has written rather an ardent apology for his memory than a life. St. John's is a piece of clever book-making. There is but, perhaps, one man in Britain, since Coleridge died, fully qualified for supplying this desideratum-we mean Thomas de Quincey. We have repeatedly urged it on his attention, and are not without hopes that he may yet address himself to a work which shall task even his learning, genius, and eloquence. We propose to refresh ourselves and others, by simply jotting down a few particulars of the poet's career, without professing to give, on this head, any thing new.

John Milton was born in Bread-street, London-a street lying in what is called, technically, the City, under the shadow of St. Paul's-on the 9th of December, 1608. His father was a scrivener, and was distinguished for his clas

sical attainments. John received his early education under a clergyman of the name of Young; was afterwards placed at St. Paul's School, whence he was removed, in his seventeenth year, to Christ's Church, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for the facility and beauty of his Latin versification. We are not aware, although placed at such a mathematical university, that he ever excelled in geometry; it is uncertain whether he ever crossed the Pons asinorum, although it is certain that he was whipped for a juvenile contumacy, and that he never expresses any gratitude to his Alma Mater. Universities, in fact, have often proved rather stepmothers, than mothers, to men of genius, as the cases of Gibbon, Shelley, Coleridge, Pollok, and many others, demonstrate. And why? Because their own souls are to them universities; and they cannot fully attend to both, any more than they can be in two places at the same time. He originally intended to have entered the Church, but early formed a dislike to subscriptions and oaths, as requiring, what he terms, an 66 accommodating conscience"'—a dislike which he retained to the last. He could not stoop his giant stature beneath the low lintel of a test. He was too religious to be the mere partisan of any sect. From college he carried nothing with him but a whole conscience and the ordinary degree of A. M., for he never afterwards received another indeed the idea of Dr. Milton is ludicrous. As well almost speak of Dr. Isaiah, Professor Melchisedec, or Ezekiel, Esq.

His father, meanwhile, had retired from business, to Horton, Buckinghamshire, where the young Milton spent five years in solitary study. Of these years, little comparatively is known; but, to us, they seem among the most interesting of his life. Then the "dark foundations of his mind were laid" then, stored up those profound stores of learning, which were commensurate with his genius, and on which that genius fed, free and unbounded, as a fire feeds on a mighty forest. There, probably, much time was spent in the contemplation of natural scenery, and in the exercises of devotion; and there he composed those exquisite minor poems, which, alone, would have made his name immortal"L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "Comus," and "Lycidas." At the age of thirty, having obtained leave from his father