Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

From Wither we pass on to the great poet of that time, Milton, who, like Spenser, was Puritan in his sympathies, but who yet rises so much into the heaven of pure truth as to be above all parties.

CHAPTER XIII.

MILTON (1608—1674).

"HE who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter of laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem." These are Milton's own words, and we are going to see in his life and work how he sought to make of them " one grand sweet song; " for what is a poem but beautiful and noble thoughts put into verse? And if truth and love, self-denial and steadfastness to duty, courage and patience, are beautiful in words, must they not be far more beautiful and noble when they are expressed in life and work?

John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, on the 9th of December, 1608. His father had been cast off by his family in the Reformation times for becoming a Protestant; he had taste and genius in music, and is known as a writer of madrigals and hymn tunes. His mother was a woman of great gentleness and charity, and had somewhat delicate health. His first teacher was a Mr. Young, a Puritan minister, whom Milton loved through life as a second father.

When Milton was twelve years old he was sent to St. Paul's School (that school which Colet founded, and of which we have already heard); and no doubt as the little boy ran in and out, he often looked up at the statue of the holy child Jesus over the gate, with its motto, "Hear ye Him."

Milton was a busy student, even in his school-days;

the same earnest longing to reach the highest possible degree of excellence in his work, that he showed through life, often kept him up till midnight over his lessons; and his industry was quickened by his love for his teacher, the son of the head-master, Alexander Gill. Milton also

formed a strong and lasting friendship with one of his school-fellows, a boy named Charles Diodati, the son of a Protestant Italian physician, who had left his country for the sake of his religion, and had come to London. To him Milton, in later life, tells all his thoughts and feelings, and no doubt the boys spent many happy hours. of their school-days in talking together with the freedom. and trust of perfect sympathy over all they loved and enjoyed in the present, and hoped to be and do in the future.

Milton early showed his power as a poet. His first published verse was written when he was fifteen; and we must notice that he begins and ends his work as a poet with the expression of perfect trust in the love and wisdom of God. This was the anchor of his life, from the days when the bright, young school-boy, with all his life before him, wrote—

"Let us with a gladsome mind,

Praise the Lord, for He is kind;
For His mercies aye endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure,"

to the days when the blind, much-tried old man, his life closing, wrote his last words as a poet :

"All is best, though we oft doubt
What the unsearchable dispose
Of Highest Wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close."

Milton's hymn shows us something of the character of his mind in these early days. Another memorial of his

childhood remains in a picture of him at ten years old, painted by Jansen.

Milton stayed at school until he was sixteen. In addition to his school work, he read at home many books, which were lent to him by a printer who lived in the same street; and it was through him that Milton early read and learned to love Spenser's poetry, especially the "Faerie Queene." He had one sister, older than himself, and one brotherChristopher-seven years younger. In 1624 his sister married a Mr. Phillips; and early in the next year, Milton, then sixteen, went to Christ's College, Cambridge. It was soon after this, on March 27, 1625, that James I. died. Milton had had seven years of education at home and at school, and he now had seven years of study at the university. His father's wish was to train him for the Church, and he was resolved to give him every advantage which could best prepare him for this work.

But those studies, which would have trained Milton as a teacher of men in the Church, were giving him just the culture and training he needed for becoming a great teacher of men through literature. He felt that God had given him one of his highest gifts in making him a poet; and with that humble and earnest longing for the highest excellence in everything, Milton's thought now was, not to write at once a great poem, but to use every help of culture and intellectual growth, so as to rise to the fullest exercise of his powers before he began his life's work. Meantime, he wrote small poems at college, when any circumstance happened which touched his feelings and called forth a songas the little birds sing at the breaking of light on the dawn of a new morning, or when they meet in the spring-time. One of the first poems that Milton wrote thus was called forth by the death of his little niece, the first child of his sister Mrs. Phillips; and we may notice in it the tender, thoughtful way in which the young uncle of seventeen

speaks of the baby. He calls it "the fairest flower," "soft silken primrose;" and he cannot believe that even the sweet little body can turn to corruption; while of the soul he says:

"Oh no! for something in thy face did shine

Above mortality, that show'd thou wast divine."

He tries to follow the still living spirit through the heavenly world, and closes with words of comfort to his sister :

"Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false-imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild.
Think what a present thou to God has sent,
And render Him with patience what he lent."

The early dawn of the Christmas morning of 1629 called forth from Milton his "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity." He had risen when it was still dark and the stars were shining; he thought of the Wise Men bringing their gifts to the Holy Child, and he asks himself:

"Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome Him to this His new abode ?

O! run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at His blessed feet,

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet."

Then, as he looks out over the snow-covered land, it seems to him as though the earth had thrown "the saintly veil of maiden white" over her face this "happy morn to hide her shame of sin before the pure eyes of "her great Master;" and the silence of the early dawn reminds him of the peace that was upon earth when "the Prince of Light His reign of Peace upon the earth began." As the morn advances, the stars are still shining, and it seems to Milton as if they are unwilling on such a day—

« AnteriorContinuar »