Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

to trace the mental history of Milton, will be interested by the evidences they show of the ripening of his poetic genius, and of that tendency of his mind to the sublimity of sacred subjects, to which we, doubtless, owe the Paradise Lost. This is chiefly evinced in the lines in which, speaking of Voice and Verse personified as sisters, he says, that they are

Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce,
And to our high raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne,
To Him that sits thereon,

With saintly shout and solemn jubilee :
Where the bright Seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host in thousand quires

Touch their immortal harps of golden wires.

In this passage, as Dr. Symmons observes, we acknowledge some touches prelusive to the Paradise Lost.

The prose compositions which have descended to us, produced in the retirement of Milton's college life, are chiefly academical exercises; and five letters, four of which are addressed in Latin to the tutors of his earlier youth, and one in English, the manuscript of which is still preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, written to a friend who had exhorted him to quit the pursuits of literature for the more active occupations of life. Some passages in the latter require to be reproduced here as beautiful indications of the singular loftiness of his sentiments. After designating that time of his life which was as yet obscure and unserviceable to mankind," and declaring of his present studies that they were "according to the precept of my conscience, which I firmly trust is not without God," he proceeds thus: "If you think, as you said, that too much learning is in fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my years in the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion with the Moon, as the tale of Latmus goes; yet consider, that if it were no more but the mere love of

66

Learning, whether it proceeds from a principle bad, good, or natural, it could not have held out thus long against so strong opposition on the other side of every kind. For if it be bad, why should not all the fond hopes that forward youth and vanity are fledged with, together with gain, pride, and ambition, call me forward more powerfully than a poor, regardless, and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me, whereby a man cuts himself off from all action, and becomes the most helpless, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world; the most unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most aspire to, either to be useful to his friends, or to offend his enemies. Or if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there is against that a much more potent inclination inbred, which about this time of a man's life solicits most, the desire of house and family of his own, to which nothing is esteemed more helpful than the early entering into creditable employment, and nothing hindering than his affected solitariness. And though this were enough, yet there is to this another act, if not of pure, yet of refined nature, no less available to dissuade prolonged obscurity, a desire of honour, and repute, and immortal fame, seated in the breast of every true scholar, which all make haste to by the readiest ways of publishing and divulging conceived merits, as well those that shall as those that never shall obtain it. Nature, therefore, would presently work the more prevalent way, if there were nothing but this inferior bent of herself to restrain her. Lastly, the love of learning, as it is the pursuit of something good, it would sooner follow the more excellent and supreme good known and presented, and so be quickly diverted from the empty and fantastic chase of shadows and notions to the solid good flowing from due and timely obedience to that command in the gospel set out by the terrible seizing of him that hid the talent. It is more probable, therefore, that not the endless delight of speculation, but this very consideration of that great command

ment, does not press forward, as soon as many do, to undergo, but keeps off with a sacred reverence and religious advisement how best to undergo; not taking thought of being late, so it give advantage to be more fit; for those that were latest lost nothing when the master of the vineyard came to give each one his hire."

This letter is enriched with one of Milton's early sonnets, which, in common with the foregoing passage, exhibits that combination of modesty and earnestness of purpose, which is the invariable accompaniment of true greatness. It is as follows:

How soon has Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
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 indu'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,

Towards which time leads me and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-master's eye.

In the beginning of the year 1629, Milton took his bachelor's degree, and, in due course, proceeded to that of master of arts, when he finally quitted the university. The bitter enemies whom his subsequent career arrayed against him, have attempted to derive from this, the obscurest period of his life, the means of casting a reflection upon his spotless fame. Much time and labour have been unnecessarily wasted in rebutting these calumnies. I will endeavour to dispose of them with greater brevity. The story of his having been subjected to corporal chastisement at his college, though argued with ridiculous ingenuity by several of his biographers, and treated with equally ridiculous solemnity by Dr. Johnson, does not deserve the notice of any

writer who is not enthralled by a party purpose, and committed to a "foregone conclusion." Even were it possible to suppose that the incident occurred, the foregoing notices sufficiently attest that it must have been undeserved; and the censure must therefore be transferred from the conduct of Milton to the semi-catholic regulations of the university, and the incapacity and caprice of its administrators. But, apart from this, the statement itself rests on no evidence that is deserving of a moment's consideration. The calumniators of Milton chiefly rely upon a line in one of his Latin epistles to his friend, Charles Deodati, which cannot be tortured by any ingenuity to such an interpretation.* In addition to this, it is notorious that the statutes of the university prohibited the infliction of any such punishment upon a student of Milton's age.

It has been further argued, that the distaste which Milton repeatedly indicated to Cambridge, both as a locality unfavourable to the inspirations of poetry, to which, as we have seen, he was passionately devoted, and also as arising from the manners and habits of the university, goes to prove his unpopularity at his college; and one opponent has even been so unscrupulous as to intimate that he was sent away from the university for a time, in consequence of his immorality. It is scarcely necessary to refute a calumny the falsehood of which is so obvious. With respect to the torpifying influence of the local scenery, the testimony of the poet Gray may be added to that of every man of ordinary taste who has been compelled to traverse the wearisome flats of Cambridgeshire.† As to the more serious minas perferre magistri,

Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.

+ Some of my readers will be reminded of the incurable disgust with which the vicinity of Cambridge affected the late Robert Hall. He once described it in conversation as "Nature laid out;" and when alluding to the scarcity of wood in the neighbourhood, and having been reminded of the willows which abound there, characteristically replied, "Yes, Sir, Nature holding out signals of distress!"

portion of the charge, we may safely cite the defensive statements of Milton himself, written at a time when, if false, they were open to a disgraceful refutation from a thousand quarters. In his Apology for Smectymnuus, which will hereafter be noticed in its proper place, the following declaration was extorted from him by the malice of his opponents :-" I must be thought, if this libeller (for now he shows himself to be so) can find belief, after an inordinate and riotous youth spent at the university, to have been at length vomited out thence. For which commodious lie, that he may be encouraged in the trade another time, I thank him; for it hath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge publickly, with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect which I found above any 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 would 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. Which being likewise propense to all such as were for their studious and civil life worthy of esteem, I could not wrong their judgments and upright intentions, so much as to think I had that regard from them for other cause, than that I might be still encouraged to proceed in the honest and laudable courses of which they apprehended I had given good proof. And to those ingenuous and friendly men, who were ever the countenancers of virtuous and hopeful wits, I wish the best and happiest things that friends in absence wish one to another." In his "Second Defense," published twelve years after the "Apology for Smectymnuus," he again asserts the purity of his college life; and affirms, in opposition to his adversary's calumnies, that he passed seven years at the university, pure from every blemish, and in possession of the esteem of the good, till he took with applause his degree

C

« AnteriorContinuar »