LYCIDAS. (Editions of 1645 and 1673; prior printed copy in a volume of Cambridge Memorial Poems of 1638; and original Draft, in Milton's own hand, among the Cambridge MSS.) On the 9th of June 1626, when Milton had been for about sixteen months a student at Christ's College, Cambridge, there were admitted into that college, as appears from its records, two brothers, named King, sons of a Sir John King, knight, who was then living in Dublin, as a member of the Privy Council of Ireland and Secretary to the Irish Viceregal Government. The family was English; but various members of it besides Sir John held offices in Ireland. Sir John's brother, Edward King, for example, was bishop of the Irish see of Elphin. Both the young men had been born in Ireland: the elder, named Roger, near Dublin; and the younger, named Edward after his uncle, at Boyle in Connaught. At the date of their admission into Christ's College, Roger was sixteen years of age, and Edward fourteen. They had previously been pupils of Mr. Thomas Farnaby, one of the most noted schoolmasters of the time, whose school was then in Goldsmith's Rents, Cripplegate, London. The tutor under whose care they were put at Christ's College was Mr. William Chappell, who was also Milton's first tutor there, and who became afterwards Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and Dean of Cashel, and finally a bishop in the Irish Church. Edward King, the younger of the two brothers, seems to have been one of the most popular young men in Christ's College during Milton's residence there. He and Milton must have seen much of each other. They must have had frequent meetings in hall, at lecture, and in each other's rooms, and frequent walks about Cambridge together. Milton, we know, was indubitably the chief ornament of the little community, its ablest and noblest youth, supreme in everything; and, before he left college as M.A. in July 1632, aged twenty-three, this had come to be recognised. But, among those who had been his fellow-students in college, and whom he left behind him there, there were several of whom high things were expected. John Cleveland, afterwards known as a metrical satirist, 66 was one; and the future "Platonist," Henry More, who had joined the college just as Milton was about to leave it, was another. Probably, however, no one was more liked in the college, both by dons and by students, than Edward King. Indeed, before Milton left the college, King, by what looks now like a promotion over Milton's head, had become himself one of the dons. On June 10, 1630, the following royal mandate was addressed to the Master and Fellows of Christ's College: "Charles R.-Trusty and Well-beloved, We greet you well. Whereas We are given to understand that the Fellowship "of Mr. Andrew Sandelands of your college is shortly to be made. void, and being well ascertained both of the present sufficiency "and future hopes of a young scholar, Edward King, now B.A., We, "out of Our princely care that those hopeful parts in him may "receive cherishing and encouragement, are graciously pleased so "far to express Our royal intention towards him as hereby to will " and require you that, when the same Fellowship shall become void, "you do presently admit the said Edward King into the same, "notwithstanding any statute, ordinance, or constitution to the contrary." Had such college honours then gone by merit, Milton, then a B.A. of two years' standing, would have had a superior claim. As it was, however, King, though his junior by three years, and only just out of his undergraduateship, received the Fellowship, and thus took nominal precedence of Milton during Milton's last two years at Christ's. The royal mandate in King's favour was clearly owing to his family connexions and influence; but to so popular a young scholar the preferment does not appear to have been grudged. Not only was he a favourite on account of his amiable character; he really was, as the royal mandate represented him, a youth of "hopeful parts." This we learn, however, rather from tradition than from any specimens of his ability that have come down to us. The earliest of such specimens that I have found are in a volume put forth by the Cambridge University press late in 1631 under the title Genethli acum illustrissimorum principum Caroli et Mariæ a Musis Cantabrigiensibus celebratum. It consists of complimentary Latin pieces by some scores of Cambridge men, of different colleges, on the recent birth of the Princess Mary, the third child of Charles I., but with retrospective reference to the birth in the previous year (May 29, 1630) of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II. Among the contributors is Edward King, Fellow of Christ's College. He contributes four short Latin pieces,-one in hexameters, one in Horatian verse, and two in elegiacs. They are not very poetical or elegant, and indeed are rather bluntly prosaic. But in such customary verses of compliment to Royalty one had not much scope; and King had probably written better things, in Latin and in English, known to his fellow-collegians in Christ's, and to Milton among them. When Milton left the college, there seems to have been no one in it for whom he had a higher regard, morally at least, than Edward King. Five years had elapsed since then; during which Milton, living chiefly at his father's country place, at Horton in Buckinghamshire, some sixty miles from Cambridge, can have seen King but occasionally. He would still hear, however, of King's progress and continued popularity in his Fellowship. In July 1633, we find, King took his full degree of M.A.; and there are subsequent traces of him in the records of the college, while he was qualifying himself for the Church, the profession for which Milton also had been originally destined, but which he had abandoned. He was Tutor in Christ's College, as well as Fellow; and in 1634-5 he was "prælector," and the admissions into the college for that year are still to be seen in his handwriting in the college-books. At least six more specimens of his Latin versification are extant, belonging to this period. There is a copy of Latin Iambics by him in a volume of Cambridge University verses on the King's recovery from smallpox (1633); he furnished another copy of Latin Iambics to a similar collection of academic congratulations on the King's return from his coronation-visit to Scotland (July 1633); there are some commendatory Latin Iambics of King's prefixed to Senile Odium, a Latin play by Peter Hausted, M.A. of Queen's College, acted at Cambridge in 1631, but not published till 1633; he has a set of Latin elegiacs in a Cambridge collection of verses on the birth of the Duke of York (Oct. 1633); he has some Horatian stanzas in a similar volume on the birth of the Princess Elizabeth (Dec. 1635); and the latest thing of his I have seen is a copy of Latin Iambics in a collection of pieces, by no fewer than 140 Cambridge scholars, put forth on the birth of the Princess Anne (March 1636-7). Milton's hand does not appear in any of these collections,-verses eulogistic of Royalty not having been in Milton's way; but he may have seen some of the collections, and read King's contributions to them. He cannot, I am pretty sure, have thought much of them, any more than of their predecessors in the volume of 1631. But, as I have said, he liked King personally, and probably knew him to be capable of better things. Suddenly, this youth of golden opinions from all sorts of people, this young hope of Christ's College, was cut off. It was the Long Vacation of 1637, and he had arranged to visit his friends in Ireland. Proceeding by way of the English midland and western counties, and perhaps seeing friends in those parts, he took a passage on board a vessel sailing from Chester Bay for Dublin. The vessel had gone but a little way, was still on the Welsh coast, and not out into the open channel, when, on the 10th of August, in perfectly calm weather, she struck on a rock, not far from land, and foundered. Some seem to have escaped in a boat; but most went down with the ship, and among them Edward King. His body was never recovered. The news caused a profound sensation among all King's friends. As it was the time of the University vacation, when his collegefellows were scattered, it must have reached them separately, and some of them circuitously. Milton, we are to fancy, heard it at Horton, late in August 1637, or in the course of the following month. It had already been a sad year in the Horton household. The Plague, which had broken out in 1636, and whose ravages in various parts of England, and especially in London, were very alarming in 1637, had caused an unusual number of deaths in the neighbourhood of Horton. In the same unhealthy season, though not by the Plague itself, Milton's mother had died. She was buried, on the 6th of April, in Horton parish church, where the inscription "Heare lyeth the Body of Sara Milton, the wife of John Milton, who died the 3rd of April 1637" may be read to this day on a plain blue stone on the floor of the chancel. Milton was still walking about Horton with this loss in his mind, and the stone, with its inscription, may have just been put down over the grave, when there came the news of the shipwreck in the Irish Seas and of the drowning of Edward King with the other passengers. When the Cambridge colleges reassembled in Oct. 1637 after the Long Vacation, the melancholy death of poor King of Christ's was one of the first subjects of talk. It was proposed by somebody, or it suggested itself to more than one at once, that a volume of Memorial Verses should be prepared in his honour and published from the University press. Among the contributors to this volume were to be, of course, some of King's more immediate associates of Christ's College, from whom he had parted so lately on his fatal journey; but friends of his in other colleges, and relatives and former acquaintances out of Cambridge, might be expected to co-operate. Either Milton was thought of and applied to, or he had heard of the project and had volunteered his assistance. In November 1637, as appears from a dating at the head of the original draft of Lycidas in Milton's own hand among the Milton MSS. at Cambridge, he wrote that poem, entitling it simply "LYCIDAS." This was to be his contribution to the intended memorial volume. The volume, probably because other contributors were not so ready as Milton, did not appear till early in 1638. It consisted of two collections of pieces, printed by the University printers, Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel, and separately paged, so that they might be bound either separately or together. The one was a collection of twenty-three Latin and Greek pieces occupying 35 pages of small quarto, and entitled "Justa Edovardo King naufrago ab amicis mærentibus, amoris et μveías xápiv” (“Rites to Edward King, drowned by shipwreck, in love and remembrance by his sorrowing friends "); the other consisted of thirteen pieces of English verse, occupying 25 pages of the same size, and with this title, bordered with black, on the front page: Obsequies to the memorie of Mr. Edward King, Anno Dom. 1638." Prefixed to the Latin and Greek collection is a Latin paragraph, in one long and very involved sentence, of which, on account of the particulars contained in it, we give a translation, as follows:-" P. M. S.-Edward King (son of John, knight, and Privy Councillor for the Kingdom of Ireland to their Majesties, "Elizabeth, James, and Charles), Fellow of Christ's College in the "University of Cambridge, happy in the consciousness and in the "fame of piety and erudition, and one in whom there was nothing "immature except his age, was on a voyage to Ireland, drawn by "natural affection to visit his native country, his relatives and his friends, chiefly, his brother, Sir Robert King, knight, a most distinguished man; his sisters, most excellent women, Anne, wife "of Lord G. Caulfield, Baron Charlemont, and Margaret, wife of "Lord G. Loder, Chief Justice of Ireland; the venerable prelate "Edward King, Bishop of Elphin, his godfather; and the most "reverend and learned William Chappell, Dean of Cashel and 66 66 |
