Milton was not their characters as well as of a change of dress. "Cyriac, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear, Bereft of light their seeing have forgot, Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overply'd In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side. 66 This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Nothing can exceed the mild, subdued tone of this Sonnet, nor the striking grandeur of the concluding thought. It is curious to remark what seems to be a trait of character in the two first lines. From Milton's care to inform the reader that "his eyes were still clear to outward view of spot or blemish," it would be thought that he had not yet given up all regard to personal appearance; a feeling to which his singular beauty at an earlier age might be supposed naturally enough to lead. Of the political or (what may be called) his State-Sonnets, those to Cromwell, to Fairfax, and to the younger Vane, are full of exalted praise and dignified advice. They are neither familiar nor servile. The writer knows what is due to power and to fame. He feels the true, unassumed equality of greatness. He pays the full tribute of admiration for great acts achieved, and suggests becoming occasion to deserve higher praise. That to Cromwell is a proof how completely our poet maintained the erectness of his understanding and spirit in his intercourse with men in power. It is such a compliment as a poet might pay to a conqueror and head of the state, without the possibility of self-degradation. "Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, Hast rear'd God's trophies and his work pursued, Yet much remains To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war: new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains; Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw." The most spirited and impassioned of them all, and the most inspired with a sort of prophetic fury, is the one, entitled On the late Massacre in Piedmont. 66 Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones, Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans In the Nineteenth Sonnet, which is also On his blindness, we see the jealous watchfulness of his mind over the use of his high gifts, and the beautiful manner in which he satisfies himself that virtuous thoughts and intentions are not the least acceptable offering to the Almighty. "When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, Those to Mr. Henry Lawes on his Airs, and to Mr. Lawrence, can never be enough admired. They breathe the very soul of music and friendship. Both have a tender, thoughtful grace; and for their lightness, with a certain melancholy complaining intermixed, might be stolen from the harp of Æolus. The last is the picture of a day spent in social retirement and elegant relaxation from severer studies. We sit with the poet at table and hear his familiar sentiments from his own lips afterwards. "Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire, The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire He who of these delights can judge, and spare In the last, On his deceased Wife, the allusion to Alcestis is beautiful, and shows how the poet's mind raised and refined his thoughts by exquisite classical conceptions, and how these again were enriched by a passionate reference to actual feelings and images. It is this rare union that gives such voluptuous dignity and touching purity to Milton's delineation of the female character. 66 Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, And such, as yet once more I trust to have But O as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." There could not have been a greater mistake or a more unjust piece of criticism than to suppose that Milton only shone on great subjects; and that on ordinary occasions and in a familiar life, his mind was unwieldy, averse to the cultivation of grace and elegance, and unsusceptible of harmless pleasures. The whole tenor of his smaller compositions contradicts this opinion, which however they have been cited to confirm. The notion first got abroad from the bitterness (or vehemence) of his controversial writings, and has been kept up since with little meaning and with less truth. His Letters to Donatus and others are not more remarkable for the display of a scholastic enthusiasm, than for that of the most amiable dispositions. They are "severe in youthful virtue unreproved." There is a passage in his prose-works (the Treatise on Education) which shows, I think, his extreme openness and proneness to pleasing outward impressions in a striking point of view. "But to return to our own institute," he says, “besides these constant exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won from pleasure itself abroad. In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature, not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, but to ride out in companies with prudent and well staid guides, to all quarters of the land," &c. Many other passages might be quoted, in which the poet breaks through the ground-work of prose, as it were, by natural fecundity and a genial, unrestrained sense of delight. To suppose that a poet is not easily accessible to pleasure, or that he does not take an interest in individual objects and feelings, is to suppose that he is no poet; and proceeds on the false theory, which has been so often applied to poetry and the Fine Arts, that the whole is not made up of the particulars. If our author, according to Dr. Johnson's account of him, could only have treated epic, high-sounding subjects, he would not have been what he was, but another Sir Richard Blackmore. I may conclude with observing, that I have often wished that Milton had lived to see the Revolution of 1688. This would have been a triumph worthy of him, and which he would have earned by faith and hope. He would then have been old, but would not have lived in vain to see it, and might have celebrated the event in one more undying strain! |