"giants in the earth" there were in those days, and what a strain of sublime and nervous eloquence and argument was poured forth by men like Milton, thoroughly imbued with a sincere and humble reverence for God, and an ardent and intense anxiety for the welfare of their fellow-men, arguing the most momentous topics, in a style worthy of them; although he was unfortunately, as I have already admitted, sometimes tempted to leave the course for personal digressions, utterly beneath himself and the subject, though pro voked to these intemperate sallies by the gross assaults of his opponent.* I shall read a few of these passages in justification of my praises, and as indicative of his motives of action. [Introduction to Church Government, vol. 1, p. 42.] Although divine inspiration must certainly have been sweet to the ancient prophets, yet the irksomeness of that truth which they brought was so unpleasant unto them, that every where they call it a burden.' Yea, that mysterious book of Revelation, which the great evangelist was bid to eat, as it had been some eye-brightening electuary of knowledge and foresight, though it were sweet in his mouth and in the learning, it was bitter in his belly, bitter in the denouncing. Nor was this hid from the wise poet Sophocles, who in that place of his tragedy, where Tiresias is called to resolve king Edipus, in a matter which he knew would be grievous, brings him in bemoaning his lot, that he knew more than other men. For to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser and molester of thousands; much better would it like him, doubtless, to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own true happiness....... For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it available in so dear a concernment as the Church's good.......By what hath been said, I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me upon this controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear lest the omitting of this duty should be against me, when I would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours: so, lest it should be still imputed to me, as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing humour of vain glory hath incited me to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years are upon my head; from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully, that which * Nothing could be more vile and irritating than some of the charges of Salmasius. in this exigent behoves me; although I would be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and learned reader, to whom, principally, for a while I shall beg leave I may address myself........ Lastly, I should not choose this manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of my left hand. And though I shall be foolish in saying more to this purpose, yet, since it will be such a folly as wisest men go about to commit, having only confessed and so committed, I may trust with more reason, because with more folly, to have courteous pardon. For although a poet soaring in the high reason cf his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him might, without apology, speak more of himself than I mean to do; yet for me sitting here below in the cool element of prose-a mortal being among many readers of no empyreal conceit, to venture and divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition the gentler sort, it may not be envy to me." After stating the favourable reception which his juvenile efforts had met with abroad, he says, "I then began to assent to my friends, and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,) joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die." And he gives various suggestions for a poem, which had at that time occurred to him, seeming apparently to lean to the chivalrous ages, as best adapted to afford him a subject. But he was evidently deeply impressed with the importance, and indeed the responsibility, of the Poetic gift-as appears from the subline passages in which he pledges himself to some epic, and wherein he lays open his 'inward promptings,' and his views of the preparation necessary to the great work. "These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune, to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness........ Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher humour of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame memory, and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who 1 can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases: to this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight to all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them." This was the pledge of the Paradise Lost-and we know howit was redeemed! The late Mr. Hazlitt, whose reputation as a critic is justly high, has said, in his Essay in the "Plain Speaker," on the "Prose Style of Poets," that Milton's prose has the "dis"advantage of being formed on a classic model. It is like "a fine translation from the Latin. The frequency of epi"thets and ornaments too, is a resource for which the poet "finds it difficult to obtain an equivalent. A direct or simple "prose style seems to him bald and flat; and, instead of "forcing an interest in the subject, by severity of description "and reasoning, he is repelled from it altogether by the ab66 sence of those meretricious allurements by which his senses "and his imagination have been hitherto stimulated and "dazzled." When I first read this passage, I confess I was considerably surprised at the latter portion of it, and I dissent from it on reflection, as on the first reading. The defect attributed at the commencement of it, to Milton's style, seems to be one which almost all critics have complained of; and their objection is best put by one whose authority on such a subject must be allowed to have the greatest weight, the late lamented Sir James Mackintosh. In his delightful Prelimimary Dissertation to the Supplement of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which should be carefully and constantly perused by every student desirous to learn the history of Moral Philosophy, and how to wield the powers of composition, he observes of Cudworth, that he was "educated before usage had limited the naturalization "of new words from the learned languages; before the "failure of those great men, from Bacon to Milton, "who laboured to follow a Latin order in their sentences; 66 "and the success of those men of inferior powers, from Cowley to Addison, who were content with the order, as "well as the words, of pure and elegant conversation-had "as it were by a double series of experiments ascertained "that the involutions and inversions of the ancient languages are seldom reconcileable with the genius of ours, and "unless skilfuly as well as sparingly introduced, are at vari"ance with the natural beauties of our prose composition." It is difficult, perhaps, to deny the justice of these remarks as matter of literary criticism, and we are therefore compelled to admit that the style adopted by Milton makes him "labour under disadvantage." But looking at the subject in a deeper point of view, I cannot help feeling that this imitation of the classic models was not without its use, and was indeed characteristic of the man. Whoever writes really on the classic models, must be thoroughly imbued with a reverence for, and must have caught the spirit of, his originals-the "mighty dead," who have exercised such a potent spell over the minds and destinies of men for ages; and who have spoken, and yet speak, through their glorious works. "Their glory illumines the gloom of the grave."With Milton, to write on such models was the necessity of a second nature; so habitual had been his converse with them, that he thought in their language and style, and was compelled to write in it. His mind was filled with those "Truths serene "Made visible in beauty, that shall glow "In everlasting freshness "Never waxing old; "But on the stream of Time, from age to age, 66 Casting bright images of heavenly truth, To him the sententious power of Tacitus, the dignified perspicuity of Livy, the simplicity of Cæsar, the majesty of Virgil, and the tenderness of Tibullus, were familiar; and the riches of the ancient world were brought as spoils to attend his triumphant march. The spirit of antiquity possessed him—and * Athenian Captive. Act 2. Scene 2. C I, for one, am well content to take the intricate involutions of his sentences as the price of that inspiration. For it is not only a proof of literary taste and judgment to write after these models, but it is also a strong mark of the character of the writer as a man. It stamps him as the possessor of that true characteristic of great and generous minds, the admiration and reverence of kindred genius and greatness; and he, you may be assured, is wanting in real philosophy and greatness himself, who is not full of belief in the aspirations. of his fellows, and an admirer of the greatness of others.But, whatever we may say to this first objection of the acute critic, how can we accede to the strange statement that Milton is ever "looking for meretricious ornaments, instead "of forcing an interest in the subject by severity of descrip"tion and reasoning?" Now I deny this as matter of fact; I challenge its truth; I appeal to all who have read Milton, upon it; and I beg to direct the attention of those among you who have not yet opened his precious volumes towards it. Nay, I ask, is it probable? is it possible? What! the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the man who left his pleasant journeys in the land of the Sun, the nursery of the arts, and more than even that, the "quiet and still air of delightful studies," for the heated political atmosphere of Britain; and plunged headlong into the controversies of that eventful age, from nothing but a strong sense of duty and a consciousness that it behoved every freeman to rouse himself for the contest-he, whose very enemies do not deny him the praise of sincerity, he is asserted to have argued those subjects which distracted the Empire and agitated all Europe, "not intent on forcing an interest in them by reason"ing," but constantly "looking out for meretricious orna"ments!" Strange, truly, that such a criticism should be made by any reflecting man who challenged the reputation of a critic, and especially a man who must have sympathized so strongly with the object of Milton's exertions as Mr. Hazlitt. Doctor Johnson, also, in his Life of Milton, quotes the noblest of the passages which I just read to you, and in the following page, after sneering at Milton's attempts at humour, (which it must be confessed are awkward-he was no |