OHN MILTON, the most illustrious of English poets, was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in the contests between the houses of York and Lancaster. His grandfather was under-ranger of the forest of Shotover in Oxfordshire, and being a zealous Roman Catholic, disinherited his son, of the same name, for becoming a Protestant. This son, when thus deprived of the family property, was a student at Christ Church, Oxford, but was now obliged to quit his studies, and going to London became a scrivener. That he retained his classical knowledge appears from his son addressing him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems; he was also a great proficient in music, a voluminous composer, and, in the opinion of Dr. Burney, equal in science, if not genius, to the best musicians of his age." He married a lady of the name of Custon, of a Welsh family. By her he had two sons, John the poet, Christopher, and Anne. Anne became the wife of Mr. Edward Phillips, a native of Shrewsbury, who was secondary to the Crown Office in Chancery. Christopher, applying himself to the study of the law, became a bencher of the Inner Temple, was knighted at a very advanced period of life, and raised by James II. first to be a baron of the Exchequer, and afterwards one of the judges of the Common Pleas. During the rebellion he adhered to the royal cause, and effected his composition with the republicans by the interest of his brother. In his old age he retired from the fatigues of business, and closed, in the country, a life of study and devotion. John Milton was born at his father's house in Bread Street, Cheapside, Dec. 9, 1608. From his earliest years his father appears to have discerned and with great anxiety cultivated his talents. He tells us himself that his father destined him when he was yet a child to the study of polite literature, and so eagerly did he apply, that from his twelfth year, he seldom quitted his studies till the middle of the night; this, however, he adds, proved the first cause of the ruin of his eyes, in addition to the natural weakness of which, he was afflicted with frequent headaches. Some part of his early education was committed to the care of Mr. Thomas Young, a Puritan minister; and he was also placed for some time at St. Paul's School, then under the direction of Mr. Alexander Gill, with whose son, Alexander, Milton seems to have contracted a warm and lasting friendship. In February, 1625, when in his seventeenth year, he was entered a pensioner at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he had for his tutor Mr. William Chappel, afterwards Bishop of Cork and Ross. Of his conduct and the treatment which he experienced in his college, much has been made the subject of dispute. The most serious charge brought against him is, that he was expelled, for which there seems no reasonable foundation whatever. The register of the college proves that he regularly kept his terms, and as regularly took both his degrees. A charge of less consequence, that he had once received corporal punishment, seems scarcely worth the pains that have been bestowed in refuting it, if, according to the latest of his zealous apologists, no injury to his reputation would be the necessary result of its admission. It is allowed, however, to be probable that he might offend the governors of his college by the dislike, early instilled into his mind by his tutor Young, of the discipline of the church, or the plan of education then observed. Whatever may be in this, he passed seven years at the University, and after taking his master's degree, retired to his father's house, at Horton in Buckinghamshire. During these seven years of college residence, his genius appeared in various attempts not unworthy of the future author of "Comus" and "Paradise Lost." He was a poet when he was only ten years old, and his translation of the 136th Psalm evinces his progress in poetic expression at the early age of fifteen. He renounced his original purpose of entering the church, for which he assigns as a reason, "that coming to some maturity of years, he had perceived what tyranny had pervaded it, and that he who would take orders, must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must either strain, perforce, or split his faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." These expressions have been supposed to allude to the articles of the church; but, as far as we know of Milton's theology, there was none of those articles to which he had any objection. It seems more reasonable therefore to conclude, that he considered subscription as involving an approbation of the form of church government, which, we know, was his abhorrence. He spent five years at his father's house at Horton, and during this time exhibited some of the finest specimens of his genius. The "Comus," in 1634, and the "Lycidas," in 1637, were written at Horton; and there is strong internal proof that the "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" were also composed here. The Mask of Comus was acted before the Earl of Bridgwater, the president of Wales, in 1634, at Ludlow Castle and the characters of the lady and her two brothers were represented by the Lady Alice Egerton, then about thirteen years of age, and her two brothers, Lord Brackley and Thomas Egerton, who were still younger. The story of this piece is said to have been suggested by the circumstance of the Lady Alice having been separated from her company in the night, and having wandered for some time by herself in the forest of Haywood, as she was returning from a distant visit to meet her father. This admirable drama was set to music by Lawes, and first published |