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CHAPTER VI

MILTON'S IDEAL POET

'Poetas equidem vere dictos et diligo et colo, et audiendo saepissime delector," writes Milton, and, in describing the true poet, he epitomizes his theory of fine art, and gives the crowning expression of his humanism. His ideal is one of beauty and strength, elevated and magnanimous; for in Milton's eyes the poet before all else is an inspired interpreter, standing midway between the people and a great vision, and measuring the excellence of his art by its contribution to human welfare. In his endowment there must be combined three qualities: an original bent, an ability for steady and accurate observation, and a capacity for sustained application. By the Hellenism or humanism in Milton's estimate, the poet is vitally connected with society. But his consecration to mankind brings with it a right to many hours of musing, and many years of that 'learned and liberal leisure,' which in Milton's opinion is 'nutritive to ... genius and conservative of its good health';2 he comes to the active life of society from a kingdom of God established within himself. In youth he is dedicated to study, observation, and thought; throughout his life, to the speculative activity that issues, as Dante said of Saint Bernard, in a 'lively charity."

12 Defence, Works 6.273. Trans. by Fellowes, 6.387: "True poets are the objects of my reverence and my love, and the constant sources of my delight.'

'Prolus. 7, Works 7.456-457, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1.297. 'Vivace carità.' See Paradiso 31.109-110.

With this general notion of the poet in mind, we turn to examine his training. To begin with, he is allowed by Milton his dreams upon Parnassus, for, like other men, the poet passes through his acts or ages; as he contemplates his boyish visions

On summer eves by haunted stream,1

or in 'trim gardens' holds youthful converse with the Muse, he is but stamping upon an early scene the rare and exquisite shape of its 'decorum.' Touched with a dignity not always accorded to the immature-but a dignity as spirited as it is gracious, for Milton's bard could interpose 'a cheerful hour,' and waste, or even 'drench in mirth,' 'a sullen day' -the youth of the ideal poet is a beautiful and inviolate period. Of his own indulgence in the leisure cherished by artists and wise men since the world began, Milton speaks in the seventh of his Prolusiones Oratoriae:

This I would fain believe to be the divine sleep of Hesiod; these to be Endymion's nightly meetings with the moon; this to be that retirement of Prometheus, under the guidance of Mercury, to the deepest solitudes of Mount Caucasus, where he became the wisest of gods and men, so that even Jupiter himself is said to have gone to consult him about the marriage of Thetis. I call to witness for myself the groves and rivers, and the beloved village-elms, under which in the last past summer (if it is right to speak the secrets of the goddesses) I remember

1 L'All. 130.

Il Pens. 50.

'See Elegia 6. 55-78, where the austere and simple life appropriate to the writer of heroic poems is described.

'Cf. Letter to a Friend (1632? 1633?), in Masson, Life of Milton 1.324: 'If you think that too much love of 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.' Compare Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 10.8 (trans. by Welldon, p. 341), where the myth of Endymion's sleep is differently employed, in illustration of complete inactivity.

with such pleasure the supreme delight I had with the Muses; where I, too, amid rural scenes and sequestered glades, seemed as if I could have vegetated through a hidden eternity.1

To the 'incomparable youth' of the poet belong also admirations, not less real because transient, and aspirations which were the forerunners of achievement. Milton, it seems, put away childish things with a gentle hand, and remembered with Sidney that 'most men are childish in the best things till they be cradled in their graves,' and yet also with Dante that 'it is meet both to speak and to act differently at different ages.' He writes:

I had my time, Readers, as others have, who have good learning bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places where the opinion was it might be soonest attained; and, as the manner is, was not unstudied in those authors which are most commended; whereof some were grave orators and historians, whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was, so I understood them. Others were the smooth elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce. Whom, both for the pleasing sound of their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easy, and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and for their matter, which what it is there be few who know not, I was so allured to read, that no recreation came to me better welcome. For that it was then those years with me which are excused though they be least severe, I may be saved the labor to remember ye.

And now the apology strikes a lofty note, for Milton reveres the young poet's ambition:

When, [he continues,] having observed them to account it the chief glory of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that could esteem themselves worthiest to love, those high perfections which under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself

'Prolus. 7, Works 7.457, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1. 297

-298.

Cf. Bucer: Divorce, (To the Parliament), Works 4.293. The expression shows Milton's pleasure in the gracious boyhood of Edward VI.

by every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false, that what emboldened them to this task might, with such diligence as they used, embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my share would herein best appear, and best value itself, by how much more wisely and with more love of virtue I should choose (let rude ears be absent) the object of not unlike praises. For albeit these thoughts to some will seem virtuous and commendable, to others only pardonable, to a third sort perhaps idle, yet the mentioning of them now will end in serious. Nor blame it, Readers, in those years to propose to themselves such a reward as the noblest dispositions above other things in this life have sometimes preferred.1 Whereof not to be sensible, when good and fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and withal an ungentle and swainish breast.2

But the industrious leisure of the youthful poet, his dreams of accomplishment and of fame, in all likelihood even his early attempts at the making of verse, were regarded by Milton as merely the 'delightful intermissions' that varied the hours of mental discipline, and relieved 'the continual plodding and wearisomeness' without which 'no worthy enterprise can be done'; for it was by devoted labor and study that the poet made ready for the work of his life. The curriculum proposed in the tractate Of Education, however exacting and comprehensive, aimed at nothing more than to fit 'poor striplings' to become honorable citizens; and Milton must certainly have thought an even more severe and liberal discipline essential to the young poet, who, a spirit 'elect above the rest,' was to become through his art a leader of his fellows. If the orator,

1Cf. Lycidas 70-71.

'An Apology, Works 3.269–270.

Tetrachordon (Gen. 2. 18), Works 4.155.

See the account given by Phillips of the study done by himself and his brother under Milton's direction, Life of Milton, in Of Education [etc.], ed. by Lockwood, pp. lxv ff.

moreover, dealing with temporary and particular interests, must, as we learn from one of the Prolusions, be 'instructed, and finished with a certain circular subsidy of all the arts and all science," how much more the poet, who deals with universal and eternal truth.

Because Milton so early became assured of his own purpose in life, and prepared himself with a single mind for its accomplishment, what he says of his elementary education, and of his more mature studies, should indicate the sort of training to which he would subject the poet. From abundant autobiographical data, we select a few passages. The first discloses Milton's eagerness for such universal learning as Scaliger ascribed to Virgil, or as Wordsworth had in mind when he called poetry 'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, . . . the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.' It is taken from Milton's versified epistle to his father:

To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,

The earth beneath it, and the air between,

The rivers and the restless deep, may all

Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will; Science herself,

All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,
And offers me the lip, if dull of heart

I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon.3

This courageous educational programme we may supplement by the youthful Milton's exhortation to fearless and unremitting diligence:

If from boyhood we allow no day to pass without its lessons and diligent study, if in art we wisely omit what is foreign, superfluous,

1 Prolus. 7, Works 7.456, trans. by Masson, Life of Milton 1.297.
'Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800), Prose Works, ed. by Knight, 1.62.
'Ad Patrem 86-92, trans. by Cowper, p. 607.

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