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THE    LIFE 

OF 

JOHN    MILTON: 

NARRATED   IN  CONNEXION   WITH 
THE    POLITICAL,    ECCLESIASTICAL,    AND    LITERARY 

HISTORY  OF  HIS  TIME. 

UY 

DAVID  MASSON,  M.A.,  LL.D., 

PROFESSOR   OF   RHETORIC   AND   ENGLISH   LITERATURE 
IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   EDINBURGH. 

VOL.    I. 

1608—1639. 

NSW  AND  REVISED  EDITION. 


MACMILLAN    AND     CO. 

1881. 

[The  Right  of  Tramlation  is  Reserved.] 


PK 

35SI 


1  88.1 

v.l 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION  OF  VOL.  I. 


THE  most  authentic  and  important  information  respecting 
Milton  is  to  be  derived  from  his  own  writings.  While  all 
of  them,  in  every  part,  reveal  the  man  and  represent  his 
life,  and  while  there  are  few  of  them  from  which  facts  of 
the  external  kind  may  not  be  gathered,  there  are  portions 
of  them  which  are  expressly  and  even  minutely  autobio 
graphical.  As  respects  the  period  embraced  in  the  present 
volume,  these  portions  may  be  enumerated  as  follows : — 
I.  Among  his  prose  writings  in  English  and  in  Latin  at  a 
later  period,  there  are  several  in  which  he  gives  summaries, 
er  at  least  connected  reminiscences,  of  the  facts  of  his  pre 
ceding  life.  The  most  notable  passages  of  this  kind  occur 
perhaps  in  his  Reason  of  Church  Government  (1641),  his 
Apology  for  8mectymnuus  (1642),  and  his  Defensio  Secunda 
pro  Populo  Anglicano  (1654).  These  and  similar  passages 
have  been  duly  attended  to,  and,  where  necessary,  are  repro 
duced  textually.  II.  All  Milton's  minor  poetry,  whether 
in  English  or  in  Latin,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  English 
sonnets  and  one  or  two  trifles  in  Latin,  &c. — in  other  words, 
almost  all  that  he  wrote  in  verse  during  his  whole  life,  be 
sides  Paradise  Lost,  Paradise  Regained,  and  Samson  Agonistes 
— belongs  to  the  period  of  this  volume.  The  pieces  number, 
in  all,  from  five-and-forty  to  fifty,  longer  or  shorter ;  and, 
having  been  produced,  most  of  them,  on  special  occasions, 
and  sometimes  with  reference  to  passing  incidents  in  the 
poet's  life,  they  have  an  unusual  interest  for  the  biographer. 
About  half  of  them,  being  in  English,  are  generally  known, 
— some  of  them,  indeed,  such  as  the  Ode  on  the  Nativity, 
L} Allegro  and  II  Penseroso,  Comus  and  Lycidas,  being 
among  the  best  known  poems  in  the  English  language. 
With  these,  accordingly,  my  duty  has  chiefly  been  to  men 
tion  them  in  their  proper  chronological  order,  to  examine 
them  afresh  with  a  view  to  extract  their  biographical  import, 
and  to  set  each  of  them  successively,  as  exactly  as  might  be, 
in  its  topographical  and  historical  connexions.  As  regards 
VOL.  i.  « 


VI  PREFACE    TO    FIEST    EDITION. 

tlie  equally  numerous  Latin  poems  of  the  series  (and  the 
few  Italian  poems  may  be  included)  more  has  been  required 
of  me.  Though  fully  as  characteristic  as  the  English  poems, 
and  though  perhaps  richer  in  biographical  allusions,  they 
have  been  much  less  read ;  and  it  has  been  a  part  of  my 
purpose  to  bring  them  forward  again  to  that  place  of  co 
ordinate  or  nearly  co-ordinate  importance  with  their  English 
associates  from  which  the  petty  accident  of  their  being  in 
Latin  has  too  long  excluded  them.  To  this  end,  I  have 
either  given  an  account  of  each  of  them  by  way  of  descrip 
tion  and  abstract,  or,  where  requisite,  have  ventured  on  a 
literal  prose  translation.  III.  To  the  period  of  this  volume 
there  also  belong  nine  of  Milton's  Latin  "  Familiar  Epistles  " 
and  one  English  letter  of  his.  These  are  inserted  in  their 
proper  places,  the  Latin  Epistles  being  translated,  I  believe, 
for  the  first  time.  The  same  applies  to  certain  letters  to 
Milton,  and  to  certain  encomiums  addressed  to  him  in  Latin 
and  Italian.  IV.  Less  known  than  any  portion  of  Milton's 
Latin  writings,  nay,  I  may  say,  utterly  unknown,  are  certain 
Latin  compositions,  also  of  our  present  period,  forming  a 
little  series  by  themselves,  distinguished  by  peculiar  charac 
teristics,  and  full  of  biographical  light.  I  allude  to  his  s@- 
called  Prolusiones  Oratorice,  or  Academic  Essays  and  Exer 
cises,  written  while  he  was  a  student  at  Cambridge.  These 
are  seven  in  number ;  they  occupy  a  considerable  space  ; 
they  are  on  different  subjects,  and  in  different  moods, — 
exactly  the  kind  of  things  which,  if  dug  up  unexpectedly  in 
manuscript,  would  be  accounted  a  prize  by  the  biographer. 
And  yet,  though  they  have  been  in  print  since  1674, 1  really 
have  found  no  evidence  that  as  many  as  ten  persons  have 
read  them  through  before  me.  They  would  probably  have 
never  been  read  by  me  either,  had  they  not  come  in  my 
way  as  material ;  but,  having  read  them,  I  have  deemed  it 
my  duty  to  edit  them  as  distinctly  as  possible,  by  describing 
each  and  translating  all  the  more  interesting  parts. 

Except  where  there  is  indication  to  the  contrary,  the 
edition  of  Milton  to  which  I  make  my  references  is  that  in 
eight  volumes,  containing  both  the  poetry  and  the  prose, 
published  by  Pickering  in  1851.  A  new  edition,  based  on 
this,  is  in  preparation  under  the  editorship  of  the  Rev. 
J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  M.A.,  and  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge ;  which,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  be  as  handsome 
and  more  correct. 

The  first  published  memoir  of  Milton  of  which  it  is  neces 
sary  to  take  account  was  that  included  in  Anthony  Wood's 


PREFACE   TO    FIRST    EDITION.  Vll 

great  work,  the  Athenae  et  Fasti  Ovonienses  (first  edition, 
1691-2).  The  circumstance  that  Milton  had  been  incor 
porated  as  M.A.  at  Oxford  brought  him  within  Wood's 
scheme ;  and  the  memoir  occurs  in  the  Fasti  under  the  year 
of  the  incorporation,  1635  (Fasti  I.  480—486,  in  Bliss's 
edition).  In  addition  to  Wood's  noble  constitutional  accu 
racy,  we  have,  in  authentication  of  what  is  set  down  in  this 
memoir,  the  fact  that  Wood  was  Milton's  contemporary, 
being  in  his  forty-second  year  when  Milton  died,  and  in 
circumstances,  therefore,  to  ascertain  much  about  him. 
Moreover,  though  Wood  may  have  derived  his  information 
from  various  persons,  we  know  that  his  chief  informant  was 
the  antiquarian  and  gossip  John  Aubrey  (1626 — 1697),  who 
had  been  personally  acquainted  with  Milton,  and  who  took 
unusual  pains  to  obtain  particulars  respecting  him  from  his 
widow,  his  brother  Christopher  Milton,  and  others.  Ever 
since  1667,  when  Wood,  being  near  the  end  of  his  first 
great  work,  the  "  History  and  Antiquities  of  Oxford,"  was 
looking  forward  to  the  Athenae  and  Fasti  as  its  sequel, 
Aubrey,  then  a  fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  much  out 
in  the  world  of  London,  had  been  one  of  his  correspondents, 
catering  for  information  for  him.  Accordingly,  in  a  letter 
from  Aubrey  to  Wood,  of  date  January  12,  1674-5,  which 
I  have  seen  among  the  Aubrey  MSS.  in  the  Ashmolean,  the 
then  recent  burial  of  Milton  is  mentioned,  among  other 
news,  thus:  —  "Mr.  J.  Milton  is  buried  at  St.  Giles's, 
Cripplegate,  which  [i.  e.  the  grave]  I  will  also  see."  In 
subsequent  letters,  Aubrey  promises  to  send  Wood  an 
account  of  the  grave,  and  to  procure  him  other  particulars 
about  Milton  ;  and  in  one  he  records  this  interesting  fact : — 
"  Mr.  Marvell  has  promised  me  to  write  minutes  for  you  of 
Mr.  Jo.  Milton,  who  lies  buried  in  St.  Giles  Cripplegate 
Church."  This  letter  is  of  date  May  18,  1675;  but  in  a 
subsequent  letter  Aubrey  has  to  record  Marv ell's  own 
burial — "  Andrew  Marvell  sepult.  in  St.  Giles's  Church  in 
the  Fields,  18  Aug.,  1678" — the  interesting  promise  still 
apparently  unfulfilled.  Aubrey  himself,  now  a  poor  man, 
but  industrious  in  gossip  as  ever,  undertakes  what  Marvell 
had  promised  ;  and,  accordingly,  among  the  mass  of  papers, 
entitled  Minutes  o^Lives,  which  he  sent  to  Wood  in  1680, 
and  which  Wood  used  in  his  Athenae  and  Fasti,  a  space 
was  assigned  to  Milton  larger  than  to  almost  any  other  of 
the  numerous  celebrities  whom  Aubrey  had  included  in  his 
researches.  Aubrey  was  a  credulous  person,  "  roving  and 
magotie-headed,"  as  Wood  had  occasion  to  describe  him, 


Vlll  PEEFACE    TO   FIRST   EDITION. 

and  sometimes  stuffing  his  letters  with.  "  folliries  and  misin 
formations^^  ;  but  he  was  "a  very  honest  man,"  says  Toland, 
and  "most  accurate"  in  what  came  within  his  own  notice; 
and,  if  there  is  one  of  all  his  graphic  memoirs  and  sketches 
which  is  more  painstaking  and  minutely  curious  than  the 
rest,  it  is  his  Memoir  of  Milton.  After  it  had  been  partly 
used  by  Wood,  however,  it  lay,  with  the  other  bundles  of 
"  Minutes,"  among  the  MSS.  in  the  Ashmolean,  sometimes 
heard  of  and  cited,  but  seldom  seen,  till  the  year  1813,  when 
all  the  (f  Minutes  "  together,  sifted  hastily  and  not  completely 
or  exactly  from  the  very  confused  papers  which  contained 
them,  were  published  in  the  volumes  known  as  the  "  Bod 
leian  Letters."  The  greater  and  by  far  the  richest  part  of 
these  volumes  consisting  of  Aubrey's  Lives ,  the  volumes 
themselves  sometimes  go  by  that  name;  and,  since  they 
were  published,  they  have  been  a  fresh  source  of  information 
respecting  Milton,  nearer  to  the  fountain-head  than  Wood's 
Memoir.  An  edition  of  Aubrey's  sketch  of  Milton  by  itself, 
more  correctly  taken  from  the  original  MS.,  was  appended 
by  Godwin  to  his  "  Lives  of  Edward  and  John  Phillips," 
published  in  1815 ;  to  which  also  was  appended  a  reprint  of 
the  third  original  Memoir  of  Milton  in  order  of  time, — that 
by  Milton's  nephew  and  pupil,  Edward  Phillips.  This 
memoir  was  originally  prefixed  by  Phillips  to  his  English 
edition  of  Milton's  "  Letters  of  State,"  published  in  a  small 
volume  in  1694.  The  date  of  the  publication,  and  the 
relationship  of  the  author  to  Milton,  give  Phillips' 's  Memoir 
a  peculiar  value ;  and  it  contains  facts  not  related  by  Aubrey 
or  Wood. 

These  three  memoirs,  by  Aubrey,  Wood,  and  Phillips, — 
all  of  them  in  brief  compass,  and  therefore  cited  by  me,  when 
there  is  occasion,  simply  by  the  names  of  their  authors, — 
are  the  earliest  published  sources  of  information  respecting 
Milton,  apart  from  his  own  writings.  Tolaiid's  Life  of 
Milton,  originally  prefixed  to  an  edition  of  Milton's  prose 
works  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1698  in  two  volumes  folio, 
and  printed  separately,  with  additions,  in  1699  and  in  1761, 
might  have  added  more  to  our  knowledge,  had  not  the 
author's  peculiar  ideas  of  biography  prevented  him  from 
using  the  opportunities  which  he  had.  He  did,  however, 
add  something. 

Among  the  subsequent  biographies  of  Milton,  and  con 
tributions  to  his  biography,  it  is  enough  to  note  those  which 
either  added  to  the  stock  of  facts,  or  tended,  in  a  conspicuous 
manner,  to  increase  or  vary  the  impression.  The  "  Explan- 


PREFACE    TO    FIRST   EDITION.  IX 

atory  Notes  on  Paradise  Lost "  by  the  two  Richardsons, 
including  affectionate  details  respecting  the  poet's  habits, 
appeared  in  1734.  Birch's  Memoir  was  prefixed  to  his 
edition  of  Milton's  Prose  Works  in  1738,  and  again  to  his 
second  edition  of  the  same  in  1753.  Peck's  silly  medley  of 
odds  and  ends,  entitled  "New  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and 
Poetical  Works  of  Mr.  John  Milton/'  appeared  in  1740. 
Johnson's  memorable  Life  of  the  Poet  was  written  in  1779. 
In  1785  Thomas  Warton  published  his  first  edition  of 
Milton's  Minor  Poems,  illustrated  with  notes  biographical 
and  critical ;  and  a  second  edition  of  the  same  appeared  in 
1791.  Incorporating  Warton's  Notes  and  those  of  other 
critics  and  commentators,  Todd  produced,  in  1801,  his 
standard  variorum  edition  of  Milton's  Poetical  Works,  in 
six  volumes,  enlarged  into  seven  in  the  subsequent  edition 
of  1809,  and  again  contracted  into  six  in  the  edition  of  1826. 
Prefixed  to  the  first  of  these  editions  was  Todd's  Account 
of  the  Poet's  Life, — modified  by  new  information  in  the 
subsequent  editions.  Almost  contemporaneously  with  Todd's 
second  edition  of  the  Poetical  Works  appeared  a  new  edition 
of  the  Prose  Works  by  Charles  Symmons,  D.D.  (1806),  also 
with  a  Memoir.  Todd's  Life,  in  the  edition  of  1826,  may 
be  said  to  have  been  the  last  formal  Biography  of  the  Poet 
till  the  publication  of  Pickering's  edition  of  the  complete 
works  in  1851,  with  the  preliminary  Life  by  the  Rev.  John 
Mitford.  In  the  same  year  appeared  Mr.  C.  R.  Edmonds's 
Biography,  especially  designed  to  bring  out  Milton's  eccle 
siastical  principles.  There  has  since  been  added  to  the  list 
Mr.  Keightley's  succinct  and  clear  account  of  the  Life  and 
Writings  of  the  Poet  (1856),  accompanying  his  disquisitions 
on  Milton's  opinions  and  the  several  portions  of  the  poetry. 
Among  the  fruits  of  recent  Miltonic  inquiries  ought  also  to 
be  mentioned  Mr.  Hunter's  valuable  pamphlet  entitled 
Milton:  A  Sheaf  of  Gleanings  (1850),  the  valuable  Milton 
Pagers  edited  for  the  Chetham  Society  by  Mr.  John 
Fitchett  Marsh  (1851),  and  various  contributions  to  Notes 
and  Queries. 

When  Southey,  many  years  ago,  spoke  of  a  Life  of  Milton 
as  "  yet  a  desideratum  in  our  literature,"  he  had  in  view, 
among  other  things,  the  fact  that  almost  every  Life  till  then 
published  had  been  written  as  an  introductory  memoir  to 
some  edition  or  other  of  the  Poet's  works,  and  on  a  scale 
corresponding  to  that  purpose.  Useful  as  such  summaries 
of  facts  are,  they  do  not  answer  to  the  notion  that  might  be 
formed  of  a  Biography  of  Milton  considered  as  an  inde- 


X  PREFACE    TO    FIEST    EDITION. 

pendent  work.  It  is  surely  not  consistent  with  proper  ideas 
of  Biography,  for  example,  that  such  a  man  as  Milton  should 
be  whirled  on  to  the  thirty- second  year  of  his  life  in  the 
course  of  a  few  pages,  the  more  especially  when,  in  that 
period  of  his  life,  he  had  already  done  much  that  we  now 
associate  with  his  name,  and  had  shown  himself  potentially 
all  that  he  was  ever  to  be. 

In  preparing  the  present  volume,  I  have,  of  course,  availed 
myself  of  such  information  as  I  could  find  gathered  by  my 
predecessors ;  but,  on  the  whole,  from  the  rapidity  with  which 
they  pass  over  this  period  of  the  Life,  the  amount  of  such 
information,  in  addition  to  that  yielded  by  the  original 
authorities,  has  not  been  great.  I  except  the  Notes  of 
Warton  and  Todd  in  the  Variorum  Edition,  which  contain 
so  many  particles  of  biographical  material  that  the  sub 
stantial  Biography  of  the  Poet  in  that  edition  may  be  said, 
for  this  period  at  least,  to  exist  in  a  scattered  state  through 
the  Notes,  rather  than  in  an  organised  state  in  Todd's  pre 
liminary  Life.  I  except,  also,  the  results  of  some  of  the 
recent  biographical  researches  alluded  to.  Mr.  Marsh's 
Papers  refer  rather  to  the  later  parts  of  the  Life,  but  have 
not  been  without  their  use  even  in  the  present  part ;  and 
Mr.  Hunter's  Gleanings  refer  chiefly  to  this  part,  and  clear 
up  several  points  in  it.  Some  of  Mr.  Mitford's  references 
and  illustrations  have  also  been  of  service ;  and  I  have 
studied  the  Pedigree  of  the  Poet  furnished  to  Mr.  Mitford 
by  Sir  Charles  Young,  Garter  King. 

My  own  researches,  whether  for  actual  facts  in  the  life,  or 
for  collateral  illustrations,  have  been  very  various.  By  the 
kindness  of  the  Rev.  J.  Dix,  M.A.,  rector  of  Allhallows, 
Bread  Street,  I  was  permitted  to  inspect  the  registers  of  that 
parish.  My  inquiries  into  the  pedigree  led  me  to  the  Bishop's 
Registry  in  Oxford  ;  where  also  I  found  some  advantage  in 
looking  at  the  original  MS.  of  Aubrey's  Life  in  the  Ashmolean, 
and  at  some  of  Wood's  MSS.,  produced  to  me  in  the  readiest 
manner.  By  the  courtesy  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cartmell,  Master 
of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  I  saw  the  admission-book  of 
that  College ;  and  I  have  been  materially  assisted  by  extracts 
from  that  register,  and  by  answers  to  my  queries  respecting 
them,  furnished  me  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Wolstenholme,  M.A., 
Fellow  of  the  College.  To  the  Registrar  of  the  University, 
the  Rev.  J.  Romilly,  M.A.,  I  also  owe  my  thanks  for  per 
mission  to  inspect  the  University  books  and  to  make  extracts, 
as  well  as  for  his  explanations.  Towards  the  illustration  of 
the  same  Cambridge  period  of  the  poet's  life,  I  have  derived 


PKEFACE    TO    FIRST    EDITION.  XI 

much  from  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum,  and  from  one  MS. 
in  particular.  An  examination  of  the  Registers  of  the 
Stationers'  Company,  open  to  me  by  the  kindness  of  the 
authorities,  furnished  me  with  many  dates,  and,  altogether, 
with  clearer  ideas  of  Milton's  relations  to  the  literature  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  I.  To  my  great  surprise  I  found  that, 
though  Milton  was  known  to  have  lived  with  his  father  at 
Horton  in  Buckinghamshire  for  nearly  six  years  of  his  life 
after  leaving  Cambridge, — and  those  years  unusually  rich 
in  literary  results, — no  one  had  thought  of  examining  the 
Registers  of  Horton  parish  for  traces  of  the  family.  On 
application  to  the  Rev.  R.  G.  Foot,  B.A.,  rector  of  Horton, 
I  had  every  facility  afforded  me ;  and  I  have  derived  from 
the  Registers  several  new  facts,  besides  much  general  and 
local  illustration.  The  Milton  MSS.  in  the  Library  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  have  been  examined  by  me  with  some 
care, — not  for  the  purpose  of  noting  the  various  readings 
furnished  by  these  first  drafts  of  some  of  the  poems  (a  duty 
already  carefully  performed  by  Todd)  ;  but  for  the  purpose, 
if  possible,  of  determining,  by  the  handwriting,  dates  and 
other  biographical  particulars.  Some  conclusions  thus  ar 
rived  at  will  have  their  natural  place  in  the  succeeding 
volume ;  but  the  examination  has  assisted  me  somewhat  in 
the  present.  I  have  made  pretty  extensive  researches  in 
the  State  Paper  Office,  at  points  where  Milton  or  his  con 
nexions  might  perchance  leave  their  marks  in  contemporary 
public  documents ;  and  in  several  cases  elucidations  of  the 
Biography  have  thus  arisen.  It  is  unnecessary  to  add  to 
this  enumeration  of  manuscript  sources  any  account  of  my 
miscellaneous  obligations  at  every  point  to  printed  books. 
These  obligations,  as  well  as  some  of  a  private  nature,  are 
acknowledged  in  the  notes.  I  ought  to  add,  however,  that, 
for  access  to  almost  all  the  rare  books  consulted,  I  am  a 
debtor  to  the  British  Museum. 

Although  I  have  sought  to  indicate  the  fact  in  the  title  of 
the  work,  and  also  in  the  general  announcement,  it  is  right 
that  I  should  here  distinctly  repeat  that  I  intend  it  to  be  not 
merely  a  Biography  of  Milton,  but  also,  in  some  sort,  a  con 
tinuous  History  of  his  Time.  Such  having  been  my  plan  from 
the  first,  there  are  large  portions  of  the  present  volume  which, 
though  related  to  the  Biography,  and  in  my  idea  not  unneces 
sarily  so,  considering  what  a  man  of  his  time  Milton  was,  may 
yet,  if  the  reader  chooses,  stand  apart  as  so  much  attempt  at 
separate  contemporary  History.  The  suggestions  of  Milton's 
life  have,  indeed,  determined  the  tracks  of  these  historical 


Xll  PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION. 

researches  and  expositions, — sometimes  through  the  Litera 
ture  of  the  period,  sometimes  through  its  Civil  and  Ecclesi 
astical  Politics;  but  the  extent  to  which  I  have  pursued 
them,,  and  the  space  which  I  have  assigned  to  them,  have 
been  determined  by  my  desire  to  present,  by  their  combina 
tion,  something  like  a  connected  historical  view  of  British 
thought  and  British  society  in  general  prior  to  the  great 
Revolution.  In  this  portion  of  British  History, — much  less 
studied,  I  think,  than  the  Revolution  itself,  though  actually 
containing  its  elements, — I  have  based  my  narrative  on  the 
best  materials,  printed  or  documentary,  that  I  could  find. 
The  Registers  of  the  Stationers'  Company  have  been  among 
the  MS.  authorities  of  greatest  service  to  me  in  the  depart 
ment  of  the  Literature ;  and,  in  all  departments  alike,  the 
documents  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  both  domestic  and 
foreign,  have  furnished  me,  here  with  verifications,  there 
with  more  exact  impressions,  and  sometimes  with  facts  and 
extracts. 

The  Portrait  of  Milton  as'a  boy  is  from  a  photograph  taken, 
by  permission,  from  the  original  in  the  possession  of  Edgar 
Disney,  Esq.,  of  the  Hyde,  Ingatestone,  Essex;  of  which, 
and  of  the  other  portrait,  engraved  after  Vertue,  accounts 
are  given  at  p.  50  [66],  and  pp.  277,  278  [308—310]  of  the 
volume.  The  fac-similes  from  the  Milton  MSS.  at  Cambridge 
are  by  the  permission  of  the  Master  and  Fellows  of  Trinity. 

UNIVEKSITY  COLLEGE,  LONDON  : 

December,  1858.  ' 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 

IN  the  present  edition  the  arrangement  of  the  matter  into 
Books  and  Chapters  has  been  made  symmetrical  with  that 
adopted  in  the  succeeding  volumes.  There  has  also  been 
some  verbal  revision  throughout. 

Of  greater  importance  are  the  changes  that  have  been 
rendered  necessary  by  information  obtained  since  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  first  edition,  a  good  deal  of  it  the  result  of 
inquiries  which  that  edition  suggested  or  promoted.  Where 
such  new  information  consists  of  mere  particles  of  additional 


PREFACE    TO    SECOND    EDITION.  Xlll 

fact,  it  has  been  incorporated  easily  enough  by  slight  cor 
rections  or  extensions  of  the  previous  text.  In  several 
places,  however,  more  has  been  required.  The  first  chapter 
of  Book  I,  treating  of  the  ancestry  and  kindred  of  the  Poet, 
has  been  recast,  enlarged,  and  in  great  part  rewritten,  the 
subject  having  been  much  investigated  of  late,  and  certainty 
on  some  points  having  been  substituted  for  former  conjecture. 
In  the  third  chapter  of  the  same  Book  there  will  be  found 
additional  information  respecting  Milton's  first  tutor,  Thomas 
Young,  and  also  respecting  the  family  of  his  friend  Charles 
Diodati.  In  Book  II,  treating  of  the  period  of  Milton's  Uni 
versity  life  at  Cambridge,  I  have  thought  it  worth  while  to 
give,  under  the  year  1628,  a  fuller  and  more  exact  account  of 
the  perilous  escapade  of  Milton's  friend  and  correspondent, 
Alexander  Gill  the  younger,  just  after  the  assassination  of  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  and  in  connexion  with  that  event  ; 
and  in  the  third  chapter  of  the  same  Book,  reviewing 
Milton's  academic  studies  and  performances,  a  recently 
recovered  Rhetorical  Essay  of  his  takes  a  small  but  appro 
priate  place  beside  the  seven  Prolusiones  Oratorice  acknow 
ledged  and  published  by  himself.  The  first  chapter  of  Book 
III,  explaining  Milton's  hesitations  about  a  profession  before 
dedicating  himself  wholly  to  a  literary  life,  has  been  modified 
with  a  view  to  increased  distinctness  on  that  subject ;  and  in 
the  fourth  chapter  of  the  same  Book,  treating  of  the  import 
ant  six  years  between  1632  and  1638,  which  were  spent  by 
Milton  at  Horton,  there  will  be  found,  besides  some  changes 
in  the  chronology  of  the  smaller  poems  of  this  period,  a 
completely  new  story  of  incidents  and  circumstances  in  the 
Horton  household  through  the  last  two  years  of  the  period. 
It  is  the  story,  told  in  detail  between  p.  627  and  p.  661,  of  a 
lawsuit  against  the  Poet's  father,  the  trouble  of  which  was 
at  its  height  just  at  the  time  of  the  severer  family  affliction  of 
the  illness  and  death  of  the  Poet's  mother.  In  Book  IV, 
devoted  to  Milton's  Continental  Journey  of  1638-39,  there 
is  due  mention  of  certain  recently-discovered  documentary 
traces  of  his  preparations  for  the  journey  and  of  his  move 
ments  in  Florence  and  in  Home. — As  these  references  will 
suggest,  the  additions  occasioned  by  new  information  have 
been  chiefly  in  the  biographical  portions  of  the  volume. 
The  revision,  however,  has  extended  also  to  the  historical 
portions.  In  the  second  chapter  of  Book  III  the  list  of 
the  English  Privy  Council  from  1628  to  1632,  with  other 
statistics  of  the  kind,  has  been  made,  I  hope,  more  exact; 
and  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  the  same  Book,  treating  of  the 


XIV  PREFACE    TO    SECOND   EDITION. 

Eeign  of  Thorough  in  the  three  kingdoms  from  1632  to  1638, 
I  have  thought  it  due  to  historical  proportion,  in  view  of  the 
succeeding  volumes,  to  bestow  some  further  pains  on  the 
narrative  of  the  Scottish  Religious  Troubles,  and  especially 
on  the  account  of  the  nature  and  circumstances  of  the 
Scottish  National  Covenant. — "Whether  in  the  biography 
or  in  the  historical  chapters,  acknowledgment  has  been 
scrupulously  studied,  in  the  text  or  in  footnotes,  of  my 
authorities  and  obligations  for  such  portions  of  the  new 
matter  as  do  not  belong  properly  to  myself.  At  various 
points  I  have  had  to  acknowledge  my  special  obligations  to 
Colonel  J.  L.  Chester,  but  most  conspicuously  of  all  in  the 
first  chapter,  where,  by  the  kindness  of  repeated  private 
communications  from  him,  I  have  had  the  full,  and  I  may 
say  the  first,  use  of  his  important  recent  researches  into  the 
vexed  question  of  the  maternal  pedigree  of  the  Poet.  In 
the  Horton  chapter  the  story  of  the  lawsuit  against  the 
Poet's  father  would  have  been  less  complete  than  it  is  but 
for  similar  trouble  generously  taken  in  my  behalf  by  Mr.  T. 
C.  Noble. 

As  has  been  stated  in  the  original  preface,  it  was  part  of 
my  purpose  to  bring  forward  Milton's  early  Latin  poems 
into  that  place  of  importance  in  his  biography  from  which 
the  accident  of  their  being  in  Latin  had  too  long  excluded 
them.  Having  observed  that  this  object  had  hardly  been 
attained  by  the  prose  translations  and  abstracts  of  the  Latin 
poems  given  in  the  first  edition  of  the  present  volume,  and 
that  a  metrical  version  of  the  Epitaphium  Damonis  on  which 
I  ventured  in  Vol.  II  seemed  to  answer  the  purpose  much 
better,  I  have  taken  the  hint,  and  have  substituted  in  this 
edition,  in  certain  selected  cases,  metrical  versions  for  the 
former  prose  translations  and  abstracts.  The  pieces  so 
treated  are  the  Elegia  Prima  of  1626,  the  extraordinary 
Gunpowder  Plot  poem  or  In  Quintum  Novemlris  of  1626,  the 
academic  verses  Naturam  non  pati  senium  of  1628,  the 
verses  De  Idea  Platoniea,  the  fine  poem  Ad  Patrem  of  1 632 
or  1633,  and  the  poem  Ad  Mansum  of  1638.  For  similar 
reasons  there  are  metrical  renderings  of  Francini's  Italian  Ode 
to  Milton  and  Milton's  Italian  Sonnets  and  Canzone. 

EDINBURGH  :  January,  1881. 


CONTENTS. 

BOOK  I. 

1608  —  1625. 

I.  MILTON'S  ANCESTRY  AND  KINDRED. 
II.  THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET,  OLD  LONDON. 

III.  EDUCATION  AT  HOME  AND  AT  ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL. 
CHAP. 

I.  Date  and  Place  of  the  Poet's  Birth :  The  Scrivener's  House  and 

Shop  in  Bread  Street :  The  Milton  Family  Arms  :  Milton  an 

old  name  in  various  parts  of  England. THE  PATERNAL 

PEDIGREE  : — Accounts  by  Aubrey,  Wood,  and  Phillips :  The 
Oxfordshire  Miltons :  Immediate  ancestry  of  the  Poet  in  the 
cluster  of  parishes  about  Shotover,  close  to  Oxford:  Henry 
Milton  and  Agnes  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  the  Poet's 
great-grandfather  and  great-grandmother :  Their  Wills  :  Their 
Son,  Richard  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  yeoman,  the  Poet's 
grandfather  :  His  Obstinate  Roman  Catholic  Recusancy  :  Tra 
dition  that  his  wife,  the  Poet's  grandmother,  was  a  Haughton  : 
Uncertainty  of  the  Tradition  :  John  Milton,  the  Poet's  father, 
lorn  not  later  than  1563  :  Cast  off  by  his  father  for  turning 
Protestant  in  his  youth  :  Few  traces  of  him  till  his  thirty- 
seventh  or  thirty -eighth  year,  when  he  became  a  London 
Scrivener  :  Was  settled  in  the  house  and  shop  in  Bread  Street 
in  1600,  and  then  married  :  The  Company  of  Scriveners  and 
Nature  of  a  Scrivener's  Business. THE  MATERNAL  PEDI 
GREE  : — Conflicting  accounts  as  to  the  maiden  name  of  the 
Poet's  mother :  General  preference  till  of  late  for  Aubrey's 
tradition  that  she  was  a  Bradshaw  :  No  place  found  for  her  in 
any  of  the  known  Bradshaw  pedigrees :  Colonel  Chester's  Recent 
Researches  and  their  Results  :  The  Jeffreys  of  Essex  and  their 
branches  :  One  of  these  Essex  Jeffreys  a  Paul  Jeffrey,  of  St. 
Swithin's,  London,  merchant-taylor,  who  was  dead  before  1583, 
leaving  a  widow,  Ellen  Jeffrey,  and  two  daughters,  Sarah  and 
Margaret  :  Proofs  that  this  Sarah  Jeffrey  was  the  Poet's 

mother. Family  of  the   Scrivener  and  his  wife  :    Three 

survivors  of  this  family  :  viz. ,  a  daughter  named  Anne,  the 
Poet,  and  his  younger  brother  Christopher  .  .  . 

II.  The  present  Bread  Street :  The  same  street  within  recollection  : 

Havoc  of  the  old  Bread  Street  by  the  Great  Fire  of  1666  : 
Tradition  of  the  Black  Spread  Eagle  Court  long  after  the 
Great  Fire  :  Site  of  this  Court  and  of  the  house  in  which 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Milton  was  born  :  The  poet  essentially  a  Londoner :  Old 
Bread  Street  and  its  Inns  and  Curiosities  :  The  famous 
Mermaid  Tavern  :  Old  Cheapside  and  its  Monuments  :  Other 
Neighbouring  Streets  :  Old  St.  Paul's  :  Old  London  generally : 
The  Home  in  Bread  Street :  The  Scrivener's  musical  celebrity : 
Known  musical  compositions  of  his  :  Early  musical  training 
of  the  Poet :  The  Rev.  Richard  Stocke,  minister  of  Allhallows, 
Bread  Street  :  Humphrey  Lownes,  the  printer  :  John  Lane, 
the  "fine  old  Queen  Elizabeth  gentleman,"  and  his  poetry: 
His  compliment  in  one  of  his  poems  to  the  Scrivener's  musical 
ability :  Sonnet  by  the  Scrivener  in  compliment  to  Lane  : 
Public  events  of  the  Poet's  Childhood  :  Reorganization  of  the 
Scriveners'  Company :  Increasing  business  of  the  Poet's  father  : 
Relatives  of  the  Milton  Family :  Aunt  Truelove  and  her 
children  in  1618 41 

III.  Early  promise  :  The  Boy-Portrait  of  Milton  :  His  domestic 
preceptor,  Thomas  Young,  a  Scotsman :  Previous  life  of 
Young :  Public  Schools  in  Old  London  :  St.  Paul's  School : 
Habits  and  Traditions  of  the  School  :  The  Head-Master, 
Alexander  Gill,  senior :  Gill's  Logonomia  Anglica  and  other 
writings  :  Alexander  Gill,  junior  :  Milton's  Juvenile  Scholar 
ship  :  His  Readings  in  English  :  Spenser :  Sylvester's  Du 
Bartas :  Milton's  Earliest  English  Verses  (Psalms  cxiv.  and 
cxxxvi.  Paraphrased)  :  Charles  Diodati  and  the  Diodati 
Family :  Marriage  of  Milton's  Sister  to  Edward  Phillips  of 
the  Crown  Office  :  The  Spanish  Match  Negotiation  and  other 
incidents  of  Milton's  Boyhood  ......  65 


BOOK  II. 

1625  —  1632. 

CAMBRIDGE. 

I.  CAMBRIDGE  AND  ITS  DONS  IN  1625. 

II.  MILTON'S  SEVEN  YEARS  'AT  THE  UNIVERSITY,  WITH  THE  INCIDENTS 
OF  THAT  PERIOD  :  1625—1632. 

III.  ACADEMIC  STUDIES  AND  RESULTS  :  MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIJE. 

I.  Admission  of  Milton  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge :  The 
Cambridge  Colleges  in  1625  :  University  Dignitaries  and 
Heads  of  Colleges  at  that  date  :  Other  University  and  College 
Dons :  Students  of  subsequent  distinction  :  Dr.  Thomas 
Bainbrigge,  Master  of  Christ's  College  :  The  Thirteen  Fellows 
of  Christ's  at  the  time  of  Milton's  admission, — especially  Joseph 
Meade,  "William  Chappell,  and  Nathaniel  Tovey :  Milton's 
Rooms  in  Christ's  College,  and  College  Accommodations  of 
those  days  :  University  Terms  and  Vacations  :  Thomas  Hob- 
son,  the  Cambridge  Carrier  :  State  of  University  and  College 
Discipline  :  Puritanism  in  the  Colleges  :  System  of  Under 
graduate  studies  and  of  Graduation  .  .  .  .  .  in 

II.  MILTON'S  FIRST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1624-5  : — His  Letter  to 

Thomas   Young  at   Hamburg  :    Death   of  King  James   and 
Accession    of    Charles    I.  :    Milton's    Matriculation    in    the 


CONTENTS.  XVH 

CHAP.  PAGE 

II.  University :  College  and  University  Gossip  from  Meade's 
Letters  :  Arrival  of  Henrietta  Maria  and  Marriage  of  the 
King  :  The  Plague  in  London  and  elsewhere  .  .  .146 

MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1625-6 : — More  Uni 
versity  and  College  Gossip  from  Meade's  Letters  :  Chancellor 
ship  of  the  University  vacant :  Election  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham :  Unpopularity  of  the  Duke  :  The  tradition  of 
Milton's  quarrel  with  the  authorities  of  his  College  :  Diodati's 
Greek  Letters  to  him,  and  Milton's  Eeply  to  Diodati  in  his 
First  Latin  Elegy :  References  in  that  Elegy  to  his  quarrel 
with  the  College  authorities :  Transference  of  Milton  from 
Chappell's  tutorship  to  that  of  Tovey :  His  Latin  Verses  On 
the  Death  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  (Lancelot  Andrewes)  and 
On  the  Death  of  the  Bishop  of  Ely  (Nicholas  Felton)  :  Death  of 
his  infant  Niece,  and  his  English  Poem  on  the  occasion,  entitled 
On  the  Death  of  a  Fair  Infant '  154 

MILTON'S  THIRD  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1626-7  : — Admission 
of  Jeremy  Taylor  at  Cains  College,  and  of  Roger  and  Edward 
King  at  Christ's :  Milton's  Latin  Verses  On  the  Death  of  the 
Medical  rice-Chancellor  (Gostlin)  and  On  the  Death  of  the 
Cambridge  University  Bedel  (Ridding)  :  His  Latin  Gunpowder 
Plot  Epigrams  and  Poem  On  the  Fifth  of  November :  More 
University  and  College  Gossip  from  Meade's  Letters  :  Milton's 
Fourth  Latin  Elegy,  a  Metrical  Epistle  to  Thomas  Young  at 
Hamburg  :  Return  of  Young  to  England :  His  appointment 
to  the  Vicarage  of  Stowmarket  in  Suffolk  .  .  .  .171 

MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1627-8  : — Admission 
of  John  Cleveland  at  Christ's  :  Royal  Visit  to  Cambridge  : 
Milton's  Latin  (Elegy  beginning  "  Nondum  blanda  tuas": 
Letter  of  his  to  Alexander  Gill  the  younger :  Charles  and  his 
Third  Parliament :  Political  Crisis  :*  Another  Letter  to  Alex 
ander  Gill  :  Ceremonial  of  the  Cambridge  Commencements  : 
The  Cambridge  Commencement  of  July  1628  ;  Milton's  Latin 
Hexameters,  Naturam  non  pati  senium,  written  for  the  Philo 
sophical  Act  in  that  Commencement :  His  Letter  to  Thomas 
Young  at  Stowmarket :  Assassination  of  the  Duke  of  Bucking 
ham  :  Popular  Sympathy  with  the  Assassin  :  Story  of  the 
younger  Gill's  freak  at  Oxford  and  of  its  consequences  .  .  186 

MILTON'S  FIFTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1628-9  :— The  Earl  of 
Holland  the  new  Chancellor  of  the  University :  Dissolution 
by  Charles  of  his  Third  Parliament  and  Beginning  of  Govern 
ment  without  Parliaments  :  Milton's  Graduation  as  B.A.  : 
List  of  the  Bachelors  who  graduated  with  him  from  Christ's  : 
His  Latin  Elegy  In  Adventum  Veris :  The  Cambridge  Com 
mencement  of  1629  and  Visit  of  the  Earl  of  Holland  and  the 
French  Ambassador :  University  Theatricals  on  the  Occasion  : 
Stubbe's  Fraus  Honesta :  Specimens  of  the  Play :  Milton's 
Opinion  of  University  Theatricals  :  Visit  of  Lord  Holland 
and  the  Ambassador  to  Christ's  College 213 

MILTON'S  SIXTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1629-30 :  His  Latin 
Elegy  To  Charles  Diodati  Staying  in  the  Country  :  His  English 
Ode  on  the  Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity:  His  Fragment  en 
titled  The  Passion :  More  Cambridge  Gossip  from  Meade's 
Letters  :  The  Plague  in  Cambridge  from  April  1630  :  Break 
up  of  the  Colleges  and  Dispersion  of  the  Students  :  State  of 
the  Town  through  the  Summer  and  Autumn  :  The  Vice- 
Chancellor,  Dr.  Butts  :  Milton's  Lines  On  Shakespeare  .  .  226 

MILTON'S  SEVENTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1630-31  :— Plague 
still  lingering  in  Cambridge  :  Slow  Refilling  of  the  Colleges  : 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

A  Vacant  Fellowship  in  Christ's :  Election  of  Edward  King, 
in  compliance  with  a  royal  mandate  :  Death  of  Thomas  Hob- 
son  :  Milton's  Two  Epitaphs  on  Hobson :  Admission  of  Milton's 
brother  Christopher  at  Christ's  College :  Milton's  Epitaph  on 
the  Marchioness  of  Winchester          .         .         .         .         .         .237 

MILTON'S  LAST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1631-32 : — Sonnet  On 
his  having  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  :  Admission  of 
Henry  More  at  Christ's  College :  Visit  of  King  Charles  and 
Queen  Henrietta  Maria  to  Cambridge  :  More  University 
Theatricals :  The  two  rival  Comedies,  Hausted's  of  Queens' 
and  Randolph's  of  Trinity :  Failure  of  Hausted's  and  Success 
of  Randolph's  :  Suicide  of  the  Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  Butts : 
The  Cambridge  Commencement  of  July  1632 :  Milton's 
Graduation  as  M.A.  :  List  of  his  Fellow  -  Graduates  from 
Christ's 247 

III.  Old  University  Studies :  The  Quadriennium  of  Undergraduate- 
ship  and  the  Triennium  of  Bachelorship :  Lectures  and  Text 
Books  :  D'Ewes's  University  Studies  and  Readings  in  1618 
and  1619  :  The  Ramist  Logic  at  Cambridge  :  Baconian  Spirit 
among  the  younger  men  at  Cambridge,  and  Dissatisfaction 
with  the  old  Scholastic  Studies :  Milton's  Readings  and 
Attendance  on  Lectures  :  Testimonies  to  his  industry  at  the 
University  :  His  own  estimate  of  Cambridge  at  that  time. — 
Circumstances  of  the  Publication  of  Milton's  Prolusiones 
Oratorice  in  1674  :  Character  of  those  Seven  Rhetorical  Essays, 
and  Account  of  them  individually,  with  translated  specimens  : 
— 1.  On  Day  and  Night;  2.  Of  the  Music  of  the  Spheres  ; 
3.  Against  the  Scholastic  Philosophy ;  4.  Metaphysical  Thesis 
in  College;  5.  Metaphysical  TJiesis  in  the  Public  Schools;  6. 
Vacation  Address  in  Defence  of  Occasional  Joviality,  with  an 
Attached  Extravaganza,  partly  in  verse ;  7.  Oration  on  the 
Pleasures  and  Advantages  of  Knowledge. — Additional  Prolusion 
on  Early  Rising,  and  Latin  Verses  On  the  Platonic  Idea  as 
understood  by  Aristotle. — Character  of  Milton  in  his  twenty- 
fourth  year 259 


BOOK  III. 

1632—1638. 

HISTORY:  —  CHURCH    AND    GOVERNMENT  TINDER   KING  CHARLES    AND 

BISHOP  LAUD,  WITH  A  RETROSPECT  TO  1603. 
SURVEY  OF  BRITISH  LITERATURE  IN  1632. 
THE  REIGN  OF  THOROUGH  FROM  1632  TO  1638. 

BIOGRAPHY:— HESITATIONS  ABOUT  A  PROFESSION. 
AT  HORTON,  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

I.  Milton  originally  'destined  for  the  Church  :  His  Letter  to  a 
Friend  explaining  his  hesitations  :  Later  explanation  of  his 
real  objections  :  "  Church-outed  by  the  Prelates"  :  Thoughts 
of  the  Profession  of  the  Law  :  Settled  Preference  for  a  Life  of 
Literature  and  Scholarship  :  Inventory  of  Milton's  writings 
prior  to  1632  :  Publication  of  his  Lines  On  Shakespeare  in  the 


CONTENTS.  XIX 


Second  Shakespeare  Folio  that  year :  Literary  Dreams  :  His 
Father's  Remonstrances  :  His  Latin  Poem  Ad  Patrem  :  Circum 
stances  of  the  Scrivener  and  his  Family  in  1632  -  .  .  323 

II.     Religious  Statistics  of  England  in  1632  :  The  Roman  Catholic 
Recusants    and    the    Protestant    Separatists  :     The    Church 

of   England  and  her   Clergy :    Prelatists   and   Puritans. 

RETROSPECT  or  ENGLISH  CHURCH-GOVERNMENT  THROUGH 
THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  :  —  Millenary  Petition  of  1603  and 
Canons  of  1604  :  High  Church  Primacy  of  Bancroft  from  1604 
to  1610  :  Low  Church  Primacy  of  Abbot  from  1611  onwards  : 
Bishop  Williams  as  Lord  Keeper  from  1621  to  1625  :  His 
Broad  Church  policy :  Growth  of  English  Anti- Calvinism  : 
Earlier  life  of  Laud :  His  promotion  to  the  Bishopric  of  St. 
David's : ENGLISH  CHURCH-GOVERNMENT  SINCE  THE  AC 
CESSION  OF  CHARLES  : — Understanding  between  Laud  and 
Buckingham :  Laud  through  the  time  of  Buckingham's 
Premiership  for  Charles,  or  from  1625  to  1628,  first  as  Bishop 
of  St.  David's,  then  as  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells  and  a  Privy 
Councillor,  and  finally  as  Bishop  of  London  :  Relations  of 
Charles  and  Laud  after  the  Assassination  of  Buckingham : 
Rupture  of  Charles  with  his  third  Parliament  and  Beginning 
of  his  Period  of  Arbitrary  Rule :  Composition  of  the  English 
Privy  Council  from  1628  to  1632  :  Laud  in  the  Council  and  the 
Star-Chamber :  Secretary  Windebank  :  The  English  Episco 
pate  from  1628  to  1632  :  Laud's  Ecclesiastical  Legislation  : 
His  Ideal  of  Ecclesiastical  Uniformity  or  the  Beauty  of  Holi 
ness  :  Laud's  Ecclesiastical  Administration :  Case  of  Dr. 
Alexander  Leighton :  Court  of  High  Commission  :  Laud  in 
his  sixtieth  year:  Attractions  of  Laud's  Church-System  for 
some  English  minds :  George  Herbert  and  the  Ferrar  Family  : 

Laud's   Prelatic    System    odious   to   Milton. THE    IRISH 

CHURCH  :  THE  SCOTTISH  KIRK  :   FOREIGN    CHAPLAINCIES  : 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  COLONIES 340 

III.  Laureateship  of  Ben  Jonson  :  Review  of  Ben's  literary  life  : 
Ben  in  his  veteran  days  :  His  Sovereignty  in  the  London 
World  of  Letters  :  Celebrity  6f  his  Apollo  Club.— English 
Dramatic  Poetry  about  1632 :  Jonson,  Chapman,  Marston, 
Decker,  Webster,  Massinger,  Ford,  Shirley,  Thomas  May, 
Dick  Brome,  Shakerly  Marmion,  William  Davenant,  &c.,  &c. : 
Puritan  Dislike  ol  Theatres:  Prynne's  Histriomastix. — Eng 
lish  Non-Dramatic  Poetry  about  1632  : — The  Spenserians  and 
Pastoralists, — William  Browne,  Giles  and  Phineas  Fletcher, 
Alexander  of  Menstrie,  and  Drummond  of  Hawthornden : 
The  Satirists  and  Social  Poets,— Hall,  George  Wither,  Taylor 
the  Water- Poet,  &c.  :  Poets  of  Metrical  Exposition  and 
Intellection,  —  Lord  Brooke,  Sir  John  Davies,  Dr.  Donne, 
Cowley,  Francis  Quarles,  George  Herbert,  William  Habington, 
Crashaw  :  Wits  and  Lyrists, — Bishop  Corbet,  jCarew..  Suck 
ling,  Edmund  Waller,  Herrick,  Randolph,  Cleveland,  Cart- 
wright  :  Latin  Versifiers, — Duport,  the  younger  Gill,  Thomas 
May,  Arthur  Johnston  and  other  Scots. — English  Prose  about 
1632  :— Theological  Prose  -  writers,  — Sibbes,  Bishop  Hall,  &c. : 
Men  of  General  Scholarship, — Usher,  Selden,  Robert  Burton, 
&c.  :  Essay- Writers,  — Earle,  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  &c.  :  The 
Latitudinarians  or  Rationalists, —John  Hales,  William  Chil- 
lingworth,  Sir  Lucius  Carey,  Gilbert  Sheldon,  George  Morley, 
Edward  Hyde,  &c.  :  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  :  Beginnings 
of  Hobbes  :  Infant  Newspapers  :  Puritan  Pamphlet- Writers, 


XX  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

— Burton,  Bastwick,  and  Prynne. — Statistics  of  the  English 
Book  Trade  about  1632  :  Censorship  of  the  Press  :  Average 
annual  number  of  publications  :  List  of  Kegistered  Publica 
tions  in  the  half-year  from  July  to  December  1632  .  .  .  432 

IV.  Horton  and  its  neighbourhood  :  Horton  and  its  chief  inhabitants 
in  1632  :  The  Retired  Scrivener's  House  at  Horton :  Milton 
and  Rural  Scenery  :  Walks  about  Horton  and  Visits  to 
London  :  Attack  of  the  younger  Gill  on  Ben  Jonson,  and 
Ben's  retort ;  Henry  Lawes  the  Musician  :  Milton's  continued 
Readings  in  the  Classics  :  His  continued  English  Readings. — 
L?  Allegro  and  //  Penseroso :  Circumstances  and  meaning  of  ^  • 
those  two  pieces :  Milton  so  far  referable  to  the  fraternity  of 
the  Spenserians,  but  with  marked  constitutional  peculiarities. — 
Song  on  May  Morning  and  Sonnet  to  the  Nightingale. — Popu 
larity  of  the  Masque  as  a  Form  of  Dramatic  Literature :  Re 
action  against  Prynne's  Histriomastix  of  1633  :  Shirley's  great 
Masque  of  the  Inns  of  Court  before  the  King  and  Queen  at 
Whitehall,  Feb.  3,  1633-4  :  Carew's  Masque  of  Coelum 
Britannicum  before  their  Majesties,  Feb.  18,  1633-4  :  The 
Bridgewater  or  Egerton  Family  and  their  Literary  and  Musical 
Tastes  :  The  aged  Countess-Dowager  of  Derby  :  Her  Celebrity 
in  English  Poetry  since  Spenser's  time  :  Milton's  Arcades 
written,  probably  at  the  request  of  Lawes,  as  part  of  a  Masque 
for  performance  by  the  younger  members  of  the  Egerton 
Family  before  the  Countess- Do  wager  :  Actual  performance  of 
\  the  Masque  at  her  seat  at  Harefield. — At  a  Solemn  Music,  On 
\  Time,  and  Upon  the  Circumcision. — The  Earl  of  Bridgewater 
\  President  of  the  Principality  and  Marches  of  Wales  :  Ludlow 
I  Town  and  Castle  in  Shropshire,  the  Seat  of  the  Presidency: 
\  Arrival  of  the  Earl  and  his  Family  in  Ludlow  :  Festivities  on 
jthe  occasion  :  Milton's  Masque  of  Comus  a  part  of  the  Festivi 
ties  :  Performance  of  the  Masque  in  the  Great  Hall  of  Ludlow 
jCastle,  Sept.  29,  1634  :  Chief  parts  performed  by  Lawes,  Lady 

dice  Egerton,  anjl  her  two  brothers,  Lord  Brackley  and  Mr. 

"homas  Egerton :  Importance  of  Comus  in  the  series  of  Milton's 
irlier  Poems  :  Was  he  present  at  the  performance  at  Ludlow  ? 
-Letter  from  Milton  to  the  younger  Gill,  Dec.  4,  1634  :  His 

Jreek  Translation  of  Psalm  cxiv. — Incorporation  of  Milton  as 
M.A.  at  Oxford,  1635.— The  Plague  again  in  England  in 
1636,  but  Horton  exempt  that  year  :  Beginning  of  a  Lawsuit 
against  Milton's  father  in  a  Westminster  Court  of  Law,  on 
charges  referring  to  past  dealings  of  his  in  his  profession  as  a 
London  Scrivener. — Progress  of  the  Lawsuit  in  the  early 
months  of  1637  :  The  Scrivener  excused  from  personal  attend 
ance  at  Westminster  on  the  ground  of  his  age  and  infirm 
health  :  Death  of  Milton's  mother,  April  3,  1637  :  Her  Grave 
in  Horton  Cburch  :  Continued  Proceedings  in  the  Lawsuit : 
The  Scrivener's  Defence  of  himself,  in  the  form  of  an  Answer 
drawn  up  at  Horton  :  Thomas  Agar  one  of  the  witnesses  to 
this  Answer  :  Possibility  that  Agar  was  now  the  second  hus 
band  of  the  Poet's  sister  :  The  Plague  in  Horton  before  the 
end  of  April  1637  :  Mortality  of  that  year  in  Horton  as  re- 
corded  in  the  Parish  Register. — Death  of  Ben  Jonson  :  Death 
of  Edward  King  of  Christ's  College  by  Shipwreck  in  the  Irish 
Sea  :  Milton  a  good  deal  in  London  in  the  autumn  of  1637  : 
Publication  that  year  of  an  anonymous  edition  of  Comus,  by 
Lawes,  with  dedication  to  Lord  Brackley:  Two  Letters  of 
Milton  to  Charles  Diodati.  —  Collection"  of  Verses  to  the 
Memory  of  Ben  Jonson,  published  in  London  early  in  1638  : 


V. 


CONTENTS.  XXI 


Volume  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  English  Verses  in  memory  of 
Edward  King,  published  about  the  same  time  from  the  Cam 
bridge  University  Press  :  Account  of  the  Volume  :  Milton's 
Lycidas  the  last  of  the  English  pieces  in  it :  Specimens  of  the 
others,  with  recovered  biographical  particulars  respecting 
King  :  Lycidas  properly  a  pastoral  or  indirect  lyric  :  Its  bold 
passage  of  invective  on  the  state  of  the  English  Church. — 
End  of  the  Lawsuit  against  Milton's  father  and  his  complete 
and  honourable  discharge  from  Court,  Feb.  1637-8  :  Prepara 
tions  of  Milton  for  a  Tour  on  the  Continent  ....  552 
The  Reign  of  Thorough  in  the  three  Kingdoms :  Origin  and 
meaning  of  the  phrase  :  The  Triumvirs, — Laud  for  England, 
Wentworth  for  Ireland,  and  the  Marquis  of  Hamilton  in  an  ] 

honorary  fashion  for  Scotland. THOROUGH   IN  ENGLAND  : 

FROM  1632  TO  1638  : — Elevation  of  Laud  to  the  Archbishopric 
of  Canterbury  :  Revenue  Difficulties  and  Devices :  Ship-money : 
Juxon,  Bishop  of  London,  made  Lord  Treasurer  :  Restrictions 
on  Social  Liberty  :  Punishment  of  Prynne  for  his  Histrio- 
mastix :  Changes  in  the  English  Episcopate :  Laud's  Ecclesi 
astical  Legislation  in  the  matters  of  the  Sabbatarian  Controversy, 
the  Dutch  and  Walloon  Congregations,  and  the  Altar  Con 
troversy  :  The  extreme  vigilance  of  his  Ecclesiastical  Adminis 
tration  :  Proceedings  against  Separatists  and  Schismatics : 
Proceedings  against  Puritans  within  the  Church  of  England : 
Severity  against  Press  Offences :  Second  Punishment  of 
Prynne,  and  Punishments  of  Burton  and  Bastwick  :  Prosecu 
tion  of  Bishop  Williams  :  His  Imprisonment  in  the  Tower : 
Attitude  of  Laud  towards  the  Papacy  :  Increasing  number  of 

English  "perversions"  to  the  Church  of  Rome. THOROUGH 

IN  IRELAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638  :— Character  of  Wentworth : 
His  arrival  in  Ireland,  July  1633  :  His  Dealings  with  the 
Irish  Parliament  of  1634  :  His  dealings  with  the  Irish  Church  : 
Co-operation  of  Laud  with  him  in  this  business  :  Ireland  under 
a  rod  of  iron  :  Wentworth's  Principle  of  the  all-sufficiency  of 

Rewards  and  Punishments  in  the  management  of  men. 

SCOTLAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638  :— Ecclesiastical  State  of  Scotland ; 
in  1632 :  List  of  the  Scottish  Episcopate  :  Laud-s  dissatis 
faction  with  the  imperfect  Episcopacy  established  among  the 
Scots  and  projects  for  the  subjection  of  that  realm  to  his 
Anglican  Beauty  of  Holiness :  Charles's  Scottish  Coronation 
Visit  of  1633,  with  Bishop  Laud  in  his  train  :  The  Scottish 
Parliament  of  1633  :  Opposition  in  that  Parliament  to  an  Act 
Anent  His  Majesty's  Prerogative  and  the  Apparel  of  Kirkmen  and 
to  another  Act  entitled  Ratification  of  Acts  touching  Religion  : 
Opposition  quashed :  Ungracious  demeanour  of  Charles  and 
Laud  in  Scotland  :  Laud's  Policy  for  Scotland  after  his  eleva 
tion  to  the  Archbishopric  :  Composition  of  the  Scottish  Privy 
Council  from  1634  to  1638  :  Archbishop  Spotswood  and  the 
Earl  of  Traquair  :  Establishment  of  a  new  Scottish  Court  of 
High  Commission  :  Gathering  of  Opposition  Elements  among 
the  Nobles,  the  Lairds,  the  Clergy,  and  the  People  generally  : 
The  Earl  of  Rothes  and  other  Opposition  Nobles  :  Archibald 
Johnstone  of  Warriston  and  other  Opposition  Lairds  and 
Lawyers :  Alexander  Henderson,  David  Dickson,  Robert 
Baillie,  Samuel  Rutherford,  and  other  chiefs  of  the  Opposition  , 
Clergy :  Calvinistic  Theological  Fervour  of  the  Scots  generally  : 
The  Aberdonians  an  exception :  The  Aberdeen  Doctors : 


Laud's  perseverance  in  trying  to  govern  Scotland  ecclesiast 
ically  from  Lambeth  :  The   new  Scottish   Book  of  Canons  : 


TOL.  I. 


xxii  CONTENTS. 

CHAP  PAOK 

Execration  of  it  among  the  Scots :  The  new  Scottish  Service- 
Book  :  Delay  in  its  appearance  :  Proclamation  for  its  immediate 
adoption  throughout  Scotland  :  Experimental  Reading  of  the 
New  Service  Book  in  St.  Giles's  Church,  Edinburgh,  on  the 
23rd  of  July  1637  :  The  Jenny  Geddes  Riot :  Tumults  in 
Scotland :  Scottish  Supplications  or  Petitions  to  Charles  on 
the  subject  of  the  Religious  Innovations  :  Indignation  of 
Charles,  and  his  new  orders  and  threats :  Formation  of 
the  Scottish  "Tables"  or  Opposition  Committees  in  Edin 
burgh:  Struggle  of  the  Tables  with  the  King  and  the 
Scottish  Privy  Council :  Ultimatum  of  Charles  in  February 
1638  :  The  NATIONAL  SCOTTISH  COVENANT  of  March  1638  : 
History  of  that  Document  and  Copy  of  its  main  portions : 
Enthusiastic  Signing  of  the  Covenant  by  all  ranks  and  classes 
over  Scotland,  except  in  Aberdeen  :  The  Covenant  essentially 
a  defiance  by  the  whole  Scotch  nation,  in  name  of  their  old 
Presbyterianism  and  on  Presbyterian  principles,  to  the  Abso-  j 
lutism  of  Charles  and  Laud 664 


BOOK  IV. 

APRIL  1638 — JULY  1639.  ' 

MILTON'S  CONTINENTAL  JOURNEY. 

Arrangements  for  the  household  of  the  Scrivener  at  Horton  during 
Milton's  intended  absence  :  Marriage  of  Christopher  Milton  : 
The  newly-married  pair  probably  domiciled  already  at  Horton  : 
Milton's  Passport  for  his  Foreign  Journey  :  Sir  Henry  "Wotton's 

Letter  of  Compliment  and  Advice  to  him  on  his  departure. 

THE  CONTINENT  GENERALLY  IN  1638 : — The  Thirty  Years'  War 
then  in  its  Fourth  or  French  Stage  :  View  of  the  various 
European  States  at  that  time,  with  notes  of  memorable  Facts 
and  Persons  :  Relations  of  Great  Britain  to  the  Continental 
Powers  and  to  France  in  particular  :  The  two  English  Ambas 
sadors  in  Paris,  Lord  Scudamore  and  the  Earl  of  Leicester. 

MILTON'S  TRANSIT  THROUGH  PARIS: — His  courteous  recep 
tion  by  Lord  Scudamore  :  His  Introduction  to  Hugo  Grotius, 
then  Ambassador  in  Paris  for  Sweden  :  Grotius  then  in  corre 
spondence  with  Laud,  through  Lord  Scudamore,  on  a  project 
for  a  Union  of  the  Protestant  Churches  :  State  Paper  scraps  of 
French  and  Parisian  Gossip  at  the  time  of  Milton's  passage 

through  France! ITALY  AND  THE  ITALIANS  IN  1638  :  — 

First  Glimpse  of  the  Mediterranean  :  Fascinations  of  Italy  : 
The  State  of  Italian  Literature:  The  Seicentisti :  Italian 
Artists :  The  Italian  Academies  :  Italian  Science :  Galileo  in 

his  old  age. MILTON  IN  ITALY  : — Nice,  Genoa,  Leghorn, 

Pisa  :  Arrival  in  Florence  :  Especial  Fascinations  of  Florence  : 
Florentine  Celebrities  of  the  time, — Gaddi,  Dati,  Coltellini, 
Buommatei,  Chimentelli,  Frescobaldi,  Francini,  Malatesti, 
and  others  :  Their  friendly  reception  of  Milton  and  attentions 
to  him :  His  appearances  in  their  private  Academies  :  The 
Svogliati  and  the  Apatisti :  Notice  of  Milton  in  the  minutes 
of  the  Svogliati:  Francini's  Italian  Ode  of  Compliment  to 
Milton  :  Dati's  Latin  Eulogium  on  him  :  Malatesti's  Dedication 
to  him  of  a  Collection  of  Sonnets  :  Milton's  visit  to  Galileo  : 
His  Excursion  to  Vallombrosa  :  His  Letter  to  Buommattei  on 


CONTENTS.  XX111 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Italian  Grammar  :  Journey  from  Florence  to  Rome  :  Churches 
and  Antiquities  of  Rome  :  Society  of  Rome  in  1638 :  Pope 
Urban  VIII.  and  the  Barberini  Family :  Roman  Academies  : 
Resident  Literati  of  Rome  :  Lucas  Holstenius,  Librarian  of  the 
Vatican  :  Cardinal  Francesco  Barberini :  Mention  of  Milton  as 
having  dined  at  the  English  College  in  Rome  :  His  acquaint 
ance  with  Alexander  Cherubini  and  Lucas  Holstenius  :  Intro 
duction  through  Holstenius  to  Cardinal  Barberini :  Milton  at 
a  Concert  in  the  Cardinal's  Palace  :  The  Singer  Leonora  Baroni : 
Milton's  Latin  Verses  to  her  :  Verses  of  Compliment  to  Milton 
by  Salzilli  and  Selvaggi :  His  Return  Scazons  to  Salzitti :  Journey 
from  Rome  to  Naples  :  Celebrity  of  the  Neapolitan  Manso, 
Marquis  of  Villa  :  Sketch  of  Manso's  previous  life,  and  of  his 
relations  to  Tasso  and  Marini :  Milton's  Arrival  in  Naples':  His 
Introduction  to  Manso  :  Attentions  of  Manso  to  him  during 
his  stay  in  Naples :  Political  News  from  home  and  Milton's 
abandonment  of  his  intention  to  pass  into  Sicily  and  Greece  : 
His  Latin  Poem  of  Thanks  to  Manso,  and  Manso's  parting-gift  to 
him,  with  two  lines  of  Latin  Epigram  :  Milton's  deliberate 
frankness  among  the  Italians  on  the  subject  of  his  Religious 
Opinions  :  Rumour  of  a  Cabal  against  him  among  the  English 
Jesuits  in  Rome :  His  return  to  Rome  nevertheless  :  His 
second  two  months  in  Rome  :  His  second  two  months  in 
Florence:  Further  mentions  of  him  in  the  Minutes  of  the 
Svogliati :  His  Letter  from  Florence  to  Lucas  Holstenius  :  His 
Excursion  to  Lucca  :  His  Journey  to  Venice  through  Bologna 
and  Ferrara :  His  Five  Italian  Sonnets  and  attached  Canzone  : 
Problem  of  the  date  and  place  of  those  Italian  pieces  :  A  month 
at  Venice  :  Passage  through  Verona  and  Milan,  and  adieu  to 

Italy. THE  RETURN  HOME  THROUGH  GENEVA: — Genevese 

Notabilities:  Dr.  Jean  Diodati:  Milton's  Autograph  in  the 
Cerdogni  Album  :  Homeward  route  through  France  and  Paris  : 
Milton's  Concluding  Words  as  to  his  conduct  all  the  time  of 
his  residence  abroad 735 


PLATES. 

PORTEAIT  OF  MILTON,  .ffiTAT.  10          ,  Frontispiece 

Engraved  on  steel  from  the  original  picture,  in  the 
possession  of  Edgar  Disney,  Esq. 

PORTRAIT  OF  MILTON,  JETAT.  21 To  face  page  1 

After  Vertue's  engraving  in  1731  from  the  original 
picture,  then  in  the  possession  of  the  Right  Hon. 
Speaker  Onslow. 

SPECIMENS  OF  MILTON'S  HANDWRITING  AT  VARIOUS  DATES 

FROM  1628  TO  1637 835 


BOOK  I. 

1608—1625. 

I.     MILTON'S  ANCESTRY  AND  KINDRED. 

II.  THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET,  OLD  LONDON. 

III.  EDUCATION  AT  HOME  AND  AT  ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL. 


VOL.    I. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  MILTON, 


WITH   THE 


HISTOKY  OF  HIS  THE, 


CHAPTER  I. 

ANCESTRY    AND    KINDRED. 

JOHN  MILTON  was  born,  in  his  father's  house,  in  Bread 
Street,  in  the  City  of  London,  on  Friday,  the  9th  of 
December,  1608,  at  half-past  six  in  the  morning.1  The 
year  of  his  birth  was  the  sixth  of  the  reign  of  the  Scottish 
king,  James  I.,  in  England. 

Milton's  father,  who  was  also  named  John,  was  by  profes 
sion  a  ."  scrivener."  He  is  found  settled,  in  the  exercise 
of  that  profession,  in  Bread  Street,  early  in  1603.  In  a 

1  Aubrey  and  Wood.     In  Aubrey's  that  Aubrey  had,  in  the  interval,  seen 

MS.  the  circumstance  is  entered  in  a  Christopher  Milton,  and  procured  from 

manner  which  vouches  for  its  authen-  him  the  date  he  wanted.     Possibly,  in- 

ticity.     Aubrey  had  first  left  the  date  deed,  Christopher  wrote  down  the  words 

blank  thus :  —  "  He  was  born  A°  Dni  himself.    They  look  as  if  they  had  been 

the  day  of  about taken  from  the  Family  Bible.    Wood  in 

o'clock  in  the " ;    adding  a  little  his  Fasti  makes  the  time  of  Milton's 

farther   on   in   the  MS.  these  words:  birth  "between  six  and  seven  o'clock  in 

"Q.Mr.  Chr  Milton  to  see  the  date  of  the  morning";  but   in   a  MS.   of  his 

his  bro.  birth  "     Then,  farther  on  still,  which   I   have   seen,  containing   brief 

at  the  top  of  a  new  sheet  of  smaller  notes  for  biographies  of  eminent  per- 

size  than  the  rest,  there  are  written  in  sons  (Ashm.  8519),  he  adheres  to  the 

a   clear  hand,   which  is  certainly   not  more   exact   statement  "  half  an  hour 

Aubrey's,  these  words :  "  John  Milton  after    six."      The   note    about   Milton 

was  born  the  9th  of  December,  1608,  in  this  MS.  contains  nothing  but  the 

die   Veneris,  half   an  hour  after  six  in  dates    and    places    of    his    birth    and 

the  morning."     It  is  to  be  concluded  death. 

B  2 


4  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

manuscript  volume  in  the  British  Museum,  containing  mis 
cellaneous  notes  relating  to  the  affairs  of  one  John  Sander 
son,  a  Turkey  merchant  of  that  day,  there  is  a  copy  of  a  bond, 
dated  the  4th  of  March,  1602-3,  whereby  two  persons,  styled 
"  Thomas  Heigheham  of  Bethnal-green  in  the  county  of 
Middlesex,  esquire,  and  Richard  Sparrow,  citizen  and  gold 
smith  of  London,"  engage  to  pay  to  Sanderson  a  sum  of 
money  on  the  5th  of  May  following,  the  payment  to  be 
made  "at  the  nowe  shop  of  John  Milton,  scrivener,  in 
Bread  Street,  London."  The  name  "Jo.  Milton,  scrivnr" 
is  appended  as  that  of  the  witness  in  whose  presence  the 
bond  was  sealed  and  delivered.  In  the  same  volume  there 
is  a  copy  of  a  bill  of  sale,  dated  April  2,  1603,  whereby,  for 
the  sum  of  £50,  received  from  Sanderson,  Richard  Sparrow 
makes  over  to  him  a  certain  ornament  of  gold  "  set  with  a 
great  ruby,"  retaining  the  right  to  redeem  it  by  paying  to 
Sanderson  £52  10s.  on  the  3d  of  October  following,  L  e.  the 
principal  with  five  per  cent,  of  interest  for  the  six  months' 
loan.  In  this  case  the  payment  is  to  be  made  at  Sparrow's 
own  shop  in  Cheapside  ;  but  the  witness  who  attests  the 
transaction  is  "  Peter  Jones,  servant  to  John  Milton,  scri 
vener."  The  two  transactions  refer  us  to  an  interesting 
time.  On  the  day  on  which  the  scrivener  attested  the  first 
Elizabeth  was  within  twenty  days  of  her  death ;  and  on  the 
day  on  which  his  servant  Peter  Jones  attested  the  second 
the  body  of  Elizabeth  was  lying  in  state,  and  James,  already 
proclaimed  in  her  stead,  was  preparing  to  leave  Edinburgh 
to  take  possession  of  his  new  kingdom.  Other  documents, 
still  extant,  exhibit  the  increasing  business  of  the  scrivener 
in  the  same  premises  through  the  reign  of  James.  One, 
dated  January  21,  1606-7,  is  an  assignment  of  a  lease  by 
Richard  Scudamore  of  London  to  Thomas  Calton  of  Dulwich 
for  £40,  to  be  paid  by  instalments  "  att  the  now  shop  of 
John  Mylton,  scrivener,  in  Bread  Street."  It  is  attested 
by  the  scrivener's  own  signature.  Of  later  date,  and  not 
witnessed  by  himself,  but  by  his  apprentice  William  Bolde, 
is  a  bond  from  three  gentlemen  of  Sussex  to  Ann  Stone, 
of  London,  sempster,  for  £210,  to  be  paid  "at  the  nowe 


ANCESTRY  AND   KINDRED.  5 

dwelling-howse  of  John  Milton,  scrivener,  in  Breadstreete." 
The  "shop"  and  the  " dwelling-howse"  were  evidently  one 
tenement.1 

In  those  days  houses  in  the  streets  of  cities  were  not 
numbered  as  now;  and  persons  in  business,  to  whom  it 
was  of  consequence  to  have  a  distinct  address,  effected  the 
purpose  by  exhibiting  over  their  doors  some  sign  or  emblem. 
This  fashion,  now  left  chiefly  to  publicans,  was  once  common 
to  all  trades  and  professions.  Booksellers  and  printers,  as 
well  as  grocers  and  mercers,  carried  on  their  business  at  the 
Cross -keys,  the  Dial,  the  Three  Pigeons,  the  Ship  and  Black 
Swan,  and  the  like,  in  such  and  such  streets  ;  and  every 
street  in  the  populous  part  of  London  presented  a  succes 
sion  of  such  signs,  fixed  or  swung  over  the  doors.  The 
scrivener  Milton  had  a  sign  as  well  as  his  neighbours.  It 
was  an  eagle  with  outstretched  wings;  and  hence  his  house 
was  known  as  The  Spread  Eagle  in  Bread  Street.2 

Possibly  the  device  of  the  spread  eagle  was  adopted  by 
the  scrivener  himself  with  reference  to  the  armorial  bear 
ings  of  his  family.  Wood  expressly  tells  us  that  "  the  arms 
that  John  Milton  [the  poet]  did  use  and  seal  his  letters 
with  were,  Argent,  a  spread  eagle  with  two  heads  gules, 
legg'd  and  beak'd  sable "  j  and  there  are  still  to  be  seen 
one  or  two  documents  in  which  an  impression  of  the  seal, 
exactly  as  it  is  here  described,  accompanies  the  poet's 
signature, — one  of  them  being  the  original  agreement  with 
the  bookseller  Simmons  in  April  1667  for  the  publication  of 
Paradise  Lost.  There  is  also  extant  a  small  silver  seal, 
which  once  belonged  to  the  poet,  exhibiting  the  same 
double-headed  spread  eagle  of  the  shield,  but  with  the 
addition  of  the  surmounting  crest, — a  lion's  claw,  above  a 
helmet,  &c.,  grasping  -an  eagle's  head  and  neck.3  The 

i  Lansdowne  MS.  241,  f.   58,   first  and  myself.      We  had  read  "at  the 

cited   by    Mr.   Hunter,  in   his   Milton  newe  shop "  instead  of  "  at  the  nowe 

Gleaninr/s;  same  MS.,  f.  363;  and  an  shop." 

interesting   communication    from    Mr.  2  Aubrey  and  Wood. 

Geo.   F.  Warner  in  the  Athenmim  of  3  This  interesting  relic  is,  I  believe, 

March  20,  1880.     Mr.  Warner  not  only  in  the  possession  of  Edgar  Disney,  Esq., 

added   the   later   documents   to  those  of  the  Hyde,  Ingatestone,  Essex,  son 

previously  known  from  the  Lansdowne  of  the  late  John  Disney  Esq.,  F.S.A., 

MS.,  but  also  corrected  a  misreading  by  whom  it  was  shown  at  a  meeting  of 

of    that    manuscript   by   Mr.  Hunter  the  Archaeological  Institute,  in  March 


6  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

impressions   of  the   two   seals  may    be  here  compared  : — 


These  were  the  arms  that  came  to  the  poet  from  his  father 
as  the  recognised  arms  of  the  Milton  family.  The  association 
of  the  heraldic  double-headed  spread  eagle  and  of  the  accom 
panying  crest  with  the  name  Milton  is  traced  back,  indeed, 
through  our  heraldic  authorities,  as  far  as  to  Sir  William 
Segar,  who  was  Garter  King-at-Arms  from  1603  to  1633, 
after  having  passed  through  the  previous  offices  of  Port 
cullis,  Somerset  Herald,  and  Norroy  King,  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth.  In  a  manuscript  volume  in  the  British  Museum, 
containing  the  grants  and  confirmations  of  arms  made  by 
Segar,  there  is  this  entry : — "  MYLTON  :  Argent,  a  double- 
"  headed  eagle,  displayed  gules,  beaked  and  membered 
"  azure.  To  ...  Mylton,  alias  Mytton,  of  Com.  Oxon.,  of  ye 
"  abovesaid  arms  and  crest :  viz.  out  of  a  wreath,  a  lion's 
te  gamb  couped  and  erect  azure,  grasping  an  eagle's  head 
"  erased  gules."1  The  entry  is  not  dated  ;  the  name  of  the 
person  to  whom  the  grant  or  confirmation  was  made  is  left 
blank  ;  nor  is  it  stated  whether  it  was  a  grant  or  only  a  con 
firmation.  As  we  read  the  entry,  however,  it  purports  that 
some  one  from  Oxfordshire,  claiming  the  arms  of  Milton  in 
that  county,  applied  to  the  College  of  Arms  to  have  his  title 

1849  ^Archseological  Journal,  vol.  vi.  Mr.  John  Payne,  bookseller,  who  iu- 
pp.  199 — 200).  It  was  one  of  the  articles  formed  him  that  it  had  come  into  his 
in  a  collection  cf  antiquities,  paintings,  possession  on  the  death  of  Thomas 
&c.,  which  came  to  the  late  Mr.  Disney  Foster,  of  Holloway,  who  had  married 
with  the  estate  of  the  Hyde  on  the  Elizabeth  Clarke,  the  poet's  grand- 
death  of  his  father,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Disney.  daughter  by  his  youngest  daughter 
in  1816.  Dr.  Disney  inherited  the  col-  Deborah  and  her  husband  Abraham 
lection  in  1804  from  his  friend  Mr.  Clarke  of  Spitalfields.  Deborah  had 
Thomas  Brand  Hollis,  of  the  Hyde ;  married  Clarke  before  1675,  and  she 
who  inherited  it  in  1774  from  Mr.  died  Aug.  24, 1727. 
Thomas  Hollis,  whose  name  he  took.  l  Aspidora  Seyariana  :  Add.  MS. 
Mr.  Thomas  Hollis,  well  known  as  a  Brit.  Mus.  12,225,  f.  162.  The  reference 
lover  of  art  and  an  enthusiast  in  all  to  this  MS.  I  owe  to  Mr.  Hunter's  Mil- 
that  appertained  to  Milton,  bought  the  ton  Gleanings,  p.  8. 
seal  in  1761,  for  three  guineas,  from 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  7 

recognised.  The  all  but  perfect  identity  both  of  the  arms 
and  the  crest  with  those  above  described  as  used  by  the 
poet  makes  it  not  unlikely  that  the  applicant  was  the  poet's 
father. — It  may  be  worth  while  to  note  that  Segar  himself 
had  begun  life  as  a  scrivener,  and  also  that  the  arms  of  the 
Scriveners  as  a  corporation  contained  the  spread  eagle. 
"  Azure,  an  eagle  with  wings  expanded,  holding  in  his  mouth 
a  penner  and  inkhorn  and  standing  on  a  book,  all  or,"  is 
the  heraldic  description.1  The  elder  Milton,  therefore,  might 
have  helped  himself  to  the  spread  eagle  as  a  sign  for  his 
shop,  even  had  it  not  figured  in  his  own  arms.  The  eagle 
in  that  case  would  not  have  been  double-headed,  and  would 
have  been  all  the  easier  to  paint  or  carve. 

The  heraldic  identification  of  the  name  Milton  with  the 
seemingly  distinct  name  of  Mitton  is  somewhat  curious. 
"  Mylton,  alias  Mytton,  of  Com.  Oxon."  is  the  designation 
in  Segar's  entry;  there  are  at  this  day  families  of  Mittons 
in  Shropshire  and  in  Staffordshire  using  the  double-headed 
spread  eagle  in  their  arms,  with  heraldic  variations ;  and 
there  were  Mittons  in  London  in  1633  using  the  same  arms. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  Milton,  as  we  now  write  it,  was  a 
distinct  English  surname  early  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
A  William  de  Milton  was  one  of  a  number  of  persons  to 
whom,  in  1338,  letters  of  protection  were  granted  before 
their  going  abroad  in  the  retinue  of  Queen  Philippa,  the 
wife  of  Edward  III. ; 2  and  other  Miltons,  of  somewhat 
later  date,  are  heard  of  in  different  parts  of  England,  quite 
independent  of  the  contemporary  Mittons.  Perhaps  Milton, 
Mitton,  Middleton,  and  even  Millington,  were  originally  cog 
nate  topographical  surnames,  signifying  that  the  bearers  of 
them  had  come  from  the  '  mill-town/  '  mid-town/  or  '  middle- 
town/  of  their  districts.  It  favours  this  view,  as  regards 
the  name  Milton,  that,  as  there  are  about  twenty  places 
of  this  name  in  different  parts  of  England, — two  Miltons  in 
Kent,  two  in  Hants,  one  in  Cambridgeshire,  one  in  North 
amptonshire,  one  in  Cheshire,  one  in  Somersetshire,  one  in 

1  Seymour's  fivrvey  of  London  (1735),  Book  IV.  p.  386. 
a  Kymers  Fcedera,  II.  2,  p.  25. 


8  LIFE   OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

Berkshire,  two  in  Oxfordshire,  &c., — so  families  bearing  the 
name,  and  yet  not  tracing  any  connexion  with  each  other, 
appear  to  have  been  living  simultaneously  in  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries  in  different  English  counties.  There 
were  Miltons  in  London ;  there  were  Miltons  in  Cheshire  ; 
there  were  Miltons  in  Somersetshire ;  and  there  were  Miltons 
in  Oxfordshire,  extending  themselves  into  the  adjacent 
counties  of  Berks  and  Bucks.  It  was  from  these  last,  the 
Oxfordshire  Miltons,  that  the  poet  derived  his  descent. 

All  that  the  poet  himself  thought  it  worth  while  to  say  on 
the  subject  of  his  genealogy  was  that  he  came  of  an  honest 
or  honourable  stock  ("  genere  honesto").1  This,  of  course, 
has  not  satisfied  his  biographers ;  and  there  has  been  a 
great  deal  of  investigation  of  his  pedigree,  both  on  the 
father's  side  and  on  the  mother's. 

THE  PATERNAL  PEDIGREE. 

Our  primary  information  on  this  subject  is  from  Aubrey, 
Wood,  and  Phillips.  There  are  reasons  why  the  accounts 
transmitted  by  these  three  authorities  should  be  still  quoted 
in  their  original  form  :  — 

Aubrey  s  Account  in  1681. — "  Mr.  John  Milton  was  of  an  Oxford- 

'  shire  familie  :  his  grandfather [a  Rom.  Cath.]  of  Holt  on  in 

'  Oxfordshire,  near  Shotover.  His  father  was  brought  up  in  ye 
'  Univy  of  Oxon  at  Christ  Church  ;  and  his  gr-father  disinherited 
'*  him  because  he  kept  not  to  the  Catholique  Religion  [q.  he  found 
'  a  Bible  in  English  in  his  chamber]  ;  so  thereupon  he  came  to 
'  London  and  became  a  scrivener  [brought  up  by  a  friend  of  his,  was 

'  not  an  apprentice] and  got  a  plentiful  estate  by  it."— 

In  addition  to  this,  which  occurs  at  the  beginning  of  Aubrey's  MS., 
there  is  appended,  on  the  back  of  the  last  sheet,  a  sketch  of  the  pedi 
gree  of  the  poet  drawn  up  by  Aubrey  so  as  to  make  the  substance  of 
his  information  on  that  head  plain  to  the  eye.  The  sketch  is  in  a 
very  confused  state,  with  erasures  and  ambiguities  ;  but  it  seems  to 
add  the  following  particulars  : — (1)  That  Aubrey  had  heard  that  the 
Christian  name  of  the  poet's  grandfather,  as  well  as  of  his  father,  had 
been  JOHN  ;  (2)  That  he  believed  that  the  Oxfordshire  town  or  vil 
lage  where  this  grandfather  lived,  if  not  Holton,  was  at  all  events 
"  next  town  to  Forest  Hill "  ;  (3)  That  he  had  heard  that  the  Miltons 
thereabouts,  this  grandfather  included,  were  "  rangers  of  the  Forest " 
in  that  neighbourhood,  i.  e.  of  the  Forest  of  Shotover. — M^re  important 
is  the  suggestion  in  the  sketch  as  to  the  person  who  wfrs  the  poet's 
grandmother.  This  part  of  the  sketch,  from  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  inserted,  and  from  the  marks,  of  erasure  through  a  portion  of  it,  is 

1  Defensio  Seciunla:  Works,  VI.  286. 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  9 

extremely  puzzling;  but  the  most  feasible  interpretation  seems  to 
be  that  Aubrey  had  heard  that  the  Milton  of  Holton  had  married  a 
widow  named  JEFFREY,  who  had  originally  been  a  HAUGHTON.  The 
sketch,  in  fact,  contains  a  rough  pen-and-ink  drawing  of  what  would 
in  that  case  have  been  the  arms  representing  the  previous  marriage 
of  this  wife  of  the  Holton  Milton, — viz.  the  arms  of  JEFFREY  (azure,  a 
fret  or  ;  on  a  chief  of  the  second,  a  lion  passant  sable)  impaling  those 
of  HAUGHTON  (sable,  three  bars  argent) ;  and,  if  the  drawing  means 
anything  at  all  with  reference  to  the  marriage  of  the  Milton  of 
Holton,  it  can  only  mean  that,  while  the  Haughton  portion  of  it 
held  good  for  that  marriage,  inasmuch  as  the  wife's  maiden  name  had 
been  Haughton,  the  Jeffrey  portion  of  it  was  done  with. — It  is  not 
impossible  that  Aubrey  derived  some  of  the  foregoing  heraldic  par 
ticulars  from  a  painting  of  the  Milton  family-arms  which  is  known  to 
have  been  in  the  possession  of  the  poet's  widow  at  the  time  when 
Aubrey  used  to  visit  her  in  London  for  the  purpose  of  collecting 
information  about  the  poet.  She  took  it  with  her  to  Nantwich  when 
she  retired  thither  about  1681,  and  kept  it,  with  two  portraits  of 
Milton,  till  her  death  there  in  1727.  "  Mr.  Milton's  Pictures  and 
Coat  of  Arms  "  is  one  of  the  entries,  and  by  far  the  most  valuable, 
in  an  official  inventory  of  her  effects  at  her  decease,  still  extant. 
The  entry  itself  tells  us  nothing  more  than  that  there  was  such  a 
coat/'of  arms,  the  property  of  the  widow,  after  it  had  been  an  orna 
ment  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  Milton's  own  house  in  his  life-time  ; 
but  we  chance  to  have  an  independent  account  of  it  from  eyesight. 
The  antiquary  Francis  Peck,  in  his  Memoirs  of  Milton,  published  in 
1740,  describes  it  as  "a'  board  a  quarter  of  a  yard  square,  some  time 
since  in  the  possession  of  his  widow,"  and  exhibiting  the  arms  of 
"  Milton  in  Com.  Oxon."  in  pale  with  those  of  "  Haughton  of  Haugh 
ton  Tower  in  Com.  Lane.,"  the  names  of  the  two  families  written  so 
underneath  the  two  divisions.  Peck's  authority  for  the  statement,  he 
tells  us,  was  "a  letter  of  Roger  Comberbach  of  Chester,  Esq.,  to 
William  Cowper,  Esq.,  Clerk  of  the  Parliament,  dated  15th  December 
1736."  Now,  this  Roger  Comberbach  was  Roger  Comberbach  the 
younger,  son  of  an  elder  of  that  name,  who  was  born  in  1666,  and 
became  Recorder  of  Chester,  and  author  of  some  legal  works.  Both 
father  and  son  interested  themselves  in  the  antiquities  of  Cheshire  ; 
and  both  knew  Nantwich  well,  where  the  elder  had  been  born.1 
Nothing  was  more  likely  than  a  visit  of  either  to  Milton's  widow  there 
for  inquiries  about  Milton  ;  and  a  description  from  either  of  the  coat 
of  arms  as  it  was  to  be  seen  in  such  a  visit  ought  to  be  perfectly 
trustworthy.  One  important  blunder  in  the  matter,  however,  was 
made  by  Peck,  if  not  by  Comberbach.  Peck  interpreted  the  arms  as 
being  those  of  Milton's  father  and  mother,  and  argued  accordingly, 
against  all  the  other  authorities,  that  the  poet's  mother  was  "a  Haugh 
ton,  of  Haughton  Tower,  Lancashire,"  wnereas  the  arms  must  have 
been  those  of  Milton's  grandfather  and  grandmother,  the  father  and 
mother  of  the  scrivener  of  Bread  Street.  It  was,  doubtless,  the 
scrivener  that  had  gratified  himself  by  having  the  board  painted  for  a 
household  ornament ;  and  from  him  it  had  come  to  the  poet  and  so 
to  the  poet's  widcw.  Though,  in  the  description  of  it,  we  hear  nothing 
of  the  "  Jeffrey,"  and  though  the  reference  to  the  Haughtons  of 
Haughton  Tower  must  be  treated  as  a  heraldic  nourish,  there  is  some 
thing  like  confirmation,  it  will  be  seen,  of  Aubrey' s  supposed  tradition 

1  Ormsrod's  Cheshire,  and  Comberbach  pedigree  iu  Harl.  MS.  2153  f.  141. 


10  LIFE   OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

that  the  maiden  name  of  Milton's  grandmother,  the  wife  of  his  Roman 
Catholic  grandfather,  was  Haughton. 

Woods  Account  in  1692.—"  His  father,  Joh.  Milton,  who  was  a 
"  scrivener  living  at  the  Spread-Eagle  in  the  said  street,  was  a  native 
"  of  Halton  in  Oxfordshire.  .  .  .  His  grandfather  Milton,  whose 
"  Christian  name  was  John,  as  he  [Wood's  chief  informant,  i.  e. 
"Aubrey]  thinks,  was  an  under-ranger  or  keeper  of  the  Forest  of 
"  Shotover  near  to  the  said  town  of  Halton,  but  descended  from  those 
"  of  his  name  who  had  lived  beyond  all  record  at  Milton  near  Halton 
"and  Thame  in  Oxfordshire.  Which  grandfather,  being  a  zealous 
"  Papist,  did  put  away,  or,  as  some  say,  disinherit  his  son  because  he 
"  was  a  Protestant ;  which  made  him  retire,  to  London,  to  seek,  in  a 
"  manner,  his  fortune." 

Phillips's  Account  in  1694. — "  His  father,  John  Milton,  an  honest, 
"  worthy,  and  substantial  citizen  of  London,  by  profession  a  scrivener ; 
"  to  which  profession  he  voluntarily  betook  himself,  by  the  advice  and 
"  assistance  of  an  intimate  friend  of  his,  eminent  in  that  calling,  upon 
"his  being  cast  out  by  his  father,  a  bigoted  Roman  Catholic,  for 
"embracing,  when  young,  the  Protestant  faith  and  abjuring  the 
"Popish  tenets  :  for  he  is  said  to  have  been  descended  of  an  ancient 
"  family  of  the  Miltons  of  Milton  near  Abingdon  in  Oxfordshire  ; 
"  where  they  had  been  a  long  time  seated,  as  appears  by  the  monu- 
"ments  still  to  be  seen  in  Milton  church, — till  one  of  the  family, 
"  having  taken  the  wrong  side  in  the  contests  between  the  Houses  of 
"  York  and  Lancaster,  was  sequestered  of  all  his  estate  but  what  he 
"held  by  his  wife." 

It  is  from  the  data  supplied  by  these  three  accounts  that 
all  subsequent  inquirers  have  worked;  and  the  general 
result  has  been  that,  while  some  of  the  statements  remain 
doubtful  and  wait  farther  exploration,  and  while  others 
have  received  correction,  the  information  in  main  matters 
has  been  confirmed  and  extended. 

As  to  the  alleged  Miltons  of  Milton  in  Oxfordshire,  the 
remote  progenitors  of  the  poet,  research  has  been  fruit 
less.  There  are,  as  we  have  said,  two  places  in  Oxfordshire 
named  Milton.  There  is  the  village  of  Great  Milton  in  the 
Hundred  of  Thame,  some  eight  miles  south  -  east  from 
Oxford,  and  giving  its  name  to  the  two  contiguous  parishes 
of  Great  Milton  and  Little  Milton,  both  in  that  hundred  ; 
and  there  is  a  small  hamlet  called  Milton  about  twenty- 
three  miles  farther  north  in  the  same  county,  near  Banbury, 
and  attached  as  a  curacy  to  the  vicarage  of  Adderbury. 
The  former  is  clearly  the  "  Milton  near  Halton  and  Thame 
in  Oxfordshire"  referred  to  by  Wood.  The  reference  of 
Phillips  is  also  to  the  same  village  of  Great  Milton ;  for, 


ANCESTRY    AND   KINDRED.  11 

though  he  says  "  Milton  near  Abingdon,"  and  there  is  a 
Milton  near  Abingdon,  that  Milton,  like  Abingdon  itself, 
is  in  the  county  of  Berks.  That  Phillips,  however,  intended 
the  Oxfordshire  Milton  is  clear  by  his  adding  the  words  "in 
Oxfordshire," — which  words,  as  they  stand  in  his  -text,  are 
a  blunder,  arising  from  his  having  written  from  hearsay. 
His  reference  to  the  monuments  of  the  Miltons  in  Milton 
Church  must  also  have  been  from  hearsay.  Dr.  Newton 
searched  in  vain,  before  1749,  for  any  traces  of  such  monu 
ments  in  the  church  of  Milton  near  Abingdon  in  Berkshire;1 
nor  has  repeated  search  in  all  the  extant  records  of  the 
other  and  far  more  likely  Great  Milton  in  Oxfordshire 
recovered  any  traces  of  the  Miltons  supposed  to  have 
radiated  thence.2  As  the  registers  of  Great  Milton,  how 
ever,  go  back  only  to  1550,  and  as  Phillips  assigns  the  period 
of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  (1455 — 1485)  as  that  of  a  traditional 
change  for  the  worse  in  the  fortunes  of  the  family,  it  may 
be  that  in  still  earlier  times  Miltons  held  lands  in  that 
locality.  Even  this  Mr.  Hunter  was  disposed  to  question, 
on  the  ground  that  there  is  no  trace  of  such  a  family  in 
more  ancient  documents,  where,  had  they  existed,  they 
would  almost  necessarily  have  been  mentioned. 

Letting  go  the  legendary  Miltons  of  Milton,  we  do  find 
persons  named  Milton  living,  immediately  before  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  in  Oxfordshire  and  the  adjoining  counties,  who 
may  have  originally  radiated  from  Great  Milton,  and  who, 
with  such  property  as  they  had,  did  have  to  go  through  the 
chances  of  the  York  and  Lancaster  wars.  In  the  twelfth 
year  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.  (1433)  a  census  was  taken 
by  appointed  commissioners  of  all  persons  in  the  different 
counties  of  England  that  were  considered  of  the  rank  of 

1  Newton's  Milton,  p.  1  of  the  Life.  his  subsequent  examination  of  the  Re- 

2  "In  the  registers  of  Milton,"  says  gisfcers,he  can  "positively corroborate" 
Todcl  in  1809,  "  as  I  have  been  obliging-  this  statement.  There  are  several  MSS., 
ly  informed  by  letter  from   the   Rev.  in  the  Ashmolean  and  British  Museum, 
Mr.  Jones,  there  are  no  entries  of  the  giving  notes  of  old  monuments  in  the 
name  of  Milton."     Later  still,  Wood's  churches  of  Oxfordshire,  that  of  Great 
Editor,  Bliss  (Fasti  I.  480),  tells  us  that  Milton  included;  but  I  have  found  no 
he  had  himself  inspected  the  Register,  reference  in  them  to  the  Milton  monu- 
but  "  not  found  the  name  Milton,  as  a  ments  mentioned  by  Phillips.     One  is 
surname,  in  any  part  of  it ;  "  and  I  am  of  date  1574. 

informed  by  Colonel  Chester  that,  from 


12  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

gentry.     "The  outward  object  was  to  enable  the  king's 
"  party  to  administer  an  oath  to  the  gentry  for  the  better 
"  keeping  of  the  peace  and  observing  the  laws,  though  the 
"  principal  reason  was  to  detect  and  suppress  such  as  favoured 
"  the  title  of  York,  then  beginning  to  show  itself."  l     The 
returns  then  made  are  still  extant,  for  all  save  ten  counties.2 
In  some  counties  the  commissioners  included  in  their  lists 
persons  of  much  meaner  condition  than  in  others,  and  so  made 
their  lists  disproportionately  large.     The  return  for  Oxford 
shire  is  perhaps  the  largest  and  most  indiscriminate  of  any. 
"  The  commissioners  in  this  county,"  says  Fuller,  "appear 
"  over-diligent  in  discharging  their  trust  ;  for,  whereas  those 
"  in  other  shires  flitted  only  the  cream  of  their  gentry,  it  is 
"  suspicious  that  here  they  make  use  of  much  thin  milk." 
Whether  belonging  to  the  cream  or  to  the  thin  milk,  one 
of  the  four  hundred  persons   or  thereabouts  returned  for 
Oxfordshire  is  a  Roger  Milton,  who  was  almost  certainly 
the  same  person  as  a  Roger  Milton  reported  by  Mr.  Hunter 
as  having  been,  four  years  later   (1437),   collector  of  the 
fifteenths  and  tenths  for  the  county  of  Oxford.3     With  the 
exception  of  a  John  Milton  of  Egham  in  Surrey,  -this  Oxford 
shire  Milton  is  the  only  person  of  the  surname  Milton  returned 
in  the  census  for  1433  of  the  -whole  gentry  of  England.     But 
Cheshire   and    Somersetshire,   where    Miltons   were    to   be 
expected,  are  among  the  counties  for  which  there  are  no 
returns  ;  and  Mr.  Hunter  finds  a  John  de  Milton  in  1428 
(possibly  the  same  as  the  John  Milton  of  Egham)  holding  the 
manor  of  Burnham  in  Bucks  by  the  service  of  half  a  knight's 
fee.4      There    were  at  least  two   Miltons  in  all   England, 
therefore,  living  immediately  before  the  Wars  of  the  Roses 
in  such  circumstances  that  they  could  be  included  among 
the  minor  gentry  ;  and  both  of  these  were  in  the  circle  of 
country  which  may  be  called  the  traditional  Milton  neigh 
bourhood  :  viz.,  Oxfordshire,  and  the  adjacent  counties  of 
Berks  and  Bucks,  between  Oxfordshire  and  London. 


or  the  eneaost  der  its  prr  coui 


*  TyaregiveuinFuller's  Worthies, 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  13 

After  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  Miltons  in  this  neighbourhood 
become  more  numerous.  In  1518  there  died,  in  Chipping 
Norton,  Oxfordshire,  a  Gryffyth  Milton,  "  gentleman  "  ; 1  a 
William  Milton  was  an  inhabitant  of  the  city  of  Oxford  in 
1523;  one  finds  a  William  Milton  and  also  a  Richard  Milton 
in  Berks  in  1559;  and  these,  as  well  as  the  more  distant 
Miltons  of  Cheshire  and  Somersetshire,  had  their  repre 
sentatives  in  London,  where,  in  the  reign  of  Philip  and  Mary, 
a  William  Milton  was  collector  of  the  customs,2  and  where, 
during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  the  name  Milton  was  not 
very  uncommon. 

For  the  immediate  Milton  ancestry  of  the  poet  we  are 
referred  by  both  Aubrey  and  Wood  to  that  part  of  Oxford 
shire  which  lies  east  and  north-east  from  Oxford  itself, 
and  within  an  easy  walk  from  it,  over  what  is  now  Shotover 
Hill  and  the  tract  of  wooded  land  which  once  formed  the 
royal  forest  of  Shotover  (Chateau  vert).  Here,  all  in  the 
Hundred  of  Bullington,  all  on  the  borders  of  what  was  once 
Shotover  Forest,  and  all  within  a  radius  of  about  six  miles 
from  Oxford,  are  the  parishes  of  Forest  Hill,  Holton  or 
Halton,  Stanton  St.  John's,  Beckley,  and  Elsfield,  each  with 
a  village  of  the  same  name.  Holton,  a  small  parish  of  about 
250  souls,  is  about  five  miles  due  east  from  Oxford ;  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  from  Holton,  and  a  little  nearer  Oxford,  is 
Forest  Hill ;  less  than  a  mile  from  Forest  Hill,  in  a  northerly 
direction,  is  Stanton  St.  John's,  giving  its  name  to  a  parish 
of  about  500  souls ;  and  Beckley  and  Elsfield,  more  to  the 
north-west,  are  each  about  two  miles  from  Stanton  St. 
John's.  Immediately  to  the  south  of  Bullington  Hundred, 
which  includes  this  range  of  parishes,  is  the  Hundred  of 
Thame,  containing  that  town  or  village  of  Great  Milton 
whence,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Oxfordshire  Miltons  were 
believed  to  have  derived  their  name  and  origin.  From 
Great  Milton  to  Holton  the  distance  is  hardly  four  miles ; 
and  a  family  migrating  northwards  from  Great  Milton,  and 
yet  remaining  in  Oxfordshire,  would  scatter  itself  easily 

1  Information  from  Colonel  Chester,  on  the  authority  of  one  of  Wood's  MSS. 
in  the  Bodleian.  2  Milton  Gleanings,  pp.  9-10. 


14  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

enough  through  the  parishes  of  Holton,  Forest  Hill,  Stanton 
St.  John's,  Elsfield,  and  Beckley.  More  particularly,  if 
any  of  the  members  of  such  a  family  acquired  an  official 
connexion  with  Shotover  Forest,  as  rangers,  underkeepers,  or 
the  like,  this  is  the  direction  in  which  they  would  be  drawn, 
and  this  is  the  range  of  Oxfordshire  ground  within  which 
they  would  be  detained.  Accordingly,  Aubrey,  having 
heard  that  the  poet's  immediate  paternal  ancestors  had 
been  t(  rangers  of  the  Forest,"  had  heard  also  that  the 
poet's  grandfather  "  lived  next  town  to  Forest  Hill,"  and 
had  concluded  or  guessed  this  town  to  be  Holton ;  and 
Wood,  an  Oxford  man  himself,  and  knowing  the  whole 
neighbourhood  well,  had  adopted  the  statement  and  made 
the  poet's  father  distinctly  "  a  native  of  Halton."  Research 
hitherto  has  failed  to  verify  so  precise  a  statement.  The 
preserved  registers  of  Holton  parish  do  not  begin  till  1633, 
but  there  is  no  notice  in  them  of  any  Milton  as  having  lived 
there  since  then ; 1  nor  in  any  other  known  record,  apart 
from  Aubrey  and  Wood,  is  there  any  reference  to  a  Milton 
as  ever  having  lived  there. — This  failure  with  Holton  is 
of  the  less  consequence  because  research  has  been  more 
fortunate  with  the  adjacent  parish  of  Stanton  St.  John's; 
which  may  after  all  have  been  the  parish  Aubrey  had  in 
view  when  he  wrote  "  Holton,"  inasmuch  as  Stanton  St. 
John's  is  actually  the  "  next  town  "  to  Forest  Hill,  nearer 
to  it  on  the  north  than  Holton  is  on  the  south-east.  The 
following  are  copies  of  two  wills  found  by  me  long  ago  in 
the  Bishop's  Registry  at  Oxford  : — 

Will  of  Henry  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's :—"  In  the  name  of 
God,  Amen  :  The  25«*  day  of  November  Anno  Dui  1558,  I,  Henri 
Mylton  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  sick  of  body  but  perfect  of  mind,  do 
make  my  last  will  and  testament  in  manner  and  form  following.— 
First  I  bequeathe  my  soul  to  God,  to  Our  Lady  Saint  Mary,  and  to 
all  the  Holy  Company  of  Heaven,  and  my  body  to  be  buried  in  the 
churchyard  of  Stanton  :  I  give  to  Isabell  my  daughter  a  bullock  and 
half  a  quarter  of  barley,  and  Richard  my  son  shall  keep  the  said 
bullock  until  he  be  three  years  old  :  Item,  I  give  to  Rowland  Mylton 
and  Alys  Mylton,  each  of  them,  half  a  quarter  of  barley :  I  give  to 
Agnes  my  wife  a  gelding,  a  grey  mare,  and  two  kye,  and  all  my  house- 

i  Letter  to  me  from  the  Rev.  Thomas  siding  there  in  1859  with  his  son,  the 
Tyndale,  late  Rector  of  Holton,  and  re-  present  Rector. 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  15 

hold  stuff ;  whom  I  make  my  executrix." — The  will  was  proved  on 
the  5th  of  the  following  March,  when  administration  was  granted  to 
the  widow,  the  goods  being  inventoried  at  £6  19s.' 

Will  of  Agnes  Milton,  widow  of  the  above: — "In  the  name  of  God, 
Amen  :  The  9th  day  of  March  A.D.  1560, 1,  Agnes  Mylton  of  Stanton 
St.  John's  in  the  county  Oxon,  widow,  sick  of  body,  but  whole  and 
perfect  of  remembrance,  laud  and  praise  be  given  to  Almighty  God, 
do  ordain  and  make  this  my  last  will,  and  present  testament  con 
taining  therein  my  last  will,  in  manner  and  form  following. — First 

1  bequeathe  my  soul  to  Almighty  God  and  to  all  the  Celestial 
Company  of  Heaven,  and  my  body  to  be  buried  in  the  churchyard 
of  Stanton  at  the  belfry  end.     Item,  I  bequeathe  to  my  daughter 
Elsabeth  my  two  kyen,  one  of  them  in  the  keeping  of  Charles  Issard 
of  the  same  Stanton,  and  the  other  in  the  keeping  of  my  son  William 
Howse  of  Beckley.     I  bequeathe  also  to  the  same  Elsabeth  1 1  pair 
of  sheets,  3  meat  cloths,  and  a  towel.     I  give  to  my  said  daughter 
8  platters,  2  saucers,  a  bason,  3  pans,  a  kettle,  a  skillet,  2  pots,  and 
two  winnowing  sheets.     Item,  I  will  also  to  the  same  Elsabeth  5  of 
my  smocks,  two  of  my  best  candlesticks,  and  the  wheel.     Further 
more,  I  give  and  bequeathe  to  my  son  Richard  a  pot,  a  pan,  a  skillet, 

2  candlesticks,  and  a  winnowing  sheet.      Item,  I  give  to  my  son 
Richard  half  a  quarter  of  the  14  bushels  of  barley  which  he  oweth 
me ;  and  2  bushels  of  the  same  barley  I  give  to  my  son  William 
Howse ;  and  all  the  rest  of  hit  I  will  shall  be  stowed  for  me  as  my 
son  Richard  and  my  daughter  Elsabeth  think  best.    Also  I  give  my 
son  Richard  all  such  debts  as  he  oweth  me  not  being  named.     All 
the  rest  of  my  goods,  both  moveable  and  unmoveable,  my  debts  paid 
and  will  fulfilled,  I  give  and  bequeathe  to  my  son  Richard  and  my 
daughter  Elsabeth  ;  whom  I  make  my  full  executors  of  this  my  last 
will  and  testament.    Witness  whereof  Percyvall  Gaye,  John  Stacey, 
and  Agnes  Clarke,  with  other  moe." — The  will  was  proved  on  the  14th 
of  June,  1561,  when  administration  was  granted  to  the  said  Richard 
and  Elsabeth,  the  goods  being  inventoried  at  £7  4s.  4d. 

These  two  persons,  Henry  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's 
and  Agnes  his  wife,  both  dead  before  the  year  1562,  were, 
it  seems  now  ascertained,  the  great-grandfather  and  great- 
grandmother  of  the  poet.  They  figure  themselves  from 
their  wills  as  persons  of  the  humble  small-farming  class, 
who  had  been  born  probably  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII., 
and  had  lived  on  in  Stanton  St.  John's  through  the  reigns 
of  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI,  and  Mary,  just  touching  that 
of  Elizabeth,  and  remaining  faithful  to  the  last  to  the  old 
Roman  Catholic  Religion.  It  is  difficult  to  make  out  what 
family  they  left.  The  Richard  Milton  of  both  wills,  and 
the  chief  heir  in  the  last,  was  evidently  their  eldest  son; 
and  there  was  certainly  one  daughter,  the  Isabell  men 
tioned  in  the  first  will,  and  who  was,  in  all  probability,  by 
an  alternation  of  spelling  not  uncommon  in  those  days,  the 


16  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

same  as  the  Elsabeth  of  the  second.1  The  Rowland  Milton 
and  Alys  Milton  of  the  first  will  may  also  have  been  children, 
but  may  have  been  relatives  only  ;  and  the  William  Howse 
of  Beckley  of  the  second  will  may  possibly  have  been  a  son 
of  the  testatrix  by  a  former  marriage,  or  remains  to  be 
accounted  for  otherwise. 

It  is  the  Richard  Milton  of  both  wills  that  we  have  to 
follow.  He  was  the  poet's  grandfather,  and  has  fortunately 
left  some  distinct  and  rather  interesting  traces  of  himself  in 
Oxfordshire  records  : — From  his  father's  will  in  1558,  enjoin 
ing  him  to  keep  the  bullock  left  for  his  sister  Isabell  till  the 
said  bullock  should  be  three  years  old,  it  is  to  be  inferred 
that  he  was  then  already  in  a  small  farming  way  of  business 
about  Stanton  St.  John's  on  his  own  account;  and  his  mother's 
will  shows  him  to  have  been  of  some  little  substance  in 
1561,  and  likely  to  carry  on  the  Milton  line  respectably. 
Nothing  more  is  heard  of  him  till  1577,  when,  as  was  ascer 
tained  by  the  researches  of  Mr.  Hunter,  a  Richard  Milton 
was  one  of  the  inhabitants  of  Stanton  St.  John's  that  were 
assessed  to  the  subsidy  of  that  year,  the  19th  of  Elizabeth. 
"  He  is  not  charged  on  lands,"  says  Mr.  Hunter,  "  but  on 
"  goods  only,  as  if  he  had  no  lands,  and  the  goods  were 
"  assessed  on  an  annual  value  of  three  pounds."  As  both 
lands  and  goods,  however,  were  assessed  for  the  subsidies 
of  that  reign  at  sums  vastly  below  their  real  value,  the  con 
dition  of  a  man  charged  at  three  pounds  a  year  on  goods 
was  much  higher  than  might  at  first  appear.  At  all  events, 
as  is  proved  by  the  Subsidy  Rolls,  this  Richard  Milton  of 
Stanton  St.  John's  was  the  only  person  of  the  name  of  Milton 
assessed  on  that  occasion  in  all  Oxfordshire.  In  1582  he  is 
found  serving,  or  elected  to  serve,  as  churchwarden  in  his 
parish.  If  he  was  then  an  avowed  Roman  Catholic,  the 
position  must  have  been  more  anomalous  and  difficult  than 
it  would  have  been  some  years  earlier.  Till  the  year  1570, 

1  Iu  the  first  edition  I  ventured  on  reconsideration  and  advice  have  led  me 

the  conjecture  that  the  Elsabeth  of  the  to  withdraw  that  conjecture,  and  rather 

second  will  might  have  heen  the  wife  identify  the   Elsabeth   of    the   second 

of  Richard,  styled  "  daughter  "  by  the  will  with  the  Isabell  of  the  first, 
testatrix  for  "  daughter-in-law  " ;   but 


ANCESTRY    AND    KINDRED.  17 

we  are  informed  by  Fuller  in  his  Church  History,  "  papists 
"  generally,  without  regret,  repaired  to  the  public  places  of 
"  divine  service,  and  were  present  at  our  prayers,  sermons, 
"  and  sacraments.  What  they  thought  in  their  hearts  He 
"  knew  who  knoweth  hearts ;  but  in  outward  conformity 
"they  kept  communion  with  the  Church  of  England." 
After  that  year,  however,  as  Fuller  goes  on  to  explain,  this 
mixed  attendance  of  secret  Roman  Catholics  and  sound 
Protestants  in  the  English  parish  churches  had  become  less 
and  less  the  rule,  the  Pope  having  intimated  that  the  real 
"  sheep  "  of  his  communion  in  England  must  separate  them 
selves  from  the  "goats,"  and  the  more  zealous  Roman 
Catholics  consequently  absenting  themselves  thenceforward 
from  the  parish  churches  in  such  numbers  as  to  cause  an 
alarm  that  Popery  was  on  the  increase.  Thus  there  had  come 
into  popular  use  for  the  first  time  the  famous  word  Recusants  ; 
"which,  though  formerly  in  being,"  gays  Fuller,  "to  signify 
"  such  as  refused  to  obey  the  edicts  of  lawful  authority,  was 
"  now  confined,  in  common  discourse,  to  express  those  of  the 
' '  Church  of  Rome."  There  seems  to  be  some  reason  for  believ 
ing  that  Richard  Milton  was  openly  a  Recusant  in  1582,  when 
they  elected  him  churchwarden  of  Stanton- St. -John's,  and  that 
the  election,  coming  upon  him  by  compulsion  in  his  turn 
among  the  parishioners,  may  have  caused  him  trouble.  At 
all  events,  he  was  to  distinguish  himself  most  remarkably  as' 
a  Recusant  before  his  death.  In  1601,  when  he  must  have 
been  between  sixty  and  seventy  years  of  age,  he  is  found 
figuring  in  what  are  called  the  Recusant  Rolls,  now  preserved 
among  the  records  of  the  Exchequer,  these  Rolls  contain 
ing,  year  by  year,  an  account  of  the  fines  levied  on  persons 
for  non-attendance  at  their  parish  churches,  or  of  the  com 
positions  made  by  rich  persons  on  that  account.  "Each 
county  is  treated  apart,"  says  "Mr.  Hunter ;  and  it  is  to 
Mr.  Hunter's  examination  of  the  Roll  for  Oxfordshire  for 
the  above-mentioned  year,  the  43d  of  Elizabeth,  that  we 
owe  the  discovery  in  it  of  the  name  of  "  Richard  Milton  of 
Stanton  St.  John's,  yeoman."  On  the  13th  of  July  1601, 
it  there  appears,  he  was  fined  £60  for  three  months  of 
VOL.  i.  c 


18  LIIE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

non-attendance  at  his  parish  church,  reckoned  from  the  6th 
of  December  1600,  such  fine  being  in  strict  accordance  with 
the  statute  against  Recusancy  of  the  23d  of  Elizabeth, 
which  fixed  the  penalty  of  non-attendance  on  the  established 
worship  at  £20  a  month.  Though  this  was  ' '  ruinous  work 
for  a  family  of  but  slender  fortunes/7  as  Mr.  Hunter  says, 
the  culprit  "  was  not  subdued  by  it ";  for  the  record  bears 
that  a  second  fine  of  £60  was  imposed  upon  him  in  the  same 
year  for  other  three  months  of  non-attendance,  reckoned 
from  the  13th  of  July  to  the  4th  of  October,  he  not  having 
meanwhile  made  his  submission  nor  promised  to  be  con 
formable  pursuant  to  the  statute.  His  contumacy  must 
have  made  him  a  very  conspicuous  man  in  his  neighbour 
hood  ;  for,  just  as  he  had  been  the  only  person  of  the  name 
of  Milton  in  all  Oxfordshire  assessed  for  the  subsidy  of  1577, 
so  he  is  the  only  person  of  the  name  in  all  Oxfordshire  that 
appears  in  the  series  of  the  Recusant  Rolls.  Other  persons 
in  Oxfordshire  were  fined  as  obstinate  Roman  Catholics,  and 
among  them  one  other  inhabitant  of  Stanton  St.  John's, 
named  Thomas  Stacey ;  but,  so  far  as  record  has  yet  shown, 
no  other  Milton.  The  two  fines  by  the  statute  of  the  23d 
of  Elizabeth,  and  the  possibility  of  the  application  to  him 
of  the  still  severer  penalties  of  a  later  Act  of  the  35th  of 
;  Elizabeth,  may  have  crushed  him.  Nothing  has  yet  been 
heard  of  him  after  1601;  nor  have  I  been  able  to  find  his 
will  in  the  Oxfordshire  registers  or  anywhere  else.1 

While  Aubrey  and  Wood  were  wrong  in  their  conjecture 
that  the  Christian  name  of  Milton's  grandfather  was  John, 
and  apparently  wrong  also  in  locating  him  in  Holton  parish, 
instead  of  the  adjacent  parish  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  they 

1  Wills,  ut  supra  ;  Mr.  Joseph  Hunt-  postscript  adds : — "  Mr.  Allnutt  informs 
er's  Milton  Gleanings  (1850),  pp.  1 — 4  ;  me  that  Mr.  Sides  has  found  opposite 
Fuller's  Church  History,  ed.  of  1842,  the  name  of  Richard  Milton,  the  grand- 
vol.  ii.  pp.  497-8;  and  a  communica-  father,  in  the  Archdeacon's  visitation  [of 
tion  from  Mr.  W.  H.  Allnutt  to  Notes  Stanton  St.  Johns]  '  cot,'  which  stands 
and  Queries  of  Feb.  7,  1880,  with  far-  for  contumax"  —  The  parish-registers 
ther  information  from  him  given  in  the  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  I  have  beeu 
postscript  of  an  article  by  Mr.  Hyde  obligingly  informed  by  the  present  Rec- 
Clarke  in  the  Athenaeum  of  June  12,  tor,  the  Rev.  W.  E.  O.  Austin-Gourlay, 
1880.  It  is  from  Mr.  Allnutt  that  I  do  not  go  back  beyond  1654,  and  con- 
take  the  information  that  Richard  Mil-  tain  no  trace  of  a  Milton  living  in  the 
ton  was  churchwarden  of  Stanton  St.  parish  between  that  date  arid  1700. 
John's  in  1582.  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke's 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  19 

were  quite  right,  it  will  have  been  seen,  in  their  statement 
that  he  had  been  a  very  zealous  Roman  Catholic.  Two  other 
points  of  their  information  respecting  him  remain  rather 
dubious:  —  (1)  Was  he  ever  an  officer  of  Shotover  Forest? 
Aubrey's  words,  in  his  heraldic  sketch,  "and  they  were 
raungers  of  the  Forest,"  would  lead  us  to  imagine  that  some 
office  in  connexion  with  the  Forest  had  been  hereditary  for 
some  time  in  the  family,  and  had  descended  from  the  small 
farmer  Henry  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's  to  his  more  sub 
stantial  son  Richard ;  and  it  is  Wood  that  fastens  the  office 
more  particularly  on  Richard,  calling  him  definitely  "an 
under  -  ranger  or  keeper  of  the  Forest  of  Shotover." 
Wood's  authority  for  such  a  fact,  relating  to  such  a  locality, 
ought  to  count  for  something,  even  if  he  adopted  it  first 
from  Aubrey ;  but  confirmation  is  wanting.  "  Much  as  I 
"have  seen,"  wrote  Mr.  Hunter  in  1850,  "of  documentary 
"  evidence  relating  to  Shotover  at  that  period,  such  as 
"  Presentments  and  Accounts,  which  are  the  kind  of  docu- 
"  ments  in  which  we  might  expect  to  find  the  name,  I  have 
' '  seen  no  mention  of  any  Milton  having  held  any  office  in 
"  the  Forest,  but  only  having  transactions  with  those  who 
' '  did  hold  such  offices."  In  this  connexion  Mr.  Hunter  pre 
sents  us  with  the  names  of  two  Oxfordshire  Miltons  whom 
he  had  ascertained  to  be  living  as  contemporaries  and  near 
neighbours  of  Richard  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's  and 
probably  his  kinsmen.  One  was  a  Rowland  Milton,  "  hus 
bandman,"  of  Beckley,  whom  we  can  now  recognise,  though 
Mr.  Hunter  had  not  the  means,  as  presumably  the  Row 
land  Milton  of  Henry  Milton's  will  of  1558,  and  therefore 
Richard's  near  relative,  if  not  his  brother.  He  was  alive 
till  1599,  and  is  reported  by  Mr.  Hunter  as  having  in  1586 
bought  some  ash-trees  from  the  Regarders  of  Stowe  Wood, 
close  to  Beckley,  and  as  having  been  subjected  to  a  small 
fine  in  1591  for  having  cut  down  a  cart-load  of  wood,  with 
out  leave,  "in  the  Queen's  Wood  called  Lodge  Coppice" 
in  the  same  vicinity.  Again,  in  the  contiguous  parish  of 
Elsfield,  also  close  to  Shotover  Forest,  Mr.  Hunter  found, 
about  the  same  time,  a  Robert  Milton,  "  to  whom  and  his 

c  2 


20  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

companions  the  officers  of  the  Forest  paid  forty  shillings  for 
hedging  Beckley  Coppice  and  for  gates  and  iron  work." 
He  may  have  been  a  son  of  the  Rowland  Milton  of  Beckley, 
as  also  may  have  been  a  John  Milton  whom  very  recent 
research  has  discovered  as  then  living  in  Beckley  and  as 
having  been  churchwarden  of  that  parish  in  1577  and 
again  in  1581.  Not  one  of  these  Beckley  or  Elsfield  Mil- 
tons,  it  will  be  seen,  helps  us  to  the  conclusion  that  their 
kinsman  Richard  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's  was  an 
under-ranger  of  Shotover  Forest,  or  that  such  an  office  had 
run  in  the  family  of  the  Miltons  of  those  Oxfordshire  parts. 
In  the  adjacent  county  of  Berks,  however,  not  very  far  from 
those  Oxfordshire  parts,  there  was  a  Milton  in  charge  of  the 
royal  forests  in  that  county  at  the  very  time  when  Aubrey 
and  Wood  suppose  the  poet's  Roman  Catholic  grandfather 
to  have  been  under-ranging  in  Shotover.  He  was  a  Thomas 
Milton,  found  by  Mr.  Hunter  as  having  been  in  1571  "  sworn 
Regarder  and  Preservator  of  all  the  Queen's  Majesty's  Woods 
within  Battell's  Bailiwick,  parcel  of  the  Park  of  Windsor/' 
and  of  whom  it  is  further  known  that  in  1576  he  had  a 
grant  of  a  tenement  called  La  Rolfe,  with  two  gardens,  in 
New  Windsor.  Related  to  this  Thomas  Milton  may  have 
been  a  Nicholas  Milton,  "  gentleman/'  who  was  living  at 
Appleton,  in  the  same  county  of  Berks,  from  1589  to  1613, 
and  was  a  person  of  some  condition,  possessing  lands  in 
Appleton  and  in  other  places.  These  Berkshire  Miltons 
were  evidently  of  a  superior  rank  in  life  to  their  Oxfordshire 
contemporaries  and  namesakes.1  (2)  Who  was  Richard 
Milton's  wife  ?  If  our  reading  of  Aubrey's  heraldic  sketch 
and  of  the  independent  tradition  through  Peck  is  correct, 
her  maiden  name  was  Haughton.  Our  reading  of  Aubrey's 
sketch  purports  further  that  she  was  a  widow  when  Richard 
Milton  married  her  and  that  her  first  husband's  name  had 
been  Jeffrey.  Further,  as  Richard  Milton  does  not  appear 
as  a  married  man  in  his  widowed  mother's  will  of  1560-61, 

1  Hunter's  Milton  Gleanings,  pp.  1—  the  existence  of  the  John  Milton  who 

10,  with  Mr.  Allnutt's  previously  cited  was  twice    churchwarden  of  Beckley: 

communication  to  Notes  and  Queries  of  the  other  Miltons  mentioned  were  uu- 

Feb.  7, 1880.    It  is  this  last  that  certifies  earthed  by  Hunter. 


ANCESTRY   AND   KINDRED.  21 

we  may  infer  that  his  marriage  was  after  that  date.  Now, 
for  a  wife  of  the  name  of  Haughton  or  Jeffrey  a  parishioner 
of  Stanton  St.  John's  would  not,  in  1561  or  1562,  have  had 
far  to  go.  In  the  same  Oxford  Registry  of  wills  in  which  I 
found  those  of  Richard  Mil  ton's  father  and  mother  I  found 
the  will,  proved  March  1595,  of  a  "John  Jeffrey  of  Holton, 
in  Com.  Oxon.,  husbandman,"  appointing  his  wife  Elizabeth 
Jeffrey  his  sole  executrix,  and  bequeathing  the  bulk  of  his 
goods  after  her  decease  to  his  son  Christopher  Jeffrey, 
burdened  with  small  money-legacies  to  a  Henry  Jeffrey,  a 
Barnaby  Byrd,  and  a  Margaret  Jeffrey,  styled  "  kinswoman/' 
It  may  have  been  from  among  the  previous  generation  of 
these  Jeffreys  of  Holton  that  Richard  Milton  of  the  neigh 
bouring  Stanton  St.  John's  found  his  wife  about  1561.  Nor 
in  the  required  Haughton  of  the  case  was  there  any  par 
ticular  difficulty.  Haughton  or  Houghton  was,  indeed,  a 
name  of  great  pretension,  almost  all  who  bore  it  and  had 
any  passion  for  their  pedigree  tracing  themselves,  if  by  any 
ingenuity  they  could,  to  the  ancient  stem  of  the  Hoghtons 
of  Hoghton  Tower  in  Lancashire,  the  representative  of 
which  from  1502  to  1558  was  Sir  Richard  Hoghton,  and 
from  1558  to  1580  his  son  Thomas,  who  rebuilt  Hoghton 
Tower.1  Besides  Haughtons  in  Lancashire,  Haughtons  in 
Cheshire,  Haughtons  in  Sussex,  and  Haughtons  in  Lon 
don,  all  of  some  consequence,  there  were,  however,  Haugh 
tons  in  Oxfordshire,  too  humble  to  be  heard  of  in  the  books 
of  the  heralds.  In  1587  there  died  at  Netherworton,  near 
Deddington,  in  the  north  of  Oxfordshire,  about  fifteen 
miles  from  Stanton  St.  John's,  a  Thomas  Haughton,  who 
was  a  man  of  some  substance,  and  left,  besides  goods  and 
leases  of  lands  to  his  children,  Thomas  and  Ellen,  small 
bequests  for  bread  for  the  poor  and  for  repairing  a  bridge.2 
There  was  another  family  of  Haughtons,  living  in  1571  at 
Goddington  in  the  same  county,  not  many  miles  from  Stan- 
ton  St.  John's.  In  that  year  there  died  there  an  Edmund 
Haughton,  a  smith,  who,  besides  small  bequests  to  the 

1  Collins's  Baronetage  (1741),  I.  pp.  -  Will  formerly  in  Bishop's  Kegistry' 

15 — 22.  Oxford,  and  now  at  Somerset  House. 


22.  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

mother- church  in  Oxford,  and  to  the  poor  of  Goddington, 
left  £5  each  to  his  daughters  Jane  and  Isabel  and  his  son 
Henry,  20s.  in  money  and  "  a  pair  of  bellows  "  and  other 
implements  to  his  son  Edward,  and  all  the  rest  of  his  gear 
to  his  son  Nicholas.1  Other  Haughtons  and  Jeffreys  may 
be  found  in  the  Oxfordshire  of  those  days  within  a  very 
moderate  distance  from  Stanton  St.  John's ;  but  it  needs  no 
farther  search  to  prove  that  there  was  nothing  supernatural 
in  the  marriage  of  a  Milton  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  in  or 
after  1561,  with  a  bride  of  the  name  of  Haughton,  even 
should  it  be  an  essential  addition  that  she  had  been  a 
Jeffrey  by  a  previous  marriage. 

The  general  result  of  the  researches  so  far  is  that,  what 
ever  may  be  the  reserved  possibility  of  remote  ancestors 
who  were  holders  of  lands  in  Oxfordshire  before  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses,  the  Miltons  from  whom  the  poet  came  im 
mediately  were  persons  of  that  name  nestling,  more  or  less 
substantially,  as  husbandmen  and  handicraftsmen,  in  a  set 
of  small  villages  a  few  miles  to  the  east  of  Oxford,  and  inter 
married  there  with  the  daughters  of  their  neighbours, 
husbandmen  and  handicraftsmen  also.  More  specially,  it 
is  the  poet's  grandfather,  Richard  Milton  of  Stanton  St. 
John's,  that  steps  out  from  among  his  kin  in  all  that  part  of 
Oxfordshire  as  distinctly  the  most  substantial  man  of  them 
all,  a  yeoman  or  small  freeholder  at  last,  the  best  off  in 
worldly  respects,  and  also,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  facts 
'of  his  life,  the  sternest  and  most  independent  in  doing  what 
he  thought  right.  His  marriage  with  a  Haughton  who 
had  been  a  Jeffrey  may  have  been  one  of  his  distinctions, 
and  he  may  have  counted  kin  with  the  contemporary  Miltons 
of  Berkshire,  his  superiors  in  rank.2 

1  Will  formerly  in  Bishop's  Registry,  appears  from  a  certificate  of  "  all  cot- 
Oxford,  and  now  at  Somerset  House.  tages  and  encroachments  on  the  King's 

2  Besides  the  Miltons  that  have  been  woods  "  round  Windsor  in  Berks,  ad- 
mentioned  in  the  text,  I  have  found  a  dressed  by  authorities  there  to  the  Earl 
John  Milton,  "  fisherman,"  of  Culham,  of  Holland,  as  Constable  of  Windsor 
about  six  miles  south  of  Oxford,  who  Castle,  and  preserved  among  the  State 
died,  apparently  young  and  unmarried,  Papers,  there  was  a  little  nest  of  Mil- 
in   1602,  and  also  a   Robert   Milton,  tons  among  those  whom  it  was  pro- 
"  tailor,"   of   Weston,  about  six  miles  posed  to  remove  from  the  cottages  in 
north  of  Stanton  St.  John's,  who  died  that  vicinity,  on  the  ground  that  the 
in  1010.    As    late  as  April   1630,   as  cottages  were  "  the  ruin  and  destruction 


ANCESTRY    AND   KINDRED.  23 

How  many  children  had  been  born  to  the  resolute  Roman 
Catholic  yeoman  of  Stanton  St.  John's  and  his  wife  (assumed 
for  the  present  to  have  been  a  Haughton  originally)  remains 
unascertained.  We  know  for  certain  only  of  one, — John 
Milton,  the  poet's  father.  He  was  probably  their  eldest 
son,  if  not  their  only  one. 

The  age  of  t]ie_poeils_fother  can  be  determined  with  some 
precision.  He  did  not  die  till  March  1646-7,  when,  if  Aubrey 
is  correct  in  saying  that  he  "read  without  spectacles  at 
eighty-four,"  he  must  have  been  in  his  eighty-fifth  year  at 
least;  and  we  shall  produce  in  due  time  an  affidavit  in  a 
court  of  law  verifying  Aubrey's  statement  to  the  very  letter. 
The  poet's  father  cannot,  on  this  evidence,  have  been  born 
later  than  1563,  or  the  fifth  year  of  Elizabeth,  and  must 
therefore  have  been  all  but  exactly  a  coeval  of  Shakespeare. 
His  course  of  life,  however,  seems  to  have  been  much  more 
slow  than  that  of  his  great  contemporary.  His  school- 
education  at  Stanton  St.  John's,  or  perhaps  partly  in  Oxford, 
may  be  taken  for  granted ;  and,  though  no  proof  has  turned 
up  in  confirmation  of  Aubrey's  statement  that  he  was  for 
some  time  at  Christ  Church  College  in  the  University  of 
Oxford,  there  is  no  absolute  reason  for  discrediting  that  state 
ment.  The  natural  time  for  his  admission  into  an  Oxford 
College,  if  he  did  enter  one,  would  be  between  1577,  when 
he  was  in  his  fifteenth  year,  and  1582,  when  he  was  in  his 
twentieth ;  and,  even  had  there  been  anything  in  the  state 
of  the  University  at  that  time  to  prevent  the  entry  of  a 
youth  of  Roman  Catholic  parentage, — which  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  very  strictly  the  case, — the  difficulty  may  have 
been  less  with  a  youth  whose  father's  Roman  Catholicism 
was  then  of  such  a  sort  that  he  could  be  churchwarden  in 
the  neighbouring  parish  of  Stanton  St.  John's.1  All  the 

both  of  the  woods  and  game,  and  the  thing  or  some  nominal  rent ;  and  there 

shelter  of  deer-stealers  and  all  disor-  were  a  Robert  Milton  and  a  Nicholas 

derly  persons."     There  was  a  William  Milton  in  the  same  neighbourhood,  in 

Milton,  junior,  renting  a  cottage  and  a  similarly    good  -  for  -  nothing    circum- 

rood  of  land  in  "VVindlesham  "Walk  at  a  stances. 

yearly  payment  of  6s.  and  two  pullets ;  l  The   only  Miltons   in   the   Oxford 

there  was  an  Elizabeth  Milton,  tenant-  Matriculation   Register   from   1564  to 

ing  a  cottage  erected  on  his  Majesty's  1600, 1  am  informed  by  Colonel  Chester, 

waste  in  Sunninghill,  and  paying  no-  are  a  John  Mylton  from  Somersetshire, 


24  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

same,  it  was  at  the  University,  according  to  Aubrey,  that 
the  youth  abjured  the  paternal  religion ;  and  Phillips,  while 
saying  nothing  about  Christ  Church,,  is  also  positive  on  the 
point  that  the  Oxfordshire  yeoman's  son, — Phillips' s  own 
grandfather,  be  it  remembered,  whom  he  knew  well  and 
must  have  heard  often  talk  of  his  early  life, — changed  his 
religion  "  when  young."  Here  it  is,  however,  that  Phillips, 
Wood,  and  Aubrey  rather  fail  us  in  the  matter  of  dating. 
All  three  are  agreed  in  representing  the  rupture  between 
father  and  son  as  complete  after  the  son  had  avowed  his 
change  of  religion.  "  Disinherited  him,  ...  so  thereupon 
he  came  to  London  and  became  a  scrivener/'  is  Aubrey's 
account  of  what  happened;  "  cast  out  by  his  father,  a 
bigoted  Roman  Catholic,  for  embracing,  when  young,  the 
Protestant  faith,  and  abjuring  the  Popish  tenets,"  are  Phil 
lips' s  words;  and  Wood's  story  about  the  old  yeoman's  con 
duct  is  that  he  "  did  put  away,  or,  as  some  say,  disinherit, 
his  son  because  he  was  a  Protestant, — which  made  him 
retire  to  London,  to  seek,  in  a  manner,  his  fortune."  A 
fair  inference  from  these  concurrent  accounts  might  be  that 
the  poet's  father  left  his  native  Oxfordshire  and  came  to 
London  in  or  about  1585,  when  he  was  in  his  twenty-third 
year.  In  that  case,  he  and  Shakespeare  made  their  first 
acquaintance  with  London  about  the  same  time  and  when 
about  the  same  age.  But,  in  that  case,  we  encounter  a 
difficulty  not  explained  by  the  tradition.  While  the  War 
wickshire  youth  immediately  found  a  living  in  London  by 
connecting  himself  with  the  theatres,  we  do  not  know  what 
the  disinherited  youth  from  Oxfordshire  can  have  been  doing 
for  full  ten  years  after  the  assumed  date  of  his  arrival  in  the 
metropolis.  Wood's  words  fit  this  difficulty  more  exactly 
than  Phillips's  or  Aubrey's.  While  Phillips  and  Aubrey 
turn  the  youth  into  a  scrivener  all  at  once,  or  nearly  so, 

matriculated  from  Hart  Hall  in  1574,  says  that  the  poet's  father  "  is  supposed 
and  a  James  Milton  from  Hampshire,  to  have  received  his  education  at  Mag- 
matriculated  from  Magdalen  Hall  in  dalen  School  about  the  year  1588,"— 
Feb.,  1591-2.  Mr.  Mark  Pattison  (Mil-  giving  as  his  authority  the  Illustrated 
ton,  p.  3)  suggests  that  the  poet's  father  Times  of  March  12,  1859.  Magdalen 
was  "  at  school  at  Oxford,  probably  as  a  School  is  a  probable  enough  place  ;  but 
chorister  "  ;  and  Dr.  Bloxam,  in  his  the  date  1588  means  too  late  by  a;%ood 
May  dalen  Colleye  Register  (ill,  134),  many  years. 


ANCESTEY    AND    KINDRED.  2O 

after  his  coming  to  London,  Wood's  expression  is  that  he 
came  to  London  "to  seek,  in  a  manner,  his  fortune."  This, 
which  implies  that  he  may  have  tried  various  ways  for  a 
livelihood  before  settling  into  a  scrivener,  corresponds  with 
the  fact.  It  is  not  till  1595,  when  he  was  thirty- two  years 
of  age,  that  we  find  him  even  tending  to  the  profession  of 
a  scrivener,  and  it  is  not  till  February  1599-1600,  when 
he  was  thirty-six  or  thirty- seven  years  of  age,  that  we  find 
him  a  qualified  member  of  that  profession. 

"On  the  27th  of  February  1599  [i.e.  1599-1600]  John 
"Milton,  son  of  Richard,  of  Stanton,  Co.  Oxon.,  and  late 
"  apprentice  to  James  Colbron,  Citizen  and  Writer  of  the 
"  Court  Letter  of  London  [the  formal  old  name  for  a  member 
"  of  the  Company  of  Scriveners],  was  admitted  to  the  free- 
"  dom  of  the  Company."  This  piece  of  information,  the 
result  of  a  happy  search  by  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke  in  the  Books 
of  the  Scriveners'  Company  in  the  year  1859,  and  then  made 
public  by  him,  is  the  first  authentic'  record  in  the  London 
life  of  Milton's  father,  and  that  by  which  the  prior  tradition 
from  Aubrey,  Wood,  and  Phillips  must  be  checked  and 
interpreted. 

On  the  whole,  it  confirms  the  statement,  both  by  Aubrey 
and  Phillips,  that  the  poet's  father  became  a  London  scri 
vener  in  a  somewhat  irregular  manner.  The  usual  terms 
implied  a  full  previous  apprenticeship  of  seven  years  in  the 
office  of  some  one  already  a  scrivener.  Most  of  those  who 
entered  the  profession  entered  it  in  this  way,  the  lowest, 
legal  age  of  admission  being  twenty-one.  But  there  might, 
it  appears,  be  relaxations  of  the  rule  in  special  circumstances 
or  for  an  extra  money-payment.  The  poet's  father,  betaking 
himself  to  the  profession,  at  an  age  so  much  beyond  what 
was  customary,  seems  to  have  benefited  by  this  facility. 
"  Brought  up  by  a  friend  of  his :  was  not  an  apprentice," 
says  Aubrey;  and  that  there  was  a  strong  reminiscence  of 
the  circumstance  in  the  Milton  family  is  proved  also  by 
Phillips's  words,  "  To  which  profession  he  voluntarily  betook 
himself,  by  the  advice  and  assistance  of  an  intimate  friend  of 
his,  eminent  in  that  calling."  This  friend,  there  can  be  little 


26  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

doubt,  was  the  James  Colbron  of  the  foregoing  excerpt  from 
the  Books  of  the  Scriveners'  Company.     He  is  found  as  a 
scrivener  of  good  standing  in  the  Company  to  as  late  as 
1619,  with  apprentices  passing  from  his  office,  and  with  sons 
following  him  in  the  profession.     It  was  from  the  office  of 
this  James  Colbron,  at  all  events,  that  the  poet's  father  was 
admitted  to  take  up  his  freedom  of  the  Company  in  February 
1599-1600.      "Late  apprentice  to  James  Colbron"  is  his 
recorded  qualification.    At  first  sight,  the  words  might  seem 
to   contradict  Aubrey's  phrase   "was  not   an  apprentice." 
But,  as  the  Books  of  the  Company  show  that  Colbron  him 
self  had  been  admitted  of  the  Company  only  on  the  1st  of 
April  1595,  after  having  been  apprenticed   to   a  Baldwin 
Castleton,  it  is   possible  that  Aubrey  may  have  been  in  a 
manner  right.      Colbron  had  been  in   business   less  than 
five  years  when   Milton  was    admitted   to  the  Scriveners' 
Company  on  the  ground  of  having  been  Colbron' s  appren 
tice.     Either,  therefore,  Milton  had  served  a  portion  of  the 
usual  seven  years'  apprenticeship  with  some  previous  master 
and  had  been  transferred  to  Colbron  to  serve  out  the  rest,  or 
the  Scriveners'  Company  had  accepted  the  imperfect  appren 
ticeship  with  Colbron  as  itself  sufficient  in  the  circumstances. 
While  there  is  no  evidence  for  the  first  supposition,  the 
second  tallies  exactly  with  the  story  that  has  come  down  to 
us  from  Aubrey  and  Phillips.     The  story,  in  the  light  of  the 
excerpt  from  the  Books  of  the  Scriveners'  Company,  may 
be  construed   thus:  —  Some  time  in    1595    or    1596,    Mil 
ton,  then  past  thirty  years  of  age,  and  without  any  regular 
profession,  though  wishing  he  had  one,  talks  over  the  matter 
with  his  friend,  James  Colbron,  who  has  just  been  admitted 
a  scrivener ;  this  Colbron  suggests  to  him  that  there  is  no 
reason  why   lie  should  not  be  a  scrivener  too ;  a  friendly 
arrangement  is  made  between  them,  by  which  Milton,  pro 
bably  the  older  man  of  the  two,  enters  Colbron' s  office  as 
nominally  his  first  apprentice ;  and  at  length,  in  February 
1599-1600,  Milton  having  meanwhile  acquired  a  competent 
knowledge  of  the  business,  the  authorities  of  the  Scriveners' 
Company  accept  his  partial  apprenticeship,  with  what  fine  or 


ANCESTEY   AND    KINDRED.  27 

compensation-money  may  have  been  necessary  in  such  a 
case,  and  adopt  him,  in  the  thirty- seventh  year  of  his  age, 
as  a  full  member  of  their  body. 

By  the  definite  information  we  now  possess  as  to  the  late 
date  of  his  admission  to  the  Company  of  Scriveners,  we  are 
again  thrown  back  on  the  question  what  he  can  have  been 
doing  during  the  ten,  or  rather  the  fifteen,  preceding  years 
of  his  life  that  remain  unaccounted  for.  In  the  face  of  the 
concurrent  accounts  of  Aubrey,  Wood,  and  PLillips,  we  can 
hardly  resort  to  the  hypothesis  that  the  quarrel  with  his 
father  had  not  occurred  till  about  1595,  when  he  was  two 
and  thirty  years  of  age,  and  that,  having  been  living  on 
somehow  till  that  mature  age  in  his  native  Oxfordshire,  he 
then  came  to  London  and  fell  at  once  into  the  arrangement 
with  Colbron.  We  must  abide  by  the  idea  that  he  had 
been  in  London  since  about  1585,  left  to  his  own  shifts. 
What  had  been  those  shifts  ?  How  had  he  managed  to  pass 
the  ten  years  between  1585  and  th'e  formation  of  that  con 
nexion  with  Colbron  in  or  about  1595  which  was  to  make 
him  a  scrivener  ?  How  had  he  supported  himself  through 
the  years  of  his  nominal  apprenticeship  with  Colbron  ?  On 
all  this,  which  may  have  been  a  matter  of  interesting  recol 
lection  with  himself  and  of  talk  with  his  family  afterwards, 
we  have  nothing  more  to  say  at  present  than  that  there  were 
plenty  of  ways  in  old  London  by  which  a  young  man  of 
good  education  and  ability  could  manage  to  live  without 
being  much  heard  of  at  the  time  or  leaving  traces  of  him 
self  for  future  inquirers. 

Those  days  of  anonymous  obscurity,  however,  were  now 
over.  From  the  year  1600,  when  Shakespeare  had  written 
half  his  plays  and  was  at  the  head  of  the  dramatic  world  of 
London,  Mr.  John  Milton  from  Oxfordshire  was  to  rank  as  a 
known  London  citizen,  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Scriven 
ers,  with  his  house  and  shop  at  the  Spread-Eagle  in  Bread 
Street.1 

1  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke's  discovery  of  the  tions  by  him  to  the  Athenaum  of  March 

admission-entry  of  Milton's  father  to  19,  1859.  and  Notes  and  Queries  of  the 

the  Scriveners' Company,  with  some  bio-  same   date;    and    there   were   farther 

graphical  speculations  founded  thereon,  particulars  in  a  subsequent  communica- 

was  first  made  public  in  communica-  tion  of  his  to  Notes  and  Queries  of  June 


28  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

Scriveners,  as  the  name  implies,  were  originally  penmen 
of  all  kinds  of  writings,  literary  MSS.  as  well  as  charters 
and  law- documents.  Chaucer  has  an  epigram  in  which  he 
scolds  his  ((  scrivener  "  Adam  for  negligent  workmanship  in 
transcribing  his  poems.  In  process  of  time,  however,  and 
especially  after  the  invention  of  printing,  the  business  of  the 
scrivener  had  become  very  much  that  of  a  modern  attorney, 
or  of  an  attorney  in  conjunction  with  a  law-stationer. 
Scriveners  ' c  drew  up  wills,  leases,  and  such  other  assurances 
as  it  required  but  little  skill  in  law  to  prepare."  1  In  Mid- 
dleton's  Michaelmas  Term  (1607)  Dustbox,  a  scrivener, 
comes  in  with  a  bond  drawn,  to  see  it  executed  between  Mr. 
Easy  and  Quomodo,  a  rascally  woollen-draper;2  and  in  the 
Taming  of  the  Shrew  a  boy  is  sent  for  the  scrivener  to  draw 
up  a  marriage-settlement : — 

"  We'll  pass  the  business  privately  and  well. 
Send  for  your  daughter  by  your  servant  here  : 
My  boy  shall  fetch  the  scrivener  presently." 

We  have  also  had  specimens  of  a  scrivener's  business  in  old 
London  in  the  transactions  in  which  the  scrivener  Milton 
was  engaged  in  1603  between  the  merchant  Sanderson  and 
the  goldsmith  Sparrow,  and  in  later  traces  of  his  office- 
work.  But  the  following  form  of  oath,  required  of  every 
freeman  of  the  Scriveners'  Company,  will  give  the  best 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  profession  in  the  reigns  of  Eliza 
beth  and  James  : — 

18,  1859.  The  biographical  specula-  genealogy  that  remained  to  be  set- 
tions  were  rather  unfortunate,  proceed-  tied, —  the  name  of  Milton's  grand- 
ing  as  they  did  on  the  assumption  that  father.  Mr.  Hunter,  whose  researches 
the  scrivener  was  admitted  in  the  usual  had  brought  to  light  Richard  Milton  of 
way  and  at  the  usual  age,  and  pro-  Stanton  St.  John's,  the  sturdy  Roman 
posing  therefore  to  set  aside  or  re-  Catholic  Kecusant,  had  made  it  ex- 
cast  the  whole  tradition  from  Aubrey,  tremely  probable  in  1850  that  this  in- 
Wood,  and  Phillips,  as  to  the  age  and  teresting  man  was  the  poet's  grand- 
early  life  of  the  poet's  father  and  bis  father ;  and  in  the  first  edition  of  the 
relations  with  his  father,  the  Roman  present  volume,  accepting  this  extreme 
Catholic  yeoman.  These  ingenious  probability  and  working  upon  it,  I  had 
conjectures,  irreconcileable  with  the  been  able  to  push  the  pedigree  a  gener- 
evidence  even  then,  have  been  abso-  ation  farther  back  by  producing  the 
lutely  quashed  since  by  the  verifica-  wills  of  this  Richard's  father  and 
tion  of  Aubrey's  statement  as  to  the  mother.  But  absolute  proof  that  this 
age  of  the  scrivener.  Not  the  less  Richard  was  the  grandfather  was  still 
has  one  to  acknowledge  the  peculiar  wanting  till  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke  found  it. 
value  of  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke's  discovery.  1  Hawkins's  History  of  Music,  III. 
It  settled  conclusively  for  the  first  tima  367. 
the  very  question  in  Milton's  paternal  2  Dyce's  Middletou,  I.  457 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  29 

"I,  N.  D.,  do  swear  upon  the  Holy  Evangelists  to  be  true  and 
faithful  unto  our  sovereign  lord  the  King,  his  heirs  and  successors, 
kings  and  queens  of  England,  and  to  be  true  and  just  in  mine  office 
and  service,  and  to  do  my  diligence  that  all  the  deeds  which  I  shall 
make  .to  be  sealed  shall  be  well  and  truly  done,  after  my  learning, 
skill,  and  science,  and  shall  be  duly  and  advisedly  read  over  and 
examined  before  the  sealing  of  the  same  ;  and  especially  I  shall  not 
write,  nor  suffer  to  be  written  by  any  of  mine,  to  my  power  or 
knowledge,  any  deed  or  writing  to  be  sealed  wherein  any  deceit  or 
falsehood  shall  be  conceived,  or  in  my  conscience  subscribe  to  lie, 
nor  any  deed  bearing  any  date  of  long  time  past  before  the  sealing 
thereof,  nor  bearing  any  date  of  any  time  to  come.  Neither  shall  I 
testify,  nor  suffer  any  of  mine  to  testify,  to  my  power  or  knowledge, 
any  blank  charter,  or  deed  sealed  before  the  full  writing  thereof ; 
and  neither  for  haste  nor  covetousness  shall  I  take  upon  me  to  make 
any  deed,  touching  inheritance  of  lands  or  estate  for  life  or  years, 
whereof  I  have  not  cunning,  without  good  advice  and  information  of 
counsel.  And  all  the  good  rules  and  ordinances  of  the  Society  of 
Scriveners  of  the  City  of  London  I  shall  well  and  truly  keep  and 
observe  to  my  power,  so  far  as  God  shall  give  me  grace  :  So  help  me 
God  and  the  holy  contents  of  this  book."1 

This  oath  was  sanctioned  by  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  and 
the  two  Chief  Justices  in  January  1618-19,  when  the  regu 
lations  of  the  Scriveners'  Company  were  revised  by  them. 
Bat  the  oath,  or  a  similar  one,  had  long  been  in  use ;  and 
the  Scriveners,  though  not  formally  incorporated  till  1616, 
had  for  a  century  or  more  been  recognised  as  one  of  the 
established  City  Companies,  governed,  like  the  rest,  by  a 
master,  wardens,  and  other  office-bearers,  and  entitled  to 
appear  at  the  city -feasts  and  ceremonies.2  They  were  a 
pretty  numerous  body.  Though  liable  to  be  "sent  for/-'  a3 
in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  much  of  their  business  was 
carried  on  in  their  own  "  shops."  The  furniture  of  these 
was  much  the  same  as  that  of  modern  lawyers'  offices,  con 
sisting  of  a  pew  or  chief  desk  for  the  master,  inferior  desks 
for  the  apprentices,  pigeon-holes  and  drawers  for  papers 
and  parchments,  and  seats  for  customers  when  they  called. 
A  scrivener  who  had  money,  or  whose  clients  had  money, 
could  find  good  opportunities  for  its  profitable  investment ; 
and,  in  fact,  money-lending  and  traffic  in  securities  formed 
a  large  part  of  a  scrivener's  business. 

Being  "  a  man  of  the  utmost  integrity  "  (uiro  integerrimo) , 

1  "  Sundry  Papers  relating  to  the  Company  of  Scriveners  " :  Harl.  MS.  2295. 

2  Stow's  London,  edit.  1603,  p.  54l. 


30  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

as  his  son  takes  pride  in  saying/  and  conspicuous  also,  as  his 
grandson  Phillips  informs  us,  for  "  industry  and  prudent  con- 
-'  duct  of  his  affairs,"  the  scrivener  Milton  prospered  rapidly. 
In  the  end,  says  Aubrey,  he  had  a  "  plentiful  estate,"  and 
was  possessor  not  only  of  The  Spread  Eagle  in  Bread  Street, 
but  also  of  "  another  house  in  that  street,  called  The  Kose, 
and  other  houses  in  other  places."  All  this,  however,  is 
anticipation ;  and,  for  the  present,  the  most  interesting  fact 
in  the  scrivener's  life,  in  addition  to  those  that  have  been 
mentioned,  is  that  in  1600,  when  he  first  set  up  in  business 
in  Bread  Street,  he  was  a  married  man.  The  marriage, 
almost  certainly,  took  place  that  very  year,  just  at  or  imme 
diately  after  the  admission  to  the  freedom  of  the  Scriveners' 
Company  and  the  entry  on  the  Spread  Eagle  premises. 
Who  was  the  scrivener's  newly-wedded  wife,  the  future 
mother  of  the  poet  ?  That  is  our  next  inquiry. 

THE  MATERNAL  PEDIGREE. 

The  Christian  name  of  Milton's  mother  was  Sarah ;  but 
respecting  her  maiden  surname  there  has  hitherto  been  much 
uncertainty.  Here  again  it  will  be  best  to  cite  first  the 
original  authorities  : — 

1.  In  the  parish  registers  of  Allhallows,  Bread  Street,  there  is 
this  entry  :  "  The  22d  day  of  February,  A°  1610,  was  buried  in  this 
"  parish  Mrs.  Ellen  Jefferys,  the  mother  of  Mr.  John  Mylton's  wife, 
"  of  this  parish."   The  entry  suggests  that,  at  the  time  of  the  old  lady's 
death,  which  occurred  when  her  grandson  the  poet  was  a  child  of  two 
years  old,  she  was  residing  as  a  widow  with  her  daughter  and  her 
son-in-law  in  their  house  of  the  Spread  Eagle. 

2.  Aubrey,  in  the  text  of  his  MS.  notes  for  Milton's  Life,  distinctly 
writes,  "  His  mother  was  a  Bradshaw,"  inserting  the  words,  with  an 
appended  sketch  of  arms  (argent,  two  bendlets  sable),  as  a  bit  of 
information  procured  by  recent  inquiry  ;  and,  in  the  pedigree  at  the 
end,  he  repeats  the  same  thing  more  distinctly  by  introducing  the 
name  in  full,  "  Sarah  Bradshaw,"  accompanied  by  another  sketch  of 
the  same  arms  of  Bradshaw.     Wood  adopts  this  account,  and  says 
"  His  mother  Sarah  was  of  the  ancient  family  of  the  Bradshaws." 

3.  Phillips  in  1694  has  a  different  account.     He  speaks  of  Milton's 
mother  (his  own  grandmother)  as   "Sarah,   of  the  family  of  the 
"  Castons,  derived  originally  from  Wales,  a  woman  of  incomparable 
"  virtue  and  goodness." 2 

1  Defensio  Secunda :  Works,  VI.  286.  statements  of  Wood  and  Phillips,  he 

2  To  these  three  statements  that  of  then  published  his  own  belief  that  the 
the  antiquary  Peck  in  1740  might  be  poet's   mother   was   "  a   Haughtou    of 
added  as  a  fourth.      Questioning  the  Haughton  Tower,  Lancashire."      We 


ANCESTRY   AND   KINDRED.  31 

Which,  of  these  three  accounts  is  to  be  accepted  as  deter 
mining  the  maiden  name  of  Milton's  mother,  or  how  are  they 
to  be  reconciled  ? — On  the  principle  that  a  man  ought  to 
know  the  maiden  name  of  his  own  grandmother,  Phillips's 
account,  had  the  other  two  been  absent,  would  have  at  once 
settled  the  name  to  have  been  Sarah  Caston.  One  observes, 
however,  that  his  words  are  vague.  He  does  not  say  posi 
tively  that  his  grandmother's  maiden  name  was  Sarah  Caston, 
but  only  that  she  was  "  Sarah,  of  the  family  of  the  Castons, 
derived  originally  from  Wales."  Phillips  was  not  quite 
seven  years  of  age  when  his  grandmother  died,  so  that  he  can 
have  hardly  had  any  recollection  of  her  personally,  and  cer 
tainly  no  such  distinct  recollection  as  he  had  of  her  husband, 
the  scrivener.  B  ut,  even  if  he  had  forgotten  her  maiden  name, 
he  can  hardly  have  set  down  at  random  the  substitute  for 
it  which  he  did  set  down.  He  must  have  known,  by  family 
tradition,  that  there  were  Castons  among  her  progenitors ; 
and  he  may  have  had  reasons  in  1694  for  bringing  her 
Caston  descent  to  the  front,  even  if  she  was  not  a  Caston 
herself. — Aubrey's  account,  which  Wood  followed,  is  per 
fectly  precise.  He  twice  sets  do"wn  the  name  of  Bradshaw 
as  that  of  the  poet's  mother,  and  twice  appends  to  the  name 
a  sketch  of  the  arms  of  Bradshaw.  Had  the  other  two 
accounts  been  out  of  the  way,  there  would,  therefore,  have 
been  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  maiden  name  of  the  poet's 
mother  was  Sarah  Bradshaw.— All  the  same  it  is  certain 
that  the  mother  of  this  Sarah,  who  married  the  scrivener 
in  1600,  was  known  in  1610-11  as  Mrs.  Ellen  Jefferys. 
The  register  of  her  burial  in  Allhallows,  Bread  Street,  leaves 
no  doubt  about  that. 

Till  the  other  day  the  favourite  vote,  in  the  conflict  of 
difficulties,  was  for  Bradshaw  as  the  real  maiden  name  of 
Milton's  mother, — the  intrusion  of  JefFerys  into  the  pedigree 
to  be  accounted  for  by  some  such  supposition  as  that  her 
mother  had  been  married  first  to  a  Bradshaw  and  afterwards 
to  a  JefFerys,  and  the  Caston  intrusion  to  be  explicable  in 

have  already  seen  (ante,  p.  9)  on  what      ing   Milton's   mother  with  his  grand- 
authority  he  propounded  this  idea,  and      mother, 
that  he  must  have  done  so  by  confound- 


32  LIPS   OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

some  unascertained  way.  This  arose  partly  from  natural 
confidence  in  the  very  precise  and  repeated  statement  of 
Aubrey,  adopted  as  it  had  been  by  the  accurate  Wood,  and 
partly  from  recollection  of  the  poet's  intimate  relations  at 
one  time  of  his  life  with  President  Bradshaw,  the  Kegicide 
and  Commonwealth's-man,  —  which  recollection,  mingling 
with  the  Aubrey  tradition,  had  already,  in  fact,  passed  into  a 
legend  of  some  cousinship  of  the  poet  with  the  great  regi 
cide  judge.  Accordingly,  the  pains  expended  by  various 
inquirers,  myself  included,  on  the  investigation  of  the  Brad 
shaw  connexion  of  the  poet's  pedigree  have  been  something 
incredible.  The  small  result  may  be  thus  expressed : — All 
the  English  Bradshaws  of  the  sixteenth  century,  it  used 
to  be  the  common  belief  of  genealogists,  had  come  of 
one  stock.  Their  common  progenitor  had  been  Sir  John 
Bradshaw,  of  Bradshaw  in  Lancashire,  a  "  Saxon "  land 
owner,  who  was  repossessed  after  the  Conquest.  The 
arma  of  these  original  Bradshaws  of  Bradshaw  were 
"argent,  two  bends  sable/'  exactly  as  in  Aubrey's  sketch 
of  the  arms  of  Milton's  mother,  unless  the  bends  there  are 
bendlets.  But  from  this  main  stock  there  had  been  many 
ramifications.  Chief  of  these  were  the  Bradshaws  or  Brad- 
shaighs  of  Haigh  in  Lancashire,  respecting  whom  the  legend 
was  that  they  had  issued  from  the  marriage  of  a  younger 
Bradshaw  in  the  Crusading  times  with  the  heiress  of  Haigh. 
The  arms  of  these  Bradshaws  of  Haigh  were  those  of  the 
original  Bradshaws  of  Bradshaw  with  a  difference,  being 
"  argent,  two  bendlets  between  three  martlets  sable  " ;  but 
this  difference,  as  well  as  the  name  Bradshaigh  for  Bradshaw, 
had  been  assumed  first  about  1568.  Besides  these  deriv 
ative  Bradshaws  or  Bradshaighs  of  Haigh,  there  were  other 
derivatives,  in  the  Bradshaws  of  Wendley  in  Derbyshire,  the 
Bradshaws  of  Marple  in  Cheshire,  and  still  other  families  of 
Bradshaws  in  Cheshire,  Leicestershire,  &c.  President  Brad 
shaw,  born  in  1602;  was  of  those  Cheshire  Bradshaws  who, 
in  1606,  became  Bradshaws  of  Marple.  There  is  a  differ 
ence  in  the  traditional  arms  of  these  Cheshire  Bradshaws 
from  those  assigned  by  Aubrey  to  the  poet's  mother ;  nor 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  33 

can  the  necessary  link  be  found  for  her  anywhere  in  the 
pedigree  of  the  Marple  family.  The  difficulties  would  be 
greater  with  most  of  the  other  known  lines  of  Bradshaws. 
On  the  whole,  if  the  poet's  maternal  grandfather  was  a 
Bradshaw,  he  must  be  imagined  as  one  of  a  number  of  yet 
unknown  Bradshaws  scattered  over  England  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  purporting  to  be  directly  descended  from  the 
original  stock.  There  may  have  been  Bradshaws  in  London 
between  1560  and  1580,  living  plainly  enough  and  yet  claim 
ing  the  old  Bradshaw  arms. 

Into  this  most  unsatisfactory  Bradshaw-Caston-Jefferys 
imbroglio  there  has  descended  a  Hercules  of  Genealogy.  It 
was  in  1868  that  Colonel  J.  L.  Chester,  the  Editor  and 
Annotator  of  the  Registers  of  Westminster  Abbey,  whose 
researches  into  the  history  of  English  families  are  probably 
more  miscellaneous  and  thorough  than  those  of  any  other 
living  man,  came  accidentally  upon  a  record  definitely  con 
necting  Milton's  mother  with  a  Jeffrey  stock ;  and,  of  late, 
devoting  a  good  deal  of  his  time  and  skill  to  the  investiga 
tion  expressly  on  its  own  account,  he  has  succeeded  in 
clearing  up  the  whole  subject  to  a  degree  beyond  former 
hope.  The  results  of  his  researches  are  as  follows  : — 

A  family  of  the  name  of  Jeffrey,  Jeffery,  Jeffraye,  Geffrey, 
or  G-efferey  (the  spelling  varying,  and  of  no  consequence)  is 
found  in  the  county  of  Essex  from  an  early  period.  They 
were  of  the  rank  of  respectable  yeomen,  but  not  higher.  The 
earliest  will  of  the  name  found  is  that  of  a  Thomas  Gefferey  of 
East  Hanningfield,  yeoman,  proved  Nov.  7,  1519;  the  next 
is  that  of  a  Richard  Geffrey  of  West  Hanningfield,  yeoman, 
dated  Dec.  30,  1533.  A  number  of  Jeffreys,  all  of  East 
Hanningfield  or  West  Hanningfield,  or  of  Little  Bursted  in 
the  same  county,  and  all  designated  as  kinsmen  or  evidently 
such,  are  mentioned  in  one  or  other  of  the  wills,  or  in  both ; 
among  whom  are  a  John  Jeffrey  of  Little  Bursted,  a  Chris 
topher  Jeffrey,  his  brother,  and  another  John  Jeffrey,  styled 
"kinsman"  by  the  testator  in  the  first  will  and  left  his 
lands  in  East  Hanningfield.  It  is  on  this  John  Jeffrey  of 

East  Hanningfield,  apparently  the   same  as  a  John  Jeffrey 
VOL.  i.  D 


34  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

appointed  executor  in  the  second  will,  that  we  have  to 
fasten. — His  will,  or  at  all  events  the  will  of  a  John  Jeffery 
of  East  Hanningfield,  yeoman,  is  dated  Feb.  22,  1550-1,  and 
was  proved  the  21st  of  March  following.  Nearly  thirty 
persons  are  named  in  it  for  legacies ;  but  the  bulk  of  his 
property,  which  was  very  considerable,  was  left  to  his  widow 
Johan  Jeffery  and  their  six  children.  One  of  the  children 
was  a  daughter,  already  married  to  a  David  Simpson,  and  with 
issue.  Of  the  five  sons  only  two  were  of  age  at  their  father's 
death,  viz.  Eichard  and  Thomas,  while  three,  viz.  John, 
another  Thomas,  and  Paul,  were  minors.  Eichard  Jeffery,  the 
eldest  son,  was  left  co-executor  with  his  mother  and  residuary 
legatee ;  Thomas  the  elder  was  left  a  tenement  in  Chelmsford 
and  other  property  in  Springfield,  Co.  Essex ;  the  remainder 
of  a  portion  of  the  real  property  was  to  descend,  after  the 
widow's  death,  to  John,  the  eldest  of  the  minors,  who  was 
moreover  to  have  £50  when  he  came  of  age  and  a  specified 
share  of  the  household  stuff;  the  second  minor,  Thomas  the 
younger,  was  also  to  have  ,£50  when  he  came  of  age,,  with 
the  same  specified  share  of  the  household  stuff;  and  the 
youngest,  Paul,  besides  his  share  of  the  household  stuff, 
and  £50  when  he  came  of  age,  was  to  have  a  certain 
' '  specialtie "  of  £13  6s.  8d.,  with  5  marks  more,  and 
certain  reversions  if  his  brother  Thomas  the  younger 
should  die  before  the  age  of  twenty- one. — The  widow, 
Johan  Jeffery  of  East  Hanningfield,  survived  till  1572, 
and  bequeathed,  by  her  will,  dated  March  9,  1571-2,  small 
money  legacies  to  two  sons  of  her  foresaid  eldest  son 
Eichard,  and  to  four  sons  and  two  daughters  of  the  foresaid 
Thomas  the  elder,  but  left  the  residue  of  her  estate  to  her 
third  son,  John.  In  this  same  year  1572  all  the  five  Jeffrey 
brothers,  sons  of  John  and  Johan  Jeffrey,  were  still  alive, 
except  the  younger  Thomas,  ^who  had  settled  in  West  Han 
ningfield,  and.  was  dead  before  the  end  of  the  year,  leaving 
issue.  Eichard  Jeffrey,  the  eldest  brother,  with  property 
both  in  East  Hanningfield  and  in  Little  Bursted,  was  settled 
in  the  latter  place ;  the  surviving  Thomas  Jeffrey  was  else 
where  in  Essex  and  had  a  family ;  John  Jeffrey  had  succeeded 


ANCESTRY  AND  KINDRED.  35 

his  mother  in  East  Hanningfield,  and  seems  to  have  been 
unmarried ;  and  Paul,  the  youngest  of  the  family,  had  gone, 
or  was  soon  to  go,  to  London,  to  become  citizen  and 
Merchant-Taylor  there,  with  a  domicile  in  St.  Swithin's 
parish.  It  is  with  this  PAUL  JEFFREY,  citizen  and  merchant- 
taylor  of  London,  that  we  are  chiefly  concerned. — In  April 
1572,  if  not  before,  he  was  a  married  man,  Ms  wife's  name 
being  Ellen ;  and  before  the  llth  of  February  1572-3  they 
had  one  child,  named  Sara.  This  is  proved  by  the  will  of  his 
elder  brother,  John  Jeffrey  of  East  Hanningfield,  which  bears 
the  date  last  mentioned.  The  will,  of  which  Paul  Jeffrey  is 
one  of  the  witnesses,  bequeathes  a  number  of  small  legacies  to 
different  persons,  but  remembers  chiefly,  as  might  be  expected 
in  the  will  of  an  unmarried  man,  his  brothers  and  sister  and 
their  children.  The  eldest  brother,  Richard,  is  left  executor 
and  residuary  legatee,  and  two  sons  of  that  Richard  100s.  each 
when  they  reach  the  age  of  twenty-one ;  his  next  brother, 
Thomas,  is  to  have  £50,  five  of  that  Thomas's  children  40s. 
each  when  of  age,  and  one  of  them  £6  1 3s.  4d. ;  three  of  the 
daughters  of  the  other  and  deceased  brother  Thomas  are  to 
have  66s.  8d.  each  at  marriage  ;  there  is  a  recollection  of  his 
only  sister  Simpson,  also  apparently  deceased,  by  a  bequest 
of  £20  to  John,  son  of  his  brother-in-law,  "  Davy  Sympson," 
and  of  100s.  to  two  other  children  of  the  said  "Davy  Symp- 
son  "  when  they  shall  come  of  age ;  the  wives  of  his  three 
brothers,  Richard,  Thomas,  and  Paul,  are  left  20s.  each;  to 
Paul  himself,  styled  "  my  brother  Pawle  Jefferey,"  there  is 
a  legacy  of  £66  13s.  4cZ. ;  and  to  Sara,  his  daughter,  there  is 
a  legacy  of  100s.,  with  proviso  that,  if  she  should  die  before 
the  age  of  twenty-one,  the  same  shall  go  "  to  the  next  child 
who  shall  be  lawfully  begotten  by  my  said  brother  Pawle." 
In  February  1572-3,  therefore,  Paul  Jeffrey  and  his  wife  had 
one  daughter,  Sara,  and  no  more.  Within  a  few  years,  how 
ever,  a  second  daughter  was  born  to  them.  This  we  learn 
from  another  will  of  one  of  the  Essex  Jeffreys,  not  a  brother 
of  Paul,  but  not  very  far  off  in  kin. — Among  the  Essex 
Jeffreys  there  was  a  John  Jeffrey  of  Childerditch,  styled  also 
of  Stratford,  Co.  Suffolk.  He  had  died  before  his  namesake, 

D  2 


36  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  last-named  John  Jeffrey,  Paul's  brother,  leaving  a  will 
dated  April  11,  1572.  Of  this  will  also  Paul  had  been  one 
of  the  witnesses.  While  it  provides  more  immediately  for 
the  testator's  own  wife  and  children,  it  bestows  various 
tokens  of  remembrance  on  members  of  Paul's  family,  includ 
ing  20s.  to  Pawle  Jeffries  wife.  That,  though  proving  inde 
pendently  that  Paul  was  married  before  April  11,  1572, 
would  not  give  us  the  information  of  which  we  are  in  quest. 
But  in  this  will  of  John  Jeffrey  of  Childerditch  a  prominent 
person  is  a  ' '  cousin  "  of  the  testator,  called  Henry  Jeffrey 
of  Little  Bursted.  To  this  "cousin,"  most  probably  a 
nephew  (for  the  word  "cousin"  then  was  used  indefinitely), 
there  was  left,  in  fact,  the  main  succession  to  the  estate  in 
case  of  failure  of  the  immediate  heirs.  Now,  the  will  of  this 
Henry  Jeffrey  of  Little  Bursted  has  been  found,  and  is  of 
more  consequence  to  us.  It  is  dated  Feb.  23,  1578-9,  and 
was  proved  May  13,  1579.  It  is  very  long,  and  is  full  of 
bequests  to  his  relatives,  Jeffreys  and  others.  To  Paul's 
eldest  brother,  Richard  Jeffrey,  styled  "  cousin/'  he  leaves  a 
gold  ring  with  a  death's  head,  worth  20s.,  and  his  book  of 
Calvin's  Sermons  upon  Job ;  he  leaves  small  tokens  also  to 
this  Eichard's  wife  and  to  two  of  the  same  Richard's  sons  ; 
there  is  a  similar  remembrance  of  Paul's  other  brother,  "  my 
cousin  Thomas  Jeffrie  of  Chelmsford,"  and  of  that  Thomas's 
wife  and  sons  and  daughters ;  and  the  remembrance  of  Paul 
himself  takes  this  form, — "  Item,  I  geve  unto  my  cosin  Paule 
Jeffrie  of  London  three  poundes,  and  to  his  wief  twentie 
shillinges,  and  to  Sara  his  daughter  fourtie  shillinges,  and  to 
his  youngest  daughter  twentie  shillinges,  meaning 'e  them  twoo 
that  be  nowe  lyvinge  at  this  presented  Here  there  is  certified, 
almost  with  the  particularity  of  foresight  that  the  words 
would  be  of  value,  the  existence  of  two  daughters  of  Paul 
Jeffrey  and  his  wife  in  February  1578-9,  the  Sara  who  had 
been  alive  as  an  infant  in  February  1572-3,  and  another  who 
had  been  born  since. — Our  next  incident  is  the  death  of 
Paul  Jeffrey,  the  father  of  the  two  children.  It  happened 
before  the  14th  of  March  1582-3  ;  on  which  day,  says  Colonel 
Chester,  "  a  commission  issued,  from  the  Commissary  Court 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  37 

"of  London,  to  Ellen  Qeffraye,  to  administer  the  estate  of 
"her  husband,  Paul  Geffraye,  late  of  St.  Sivithin's,  London, 
"  deceased  intestate."  As  he  had  been  a  young  minor  in  1551, 
he  can  hardly  have  been  much  over  forty  at  the  time  of  his 
death. — From  this  point  we  overleap  twenty  years.  The 
various  Jeffreys  of  Essex,  in  East  Hanningfield,  West  Han 
ningfield,  Little  Bursted,  and  other  parishes,  have  been 
going  on  through  those  twenty  years,  with  fresh  family 
sproutings;  and  many  other  things  have  happened  in  the 
same  interval  in  Essex  and  elsewhere,  including  the  arrival 
in  London  of  the  disinherited  John  Milton  from  his  native 
Stanton  St.  John's  in  Oxfordshire,  his  tentative  efforts  in 
London  for  a  livelihood,  his  apprenticeship  at  last  with 
Colbron  the  scrivener,  his  admission  to  the  Scriveners' 
Company,  his  setting  up  as  a  scrivener  in  the  Spread  Eagle 
in  Bread  Street,  and  his  marriage.  He  had  been  in  the 
Spread  Eagle  for  more  than  two  years,  when  an  incident 
occurred  which  is  reported  thus  by  Colonel  Chester  from 
the  preserved  marriage-allegations  of  that  time  in  the  Bishop 
of  London's  Eegistry :— "  On  the  28th  of  August  1602 
"  William  Truelove,  of  Hatfield-Peverill  in  the  County  of 
"  Essex,  gentleman,  aged  about  forty  years,  alleged  that  he 
"  intended  to  marry  Margaret  Jeffraye,  of  Newton  Hall,  in 
"  Great  Dunmow,  in  the  County  of  Essex,  a  maiden,  aged 
"  about  twenty  years,  the  daughter  of  Paul  Jeff  ray,  of  the 
"parish  of  St.  S  within' s,  London,  merchant-taylor ,  deceased, 
"with  the  consent  of  her  mother  Ellen  Jeffraye,  widow,  whose 
"  consent  was  attested  by  John  Milton,  of  the  parish  of  All- 
"  hallows,  Bread  Street,  London,  who  married  the  sister  of  the 
"said  Margaret."  The  marriage  duly  took  place,  and 
Margaret  Jeffrey  became  Mrs.  Truelove. 

Nothing  could  well  be  more  complete  than  this  demon 
stration,  the  feat  of  Colonel  Chester,  a  genealogist  from 
America,  on  a  problem  that  had  been  waiting,  unsolved  by 
native  ingenuity,  for  two  hundred  years.1  It  fits  itself  into 

i  The  first  link  discovered  by  Colonel  announced  in  the  Athenaum  of  Nov.  7, 

Chester  was  the   marriage   allegation  1868,  the  rest   is   recent   addition   by 

bfitween  Mr.   Truelove   and   Margaret  Colonel  Chester's  express  investigation. 

Jeffray  in   1602.     To   that    discovery,  I  have  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that, 


38 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


our  narrative  thus :  —  A  certain  Paul  Jeffrey,  of  St. 
Swithin's,  London,  merchant-taylor,  of  an  Essex  family 
died  in  1582-3,  leaving  a  widow,,  Ellen  Jeffrey,  and  two 
daughters,  Sarah  and  Margaret,  the  elder  about  ten  years 
of  age,  and  the  younger  several  years  less.  In  charge  of 
the  two  young  girls,  the  widow  lives  on,  in  London  or  in 
Essex,  or  alternating  between  the  two,  apparently  with 
sufficient  means,  and  certainly  with  relatives  of  good  means 
in  Essex.  At  length,  as  the  girls  are  growing  up,  chance, 
or  perhaps  some  link  of  previous  family  connexion  or  ac 
quaintance,  brings  to  the  widow's  parlour  an  occasional 
visitor  in  the  sedate  John  Milton  from  Oxfordshire,  who  is  in 
training  to  be  a  scrivener.  It  is  the  elder  daughter,  Sarah 
Jeffrey,  that  attracts  him;  and,  early  in  1600,  just  when  he 
has  been  admitted  of  the  Scriveners'  Company,  and  has  set 
up  house  in  Bread  Street,  he  marries  her, — his  age  at  the 


though  the  investigation  interested 
him  011  its  own  account,  it  was  under 
taken  in  special  generosity  to  myself 
and  with  a  view  to  the  purposes  of  the 
present  volume.  He  communicated  to 
me  the  substance  of  the  results  in  a 
letter  which  I  made  public,  with  his 
leave,  in  the  Athenaum  of  May  29, 1880 ; 
but  he  has  since  put  at  my  disposal  a 
more  detailed  statement  and  explana 
tion  in  MS.,  containing  accounts  and 
abstracts  of  the  various  wills,  with  a 
formal  pedigree  of  the  Essex  Jeffreys 
as  derived  from  those  wills.  It  is  from 
this  manuscript  that  I  have  taken  the 
matter  of  the  preceding  paragraph.  It 
gives  the  following  references  : — Will 
of  Thomas  Gefferey  of  1518,  registered 
23  Ayloffe,  Prerog.  Court  of  Cant. ;  Will 
of  Kichard  Geffrey  of  1533,  among  the 
records  of  the  Commissary  Court  of  the 
Bishop  of  London  for  Essex  and  Herts, 
now  at  Somerset  .House ;  Will  of  John 
Jeffery  of  East  Hanningfield,  of  date 
Feb.  1550-51,  registered  9  fiucke  in 
Prerog.  Court  of  Cant. ;  Will  of  his 
widow  Jone  or  Johan  Jeffery,  of  date 
March  9,  1571-2,  on  file  in  the  Com 
missary  Court  for  Essex  and  Herts,  as 
above ;  Will  of  John  Jefferey  of  East 
Hanningfield,  of  date  Feb.  11,  1572-3, 
on  file  ibidem;  Will  of  John  Jeffrey, 
of  Childerditch,  of  date  April  11,  1572, 
registered  19  Daper  in  Prerog.  Court  of 
Cant. ;  Will  of  Henry  Jeffrey  of  Little 
Bursted,  of  date  Feb.  23,  1578-9,  regis 
tered  17  Bakon  in  Prerog.  Court  of 


Cant.— What,  after  Colonel  Chester's 
demonstration,  are  we  to  do  with 
Aubrey's  Bradshaw  tradition  ?  The  sup 
position  that  Milton's  mother  had  been 
previously  married  to  a  Bradshaw  would 
be  wholly  unwarranted  in  itself,  and 
would  not  at  all  meet  the  conditions  of 
the  problem  as  it  has  been  left  by 
Aubrey.  Are  we,  then,  to  set  aside 
Aubrey's  Bradshaw  tradition,  with  his 
sketch  of  the  Bradshaw  arms,  &c.,  as  a 
mere  hallucination  on  his  part,  and 
suppose  perhaps  some  connexion  of 
this  hallucination  in  his  mind  with  his 
previous  Jeffrey-Haughton  complica 
tion  in  the  paternal  pedigree?  There 
is,  indeed,  nothing  impossible  in  the 
occurrence  of  the  name  Jeffrey  in  both 
pedigrees  in  the  way  suggested.  Mil 
ton's  mother  may  have  been  a  Jeffrey 
and  his  paternal  grandmother  may 
have  also  been  a  Jeffrey  for  a  portion 
of  her  life  by  a  previous  marriage.  In 
the  special  circumstances,  however,  the 
duplication  does  look  suspicious  ;  and 
I  should  be  glad  to  see  the  supposed 
prior  Jeffrey  swept  out  of  the  paternal 
pedigree  altogether,  where  in  any  case 
he  is  unpleasantly  superfluous. — The 
Caston  tradition  from  Phillips  is  not 
so  hopelessly  puzzling.  The  maiden 
name  of  Milton's  maternal  grand 
mother,  Mrs.  Ellen  Jeffrey,  may  have 
been  Caston ;  or  the  name  may  be  col 
lateral  in  some  other  way.  We  may 
have  a  glimpse  of  light  yet  on  that 
matter. 


ANCESTRY   AND    KINDRED.  39 

time  being  about  thirty-seven  and  hers  about  twenty-eight. 
A  little  more  than  two  years  after  it  is  he,  acting  as  the  son- 
in-law  and  representative  of  the  widowed  Mrs.  Ellen  Jeffrey, 
that  attests  her  consent  to  the  marriage  of  her  other  and 
younger  daughter,  Margaret  Jeffrey,  with  the  well-to-do 
Essex  widower,  Mr.  William  Truelove ;  and  after  that  mar 
riage,  if  not  before,  the  constant  home  of  the  widow,  or 
her  constant  London  home,  is  the  house  of  her  son-in-law 
Milton  and  her  daughter  Sarah  in  Bread  Street. 

The  elder  daughter  of  the  widowed  Mrs.  Ellen  Jeffrey 
proved  a  most  suitable  wife  for  the  prosperous  scrivener. 
The  poet  speaks  of  her  as  "  a  most  excellent  mother,  and 
particularly  known  for  her  charities  through  the  neighbour 
hood  (matre  probatissimd  et  eleemosynis  per  viciniam  potissi- 
mumnota)."1  Though  she  was  about  nine  years  younger 
than  her  husband,  he  had  the  advantage  of  her  in  one 
respect.  His  sight,  as  Aubrey  has  told  us,  was  so  good 
that  he  could  read  without  spectacles  in  extreme  old  age ; 
but  she  "  had  very  weak  eyes,  and  used  spectacles  presently 
after  she  was  thirty  years  old,"  i.  e.t  if  Aubrey  is  correct, 
within  a  year  or  two  after  her  marriage. 

To  the  worthy  pair,  thus  wedded  in  or  about  1600,  there 
were  born,  in  the  course  of  the  next  fifteen  years,  six  children 
in  all,  as  follows  : — 

1.  A"chrisom  child" — i.e.  a  child  who  died  before  it  could  be 
baptized2 — respecting  whom  there  is  this   entry  in  the  Register 
of  Allhallows,  Bread  Street  :  "  The  12th  of  May  A*  1601  was  buried 
"  a  Crysome  Child  of  Mr.  John  Mylton's  of  this  parish,  scrivenor." 

2.  Anne,  the  register  of  whose  baptism  has  not  been  found,  but  who 
may  be  supposed  to  have  been  born  between  1602  and  1607. 

3.  John,  born  Dec.  9,  1608,  and  baptized  Dec.  20,  as  appears  from 
the  Allhallows  Register:    ".The  20th  daye  of  December  1608  was 
"  baptized  John,  the  sonne  of  John  Mylton,  scrivenor." 

1  Defensio  Secunda :  Works,  VI.  286.  "  was  excused  from  offering  it,  and  it 

2  "  The  'chrisom  '  was  a  white  vesture  "  was  customary  to  use  it  as  the  shroud 
"  which  in  former  times  the  priest  used  "  in  which  the  child  was  buried."   Pro- 
"  to  put  upon  the  child  at  baptism.   The  perly,  therefore,  a  "  chrisom  child  "  was 
"  first  Common  Prayer  Book  of  King  one  that  died,  after  baptism,  before  the 
"  Edward  orders  that  the  woman  shall  churching  of  the  mother ;  but  the  term 
"  offer  the  chrisom  when  she  comes  to  had  come  in  practice  to  mean  a  child 
"  be  churched ;  but,  if  the  child  hap-  that  died  before  baptism.    (See  Hook's 
"  pened  to  die  before  her  churching,  she  Church  Dictionary.) 


40  LIFE    OF     MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TJME. 

4.  Sarah,  baptized  at  Allhallows  July  15,  1612,  and  buried  there 
Aug.  16  in  the  same  year. 

5.  Tabitha,  baptized  in  the  same  place  Jan.  30, 1613-14,  and  buried 
elsewhere  at  the  age  of  two  years  and  six  months. 

6.  Christopher,  baptized  at  Allhallows  Dec.  3,  1615.1 

By  the  death  of  three  of  these  children  in  infancy  the  family  . 
was  reduced  to  three, — a  daughter  Anne,  the  eldest,  and  two 
sons,  John  and  Christopher.  The  poet,  therefore,  grew  up 
with  one  sister  and  one  brother,  the  sister  several  years 
older  than  himself,  and  the  brother  exactly  seven  years 
younger.  The  maternal  grandmother,  Mrs.  Ellen  Jeffrey, 
was  probably  residing  in  the  house  at  the  time  of  the  poet's 
birth,  and  may  have  received  him  in  her  arms.  The  paternal 
grandfather,  the  Roman  Catholic  Richard  Milton  of  Stanton 
St.  John's,  was  probably  dead  before  the  birth  of  the  poet. 
The  stern  old  gentleman's  Recusancy  and  its  disagreeable 
pecuniary  consequences  to  him  must  have  been  a  topic  of 
talk,  if  not  of  anxiety,  for  the  scrivener  and  his  wife  through 
the  whole  of  the  second  year  of  their  married  life ;  but  we 
do  not  know  whether  the  trouble  had  softened  the  old 
gentleman,  or  brought  him  to  their  door  for  refuge  or 
reconciliation. 

1  The  date  of  Tabitha's  death  is  from  the  number  of  the  scrivener's  children' 

the  Pedigree  of  Milton  by  Sir  Charles  He  says  "  three  he  had  and  no  more,' 

Young,  Garter  King,  prefixed  to  Picker-  whereas  there  were  six,  of  whom  three 

ing's  edition  of  Milton's  works.— Phil-  died  in  infancy.     It  is  possible  there 

lips  makes  an  error  in  his  account  of  were  others  who  also  died  early. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE    SPREAD   EAGLE,    BREAD   STREET,    OLD    LONDON. 

IN  vain  now  will  the  enthusiast  in  Milton  step  out  of  the 
throng  of  Cheapside  and  walk  down  Bread  Street  to  find 
remaining  traces  of  the  house  where  Milton  was  born.  The 
Great  Fire  of  1666  destroyed  this,  with  so  many  other  of 
the  antiquities  of  old  London.  Bread  Street,  indeed,  stood 
almost  exactly  in  the  centre  of  the  space  over  which  the  Fire 
extended.  Nevertheless,  as  the  city  was  rebuilt  after  the 
Fire  with  as  strict  attention  to  the  old  sites  as  the  surveyor's 
art  of  that  day  could  ensure,  the  present  Bread  Street  occu 
pies  relatively  the  same  position  in  the  map  of  London  as 
the  old  one  did.  Exactly  where  the  present  Bread  Street 
strikes  off  from  the  present  Cheapside  did  old  Bread  Street 
strike  off  from  old  Cheapside,  and,  but  for  the  havoc  made 
by  recent  improvements,  with  the  same  arrangement  of 
streets  right  and  left,  north  and  south.  If,  therefore, 
nothing  of  the  material  fabric  of  the  house  where  Milton 
was  born,  nor  of  the  objects  which  once  lay  around  it, 
now  remains,  at  least  the  ghosts  of  the  old  tenements  hang 
in  the  air,  and  may  be  discerned  by  the  eye  of  vision. 

Till  lately  more  remained.  Describing  Bread  Street  as 
it  was  in  1720,  or  more  than  fifty  years  after  the  Fire, 
Strype1  enumerates  several  courts  in  it,  and  among  these 
one  called  Black  Spread  Eagle  Court.  It  was  the  first  court 
on  the  left,  as  you  went  from  Cheapside.  He  describes  it 
as  "  small,  but  with  a  free-stone  pavement,  and  having  a 
very  good  house  at  the  upper  end."  The  information  is 
repeated  in  the  last  edition  of  his  work  in  1754;  and  in  the 
map  of  Bread  Street  Ward  in  that  edition  "  Black  Spread 

i  Strype's  Stow :  1720. 


42  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Eagle  Court "  is  very  distinctly  marked.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  Black  Spread  Eagle  Court  commemorated 
the  house  which  had  been  occupied  by  Milton's  father.  We 
know,  from  Aubrey,  that  the  house  had  acquired  celebrity 
as  the  poet's  birthplace  while  he  was  yet  alive,  and  that 
foreigners  used  to  go  and  see  it  to  the  very  year  of  the  Fire ; 
and  it  is  not  likely  that,  when  Bread  Street  was  rebuilt,  the 
honour  of  the  name  was  transferred  to  a  wrong  spot. 

The  court  itself  remained  within  very  recent  memory,  and 
I  have  visited  it  often.  It  was,  as  I  have  said,  the  first  on 
the  left  hand  as  one  went  from  Cheapside,  and  was  at  the 
depth  of  three  houses  back  from  that  thoroughfare.  It 
no  longer,  however,  bore  the  name  "  Black  Spread  Eagle 
Court,"  nor  any  other,  the  w^reh^using__firms  that  occupied 
it  not  finding  any  name  necessary  to  ensure  the  safe  delivery 
of  their  goods  and  letters.  The  old  name  probably  fell  out 
of  use  soon  after  1766,  when  the  house- signs  were  taken 
down  over  London,  and  houses  began  to  be  designated  by 
.  numbers.  There  is  no  court  at  all  there  now,  but  only  the 
business  premises  of  Messrs.  Copestake  and  Co.,  with  the 
site  of  the  old  court  absorbed  in  them  where  they  front  the 
street.  Walk  down  Bread  Street,  therefore,  on  the  left 
hand,  from  Cheapside ;  stop  at  those  premises,  and  realize 
the  fact  that  they  have  devoured  and  incorporated  an  anony 
mous  little  court  which  many  persons  remember  and  which 
had  been  Strype's  "Black  Spread  Eagle  Court"  of  1720 
and  1754;  then  again  demolish  in  imagination  that  little 
"  Black  Spread  Eagle  Court/'  and  rear  in  its  room  an  edifice 
chiefly  of  wood  and  plaster ;  finally,  fancy  that  house  with 
its  gable  end  to  the  street,  ranging  with  others  of  similar 
form  and  materials  on  one  side,  and  facing  others  of  similar 
form  and  materials  opposite :  and,  when  you  have  done  all 
this,  you  have  the  old  Spread  Eagle  in  which  Milton  was 
born  as  vividly  before  you  as  it  is  ever  likely  to  be.1 

1  The  premises  of  Messrs.  Copestake  Street  is  held  under  lease  from  the 

and  Co.  range  from  No.  57  to  No.  63  of  Merchant    Taylors'   Company,    and   is 

the  present  Bread  Street,  and  it  is  per-  supposed  to  have  been  gifted  to  the 

haps  No.  61  that  marks  most  exactly  company  by  the  will  of  a  John  Tressa- 

the  site  of  the  old  Milton  house  and  well,  dated  1st  March  1518-19.    See  the 

•  shop.   This  particular  property  in  Bread  details  at  p.  284  of  Memorials  of  the 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  43 

The  house,  as  we  have  said,  was  as  much  in  the  heart  of 
the  London  of  that  day  as  the  present  houses  on  the  same 
site  are  in  the  heart  of  the  London  of  this.  The  only  differ 
ence  is  that,  whereas  the  population  of  London  is  now  counted 
by  millions,  it  consisted  then  perhaps  of  not  more  than 
200,000  souls.1  The  future  poet,  therefore,  was  not  only  a 
Londoner,  like  his  predecessors  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  but  a 
Londoner  of  the  innermost  circle,  a  child  of  the  very  heart 
of  Cockaigne.  Bow  Church  stood  at  the  back  of  the  Spread 
Eagle,  and  so  close  that,  had  the  famous  bells  fallen,  they 
might  have  crushed  the  infant  in  his  cradle.  This  circum 
stance  and  its  implications  are  to  be  distinctly  conceived. 
A  great  part  of  the  education  of  every  child  consists  of  those 
impressions,  visual  and  other,  which  the  senses  of  the  little 
being  are  taking  in  busily,  though  unconsciously,  amid  the 
scenes  of  their  first  exercise ;  and,  though  all  sorts  of  men 
are  born  in  all-  sorts  of  places,  poets  in  towns  and  prosaic 
men  amid  fields  and  woody  solitudes,  yet  much  of  the  original 
capital  with  which  all  men  trade  intellectually  through  life 
consists  of  that  mass  of  miscellaneous  fact  and  imagery 
which  they  have  acquired  imperceptibly  by  the  observations 
of  their  early  years.  If,  theu,  though  it  is  beyond  our 
meagre  science  to  determine  how  much  of  the  form  of 
Shakespeare's  genius  depended  on  his  having  been  born 
and  bred  amid  the  circumstances  of  a  Warwickshire  town, 
we  still  follow  the  boy  in  his  wanderings  by  the  banks  of 
the  Avon,  hardly  less  is  it  necessary  to  remember  that 
England's  next  great  poet  was  born  in  the  middle  of  old 
London,  and  that  the  sights  and  sounds  amid  which  his 
childhood  was  nurtured  were  those  of  crowded  street-life. 

f-  Bread  Street,  like  its  modern  successor,  stretched  south 
ward  from  Cheapside,  in  the  direction  of  the  river,  athwart 
old  Watling  Street  and  a  dense  maze  of  other  streets  that 
has  been  abolished  by  the  present  spacious  Cannon  Street 

Guild  of  Merchant  Taylors  by  the  Mas-  was  estimated  at  little  over   150,000  ; 

ter  of  the  Company  for  the  year  1873-4  which  I  suspect  was  under  the  truth. 

(Charles  Matthew  Clode).  See  Cunningham's  Handbook  of  Lon- 

1  In  1603  the  population  of  London  don,  p.  xxiv. 


44  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

and  other  recent   clearings  in  that   neighbourhood.      The 
street  was  (f  so  called,"  says  Stow,  ' c  of  bread  anciently  sold 
there,"  and  was,  in  Milton's    childhood,  one   of   the   most 
respectable  streets  in  the  city,  "  wholly  inhabited  by  rich 
merchants,"  who  had  their  shops  below  and  their  dwelling- 
houses    above,    and    with    two   parish-churches   in   it,   and 
"  divers  fair  inns  for  good  receipt   of  carriers  and  other 
travellers/'1     Going  down  from  his  father's  house  on  the 
same  side  and  passing  the  next  houses,  the  boy  would  come 
first  to  the  Star  Inn  with  its  court.     Passing  it  and  another 
row  of  merchants'  shops  and  houses  beyond  it,  he  would 
cross  Watling  Street,  inhabited  by  "  wealthy  drapers,  retail 
ers  of  woollen  cloth,  both  broad  and  narrow,  of  all  sorts, 
more  than  any  one  street  in  the  city."2     On  the  opposite 
corner  of  Watling    Street  stood  the  parish-church  of  All- 
hallows,  where   he   sat  every  Sunday  with  his  father  and 
mother,  and  where  he  had   been  christened.      Continuing 
the  walk  on  the  same  side,  and  passing  Salters'  Hall,  an  old 
foundation  of  "  six  alms-houses   builded   for  poor  decayed 
brethren  of  the  Salters'  Company,"  he  would  come  upon  the 
second  parish-church  in  the  street,  that  of  Saint  Mildred  the 
Virgin.     A  little  farther  on,  after  crossing  Basing-lane,  he 
would  come  upon  the  greatest  curiosity  in  the  whole  street, 
the  famous  Gerrard's  Hall.     "  On  the  south  side  of  Basing- 
' '  lane,"  says  Stow,  ' '  is  one  great  house  of  old  time,  builded 
' '  upon  arched  vaults,  and  with  arched  gates  of  stone,  brought 
"from  Caen  in  Normandy.      The  same  is  now  a  common 
"  hostrey  for  receipt  of  travellers,  commonly  and  corruptly 
"  called  Gerrard's  Hall,  of  a  giant  said  to  have  dwelled  there. 
"In  the  high-roofed  hall  of  this  house  sometime  stood  a 
"  large  fir-pole,  which  reached  to  the  roof  thereof  and  was 
"  said  to  be  one  of  the  staves  that  Gerrard  the  giant  used  in 
"  the  wars  to  run  withal.     There  stood  also  a  ladder  of  the 
"same  length,  which,  as  they  say,  served  to  ascend  to  the 
"  top  of  the  staff.     Of  later  years  this  hall  is  altered  in  build 
ing,  and  divers  rooms  are  made  in  it.     Notwithstanding 
"the  pole  is  removed  to  one  corner  of  the  hall,  and  the 
1  Stow's  Survey,  1603,  p.  348.  2  ibid.  p.  348. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  45 

"  ladder  hanged  broken  upon  a  wall  in  the  yard.  The 
"hosteler  of  that  house  said  to  me  the  pole  lacked  half  a 
<(  foot  of  forty  in  length :  I  measured  the  compass  thereof 
"and  found  it  fifteen  inches."1  Stow's  own  researches 
enabled  him  to  inform  the  hosteler  that  the  Hall  was  pro 
perly  not  "  Gerrard's  Hall/'  but  "  Gisor's  Hall/'  so  called 
from  a  wealthy  London  family,  its  original  owners,  who  had 
dwelt  there  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  III.  and  Edward  I.  For 
this  information  he  had  no  thanks ;  and  the  story  of  Gerrard 
the  Giant  remained  one  of  the  popular  myths  of  Bread  Street. 
Beyond  Gerrard's  Hall  there  was  little  to  be  seen  on  that 
side  of  Bread  Street ;  and,  unless  the  boy  continued  his  walk 
towards  Thames  Street  and  the  river,  he  might  return  home 
by  the  other  side  of  the  street,  seeing  such  objects  on  that 
side  as  the  Three  Cups  Inn  and  the  Bread  Street  Compter 
or  prison. 

There  were,  however,  other  objects  of  interest,  either  in 
Bread  Street  or  so  close  to  it  as  to  be  accessible  from  it. 
One  was  the  Mermaid  Tavern,  famous  as  the  reputed  resort 
of  Shakespeare,  Ben  Jonson,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and 
the  other  literary  celebrities  of  those  days.2 

"  What  things  have  we  seen 

Done  at  the  Mermaid  !  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life  •  then,  when  there  hath  been  thrown 
Wit  able  enough  to  justify  the  town 
For  three  days  past, — wit  that  might  warrant  be 
For  the  whole  city  to  talk  foolishly 
Till  that  were  cancelled  ;  and,  when  that  was  gone, 
We  left  an  air  behind  us  which  alone 
Was  able  to  make  the  two  next  companies 
Eight  witty,  though  but  downright  fools."3 

1  Stow's  Survey,  1603,  p.  350.  Oldys  in  his  MS.  notes  on  Langbaine, 

2  Gifford,  in  his  Life  of  Ben  Jonson,  (annotated  copy  of  Langbaine's   Dra- 
places  the  Mermaid  in  Friday  Street,  matic  Poets  in  British  Museum,  p.  286) 
the  next  parallel  to  Bread  Street.    But  speaks  as  if  there  were  two  Mermaids, 
Ben's  own  lines  seem  to  show  that  the  one  in  Bread  Street  and  one  in  Friday 
tavern  was  in  Bread  Street : —  Street,    but    fixes  on    that   in   Bread 
'•'At    Bread-street's    Mermaid    having  Street  as  M«  Mermaid. 

dined  and  merry,  ,    *.  *"*£*  Beaumont  to  Ben  Jonson, 

Proposed    to   go    to    Holborn    in    a      before  1610. 
wherry."  (Epiyr.  133.) 


48  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

The  date  of  the  merry  meetings  thus  described,  with  such  a 
sense  of  after-relish,  by  one  who  so  often  figured  in  them, 
corresponds  with  the  time  with  which  we  are  now  concerned. 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  it  is  said,  had  begun  a  kind  of  club  there 
before  the  close  of  Elizabeth's  reign1 ;  during  the  latter  years 
of  that  reign  and  the  first  of  James's,  while  Shakespeare  was 
still  in  town  to  make  one  of  the  company,  the  meetings  were 
at  their  best ;  but  even  after  that  time  they  were  kept  up 
by  the  rest  of  the  fraternity.  Any  time,  therefore,  between 
1608  and  1614,  while  Milton  was  a  child,  we  may  fancy 
those  meetings  going  on  close  to  his  father's  house,  at  which, 
over  a  board  covered  with  cups  of  Canary,  and  in  a  room  well 
filled  with  tobacco-smoke,  the  seated  gods  exchanged  their 
flashes.  Nay,  and  if  we  will  imagine  the  precise  amount  of 
personal  contact  that  there  was  or  could  have  been  between 
Shakespeare  and  our  poet,  how  else  can  we  do  so  than  by 
supposing  that,  in  that  very  year  1614  when  the  dramatist 
paid  his  last  known  visit  to  London,  he  may  have  spent  an 
evening  with  his  old  comrades  at  the  Mermaid,  and,  going 
down  Bread  Street  with  Ben  Jonson  on  his  way,  may  have 
passed  a  fair  child  of  six  playing  at  his  father's  door,  and, 
looking  down  at  him  kindly,  have  thought  of  a  little  grave 
in  Stratford  churchyard,  and  the  face  of  his  own  dead 
Hamnet  ?  Ah  !  what  an  evening  in  the  Mermaid  was  that ; 
and  how  Ben  and  Shakespeare  betongued  each  other,  while 
the  others  listened  and  wondered ;  and  how,  when  the  com 
pany  dispersed,  the  sleeping  street  heard  their  departing 
footsteps,  and  the  stars  shone  down  on  the  old  roofs  ! 

But,  if  Bread  Street  itself  was  rich  in  objects  and  associa 
tions,  the  great  thoroughfare  of  Cheapside  or  West  Cheap, 
into  which  it  opened,  was  still  more  attractive.  The  boy 
had  only  to  go  a  few  paces  from  his  father's  door  to  see  the 
whole  of  this  great  street  at  one  glance.  He  could  see  it 
eastward,  till  it  branched  off  into  the  Poultry  and  Bucklers  - 
bury,  and  westward,  till,  split  by  the  Church  of  St.  Michael 
in  the  Querne,  it  branched  off  into  Paternoster  Row  and 

1  The  first  atithority  for  this  tradition,  I  believe,  is  Oldys  (1686—1761),  in  his 
MS.  notes  as  above. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  47 

Newgate  Street.    In  Old  Cheap,  as  in  its  modern  successor, 
the  traffic  and  bustle  of  the  city  was  at  its  thickest.     Here 
the  mercers  and   goldsmiths   had  their   shops;  here   were 
some  of  the  most  noted  taverns  of  the  city ;  here  there  was 
a  constant  throng  of  foot-passengers,  going  and   coming, 
with  horsemen  and  dray-carts  among  them,  and  now  and 
then  also  a  coach, — for  of  late  years  those  vehicles  had  come 
into  fashion,  and  the  world,  as  Stow  complains,  was  "  run 
ning  on  wheels  with  many  whose  parents  had  been  glad  to 
go  on  foot."     Whenever  there  was  a  procession  or  other 
city-pageant,   it  was   sure   to  pass    through  West    Cheap. 
The  aspect  of  the  street  itself,  with  its  houses  of  various 
heights,  nearly  all  turned  gable-wise  to  the  street,  and  all 
with  projecting    upper    storeys  of  woodwork   and  latticed 
windows,  was  far  more  picturesque  than  that  to  which  we 
are  accustomed.     Some  of  the  houses  were  as  handsome,  to 
the  standard  of  that  time,  as  any  in  London.     Eastward  was 
a  row  of  many  "  fair  and  large  hotfses,  for  the  most  part 
possessed  of  mercers  "  ;  and  westward,  beginning  from  the 
very  corner  of  Bread  Street,  was  another  row, — "  the  most 
beautiful  frame  of  fair  houses  and  shops,"  says  Stow,  "  that 
be  within  the  walls  of  London  or  elsewhere  in  England." 
This  frame  of  houses,   called  Goldsmith's  Row,   had  been 
built  in  1491  by  Thomas  Wood,  goldsmith.    "  It  containeth," 
says  Stow,  "in  number  ten  fair  dwelling-houses  and  four- 
"  teen  shops,  all  in  one  frame,  uniformly  builded  four  storeys 
"high,  beautified  towards  the  street  with  the  goldsmith's 
"  arms  and  the  likeness  of  woodmen  in  memory  of  his  name, 
ff riding   on  monstrous   beasts;  all  which  is   cast  in  lead, 
"  richly  painted  over  and  gilt."     But  the  most  conspicuous 
difference  between  old  Cheapside  and   modern    Cheapside 
consisted  in  certain  prominent  objects  seen  along  the  middle 
of  the  old  street.     Far  to  the  east,  and  just  where  Cheapside 
passes  into  the  Poultry,  stood  the  Great  Conduit,  a  castel 
lated  stone- edifice  with  a  lead  cistern,  built   in  1285  and 
rebuilt  in   1479,  for  supplying  that  part  of  the  city  with 
sweet  water  by  means  of  pipes  from  Paddington.     Then, 
just  at  the  top  of  Bread  Street,  and  therefore  associated 


48  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

perhaps  more  than  any  other  object  of  the  kind  with 
Milton's  early  recollections,  was  the  "  Standard  in  Cheap/' 
— a  monument  of  unknown  antiquity,  in  the  shape  of  a  hexa 
gonal  shaft  of  stone,  with  sculptures  on  each  side,  and  on 
the  top  the  figure  of  a  man  blowing  a  horn.  Here  Wat 
Tyler  had  beheaded  some  of  his  prisoners  in  1381,  and  here 
Jack  Cade  had  beheaded  Lord  Say  in  1450.  Far  finer 
architecturally,  and  only  a  little  distance  west,  was  the 
famous  Cross  in  Cheap,  a  Gothic  edifice  surmounted  by  a 
gilt  cross,  one  of  the  nine  crosses  erected  by  Edward  I.  in 
1290  in  memory  of  his  Queen  Eleanor.  Last  of  all  there 
was  the  Little  Conduit,  set  up  in  1431,  at  the  end  of  St. 
Michael's  in  the  Querne. 

The  streets  and  lanes  going  off  from  old  Cheapside  on 
both  sides  were  pretty  much  the  same  in  number  and  in 
name  as  those  going  off  from  its  successor.  On  the  one 
side  were  Ironmonger  Lane,  St.  Lawrence  Lane,  Milk 
Street,  Wood  Street,  Guthrun's  or  Gutter  Lane,  and  Foster 
Lane ; .  on  the  other  side,  right  and  left  from  Bread  Street, 
were  Bow  Lane,  Soper  Lane,  Friday  Street,  and  Old  Change. 
Bow  Lane  and  Friday  Street,  as  the  next  parallels  to  Bread 
Street,  would  be  those  with  which  the  boy  was  soonest 
familiar. 

Walking  westward  along  Cheap,  only  a  pace  or  two  past 
the  Little  Conduit,  one  came  to  St.  Paul's  Gate,  a  narrow 
archway  opening  from  Paternoster  Row  into  St.  Paul's 
Churchyard.  Here,  in  all  its  vastness,  stood  Old  St.  Paul's, 
then  shorn  of  the  greater  part  of  its  enormous  steeple,  which 
had  towered  into  the  sky  more  than  five  hundred  feet,  but 
still  of  such  dimensions  that  its  present  successor  can  give 
but  a  reduced  idea  of  it.  The  middle  aisle  of  the  church, 
— "  Duke  Humphrey's  Walk,"  as  it  was  called, — was  open 
to  all,  and  was  used  as  a  common  thoroughfare.  Here, 
every  forenoon  and  afternoon,  the  courtiers,  the  wits,  the 
lawyers,  and  the  merchants  of  the  city,  met  as  in  a  kind  of 
exchange  ;  and  here,  on  the  pillars  of  the  church,  used  to  be 
posted  advertisements  of  servants  out  of  place  and  the  like. 
Outside,  in  the  churchyard,  there  were  trees  shadowing  the 


THE  SPEEAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  49 

gravestones ;  and  all  round  the  churchyard  were  the  shops 
of  the  booksellers.  On  the  north  side  was  the  famous  Paul's 
Cross,  a  covered  pulpit  of  timber  on  stone  steps,  from  which 
every  Sunday  forenoon  open-air  sermons  were  preached  by 
bishops  and  other  eminent  divines.  On  the  east  side  of  the 
churchyard  was  St.  Paul's  School. 

Farther  than  this  we  need  not  extend  the  boy's  imagined 
rambles.  Walks  farther,  in  his  father's  company,  there 
might,  of  course,  be.  There  might  be  walks  westward, 
beyond  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  down  Ludgate  Hill  to  Fleet 
Street  and  the  then  "  luxurious "  Strand,  or,  in  the  same 
direction,  to  Holborn  or  Oldbourne,  then  built  as  far  as 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields ;  there  might  be  walks  northward,  as 
far  as  Cripplegate  and  the  favourite  suburbs  of  Moorfields 
and  Finsbury ;  or  there  might  be  walks  eastward,  through 
more  bustling  thoroughfares,  to  Whitechapel  or  the  Tower. 
If  the  excursion  was  southwards,  then,  unless  they  walked 
round  by  London  Bridge,  they  would*  have  to  take  a  boat  at 
Queenhithe,  and  so  cross  the  river.  Having  crossed,  they 
would  be  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Globe,  the  Beargarden, 
and  other  playhouses,  standing  in  open  spaces  amid  trees  on 
Bankside ;  and  from  this  spot,  looking  back  across  the  clear 
stream,  with  the  various  craft  upon  it,  to  the  populous 
opposite  bank  which  they  had  left,  they  could  distinctly  see, 
over  the  dense  built  space,  the  open  country  to  the  north. 
They  could  see  Hackney  a  little  to  the  right ;  in  the  centre, 
and  just  over  St.  Paul's,  they  could  see  Highgate ;  and  more 
to  the  left,  over  the  Temple  and  Fleet  Street,  they  could  see 
the  heights  of  Hampstead  with  their  windmills. 

Something  of  all  this,  in  some  order  of  succession,  the 
boy  did  see.  After  all,  however,  Milton  may  have  been 
but  moderately  sensitive  from  the  first  to  impressions  of  this 
kind.  More  important  in  his  case  than  contact  with  the 
world  of  city-sights  and  city-humours  lying  round  the  home 
of  his  childhood  was  the  training  he  received  within  that 
home  itself.  Let  us  pass,  then,  within  the  threshold  of  the 
Spread  Eagle  in  Bread  Street,  and  let  the  roar  of  Cheapside 
and  the  surrounding  city  be  muffled  in  the  distance. 


50  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

It  is  a  warm  and  happy  home.  Peace,  comfort,  and  in 
dustry  reign  within  it.  Daring  the  day  the  scrivener  is 
busy  with  his  clients ;  but  in  the  evening  the  family  are 
gathered  together,  the  father  on  one  side,  the  mother 
on  the  other,  the  eldest  girl  Anne  and  her  brother  John 
seated  near,  and  little  Kit  lying  on  the  hearth.  Possibly 
one  or  two  of  the  scrivener's  apprentices  lived  in  the  house 
with  him,  such  an  arrangement  being  then  common.  A 
grave  Puritanic  piety  was  then  the  order  in  the  households 
of  most  of  the  respectable  citizens  of  London ;  and  in  the 
scrivener  Milton's  house  there  seems  to  have  been  a  more 
than  usual  affection  for  Puritanic  habits  and  modes  of 
thought.  Religious  reading  and  devout  exercises  would  be 
part  of  the  regular  life  of  the  family.  Thus  a  disposition  to 
the  serious,  a  regard  for  religion  as  the  chief  concern  in  life, 
and  a  dutiful  love  of  the  parents  who  so  taught  him,  would 
be  cultivated  in  Milton  from  his  earliest  years. 

But  the  scrivener,  though  a  serious  man,  was  also  a  man 
of  liberal  tastes.  "  He  was  an  ingeniose  man,"  says  Aubrey; 
and  Phillips,  whose  remembrance  of  him  personally  lends 
value  to  his  testimony,  says  that,  while  prudent  in  business, 
"  he  did  not  so  far  quit  his  own  generous  and  ingenious  in- 
"  clinations  as  to  make  himself  wholly  a  slave  to  the  world." 
His  acquaintance  with  literature  was  that  of  a  man  who  had 
been  well  educated  at  school,  if  he  had  not  also  been,  as 
Aubrey  thought,  in  college  at  Oxford.  But  his  special 
faculty  was  music.  It  is  possible  that,  on  his  first  coming 
to  London  after  having  been  cast  off  by  his  father,  he  had 
taught  or  practised  music  professionally.  At  all  events, 
after  he  had  settled  as  a  scrivener,  he  retained  an  extra 
ordinary  passion  for  the  art,  and  acquired  a  reputation  in  it 
much  above  that  of  an  ordinary  amateur. 

In  a  collection  of  madrigals  which  was  published  in 
1601,  and  which  long  afterwards  retained  its  celebrity, 
the  scrivener  Milton  is  found  associated,  as  a  contributor, 
with  twenty-one  of  the  first  English  composers  then  living. 
The  volume  consists  of  twenty-five  madrigals,  entitled 
The  Triumphes  of  Oriana,  each  composed  for  five  or  six 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  51 

voices,  but  all  originally  intended  to  be  sung  at  one  enter 
tainment,  in  compliment  to  Queen  Elizabeth  and  perhaps 
in  her  presence.  "Oriana"  was  one  of  the  Arcadian 
court-names  for  the  aged  virgin,  and  the  notion  of  getting 
up  the  madrigals  had  originated  with  the  Earl  of  Notting 
ham.  Thomas  Morley,  whose  compositions  are  still  in 
repute,  edited  the  collection ;  and  among  the  contributors 
were  Ellis  Gibbons,  John  Wilbye,  Thomas  Weelks,  and 
John  Bennet.  Milton's  madrigal  is  the  eighteenth  in  the 
series ;  and  its  admission  proves  that  he  was  at  that  time, — 
the  very  beginning  of  his  married  life  in  Bread  Street,  the 
very  year  of  his  father's  conspicuous  Recusancy  in  Oxford 
shire,  and  seven  years  before  his  famous  son  was  born, — well 
known  in  musical  circles  in  London.  Nor  had  he  since  then 
forsworn  his  favourite  art.  An  organ  and  other  instruments 
were  part  of  the  furniture  in  the  house  in  Bread  Street ;  and 
much  of  his  spare  time  was  given  to  musical  study.  Not  to 
speak  of  compositions  of  his  not  now  to  be  recovered, — 
among  which,  according  to  Aubrey  and  Phillips,  the  most 
notable  was  an  "  In  Nomine,  in  forty  parts,"  presented  by 
him  to  a  German  or  Polish  prince,  and  acknowledged  by  the 
gift  of  a  gold  chain  and  medal, — we  trace  his  hand  here  and 
there  in  the  preserved  music  of  the  time.  In  the  Teares  and 
Lamentations,  of  a  Sorrowfull  Soule,  published  in  1614  by  Sir 
William  Leighton,  knight,  one  of  his  Majesty's  Honourable 
Band  of  Gentlemen  Pensioners,  and  consisting  of  dolorous 
sacred  songs,  both  words  and  music,  after  a  fashion  then 
much  in  vogue,  Milton  appears  along  with  Byrd,  Bull,  Dow- 
land,  Orlando  Gibbons,  Wilbye,  Ford,  and  other  "  famous 
artists,"  as  the  editor  styles  them,  "  of  that  sublime  pro 
fession."  Three  of  the  "Lamentations"  are  to  Milton's 
music.  Again,  in  Thomas  Ravenscroft's  compendium  of 
Church-music  published  in  1621  under  the  title  of  The 
Whole  Book  of  Psalmes,  with  the  Hymns  Evangelicall  and 
Songs  Spiritual,  composed  into  four  parts  by  sundry  authors 
to  such  severall  tunes  as  have  beene  and  are  usually  sung  in 
England,  Scotland,  Wales,  Germany,  Italy,  France,  and  the 
Netherlands,  Milton's  name  figures  along  with  those  of  other 

E  2 


52  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

masters,  living  and  dead,  including  Tallis,  Dowland,  Morley, 
Bennet,  and  Ravenscroft  himself.  The  airs  in  this  collec 
tion  harmonised  by  Milton  are  the  two  known  in  books  of 
psalmody  as  Noi'wich  and  York  tunes;  and,  of  the  whole 
Hundred  and  Fifty  Psalms  printed  in  the  collection  after 
the  old  version  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins,  Ravenscroft  has 
fitted  six— viz.  Psalms  Y,  XXVII,  LV,  LXVI,  Oil,  and 
CXXXVIII — to  the  tunes  so  harmonised.  From  that  time 
forward  we  are  to  fancy  that  frequently,  when  these  particu 
lar  psalms  were  sung  in  churches  in  London  or  elsewhere, 
it  was  to  music  composed  by  the  father  of  the  poet  Milton. 
Norwich  and  York  are  still  familiar  tunes.  "  The  tenor 
part  of  York  tune,"  we  are  told  by  Sir  John  Hawkins,  was 
so  well  known  "  that  within  'memory  half  the  nurses  in 
England  were  used  to  sing  it  by  way  of  lullaby,"  and  the 
chimes  of  many  country -churches  had  "  played  it  six  or 
eight  times  in  four-and-twenty  hours  from  time  immemorial/' 
'And  so,  apart  from  all  that  the  scrivener  of  Bread  Street 
has  given  us  through  his  son,  there  yet  rests  in  the  air  of 
Britain,  capable  of  being  set  loose  wherever  church-bells 
send  their  chimes  over  English  earth,  or  voices  are  raised  in 
sacred  concert  round  an  English  or  Scottish  fireside,  some 
portion  of  the  soul  of  the  admirable  man  and  his  love  of 
sweet  sounds. 

That  the  father  was  so  gifted  was  very  material  to  the 
son.  In  Milton's  own  scheme  of  an  improved  education  for 
boys,  as  published  in  his  Tract  of  1644,  he  gave  a  high 
place  to  music.  The  intervals  of  their  more  severe  labours, 
he  said,  might  "  both  with  profit  and  delight  be  taken  up  in 
"  recreating  and  composing  their  travailed  spirits  with  the 
"  solemn  and  divine  harmonies  of  music,  heard  or  learnt, 
"  either  while  the  skilful  organist  plies  his  grave  and  fancied 
"  descant  in  lofty  fugues,  or  the  whole  symphony  with  art- 
"  ful  and  unimaginable  touches  adorn  and  grace  the  well- 
"  studied  chords  of  some  choice  composer :  sometimes  the 
"  lute  or  soft  organ-stop  waiting  on  elegant  voices,  either  to 
"religious,  martial,  or  civil  ditties  ;  which,  if  wise  men  and 
t(  prophets  be  not  extremely  out,  have  a  great  power  over 


THE    SPREAD   EAGLE,    BREAD    STREET.  53 

"  dispositions  and  manners,  to  smooth  and  make  them. 
"  gentle."  Of  this  kind  of  education  Milton  had  the  full 
advantage.  Often,  as  a  child,  he  must  have  bent  over  his 
father  while  composing,  or  listened  to  him  as  he  played. 
Not  unfrequently  of  an  evening,  if  one  or  two  of  his  father's 
musical  acquaintances  dropt  in,  there  would  be  voices 
enough  in  the  Spread  Eagle  for  a  little  household  concert. 
Then  might  the  well-printed  and  well-kept  set  of  the  Orianas 
be  brought  out;  and,  each  one  present  taking  a  suitable 
part,  the  child  might  hear,  and  always  with  fresh  delight, 
his  father's  own  madrigal : — 

"  Fair  Oriana,  in  the  morn, 
Before  the  day  was  born, 
With  velvet  steps  on  ground, 
Which,  made  nor  print  nor  sound, 
Would  see  her  nymphs  abed, 
What  lives  those  ladies  led  : 
The  roses  blushing  said, 
'  O,  stay,  thou  shepherd-maid ' ; 
And,  on  a  sudden,  all 
They  rose  and  heard  her  call. 
Then  sang  those  shepherds  and  nymphs  of  Diana, 
1  Long  live  fair  Oriana,  long  live  fair  Oriana.'  " 

They  can  remember  little  how  a  child  is  affected  who  do  not 
see  how  from  the  words,  as  well  as  from'  the  music,  of  this 
song,  a  sense  of  fantastic  grace  would  sink  into  the  mind  of 
the  boy,  how  Oriana  and  her  nymphs  and  a  little  Arcadian 
grass-plat  would  be  before  him,  and  a  chorus  of  shepherds 
would  be  seen  singing  at  the  close,  and  yet,  somehow  or 
other,  it  was  all  about  Queen  Elizabeth.  And  so  if,  instead 
of  the  book  of  Madrigals,  it  was  the  thin  large  volume  of 
Sir  William  Leighton's  Teares  and  Lamentations  that  fur 
nished  the  song  of  the  evening.  Then,  if  one  of  his  father's 
contributions  were  selected,  the  words  might  be 

"  0,  had  I  wings  like  to  a  dove, 

Then  should  I  from  these  troubles  fly  ; 
To  wilderness  I  would  remove, 
To  spend  my  life  and  there  to  die." 

As  he  listened,  the  lonely  dove  would  be  seen  winging 
through  the  air,  and  the  "wilderness,  its  destination,  would 
be  fancied  as  a  great  desolate  place,  somewhere  about  Moor- 


54  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

fields.  Nor  would  the  opening  words  of  the  27th  Psalm, 
doubtless  often  sung  in  the  family  to  York  tune,  be  without 
a  deeper  significance : — 

"  The  Lord  is  both  ray  health  and  light ; 

Shall  man  make  me  dismayed  1 
Sith  God  doth  give  me  strength  and  might, 

Why  should  I  be  afraid? 
While  that  my  foes  with  all  their  strength 

Begin  with  me  to  brawl, 
And  think  to  eat  me  up  at  length, 

Themselves  have  caught  the  fall." 

Joining  with  his  young  voice  in  those  exercises  of  the 
family,  the  boy  became  a  singer  almost  as  soon  as  he  could 
speak.  We  see  him  going  to  the  organ  for  his  own  amuse 
ment,  picking  out  little  melodies  by  the  ear,  and  stretching 
his  tiny  fingers  in  search  of  pleasing  chords.  Aubrey  states 
definitely  that  Milton's  father  taught  him  music  and  made 
him  an  accomplished  organist. 

In  the  most  musical  household,  however,  music  fills  up 
but  part  of  the  domestic  evening.  Sometimes  it  would  not 
be  musical  friends,  but  acquaintances  of  more  general  tastes, 
that  would  step  in  to  pass  an  hour  or  two  in  the  Spread 
Eagle. 

For  example,  the  minister  of  the  parish  of  Allhallows, 
Bread  Street,  at  that  time  was  the  Rev.  Richard  Stocke.  A 
Yorkshireman  by  birth,  and  educated  at  Cambridge,  he  had 
been  settled  in  the  ministry  in  London  ever  since  1594,  and 
in  the  church  in  Bread  Street  since  March  161 0.1  A  "  con 
stant,  judicious,  and  religious  preacher,"  a  "zealous  Puritan," 
and  the  most  intimate  friend  of  that  great  light  among  the 
Puritans,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Thomas  Gataker,  minister  of  Rother- 
hithe,  there  was  no  man  in  London  more  respected  than  Mr. 
Stocke.  "  No  minister  in  England,"  says  Fuller,  "  had  his 
pulpit  supplied  by  fewer  strangers  " ;  and  there  were  young 
men,  afterwards  high  in  the  Church,  who  made  a  point  of 
never  missing  one  of  his  sermons.  As  he  was  peculiarly 
strict  in  his  notions  of  Sabbath  observance,  some  of  the 

i  Fuller's  Worthies,  under  Yorkshire;      Gataker's  Funeral  Sermon  on  Stocke, 
Wood's  Fasti  under  the  year  1595 ;  also      published  1627. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  55 

city  companies,  who  had  their  halls  in  his  neighbourhood, 
actually  altered  their  feast-days  from  Mondays  to  Tuesdays, 
in  deference  to  his  advice,  that  there  might  be  the  less  risk 
of  infringing  on  the  day  of  rest  by  the  necessary  prepara 
tions.  Once,  in  the  early  period  of  his  ministry,  having 
been  appointed  to  preach  the  open-air  sermon  at  St.  Paul's 
Cross,  he  had  spoken  rather  freely  of  the  inequality  of  rates 
in  the  city;  and,  as  this  was  thought  injudicious,  he  had 
been  called  a  "  greenhead  "  for  his  pains.  He  had  not  for 
gotten  this ;  and  long  after,  having  to  preach  a  public  ser 
mon  before  the  Lord  Mayor,  he  reverted  to  the  old  topic, 
saying  that  "a,  greyhead  could  now  repeat  what  a  green- 
head  had  said  before."  Bat  his  delight  was  in  his  own 
parish,  where  the  fruits  of  his  labours,  "  in  converting  many 
and  confirming  more  in  religion,"  were  abundantly  seen. 
It  was  "  more  comfortable  for  him/'  he  used  to  say,  "  to  win 
one  of  his  own  parishioners  than  twenty  others."  In  one 
part  of  a  pastor's  duty,  that  of  interesting  the  young,  he 
was  believed  to  have  a  peculiar  faculty.  Little  wonder, 
then,  that  the  merchants  and  others  who  were  his  parish 
ioners  all  but  adored  him,  and  that,  when  he  died  in 
1626,  a  number  of  them  subscribed  for  a  monument  to  be 
erected  to  his  memory  in  Allhallows  Church.  The  inscrip 
tion  on  this  monument  was  partly  in  Latin  and  partly  in 
English;  and  here,  the  better  to  characterise  him  and  his 
congregation,  are  the  English  verses  :  — 

"  Thy  lifelesse  Trunke  (O  Reverend  Stocke) 
Like  Aaron's  rod  sprouts  out  again, 
And,  after  two  full  winters  past, 
Yields  blossomes  and  ripe  fruite  amaine. 

For  why  1    This  work  of  piety, 
Performed  by  some  of  thy  flocke 
To  thy  dead  corpse  and  sacred  urne, 
Is  but  the  fruit  of  this  old  Stocke." l 

One  of  the  scrivener's  co-parishioners,  and  his  very  near 
neighbour,  was  Humphrey  Lownes,  printer  and  publisher. 
He  resided,  or  had  his  place  of  business,  at  the  sign  of  the 

1  Description  of  old  Allhallows  Church  in  Strype's  Stow,  edit.  1720,  vol.  I. 
p.  200. 


56  LIFE   OF   MILTON  AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

Star  in  that  steep  and  narrow  prolongation  of  Bread  Street 
river- wards  which  bore  then  the  name  of  Bread  Street 
Hill,  and  justified  that  name  till  very  recently,  though  its 
relics  now  are  dissolved  in  space.  He  was  one  of  a  family 
then  and  since  well-known  in  the  printing  and  bibliopolic 
world  of  London,  and  was  himself  a  man  of  ingenuity  and 
worth.1  Some  of  Milton's  commentators  have  stated  it  as  an 
ascertained  fact  that  this  Humphrey  Lownes  was  an  acquaint 
ance  of  his  father's.  The  acquaintanceship,  however,  is  only 
matter  of  very  plausible  conjecture.2 

If  there  was  not  a  printer  and  publisher  among  the 
acquaintances  of  the  elder  Milton,  there  was  certainly  one 
author.  This  was  John  Lane,  utterly  unknown  to  English 
readers  now,  but  to  whom  Milton's  nephew  Phillips,  who 
afterwards  knew  him,  assigns  a  niche  in  his  Theatrum  Poet- 
arum,  published  in  1675.  He  there  describes  Lane  as  "  a  fine 
old  Queen  Elizabeth  gentleman,"  living  within  his  own  re 
membrance,  "  whose  several  poems,  had  they  not  had  the 
tf  ill  fate  to  remain  unpublished,  when  much  better  meriting 
"  than  many  that  are  in  print,  might  possibly  have  gained 
"  him  a  name  not  much  inferior,  if  not  equal,  to  Drayton 
"  and  others  of  the  next  rank  to  Spenser." 3  Phillips  must 
have  strained  his  conscience  a  little  to  write  this.  The  old 
gentleman's  poetry  remains  in  manuscript  to  this  day,  and 
will  probably  do  so  as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  Besides  a 
Poetical  Vision  and  an  Alarm  to  Poets,  not  now  to  be  re 
covered,  he  wrote  a  continuation  of  The  Squieres  Tale  in 
Chaucer,  thus  finishing  that  "  story  of  Cambuscan  bold " 
which,  as  Milton  afterwards  noted,  had  been  left  "  half- 
told  "  by  the  great  original.  There  are  manuscript  copies 
of  this  performance  in  the  British  Museum  and  the  Ashmo- 
lean  at  Oxford.  Another  still  more  laborious  attempt  of 
Lane's,  of  which  there  is  also  a  fair  manuscript  copy  in  the 
Museum,  dated  1621,  was  a  continuation  of  Lydgate's 
metrical  romance  of  Guy,  Earl  of  Warwick,  in  twenty-six 

1  Nichols's  Literary  Anecdotes.  Milton's  Early  Heading,"  published  in 

2  Todd  and  others  assumed  as  a  fact       1800. 

what  appeared  first  as  a  conjecture  3  Phillips's  Theatrum  Foetarum,  pp. 
in  Mr.  Charles  Duuster's  "Essay  on  111—112. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  57 

cantos.  Besides  these,  there  remains,  as  evidence  of  his 
perseverance,  a  long  manuscript  poem  in  the  British  Museum, 
dated  1621,  and  entitled  Triton's  Trumpet  to  the  Twelve 
Months,  husbanded  and  moralized.  In  it  there  is  a  dis 
tinct  allusion  to  the  scrivener  Milton,  in  his  capacity  as 
a  musical  composer.  Here  it  is,  specimen  enough  of  all 
Lane's  poetry ! — 

"  At  this  full  point  the  Lady  Music's  hand 
Opened  the  casements  where  her  pupils  stand  ; 
To  whom  lifting  that  sign  which  kept  the  time 
Loud  organs,  sackbuts,  viols  chime,  = 
Lutes,  citherns,  virginals,  harpsichords,  .... 
And  every  instrument  of  melody 
Which  motfe  or  ought  exhibit  harmony,  .... 
Accenting,  airing,  curbing,  ordering 
Those  sweet  sweet  parts  Meltonus  did  compose, 
As  wonder's  self  amazed  was  at  the  close, 
Which  in  a  counterpoint  maintaining  hielo 
'Gan  all  sum  up  thus  -—Alleluiah  Deo"  l 

More  interesting  still,  Lane's  preserved  manuscript  of 
his  Guy  of  Warwick  furnishes  us  with  a  specimen  of  the 
musician's  powers  in  returning  the  compliment.  This 
manuscript  had  evidently  been  prepared  for  the  press  ;  and 
on  the  back  of  the  title-page  is  a  sonnet  headed  "  Johannes 
Melton,  Londinensis  civis,  amico  suo  viatico  in  poesis  laudem" 
i.  e.  "  John  Milton,  citizen  of  London,  to  his  wayfaring 
friend,  in  praise  of  his  poetry."  The  sonnet  is  so  bad  that 
Lane  might  have  written  it  himself;  but,  bad  or  good,  as  it 
is  a  sonnet  by  Milton's  father,  the  world  has  a  right  to  see 
it.  Here,  therefore,  it  is  : — 

"  If  virtue  this  be  not,  what  is  1    Tell  quick ! 
For  childhood,  manhood,  old  age,  thou  dost  write 
Love,  war,  and  lusts  quelled  by  arm  heroic, 
Instanced  in  Guy  of  Warwick,  knighthood's  light : 
Heralds'  records  and  each  sound  antiquary 
For  Guy's  true  being,  life,  death,  eke  hast  sought, 
To  satisfy  those  which  prcevaricari ; 
Manuscript,  chronicle,  if  might  be  bought ; 
Coventry's,  Winton's,  Warwick's  monuments, 
Trophies,  traditions  delivered  of  Guy, 
With  care,  cost,  pain,  as  sweetly  thou  presents, 
To  exemplify  the  flower  of  chivalry : 

i  Royal  MS.  17,  B.  xv.  f.  179,  b. 


58  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

From  cradle  to  the  saddle  and  the  bier, 
For  Christian  imitation,  all  are  here."1 

In  excuse  for  the  quality  of  this  sonnet,  we  may  hope  it  was 
the  scrivener's  first  and  last.  It  seems  to  have  been  written 
about  or  not  long  after  1617,  as  Lane's  manuscript,  to  which 
it  is  prefixed,  bears  an  imprimatur  of  that  date  from  the 
licencer ;  and  it  was  evidently  intended  to  appear  as  a  com 
mendatory  sonnet  to  the  poem  when  it  should  be  printed. 
We  may  fancy,  therefore,  the  horror  of  Humphrey  Lownes 
if  the  scrivener,  in  his  anxiety  to  see  his  friend's  laborious 
performance  actually  printed,  ever  went  so  far  as  to  invite 
him  and  Lane  to  his  house  together,  that  they  might  arrange 
as  publisher  and  author.  For  the  child,  all  the  same,  there 
might  be  a  fascination  in  the  sight  of  the  only  real  author 
within  the  circle  of  his  father's  acquaintance;  and  he  may 
have  had  all  his  life  a  recollection  of  this  "  fine  old  Queen 
Elizabeth  gentleman/'  the  first  poet  he  had  known. 

If  Mr.  Stocke,  Humphrey  Lownes,  and  John  Lane  ever 
met  at  the  scrivener's,  and  were  not  engrossed  with  the 
subject  of  Lane's  poetry,  there  were  other  and  more  general 
subjects  about  which  they  could  talk.  Ever  since  the  famous 
Hampton- Court  Conferences  of  1603-4,  at  which  both  the 
great  parties  of  the  English  Church  had  appeared  before 
King  James  to  plead  their  views  and  compete  for  his  favour 
at  the  outset  of  his  reign,  the  hopes  entertained  by  the 
Puritan  party  had  been  more  and  more  disappointed.  The 
Scottish  sovereign  had  become,  as  decidedly  as  his  prede 
cessor,  the  supporter  of  Prelacy  in  the  Church  and  the 
maintainer  of  royal  prerogative  in  the  Sta,te.  High  Church 
principles  were  in  the  ascendant ;  and  the  Puritan  or  Pres 
byterian  party  existed  as  an  aggrieved  minority  within  the 
Church,  secretly  acquiring  strength,  and  already  throwing 
off,  now  and  then,  to  relieve  itself  of  its  most  peccant  spirits, 
a  little  brood  of  dissenters  or  sectaries.  The  Brownists,  the 
Anabaptists,  and  the  Farnilists,  had  all  begun  to  be  distin- 

i  Harl.  MS.  5243.  Mr.  Hunter  was  nexion  with  Milton,  to  Lane's  MSS. 
the  first  to  print  this  sonnet,  and  also,  generally.  I  have  looked  at  the  MSS. 
so  far  as  I  am  aware,  to  refer,  in  con-  in  the  British  Museum  for  myself. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  59 

guished  from  the  general  body  of  the  Puritans  before  1616, 
in  which  year  Henry  Jacob  set  up  the  first  regular  congre 
gation  in  England  on  the  principles  of  orthodox  or  Calvin- 
istic  Independency.  Many  of  those  4who,  if  they  had  been 
at  home,  would  have  swelled  these  sects,  were  exiles  in 
Holland.  Moreover,  in  addition*  to  the  general  Puritan 
body  within  the  Church,  and  the  incipient  sects  of  ecclesi 
astical  separatists  that  were  starting  out  of  that  body,  there 
was  also  in  England  a  sprinkling  of  doctrinal  heretics. 
They  were  chiefly  either  of  the  Arminian  sort,  or  of  that 
new  sect  of  Arians  of  which  Conrad  Yorstius,  the  successor 
of  Arminius  in  the  theological  chair  at  Leyden,  was  regarded 
as  the  chief.  They  were  equally  under  the  ban  of  the  High 
Churchmen,  the  Puritans,  and  the  orthodox  Sectaries ;  and 
there  was  nothing  in  which  King  James  was  more  zealous 
than  in  defending  the  faith  against  the  "wretches"  in  his 
own  dominions,  and  calling  upon  his  allies  the  Dutch  to  do 
God  and  him  the  favour  of  clearing  'their  country  of  them. 
The  opinions  of  Yorstius  in  particular  roused  all  James's 
theological  rage.  He  made  his  ambassador  in  Holland 
inform  the  States  how  shocked  he  was  to  find  them  allow 
ing  "  such  a  monster "  to  be  professor  in  one  of  their 
universities,  and  how  infinitely  he  should  be  displeased  if 
they  gave  him  any  farther  promotion.1  Even  the  Eoman  <x 
Catholics,  though  well  looked  after  in  England,  were  less 
objects  of  aversion  to  his  Majesty  than  those  rare  heretics 
that  had  been  developed  out  of  ultra-Protestantism.  The 
doctrine  of  allegiance  to  a  potentate  living  far  away  in 
Central  Italy  was  less  troublesome  politically  than  the 
doctrine,  slowly  forming  itself  among  the  Puritans,  of  the 
right  of  every  man  to  think  for  himself  in  religious  matters 
on  the  spot  of  his  own  habitation. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  it  has  to  be  remembered  that 
James  was  getting  on  but  ill  with  his  Parliaments,  trying 
hard  to  assert  his  notions  of  prerogative,  but  always  finding 
resistance  at  a  certain  point  \  obtaining  what  money  he  could 
from  the  Commons,  and  raising  more  by  the  sale  of  peerages, 
1  Fuller's  Church  Hist.,  Book  X,.  Section  4. 


60  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  creation  of  baronets  at  so  much  a  head,  and  other  such 
devices,  and  all  the  while  lavishing  much  of  the  money  thus 
obtained  in  those  jocosities  of  his  private  court-life  which, 
with  all  his  reputation  as  a  kind  of  shambling  Solomon  with 
a  Scottish  accent,  had  lost  him,  almost  from  the  first,  the 
real  respect  of  a  people  who  knew  what  respect  for  royalty 
was,  and  had  ere  now  had  sovereigns  to  whom  they  did  not 
refuse  it.  Let  the  following  stand  as  a  sample  of  the  kind 
of  events  that  were  occurring  during  the  poet's  childhood, 
and  that  were  talked  over  in  English  households  like  that 
of  the  elder  Milton  : — 

1611  (the  Poet  aged  3).  The  present  Authorized  Version  of  the  Bible 
published,  superseding  the  version  called  the  Bishops'  Bible. 

1612,  Nov.  6  (the  Poet  aged  4).  Prince  Henry  died  in  his  nine 
teenth  year,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  nation,  leaving  the  succession  to 
his  brother  Prince  Charles,  who  was  not  so  much  liked.  Not  long 
after,  James's  daughter,  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  was  married,  amid 
universal  rejoicings,  to  the  Elector-Palatine  Frederick,  the  most  Pro 
testant  of  the  German  Princes. 

1613-14,  March  13  (the  Poet  aged1  over  5).  Bartholomew  Legate, 
an  Essex-man,  aged  about  forty,  "  person  comely,  complexion  black, 
"  of  a  bold  spirit,  confident  carriage,  fluent  tongue,  excellently  skilled 
"  in  the  Scriptures,"  was  burned  to  death  at  Smithfield  for  Arianism. 
He  had  been  in  prison  two  years,  during  which  the  clergy  and  the 
King  himself  had  reasoned  with  him  in  vain.  Once  the  King, 
meaning  to  surprise  him  into  an  admission  involving  the  Divinity 
of  Christ,  asked  Mm  whether  he  did  not  every  day  pray  to  Christ. 
Legate's  answer  was  "that  indeed  he  had  prayed  to  Christ  in  the 
days  of  his  ignorance,  but  not  for  these  last  seven  years ' ' ;  which  so 
shocked  James  that  he  "  spurned  at  him  with  his  foot."  At  the 
stake  he  still  refused  to  recant,  and  so  was  burnt  to  ashes  amid  a  vast 
conflux  of  people, — "  the  first,"  says  Fuller,  "  that  for  a  long  time  suf- 
"  fered  death  in  that  manner,  and  oh  that  he  might  be  the  last  to 
"  deserve  it ! "  The  very  next  month  another  Arian,  named  White- 
man,  was  burnt  at  Burton-on-Trent. 

1615  (the  Poet  aged  7).  The  trial  of  the  favourite  Carr,  Earl  of 
Somerset,  his  wife,  and  their  agents,  for  the  murder  of  Sir  Thomas 
Overbury  in  the  Tower.  The  issue,  as  regarded  the  favourite,  was 
liis  disgrace  from  court.  George  Villiers  took  his  place,  and  became 
the  ruling  minister  of  James,  first  as  Viscount  Villiers  (1616),  and 
next  as  Earl  of  Buckingham  (1617),  which  title  was  afterwards  raised 
to  that  of  Marquis,  and  finally  to  that  of  Duke. 

1616,  April  23  (the  Poet  aged  over  7).  Shakespeare  died  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon. 

1617  (the  Poet  aged  over  8).  The  King  visits  Scotland,  where, 
after  much  difficulty  with  the  Scottish  Parliament  and  General 
Assembly,  he  succeeds  in  settling  the  modified  Episcopacy  he  had 
been  long  trying  to  enforce. 

1618,  Oct.  29  (the  Poet  aged  nearly  10).  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
beheaded,—"  more  to  please  the  Spanish  Court,"  people  said,  "  than 
for  any  other  reason." 


THE    SPREAD   EAGLE,    BREAD    STREET.  61 

1618,  Nov.  13.  The  Synod  of  Dort  in  Holland  met  to  settle  matters 
in  the  Dutch  Church,  particularly  the  controversy  between  the 
Calyinists  and  the  Arminians.  In  England  there  was  much  interest 
in  its  proceedings,  and  five  English  Divines  sat  in  it  as  deputies. 
The  Calvinists  were  greatly  in  the  majority,  and  Arminianism  was 
condemned. 

-    1618-19,  March  2.    The  death  of  Queen  Anne  leaves  James  a 
widower. 

1620  (the  Poet  aged  12).  Great  murmuring  on  account  of  the 
King's  subserviency  to  the  Catholic  Power  of  Spain,  as  shown  in  his 
lukewarmness  in  the  cause  of  his  son-in-law,  the  Elector  Frederick. 
The  Bohemians,  after  haying  been  in  revolt  against  their  king,  the 
German  Emperor  Matthias,  on  account  of  his  attempt  to  subvert 
Protestantism  among  them,  had  seized  the  opportunity  afforded  by 
his  death  (March  1619)  to  renounce  their  allegiance  to  his  successor  in 
the  Empire,  Ferdinand  II.,  and  to  provide  themselves  with  a  true 
Protestant  sovereign.  Their  choice  had  fallen  on  the  Elector  Palatine. 
Frederick  accepted  the  throne  ;  and  thus  there  began  a  war — to  be 
known  as  the  great  Thirty  Years'  War— in  which  the  Emperor,  the 
Pope,  and  the  King  of  Spain  were  leagued  against  the  Bohemians, 
Frederick,  and  the  Protestant  Union.  All  Europe  looked  on.  In 
Britain  it  seemed  shocking  that  James  should  permit  the  Pope,  the 
Emperor,  and  the  Spaniard  to  carry  all  before  them  against  his  own 
son-in-law  and  daughter  and  the  Protestant  Religion  to  boot.  The 
British  Protestant  Lion  longed  to  leap  into  the  quarrel ;  and  James 
was  compelled  at  last  to  send  some/  money  and  men.  But  it  was  too 
late.  In  November  1620  the  Protestants  were  shattered  in  one 
decisive  battle ;  and  Frederick  and  his  Queen,  losing  both  Bohemia 
and  the  Palatinate,  became  refugees  in  Holland.  The  unpopularity 
of  James  and  his  favourite  Buckingham  was  greatly  increased  by  this 
affair,  the  more  because  it  was  believed  that  their  truckling  arose  from 
a  design  to  secure  the  Spanish  Infanta,  with  her  dowry  of  two 
millions,  for  the  young  Prince  Charles. 

In  addition  to  these  greater  matters  of  national  politics, 
which  must  have  interested  the  poet's  father  as  a  man  and 
an  Englishman  during  the  period  of  his  son's  childhood, 
there  were  other  matters  which  interested  him  as  the  head 
of  a  family  and  a  scrivener.  In  the  latter  half  of  the  year 
1616,  for  example,  there  was  some  commotion  among  the 
Scriveners  of  London.  Like  the  other  city  companies,  they 
had  always  been  liable  to  taxes  and  other  charges,  and  had 
duly  paid  the  same  by  assessment  among  themselves.  Of 
late,  however,  an  assessment  towards  a  "  general  planta 
tion"  of  Coleraine  and  Londonderry  in  Ireland — i.e.  towards 
the  settlement  of  English  and  Scottish  Protestants  in  those 
parts — had  provoked  opposition.  Some  refused  to  pay,  on 
the  ground  that  the  Company,  not  being  regularly  incor 
porated  by  charter,  could  not  be  legally  taxed  for  such  a 


62  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

purpose.  The  Company,  therefore,  fell  into  arrears,  which 
the  master,  wardens,  and  other  chief  men  paid  out  of  their 
private  purses.  In  these  circumstances,  the  remedy  was  to 
procure  a  charter  of  incorporation,  vesting  full  legal  powers 
in  the  office-bearers  to  assess,  hold  meetings,  compel  the  pay 
ment  of  "  quarterage,"  &c.  A  petition  for  such  a  charter, 
drawn  up  in  the  names  of  William  Dodd,  the  master,  and 
Francis  Kemp  and  Robert  Griffiths,  the  wardens,  of  the 
Company,  was  presented  to  the  King ;  and  the  charter  was 
granted.  By  this  charter  (1616)  the  Scriveners  or  Writers 
of  the  Court-Letter  of  the  City  of  London, — being,  as  the 
preamble  declares,  an  ancient  and  highly  honourable  society 
and  fraternity,  and  then  more  numerous  than  ever,  and  en 
gaged  in  affairs  of  great  moment  and  trust, — were  constituted 
into  a  regular  corporation,  and  power  was  vested  in  William 
Dodd,  master,  Francis  Kemp  and  Robert  Griffiths,  wardens, 
and  twenty-four  liverymen  named,  to  perform  all  acts  neces 
sary  and  to  transmit  the  same  right  to  their  successors.  In 
pursuance  of  the  powers  thus  granted,  the  Scriveners  pre 
pared  a  revised  set  of  regulations  for  the  government  of 
their  craft,  which,  in  Jan.  1618-19,  as  we  have  seen,  re 
ceived  the  sanction  of  Lord- Chancellor  Bacon  and  the  Chief 
Justices. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  though  the  poet's  father  was 
one  of  the  most  prosperous  men  in  his  profession,  and  though 
the  records  of  the  Scriveners'  Company  show  that  he  had 
been  elected  one  of  the  Assistants  of  the  Company,  under 
the  Master  and  Wardens,  on  the  14th  of  April,  16 15,1  his 
name  does  not  occur  in  the  list  of  twenty- seven  scriveners 
who  are  named  in  the  Charter  of  1616  as  the  first  office 
bearers  of  the  Company  in  its  new  shape.  It  is  possible  that 
he  stood  aloof  from  the  movement  for  incorporation.  That 
he  must  have  complied  with  the  new  regulations,  however,  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  he  continued  in  the  practice  of 
his  craft.  He  was  in  active  business  as  late  as  May  1623; 
on  the  26th  day  of  which  month  "  Thomas  Bower  and  John 

1  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke  in  the  Aihenaum.       Mr.  Gribble,  Clerk  of  the    Scriveners' 
of  June  10,  1880,  on  the  authority  of       Company. 


THE  SPREAD  EAGLE,  BREAD  STREET.  63 

Hatton,  servants  to  John  Milton,  scrivener,"  set  their 
names  as  witnesses  to  an  indenture,  connected  with  the 
conveyance  of  a  messuage  and  some  lands  near  Boston  in 
Lincolnshire,  from  an  Edward  Copinger,  of  Nottingham 
shire,  gentleman,  to  two  persons  named  Randolph,  both 
"gentlemen,"  and  both  of  London.  The  original  is  in  the 
Public  Record  Office.  It  is  a  very  neat,  carefully  penned, 
and  carefully  drawn  parchment,  highly  creditable  to  the 
"shop"  from  which  it  issued.  The  scrivener  had  then 
been  twenty-three  years  in  business. 

The  relatives  of  the  family  must  not  be  forgotten.  It  is 
not  to  be  supposed  but  that  there  were  still  various  Miltons 
of  the  paternal  stock,  in  Oxfordshire  or  elsewhere,  with  whom 
there  may  have  been  more  or  less  of  communication.  At 
all  events,  there  were  the  maternal  Jeffreys  of  Essex,  still  a 
numerous  stock,  and  detaching  scions  into  London,  of  some 
of  whom  we  may  hear  in  time.  For  the  present  we  need  take 
note  only  of  the  family  of  that  Margaret  Jeffrey,  the  sister 
of  the  poet's  mother,  who  had  become  Mrs.  Truelove  in 
1602  by  her  marriage  with  the  Essex  widower,  Mr.  William 
Truelove.  The  family  of  this  Aunt  Truelove  had  flourished 
very  creditably,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  will  left  by  Mr. 
Truelove  at  his  death  some  time  before  May  7,  1618.  In 
that  will  he  is  styled  "  William  Truelove,  of  Blakenham  upon 
the  Hill,  Co.  Suffolk,  gentleman,"  and  it  appears  that  he  had 
then  property  in  that  county  and  in  Herts,  as  well  as  in 
Essex.  He  appoints  as  his  executors  his  wife  Margaret  and 
his  eldest  son  William,  the  latter  evidently  the  sole  issue 
of  his  first  marriage;  and,  while  bequeathing  to  this  son 
William  his  lands  and  other  property  in  Essex,  he  makes 
ample  provision  for  the  widow  and  the  seven  sons  and 
daughters  of  his  marriage  with  her,  viz.  Robert,  Paul, 
Richard,  Henry,  Katherine,  Sarah,  and  Margaret,  all  of 
them  minors.  The  widow  is  to  have  all  the  Herts  portion  of 
the  property,  with  remainder  to  her  eldest  son  Robert ; 
additional  means  are  given  her  for  bringing  up  the  six 
youngest  children  ;  and  the  Essex  property  also  is  to  come 
to  her  and  her  son  Robert  in  case  of  failure  in  the  line  of 


64 


LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 


William.1  That  there  had  all  along  been  cordial  intercourse 
between  these  Trueloves  and  the  Miltons  seems  proved  by 
the  fact  that  Aunt  Truelove  had  called  one  of  her  daughters 
after  her  sister  Milton  ;  and,  after  1618,  no  less  than  before, 
this  country  kinship  of  the  Trueloves  must  have  been  of 
some  account  in  the  history  of  the  household  in  Bread 
Street. 


i  Abstract  of  Will,  dated  Oct.  28, 
1617,  proved  May  7,  1618,  and  regis 
tered  41  Meade  in  the  Prerog.  Court  of 
Cant.,  as  communicated  to  me  by 
Colonel  Chester  in  a  letter  dated  April 
13, 1869.  The  Will,  which  is  proved 
by  both  executors,  contains  a  clause 


requiring  the  widow  to  become  bound 
in  £400  "  to  my  cousin  Mr.  James 
Caston"  for  the  performance  of  the 
Will.  This  is  a  flash  of  light,  though 
a  faint  one,  on  Phillips's  tradition  of  a 
Caston  connexion  in  the  pedigree  of 
the  poet's  mother. 


CHAPTER  III. 


ALTHOUGH  nothing  has  been  yet  said  respecting  that  part 
of  Milton's  early  education  which  consisted  in  his  gradual 
training  in  books,  the  reader  will  have  taken  for  granted 
that  this  was  not  neglected.  It  will  have  been  assumed 
that  the  child  was  duly  taught  his  letters ;  that,  as  he  grew 
up,  he  was  farther  and  more  formally  instructed;  and  that 
he  was  provided  with  books  to  his  desire,  and  with  other 
means  of  turning  his  accomplishments  to  account. 

Milton,  indeed,  was  from  the  very  first  the  pride  of  his 
parents,  and  the  object  of  their  most  sedulous  care.  There 
is  evidence  that,  in  a  higher  sense  than  that  of  ordinary 
compliment,  he  was  a  child  of  unusual  promise,  and  that  his 
father's  fondness  for  him  was  more  than  the  common  feel 
ing  of  rather  late  paternity.  "Anno  Domini  1619,"  says 
Aubrey,  "  he  was  ten  years  old,  as  by  his  picture,  and  was  then 
a  poet/'  This  means  that,  according  to  the  information 
given  by  Christopher  Milton,  his  brother  John  was,  even  in 
his  eleventh  year,  a  prodigy  in  the  household,  and  a  writer 
of  verses.  What  more  natural  than  that  such  a  boy  should 
have  every  advantage  of  education,  in  order  that  he  might 
one  day  be  an  ornament  of  the  Church  ?  "  The  Church,  to 
"  whose  service,  by  the  intentions  of  my  parents  and  friends, 
"I  was  destined  of  a  child,"  is  one  of  his  own  phrases  in 
later  life1;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  intention 
existed  as  early  as  the  time  specified. 

The  tradition,  through  Aubrey,  that  the  scrivener  had  his 
son's  portrait  painted  when  he  was  but  ten  years  old  is 
worth  attention.  The  facts  are  these  : — About  the  year 

1  Tht  Reason  of  Church  Government,  Book  II. 
VOL.    I.  F 


66  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

1618  Cornelius  Jansen,  a  young  Dutch  painter,  came  over 
from  his  native  city  of  Amsterdam,  wititthe  hope  of  finding 
emDloyment  in  England.  He  took  up  his  residence  in  Black- 
friars,  London;  and,  being  really  an  able  artist, — "very 
clear  and  natural  in  his  colouring/'  say  the  connoisseurs, 
"  and  equal  to  Vandyck  in  all  except  freedom  of  hand  and 
.grace/' — he  soon  had  plenty  of  work  in  painting  portraits 
at  five  broad  pieces  a  head.  He  painted  usually  on  small 
panel,  with  black  draperies.  Among  his  surviving  works 
are  several  portraits  of  James  I.  and  his  children,  and  not  a 
few  of  noblemen  and  ladies  of  the  Courts  of  James  and 
Charles  I.  But  one  of  his  first  works  in  England,  if  the 
connoisseurs  are  right  in  pronouncing  it  his,  was  a  portrait 
of  the  scrivener's  son  of  Bread  Street,  painted  in  1618.  The 
portrait  still  exists,1  conveying  a  far  more  life-like  image  of 
the  little  Milton,  as  he  used  to  look  in  his  neat  lace  frill, 
with  his  black  braided  dress  fitting  close  round  his  little 
chest  and  arms,  than  any  of  the  ideal  portraits  of  the  poetic 
child.  The  face  is,  indeed,  that  of  as  pretty  a  boy  as  one 
could  wish  to  see.  The  head,  from  the  peculiarity  of  having 
the  hair  cut  close  all  round  it, — and  here  the  reader  must 
supplement  what  hardly  appears  in  the  engraving,  and 
imagine  the  hair  a  light  auburn,  and  the  complexion  a 

1  In  1858,  when  an  engraving  from  it  returned  after  the   sale,  was  told  by 

was  kindly  allowed  for  the  first  edition  Hollis  that "  his  Lordship's  whole  estate 

of  the  present  volume,  it  was  in  the  should  not  repurchase  it  "  ;  and  once, 

possession  of  Edgar  Disney,  Esq.,  at  when  Mr.  Hollis's  lodgings  in  Covent 

the  Hyde,  Ingatestone,  Essex,  to  whom  Garden  were  on  fire,  he  "  walked  calmly 

it  had  descended    from  Mr,   Thomas  "  out  of  the  house  with  this  picture  by 

Hollis  (see  former  note,  pp.  5,  6).     Mr.  "  Jansen  in  his  hand,neglecting  to  secure 

Hollis  purchased  it  on  the  3rd  June,  "  any  other  portable  article  of  value." 

1760,  for  thirty-one  guineas,  at  the  sale  (Todd's  Life  of  Milton,  edit.  1809,  p. 

of  the  effects   of    Charles  Stanhope,  142.)     Mr.  Hollis  had  the  portrait  en- 

Esq.,   then   deceased.     He   "  had   seen  graved  by  Cipriani  in  1760  ;  and  a  copy 

"the  picture  at  Mr.  Stanhope's  about  of  this  engraving  is  given  among  the 

"  two  months  before,  when  that  gentle-  illustrations  in   the    Hollis    Memoirs, 

"  man  told  him  that  he  bought  it  of  1780.     There  is  another  engraving,  by 

"the  executors  of  Milton's  widow  for  Gardiner,    published     by    Boydell     in 

"twenty  guineas."  (Memoirs  of  Thomas  1794.     Neither    does    justice    to    the 

Hollis, Esq. London,  1780.)  This authen-  original;    which  is  a  very  interesting 

ticates  the  picture  as  having  been  one  picture,  about  27  inches  by  20  in  size 

of  those  that   belonged  to  the  widow  with  the  frame,  the  portrait  set  in  a 

and  are  mentioned  in  the  inventory  of  dark  oval,  and  with  the  words,  "  John 

her  effects  at  Nantwich  in  1727.     It  is  Milton,   aetatis    suse   10,   Anno   1618," 

consequently  the  one   referred  to  by  inscribed  in  contemporary  characters, 

Aubrey.     Lord  Harrington,  Mr.  Stan-  but  no  painter's  name. 
Lope's  relative,  wishing  to  have  the  lot 


PORTRAIT   OF   MILTON    IN   HIS    BOYHOOD.  67 

delicate  pink  or  clear  white  and  red, — has  a  look  of  fine 
solidity,  very  different  from  the  fantastic  representations,  all 
aerial  and  wind-blown,  offered  as  the  heads  of  embryo-poets. 
In  fact,  the  portrait  is  that  of  a  very  grave  and  intelligent 
little  Puritan  boy  with  auburn  hair.  The  prevailing  expres 
sion  in  the  face  is  a  loveable  seriousness  ;  and,  in  looking  at 
it,  one  can  well  imagine  that  these  lines  from  Paradise 
Regained,  which  the  first  engraver  ventured  to  inscribe 
under  the  portrait,  were  really  written  by  the  poet  with 
some  reference  to  his  own  recollected  childhood  : — 

"  When  I  was  yet  a  child,  no  childish  play 
To  me  was  pleasing  :  all  my  mind  was  set 
Serious  to  learn  and  know,  and  thence  to  do, 
What  might  be  public  good ;  myself  I  thought 
Born  to  that  end,  born  to  promote  all  truth, 
All  righteous  things." 

Writing  in  1641,  while  his  father  was  still  alive,  Milton 
describes  his  early  education  in  these  words  : — "  I  had, 
"  from  my  first  years,  by  the  ceaseless  diligence  and  care  of 
"my  father  (whom  God  recompense!),  been  exercised  to 
"  the  tongues  and  some  sciences,  as  my  age  would  suffer, 
"  by  sundry  masters  and  teachers,  both  at  home  and  at  the 
"  schools."  l  And  again,  in  another  publication,  after  his 
father  was  dead : — "  My  father  destined  me,  while  yet  a 
"  little  child,  for  the  study  of  humane  letters.  .  .  .  Both  at 
"  the  grammar-school  and  also  under  other  masters  at  home 
"  he  caused  me  to  be  instructed  daily."  2  These  sentences  r- 
describe  succinctly  the  whole  of  Milton's  literary  education 
prior  to  his  seventeenth  year,  when  he  went  to  the  Uni 
versity.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  distribute  the  process  into  its 
separate  parts. 

Immediately  after  the  statement,  "  Anno  Domini  1619  he 
was  ten  years  old,  as  by  his  picture,  and  was  then  a  poet," 
Aubrey  adds,  "  His  schoolmaster  then  was  a  Puritan,  in 
"Essex,  who  cut  his  hair  short."3  This  would  seem  to 

1  The  Reason  of  Church  Government,  usually  understood  to  mean  that  the 
Book  II. :  "Works,  III.  144.  Puritan   schoolmaster  of  Essex   wore 

2  Defensio  Secunda :  Works,  VI.  286,  his  own  hair  short — i.  e.  was  a  Puritan 
287.  of  the  most  rigid  sect.     Todd  even  re- 

3  These  words,  I   think,  have  been  marks  on   it  as  strange   that  Milton, 

F  2 


68  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

imply  that  the  schoolmaster  lived  in  Essex,  and  that  the 
boy  was  sent  to  him  there.  Except  from  Aubrey,  however, 
we  hear  nothing  of  such  a  schoolmaster  in  Essex.  The  only 
teacher  of  Milton  of  whom  we  have  a  distinct  account  from 
Milton  himself  as  having  been  one  of  his  masters  before  he 
went  to  a  regular  grammar-school,  or  as  having  been  his 
private  preceptor  while  he  was  attending  such  a  school,  was 
a  different  person.  He  was  a  Thqmas^Yqung,  M.A.,  after 
wards  a  Puritan  parish-minister  in  Suffolk,  and  well  known, 
both  in  that  position  and  in  still  higher  positions  to  which 
he  was  called,  as  a  zealous  and  prominent  divine  of  the 
Presbyterian  party.  Respecting  the  earlier  life  of  this  not 
uninteresting  man  research  has  been  able  to  recover  a  few 
particulars. 

By  birth  he  was  a  Scotchman.  In  a  subsequent  publica 
tion  of  his,  given  to  the  world  at  a  time  when  it  was  not 
convenient  for  a  Puritan  minister  of  Suffolk  to  announce  his 
name  in  full,  he  signed  himself  "  Theophilus  Philo-Kuriaces 
Loncardiensis  "  ;  which  may  be  translated  "  Theophilus  Kirk- 
lover,  or  perhaps  Lord's-Day-Lover,  native  of  Loncardy."1 
The  disguise  was  then  effectual  enough,  for  it  might  have 
puzzled  his  readers  to  find  where  Loncardy  was.  There  ?'*, 
however,  a  place  of  that  name  in  Great  Britain, — Loncardy, 
more  frequently  written  Loncarty  or  Luncarty,  in  Perth 
shire.  The  place,  now  prosaic  enough  with  its  linen 
bleaching-grounds,  is  celebrated  in  Scottish  History,  as 
having  been  the  scene  of  a  great  battle  early  in  the 


though  educated    by   such  a  master,      with  Jansen's  portrait  in  his  mind's  eye 

)uld  have  all  his  life  kept 
ing  locks,  and  so  avoided  one  outward      portraits),  brought  in  the  reference  to 


should  have  all  his  life  kept  his  cluster-       (and  he  took  much  interest  in  Milton's 


sign  of  Puritanism.  But,  as  we  have  the  Puritan  schoolmaster  at  that  point, 
just  seen,  Milton  did  not  all  his  life  precisely  to  explain  how  it  was  that,  in 
wear  his  hair  long.  In  Jansen's  por-  that  portrait,  the  poet  was  turned  into 
trait  he  is  a  boy  with  light  hair  cut  such  a  sweet  little  Roundhead  ? 
very  short.  May  not  Aubrey's  mean-  x  The  work  was  a  Latin  treatise  en- 
ing,  then,  in  the  words  "  who  cut  his  titled  Dies  Dominica,  of  strongly  Sab- 
hair  short,"  have  been  not  that  the  batarian  principles,  arguing  for  the 
schoolmaster  wore  his  own  hair  short,  Divine  authority  of  the  Lord's  Day, 
but  that  it  was  he  who  cut  his  pupil's  and  was  printed  and  published  abroad 
hair  short,  as  seen  in  the  picture  ?  From  in  1639,  with  a  title-page  ornamented 
the  close  conjunction  of  the  two  sen-  with  excellent  wood-cut  designs.  See 
tences — one  referring  to  the  portrait,  Warton's  notes  to  Milton's  4th  Latin 
aud  the  other  to  the  Puritan  school-  elegy ;  also  Cox's  Literature  of  the 
master— is  it  not  likely  that  the  one  Sabbath  Question  (1865),  I.  475  and  II. 
suggested  the  other,  and  that  Aubrey,  38—39. 


THOMAS    YOUNG,    MILTON'S    FIKST    PRECEPTOR.  69 

eleventh  century  between  the  Scots  and  the  Danes.  As 
the  legend  bears,  the  Danes  were  conquering  and  the  Scots 
were  flying,  when  a  husbandman,  named  Hay,  and  his 
two  sons,  who  were  ploughing  in  a  field  near,  rallied  their 
countrymen  by  drawing  their  ploughs  and  other  implements 
across  the  narrow  passage  where  the  fugitives  were  thickest, 
at  the  same  time  cheering  and  thrashing  them  back  to 
renew  the  fight.  The  Scots,  thus  rallied,  won  the  battle  • 
Scotland  was  freed  from  the  Danes ;  and  the  peasant  Hay 
and  his  sons  were  ennobled  by  King  Kenneth,  had  lands 
given  them,  and  became  the  progenitors  of  the  noble  family 
of  Errol  and  of  the  other  Scottish  Hays.1— In  the  place 
made  famous  by  this  exploit  there  was  settled,  as  early  as 
1576,  iii  the  subordinate  clerical  capacity  of  "Reader,"  then 
recognised  in  the  Scottish  Presbyterian  Kirk-system  as 
framed  by  Knox  and  his  colleagues,  a  certain  Mr.  William 
Young,  who  was,  it  has  been  ascertained,  the  father  of  our 
present/  Thomas  Young.  From  being  simply  "Reader  at 
Loncardy,"  however,  he  was  promoted,  in  Feb.  1582-3, 
to  the  full  "  personage  and  vicarage  of  the  paroche  kirke 
of  Loncardy";  to  this  was  added,  in  or  about  1593,  by 
an  arrangement  made  necessary  by  the  scanty  supply  of 
competent  clergy  in  the  Reformed  Scotland  of  those  days, 
the  vicarage  of  the  adjacent  parish  of  Ragorton  or  Red- 
gorton ;  and  a  still  later  addition  to  his  pastorate  seems  to 
have  been  the  third  contiguous  parish  of  Pitcairne.  He 
must  have  been  one  of  the  best  provided  of  all  the  Scottish 
parochial  clergy  of  that  time,  for  his  income  in  1593  was 
£61  13s.  4d.  of  annual  Scottish  money,  besides  10  yearly 
bolls  of  barley,  8  bolls  of  meal,  his  manse  and  glebe,  and 
the  kirk-land  of  Loncardy.  He  belonged  evidently  to  the 
popular  or  Presbyterian  section  of  the  Kirk,  then  resist 
ing,  under  the  leadership  of  Andrew  Melville  and  others, 
the  persistent  attempts  of  King  James  to  establish  a 
Scottish  Episcopacy  ;  for  he  was  one  of  forty-two  parish- 
ministers  who  signed  a  famous  Anti-Episcopal  Protesta 
tion  offered  to  the  Parliament  at  Perth  on  the  1st  of  July 

i  Buchanan's  Scottish  History,  Book  VI.  chap.  32. 


70  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

1606.  Latterly,  Episcopacy  of  a  moderate  kind  having 
been  forcibly  established,  he  had  conformed  as  well  as  he 
could;  and  in  April  1612,  when  proceedings  were  taken  by 
the  Synod  of  Fife  relative  to  the  "  hinderance  of  the  Gospel 
brought  be  the  pluralitie  of  kirks  servet  by  ane  persone," 
Mr.  William  Young,  parson  of  Loncardy,  Pitcairne,  and 
Redgorton,  was  one  of  the  many  who  were  mentioned  as 
thus  over-worked  or  over-beneficed.  He  acted  for  part  of 
his  later  life  as  Clerk  to  the  Presbytery  of  Perth,  and  is 
heard  of  as  "an  aged  and  infirm  man"  in  1620.  He  died 
some  time  in  1625,  and  was  succeeded  in  the  parish  of 
Loncardy  by  his  son  -  in  -  law,  Mr.  William  Crookshank.— 
Thomas  Young,  the  son,  or  one  of  the  sons,  of  this  Mr. 
William  Young,  must  have  been  born  in  the  manse  of 
Loncardy  in  1587  or  1588.  After  having  been  grounded  at 
the  Grammar  School  of  Perth,  he  was  sent,  at  the  age  of 
fourteen  or  fifteen,  to  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  where 
his  name  is  found  in  the  list  of  matriculations  at  St. 
Leonard's  College  in  1602.  Having  completed  the  full 
course  of  Philosophy  or  Arts  there,  he  was  one  of  eigh 
teen  students  who  in  July  1606  passed  to  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Arts  as  "minus  potentes  magistrandi"  or  the  less 
opulent  candidates  of  their  year.  Where  he  pursued  his 
theological  studies  is  unknown ;  but  it  has  been  conjectured 
that  he  may  have  gone  to  one  of  the  Protestant  Uni 
versities  of  Northern  Germany,  and  may  have  become  a 
licentiate  of  the  Scottish  Kirk  on  his  return  home.  Whether 
because  his  father  had  other  sons  in  the  Kirk  and  there 
was  room  there  for  no  more  of  the  family,  or  because  he 
could  not  help  that  tendency  to  England  for  independent 
reasons  which  had  become  an  instinct  among  the  Scots  after 
their  King  James  had  shown  them  the  example,  it  was  in 
England  that  he  sought  employment.  He  was  settled  in  or 
near  London  probably  about  1612,  and  appears  to  have 
supported  himself  partly  by  assisting  Puritan  ministers  in 
that  neighbourhood  and  partly  by  pedagogy.  It  is  ex 
tremely  likely  that  he  is  the  "  Mr.  Young "  who  is  found 
mentioned  as  one  of  those  persons  afterwards  of  note  in  the 


THOMAS    YOUNG,    MILTON  S    FIRST    PRECEPTOR. 


1 


Church  of  England  who  had  been  at  one  time  or  another 
pulpit  assistants  or  curates  to  the  celebrated  Mr.  Thomas 
Gataker  of  Rotherhithe.  If  so,  his  introduction  to  Mr. 
Stocke,  the  Rector  of  Allhallows,  Bread  Street,  would  have 
been  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  Certain  it  is  that,  by 
some  means  or  other,  about  or  before  1618,  he  had  become 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Stocked  well-to-do  parishioner,  the 
scrivener  of  Bread  Street,  and  had  been  chosen  by  that 
gentleman  to  teach  his  son.  By  the  chances  of  the  time 
and  the  search  after  a  livelihood,  it  had  fallen  to  a  wandering 
Scot  from  Loncardy,  bred  to  hardy  literature  amid  the  sea- 
breezes  of  St.  Andrews,  to  be  the  domestic  preceptor  of  the 
future  English  poet.  He  was  then  about  thirty  years  of 
age,  and  seems  to  have  been  already  a  married  man.  The 
probability,  therefore,  is  that  he  did  not  reside  with  his 
pupil,  but  only  visited  him  daily  at  hours  fixed  for  the 
lessons.1 


1  As  Young  became  afterwards  master 
of  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  it  occurred 
to  me,  when  preparing  the  first  edition 
of  the  present  volume,  to  look  for  his 
name  in  an  alphabetical  list  of  Cam 
bridge  incorporations  from  1500  to 
1744  preserved  among  the  Cole  MSS. 
in  the  British  Museum  (Add.  MS.  5884). 
There  I  found  "  Younc/e,  Tho"  among 
those  incorporated  in  1644,  and  the 
words  "  St.  Andr."  opposite  the  name, 
designating  Sfc.  Andrews  as  the  Uni 
versity  whence  he  had  been  incorpor 
ated.  By  the  kindness  of  the  late  Mr. 
Romilly,  Registrar  of  Cambridge  Uni 
versity,  I  afterwards  saw  the  record  of 
the  grace,  dated  April  12,  1644,  for 
Young's  incorporation  into  the  same 
M.A.  degree  at  Cambridge  that  he  had 
attained  "  apicd  St.  Andrianos."  An 
application  to  the  late  Professor  Day  of 
St.  Andrews  then  led  to  a  search  of 
the  University  records  there  by  the 
Kev.  James  M'Bean,  the  University 
Librarian,  to  whom  I  was  indebted  for 
the  date  of  Young's  matriculation  and 
a  tracing  of  his  matriculation  signature. 
The  fact  that  he  was  a  native  of  Lon 
cardy,  guessed  from  the  "  Loncardien- 
sis  "  in  the  fancy-name  used  by  him  for 
his  treatise  on  the  Lord's  Day,  was  con 
firmed  by  traces  of  his  father  as  minister 
of  Loncardy  in  1612  found  in  Selections 
from  the  Minutes  of  the  Synod  of  Fife 
from  1611  to  1687,  published  by  the 


Abbotsford  Club  in  1837  (pp.  43,  52). 
The  probable  date  of  Young's  birth  was 
ascertained  from  a  copy  of  his  epitaph, 
as  formerly  legible  in  the  Church  of 
Stowmarket,  Suffolk,  given  in  the  His 
tory  of  Stowmarket  by  the  Rev.  A.  G. 
H.  Rollings  worth,  M.A.,  Rural  Dean 
and  Vicar  of  Stowmarket  (Ipswich, 
1844) ;  where  it  is  stated  that  he  died 
in  Nov.  1655,  atatis  68.  The  reference 
to  Young  as  probably  a  curate  to 
Gataker  of  Rotherhithe  about  1612  I 
had  from  a  Memoir  of  Gataker  ap 
pended  to  his  Funeral  Sermon  by 
Simeon  Ashe  in  1655.— Though  at  the 
date  of  those  inquiries  the  detection  of 
the  Scottish  origin  and  education  of 
Milton's  first  preceptor  had  the  interest 
of  novelty  for  myself  and  the  public,  it 
was  no  surprise  to  me  to  find  that  the 
late  eminent  Scottish  antiquary,  Mr. 
David  Laing,  had  already  known  the 
secret,  and  been  on  the  track  of  Young's 
antecedents.  He  continued  to  interest 
himself  in  the  subject  after  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  his  personal  acquaintance, 
with  the  result  that  he  printed  in  Edin 
burgh  in  1870  a  thin  little  volume  of 
39  pages  entitled  Biographical  Notices 
of  Thomas  Young,  S.  T.  D.,  Vicar  of 
Stowmarket,  Suffolk;  and  from  this 
little  book  I  have  been  able  to  supply 
some  particulars  in  the  present  text 
that  were  not  in  the  first  edition . 


72  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

From  Young's  subsequent  career,  and  from  the  unusually 
affectionate  manner  in  which  Milton  afterwards  speaks  of 
him,  it  is  clear  that,  though  his  gait  and  accent  may  have 
seemed  a  little  odd  at  first  in  Bread  Street,  he  was  a  man 
of  very  superior  qualities.  The  poet,  writing  to  him  a  few 
years  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  his  pupil,  speaks  of  the 
"  incredible  and  singular  gratitude  "  he  owed  him,  and  calls 
God  to  witness  that  he  reverenced  him  as  a  father.1  Again, 
more  floridly,  in  a  Latin  elegy  written  in  1627: — "Dearer 
"he  to  me  than  thou,  most  learned  of  the  Greeks,  to 
"Cliniades,  who  was  the  descendant  of  Telainon,  and  than 
"  the  great  Stagirite  to  his  generous  pupil,  whom  the  loving 
"  Chaonis  bore  to  Libyan  Jove.  What  Amyntorides  and 
"the  Philyreian  hero  were  to  the  king  of  the  Myrmidon es, 
f<  such  is  he  to  me.  Under  his  guidance  I  first  explored 
"  the  recesses  of  the  Muses  and  the  sacred  green  spots  of 
"the  cleft  summit  of  Parnassus,  and  quaffed  the  Pierian 
"cups,  and,  Clio  favouring  me,  thrice  bedewed  my  joyful 
"  mouth  with  Castalian  wine."  The  meaning,  in  more  literal 
prose,  seems  to  be  that  Young  grounded  his  pupil  well  in 
Latin,  introduced  him  also  to  Greek,  and  at  the  same  time 
awoke  in  him  a  feeling  for  poetry  and  set  him  upon  the 
making  of  English  and  Latin  verses. 

How  long  Young's  preceptorship  lasted  cannot  be  deter 
mined  with  precision.  It  began,  there  is  reason  to  think, 
in  1618,  if  not  earlier;  and  it  certainly  closed  about  1622, 
when  Young  left  England,  at  the  age  of  about  thirty-four, 
to  be  pastor  of  the  congregation  of  English  merchants  in 
Hamburg.2  But,  if  Young  continued  to  teach  Milton  till 
the  time  of  his  departure  for  Hamburg,  then,  during  the 
latter  part,  at  least,  of  his  engagement,  his  lessons  in  Bread 
Street  must  have  been  only  in  aid  of  those  given  by  more 
public  teachers.  From  the  first  it  had  been  the  intention  of 
Milton's  father  to  send  his  son  to  one  of  the  public  schools 
of  London,  and  before  1620  that  intention  had  been  carried 
into  effect. 

1  Epist.  Famil.,  No.  1.  March  16*25,  says  that  it  is  "  more  than 

2  Ibid. :    where   Milton,   writing    to       three   years "   since   he   last  wrote  to 
Young  in  Hamburg,  on  the  26th   of      him. 


PUBLIC    SCHOOLS    IN    LONDON.  73 

London  was  at  that  time  by  no  means  ill  provided  with 
schools.  Besides  various  schools  of  minor  note,  there  were 
some  distinguished  as  classical  seminaries.  Notable  among 
these  was  St.  Paul's  School  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  a 
successor  of  the  old  Cathedral  School  of  St.  Paul's,  which 
had  existed  in  the  same  place  from  time  immemorial.  Not 
less  celebrated  was  Westminster  School,  founded  anew  by 
Elizabeth  in  continuation  of  an  older  monastic  school  which 
had  existed  in  Roman  Catholic  times.  Ben  Jonson,  George 
Herbert,  and  Giles  Fletcher,  all  then  alive,  had  been  educated 
at  this  school ;  and  the  great  Carnden,  after  serving  in  it  as 
under-master,  had  held  the  office  of  head-master  since  1592. 
Then  there  was  St.  Anthony's  free  school  in  Threadneedle 
Street,  where  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Archbishop  Whitgift 
had  been  educated,  and  which  had  been  once  so  flourishing 
that  in  the  public  debates  in  logic  and  grammar  between  the 
different  schools  of  the  city  St.  Anthony's  scholars  generally 
carried  off  the  palm.  In  particular,  there  had  been  a  feud 
on  this  score  between  the  St.  Paul's  boys  and  the  St. 
Anthony's  boys,  the  St.  Paul's  boys  nicknaming  their  rivals 
"  Anthony's  pigs,"  in  allusion  to  the  pig  which  was  gener 
ally  represented  as  following  this  Saint  in  his  pictures,  and 
the  St.  Anthony's  boys  somewhat  feebly  retaliating  by  call 
ing  the  St.  Paul's  boys  "  Paul's  pigeons,"  in  allusion  to  the 
pigeons  that  used  to  hover  about  the  Cathedral.1  Though 
the  nicknames  survived,  the  feud  was  now  little  more  than  a 
tradition,  St.  Anthony's  school  having  come  sorely  down  in 
the  world,  while  the  pigeons  of  Paul's  fluttered  higher  than 
ever.  A  more  formidable  rival  now  to  St.  Paul's  was  the 
free  school  of  the  Merchant  Taylors'  Company,  founded  in 
1561.  But,  besides  these  great  public  day-schools,  there 
were  schools  of  note  kept  by  speculative  schoolmasters  on 
their  own  account ;  of  which  by  far  the  highest  in  reputation 
was  that  of  Thomas  Faruabie,  m  Goldsmith's  Rents,  near 
Cripplegate.2 

St.  Paul's   School,  as  being  conveniently  near  to  Bread 

1  Stow's  London,  edit.  1603,  p.  75. 
8  Wood's  Athena  Oxon.,  III.,  pp.  213—215. 


74  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Sfcreet,  was  the  one  clioseu  by  the  scrivener  for  the  educa 
tion  of  his  son.  The  records  of  the  admissions  to  the  school 
do  not  reach  so  far  back  as  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  but  the  date  of  Milton's  admission  cannot  have  been 
later  than  1620,  when  he  was  in  his  twelfth  year.  We  are 
able  to  give  a  pretty  distinct  account  of  the  school  and  its 
arrangements  at  this  particular  time. 

The  school  had  been  founded  in  1512,  the  fourth  year  of 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  by  Dr.  John  Colet,  Dean  of  St. 
Paul's,  the  son  of  Sir  Henry  Colet,  mercer,  who  had  been 
twice  mayor  of  London.  It  was  originally  dedicated  to  the 
Child  Jesus ;  but  "  the  saint,"  as  Strype  says,  "  had  robbed 
his  master  of  the  title."  The  declared  purpose  of  the 
foundation  was  the  free  education,  in  all  sound  Christian 
and  grammatical  learning,  of  poor  men's  children,  without 
distinction  of  nation,  to  the  exact  number  of  1 53  at  a  time, 
this  number  having  reference  to  the  number  of  fishes  which 
Simon  Peter  drew  to  land  in  the  miraculous  draught  (John 
xxi.  11).  For  this  purpose,  Colet,  besides  building  and 
furnishing  the  school  in  a  very  handsome  manner,  endowed 
it  with  lands  in  sufficiency  to  provide  salaries  perpetually 
for  a  head-master,  a  sur-master  or  usher,  and  a  chaplain. 
He  himself  chose  and  appointed  the  first  head-master,  who 
was  no  other  than  the  celebrated  grammarian  William  Lilly; 
and  during  the  remainder  of  Colet' s  life  he  and  Lilly  co 
operated  most  zealously  in  bringing  the  school  to  perfection. 
Colet  prepared  an  English  Catechism,  which  all  the  boys  were 
to  be  obliged  to  learn,  and  two  small  works  introductory  to 
the  study  of  Latin,  in  the  compilation  of  which  he  had  the 
assistance  of  his  friend  Erasmus ;  and  Lilly's  own  Latin 
Grammar,  the  foundation  of  all  the  Latin  Grammars  that  have 
since  been  used  in  England,  was  published  in  1513  specially 
for  the  scholars  of  St.  Paul's.  King  Henry,  "  endeavouring 
a  uniformity  of  grammar  all  over  his  dominions,"  enjoined 
that  Lilly's  Grammar  should  be  universally  used,  and  that 
it  should  be  "penal  for  any  publicly  to  teach  any  other."' 
The  regulation  continued  in  force  during  the  reigns  of 

i  Fuller's  Church  History,  Book  V.  Section  1. 


OLD    ST.    PAULAS    SCHOOL.  75 

Edward  VI,  Mary,  Elizabeth,  and  James;  and  even  DOW, 
despite  our  free  trade  in  Grammars,  the  "  Propria  qiioe. 
maribus,"  the  "  As  in  prcesenti,"  and  other  rules  of  formu 
lated  Latin  orthodoxy,  are  relics  of  old  Lilly. 

Colet  died  in  1519.  He  had  taken  care,  however,  to  leave 
such  regulations  as  should  ensure  the  prosperity  of  his 
foundation.  Having  found  by  experience,  as  he  told  Eras 
mus,  that  in  trusts  of  this  kind  laymen  were  as  conscientious 
as  clergymen,  he  had  not  left  the  charge  of  his  school  and 
its  property  to  his  successors  in  the  Deanery  of  St.  Paul's, 
but  to  the  Mercers'  Company  of  London,  to  which  his  father 
had  belonged.  The  Mercers  were  to  have  the  entire  manage 
ment  of  the  school,  with  power  to  alter  the  arrangements 
from  time  to  time ;  and  they  were  every  year  to  choose  two 
honest  and  substantial  men  of  their  body  to  be  surveyors 
of  the  school  for  that  year.  On  a  vacancy  in  the  head- 
mastership,  the  Master,  Wardens,  and  Assistants  of  the 
Company  were  to  choose  his  successor,  who  was  to  be  "a 
"  man  whole  in  body,  honest,  virtuous,  and  learned  in  good 
"  and  clean  Latin  literature,  and  also  in  Greek,  if  such  might 
"  be  gotten,  a  wedded  man,  a  single  man,  or  a  priest  without 
"  benefice."  His  wages  were  to  be  ' '  a  mark  a  week  and  a 
livery  gown  of  four  nobles,"  besides  a  free  residence  in 
the  school.  The  sur-master  or  usher, ( '  well  learned  to  teach 
under  him,"  was  to  be  chosen,  on  a  vacancy,  by  the  head 
master  for  the  time  being,  but  with  the  consent  of  the  sur 
veyors.  He  was  to  have  6s.  8d.  a  week,  a  free  lodging  in 
Old  Change,  and  a  gown  to  teach  in.  The  chaplain  or 
priest,  whose  business  it  was  to  say  mass  every  day,  and 
teach  the  Catechism  in  English,  with  the  Creed  and  Ten 
Commandments,  was  to  have  £8  a  year,  lodgings  in  Old 
Change,  and  a  gown.  The  number  of  153  was  to  be  adhered 
to  as  that  of  the  free  scholars,  but  it  does  not  appear  that 
the  master  was  to  be  precluded  from  receiving  others  on  the 
payment  of  fees.  No  cock-fighting  or  other  pageantry 
was  to  be  allowed  in  the  school ;  no  extra  holidays  were  to' 
be  granted,  except  when  the  king  or  some  bishop  in  person 
might  beg  one  for  the  boys;  and,  if  any  boy  were  taken 


76  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

away  and  sent  to  another  school,  he  was  not  on  any  account 
to  be  re-admitted.  The  boys  were  "  to  be  taught  always  in 
11  good  literature,  both  Latin  and  Greek,  and  good  authors, 
"  such  as  have  the  very  Roman  eloquence  joined  with  the 
"  wisdom,  specially  Christian  authors  that  wrote  their  wis- 
"  dom  with  clean  and  chaste  Latin,  either  in  verse  or  prose : 
"but  above  all  the  Catechism  in  English;  after  that  the 
"Accidence;  then  Institutum  Christiani  Hominis,  which 
"  Erasmus  made  at  my  request,  and  the  Oopia  Verborum  of 
"  the  same  author ;  then  other  Christian  authors,  as  Lac- 
"tantius,  Prudentius  and  Proba,  Sedulius,  Juvencus,  and 
"  Baptista  Mantuanus,  and  such  others  as  shall  be  thought 
"convenient  for  the  true  Latin  speech."1 

Lilly  outlived  his  patron  only  three  years,  dying  in  1522. 
During  his  ten  years  of  mastership  he  had  turned  out  not  a 
few  pupils  who  became  a  credit  to  the  school,  one  of  them 
being  the  antiquary  Leland.  A  series  of  competent  head 
masters  had  succeeded  him ;  and  on  the  death  of  the  seventh 
of  these  in  1608  the  Mercers  had  appointed  Alexander  Gill, 
a  Lincolnshire  man,  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford,  where 
he  had  graduated  M.A.  in  1590.  Some  changes  had,  of 
course,  occurred  in  the  constitution  of  the  school  during  the 
century  which  had  elapsed  between  Lilly's  time  and  that  of 
Gill.  The  value  of  the  school-lands  had  increased  so  as  to 
be  estimated,  in  1598,  at  more  than  £120  per  annum.  The 
masters  had  experienced  the  benefit  of  this  increase  by  hav 
ing  their  salaries  doubled.  Naturally  also  it  was  no  longer 
"  poor  men's  children  "  that  attended  the  school,  if  this  had 
ever  strictly  been  the  case,  but  the  children  of  well-to-do 
citizens  presented  by  the  Mercers.  There  had  been  changes 
too  in  the  course  of  the  studies  pursued.  Colet's  Catechism, 
as  being  Popish,  had  been  greatly  altered;  and  Hebrew  and 
other  Oriental  tongues  had  been  added  to  Latin  and  Greek  for 
the  most  advanced  scholars.  Still,  as  far  as  possible,  Colet's 
regulations  were  adhered  to ;  and,  above  all,  Lilly's  Grammar 
kept  its  place,  as  bound  up  with  the  fame  of  the  school. 

The  original  school-hosiie  remained  with  little  alteration 

1  Strype's  Stow,  edit.  1720,  I.  163—169. 


OLD  ST.  PAUL'S  SCHOOL.  77 

either  in  the  exterior  or  in  the  interior.  Over  the  windows, 
across  the  face  of  the  building  towards  the  street,  were 
inscribed,  in  large  capital  letters,  the  words  "  SCHOLA  CATE- 

CH1ZATIONIS     PUERORUM     IN     CHRISTI    OPT.     MAX.    FIDE     ET    BONIS 

LITERIS  " ;  and  immediately  over  the  door  the  shorter  legend 
"  INGREDERE  UT  pROFiciAS."  The  interior  was  divided  into 
two  parts,  a  vestibulum  or  ante-room  in  which  the  smaller 
boys  were  instructed,  and  the  main  school-room.  Over  the 
door  of  this  school- room  on  the  outside  was  a  legend  to  the 
effect  that  no  more  than  153  boys  were  to  be  instructed  in 
it  gratis ;  and  inside,  painted  on  the  glass  of  each  window, 
were  the  formidable  words  "  Aut  doce,  aut  disce,  aut  dis-\ 
cede"  ("Either  teach,  or  learn,  or  leave  the  place").  The 
masters  were  in  the  habit  of  quoting  this  legend  against 
offenders,  shortening  it  for  their  own  sakes  into  "Aut  disce, 
aut  discede."  For  the  head-master  there  was  a  "decent 
cathedra  or  chair'*  at  the  upper  end  of  the  school,  facing 
the  door  and  a  little  advanced  from  the  wall ;  and  in  the 
wall,  immediately  over  this  chair,  so  as  to  be  full  in  the 
view  of  all  the  pupils,  was  an  "  effigies  "  or  bust  of  Dean 
Colet,  regarded  as  a  masterpiece  of  art,  and  having  over  it 
the  inscription  "  DEO  OPT.  MAX.  TRINO  ET  UNI  JOHANNES  COLETUS 

DEC.    ST1    PAULI    LONDIN.  HANG    SCHOLAM    POSUIT."       The  under- 

master  or  usher  had  no  particular  seat,  but  walked  up  and 
down  among  the  classes,  taking  them  all  in  turn  with  his 
superior.  There  were  in  all  eight  classes.  In  the  first  or 
lowest  the  younger  pupils  were  taught  their  rudiments ;  and 
thence,  according  to  their  proficiency,  they  were,  at  stated 
times,  advanced  into  the  other  forms,  till  they  reached  the 
eighth ;  whence,  "  being  commonly  by  this  time  made  perfect 
"  grammarians,  good  orators  and  poets,  and  well  instructed  in 
"  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  and  sometimes  in  other  Oriental 
"  tongues/'  they  passed  to  the  Universities.  The  curricu 
lum  of  the  school  extended  over  from  four  to  six  years,  the 
age  of  entry  being  from  eight  to  twelve  and  that  of  de 
parture  from  fourteen  to  eighteen.1 

1  For    the    account    of    St.    Paul's      are   these: — Stow,  edit.  1603,  pp.  74, 
School  given  in  the  text  the  authorities      75  ;  Fuller,  Church  History,  Book  V. 


78  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

From  the  moment  when  Milton  became  a  f<  pigeon  of  St. 
Paul's  "  all  this  would  be  familiar  to  him.  The  school-room ; 
its  walls  and  windows  and  inscriptions ;  the  head-master's 
chair;  the  bust  of  Colet  over  it,  looking  down  on  the  busy 
young  flock  gathered  together  by  his  deed  and  scheming  a 
hundred  years  after  he  was  dead;  the  busy  young  flock 
itself,  ranged  out  in  their  eight  forms,  and  filling  the  room 
with  their  ceaseless  hum ;  the  head-master  and  the  sur- 
inaster  walking  about  in  their  gowns,  and  occasionally  per 
haps  the  two  surveyors  from  the  Mercers  dropping  in  to 
see  :  what  man  of  any  memory  is  there  who  does  not  know 
that  all  this  would  impress  the  boy  unspeakably,  and  sink 
into  him  so  as  never  to  be  forgotten  ?  For  inquisitive  boys 
even  the  traditions  of  their  school,  if  it  has  any,  are  of 
interest ;  and  they  soon  become  acquainted  with  them. 
And  so,  in  Milton's  case,  there  must  have  been  a  pleasure, 
when  he  was  at  St.  Paul's,  in  repeating  the  names  of  old 
pupils  of  the  school  who  had  become  famous,  from  Leland 
down  to  such  a  prodigy  as  the  still-living  Camden,  who, 
though  he  had  been  mainly  educated  elsewhere,  had  for 
some  time  been  a  St.  Paul's  scholar.  There  must  have  been 
a  pleasure  also  in  finding  out  gradually  the  names  of  the 
head-masters  who  had  preceded  Mr.  Gill,  from  Richard 
Mulcaster,  Gill's  immediate  predecessor,  back  through 
Harrison,  Malim,  Cook,  Freeman,  and  Jones,  to  John 
Eightwis,  Lilly's  successor  and  son-in-law,  who  had  acted 
in  a  Latin  play  with  his  scholars  before  Wolsey,  and  so  to 
Lilly  himself,  the  great  Abraham  of  the  series,  and  the 
friend  of  Colet.1 

The  worth  of  the  school,  however,  depended  necessarily 
on  the  character  and  qualifications  of  the  two  masters  for 
the  time  being.  These,  at  the  time  with  which  we  are  con 
cerned,  were  the  above-mentioned  Lincolnshire  man  and 
Oxford  graduate,  Mr.  Alexander  Gill,  the  head-master,  and 

Section  1 ; ^Cunningham's  Handbook  of  seven  years  after  Milton.    The  original 

London,  article  "  Paul's  School  "  ;  and,  school  was  destroyed  in  the  Great  Fire 

chief   of   all,  Strype  in  his  edition  of  of  1666;  but  Strype  remembered  the 

Stow,  1720,  vol.  I.  pp.  163—169.   Strype  old  building  well,  and  his  description  of 

was  himself  a  scholar  of    St.   Paul's  it  is  affectionately  minute, 

from   1657  to   1661,  or  about  thirty-  ]  Strype,  as  above. 


ALEXANDER   GILL,    THE    ELDER.  79 

his  son,  Mr.  Alexander  Gill   the   younger,  then  acting  as 
sub-master  or  usher. 

Old  Mr.  Gill,  as  he  now  began  to  be  called,  partly  to  dis 
tinguish  him  from  his  son,  and  partly  because  he  was  verging 
on  his  fifty-seventh  year,  fully  maintained  the  ancient  credit 
of  the  school.     According  to  Wood,  he  was  "esteemed  by 
"  most  persons  to  be  a  learned  man,  a  noted  Latinist,  critic, 
"  and  divine,  and  also  to  have    such   an   excellent  way  of 
"  training  up  youth  that  none  in  his  time  went  beyond  him  : 
"  whence    'twas    that    many  noted  persons  in  Church  and 
"  State  did  esteem  it  the  greatest  of  their  happiness  that 
"  they  had  been  educated  under  him/'1    Having  looked  over 
all  that  remains  of  the  old  gentleman  in  literary  form  to 
verify  or  disprove  this  judgment, — to  wit,  three  works  pub 
lished  by  him  at  intervals  during  his  life, — I  can  safely  say 
that  the  praise  does  not  seem  overstated.     The  first  of  these 
works,  indeed,  hardly  affords    materials  for  an  opinion  of 
Gill  as  a  pedagogue.     It  is  a  tract   or  treatise,  originally 
published  by  him  in  1601,  seven  years  before  his  appoint 
ment  to  St.  Paul's  School,  and  written  in  1597,  when  he 
was  living  as  a  teacher  at  Norwich.     The  tract  is  entitled 
A  Treatise  concerning  the  Trinity  of  Persons  in  Unitie  of  the 
Deitie,  and  is  in  the  form  of  a  metaphysical  remonstrance 
with  one   Thomas  Mannering,  an  Anabaptist  of  Norwich, 
who  "  denied  that  Jesus  is  very  God  of  very  God,"  and  said 
that  he  was  "  but  man  only,  yet  endued  with  the  infinite 
power  of  God." — Far  more  interesting,  in  connexion  with 
Gill's  qualifications  as  a  teacher,  is  his  next  work,  the  first 
edition  of  which  was  published  in  1619,  or  just  before  the 
time  with  which  we  have  to  do.     It  is  entitled  Logonomia 
Anglica,  and  is  dedicated  to  King  James.     Part  of  the  work 
is  taken  up  with  an  argument  on  that  new-old  subject,  the 
reform  of  the  English  Alphabet  on  the  principle  of  bringing 
the  spelling  of  English  words  into  greater  consistency  with 
their  sounds ;  and  those  who  are  interested  in  this  subject 
will  find  some  very  sensible  matter  upon  it  in  Gill's  book. 
By  adding  to  the  English  Alphabet  the  two  Anglo-Saxon 

i  A  thence,  II.  597—599. 


80  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    T1MK. 

signs  for  the  two  sounds  of  th,  and  another  Anglo-Saxon 
sign  or  two,  and  by  farther  using  points  over  the  vowels  to 
indicate  their  various  sounds,  he  contrives  an  Alphabet 
somewhat  like  those  of  our  modern  phonetic  reformers,  but 
less  liable  to  objection  from  the  point  of  view  of  Etymology ; 
and  he  illustrates  this  Alphabet  by  spelling  all  the  English 
words  and  passages  in  his  book  according  to  it.  But  Spell- 

i  ing-Reform  is  by  no  means  the  main  purpose  of  the  book. 
It  is,  in  fact,  what  we  should  now  call  a  systematic  grammar 
of  the  English  tongue,  written  in  Latin.  Accordingly,  it  is 

\only  in  the  first  part  that  he  propounds  his  spelling- reform ; 
and  the  parts  on  Etymology,  Syntax,  and  Prosody  possess 
7  quite  a  separate  value.  If  Gill  was  only  half  as  interesting 
in  his  school-room  as  he  is  in  his  book,  he  must  have  been 
an  effective  and  even  delightful  teacher.  For  example,  as 
an  appendix  to  Syntax  in  general,  he  has  a  chapter  on  what 
he  calls  Syntaxis  Schematistica,  in  which  he  trenches  on 
what  is  usually  considered  a  part  of  Rhetoric,  and  enumerates 
and  explains  the  so-called  tropes  and  figures  of  speech, — 
Metaphor,  Metonymy,  Allegory,  Irony,  Climax,  &c.  This 
part  of  the  book  is  studded  with  examples  from  the  English 
poets,  and  above  all  from  Spenser,  showing  a  really  fine 
taste  in  the  selection.  Take,  as  a  specimen,  the  exposition 
of  the  Metaphor.  I  translate  from  Gill's  Latin  in  the  text, 
and  alter  his  phonetic  spelling  in  the  examples. 

"  Translation  or  metaphor  is  a  word  taken  in  one  sense  from 
another  like  it. 

'  But  now  weak  age  had  dimm'd  his  candle-light.' — Faerie  Queene. 
( He,  thereto  meeting,  said.' — Ibid.  ; 

where  '  meeting '  is  used  for  '  answering.' 

'  I  shall  you  well  reward  to  show  the  place 
In  which  that  wicked  wight  his  days  doth  wear.'— Ibid. 

1  Wear '  for  '  consume.' 

"  Nor  let  it  weary  you  to  hear  from  our  Juvenal,  George  Withers, 
one  of  those  metaphors  in  which  he  abounds  when  he  lays  aside  the 
asperity  of  his  satire  : — 

'  Fair  by  nature  being  born, 
Borrowed  beauty  she  doth  scorn ; 
He  that  kisseth  her  need  fear 
No  unwholesome  varnish  there ; 
For  from  thence  he  only  sips 
The  pure  nectar  of  her  lips, 
And  with  these  at  once  he  closes — 
Melting  rubies,  cherries,  roses. 


GILL'S   LOGONOMIA   ANGLICA.  81 

"  From  this  root  are  all  Allegories  and  Comparisons,  and  also  most 
Parwmice  and  JEnigmata.  For  an  allegory  is  nothing  else  than  a 
continued  metaphor.  In  this  our  Lucan,  Samuel  Daniel,  is  frequent. 
Thus,  Delia,  Sonnet  31  :— 

'  Raising  my  hopes  on  hills  of  high  desire, 
Thinking  to  scale  the  heaven  of  her  heart, 
My  slender  muse  presumed  too  high  a  part ; 
Her  thunder  of  disdain  caused  me  retire, 
And  threw  me  down,  &c.' 


"  So,  Faerie 

'  Huge  sea  of  sorrow  and  tempestuous  grief, 
Wherein  my  feeble  hark  is  tossed  long, 
Far  from  the  hoped  haven  of  relief, 
Why  do  thy  cruel  billows  beat  so  strong, 
And  thy  moist  mountains  each  on  other  throng, 
Threatening  to  swallow  up  my  fearful  life? 
O  do  thy  cruel  wrath  and  spiteful  wrong 
At  length  allay,  and  stint  thy  stormy  strife, 
Which  in  these  troubled  bowels  reigns  and  rageth  rife. 
For  else  my  feeble  vessel,  crazed  and  crackt, 
Cannot  endure,  &c.' 

"  But,  indeed,  the  whole  of  Spenser's  poem  is  an  allegory  in 
which  he  evolves  an  ethical  meaning  in  fables.  Thus,  the  Allegory 
handles  the  whole  matter  on  hand  obscurely  by  metaphor ;  the 
Paroemia  and  ^Enigma  do  so  much  more  obscurely  ;  while  the  Com 
parison  or  Simile  does  it  more  transparently,  because  it  first  unfolds 
the  metaphor,  and  then  confronts  it  with  the  thing.  Thus,  Faerie 
Queene,  I.  c.  2  : — 

1  As,  when  two  rams,  stirred  with  ambitious  pride, 
Fight  for  the  rule  of  the  fair  fleeced  flock, 
Their  horned  fronts  so  fierce  on  either  side 
Do  meet  that,  with  the  terror  of  the  shock 
Astouied,  both  stand  senseless  as  a  block, 
Forgetful  of  the  hanging  victory : 
So  stood  these  twain  unmoved  as  a  rock,  &c.'  " 

The  subsequent  part  of  the  work,  on  English  Prosody,  is, 
in  like  manner,  illustrated  by  well-chosen  examples;  and, 
among  other  things,  Gill  discusses  in  it  the  compatibility  of 
classical  metres  with,  the  genius  of  the  English  tongue. 
The  following  passage,  in  which  he  refers  to  the  supposed 
influence  of  Chaucer,  exhibits  what  was  apparently  another 
crotchet  of  his,  superadded  to  his  crotchet  of  spelling-reform : 
[viz.,  the  duty  of  preserving  the  Old  English  purity  of  our 
tongue  against  intruding  Latinisms  and  Gallicisms.  After 
maintaining  that  even  after  the  Danish  and  Norman  inva 
sions  the  Saxon- English  tongue  of  our  island  remained  pure, 
he  proceeds  (I  again  translate  from  his  Latin)  thus  : — 

"At  length,  about  the  year  1400,  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  of  unlucky 
omen,  made  his  poetry  famous  by  the  use  in  it  of  French  and  Latin 
VOL.  i.  G 


03  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

words.  Hence  has  come  down  this  new  mange  in  our  speaking  and 
writing.  .  .  .  O  harsh  lips  !  I  now  hear  all  around  me  such  words  as 
common,  vices,  envy,  malice;  even  virtue,  study ,  justice,  pity,  mercy, 
compassion,  profit,  commodity,  colour,  grace,  favour,  acceptance.  But 
whither,  pray,  in  all  the  world  have  you  banished  those  words  which 
our  forefathers  used  for  these  newfangled  ones  1  Are  our  words  to 
be  exiled  like  our  citizens  1  Is  the  new  barbaric  invasion  to  extir 
pate  the  English  tongue  ?  O  ye  Englishmen,  on  you,  I  say,  I  call,  in 
whose  veins  that  blood  flows,  retain,  retain  what  yet  remains  of  our 
native  speech,  and,  whatever  vestiges  of  our  forefathers  are  yet  to  be 
seen,  on  these  plant  your  footsteps." 

This  passage,  in  a  work  of  1619,  is  certainly  curious;  and 
there  are  other  interesting  curiosities  in  Gill's  Logonomia 
Anglica.  It  came  to  a  second  edition  in  1621,  just  after 
Milton  had  become  familiar  with  St.  Paul's  School  and  the 
face  of  its  philological  head-master.  —  But,  while  working 
mainly  in  Philology,  Mr.  Gill  had  not  abandoned  his  Meta 
physics.  In  1635,  some  fifteen  years  after  the  time  at 
which  we  are  now  arrived,  he  brought  out  his  last  and 
largest  work,  called  Sacred  Philosophic  of  the  Holy  Scrip 
ture*.  It  was  a  kind  of  detailed  demonstration,  against 
Turks,  Jews,  Infidels,  Heretics,  and  all  gainsayers  whatso 
ever,  of  the  successive  articles  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  on 
the  principles  of  pure  reason;  and  there  was  appended  to  it 
a  reprint  of  his  Treatise  concerning  the  Trinity,  the  first  of 
his  published  writings. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  but  that  in  those  days,  when  the 
idea  of  severing  the  secular  from  the  religious  in  schools  had 
not  yet  been  heard  of,  Mr.  Gift's  pupils  would  now  and  then 
have  a  touch  of  his  Metaphysics  as  well  as  of  his  Philology. 
They  were  lucky,  it  seems,  if  they  had  not  also  a  touch  of 
something  else.  "  Dr.'  Gill,  the  father,"  says  Aubrey  in 
one  of  his  MSS.,  "  was  a  very  ingeniose  person,  as  may 
"  appear  by  his  writings :  notwithstanding,  he  had  his 
"  moods  and  humours,  as  particularly  his  whipping  fits. 
"  Often  Dr.  G.  whipped  Duncombe,  who  was  afterwards  a 
"colonel  of  dragoons  at  Edgehill  fight."1  Duncombe  may 
have  been  his  greatest  dunce. 

Young  Gill,  the  usher  or  sur-master,  was  by  no  means  so 

i  MS.  of  Aubrey's  in  the  Ashinolean. 


ALEXANDER    GILL,    THE    YOUNGER.  83 

steady  a  man  as  his  father.  Born  in  London  about  1597, 
he  had  been  educated  at  St.  Paul's  School;  he  had  gone 
thence,  on  one  of  the  Mercers'  Exhibitions,  to  Trinity 
College,  Oxford ;  and,  after  completing  his  course  there, 
and  taking  his  degree  and  orders,  he  had  comeback  to  town 
about  1619,  and  dropped  conveniently  into  the  place  of  his 
father's  assistant.1  For  a  time,  either  before  or  after  this, 
he  assisted  the  famous  Farnabie  in  his  school.  There  must 
have  been,  from  the  first,  an  element  of  bluster  and  reckless 
ness  in  this  junior  Gill,  annoying  and  troublesome  to  his 
father.  The  proofs  will  appear  hereafter.  Meanwhile  his 
literary  reputation  was  considerably  above  the  common. 
As  early  as  1612,  immediately  after  his  going  to  college,  he 
had  published  a  Latin  threnody  011  the  death  of  Prince 
Henry,  one  of  the  scores  and  scores  of  effusions  of  the  kind 
called  forth  by  that  event ;  and,  during  his  course  at  Oxford, 
he  had  written  other  things  of  the  same  sort,  both  in  Latin 
and  in  Greek,  some  of  which  were  also  printed.  The  special 
character  which  he  bore  among  the  boys  of  St.  Paul's 
School,  when,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  or  thereabouts,  he 
became  his  father's  assistant,  was  that  of  a  splendid  maker 
of  Greek  and  Latin  verses ;  and  his  powers  in  that  craft  seem 
to  have  been  pretty  amply  proclaimed  by  himself  on  every 
opportunity. 

Such  were  the  two  men  to  whose  lot  it  fell  to  be  Milton's 
schoolmasters.  He  was  under  their  care,  as  I  calculate,  at 
least  four  years, — from  1620,  when  he  had  passed  his  eleventh 
year,  to  the  winter  or  spring  of  1624-5,  when  he  had  passed 
his  sixteenth.  Through  a  portion  of  this  time,  most  probably 
till  1622,  he  had  the  benefit  also  of  Young's  continued  assist 
ance  at  home,  if  indeed  Young's  domestic  preceptorship  and 
the  attendance  at  St.  Paul's  School  had  not  gone  on  together 
since  about  1618. 

St.  Paul's  School,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  was  strictly 
a  grammar-school,  or  school  for  classical  instruction  only. 
But,  since  Colet's  time,  by  reason  of  the  great  development 
which  classical  studies  had  received  throughout  the  nation 

1  Wood's  Ath.,  III.  43. 
G  2 


84  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

at  large,  the  efficiency  of  the  school-  within  its  assigned 
limits  had  immensely  increased.  Instead  of  peddling  over 
Sedulius  and  other  such  small  practitioners  of  later  or 
middle-age  Latinity,  recommended  as  proper  class-books 
by  Colet,  the  scholars  of  St.  Paul's,  as  of  contemporary 
schools,  were  now  led  through  very  much  the  same  list  of 
Roman  prose-writers  and  poets  that  are  still  honoured  in 

->  our  academies.  The  practice  of  writing  pure  classical  Latin, 
or  what  might  pass  for  such,  both  in  prose  and  in  verse, 
was  also  carried  to  a  perfection  not  known  in  Colet' s  time. 

..  But  the  improvement  in  Latin  was  as  nothing  compared 
with  what  had  taken  place  in  Greek.  Although  Colet  in 
his  testamentary  recommendations  to  the  Mercers  had  men 
tioned  it  as  desirable  that  the  head-master  should  know 
Greek  as  well  as  Latin,  he  had  added  "  if  such  a  man  can  be 
gotten."  That,  indeed,  was  the  age  of  incipient  Greek  in 
England.  Colet  had  none  himself;  and  that  Lilly  had 
mastered  Greek,  while  residing  in  earlier  life  in  Rhodes, 
was  one  of  his  distinctions.  Since  that  time,  however,  the 
passion  for  Greek  had  spread;  the  battle  between  the 
Greeks  and  the  Trojans,  as  the  partisans  of  the  new  learning 
and  its  opponents  were  respectively  called,  had  been  fought 
out  in  the  days  of  Ascham  and  Elizabeth;  and,  if  Greek 
scholarship  still  lagged  behind  Latin,  yet  in  such  schools 
as  St.  Paul's  there  were  Greek  readings  and  exercises,  in 
anticipation  of  the  higher  Greek  at  the  Universities.  Pro 
bably  Hebrew  also  was  taught  optionally  to  a  few  of  the 
highest  boys. 

Whatever  support  other  instances  may  afford  to  the  popu 
lar  notion  that  the  studious  boys  at  school  do  not  turn  out 
the  most  efficient  men  in  after  life,  the  believers  in  that 
notion  may  save  themselves  the  trouble  of  trying  to  prove 
it  by  the  example  of  Milton's  boyhood.  Here  are  the  testi 
monies  : — 

Milton's  own  account  of  his  habits  in  his  school-time.— "My  father 
destined  me  while  yet  a  little  boy  for  the  study  of  humane  letters, 
which  I  seized  with  such  eagerness  that  from  the  twelfth  year  of  my 


JUVENILE    STUDIES   AND   READINGS.  85 

age  I  scarcely  ever  went  from  my  lessons  to  bed  before  midnight ; 
which,  indeed,  was  the  first  cause  of  injury  to  my  eyes,  to  whose 
natural  weakness  there  were  also  added  frequent  headaches.  All 
which  not  retarding  my  impetuosity  in  learning,  he  caused  me  to  be 
daily  instructed  both  at  the  grammar-school  and  under  other  masters 
at  home  ;  and  then,  when  I  had  acquired  various  tongues  and  also 
some  not  insignificant  taste  for  the  sweetness""of  philosophy,  he  sent 
me  to  Cambridge,  one  of  our  two  national  universities.5^ 

Aubrey's  account. — "  When  he  went  to  school,  when  he  was  very 
young,  he  studied  very  hard  and  sat  up  very  late,  commonly  till 
twelve  or  one  o'clock  at  night ;  and  his  father  ordered  the  maid  to 
sit  up  for  him." 

Wood's  account. — "  There  [at  Cambridge],  as  at  school  for  three 
years  before,  'twas  usual  with  him  to  sit  up  till  midnight  at  his 


Phillips' s  account. — [At 
rudiments  of  learning,  and  advanced  therein  with  .  .  .  admirable 
success,  not  more  by  the  discipline  of  the  school  and  the  good 
instructions  of  his  masters  .  .  .  than  by  his  own  happy  genius, 
prompt  wit  and  apprehension,  and  insuperable  industry ;  for  he 
generally  sat  up  half  the  night,  as  well  in  voluntary  improvements 
of  his  own  choice  as  the  exact  perfecting  of  his  school-exercises  :  so 
that  at  the  age  of  fifteen  he  was  full  ripe  for  academical  training." 

The  boy's  studies  were  not  confined  to  the  classic  tongues. 
"  When,  at  your  expense,  my  excellent  father/'  he  says  in  a 
Latin  poem  addressed  to  his  father  in  later  years,  "  I  had 
"  obtained  access  to  the  eloquence  of  the  tongue  of  Romulus, 
"  and  to  the  delights  of  Latium,  and  to  the  grand  language, 
"  becoming  the  mouth  of  Jove,  uttered  by  the  magnilo- 
"  quent  Greeks,  you  advised  me  to  add  the  flowers  which 
tf  are  the  pride  of  Gaul,  and  the  speech  which  the  new 
"Italian,  attesting  the  barbarian  inroads  by  his  diction, 
"  pours  from  his  degenerate  mouth,  and  the  mysteries  also 
"  which  are  spoken  by  the  prophet  of  Palestine." 2  The 
application  of  these  words  extends  beyond  Milton's  mere 
school-days ;  but  it  is  probable  that  before  those  days  were ' 
over  he  had  learnt  to  read  French  and  Italian,  and  also 
something  of  Hebrew. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  literature  of  his  own 
country  remained  a  closed  field  to  a  youth  so  fond  of  study, 
and  who  had  already  begun  to  have  dreams  for  himself  of 
literary  excellence.  There  is  evidence,  accordingly,  that 
Milton  in  his  boyhood  was  a  diligent  reader  of  English 

i  Defensio  Seeunda :  Works,  VI.  286,  287.  2  Ad  Patrem  :  Works,  I.  252. 


86  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

books,  and  that  before  the  close  of  his  school-time  he  had 
formed  some  general  acquaintance  with  the  course  of  Eng 
lish  Literature  from  its  beginnings. 

Such  a  task,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  was  by  no  means  so 
formidable  in  the  year  1624  as  a  corresponding  task  would 
be  now.  If  we  strike  off  from  the  body  of  English  Litera 
ture,  as  it  now  presents  itself  to  us,  all  that  portion  of  it 
which  has  been  added  during  the  last  two  centuries  and  a 
half,  that  which  would  remain  as  the  total  Literature  of 
England  at  the  time  when  Milton  began  to  take  a  retrospect 
of  it  would  by  no  means  alarm  by  its  bulk.  The  oldest 
English  Literature,  called  generally  the  Anglo-Saxon,  left 
out  of  sight,  the  retrospect  divided  itself  into  three  periods. 
(I.)  There  was  the  period  of  the  infancy  of  the  New  English 
Literature,  ending  at  the  death  of  Chaucer  in  1400.  Of  the 
relics  of  this  period,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse,  there 
were  few,  with  the  exception  of"  the  works  of  Chaucer  him 
self  and  of  Lan gland,  which  any  one,  unless  studying  Eng 
lish  in  an  expressly  antiquarian  spirit,  would  care  much 
about.  (II.)  Passing  to  the  next  period,  which  may  be  con 
sidered  as  extending  from  Chaucer's  death  to  about  the 
middle  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  one  could  not  reckon  up 
very  many  writers,  even  in  that  tract  of  180  years,  with  whom 
the  lover  of  pure  literature  was  bound  to  be  acquainted. 
The  characteristic  of  this  age  of  English  Literature  is  the 
absence  of  any  writer,  whether  in  poetry  or  prose,  that 
could  with  propriety  be  named  as  a  successor  of  Chaucer 
The  literary  spirit  seemed,  for  the  time,  to  have  passed 
rather  to  the  Scottish  side  of  the  Tweed,  and  there  to  have 
incarnated  itself  in  a  series  of  Scottish  poets,  who  did 
inherit  somewhat  of  Chaucer's  genius,  and  of  whom  the 
chief,  after  the  poet-king  James  I.,  close  in  time  to  Chaucer, 
were  Dunbar,  Gavin  Douglas,  and  Sir  David  Lyndsay,  in 
the  age  preceding  the  Scottish  Reformation.  These,  how 
ever,  were  beyond  the  pale  of  that  literature  which  an  Eng 
lish  reader  in  South  Britain  would  regard  as  properly  his 
own.  In  lieu  of  them,  he  could  enumerate  such  writers  as 
Lydgate,  Malory,  Skeltou,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Aschai-n, 


JUVENILE    STUDIES    AND    READINGS.  87 

Wyatt,  Surrey,  and  Sackville.  They  were  by  no  means 
insignificant  names ;  and,  when  one  remembered  that  the 
age  of  More  and  Wyatt  and  Surrey  had  also  been  the  age 
of  the  Reformers  Tyndale,  Cranmer,  Latiiner,  and  their 
associates,  and  of  the  scholars  Lilly,  Leland,  Cheke,  and 
others,  one  could  look  back  upon  that  age  with  a  conviction 
that,  if  its  relics  in  the  form  of  vernacular  poefcry  and  in 
other  forms  of  pure  vernacular  literature  had  not  been 
numerous,  this  was  not  on  account  of  any  lack  of  intellectual 
activity  in  the  age,  but  because  its  intellectual  activity 
had  been  expended  in  controversial  writing  and  in  the 
business  of  war,  statecraft,  and  revolution.  Still,  to  any 
one  looking  back  in  the  spirit  of  a  literary  enthusiast  rather 
than  in  that  of  a  theologian  or  a  student  of  history,  the  age 
must  have  seemed  unusually  barren.  (III.)  Very  different 
was  it  when,  passing  forward  from  the  stormy  reign  of 
Henry  VIII.  through  the  short  reigns  of  Edward  YI.  and 
Mary,  one  advanced  into  those  golden  days  when  Elizabeth 
sat  securely  on  the  throne.  The  latter  part  of  this  Queen's 
reign,  dating  from  about  1580,  opened  the  era  of  the  lite 
rary  splendour  of  England.  That  splendid  era  may  be 
regarded  as  having  extended  over  about  forty-five  years  in 
all,  or  to  the  death  of  James  I.  in  1625,  almost  the  exact 
point  of  time  with  which  we  are  now  concerned.  To  Milton, 
therefore,  as  a  youth  of  sixteen,  looking  back  upon  the  past 
literary  course  of  his  own  country,  we  can  see  that  by  far 
the  richest  part  of  that  course,  the  part  most  crowded  with 
names  and  works  of  interest,  would  be  the  forty-five  years 
nearest  his  own  day.  In  other  words,  if  we  allow  for  the 
great  figure  of  Chaucer  seen  far  in  the  background,  and  for 
a  minor  Wyatt  or  Surrey  and  the  like  breaking  the  long 
interval  between  Chaucer  and  more  recent  times,  the  whole 
Literature  of  England  would  be  represented  to  Milton,  in 
the  year  1624,  by  that  cluster  of  conspicuous  men,  some  of 
them  still  alive  and  known  familiarly  in  English  society, 
who  had  been  already  named  "  the  Elizabethans."  In  prose 
there  were  Raleigh,  Sidney,  Hooker,  Bacon,  Bishop  An- 
drevves,  and  others,  not  to  speak  of  chroniclers  and  his- 


88  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

torians,  such,  as  Holinshed,  Stow,  and  Speed,  or  of  scholars 
and  antiquarians,  like  Camden,  Usher,  and  Selden.  Bacon's 
works  had  all,  or  nearly  all,  by  this  time  been  given  to  the 
world.  Then,  in  poetry,  what  a  burst  of  stars  !  First  in 
time  and  in  magnitude  among  the  non-dramatic  poets,  or 
the  poets  best  known  out  of  the  drama,  was  Spenser,  Eng 
land's  true  second  son  in  the  muses  after  Chaucer.  As 
contemporaries  or  successors  of  Spenser  might  be  enumer 
ated  Chapman,  Warner,  Daniel,  Drayton,  and  Chapman, 
with  Harrington,  the  translator  of  Ariosto,  Fairfax,  the 
translator  of  Tasso,  and  Sylvester,  the  translator  of  Du 
Bartas,  and  with  the  metaphysical,  religious,  pastoral,  and 
lyrical  poets,  Davies,  Donne,  Bishop  Hall,  Phineas  Fletcher, 
Giles  Fletcher,  "Wither,  Carew,  and  Browne.  Add  the  still 
more  brilliant  constellation  of  dramatists  with  which  these 
men  were  historically  associated  and  in  part  personally 
intermixed.  The  earlier  Elizabethan  dramatists,  Greene, 
Peele,  Marlowe,  and  the  rest,  had  passed  away  before 
Milton  was  born ;  but  the  later  Elizabethans,  Shakespeare, 
Webster,  Middleton,  Dekker,  Marston,  Heywood,  and  Ben 
Jonson,  lived  into  the  reign  of  James,  and  were  among  the 
men  whom  Milton  might  himself  have  seen;  while  to  these 
had  been  added,  almost  within  his  own  memory,  such 
younger  dramatists  as  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Massinger, 
Ford,  and  Shirley.  The  complete  works  of  one  or  two  of 
the  greatest  dramatists  were  accessible.  In  1616  Ben 
Jonson  had  published,  in  folio,  a  collection  of  his  works 
prior  to  that  date ;  and  the  admirer  of  Ben  had  but  to  pur 
chase,  in  addition,  such  separate  dramas  and  masques  as 
Ben  had  issued  since,  in  order  to  have  the  whole  of  him. 
More  notable  still,  it  was  in  the  year  1623  that  Shake 
speare's  executors,  Heminge  and  Condell,  had  performed 
their  service  to  the  world,  by  publishing  the  first  folio 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  Plays.  "  Buy  the  book  ;  whatever 
you  do,  buy/'  was  the  advice  of  the  editors  to  the  public 
in  their  quaint  preface ;  and  among  the  first  persons  to  follow 
the  advice  may  have  been  the  scrivener  Milton. 

Theological  books  of  which  we  now  know  little  or  nothing 


SPENSEK    AND    SYLVESTER.  89 

would  then  be  in  high  esteem  in  an  English  Puritan  family; 
but  there  is  evidence  in  Milton's  earliest  writings  that  his 
juvenile  readings  had  ranged  widely  beyond  those,  and 
backwards  in  the  series  of  more  classic  English  writers,  and 
especially  of  English  poets.  There  are  traces  in  his  very 
earliest  poems  of  his  acquaintance  with  Ben  Jonson ;  and, 
if  he  did  not  have  a  copy  of  the  folio  Shakespeare  within 
reach  on  its  publication  in  1623,  it  is  certain,  as  we  shall 
find,  that  he  had  one  in  his  possession  not  long  afterwards. 
By  the  consent  of  Milton's  biographers,  however,  the  two 
English  poets  with  whom  he  was  most  especially  familiar 
before  his  seventeenth  year  were  Spenser  and  Sylvester. 
"  Humphrey  Lownes,  a  printer,  living  in  the  same  street 
"  with  his  father,"  says  Todd,  "  supplied  him  at  least  with 
"  Spenser  and  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas."  l  For  this  statement 
I  have  found  no  sufficient  authority.  It  is  not  necessary, 
surely,  to  suppose  that  Milton  was  indebted  for  his  ac 
quaintance  with  Spenser  to  the  kindness  of  any  neighbour. 
Cowley,  in  1628,  at  the  age  of  eleven,  read  Spenser  with 
delight ;  and,  if  Cowley's  introduction  to  the  poet  was 
owing  to  the  circumstance  that  his  works  "  were  wont  to 
lie  in  his  mother's  parlour,"  Milton  can  hardly  have  had  far 
to  go  for  his  copy.  The  notion  that  Lownes  may  have  sup 
plied  him  with  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas  is  more  plausible;  for 
all  the  editions  of  the  book  had  issued  from  Lownes' s  press, 
and  the  printer  himself  had  a  more  than  professional  affection 
for  it.  At  all  events,  as  much  has  been  made  by  Milton's 
commentators  of  his  supposed  obligations,  both  in  his  earlier 
and  his  later  poetry,  to  Du  Bartas  and  Sylvester,  it  may  not 
be  amiss  here  to  give  some  account  of  the  once  popular  book 
with  which  their  names  are  associated.2 

Guillaume  de  Salluste,  Sieur  duJBartas,  was  perhaps  the 
most  famous  French  poet  of  the  sixteenth  century.    Born  in 

1  Life  of  Milton,  1809,  p.  7,  note.  subsequently  argued,  in  a  more  becom- 

2  It  was  Lauder,  I  believe,  who,  in  the  ing   spirit,  by  Todd  (Gent.  Mag.,  Nov. 
course  of  his  attempts  to  prove  Milton  to  1796),   and    still    more   fully  and  in- 
have  been  a  plagiarist,  firsb  called  at-  geniously  by  Mr.  Charles  Dunster,  in 
tention  to  certain  coincidences  in  idea  his  "  Considerations  on  Milton's  Early 
and  expression  between  Milton's  poems,  Beading  and  the  Prima  /Stamina  of  his 
especially  his  Paradise  Lost,  and  Syl-  Paradise  Lost,"  published  in  1800. 
vester's  Du  Bartas.      The  question  was 


90  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

1544, -and  a  zealous  adherent  of  the  Calvinistic  party  in  the 
French  civil  wars,  he  was  a  follower  of  Henry  IV.  while  that 
champion  of  Protestantism  was  struggling  for  the  throne, 
and  served  him  both  in  camp  and  in  council.  At  his  death 
in  1590,  he  left  behind  him,  as  the  fruit  of  his  occasional 
months  of  solitude,  a  long  religious  poem,  partly  didactic 
and  partly  descriptive,  entitled  The  Divine  Weeks  and  Work*, 
The  popularity  of  the  poem,  both  in  France  and  in  other 
countries,  was  immense.  Thirty  editions  of  the  original 
were  sold  within  six  years;  and  it  was  translated  into  all 
the  living  languages  of  Europe,  as  well  as  into  Latin. 

Joshua  Sylvester,  the  English  translator  of  Du  Bartas, 
was  a  man  qualified  to  do  him  justice.  Born  in  1563,  and 
by  profession  a  "  merchant-adventurer,"  travelling  between 
London  and  the  Continent,  he  had  acquired  a  knowledge  of 
foreign  tongues  which  led  him  to  employ  his  leisure  in 
translating  foreign  poetry.  His  Qalvinistic  leanings  drew 
him  strongly  to  Du  Bartas.  In  1590  he  published  his  first 
specimen  of  Du  Bartas  in  English,  at  the  press  of  "  Richard 
Yardley,  on  Bread-street-hill,  at  the  signe  of  the  Starre, 
printer,"  Yardley  being  then  the  occupant  of  the  premises 
afterwards  occupied  by  Lownes.1  Farther,  in  1598,  there 
was  printed  at  the  same  office,  Yardley  having  in  the  mean 
time  been  succeeded  there  by  Peter  Short,  a  more  extensive 
specimen  of  Sylvester's  skill  in  the  shape  of  a  version  of 
part  of  Du  Bartas' s  main  work.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
JJ305, — by  which  time  Short  had,  in  his  turn,  been  succeeded 
by  Humphrey  Lownes,  —  that  Sylvester's  complete  Du  Bai  tas 
His  Devine  Weekes  and  Worses  Translated  came  from  the  same 
press.  The  volume  was  so  popular  that  fresh  editions  were 
issued  by  Lownes  in  1611  and  1613.  At  this  time  "silver- 
tongued  Sylvester/'  as  he  was  called,  partly  on  account 
of  this  translation,  partly  on  account  of  his  original  writings 
— among  which  may  be  mentioned  his  singular  poem  against 
Tobacco,  written  about  1615  2 — was  a  man  of  no  small  reput- 

1  Ames's  Typographical  Antiquities,  Idolize  so  base  aud  barbarous  a  Weed, 
by  Herbert,  1790,  vol.  III.  p.  1808.  &c.,  by  a  Volley  of  Holy  Shot  thun- 

2  "  Tobacco  Battered  aud  the  Pipes  dered  from  Mount  Helicon." 
S  hattered  about  their  Eares  that  idlely 


91 

ation  in  the  London  cluster  of  wits  and  poets.  He  died  in 
Holland  in  1618,  at  the  age  of  fifty -five.  A  new  edition  of 
his  Da  Bartas  being  required  in  1621,  Lownes  took  the 
opportunity  of  collecting  his  fugitive  pieces,  so  as  to  include 
the  translation  in  a  folio  containing  the  whole  of  Sylvester. 
To  this  volume  Lownes  prefixed  an  "Address  to  the  Reader" 
in  his  own  name,  in  which  he  speaks  of  Sylvester  as  "  that 
divine  wit"  and  "that  worthy  spirit,"  and  particularly 
dwells  on  the  fact  that  in  his  later  years  he  had  "  confined 
his  pen  to  none  but  holy  and  religious  ditties." 

The  printer  was  not  wrong  in  anticipating  continued  popu 
larity  for  his  favourite.  Fresh  editions  of  Sylvester's  Works, 
including  the  sixth  and  seventh  of  his  Du  Bartas,  were  called 
for  in  1633  and  1641 ;  and  we  have  Dry  den's  testimony  to 
the  high  esteem  in  which  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas  was  held 
as  late  as  1650.  "  I  remember,  when  I  was  a  boy,"  says 
Dryden,  "  I  thought  inimitable  Spenser  a  mean  poet  in 
"comparison  of  Sylvester's  Du  Barfas,  and  was  rapt  into 
"  ecstasy  when  I  read  these  lines  : — 

'  Now  when  the  winter's  keener  breath  began 
To  crystallize  the  Baltic  ocean, 
To  glaze  the  lakes  and  bridle  up  the  floods, 
And  periwig  with  wool  the  bald-pate  woods.' " 

To  these  words  Dryden  adds,  as  his  more  mature  impression, 
"  I  am  much  deceived  now  if  this  be  not  abominable  fustian. "  < 
This  sentence  may  be  considered  to  have  sealed  Sylvester's 
fate  in  England.  After  1660  he  ceased  to  be  read,  and  was 
only  referred  to,  like  his  original  in  France,  as  a  pedantic 
and  fantastic  old  poet,  disfigured  by  bad  taste  and  low  and 
ludicrous  imagery.  Of  late,  partly  on  Milton's  account,  the 
interest  in  him  has  somewhat  revived;  and  such  recent 
English  critics  as  can  relish  poetry  under  an  uncouth  guise 
find  much  to  like  in  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas,  just  as  some 
recent  foreign  critics,  Goethe  among  them,  have  found  a 
good  deal  to  admire  even  yet  in  the  French  original. 

When  Milton  was  a  boy  at  St.  Paul's  School  everybody 
was  reading  Sylvester's  Du  Bartas.  The  first  portion,  entitled 
THE  FIRST  WEEK,  OE  BIRTH  or  THE  WORLD,  occupies  nearly  two 


92  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

hundred  pages,  and  is  divided  into  seven  "Days"  or  Cantos, 
thus  :— Ist  Day  :  The  Chaos  ;  2nd  Day  :  The  Elements  ;  3rd 
Day :  The  Sea  and  Earth ;  4<thDay :  The  Heavens,  Sun, 
Moon,  8fc.  ;  $th  Day  :  The  Fishes  and  Fowls  ;  6th  Day  :  The 
Beasts  and  Man ;  7th  Day :  The  Sabaoth.  Each  Canto 
treats  of  the  part  of  the  work  of  Creation  indicated  by  the 
prefixed  heading;  and  in  each  the  poet  accumulates  such 
miscellaneous  matters  of  Natural  History  and  Cosmology  as 
related  themselves  to  the  subject.  In  the  first  Canto  are 
described  the  emergence  out  of  chaos  and  the  creation  of 
elemental  light ;  in  the  second  there  is  an  ample  display  of 
crude  meteorological  knowledge ;  in  the  third  the  poet 
passes  on  to  his  geology,  mineralogy,  and  botany ;  in  the 
fourth  he  expounds  his  astronomy,  which  is  decidedly  anti- 
Copernican ;  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  we  have  his  zoology  in 
all  its  ramifications,  with  expositions  of  the  human  anatomy 
and  physiology  somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  a  Bridgewater 
Treatise ;  and  in  the  last  the  poet  becomes  doctrinal  and 
reflective.  The  following  passage  from  the  third  Canto, 
describing  the  creation  of  the  forest  and  fruit  trees,  is 
characteristic  of  the  general  style  of  the  descriptive  parts  : — 

"  No  sooner  spoken  but  the  lofty  pine 
Distilling  pitch,  the  larch  yield-turpentine, 
Th'  ever-green  box  and  gummy  cedar,  sprout, 
And  th'  airy  mountains  mantle  round  about : 
The  mast-full  oak,  the  useful  ash,  the  holm, 
Coat-changing  cork,  white  maple,  shady  elm, 
Through  hill  and  plain  ranged  their  plumed  ranks. 
The  winding  rivers  bordered  all  their  banks 
With  slice-sea  alders  and  green  osiers  small, 
With  trembling  poplars,  and  with  willows  pale, 
And  many  trees  beside,  fit  to  be  made 
Fuel  or  timber,  or  to  serve  for  shade. 
The  dainty  apricock  (of  plums  the  prince), 
The  velvet  peach,  gilt  orange,  downy  quince, 
Already  bear,  graVn  in  their  tender  barks, 
God's  powerful  providence  in  open  marks. 
The  scent-sweet  apple  and  astringent  pear, 
The  cherry,  filberd,  walnut,  meddeler, 
The  milky  fig,  the  damson  black  and  white, 
The  date  and  olive,  aiding  appetite, 
Spread  everywhere  a  most  delightful  spring, 
And  everywhere  a  very  Eden  bring. ' 

A  finer  passage,  and  perhaps  that  in  the  whole  of  this  portion 


SYLVESTER'S  DU  BAETAS.  93 

of  the  poem  in  which  the  poet  is  to  be  seen  at  about  his  very 
best,  is  the  following,  from  the  last  Canto,  or  Seventh  Day  of 
the  First  Week,  comparing  the  Sabbatic  rest  of  the  Deity 
after  the  Six  Days  of  Creation  with  the  calm  delight  of  a 
painter  in  contemplating  his  finished  picture  : — 

"  The  cunning  painter  that,  with  curious  care 
Limning  a  landscape,  various,  rich,  and  rare, 
Hath  set  a- work  in  all  and  every  part 
Invention,  judgment,  nature,  use,  and  art, 
And  hath  at  length,  t'  immortalize  his  name, 
With  weary  pencil  perfected  the  same, 
Forgets  his  pains,  and,  inly  filled  with  glee, 
Still  on  his  picture  gazeth  greedily. 
First  in  a  mead  he  marks  a  frisking  lamb, 
Which  seems,  though  dumb,  to  bleat  unto  the  dam  : 
Then  he  observes  a  wood  seeming  to  wave ; 
Then  th'  hollow  bosom  of  some  hideous  cave ; 
Here  a  highway,  and  there  a  narrow  path ; 
Here  pines,  there  oaks,  torn  by  tempestuous  wrath. 
Here,  from  a  craggy  rock's  steep-hanging  boss, 
Thrummed  half  with  ivy,  half  with  crisped  moss, 
A  silver  brook  in  broken  streams  doth  gush, 
And  headlong  down  the  horned  cliff  doth  rush ; 
Then,  winding  thence  above  and  under  ground, 
A  goodly  garden  it  bempateth  round. 
There,  on  his  knee,  behind  a  box-tree  shrinking, 
A  skilful  gunner,  with  his  left  eye  winking, 
Levels  directly  at  an  oak  hard  by, 
Whereon  a  hundred  groaning  culvers  cry  : 
Down  falls  the  cock,  up  from  the  touch-pan  flies 
A  ruddy  flash  that  in  a  moment  dies ; 
Off  goes  the  gun,  and  through  the  forest  rings 
The  thundering  bullet,  borne  on  fiery  wings. 
Here,  on  a  green,  two  striplings,  stripped  light, 
Run  for  a  prize  with  laboursome  delight ; 
A  dusty  cloud  about  their  feet  doth  flow ; 
Their  feet,  and  head,  and  hands,  and  all  do  go ; 
They  swelt  in  sweat ;  and  yet  the  following  rout 
Hastens  their  haste  with  many  a  cheerful  shout. 
Here  six  pied  oxen,  under  painful  yoke, 
Rip  up  the  folds  of  Ceres'  winter  cloak. 
Here,  in  the  shade,  a  pretty  shepherdess 
Drives  softly  home  her  bleating  happiness  : 
Still,  as  she  goes,  she  spins ;  and,  as  she  spins, 
A  man  would  think  some  sonnet  she  begins. 
Here  runs  a  river,  there  springs  up  a  fountain  ; 
Here  vales  a  valley,  there  ascends  a  mountain ; 
Here  smokes  a  castle,  there  a  city  fumes; 
And  here  a  ship  upon  the  ocean  looms. 
In  brief,  so  lively  Art  hath  Nature  shaped 
That  in  his  work  the  workman's  self  is  rapt, 
Unable  to  look  off ;  for,  looking  still, 
The  more  he  looks  the  more  he  finds  his  skill. 


94  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

So  th'  Architect  whose  glorious  workmanships 
My  cloudy  muse  doth  but  too  much  eclipse, 
Having  with  painless  pain  and  careless  care 
In  these  Six  Days  finished  the  table  fair 
And  infinite  of  th'  Universal  Ball, 
Resteth  this  day,  t'  admire  himself  in  all, 
And  for  a  season,  eying  nothing  else, 
Joys  in  his  work,  sith  all  his  work  excels." 

The  Second  Part  of  the  poem,  entitled  metaphorically  THE 
SECOND  WEEK,  is,  though  unfinished,  considerably  longer 
than  the  first.  It  is  a  metrical  paraphrase  of  the  Sacred 
History  of  the  World,  as  related  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
as  far  as  the  Books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles.  It  is  divided 
into  metaphorical  "  Days/'  each  corresponding  to  an  era  in 
the  Sacred  History,  and  each  entitled  by  the  name  of  a  man 
representative  of  that  era.  The  finished  portion  includes 
four  "  Days,"  entitled  Adam,  Noah,  Abraham,  and  David,  each 
treated  in  four  subdivisions.  Three  more  "Days,"  entitled 
respectively  Zedechias,  Messias,  and  the  Eternal  Sabbath, 
were  to  have  been  added  had  the  author  lived  to  fulfil  his 
entire  plan,  as  is  indicated  in  the  invocation  with  which  the 
first  Book  commences  : — • 

"  Great  God,  which  hast  this  World's  birth  made  me  see, 
Unfold  his  cradle,  show  his  infancy  : 
Walk  thou,  my  spirit,  through  all  the  flow' ring  alleys 
Of  that  sweet  garden,  where  through  winding  valleys 
Four  lively  floods  crawled :  tell  me  what  misdeed 
Banished  both  Eden's  Adam  and  his  seed  : 
Tell  who,  immortal  mortalizing,  brought  us 
The  balm  from  Heaven  which  hoped  health  hath  wrought  us  : 
Grant  me  the  story  of  thy  Church  to  sing, 
And  gests  of  kings :  let  me  this  total  bring 
From  thy  first  Sabbath  to  his  fatal  tomb, 
My  style  extending  to  the  day  of  doom." 

It  is  with  Milton's  early  readings  in  Du  Bartas,  Spenser, 
and  other  poets,  that  we  are  bound,  by  the  concord  of  time, 
to  connect  his  own  first  efforts  in  English  verse.  Aubrey, 
as  we  have  seen,  says  he  had  been  a  poet  from  the  age  of 
ten.  Of  his  boyish  attempts  in  versification,  however,  the 
earliest  that  remain  are  two  preserved  by  himself,  and  pub 
lished  in  his  middle  life  with  the  intimation  that  they  were 
written  when  he  was  "fifteen  years  old," — i.e.  in  1624,  the 


last  year  of  his  stay  at  St.  Paul's  School.  They  are  transla 
tions  or  paraphrases  of  two  of  the  Psalms.  Both  may  be 
given  here,  the  second  somewhat  abridged,  with  the  titles 
prefixed  to  them  by  himself: — 

A  PARAPHRASE  ON  PSALM  CXIV. 

[This  and  the  following  Psalm  were  done  by  the  Author  at  fifteen  years  old.~] 

When  the  blest  seed  of  Terah's  faithful  son 

After  long  toil  their  liberty  had  won, 

And  past  from  Pharian  fields  to  Canaan  land, 

Led  by  the  strength  of  the  Almighty's  hand, 

Jehovah's  wonders  were  in  Israel  shown, 

His  praise  and  glory  were  in  Israel  known. 

That  saw  the  troubled  sea,  and  shivering  fled, 

And  sought  to  hide  his  f  roth-becurled  head 

Low  in  the  earth  ;  Jordan's  clear  streams  recoil, 

As  a  faint  host  that  hath  received  the  foil. 

The  high  huge-bellied  mountains  skip  like  rams 

Amongst  their  ewes,  the  little  hills  like  lambs. 

Why  fled  the  Ocean  1    And  why  skipt  the  Mountains  ? 

Why  turned  Jordan  toward  his  crystal  fountains  ? 

Shake,  Earth  ;  and  at  the  presence  be  aghast 

Of  Him  that  ever  was  and  aye  shall  last, 

That  glassy  floods  from  rugged  rocks  can  crush, 

And  make  soft  rills  from  fiery  flint-stones  gush. 

PSALM  CXXXVI. 

Let  us,  with  a  gladsome  mind, 
Praise  the  Lord,  for  he  is  kind  : 

For  his  mercies  aye  endure, 

Ever  faithful,  ever  sure. 

Let  us  blaze  his  name  abroad, 
For  of  Gods  he  is  the  God  : 

For  &c. 

*  *  *  * 

Who,  by  his  wisdom,  did  create 
The  painted  heavens  so  full  of  state : 

For  &c. 

Who  did  the  solid  Earth  ordain 
To  rise  above  thewatery  plain  : 
For  &c. 

Who,  by  his  all-commanding  might, 
Did  fill  the  new-made  world  with  light : 
For  &c. 


96  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME, 

And  caused  the  golden-tressed  sun 
All  the  day  long  his  course  to  run  : 
For  &c. 

The  horned  moon  to  shine  by  night 
Amongst  her  spangled  sisters  bright : 
For  &c. 

He,  with  his  thunder-clasping  hand, 
Smote  the  first-born  of  Egypt-land  : 
For  &c. 

And,  iii  despite  of  Pharaoh  fell, 
He  brought  from  thence  his  Israel : 
For  &c. 

The  ruddy  waves  he  cleft  in  twain 
Of  the  Erythraean  main  : 
For  &c. 

The  floods  stood  still,  like  walls  of  glass, 
While  the  Hebrew  bands  did  pass  : 
For  &c. 

But  full  soon  they  did  devour 
The  tawny  king  with  all  his  power  : 
For  &c. 


All  living  creatures  he  doth  feed, 
And  with  full  hand  supplies  their  need  : 
For  &c. 

Let  us  therefore  warble  forth 
His  mighty  majesty  and  worth  : 
For  &c. 

That  his  mansion  hath  on  high 
Above  the  reach  of  mortal  eye  : 

For  his  mercies  aye  endure, 

Ever  faithful,  ever  sure. 

Warton,  Todd,  Mr.  Dunster,  and  others  who  have  ex 
amined  minutely  these  two  earliest  extant  specimens  of 
Milton's  verse,  find  in  them  rhymes,  images,  and  turns  of 
expression  which  were  almost  certainly  suggested,  they  say, 
by  Sylvester,  Spenser,  Drummond,Drayton,  Chaucer,  Fairfax, 
and  Buchanan.  Thus,  in  the  second  of  the  two,  "  golden- 
tressed  sun  "  is  either  a  version  of  Buchanan's  "  solerti  auri- 


97 

comum"  in  his  Latin  version  of  the  same  Psalm,  or  it  is 
directly  borrowed  from  Chaucer  in  Troilus  and  Cresseide  : 

"  The  golden-tressed  Phebus  high  on  loft." 

The  phrase  "  Erythraean  main"  for  the  Red  Sea  is  Sylvester's; 
and  the  word  "ruddy,"  as  applied  to  the  waves  of  this 
"Erythraean/'  conies  from  him.  "Warble  forth,"  which 
sounds  so  quaintly  in  the  last  stanza  but  one,  is  also  Syl 
vester's.  The  admired  phrase  "  tawny  king,"  as  a  name 
for  Pharaoh,  is  traced  by  Todd  to  Fairfax's  Tasso,  published 
in  1600 : 

"  Conquer'd  were  all  hot  Afric's  tawny  kings." 

Much  of  this  criticism  is  overstrained,  and  unfair  to  the 
young  poet,  who  was  quite  capable  of  the  "  golden-tressed 
sun,"  or  even  of  the  "  tawny  king,"  for  himself.  Still  the 
proof  is  clear  that,  in  his  two  Psalm-translations,  he  made 
free  use  of  phrases  lying  before  him  in  books,  and  also  that 
Sylvester  was  the  English  poet  whose 'rhymes  and  cadences 
dwelt  most  familiarly  in  his  ear.  The  first  of  the  two  para 
phrases  is  Sylvester  all  over.  " Froth-becurled  head"  is 
quite  in  his  manner;  "recoil"  and  "foil,"  and  "crush" 
and  "  gush,"  are  among  his  stereotyped  rhymes ;  the  metre 
is  Sylvester's;  and  these  two  lines,  conspicuous  for  their 
dissyllabic  endings,  look  as  if  Sylvester  had  written  them  : 

"  Why  fled  the  Ocean  ?    And  why  skipt  the  Mountains  1 
Why  turned  Jordan  from  his  crystal  fountains  1 " 

Apart  from  the  imitative  faculty  shown  in  the  verses,  they 
do  have  some  poetic  merit.  They  are  clear,  firmly-worded, 
and  harmonious.  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  them,  it  is  true, 
is  not  high.  "They  raise,"  he  says,  "no  great  expecta- 
"  tions ;  they  would  in  any  numerous  school  have  obtained 
{ '  praise,  but  not  excited  wonder."  But  would  Apollo  him 
self,  when  at  school,  have  "  excited  wonder "  by  any  para 
phrase  of  a  Hebrew  Psalm  ? 

The  young  poet  had,  of  course,  friends  about  him  to  whom 
he  showed  such  first  attempts  of  his  in  composition.  It  is 
certain  that  the  younger  Mr.  Gill  was  no  stranger  to  the 
efforts  of  his  favourite  pupil  in  his  own  metrical  art.  Young 

VOL.    I.  H 


98  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Gill,  indeed,  was  the  person  who,  at  this  time,  stood  most 
nearly  in  that  position  of  literary  mentor  to  Milton  which 
Young  had  formerly  held.  Four  years  later,  Milton,  writing 
to  Gill  from  Cambridge,  and  enclosing  some  Latin  verses  of 
that  date  for  his  inspection,  addresses  him  as  one  whom  he 
knows  to  be  "  a  very  severe  judge  in  poetical  matters,"  and 
whom  he  had  found  "  very  candid  "  heretofore  in  his  remarks 
on  his  pupiPs  productions ; l  and  in  the  same  letter  he 
adverts  to  Gill's  "  almost  constant  conversations  with  him  " 
when  they  were  together,  and  regrets  being  now  absent 
from  one  from  whose  society  he  had  never  once  gone  away 
"  without  a  manifest  accession  of  literary  knowledge."  Gill, 
as  we  are  to  see,  was  by  no  means  a  model  either  of  character 
or  of  temper ;  but  that  he  should  have  stood  for  a  year  or 
two  in  such  a  relation  to  Milton  as  Milton's  words  imply  is 
to  be  remembered  in  his  favour. 

Generally,  however,  an  ingenuous  boy  has  friends  and 
acquaintances  of  his  own  age  with  whom  he  exchanges 
deeper  confidence  than  with  his  elders.  Milton  may  have 
had  several  such  among  his  schoolfellows  at  St.  Paul's.  His 
brother  Christopher  had  entered  the  school,  a  boy  of  nine 
or  ten,  before  he  left  it.  Among  his  schoolfellows  nearer 
his  own  age  was  a  Kobert  Pory,  who  was  to  become  a  clergy 
man,  and  was  to  attain  considerable  preferment  in  the 
Episcopal  Church  of  England  after  the  Kestoration.  He 
was  probably  Milton's  form-fellow,  for  he  left  St.  Paul's 
School  for  Cambridge  along  with  Milton.  But  the  school 
fellow  between  whom  and  Milton  there  existed  the  most 
affectionate  intimacy  was  a  certain  Charles JDigdati. 

As  the  name  indicates,  Diodati  (pronounce  it  Diodati,  not 
Diodati)  was  of  Italian  extraction.  As  far  back  as  1300, 
when  Dante  was  at  his  political  zenith  in  Florence,  a  family 
of  Diodatis  is  found  settled  in  the  neighbouring  Eepublic  of 
Lucca.  Their  descent  and  ramifications  there,  in  high  civic 
repute,  and  with  the  distinction  of  having  repeatedly  fur 
nished  the  Republic  with  its  Gonfaloniere  or  chief  magis 
trate,  have  been  traced  down  of  late,  by  the  most  pains- 
1  Epist.  Fam.  3. 


CHARLES    DIODATI   AND    HIS   FAMILY.  99 

taking  research,  through  the  next  two  centuries.  In  the 
sixteenth  century  we  can  fasten  on  one  of  them,  Michele 
Diodati,  who  was  Gonfaloniere  of  Lucca  in  1541,  when  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.  and  Pope  Paul  III.  held  their  <(  memor 
able  interview  "  in  that  city  on  the  affairs  of  Germany.  By 
his  wife,  Anna  Buonvisi,  this  Michele  Diodati  had  a  large 
family  of  sons  and  daughters.  Of  the  sons,  the  third,  named 
Carolo  Diodati,  having  been  sent  to  Lyons  in  his  youth  to 
learn  banking  business  in  an  establishment  belonging  to 
his  mother's  kindred,  gave  effect  to  tendencies  towards  Pro 
testantism  that  had  already  been  working  in  the  family  and 
in  the  community  of  Lucca  generally,  and  turned  openly 
Protestant.  Driven  from  France  by  the  St.  Bartholomew 
Massacre  of  1572,  he  settled  in  Geneva,  to  the  citizenship 
of  which  he  was  admitted  on  the  29th  of  December  in  that 
year,  and  where  there  were  already  a  number  of  Italian 
refugee  Protestants  like  himself,  forming  a  little  Protestant 
Italian  congregation.  His  first  wife  having  died,  he  married, 
for  his  second,  a  Marie  Mei  of  Geneva,  whose  parents  were 
from  Lucca ;  and  by  her  he  had  four  sons,  Joseph,  Jean  or 
Giovanni,  Theodore,  and  Samuel,  and  three  daughters, 
Anne,  Marie,  and  Madeleine.  He  lived  to  a  great  age, 
seeing  these  children  variously  disposed  of,  most  of  them 
remaining  in  or  about  Geneva ;  whither  also  there  had  fol 
lowed  him,  since  his  first  settlement  there,  others  of  the 
Diodatis  from  Lucca,  "  apostate  from  the  Catholic  Religion  " 
(Caiholicci  pejeratd  fide) ,  including  a  cousin,  named  Pompeio 
Diodati,  with  that  cousin's  Italian  wife,  Laura  Calandrini, 
and  some  of  her  relatives. — Of  the  sons  of  this  Carolo 
Diodati,  the  original  Protestant  refugee  in  Geneva  from 
among  the  Diodatis  of  Lucca,  one  attained  European 
celebrity.  This  was  the  third  son,  Jean  or  Giovanni  Diodati, 
born  at  Geneva  in  1576.  He  was  the  famous  Genevese 
theologian  Diodati,  whose  name  is  now  chiefly  remembered 
in  association  with  the  Italian  version  of  the  Scriptures, 
called  Diodati' s  Bible,  which  he  published  in  1607,  but 
whose  many  other  distinctions  in  his  life-time,  such  as  his 
Professorship  of  Hebrew  in  the  University  of  Geneva,  his 

H  2 


100  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

eloquent  and  eminent  pastorship  in  that  city,  his  conspicuous 
deputyship  to  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  his  leadership,  both 
personally  and  by  numerous  writings  in  French  and  Italian, 
in  the  continental  controversy  between  Eoman  Catholicism 
and  Protestantism,  and  in  the  subordinate  controversy  be 
tween  Protestant  Arminianism  and  Protestant  Calvinistic 
orthodoxy,  it  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate.  His  wife, 
married  in  Geneva,  was  a  Madeleine  Burlamaqui,  and  he  died 
there  in  1649,  having  had  five  sons  and  four  daughters. — 
Theodore  Diodati,  the  next  older  brother  of  the  great 
Genevese  divine,  and  born  at  Geneva  in  1574,  had  adopted 
the  medical  profession,  had  come  over  to  England  in  early 
life,  had  married  there  an  English  lady  of  .some  means,  and 
had  obtained  considerable  practice  and  reputation  as  a 
physician.  In  1609  he  is  heard  of  as  living  near  Brentford, 
"  then  physician  to  Prince  Henry  and  the  Lady  Elizabeth"  ; 
and  there  is  a  curious  story  in  Fuller's  Worthies,  Co. 
Middlesex,  of  an  extraordinary  cure  performed  by  him  in 
that  year  on  one  Tristram,  a  gardener  of  the  neighbourhood, 
by  unusually  copious  blood-letting,  no  less  than  sixty  ounces 
of  blood  within  three  days.1  His  diploma  or  qualification 
to  practice  at  that  time  and  for  a  good  while  afterwards 
seems  to  have  been  a  foreign  one  only ;  for  it  was  not  till 
Jan.  1616-17  that  he  was'  admitted  a  Licentiate  of  the 
London  College  of  Physicians,  having  previously  strength 
ened  his  claims  by  taking  the  regular  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Medicine  at  the  University  of  Leyden  on  the  5th  of  October 
1615.2  Thenceforward  his  residence  seems  to  have  been  in 
London;  where,  at  all  events,  he  is  found  residing  during 
the  main  part  of  his  subsequent  life,  his  house  being  in 
the  parish  of  Little  St.  Bartholomew,  near  Bartholomew's 
Hospital.  His  practice  seems  to  have  been  extensive, 
especially  among  persons  of  rank,  and  to  have  taken  him 

1  The  cure,  which  seems  to  have  been  second  edition,  published  in  1630,  Hake- 
much  talked  of  in  the  medical  world  will  prints  a  letter  from  Diodati  him- 
then  and  afterwards,  was  mentioned  self,  dated  Sept.  30,  1629,  giving  the 
incorrectly  in  the  first  edition  of  Hake-  exact  particulars. 

will's   Apology,  or  Declaration  of   the  2  Munk's  Roll  of  the  Royal  College 

Power  and  Providence  of  God,  published  Physicians,  I.  160. 
in  1627 ;  and  in  the  Appendix  to  the 


CHARLES    DIODATI    AND    HIS    FAMILY.  101 

often  into  the  country  to  considerable  distances.  Before 
1624  he  is  found  applying  to  King  James  for  the  post  of 
Physician  to  the  Tower,  and  referring  for  evidence  of  his 
fitness  to  "  Monsieur  de  Mayerne,"  the  royal  physician, 
afterwards  Sir  Theodore  Mayerne.1  In  fact,  not  only  as 
being  the  brother  of  the  great  Genevese  divine,  but  also  on 
his  own  account,  Dr.  Theodore  Diodati  of  Little  St.  Bar. 
tholomew,  whose  foreign  name  was  varied,  for  the  con 
venience  of  his  more  slovenly  neighbours,  into  Deodate, 
Dyodat,  and  still  other  forms,  must  have  been  a  much 
respected  personage  and  of  very  considerable  social  mark 
among  the  Londoners.  He  might  even  be  made  to  figure 
with  some  interest  in  a  history  of  the  state  of  the  medical 
art  in  his  time ;  for,  among  numerous  memoranda  of  old 
physicians  and  old  medical  practice  preserved  among  the 
Ayscough  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum,  there  is  a  document, 
of  about  sixteen  neatly-written  pages,  giving  copies  of  about 
173  of  Dr.  Theodore  Diodati's  favourite  prescriptions.  As 
I  looked  at  them,  the  extreme  compositeness  and  whim 
sicality  of  some  of  them,  with  the  recollection  of  the  tre 
mendous  blood-letting  at  Qrentford  in  1609,  would  have 
roused  a  sense  of  alarm  for  those  whose  fortune  it  was  to  be 
patients  of  the  good  Italian  doctor,  had  I  not  had  evidence 
enough  that  they  might  have  fared  worse,  in  the  matter  of 
drugs  at  least,  by  going  to  any  one  else. — Our  immediate 
concern  with  the  naturalized  Italian  physician,  however, 
is  of  a  more  special  kind.  By  his  English  wife  he  had,  at 
the  time  at  which  we  are  now  concerned  with  him,  three 
children  living.  There  was  a  daughter,  called  Philadelphia 
Diodati;  there  was  a  son,  named  John,  doubtless  after  his 
uncle,  the  Genevese  divine ;  and  there  was  another  son, 
Charles  Diodati,  named  probably  after  his  grandfather, 
Carolo,  the  original  Protestant  refugee  from  Lucca,  who 
had  been  a  Genevese  citizen  and  banker  or  merchant  since 
1572.  This  old  grandfather,  it  appears,  was  alive  as  late  as 
1625,  to  take  interest  not  only  in  his  various  Genevese 

i  An   undated  memorial  by  him  in   French,  which  I  have   seen  among  the 
English  State  Papers. 


102  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

descendants,  but  also  in  the  English  offshoots  from  him 
through  his  son  Dr.  Theodore.  Communications  had  been 
kept  up,  at  all  events,  between  the  London  Diodatis  and 
their  Genevese  relatives ;  the  celebrated  Uncle  John  him 
self  had  recently  been  on  a  visit  to  London ;  and  the  children 
of  the  London  physician  must  have  heard  much,  and  learnt 
to  think  much,  of  him  in  particular,  and  of  his  house  in 
Geneva  and  their  unknown  cousins  there.1 

The  half-Italian  Charles  Diodati  comes  to  be  so  vitally 
important  a  person  in  Milton's  biography  that  the  reader 
will  not  find  these  particulars  of  his  ancestry  and  parentage 
superfluous.  Born  in  1609,  he  was  almost  exactly  of  the 
same  age  as  Milton,  or  but  a  a  few  months  younger.  In 
the  routine  of  scholastic  study,  however,  he  had  somewhat 
the  start  of  Milton.  He  had  been  sent  at  a  very  early  age 
to  St.  Paul's  School,  and  he  passed  thence,  in  February 
1622-3,  to  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  the  College  to  which  the 
younger  Gill  still  belonged  by  registration  on  its  books,  and 
which  he  had  but  recently  left  in  person.  Notwithstanding 
this  disparity,  an  intimacy  had  sprung  up  between  young 

i  My  authorities  for  the  account  of  family  at  our  present  date  that  we 
the  Diodati  family  given  in  the  first  have  been  able  to  recognise  a  Phila- 
edition  of  this  volume  were  chiefly  delphia  Diodati  as'a  daughter  of  the 
Milton's  Epistola  Familiares  6  and  7,  London  physician  alive  at  that  date, 
his  Latin  Elegies  1  and  6,  and  his  Epi-  and  to  determine  the  name  of  one  of 
taphium  Damonis,  with  the  notes  of  her  two  brothers  as  John.  "We  shall 
Warton  and  Todd  to  the  Elegies  and  have  to  recur  to  this  Diodati  research 
Epitaph,  and  such  findings  of  my  own  of  Colonel  Chester's  and  to  mention 
as  appear  in  the  last  three  foot-notes.  other  particulars  in  it.  Meanwhile  I 
In  the  present  text,  however,  I  have  have  to  acknowledge  also  my  obliga- 
been  able  to  add  very  considerably  to  tions  in  the  text  to  an  elaborate 
the  previous  information,  and  to  certify  American  Genealogical  Essay,  entitled 
new  particulars  in  the  genealogy.  This  Mr.  William  Diodate  and  his  Italian 
has  been  rendered  possible,  in  the  first  Ancestry,  read  before  the  New  Haven 
place,  by  some  interesting  discoveries  Colony  Historical  Society,  June  28, 
of  Colonel  Chester  respecting  the  Lon-  1875^  by  Professor  Edward  E.  Salis- 
don  Diodatis,  kindly  communicated  by  bury,  LL.D,,  and  printed  by  him  for 
him  to  myself.  Numerous  as  have  private  circulation.  The  "  Mr.  William 
been  Colonel  Chester's  contributions  of  Diodate  "  who  gives  the  title  to  the 
such  particulars  to  Milton's  Biography,  Essay  was  a  grandson  of  John  Diodati, 
none  has  been  more  important  than  the  brother  of  Milton's  friend  Charles, 
one  which  I  had  an  opportunity  of  He  emigrated  to  New  Haven  before 
making  public  in  the  Preface  to  the  1717,  and  died  there  in  1751,  leaving 
Cambridge  Edition  of  Milton's  Poetical  traces  of  himself  in  the  history  of  the 
Works  in  1874.  It  appertains  primarily  Colony,  which  Mr.  Salisbury  has  re- 
to  a  point  in  the  Biography  not  covered.  It  was  the  interest  of  his 
reached  in  the  present  volume  ;  but  name  in  its  Miltouic  and  other  con- 
it  is  by  the  light  which  it  threw  back  nexions.  that  moved  Mr.  Salisbury  to 
on  tLe  circumstances  of  the  Diodati  those  minute  and  persevering  iuvesti- 


SISTEE.  103 

Milton  and  young  Diodati  much  closer  than  is  common  even 
between  schoolfellows  of  the  same  form.1  Milton's  refer 
ences  to  their  friendship  in  some  of  his  subsequent  letters 
show  how  very  familiar  it  was.  He  calls  Diodati  " pectus 
amans  nostri,  tamque  fidele  caput "  (:f  my  own  loving 
heart,  my  so  faithful  one ") ;  he  calls  him  also  his  ' '  lepi- 
diim  sodalem"  (" sprightly  companion");  and  once,  when 
Diodati,  sending  him  some  verses,  asks  for  some  in  return 
in  proof  of  continued  affection,  Milton  protests  that  his  love 
is  too  great  to  be  conveyed  in  metre.  From  the  tone  of 
these  references  one  imagines  Diodati  as  a  quick,  amiable, 
intelligent  youth,  with  something  of  his  Italian  descent 
visible  in  his  face  and  manner.  Milton,  while  at  St.  Paul's, 
must  have  been  often  in  the  Italian  physician's  house,  and 
acquainted  with  the  whole  family,  Charles's  brother  John 
and  his  sister  Philadelphia  included.  It  is  to  be  remeni- 
bered,  however,  that  during  the  last  year  or  two  of  Milton's 
stay  at  school  Diodati  was  a  student  "at  Oxford,  and  that  so 
their  communications  were  necessarily  less  frequent  then 
than  they  had  been. 

At  the  close  of  the  year  1624,  or  shortly  after  the  Para 
phrases  of  Psalms  cxiv.  and  cxxxvi.  were  written,  Milton  too 
was  ready  for  College.  As  it  happened,  however,  it  was  not 
his  departure,  but  that  of  another  member  of  the  family, 
that  was  to  cause  the  first  break  in  the  little  household  of 
Bread  Street.  While  the  poet  had  been  receiving  his 
lessons  from  Young  and  other  domestic  masters,  and  while 
he  and  his  brother  Christopher  had  been  attending  St. 
Paul's  School,  their  elder  sister  Anne  had  grown  up,  under 
such  education  as  was  deemed  suitable  for  her,  into  a  young 
woman  of  from  .eighteen  to  two-and-twenty,  and  a  very 

gations  of  the  Diodati  genealogy  gener-  possess  a  copy  of  his  Essay,  and  also 

ally  the  results  of  which  he  has  pre-  one  of  a  paper  printed  by  him  in  1878, 

seiitecl  in  his  Essay,  both  in  a  connected  entitled  A  Supplement  to   the  Diodati 

historical  narrative  and  in  a  vast  ap-  Genealogy. 

peuded  table  of  pedigree.     Ir.corporat-  *  This     intimacy     of     Milton     with 

ing  Colonel   Chester's   discoveries  re-  Diodati,  who  left  St.  Paul's  School  in 

spectiug  the  London  Diodatis,  he  sue-  1622-3,  is  one   of    the    circumstances 

ceeds,  most  wonderfully,  in  tracing  out  which   make  it   all    but    certain    that 

the  prior  Geuevese  and   Italian   Dio-  Milton  entered  the  school  as  early  as 

datis.     By  his  own   courteous   gift,  I  1620,  if  not  earlier. 


104  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

desirable  match  for  somebody.  Accordingly,  during  the 
year  1624,  a  frequent  visitor  in  the  house  in  Bread  Street 
had  been  a  certain  Mr.  Edward  Phillips,  originally  from 
Shrewsbury,  but  now  for  a  considerable  number  of  years 
resident  in  London,  where  he  held  a  very  good  situation  in 
an  important  Government  office,  called  the  Crown  Office  in 
Chancery.  He  had  been  ' '  bred  up  "  in  this  office,  and  had 
at  last  come  to  be  "  secondary  of  the  office  under  old  Mr. 
Bembo,"  i.  e.  to  be  the  person  in  the  office  immediately  next 
to  Mr.  John  Benbow,  who  was  styled  the  Deputy  Clerk  of 
the  Crown  and  was  the  real  managing  man  under  the  Chief 
Clerk.  Phillips  may  have  been  well  known  to  the  elder 
Milton,  professionally  and  otherwise ;  and  the  younger 
Milton  may  have  heard  one  day  without  surprise  that  he 
was  the  accepted  suitor  of  his  sister  Anne.  Some  time 
towards  the  close  of  the  year,  as  near  as  can  be  guessed, 
the  marriage  took  place,1  the  bride  "  having  a  considerable 
dowry  given  her  by  her  father  " ;  and  then  the  poet's  sister, 
/  now  Mrs.  Phillips,  removed  from  Bread  Street  to  a  house  of 
her  own,  in  the  Strand,  near  Charing  Cross.2 

The  marriage  of  the  poet's  sister  does  not  seem  to  have 
taken  place  in  the  parish  of  Allhallows,  Bread  Street.  Had 
it  taken  place  there,  and  had  Mr.  Stocke  himself  not  per 
formed  the  ceremony,  it  might  have  been  performed  by  a 
curate  whom  Mr.  Stocke  had  then  recently  engaged  to  assist 

1  The  authority  for  this  approximate  Notitia  for  the  year  1671  may  be  in- 
date  will  afterwards  appear.  teresting  : — "  This  office  is  of  high  im- 

2  Life  of  Milton  by  Phillips  ;  Wood's  "  portance.  He  (the  Clerk  of  the  Crown) 
Ath.  IV.  760;  and  Stow's  London  by  "is  either  by  himself  or  deputy  con- 
Strype  (1720),  Book  YI.  p.  69.   The  last  "  tinually  to  attend  the  Lord  Chancellor 
gives  the  Latin  epitaph   of   "  old  Mr.  "  or  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  for  special 
Bembo,"  or   Mr.  John   Benbow,  from  "  matters  of  state,  and  hath  a  place  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Martin's  in  the  Fields,  "  the  higher  House  of  Parliament.    He 
from  which  it  appears  that  he  died  Oct.  "  makes  all  writs  for  summoning  Par- 
7,  1625,  setat.  61,  after  having  been  in  "liaments,  and  also  writs  for  new  elec- 
the  Crown  Office  forty  years,  and  lat-  "tions  of   members  of   the  House  of 
terly  Deputy  Clerk.     As  "  secondary  "  "  Commons,  upon  warrant  directed  to 
under  him,  therefore,  Mr.  Phillips-Can  "  him  by  the  Speaker,  upon  the  death 
have  been  but  the  third  person  in  the  "  or  removal  of  any  member ;  also  corn- 
office  ;  and,  if  he  came  to  be  the  second  "  missions  of  oyer  and  terminer,  gaol- 
person  or  Deputy  Clerk,  it  must  have  "  delivery,  commissions  of  peace,  and 
been  after  Mr.  Benbow's  death.     Re-  "  many  other  commissions  distributing 
specting  the  duties  of  the  ancient  office  "  justice   to   His    Majesty's   subjects." 
of  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  (abolished  by  It  may  have  been  useful  to  the  scrivener 
stat.  2  and  3  William  IV.)  the  following  in  business  to  have  a  son-in-law  in  such 
extract    from     Chamberlain's    Anyliae  a  Government  office. 


THE    SPANISH    MATCH.  105 

him  in  his  declining  years,  and  whose  name  was  to  be  known 
in  the  Church  of  England  long  after  Mr.  Stocke's  had  been 
forgotten.  This  was  the  Rev.  Brian  Walton,  M.A.,  the 
future  editor  of  the  Polyglott  Bible  and  Bishop  of  Chester, 
then  fresh  from  Cambridge,  and  about  twenty-four  years  of 
age.1  Ib  is  something  in  the  early  life  of  Milton  that  he 
must,  if  but  for  a  few  months,  have  seen  the  future  Polyglott 
in  the  pulpit  in  Bread  Street  and  heard  him  preach. 

Passing  from  such  matters-  as  these,  specially  interesting 
to  the  household  in  Bread  Street,  into  the  larger  world  of 
political  events,  we  find  the  all-engrossing  business  of  1623 
and  1624  to  have  been  still  that  of  the  "Spanish  Match." 
We  have  seen  with  what  disgust  the  English  had  regarded 
the  apathy  of  James  and  Buckingham  when  James's  son-in- 
law,  the  Elector-Palatine,  was  maintaining  the  Protestant 
cause  against  the  Emperor,  and  with  what  rage  they  saw 
the  Elector  crushed  in  the  contest,  deprived  not  only  of  the 
Bohemian  kingdom,  but  of  the  Palatinate  itself,  and  driven, 
with  his  British-born  wife,  into  a  mean  exile  in  Holland. 
The  feeling  then  was  that,  as  the  Palatinate  had  been  lost 
from  the  want  of  timely  assistance  from  England,  the  least 
that  England  could  do  was  to  labour  for  its  recovery.  This 
feeling  broke  out  strongly  in  James's  third  parliament 
(1621-2),  which,  though  refractory  on  every  other  point, 
showed  a  wonderful  willingness  to  grant  subsidies  for  the 
recovery  of  the  Palatinate.  But  the  king  was  very  sluggish. 
The  same  cause  which  had  kept  him  from  moving  in  defence 
of  the  Palatinate  prevented  him  from  any  sincere  effort  now. 
His  Protestant  theology  was  not  proof  against  the  chance  of  < 
suchaRoman  Catholic  daughter-in-law  as  the  Spanish  Infanta, 
whose  dowry  would  be  counted  by  millions.  The  nation, 
accordingly,  had  been  greatly  agitated  when  day  by  day  the 
business  of  the  Spanish  Match  seemed  to  be  approaching  the 
dreaded  conclusion,  and  especially  when  at  last,  in  February 
1622-3,  Prince  Charles,  with  the  Marquis  of  Buckingham 
as  his  escort,  set  out  secretly  for  the  Continent,  on  his  way 
to  Madrid.  For  months  after  the  departure  of  the  Prince 

1  Wood's  Fasti,  II.  82. 


106  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  country  was  full  of  sinister  rumours.  It  was  rumoured 
that  the  Court  of  Madrid  were  tampering  with  the  faith  of 
the  Prince,  and  it  was  known  that  pledges  had  been  given 
favourable  to  the  Catholic  Religion  in  England.  To  alarmists 
there  seemed  to  be  nothing  between  the  English  nation  and 
what  they  dreaded  most, — a  repetition  of  the  reign  of  Philip 
and  Mary.  What,  then,  were  the  rejoicings  over  England 
when  it  was  suddenly  announced,  in  the  autumn  of  1623, 
that  the  match  had  after  all  been  broken  off,  and  that  the 
Prince  was  on  his  way  to  England  without  the  Infanta !  In 
September  1623  the  Prince  did  return;  for  some  months  the 
delight  was  boundless;  and  in  February  1623-4,  when  a 
new  parliament  met,  it  was  to  congratulate  the  king  on  the 
rupture  with  Spain  and  to  urge  him  to  make  the  rupture 
complete  by  declaring  war.  James,  aging  and  feeble,  reluc 
tantly  consented.  What  mattered  it  that  the  preparations 
were  of  no  avail,  that  the  levies  against  Spain  died  of  pesti 
lence  on  board  their  ships,  without  being  able  to  land  on 
any  part  of  the  continent  ?  What  mattered  it  even  that  the 
Prince,  free  from  his  engagements  to  one  Catholic  princess, 
was  about  to  marry  another,  in  the  person  of  the  Princess 
Henrietta- Maria,  youngest  sister  of  the  reigning  French  king, 
Louis  XIII.  ?  Was  not  this  princess  the  daughter  of  the 
great  Henry  IV.,  once  the  hero  of  the  French  Huguenots, 
who,  though  he  had  embraced  Roman  Catholicism  in  order 
to  secure  the  crown,  had  all  his  reign,  from  1593  to  1610, 
governed  France  on  Protestant  rather  than  Catholic  methods  ? 
Was  not  French  Roman  Catholicism,  with  all  its  faults,  a 
very  different  thing  from  Spanish  Roman  Catholicism  ? 

Such  was  the  main  drift  of  national  events  and  of  the 
national  sentiment  during  the  four  or  five  years  of  Milton's 
life  spent  at  St.  Paul's  School.  Of  the  hundreds  of  smaller 
contemporary  events,  each  a  topic  of  nine  days'  interest  to 
the  English  people  in  general  or  the  people  of  London  in 
particular,  a  few  may  be  selected  by  way  of  sample  : — 

1620-21,  March  15  (the  Poet  in  his  thirteenth  year).— Proceedings 
in  Parliament  against  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  for  bribery.  They 
issued  in  his  conviction  and  confession,  and  his  sentence  to  be  dis 
missed  from  office,  to  be  disqualified  for  ever  for  the  King's  service, 


INCIDENTS    OF    1620—1624.  107 

to  be  banished  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  Court,  to  pay  a  fine  of 
£40,000,  and  to  be  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  during  the  King's 
pleasure.  The  heavier  portions  of  the  sentence  were  immediately 
remitted  ;  but  Bacon  retired  a  disgraced  and  ruined  man. 

1621,  July.— Abbot,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  accidentally  kills 
a  gamekeeper  with  an  arrow  at  a  deer-hunt.  As  the  Archbishop  was 
favourable  to  the  Puritans,  a  great  deal  was  made  of  the  accident  at 
Court.  It  was  even  debated  whether,  as  having  shed  man's  blood,  he 
was  not  incapacitated  for  his  sacred  office. 

1623 :  Sunday,  Oct.  26  (the  Poet  in  his  sixteenth  year). — Great 
commotion  caused  in  London  by  the  Fatal  Vespers  in  Blackfriars — 
i.  e.  by  the  fall  of  a  building  or  chapel  in  Blackfriars  in  which  a 
congregation  of  Catholics  had  met  to  celebrate  mass.  Upwards  of 
a  hundred  persons  were  killed ;  and,  as  the  public  feeling  against  the 
Catholics  and  the  Spanish  Match  was  then  at  its  height,  the  accident 
was  regarded  as  a  judgment  of  God  upon  the  hated  sect.  In  the 
interest  of  this  view,  it  was  noted  by  the  curious  that  the  day  of  the 
accident,  the  26th  of  October,  was  the  5th  of  November  in  the  Papal 
reckoning.  No  one  was  more  ferocious  on  the  occasion  than  young 
Gill.  Among  his  Latin  poems  there  is  6ne  expressly  describing  the 
accident.  It  is  entitled  In  ruinam  C amerce  Papisticce  Londini.  Here 
are  a  few  of  the  lines  :— 

Est  locus  ab  atris  qui  vetus  fraterculis 
Traxisse  nomen  fertur  :  hie  Satanas  mod6 
Habuit  sacellum  :  hue,  proprio  infortunio, 
Octobris  in  vicesimo  et  sexto  die 
(Atqui,  secundum  computum  Papisticum, 

8uinto  Novembris),  turba  Catholica  frequens 
onfluxit.1 

"Be  not  elated,"  says  Gill  in  continuation,  addressing  the  Roman 
Catholics  whom  he  imagines  assembled  in  the  crazy  tenement ;  "  though 
'  our  benignant  Prince  sees  fit  to  let  you  meet  for  your  idolatrous 
'  worship,  God  himself  takes  his  cause  in  hand.  Just  while  the 
'  Jesuit  is  getting  on  fluently  with  his  oration,  and  pouring  out  his 
'vituperations  of  the  orthodox  and  his  welcome  blasphemies,  crash 
'goes  the  framework  of  the  house,  and  where  are  you?" — There  is  a 
notice  of  this  famous  Blackfriars  Accident,  with  a  list  of  sixty-eight 
of  the  persons  killed,  in  Historical  Notices  of  events  occurring  chiefly 
during  the  Reign  of  Charles  /.,  printed  in  1869  from  the  MSS.  of 
Nehemiah  Wallington,  of  St.  Leonard's,  Eastcheap. 

1623,  Nov.  9.— The  great  scholar  Camden  dies.  As  was  usual  on 
such  occasions,  obituary  verses  were  written  by  the  pupils  and  other 
admirers  of  the  deceased  ;  and  a  volume  of  such,  by  Oxford  scholars, 
was  published  shortly  afterwards  under  the  title  of  "  Camdeni  Insig 
nia"  (Oxon.  1624).  One  of  the  pieces  contained  in  it  was  a  set  of 
Horatian  stanzas  by  Charles  Diodati,  of  Trinity  College.  Here  are 
two  of  the  stanzas  : — 

"  Sed  nee  brevis  te  sarcophagus  teget, 
Camdene,  totum ;  multaque  pars  tui 
Vitabit  umbras,  et  superstes 
Fama  per  omne  vigebit  sevum. 

i  Gill's  Foetid  Conatus,  1632. 


108  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Donee  Britannum  spumeus  alluet 
Neptunus  oras,  dumque  erit  Anglia 
Ab  omnibus  divisa  terris, 

Magna  tui  monumenta  vivent." 

1624-5,  January  and  February  (the  Poet  just  beginning  his  seven 
teenth  year). — As  events  of  these  months  we  may  mention  two  fresh 
"  poetic  efforts  "  of  young  Gill.  The  one  is  a  Latin  poem  sent,  on  the 
1st  of  January,  to  Thomas  Farnabie  the  schoolmaster,  "along  with  a 
skin  of  Canary  wine  "  (  "  cum  utre  vini  Canarii  plena  ") .  The  other,  still 
more  characteristic,  is  a  poem  addressed  to  his  father,  old  Mr.  Gill,  on 
his  sixtieth  birthday  ( "  Inparentis  mei  natalem  cum  ipse  sexagesimum 
cetatis  annum  compleret "),  Feb.  27, 1624-5.  Here  are  a  few  of  the  lines  : 

"  Forte  aliquis  dicet  patrios  me  inquirere  in  annos ; 
Nee  desunt  tibi  qui  vellent  suadere  senectae 
Quod  mihi  longa  tuse  rupendaque  fila  videntur. 
Si  tamen  est  Numen,  quod  nos  auditque  videtque, 
Explorans  justo  trepidas  examine  fibras ; 
Si  meus  es  genitor ;  si  sum  tua  vera  propago ; 
Si  parte  ex  aliqu£  similis  tibi  forte  patrisso ; 
Si  credis  primum  me  te  fecisse  parentem  ; 
Si  speras,  manibus  junctis  et  poplite  flexo, 
Quod  mea  te  soboles  primo  decorabit  aviti 
Nomine  :  mitte,  precor,  vanas  de  pectore  curas, 
Atque  mei  posthac  securus  yive  maligna 
Suspicione  procul.     Nam  tristes  cur  ego  patris 
Promittam  exsequias  ?  mihi  quid  tua  funera  prosint  1 
Quas  mihi  divitias,  quse  culta  novalia,  linques  1" l 

In  plain  English  thus  : — "  Perchance  some  one  will  tell  you  that 
"I  am  speculating  on  my  father's  age  •  nor  are  kind  friends  wanting 
"  who  would  wish  to  persuade  you  that  I  think  the  thread  of  your 
"  life  rather  long  spun  out  already  and  quite  fit  for  breaking.  But,  if 
"there  is  a  God  who  both  sees  and  hears  us,  searching  with  just 
"  scrutiny  our  trembling  fibres ;  if  thqu  art  indeed  my  father ;  if  I 
"  am  thy  true  offspring ;  if  in  anything  I  take  after  you  ;  if  you 
"believe  that  I  first  made  you  a  parent;  if  you  hope,  with  joined 
"  hands  and  bent  knee,  that  my  offspring  will  first  decorate  you  with 
"  the  name  of  grandfather  :  throw  vain  cares  aside,  and  henceforth  let 
"  all  suspicion  of  me  be  far  from  you.  For  why  should  I  look  forward 
"  to  the  melancholy  obsequies  of  my  father  1  What  good  would  your 
"  death  do  me  1  What  riches,  what  cultivated  acres,  will  you  leave  me  t" 

A  comfortable  kind  of  letter,  truly,  for  a  father  to  receive 
from  a  son  on  his  sixtieth  birthday  !  Meanwhile,  as  far 
as  Milton  is  corcerned,  we  have  been  anticipating  a  little. 
Fully  a  fortnight  before  Mr.  Gill  received  the  above  delicate 
missive  from  his  son,  Milton  had  taken  his  leave  both  of 
father  and  son,  and  had  begun  his  college-life  at  Cam 
bridge. 

1  Gill's  Foetid  Conatus,  1632. 


BOOK  II. 

1625—1632. 
CAMBEIDGE. 

I.    CAMBEIDGE  AND  ITS  DONS  IN  1625. 

II.    MILTON'S  SEVEN  YEARS  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY,  WITH  THE 
INCIDENTS  OF  THAT  PERIOD  :  1625 — 1632. 

III.   ACADEMIC  STUDIES  AND  RESULTS  :   MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES 
ORATORIO. 


CHAPTER  I. 

CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625. 

MILTON  was  admitted  a  Lesser  Pensioner  of  Christ's  Col 
lege,  Cambridge,  on  the  12th  of  February,  1624-5.1  He 
was  on  ft  of  fourteen  students  registprprl  irLJJi^g^ihrj^v]^ 
of  the  CoHege_a& Jigging  been  admit ted^during^the_  half- 
jear  between__^Qcliaelmas_lM4^iad  Lady-Day  162  L  The 
following  is  the  list  of  the  fourteen,  translated  from  the 
entry-book  :2 — 

Catalogue  of  the  Students  who  were  admitted  into  Christ's  College  from 
Michaelmas  1624  to  Lady- Day  1625  :  Arthur  Scott,  Pr selector . 

Richard  Pegge,  native  of  Derby,  son  of  Jonas  Pegge  :  initiated  in 
the  rudiments  of  grammar  in  the  public  school  of  Aderston, 
under  the  care  of  Mr.  Bedford,  master  of  the  same  :  admitted  a 
sizar  Oct.  24,  1624,  under  Mr.  Cooke,  and  paid  entrance-fee  5s. 

Edward  Donne,  native  of  London,  son  of  Marmaduke  Donne, 
Presbyter  :  admitted  first  into  St.  John's  College  under  the 
tutorship  of  Mr.  Horsmanden,  and  there  for  two  years,  more  or 
less,  studied  letters  :  thereafter  transferred  himself  to  our  College, 
was  admitted  a  lesser  pensioner  under  the  tutorship  of  Mr.  Gell, 
and  paid  entrance-fee  10s. 

Thomas  Chote,  native  of  Essex,  son  of  Thomas  Chote  :  admitted  a 
lesser  pensioner  under  Mr.  Gell,  Nov.  1624,  and  paid  entrance- 
fee  10s. 

Richard  Britten,  native  of  Essex,  son  of  William  Britten  :  ad 
mitted  a  sizar  Dec.  21,  1624,  under  Mr.  Gell,  and  paid  entrance- 
fee  5s. 

Robinson.  [As  there  is  no  farther  entry  opposite  this  name, 

Robinson  must  have  failed  to  reappear.] 

(  *  Jt  may  be  well  here  to  remind  the  oning  that  day  was  the  12th  of  Feb. 

reader  of   the  reason  for  this  double  1624.      The  confusion   is    farther  iu- 

mode  of  dating.     TiU  IjTSJ  the  year  in  creased  by  the  fact  that  in  JJcQiland 

England  was  considered  to   begin  on  afterlGOO  the  year  did  begin,  as  now, 

the  25th  of  March.     All  those  days,  on  thlTIst  of  January, 

therefore,  between    the   31st   of    De-  2  From  a  copy  kindly  furnished  me 

cember  and  the  25th  of  March,  which  by  Mr.  Wolstenholme,  Fellow  and  Tutor 

we  should  now  date  as  belonging  to  a  of  Christ's  College.     In  each  case  the 

particular  year,  were  then    dated  as  school  in  which  the  intrant  had  been 

belonging  to  the  year  preceding  that.  previously  educated  is  specified,  and 

According  to  our  dating,  Milton's  entry  the  schoolmaster's  name  given,  as  in 

at  Christ's  College  took  place  on  the  the  first  entry.     In  most  cases  I  have 

12th  of  Feb.  1625  ;  but  in  the  old  reck-  omitted  these  items. 


112  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


car       are,  nave  o       nc 
a^r  eater  pehsioasfc^an.  11, 
Mr;  6imppttll,-3Trchpfl^entr 
obert  Ellis,  native  of  Esse 


Richard  Earle,  native  of  Lincoln,  son  of  Augustine  Earle  :  admitted 

1624,  aged  16,  under  the  tutorship  of 
entrance-fee  20s. 

Robert  Ellis,  native  of  Essex,  son  of  Robert  Ellis  :  admitted  a 
sizar  Feb.  3,  1624,  under  Mr.  Knowesly,  and  paid  entrance- 
fee  5s. 

John  Milton,  native  of  London,  son  of  John  Milton  :  was  initiated 
in  the  elements  of  letters  under  Mr.  Gill,  master  of  St.  Paul's 
School  :  was  admitted  a  lesser  pensioner  Feb.  12,  1624,  under 
Mr.  Chappell,  and  paid  entrance-fee  105.  ("Johannes  Milton, 
Londinensis,  filius  Johannis,  institutus  fuit  in  liter  arum  dementis 

efecto; 


sub  Mro  Gill,  Gymnasii  Paulini  prcefecto;  admissus  est 

arius  minor  Feb.  12,  1624,  sub  Mro  Chappell,  solvitque  pro  ingressu 

10s.") 
Robert  Poiy,  native  of  London,  son  of  Robert  Pory  :  imbibed  the 

rudiments  of  letters  in  St.  Paul'  s  public  school,  under  the  care 

of  Mr.   Gill,  head-master  of   the  same  :  was  admitted  a  lesser 

pensioner,  under  the  tutorship  of  Mr.   Chappell,  Feb.  28,  1624, 

and  paid  entrance-fee  10s. 
Philip  Smith,  native  of  Northampton,  son  of  Thomas  Smith  :  ad 

mitted  a  sizar  under  Mr.  Sandelands,  March  2,  1624,  and  paid 

entrance-fee  5s. 
Thomas  Baldwin,  native  of  Suffolk,  son  of  James  Baldwin  :  ad 

mitted  a  lesser  pensioner  March  4,  1624,  under  Mr.  Alsop,  and 

paid  entrance-fee  10s. 
Roger  llutley,  native  of  Suffolk,  son  of  Richard  Rutley  :  admitted 

at  the  same  time,  and  under  the  same  tutor,  a  lesser  pensioner, 

and  paid  entrance-fee  10s. 
Edward  Freshwater,  native  of  Essex,  son  of  Richard  Freshwater  : 

admitted  a  lesser  pensioner  March  8,  1624,  under  Mr.  Chappell, 

and  paid  entrance-fee  10s. 
William  Jackson,  native  of  Kent,  son  of  William  Jackson:  ad 

mitted  a  lesser  pensioner  March  14,  1624,  under  the  charge  of 

Mr.  Scott,  and  paid  entrance-fee  10s. 

In  the  remaining  half  of  the  same  academic  year,  or  between 
Lady  -Day  and  Michaelmas'  1625,  there  were  thirty  fresh 
entries.  Milton,  therefore,  was  one  of  forty-three  students 
who  commenced  their  academic  course  at  Christ's  College  in 
the  year  1624-5. 

It  will  be  noted  that  eight  of  tlie  students  in  the  above 
list  entered  as  "  lesser  pensioners,"  four  as  "  sizars,"  and 
but  one  as  a  "  greater  pensioner."  The  distinction  was  one 
of  rank.  All  the  three  grades  paid  for  their  board  and 
education,  and  in  this  respect  were  distinct  from  the  scholars, 
properly  so  called,  who  belonged  to  the  foundation.  But  the 
"  greater  pensioners  "  or  "  fellow-  commoners  "  paid  most. 
They  were  usually  the  sons  of  wealthy  families  ;  and  they 
had  the  privilege  of  dining  at  the  upper  table  in  the  common 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS   DONS   IN    1625.  113 

hall  along  with  the  Fellows.  The  "sizars/'  on  the  other 
hand,  were  poorer  students ;  they  paid  least ;  and,  though 
receiving  the  same  education  as  the  others,  they  had  a  lower 
rank  and  inferior  accommodation.  Intermediate  between 
the  greater  pensioners  and  the  sizars  were  the  "  lesser 
pensioners " ;  and  it  was  to  this  class  that  the  bulk  of  the 
students  in  all  the  Colleges  at  Cambridge  belonged.  Milton, 
as  the  son  of  a  London  scrivener  in  good  circumstances, 
took  his  natural  place  in  becoming  a  "  lesser  pensioner." 
His  school-fellow  Robert  Pory,  who  entered  the  College  in 
the  same  year  and  month,  and  chose  the  same  tutor,  entered 
in  the  same  rank.  Milton's  father  and  Pory's  father  must 
have  made  up  their  minds,  in  sending  their  sons  to  Cam-  , 
bridge,  to  pay  about  £50  a-year  each,  in  the  money  of  that 
day,  for  the  expenses  of  their  maintenance  there.  It  was  < 
equivalent  to  about  £180  or  £200  a-year  now.1  ./  \ 

Why  the  elder  Milton  chose  Christ's  College  in  Cambridge,        / 
or  indeed  why  he  chose  Cambridge  University  rather  than       V 
Oxford,  for  the  education  of  his  son,  does  not  appear.    Then,        3 
as  now,  Christ's  College  stood,  in  respect  of  numbers,  not 
at  the  head  of  the  sixteen  Colleges  included  in  the  University, 
but  only  near  the  head.     The  following  is  a  list  of  the  six 
teen  in  the  order  of  their  numerical  importance  in  the  year 
1621  :— 

1.  Trinity  College  (founded  1546) : — It  had,  on  the  foundation, 

1  master,  60  fellows,  68  scholars,  4  chaplains  or  con 
ducts,  3  public  professors,  13  poor  scholars,  1  master  of 
choristers,  6  clerks,  10  choristers,  and  20  almsmen ;  and 
the  addition  of  the  remaining  students  and  others  not 
on  the  foundation,  with  officers  and  servants  of  the 
College,  made  a  total  of 440 

2.  St.  John's  College  (founded  1511): — 1  master,  54  fellows, 

and  84  scholars,  with  non-foundation  students,  &c., 
making  a  total  of 370 

3.  Christ's   College  (founded  1505):—!   master,   13  fellows, 

1  Milton  seems  not  to  have  had  any  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. in  1618, 

of    those   exhibitions — some   of    "  ten  his  father  would  not  make  him  a  larger 

pounds  a  year  for  seven  years,"  Strype  allowance  than  £50  a  year  ;  which,  with 

tells  us — which  the  Mercers'  Company,  the  utmost  economy,  he  could  barely 

as  patrons  of  St.  Paul's  School,  had  in  make  sufficient.     If  this  was  a  stingy 

their  gift  to  bestow  on  deserving  pupils  sum  for  a  "  fellow-commoner,"  it  was 

of  the  school.     In  the  autobiography  of  probably  about  the  proper  sum  for  a 

Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes  he  tells  us  that,  "  lesser  pensioner." 
when  he  went  as  a  fellow-commoner  to 
VOL.    I.                                              I 


114  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

and  55  scholars,  with  other  students,  &e.,  making  a 
total  of 265 

4.  Emanuel  College  (founded  1584): — 1  master,  14  fellows, 

50  scholars,  10  poor  scholars,  with  other  students,  &c., 
making  a  total  of 260 

5.  Queens'  College  (founded  1446): — 1  president,  19  fellows, 

23  scholars,  8  bible-clerks,  and  3  lecturers,  with  other 
students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of 230 

6.  Gonville  and  Gains  College  (founded  1348): — 1  master,  25 

fellows,  1  conduct,  61  scholars,  with  other  students,  &c., 
making  a  total  of 180 

7.  Clare  Hall  (founded   1326):—!    master,    17  fellows,   36 

scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of      .144 

8.  Peterhouse    (founded    1257):—!   master,    17   fellows,  21 

scholars  and  bible-clerks,  with  other  students,  &c., 
making  a  total  of 140 

9.  Pembroke  College  (founded  1343): — 1  master,  with  fellows, 

scholars,  and  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of       .140 

10.  King's  College  (founded  1441) : — It  had,  on  the  foundation, 

1  provost,  70  fellows  and  scholars,  3  chaplains  or  con 
ducts,  1  master  of  choristers,  6  clerks,  16  choristers, 
6  poor  scholars,  14  senior  fellows'  servitors,  and  a  few 
others,  making  a  total  of 140 

11.  Sidney  Sussex   College   (founded    1598): — 1   master,   12 

fellows,  29  scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making 

a  total  of 140 

12.  Corpus  Christi  College,  or  Benet  College  (founded  1351): — 

1  master.,  12  fellows,  14  scholars,  with  other  students, 
&c.,  making  a  total  of 140 

13.  Jesus  College  (founded  1496):—!  master,  16  fellows,   22 

scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of      .     120 

14.  Magdalen  College  (founded  1519): — 1  master,  10  fellows, 

20  scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of      90 

15.  Catharine  Hall  (founded  1475): — 1  master,  6  fellows,  8 

scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of     .      56 

16.  Trinity  Hall  (founded  1350):—!   master,  12  fellows,  14 

scholars,  with  other  students,  &c.,  making  a  total  of     .       56 

Total  in  all  the  Colleges1    .    .    .    .    2911 

From  this  list  it  appears  that  Christ's  College,  though  not 
the  largest  of  the  Colleges  in  Cambridge,  was  far  from  being 
the  smallest.  Its  reputation  fully  corresponded  with  its 
rank  and  proportions.  Among  the  eminent  men  whom  it 
had  sent  forth  it  could  count  the  Reformer  Latimer,  the 
antiquary  Leland,  several  distinguished  prelates  of  the  six- 

i  The  table  has  been  compiled  chiefly  — apparently  one  of  a  number  of  copies 

from  a    MS.   volume  in    the    British  presented  to  the  heads  of   Colleges. 

Museum  (Add.  MS.  No.  11,720)  entitled  This  particular  copy  was  the  presenta- 

"  The  Foundation  of  the  University  of  tion  copy  of  Dr.  Richardson,  Head  of 

Cambridge,  &c.,"  prepared  in  1621  by  Trinity  College,  and  was  purchased  for 

John  Scott  of  Cambridge,  notary  public,  the  Museum  in  1840. 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS   DONS   IN    1625.  115 

teenth  century,  Harrington,  the  translator  of  Ariosto,  and 
the  heroic  Sir  Philip'  Sidney.  It  appears  still  to  have  kept 
up  its  reputation  as  a  place  of  sound  learning.  "  It  may 
"  without  flattery,"  remarks  Fuller,  "  be  said  of  this  House, 
" '  Many  daughters  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou  excellest 
"  f  them  all,'  if  we  consider  the  many  divines  who  in  so 
"  short  a  time  have  here  had  their  education."  At  all 
events,  it  was  one  of  the_most  comfortable  Colleges  in  the 
University.  It  was  substantially  built,  and  had  a  spacious 
inner  quadrangle,  a  handsome  dining-hall  and  chapel,  good 
rooms  for  the  fellows  and  students,  and  an  extensive  garden 
behind,  provided  with  a  bowling-green,  a  pond,  alcoves,  and 
shady  walks,  in  true  academic  taste. 

In  the  year  1624-5,  when  Milton  went  to  Cambridge,  the 
total  population  of  the  town  may  have  been  eight  or  nine 
thousand.1  Then,  as  now,  the  distinction  between  "  town" 
and  " gown"  was  one  of  the  fixed  ideas  of  the  place.  While 
the  town  was  governed  by  its  mayor,  aldermen,  and  common 
council,  and  represented  in  Parliament  by  two  burgesses, 
the  University  was  governed  byjts  own  statutes,  as  adminis 
tered  by  the  Academic  authorities,  and  was  represented  in 
Parliament  by  two  members  returned  by  itself.  The  follow 
ing  is  a  list  of  the  chief  authorities  and  office-bearers  of  the 
University  in  the  year  1624-5  : — 

Chancellor :  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  elected  1614. 

High  Steward:  Sir  Edward  Coke,  the  great  lawyer,  elected  1614. 

Vice- Chancellor  of  the  Year :  Dr.  John  Mansell,  Head  of  Queens' 
College. 

Proctors  of  the  Year:  William  Boswell  of  Jesus  College,  and 
Thomas  Bould  of  Pembroke. 

HEADS  OF  COLLEGES  IN  1624-5. 

1.  Peterhouse:  Dr.  Leonard  Mawe,  Master;  elected  1617;  a 
Suffolk -man  by  birth  ;  educated  at  Peterhouse  ;  appointed  Regius 
Professor  of  Theology  in  1607;  had  afterwards  been  chaplain  to 
Prince  Charles,  and  had  accompanied  him  to  Spain ;  at  a  later  period 
(1625)  was  transferred  to  the  mastership  of  Trinity  College,  and  ulti 
mately  (1628)  became  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  in  which  dignity  he 
died,  1629.2 

1  In  1622  the  total  number  of  stu-  (Cooper's  Annals,  II.  p.  148.) 
dents  of  all  degrees  in  the  University,          2  Fuller's    Worthies,    Suffolk  ;   ant3 

with  the  College  officials,  &c.,  was  3050.  Wood's  Fasti,  I.  282. 

I  2 


116  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

2.  Clare  Hall :  Dr.  Thomas  Paske,  Master  ;  elected  1621. 

3.  Pembroke  College:  Dr.  Jerome  Beale,  Master  ;  elected  1618,  and 
held  office  till  1630. 

4.  Gonville  and  Caius  College:  John  Gostlin,  M.D.,  Master  (this 
being  one  of  the  few  Colleges  where   custom  did  not  require  the 
Master  to  be  a  Doctor  of  Divinity) ;  elected  1618 ;  a  Norwich-man  by 
birth;  educated  at  Caius;  admitted  M.D.  1602;  afterwards  Regius 
Professor  of  Physic  in  the  University;  was  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
University  in  1618-19,  and  again  in  1625-6,  in  which  year  he  died. 
"  He  was,"  says  Fuller,  "  a  great  scholar,  eloquent  Latinist,  and  rare 
"physician";  "a  strict  man  in  keeping,  and  magistrate  in  pressing, 
"  the  statutes  of  College  and  University," — in  illustration  of  which 
Fuller  says  that  in  his  Vice-Chancellorship  it  was  penal  for  any 
scholar  to  appear  in  boots.1 

5.  Trinity  Hall:   Clement  Corbet,  LL.D.,  Master;  elected  1611, 
and  held  office  till  1626. 

6.  Corpus  Christi  or  Benet  College :  Dr.  Samuel  Walsall,  Master ; 
elected  1618,  and  held  office  till  his  death  in  1626. 

7.  King's  College:  Dr.  Samuel  Collins,  Provost;  elected  1615;  a 
Buckinghamshire-man  by  birth  ;  educated  at  Eton,  and  then  at  Cam 
bridge,  at  King's  College ;  presented  to  the  living  of  Brain  tree  in 
Essex,  1610  ;  King's  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Cambridge  1617,  and 
afterwards  Prebendary  of  Ely  and  parson  of  Somersham.     He  died 
in  1661.     According  to  Fuller,  he  was  "  one  of  an  admirable  wit  and 
"  memory,  the  most  fluent  Latinist  of  our  age,  so  that,  as  Caligula  is 
"  said  to  have  sent  his  soldiers  vainly  to  fight  against  the  tide,  with 
"  the  same  success  have  any  encountered  the  torrent  of  his  tongue  in 
"  disputation."    From  what  Fuller  says  farther,  Collins  seems  to  have 
been  specially  popular  as  a  man  of  eccentric  and  witty  ways.     He  was 
also  known  as  a  polemical  author.2 

8.  Queens'  College :  Dr.  John  Mansell,  President ;  elected  1622,  and 
held  office  till  1631. 

9.  Catharine  Hall :  Dr.  John  Hills,  Master ;  elected  1614,  and  held 
office  till  his  death  in  1626. 

10.  Jesus  College :  Dr.  Roger  Andrews,  Master ;  elected  1618,  and 
held  office  till  1632. 

11.  Christ's  College:  Dr.  Thomas  Bainbrigge,  Master;  elected  1620, 
and  held  office  till  1645. 

12.  St.  John's  College:  Dr.  Owen  Gwynne,  Master;  elected  1612, 
and  held  office  till  his  death  in  1633.     He  was  a  Welshman  by  birth  ; 
had  been  a  fellow  of  St.  John's,  and  vicar  of  East  Ham  in  Essex  from 
1605   to  1611.     In    1622  he  was   preferred  to  the  archdeaconry  of 
Huntingdon,  then  vacant  by  the  promotion  of  Laud  to  the  bishopric 
of  St.  David's.    The  College,  Baker  says,  was  very  much  mismanaged 
in  his  time,  though  it  had  the  good  fortune  to  send  forth  during  his 
prefecture  three  alumni  no  less  famous  than  the  Earl  of  Straff ord, 
Lord  Fairfax,  and  Lord  Falkland.     He  left,  says  Baker,  nothing  to 
the   College  but   his  name,    and    "that  adds    little  lustre  to  our 
"annals."3 

13.  Magdalen  College:  Barnaby  Gooch,  LL.D.,  Master;  elected 
in  1604,  and  held  office  till  his  death  in  1625-6. 

1  Fuller's  Worthies,    Norwich  ;  and      part  I.  p.  26. 

Wood's  Fasti,  I.  350.  3  Wood's  Fasti,  I.  375  ;  and  Baker's 

2  Fuller's    Worthies,     Bucks;    and  MS.    History   of    St.    John's    College 
Wood's  Ath.,  II.  663-4  :  also  Racket's  (Harl.   MS.    7036),   which    contains   a 
Life    of    Archbishop    Williams,    1692,  detailed  account  of  Gwynne. 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625.  117 

14.  Trinity  College:  Dr.  John  Richardson,  Master;  elected  1615, 
and  held  office  till  his  death  in  1625  :  succeeded  by  Ma  we. 

15.  Emanuel  College:  Dr.  John  Preston,  Master;  elected  1622,  and 
held  office  till  his  death  in  1628.     OTall  the  heads  of  Colleges  this 
was  the  one  whose  presence  in  Cambridge  was  the  most  impressive. 
Born  in  Northamptonshire  in  1587,  Preston  was  admitted  a  student 
of  King's  College,  Cambridge,  in  1604,  and  afterwards  removed  to 
Queens'  College,  of  which  he  became  a  fellow  in  1609.     "  Before  he 
"commenced  M.A.,"  says  Fuller,  "he  was  so  far  from  eminency  as 
"  but  a  little  above  contempt :  thus  the  most  generous  wines  are  the 
"  most  muddy  before  they  fine.     Soon  after,  his  skill  in  philosophy 
"  rendered  him  to  the  most  general  respect  of  the  University."     He 
had,  during  the  earlier  part  of   his    College-life,  "  received  some 
religious  impressions  "  from  a  sermon  by  a  Puritan  preacher,  which 
had  the  effect  of  making  him  all  his  life  a  tenacious  adherent  of  the 
Calvinistic  theology  and  Puritan  church-forms.     When  King  James 
first  visited  Cambridge  in  1614,  Mr.  Preston  was  appointed  to  dispute 
before  him,  and  he  acquitted  himself  so  wonderfully  that  his  prefer 
ment  in  the  Church  would  have  been  certain  "  had  not  his  inclina 
tions  to  Puritanism  been  a  bar  in  his  way."    As  it  was,  he  devoted 
himself  to  an  academical  life ;  making  it  his  business  to  train  up  the 
young  men  committed  to  him  in  the  principles  of  Puritanism,  and  so, 
as  well  as  by  the  Puritan  tone  of  his  public  lectures  and  sermons, 
becoming  conspicuous  in  a  University  where  most  of  the  heads  and 
seniors  tended  the  other  way.     "  He  was,"  says  Fuller,  "  the  greatest 
"  pupil-monger  in  England  in  man's  memory,  having  sixteen  fellow- 
"  commoners  (most  heirs  to  fair  estates)  admitted   in  one  year  at 
"  Queens'  College.     As  William  the  Popular  of  Nassau  was  said  to 
"  have  won  a  subject  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  his  own  party  every 
"  time  he  put  off  his  hat,  so  was  it  commonly  said  in  the  College  that 
"  every  time  when  Master  Preston  plucked  off  his  hat  to  Dr.  Davenant, 
"  the  College-master,  he  gained  a  chamber  or  study  for  one  of  his 
4<  pupils."     When  he  was  chosen  Master  of  Emanuel  in  1622,  he  was 
still  under  forty;  and  he  was  then  made  D.D.     He  carried  most  of 
his  pupils  from  Queens'  to  Emanuel  with  him ;   and,  as  Master  of 
Emanuel,  he  kept  up  the  reputation  of  that  house  as  the  most  Puri 
tanical  in  the  University.     Holding  such  a  post,  and  possessing  such  \ 
a  reputation,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  be  regarded  by  the  Puritans  l 
of  England  as  their  leading  man ;  and  accordingly  he  was  selected  by 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham  as  the  medium  through  whom  the  Puritans 
were  to  be  managed.     "Whilst  any  hope,"  says  Fuller,  "none  but 
"  Doctor  Preston  with  the  Duke ;  set  up  and  extolled ;  and  afterwards 
"  set  by  and  neglected,  when  found  useless  to  the  intended  purpose." 
During  the  days  of  his  favour  at  Court  he  had  been  appointed  chap 
lain  to  Prince  Charles.    When  Milton  went  to  Cambridge  the  eclipse  of 
the  Puritan  Doctor's  fortunes  as  a  courtier  had  begun ;  but  he  was  still 
at  the  height  of  his  reputation  with  the  Puritans,  none  the  less  because 
he  was  reported  to  have  stood  firm  against  the  temptation  of  a  bishopric. 
He  also  still  held  the  important  position  of  Trinity  lecturer ;  and  this 
position,  together  with  that  of  Preacher  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  enabled  him 
to  promulgate  his  opinions  almost  as  authoritatively  as  if  he  had  been 
a  bishop.     Had  he  lived  longer  it  is  probable  he  would  have  played 
a  still  more  important  part  in  English  history.     Summing  up  his 
character,  Fuller  says,  "  He  was  a  perfect  politician,  and  used,  lap- 
"  wing-like,  to  flatter  most  on  that  place  which  was  farthest  from  his 
"  eggs.     He  had  perfect  command  of  his  passion,  with  the  Caspian 


f 


118  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  Sea  never  ebbing  nor  flowing,  and  would  not  alter  his  composed  face 
*'  for  all  the  whipping  which  satirical  wits  bestowed  upon  him.  He 
"  never  had  wife,  nor  cure  of  souls,  and,  leaving  a  plentiful,  but  no 
"invidious,  estate,  died  A.D.  1628,  July  20."  He  left  not  a  few 
writings.1 

16.  Sidney  Sussex  College:  Dr.  Samuel  Ward  Master ;  elected  1609, 
and  held  office  till  his  death  in  1643.     He  was  a  native  of  the  county 
of  Durham ;  became  a  scholar  of  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  and 
then  a  fellow  of  Emanuel ;  whence  he  was  preferred  to  the  Master 
ship  of  Sidney  Sussex.     In  1621  he  was  appointed  Margaret  Professor 
of  Divinity ;  which  office  he  held  along  with  his  Mastership.  _  He  was 
a  learned  man,  and  was  reputed  to  be  of  Puritan  leanings  till  Puri 
tanism  came  into  the  ascendant.     Fuller,  who  had  been  his  pupil, 
gives  this  description  of  him  in  comparison  with  his  contemporary 
Collins  of  King's :  "  Yet  was  he  a  Moses  not  only  for  slowness  of 
'  speech,  but,  otherwise,  meekness  of  nature.     Indeed,  when,  in  my 
'  private  thoughts,  I  have  beheld  him  and  Dr.  Collins  (disputable 
'  whether  more  different  or  more  eminent  in  their  endowments),  I 
'  could  not  but  remember  the  running  of  Peter  and  John  to  the  place 
'  where  Christ  was  buried.     In  which  race  John  came  first,  as  the 
"  youngest  and  swiftest,  to  the  grave ;  but  Peter  first  entered  into  the 
grave.     Doctor  Collins  had  much  the  speed  of  him  in  quickness  of 
parts ;  but  let  me  say  (nor  doth  the  relation  of  a  pupil  misguide  me) 
the  other  pierced  the  deeper  into  the  underground  and  profound 
points  of  Divinity." 2 

Besides  the  above-named  sixteen  men  (or,  if  we  include 
the  Proctors,  eighteen),  with  whose  physiognomies  and 
figures  Milton  must  necessarily  have  become  acquainted 
within  the  first  month  or  two  of  his  residence  at  the 
University,  we  are  able  to  mention  a  few  others  of  those 
Cambridge  notabilities  of  the  time  with  whom  he  must,  by 
sight  at  least,  have  soon  become  familiar. 

There  was  Mr.  Tabor  of  Corpus  Christi,  the  Registrar  of 
the  University,  who  had  held  that  office  since  1600.  There 
was  old  Mr.  Andrew  Downes,  Fellow  of  St.  John's,  Regius 
Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University,  "an  extraordinarily  tall 
"  man,  with  a  long  face  and  a  ruddy  complexion,  and  a  very 
"  quick  eye,"  rather  slovenly  and  eccentric  in  his  habits 
and  now  somewhat  doting  (he  had  told  one  of  his  pupils 
confidentially  that  the  word  cat  was  derived  from  K<UO>,  "  I 
burn"),  but  with  the  reputation  of  being  "a  walking 
library  "  and  a  prodigy  in  Greek.3  There  was  Mr.  Robert 

1  Fuller's    Worthies,  Northampton-  Queens'    College   before   Preston   had 

shire,   and    Church   History,  sub  anno  left  it  for  Emanuel. 

1628  ;  also  "Wood's  Fasti,  I.  333,  and  2  Hist,  of  Univ.  of    Camb.  sub  anno 

Neal's  Hist,  of  the  Puritans,  II.  193  1641-2. 

et  seq.   Fuller  was  himsalf  a  student  of  3  Fuller's  Hist,  of  Univ.  of  Camb. 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS    DONS  IN    1625.  119 

Metcalfe,  a  Fellow  of  John's  since  1606,  and  now  Begins 
Professor  of  Hebrew.  As  Public  Orator  of  the  University, 
there  was  a  man  of  no  less  mark  than  George  Herbert,  the 
poet,1  already  an  object  of  general  admiration  on'uucoimt  of 
his  genius  and  the  elegant  sanctity  of  his  life,  though  his 
fame  in  English  poetry  had  yet  to  be  acquired.  He  had 
formerly  held  for  a  year  (1618-19)  the  office  of  Praelector  of 
Rhetoric,  and  had  then  rather  astonished  the  University 
by  selecting  for  analysis  and  comment,  not  an  oration  of 
Demosthenes  or  Cicero,  as  was  usual,  but  an  oration  of 
King  James,  whereof  "he  shewed  the  concinnity  of  the 
"  parts,  the  propriety  of  the  phrase,  the  height  and  power 
"  of  it  to  move  the  affections,  the  style  utterly  unknown 
"to  the  Ancients,  who  could  not  conceive  what  true  kingly 
"  eloquence  was,  in  respect  of  which  those  noted  Demagogi 
"  were  but  hirelings  and  triobulary  rhetoricians."  2  Now, 
however,  he  was  generally  with  the  Court,  either  at  London 
or  elsewhere,  and  visited  Cambridge  only  when  the  duties 
of  his  Public  Oratorship  called  him  thither  specially.  More 
permanent  residents  at  Cambridge  were  Mr.  Thomas  Thorn 
ton,  Fellow  of  St.  John's,  who  had  been  appointed  the  first 
Lecturer  in  Logic  on  the  recent  foundation  of  a  Lectureship 
in  that  science  by  Lord  Maynard  (1620)  3,  and  the  still 
more  distinguished  Mr.  Abraham  Whelock,  Fellow  of  Clare 
Hall,  Keeper  of  the  Public  Library,  and  one  of  the  preachers 
of  the  town.  Whelock,  a  Shropshire  man,  was  already 
known  as  a  Saxon  scholar  and  Orientalist,  in  which  latter 
capacity  he  was  selected,  some  eight  years  later,  as  the 
first  holder  of  a  Professorship  of  Arabic  then  instituted. 
He  afterwards  assisted  Walton  in  his  Polyglott. 

Passing  to  those  who,  without  holding  University  offices, 
were  yet  publicly  known  in  1624-5  as  distinguished  Fellows 
of  their  several  Colleges,  we  might  have  a  pretty  numerous 
list.  Peterhouse,  of  which  Mawe  was  Master,  does  not 
furnish  at  the  moment  any  in  this  class  deserving  of  note, 
Brian  Walton,  who  had  been  a  student  of  this  College, 

1  Walton's  Life  of  Herbert.  »  Cooper's  Annals  of  Cambridge,  III.  125. 

2  Ibid.  135. 


120  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

having  just  left  it  without  having  held  a  fellowship.  In 
Clare  Hall,  under  Paske,  the  most  eminent  Fellows,  besides 
Whelock,  were,  Dr.  Richard  Love,  afterwards  Dean  of  Ely 
and  Master  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Dr.  Augustine  Lind- 
sell,  especially  learned  in  Jewish  antiquities,  afterwards 
successively  Dean  of  Lichfield,  Bishop  of  Peterborough, 
and  Bishop  of  Hereford,  and  Mr.  Humphrey  Henchman, 
who,  after  the  Restoration;,  was  successively  Bishop  of 
Salisbury  and  Bishop  of  London.  In  Pembroke  Hall,  under 
the  mastership  of  Beale,  Fellows  of  eminence  were  Dr. 
Matthew  Wren,  afterwards  Master  of  Peterhouse  and  Bishop 
of  Hereford  and  of  Ely,  Mr.  Benjamin  Laney,  who,  succeed 
ing  Beale  as  Master,  was  ejected  in  1644,  restored  at  the 
Restoration,  and  promoted  successively  to  the  sees  of  Peter 
borough,  Lincoln,  and  Ely,  and  Mr.  Ralph  Brownrigg,  after 
wards  Master  of  Catharine  Hall,  and  finally  Bishop  of  Exeter. 
In  Caius,  under  the  prefecture  of  Gostlin,  no  Fellow  can  be 
mentioned  as  of  particular  note  at  this  epoch,  the  College 
resting,  for  the  time,  on  the  fame  of  pupils  it  had  recently 
sent  forth  into  the  world,  among  whom  were  the  anatomist 
Harvey  and  the  physician  Glisson.  Trinity  Hall,  under  Dr. 
Corbet,  was  in  a  similar  condition.  In  Corpus  Christi, 
under  Walsall,  the  most  distinguished  men  were  Dr.  Henry 
Butts,  Walsall's  successor,  two  years  afterwards,  in  the 
mastership,  and  Mr.  Richard  Sterne,  afterwards  Head  of 
Jesus  College,  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  and  ultimately  Archbishop 
of  York.  King's,  under  the  provostship  of  Collins,  no 
longer  had  among  its  Fellows  its  ornament,  the  mathe 
matician  Oughtred,  who  was  then  living  as  a  clergyman 
in  Surrey ;  but  it  had  Dr.  Thomas  Goade,  the  son  of  one 
of  its  former  Provosts,  Mr.  William  Gouge,  afterwards  a 
famous  Puritan  minister  and  member  of  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  and  Ralph  Winterton,  an  able  Bachelor  of  Physic, 
subsequently  Doctor  and  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine  in 
the  University.  A  person  of  some  consequence  among  the 
seniors  of  Queens',  now  that  its  magnate  Preston  had  left  it, 
was  Dr.  John  Towers,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Peterborough. 
In  Catharine  Hall,  under  Dr.  Hills,  the  most  eminent  men 


CAMBRIDGE    AND   ITS   DONS   IN    1625.  121 

seem  to  have  been  John  Arrowsmith  and  William  Spurstow, 
both  afterwards  distinguished  as  Puritan  divines.  In  Jesus 
College,  under  Dr.  Eoger  Andrews,  besides  William  Boswell, 
one  of  the  Proctors  of  the  year,  afterwards  Sir  William 
Boswell,  there  were  Mr.  William  Beale,  who  succeeded  Dr. 
Gwynne  as  Master  of  St.  John's,  and  Thomas  Westfield, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Bristol.  In  the  great  College  of  St. 
John's,  over  which  Dr.  Gwynne  presided,  the  Fellows  of 
greatest  note,  besides  Metcalfe,  the  Professor  of  Hebrew, 
were  Dr.  Richard  Sibbes,  who  succeeded  Hills  as  Master  of 
Catharine  Hall,  Daniel  Horsmanden  and  Daniel  Ambrose, 
both  tutors  of  the  College,  and  Richard  Holdsworth,  a  man 
unusually  respected  as  a  tutor,  and  who  became  afterwards 
Master  of  Emanuel  and  Dean  of  Worcester.  Magdalen 
College  presents  at  the  time  no  name  of  note.  In  Trinity 
College,  then  the  rival  of  St.  John's  in  the  University,  we 
find  Robert  Creighton,  a  Scotchman  of  high  reputation  for 
learning,  afterwards  the  successor  o"f  Herbert  as  Public 
Orator  and  of  Downes  as  the  Professor  of  Greek,  with 
James  Duport,  also  subsequently  Professor  of  Greek  and 
Master  of  Magdalen,  Dr.  Thomas  Comber,  afterwards  Master 
of  Trinity,  and  Charles  Chauncy,  afterwards  eminent  as  a 
Puritan  preacher.  Of  Emanuel  College  the  Fellow  and 
Tutor  most  in  repute  seems  to  have  been  a  Mr.  Thomas 
Horton ;  and  in  Sidney  Sussex  (where  Oliver  Cromwell  had 
been,  a  student  for  a  short  time  about  eight  years  before, 
and  where  Cromwell's  tutor,  Mr.  Richard  Hewlett,  still 
resided)  the  most  eminent  Fellow  was  a  certain  learned 
Mr.  Paul  Micklethwaite.1 

Such  were  some  of  the  most  conspicuous  Dons  of  their 
several  Colleges  at  the  time  when  Milton's  acquaintance 
with  Cambridge  began.  In  each  College,  however,  under 
these,  there  was,  of  course,  its  own  particular  crowd  of 
younger  men,  already  more  or  less  advanced  in  their 
University  course  before  Milton  began  his.  Three  aris- 

1  The  names  have  been  gathered  out  7176),  Wood's  Athense  and  Fasti,  Ful- 

of  Cooper's  Annals  of  Cambridge,  the  ler's  Worthies,  and  the  Lives  of  Nicholas 

Cambridge  Collections  of  Verses,  a  por-  Ferrar  and  Matthew  Robinson,  edited 

tion  of  Baker's  MSS.,  Drake  Morris's  with  notes  by  Mr.  Mayor. 
MS.  Lives  of  Illustrious  Can  tabs.  (Harl. 


122  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

tocratic  scholars  of  whom  we  hear  as  pursuing  their  studies 
at  this  time  were  James  Stuart,  Duke  of  Lennox,  of  the 
blood- royal,  now  a  popular  alumnus  of  Trinity  College, 
young  Lord  Wriothesly  of  St.  John's,  son  of  Shakespeare's 
Earl  of  Southampton,  and  young  Sir  Dudley  North,  also  of 
St.  John's,  son  of  Lord  North  of  Kirtling.  Among  men 
similarly  in  advance  of  Milton  in  their  respective  Colleges, 
and  who  were  to  be  afterwards  distinguished  as  scholars  or 
divines,  the  following  may  be  named  : — Henry  Ferae,  then  a 
student  in  Trinity  College,  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  course, 
afterwards  Master  of  the  same  College  and  Bishop  of 
Chester;  Edmund  Castell,  then  a  student  of  Emanuel,  in 
the  fourth  year  of  his  course,  afterwards  Whelock's  suc 
cessor  as  Professor  of  Arabic  in  the  University,  Prebendary 
of  Canterbury,  an  assistant  of  Walton  in  his  Polyglott,  and 
one  of  the  most  laborious  Orientalists  of  his  age ;  Robert 
Mapletoft,  then  a  student  of  Queens',  in  his  third  or  fourth 
year,  afterwards  a  distinguished  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  that 
College,  and  Master  of  Pembroke  Hall;  and,  best  known 
of  all,  Thomas  Fuller,  the  Church-Historian,  then  also  a 
student  of  Queens',  and  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  course.  To 
these  may  be  added  Edward  Rainbow,  who  entered  Magda 
len  College  as  a  student  in  the  very  year  in  which  Milton 
entered  Christ's,  and  who  was  afterwards  Master  of  his 
College,  and  Bishop  of  Carlisle.  Not  to  multiply  names,  it 
will  be  enough  to  note  as  then  at  Cambridge  two  youths 
more,  both  only  a  little  older  than  Milton,  who  were,  like 
him,  to  take  rank  as  poets  in  English  Literature.  Edmund 
\taller  was  then  a  student  of  King's,  and  Thomas  Randolph 
had  been  admitted  to  Trinity  College  on  an  exhibition 
from  Westminster  School  in  the  year  1623. 

In  the  preceding  account  next  to  nothing  has  been  said 
of  the  particular  College  with  which  Milton  had  more  im 
mediately  connected  himself.  The  following  details  will 
supply  the  defect. 

The  Head,  or  Master,  of  Christ's  College,  at  the  time 
when  Milton  joined  it,  was,  as  has  been  already  stated,  a 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS   DONS   IN    1625.  123 

certain  Dr.  Thomas  Bainbrigge,  who  had  held  that  office 
since  1620.  The  chief  fact  in  this  person's  life  seems  to 
have  been  that  he  was  Master  of  Christ's;  for  very  little 
else  is  to  be  ascertained  concerning  him.  According  to 
Cole,1  he  "  was  -descended  out  of  the  north,"  of  a  family 
which  gave  several  others  of  the  same  name  to  the  English 
Church.  According  to  the  same  authority,  he  had  not  "  any 
other  preferment  before  he  became  Master  of  Christ's,"  and 
his  election  to  that  post  was  owing  rather  to  the  circum 
stance  of  his  having  been  Vice-master  under  the  previous 
head,  Dr.  Valentine  Gary,  than  to  any  special  merit.  On 
other  evidence  Cole  is  inclined  to  add  that,  if  he  did  not 
obtain  farther  preferment,  it  was  not  from  any  lack  of  "  suf 
ficient  obsequiousness."  Within  his  jurisdiction,  however, 
Bainbrigge  had  the  reputation  of  being  "  a  severe  governor."v 
He  survived  till  September  1646. 

If  Christ's  College  was  not  very  eminent  in  its  Master,  it 
was  tolerably  fortunate  in  its  Fellows.  The  names  of  its 
thirteen  Fellows  at  the  time,  arranged  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  the  order  of  their  seniority,  were  these  : — William  Power, 
William  Siddall,  William  Chappell,  Joseph  Meade,  John 
Knowsley,  Michael  Honeywood,  Francis  Cooke,  Nathaniel 
Tovey,  Arthur  Scott,  Robert  Gell,  John  Alsop,  —  Simpson, 
and  Andrew  Sandelands.2 

All  the  thirteen  were  either  Bachelors  of  Divinity  or 
Masters  of  Arts.  Several  of  them  were,  or  were  to  be,  men 
of  some  mark  in  the  Church.  Honeywood,  for  example, 
who  was  of  a  distinguished  and  very  numerous  family,  died 
in  the  Deanery  of  Lincoln,  as  late  as  1681,  leaving  an  un 
usually  fine  library  and  some  fame  for  scholarship.  Gell, 

1  Cole's    MSS.  vol.  XX.  p.  65,  and  the  signatures  of  the  Master  and  Fel- 
Athenge  Cantab.,  in  Brit.  Mus.  lows    of    Christ's    in    1637  ;  and    the 

2  This  list  has  been  drawn  up  from  fourth,  furnished  me  by  Mr.  Wolsten- 
a  comparison  of  four  lists  before  me.  holme,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Christ's, 
One  is  Cole's  MSS.  Brit.  Mus.  vol.  XX.  enumerates  those  who  were  Fellows  of 
p.    64,    enumerating    the    Fellows    of  the  College  "  during  all  or  some  part 
Christ's  in    1618;   another,   by    Scott  of  Milton's  time  there."  The  four  lists, 
(Add.  MS.  Brit.  Mus.  11,720),  enume-  checking  each  other,  enable  me  to  de 
rates  the  Fellows  in    1621 ;  a    third,  termine — I  think,  precisely — who  were 
which  I  found  in  an  original  document  Fellows  in  1624-5,  and  also  (at  least  as 
pasted  by  Baker  into  one  of  his  MS.  regards  the  first  nine  of  the  list)  in 
volumes  (Harl.  7036,  p.  143),  contains  what  order  of  seniority  they  stood. 


124  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

whose  popularity  as  a  tutor  appears  from  his  getting  for  his 
pupils  three  of  the  thirteen  fellow-  students  of  Milton  admitted 
in  the  same  half-year  with  him,  became  afterwards  Rector  of 
the  Parish  of  St.  Mary  Alder  mary,  London  ;  which  living 
he  held  through  the  Protectorate,  with  the  reputation  of 
being  a  learned  man,  but  of  somewhat  mystical  notions,  and 
too  fond  of  "turning  Scripture  into  allegories."  He  died 
in  1665,  leaving  some  foolish  sermons  on  astrological  and 
apocalyptic  topics,  and  a  mass  of  commentaries  on  Scripture, 
which  were  published  in  1676,  in  two  large  folios,  as  Gell's 
Remaines.  The  most  interesting  of  all  the  thirteen  Fellows 
for  us,  however,  are  Meade,  Chappell,  and  Tovey. 

from  his  casual  relation  to  Milton  as  one  of  the 


Essex,  he  had  been  sent  to  Christ's_College  in  the  year 
1  6RJ27~"  After  passingThrough"  the  regular  course  with'mucE 
distinction,  he  commenced  M.A.  in  1610,  and  was  at  the 
same  time  elected  a  Fellow  of  his  College.  In  1618  he 
graduated  B.D.  During  his  College  course  he  had  been 
much  troubled  by  sceptical  doubts,  especially  by  the  ques- 

frame  of  things,  was 

not_a_mere  phanjiaayija£jJie_j]^^  however^ 

had  vanished;  and  by  the  time  ho  was  a  Fellow  he  was 
known.  in  ^ 

*  '  .philosopher,  ^.atskilfuTmathematician,  an  excellent"  ana- 
"  tomist  (being  usually  sent  for  -when  they  r 


"in  Caius  College),  a  great  philologer,  a  master  of  many 
"  languages,  and  a  good  proficient  in  the  studies  of  History 
"  and  Chronology."  To  these  accomplishments,  enumerated 
by  one  biographer,  Fuller  adds  that  he  was  "an  exact  text- 
man,  happy  in  making  Scripture  expound  itself  by  parallel 
places."  He  was  also  a  man  of  singularly  meek  disposition, 
conspicuously  charitable  in  his  judgments,  yet  communica 
tive  and  even  facetious  among  his  friends.  "  His  body  was 
"  of  a  comely  proportion,  rather  of  a  tall  than  low  stature. 
"In  his  younger  years  (as  he  would  say)  he  was  but  slender 
"  and  spare  of  body  ;  but  afterwards,  when  he  was  full- 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS   IN    1625.  125 

"grown,  he  became  more  fat  and  portly,  yet  not  to  any 
"  excess.  His  eye  was  full,  quick,  and  sparkling.  His  com- 
"  plexion  was  a  little  swarthy,  as  if  somewhat  overtinctured 
"with  melancholy/'  With  all  these  advantages,  Meade  had 
one  unfortunate  defect,  an  imperfection  in  his  speech.  The 
letter  r,  says  Fuller,  "  was  shibboleth  to  him,  which  he  could 
"  not  easily  pronounce;  so  that  a  set  speech  cost  him  double 
"  the  pains  to  another  man,  being  to  fit  words  as  well  to  his 
"  mouth  as  his  matter.  Yet,  by  his  industry  and  observ- 
"ation,  he  so  conquered  his  imperfection  that,  though  in 
"private  discourse  he  sometimes  smiled  out  his  stammering 
"into  silence,  yet,  choosing  his  words,  he  made  many  an 
"  excellent  sermon  without  any  considerable  hesitation." 
The  consciousness  of  this  defect,  combined  with  his  natural 
love  of  quiet,  led  him  to  refuse  all  offers  of  preferment, — 
including  that  of  the  Provostship  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin, 
made  to  him  through  Archbishop  Usher  in  1626,  and  again 
in  1630, — and  to  bound  his  wishes  for  life  within  the  limits 
of  his  Fellowship  and  his  College.  Nominally,  indeed,  at  a 
later  period,  he  was  chaplain  to  Archbishop  Laud;  but 
neither  duty  nor  emolument  was  attached  to  the  office. 
His  life  was  passed  almost  wholly  in  his  "  cell,"  as  he  called 
his  chambers, — which  he  had  chosen  on  the  ground  floor, 
under  the  College-library,  as  being  free  from  noise,  but 
with  his  bed-room  window  to  the  street.  This  window  he 
used  to  keep  open  all  night  in  summer,  so  that  sometimes 
tricks  were  played  upon  him.1  His  sole  physical  recreation 
was  walking  about  Cambridge,  or  in  the  "  backs "  of  the 
Colleges  and  the  fields  near;  and  on  these  occasions  he 
used  to  botanize,  or  discourse  with  any  one  who  was  with 
him  on  herbs  and  their  virtues.  Within-doors,  however,  he 
was  fond  of  having  his  brother-fellows  with  him  to  converse 
on  serious  topics  or  chat  away  the  time.  His  methods  in 
his  tutorial  business  were  somewhat  peculiar.  "  After  he 
"  had  by  daily  lectures  well  grounded  his  pupils  in  Humanity, 
"  Logic,  and  Philosophy,  and  by  frequent  conversation  under- 

i  I  was  able  to  identify  Meade's  the  library,  the  old  library  above  not 
rooms  in  the  College  in  May  1857.  affording  room  enough.  The  little  win- 
Tliey  were  then  turned  into  a  part  of  dow  to  the  street  is  still  as  it  was. 


126  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OP    HIS   TIME. 

"  stood  to  what  particular  studies  their  parts  might  be  most 
"  profitably  applied,  he  gave  them  his  advice  accordingly ; 
"  and,  when  they  were  able  to  go  alone,  he  chose  rather  to 
"  set  every  one  his  daily  task  than  constantly  to  confine 
"himself  and  them  to  precise  hours  for  lectures.  In  the 
"  evening  they  all  came  to  his  chamber,  to  satisfy  him  that 
"  they  had  performed  the  task  he  had  set  them.  The  first 
"  question  which  he  used  then  to  propound  to  every  one 
"  in  his  order  was  '  Quid  dubitas  ? ',  '  What  doubts  have 
' '  you  met  in  your  studies  to-day  ?  ' ;  for  he  supposed  that 
' f  to  doubt  nothing  and  to  understand  nothing  were  verifi- 
"able  alike.  Their  doubts  being  propounded,  he  resolved 
"  their  quceres,  and  so  set  them  upon  clear  ground  to  proceed 
"  more  distinctly ;  and  then,  having  by  prayer  commended 
"  them  and  their  studies  to  God's  protection  and  blessing, 
"  he  dismissed  them  to  their  lodgings."  The  ample  time 
which  Meade  thus  procured  for  himself  he  devoted,  in  great 
part,  to  studies  in  Greek  and  Hebrew  and  readings  in 
Mathematics  and  History.  His  special  fascination,  however, 
was  for  abstruse  studies  in  the  Biblical  prophecies,  and  for 
cognate  speculations  of  a  mystical  character  in  Chronology 
and  Astronomy.  He  was  a  believer  in  a  modified  Astrology, 
thinking  that  the  celestial  arrangements  had  some  effect  on 
the  (}>vcris  or  nature  of  men,  though  the  influence  did  not 
amount  to  a  destruction  of  free  agency.  As  a  theologian 
he  brought  all  his  learning  to  bear  on  the  dark  parts  of 
Scripture ;  and  the  great  work  of  his  life — his  Olavis  Apoca- 
lyptica,  or  "  Key  to  the  Interpretation  of  the  Apocalypse,"- 
is  still  a  standard  book  in  a  special  department  of  English 
theological  literature.  Meade's  views,  derived  from  his 
Apocalyptic  researches,  were  substantially  those  of  the 
Chiliasts  or  Millennarians,  who  expect  a  personal  reign  of 
Christ  as  the  close  of  the  present  era  of  the  world;  and 
these  and  similar  views  break  out  in  his  letters  to  theological 
contemporaries.  He  used  often  to  insist  on  the  text,  "  And 
the  land  had  rest  fourscore  years"  (Judges  iii.  30),  treating 
it  as  a  historical  generalization  of  the  English  past,  on  the 
faith  of  which  one  might  predict  the  near  approach  at  that 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625,  127 

time  of  a  great  crisis  in  the  English  Church  and  State.     He      ~^ 
was    also    an    advocate    for    union    among    all    Protestant     / 
Churches,  and,  with   a  view   to   this  end,  would  urge  the: 
constant  development  of  their  points  of  agreement  rather      V 
than  their  points  of  difference.     Only  towards  the  Church    f 
of  Rome  could  he  be  called  inimical.     Yet  he  was  hardly  so     \ 
to  the  extent  that  others  were.     Whenever  he  heard  the      ) 
Eoman  Catholic  taunt  to  Protestants  quoted..  "  Where  was_ 
Xgur  C^^h^Joef^e^Im^hQj^-'3  ho  had  -feka-^nswer  ready, 
"Where  was  the  fine   flour  when  the  wheat  wenF~to~~lh~e  ~ 
"mill  ?"**"  mfciingularly    enough,    however,    with   all    Headed 
interest  in  the  far-off  events  of  the  Apocalyptic  future,  — 
n^ZjJg^!E--g^-Jlfl    i"™«f^JflLQjighifr,^  Of   thatr_ 

iate.res.tij—-  he  took  more  interest  than  any  other  majL-in-.^ 
^Cambridge  in  the  current  events  of  his  own  day.  He  was 
an  indefatigable  collector  of  news  ;  and  he  even  spent  regu 
larly  a  part  of  his  income  in  getting  authentic  and  speedy 
intelligence  sent  to  him  by  correspondents  at  Court  and 
abroad.  "^1  am  neither  Dean  nor  Bishop,"  he  used  to  say, 

_t:njgflf.  apart  to  know  how  the 

world  goes."  Nor  was  Meade  amTser  of  liEe  information 
he  procured..^.  He  had  correspondents  in  various  parts  of 
England,  —  especially  one  Sir  Martin  Stuteville,  in  Suffolk  — 
to  whom  he  regularly  communicated  by  letter  the  freshest 
news  that  were  going;  and  these  remaining  letters  of 
Meade'  s,  some  now  printed,  and  others  still  in  MS.,  are 
among  the  most  graphic  accounts  we  have  of  men  and 
things  during  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  In  all 
Cambridge  there  was  no  such  place  for  hearing  the  latest 
gossip  as  the  Fellows'  table  at  Christ's  where  Meade  helped 
to  carve,  ffihen  to  all  these  recommendations  we  add  that 
Maa.de  was  a  very  benevolent  man,  with  a  kind  word  for  all 


the_young  scholar  sanH^jevenjor  the_dandv  teUow-oom- 
,^monsDv^huiu"he;   called  fff-^M^iaitj^iili^s,^it  wall  be 
understood  how_4io^ulaj^4ie-3y-ai^^  was 

f»arisfid  iTL_£lfl.TnV>rif}gft  V>y  ^  Jbj^jlftfl.tlh^  ^That  eyept  tool^place 
rather  suddenly,  in  his  fifty-third  year,  on  the  1st  of  Octo 
ber,  1638,  or  six  years  after  Milton  had  left  College.  His 


128  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

bones  still  rest  in  the  Chapel  of  the  College  which  he  loved 
so  well,  and  to  which  he  left  part  of  his  small  fortune.1 

William  Chappell  was  a  more  important  man  in  the  Col 
lege  than  any  "of  thfiJifflB1'  TrMl1uv^j^^cepb"Me^;3e^  He  was 
Hour  years  Meade's  senior,  having  beenborn~aT~Lexington 
in  Nottinghamshire  in  the  year  1582.  Having  been  sent 
early  to  Christ's  College,  he  distinguished  himself  there  by 
his  gravity  of  deportment  and  industry  as  a  student;  and 
in  1607  he  became  Fellow  of  the  Colksgepftlree  years  before 
Meade  was  elected  to  the  same  rank.  "  He  was  remarkable/' 
says  Fuller,  "  for  the  strictness  of  his  conversation :  no  one 
"  tutor  in  our  memory  bred  more  or  better  pupils,  so  exact 
"his  care  in  their  education.  He  was  a  most  subtle  dis- 
"  putant."  In  this  last  character  his  reputation  was  quite 
extraordinary.  Hardly  a  man  in  the  University  was  a  match 
for  Chappell  of  Christ's  in  a  Latin  logomachy.  On  the 
second  visit  of  King  James  to  Cambridge,  in  the  spring  of 
1615,  he  had  been  appointed  one  of  the  opponents  in  a  public 
Act  of  disputation  to  be  held  before  the  King  on  certain 
points  of  controversy  between  Protestantism  and  the  Papacy, 
the  respondent  in  the  Act  being  Mr.  Roberts  of  Trinity, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Bangor.  On  this  occasion,  says  one  of 
Chappell' s  biographers,  he  pushed  Eoberts  so  hard  "  that 
he  fainted."  Upon  this  King  James,  who  valued  himself 
much  for  his  skill  in  such  matters,  undertook  to  maintain 
the  question,  but  with  no  better  fortune ;  for  Chappell  was 
so  much  his  superior  at  logical  weapons  that  his  Majesty 
"  openly  professed  his  joy  to  find  a  man  of  so  great  talents 
"  so  good  a  subject."  Living  on  the  credit  of  this  triumph, 
Chappell  continued  for  many  years  a  Fellow  of  Christ's. 
Meade  and  he  were  on  particularly  intimate  terms.  "  The 
"  chief  delight,"  says  Meade's  biographer,  "which  he  (Meade) 
"  took  in  company  was  to  discourse  with  learned  friends  ; 
"  particularly  for  several  years  he  set  apart  some  of  his 
"  hours  to  spend  in  the  conversation  of  his  worthy  friend 

i  Life  of  Meade  by  "Worthington,  Worthies,  Essex,  and  Sir  Henry  Ellis's 
prefixed  to  the  collected  folio  edition  Original  Letters  illustrative  of  English 
of  Meade's  works  in  1672  ;  also  Fuller's  Hist.,  first  series,  1824. 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    TTS    DONS    IN    1625.  129 

"  Mr.  William  Chappell,  who  was  justly  esteemed  a  rich 
"  magazine  of  rational  learning/'  There  were  not  wanting 
some,  however,  who  charged  Mr.  Chappell  with  Arminian- 
ism.  cc  Lately  there  sprung  up,"  says  a  writer  some  thirty 
years  afterwards,  "  a  new  brood  of  such  as  did  assist 
"  Arminianism,  as  Dutch  Tompson  of  Clare  Hall,  and  Mr. 
"William  Chappell,  Fellow  of  Christ's  College,  as  the  many 
"  pupils  that  were  Arminianized  under  his  tuition  show/' 
These  suspicions,  existing  perhaps  as  early  as  1625,  were 
confirmed  by  Chappell's  subsequent  career.  Through 
Laud's  interest,  he  was  transferred  from  his  Fellowship  at 
Cambridge  in  1633,  the  year  after  Milton  left  Cambridge,  to 
the  Deanery  of  Cashel  in  Ireland.  Found  very  efficient  there 
in  carrying  out  Laud's  views  of  uniformity,  he  was  promoted 
to  the  Provostship  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and,  in  1638, 
to  the  Bishopric  of  Cork,  Cloyne,  and  Ross.  Had  Laud's 
power  lasted  much  longer,  he  would  probably  have  had  an 
English  Bishopric;  but,  having  been  involved  in  Laud's 
ruin,  he  left  Ireland  in  1641,  came  over  to  England,  and, 
after  undergoing  a  short  imprisonment  and  otherwise  suffer 
ing  during  the  Civil  War,  he  died  at  Derby  in  1649.  As 
specimens  of  his  authorship  there  remain  a  little  treatise 
entitled  The  Preacher,  or  the  Art  and  Method  of  Preaching, 
published  originally  in  Latin  in  1648  and  afterwards  in 
English  in  1656,  and  another  treatise,  first  published  in 
1653,  entitled  The  use  of  Holy  Scripture  gravely  and  method 
ically  discoursed ;  in  addition  to  which  the  authorship  of  the 
well-known  Whole  Duty  of  Man  has  been  claimed  for  him. 
I  have  looked  over  his  Art  of  Preaching ;  and  the  impression 
which  it  has  left  is  that,  though  not  a  common-place  man, 
and  probably  an  accurate  tutor,  he  must  have  been  a  man 
of  dry  and  meagre  nature,  not  so  genial  by  half  as  Meade.1 

1  The  foregoing  particulars  concern-  which  Chappell  gained  such  a  triumph 
ing  Chappell  have  been  derived  from  is  said  to  have  occurred  during  the 
the  British  Biography,  vol.  IV.  pp.  King's  last  visit  to  Cambridge,  in  1624. 
448-9,  from  Cole's  MS.  Athena  Cantab.,  Documents  quoted  by  Mr.  Cooper  show 
from  Fuller's  Worthies,  Nottingham,  that  it  was  during  the  King's  second 
and  from  Cooper's  Annals  of  Cambridge.  visit,  in  1615.  In  these  documents, 
The  last-named  work  corrects  some  moreover,  it  is  not  Roberts,  the  re- 
errors  in  the  account  in  the  British  spondent,  but  Cecil,  the  Moderator  of 
Biography.  There  the  disputation  in  the  Act,  that  faints. 

VOL.    I.  K 


130  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Respecting  Nathaniel  Tovey  our  information  is  more 
scanty  than  respecting  Chappell.  He  was  born  at  Coventry, 
the  son  of  a  Mr.  Tovey,  Master  of  the  Grammar  School 
there,  who  had  been  tutor  to  Lord  Harrington  of  Exton. 
Left  an  orphan  when  quite  young,  he  had  been  taken  in 
charge  by  Lucy,  Countess  of  Bedford,  the  only  daughter  of 
Lord  Harrington  ;  who,  after  maintaining  him  for  some  time 
in  her  household,  had  sent  him  to  Christ's  College  in  Cam 
bridge,  in  order  that  ts  the  excellent  talent  which  she  saw  in 
"  him  might  not  be  wasted  away  in  the  idleness  of  a  Court 
"  life."  Here,  after  graduating  in  Arts,  he  obtained  a 
Fellowship.  In  1621  he  held  the  Logic  Lectureship  in  the 
College.  He  subsequently  took  the  degree  of  B.D. ;  which 
was  his  academic  degree  during  the  time  when  Milton  was 
at  Christ's.  He  gave  up  his  Fellowship  not  long  after 
Milton  had  left  the  College, — apparently  before  the  year 
1637, — having  been  appointed  to  the  Rectory  of  Lutter- 
worth  in  Leicestershire,  the  parish  in  which,  two  centuries 
and  a  half  before,  the  Reformer  Wycliffe  had  laboured. 
.While  parson  of  this  famous  parish,  Tovey  married  a  niece 
of  the  mathematician  Walter  Warren,  who  was  a  Leicester 
shire  man.  He  had  for  some  time  in  his  hands  the  papers 
which  Warren  left  at  his  death,  including  certain  Tables  of 
Logarithms.  Unlike  his  great  predecessor,  Tovey  did  not 
die  parson  of  Lutterworth.  He  was  ejected  from  the  living, 
in  or  before  the  year  1647,  by  the  Parliamentary  sequestra- 
tors.  In  1656,  however,  he  was  inducted  into  the  living  of 
Ayleston,  in  the  same  county  of  Leicestershire,  on  the 
nomination  of  John  Manners,  Earl  of  Rutland.  Entries  in 
his  handwriting  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Registry  of  this 
parish.  He  did  not  long  hold  the  living.  He  and  his  wife 
were  cut  off  together  by  an  epidemic  fever  in  September 
1658,  leaving  one  daughter.  On  the  9th  of  that  month 
they  were  both  buried  in  the  Church  of  Ayleston,  where  the 
epitaph  on  his  tombstone  still  is,  or  recently  was,  to  be 
seen.  Of  his  character  or  doings  during  that  earlier  por 
tion  of  his  life  when  he  was  a  Fellow  of  Christ's  College, 
Cambridge,  we  have  no  authentic  account.  His  name 


CAMBRIDGE   AND    ITS   DONS    IN    1625.  131 

occurs  in  some  College  documents  of  the  period ;  but  that 
is  all.1 

Into  the  little  world  of  Christ's  College,  presided  over  by 
such  men  as  we  have  mentioned,  forming  a  community  by 
itself,  when  all  the  members  were  assembled7^7~sorne~t"vv  u  •- 
Funcfred  and  fifty  persons,  and  surrouricted  agaTrTlDy  that 
larger  world  of  the  total  University  to  which  it  was  related 
as  a  part,  we  are  to  fancy  Milton  introduced  in  the  month 
of  February  1624-5,  when  he  was  precisely  'sixteen"  Jears 
and  two  months  old.  He  was  a  little  older  perhaps  than 
most  youths  then  were  on  being  sent  to  the  University.2 
Still  it  was  his  first  departure  from  home,  and  all  must 
have  seemed  strange  to  him.  ^To  put  on  for  the  first  time 
the  j*own  and  cap,  to 'move  for  the~lirl^~Time  through"  un- 


familiar  streets,  observing  college  after  college,  each  different 
from  the  others  in  sfcyTe~anct  appearance^  with  the  majesfrcL  T 
King's  .conspicuous  in  the  midst,  and  to  see  for  the  first 
time  the  famous  Cam  and  walk  by  its, -banks,  would  be 
powerful  sensations  to  a  youth  like  Milton.  Even  within 
the  cloisters  of  his  own  college  he  tia'3  matter  enough  for 
curiosity  and  speculation.  Apart  from  the  sight  of  the 
Master  and  Fallows,  respectiiig^vvhom,  and  especially  re 
specting  his  6wgL_tutor  Chapp^,  Tiift^Wivingi'f.y  would  natur 
ally  be  strongest  would  not  the  faces  and  figures  of  his 
fellow- students,  collected  from  all  the  counties  of  England, 
and  answering  to  names  many  of  which  he  had  never  heard 
before,  interest  and  amuse  him  ?  Which  of  these  faces, 
some  fair,  some  dark,  some  ruddy,  were  to  be  most  familiar 
and  the  most  dear  to  him  in  the  end  ?  In  which  of  these 
bodies,  tall,  of  mid  stature,  or  diminutive,  beat  the  manliest 
hearts  ?  As  all  this  was  interesting  to  Milton  then  prospect- 
ively,  so  it  is  interesting  to  us  now  in  the  retrospect.  Nor, 

i  These  particulars  respecting  Tovey  The  other  particulars  are  from  Wood's 
are  derived  chiefly  from  Nichols's  "  His-  Athena,  II.  302,  and  Scott's  Account  of 
tory  and  Antiquities  of  Leicestershire,"  Cambridge  in  1621  (Add.  MS.  Brit, 
where  Tovey  is  noticed  in  connexion  Mus.  11,720).  For  an  apparent  refer- 
both  with  Lutberworth  (vol.  IV.  pp.  ence  to  Tovey,  while  he  was  parson  of 
264  and  299)  and  Ayleston  (Ibid.  pp.  Lutterworth,  see  Clarendon's  Life,  p. 
28—33).  Nichols  himself  derives  the  948. 

facts  chiefly  from  Tovey's  epitaph  in  2  Fourteen    or    fifteen    was    a    not 

Ayleston    Church,   which    he    quotes.  unusual  age. 

K  2 


132  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

with  due  search,  would  it  be  impossible,  even  at  this  distance 
of  time,  to  present  in  one  list  the  names,  surnames,  and 
scholastic  antecedents  of  all  the  two  hundred  youths  or 
more,  the  gathered  mass  of  whom  in  the  hall  or  chapel  of 
Christ's  in  the  spring  of  1624-5  Milton  may  have  surveyed 
with  the  feelings  described.1  Of  some  of  them  we  shall 
hear  as  we  proceed. 

A  matter  of  some  importance  to  the  young  freshman  at 
College,  after  his  choice  of  a  tutor,  is  his  choice  of  chambers. 
Tradition  at  Christ's  College  still  points  out  the  rooms  which 

inthe  older  part  of  the  buildihgT*" 
on  the  left  side  of  the  coqrt,  as  you  enter  through  the~streeft 
it-floor  rooms  on  the  first  stair  oh  that 

side.    The  rooms  consisjtjjjjjiresent  of  a  small  study,  with"  two 
into  the  court,  and  a  very  small  beef-room 
They  do  not  seem  to  have  T)eeh  altered  at  all  " 


since  Milton's  time.  They  must  have  been  unaltered,  at 
all  events,  at  the  date  of  Wordsworth's  interesting  reminis 
cence  of  them,  and  of  the  consequences  of  his  own  extra 
ordinary  act  of  Milton-worship  in  them,  given  in  the  part  of 
his  Prelude  where  he  sketches  the  history  of  his  under- 
graduateship  at  St.  John's  between  1  786  and  1  789  :  — 

"  Among  the  band  of  my  compeers  was  one 
Whom  chance  had  stationed  in  the  very  room 
Honoured  by  Milton's  name.     O  temperate  bard  ! 
Be  it  confest  that,  for  the  first  time,  seated 
Within  thy  innocent  lodge  and  oratory, 
One  of  a  festive  circle,  I  poured  out 
Libations  to  thy  memory,  and  drank,  till  pride 
And  gratitude  grew  dizzy  in  a  brain 
Never  excited  by  the  fumes  of  wine 
Before  that  hour  or  since.     Then  forth  I  ran 
From  the  assembly  :  through  a  length  of  streets 
Ran,  ostrich-like,  to  reach  our  chapel-door 
In  not  a  desperate  or  opprobrious  time, 
Albeit  long  after  the  importunate  bell 
Had  stopped,  with  wearisome  Cassandra  voice 
No  longer  haunting  the  dark  winter  night. 

1  Without  taxing  the  College-Kegis-  who  were,  therefore,  among  Milton's 

ter  I  have  myself  counted  (chiefly  in  College     contemporaries.       I     believe 

Add.  MS.  Brit.  Mus.  5885)  the  names  about  ten  per  cent,  of  these  might  be 

and  surnames  of  189  students  of  Christ's  easily  traced  as  of  some  considerable 

who  took  their  B.A.  degree  between  the  note    in    the    subsequent    history    of 

years  1625  and  1632  inclusively,  and  Church  and  State. 


CAMBRIDGE   AND   ITS    DONS   IN    1625.  133 

Call  back,  O  friend,  a  moment  to  thy  mind 
The  place  itself  and  fashion  of  the  rites. 
With  careless  ostentation  shouldering  up 
My  surplice,  through  the  inferior  throng  I  clove 
Of  the  plain  Burghers,  who  in  audience  stood 
On  the  last  skirts  of  the  permitted  ground 
Under  the  pealing  organ.     Empty  thoughts  ! 
I  am  ashamed  of  them :  and  that  great  Bard, 
And  thou,  O  friend,  who  in  thy  ample  mind 
Hast  placed  me  high  above  my  best  deserts, 
Ye  will  forgive  the  weakness  of  that  hour." 

When  we  hear  of  "  Milton's  rooms  "  at  College,  however,  the 
imagination  is  apt  to  go  wrong  on  one  point.  It  was  very 
rare  in  those  days  for  any  member  of  a  College,  even  a 
Fellow,  to  have  a  chamber  wholly  to  himself.  Two  or  three 
generally  occupied  the  same  chamber ;  and,  in  full  Colleges, 
there  were  all  kinds  of  devices  of  truckle-beds  and  the  like  to 
multiply  accommodation.  In  the  original  statutes  of  Christ's 
College  there  is  a  chapter  specially  providing  for  the  manner 
in  which  the  chambers  of  the  College  should  be  allocated ; 
"  in  which  chambers,"  says  the  founder,  ' '  our  wish  is  that 
"  the  Fellows  sleep  two  and  two,  but  the  scholars  four 
"and  four,  and  that  no  one  have  alone  a  single  chamber 
"  for  his  proper  use,  unless  perchance  it  be  some  Doctor,  to 
"  whom,  on  account  of  the  dignity  of  his  degree,  we  grant 
"  the  possession  of  a  separate  chamber."  l  In  the  course  of 
a  century,  doubtless,  custom  had  become  somewhat  more 
dainty.  Still,  in  all  the  Colleges,  the  practice  was  for  the 
students  to  occupy  rooms  at  least  two  together ;  and  in  all 
College  biographies  of  the  time  we  hear  of  the  chum  or 
chamber- fellow  of  the  hero  as  either  assisting  or  retarding  ^xn 
his  studies.  Milton's  chamber-fellow  at  first  would  naturally  7 
be  Pory.  But  in  the  course  of  seven  years  there  must  have  ^? 
been  changes. 

The  Terms  of  the  University  then,  as  now,  were  those 
fixed   by   the    statutes   of  Elizabeth.     The  academic  year 

i  Statutes  of    Christ's   Coll.  cap.  7,  John's  four  students  used  originally  to 

from  a  MS.  copy.     In  Dean  Peacock's  have  one  chamber  in  common,  or  one 

Olservations  on  the  Statutes  of  the  Uni-  Fellow   and    two   or    three    students. 

vcrsity  of  Cambridge  (1841)  it  is  stated  "  Separate  beds  were  provided  for  all 

t  bat  both  in  Trinity  College  and  St.  "  scholars  above  the  age  of  fourteen". 


134  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

began  on  the  10th  of  October,  and  the  Michaelmas  or 
October  Term  extended  from  that  day  to  the  16th  of 
December.  Then  followed  the  Christmas  vacation.  The 
Lent  or  January  Term  began  on  the  13th  of  January  and 
extended  to  the  second  Friday  before  Easter.  There  then 
intervened  the  Easfcer  vacation  of  three  weeks.  Finally, 
V  the  Easter  or  Midsummer  Term  began  on  the  llth  day 
\  (second  Wednesday)  after  Easter-day,  and  extended  to  the 
/Friday  after  "Commencement  Day/'  i.e.  after  the  great 
/  terminating  Assembly  of  the  University,  at  which  candidates 
for  the  higher  degrees  of  the  year  were  said  to  "commence" 
in  those  degrees;  which " Commencement  Day"  was  always 
the  first  Tuesday  in  July.  The  University  then  broke  up 
for  the  "  long  vacation  "  of  three  months. 

In  those  days  of  difficult  travelling,  and  of  the  greater 
strictness  of  the  statutes  of  the  different  Colleges  in  enforc 
ing  residence  even  out  of  term,  it  was  more  usual  than  it  is 
now  for  students  to  remain  in  Cambridge  during  the  short 
Christmas  and  Easter  vacations ;  but  few  remained  in 
College  through  the  whole  of  the  long  vacation.  During 
part  of  this  vacation,  at  least,  Milton  would  always  be  in 
London.  But,  if  he  wished  at  any  other  time  to  visit 
London,  there  were  unusual  facilities  for  the  journey. 

The  name  of  ^hpmas  Hobaon.  the  Cambridge  carrier  and 
job-master  of  that  day,  belongs  to  the  History  of  England. 
Cambridge  was  proud  of  him ;  he  was  one  of  the  noted 
characters  of  the  place.  Born  in  1544,  and  now,  therefore, 
exactly  eighty  years  of  age,  he  still  every  week  took  the 
road  with  his  wain  and  horses,  as  he  had  done  sixty  years 
before,  when  his  father  was  alive,  making  the  journey  from 
Cambridge  to  the  Bull  Inn,  in  Bishopsgate-street,  London, 
and  thence  back  again,  and  carrying  letters  and  parcels, 
and  sometimes  stray  passengers,  both  ways.  All  through 
Shakespeare's  life  Hobson's  cart-bells  had  tinkled,  Hobson 
himself  riding  in  the  cart  or  trudging  by  the  side  of  it,  along 
the  London  and  Cambridge  road.  He  had  driven  the  team  as 
a  grown  lad  for  his  father  before  Shakespeare  was  born  ;  and 
now,  eight  years  after  Shakespeare's  bones  had  been  laid 


CAMBKIDGE  AND  ITS  DONS  IN  1625.         135 

under  the  pavement  in  Stratford  Church,  he  was  still  hale 
in  his  old  vocation.  Nor,  though  only  a  carrier,  driving  his 
own  wain,  was  he  a  person  of  slight  consequence.  There 
was  many  a  squire  round  about  Cambridge  whom  old  Hobson 
could  have  bought  and  sold.  Having  begun  life  on  his 
own  account  with  a  goodly  property  left  him'  by  his  father, 
including  the  wain  he  used  to  drive,  eight  team-horses,  and 
a  nag,  he  had,  by  his  prudence  and  honesty,  gradually  in 
creased  this  property,  till,  besides  paying  the  expenses  of 
a  large  family,  he  was  one  of  the  wealthiest  citizens  of 
Cambridge.  He  owned  several  houses  in  the  town,  and 
much  land  round.  This  increase  of  fortune  he  owed  in 
part  to  his  sagacity  in  combining  other  kinds  of  business, 
such  as  farming,  malting,  and  inn-keeping,  with  his  trade 
as  a  carrier.  But  his  great  stroke  in  life  had  been  the  idea-— 
of  letting  out  horses  on  hire.  "  Being  a  man/'  says  Steele, 
in  the  Spectator,  "  that  saw  where  there  might  good  profit 
arise  though  the  duller  men  overlooked  it,"  and  "  observing 
that  the  scholars  of  Cambridge  rid  hard,"  he  had  early 
begun  to  keep  "  a  large  stable  of  horses,  with  boots,  bridles, 
and  whips,  to  furnish  the  gentlemen  at  once,  without  going 
from  college  to  college  to  borrow."  He  was,  in  fact,  accord-<* 
ing  to  all  tradition,  the  very  first  man  in  this  island  that  let 
out  hackney  horses.  But,  having  no  competition  in  the 
trade,  he  carried  it  on  in  his  own  way.  He  had  a  stable  of 
forty  good  cattle,  always  ready  and  fit  for  travelling ;  but, 
when  any  scholar  or  other  customer,  whoever  he  might  be, 

came   for  a  horse,   he  was   obliged    to  take  the   one  tha^ 

chanced  to  stand  next  the   stable-door.      Hence  the   well^ / 
known  proverb,   "  Hobson's  choice,  this  or  nothing":  the    ( 
honest  carrier's  principle  being  that  every  customer  should     \ 
be  justly  served,  and  every  horse  justly  ridden  in  his  turn.         j 
Some  of   Hobson' s    horses  were  let  out   to    go   as   far   as 
London ;  and  on  these  occasions  it  was  Hobson's  habit,  out 
of  regard  for  his  cattle,  always  to  impress  upon  the  scholars, 
when  he  saw  them  go  off  at  a  great  pace,  "  that  they  would 
come  time  enough  to  London  if  they  did  not  ride  too  fast." 
Milton,  as  we  shall  see,too^_a_g£eat_ fan^v  to  Hobson. 


136  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

The  daily  routine  of  College-life  when   Milton  went  to 

Cambridge,  was  as  follows  <^In  the  morning,  at  five  o'clock, 

,the  students  were  assembled,,  by  the  ringing  of  the  bell,  in 

|]^J^llege-cha]^^  o 

^Church,  folIowed^QiL-.sQme  day^by_  short  homiliesHSy^Ke 

^FeUowg. Th^as__ae.r-YJcea__Qccupied   about   an  hoar ;   after 

_which  the  students  had-  breakfast.  Then  followed  the 
regular  work  of  the  day.^^Jtt^consisted  of  two  parts.  There 
were  .the  College  Studies,  or  the  attenHance~oT  the  students 
on  the  lectures  and  examinations  of  the  College  tutors 
or  lecturers  in  Latin,  Greek,  Logic,  Mathematics,  Philo 
sophy,  &c.  ;  and  there-were  the  Universit^Exer 'cises,  or  the 

With    the    Students  ^f 

other  Colleges,  in   tho  "public  schools"  of  the  University, 
either  to   hear  the  lectures  of  the  University  professors  of 

_Greek,~Logic,  &c.  (svliich,  however,  was  not  incumbent  on 
all  students),  or  to  hear  and  take  part  in  the  public  disputa 
tions  of  those  students  of  all  the  Colleges  who  were  prepar 
ing  for  their  degrees.1  After  four  hours  or  more  so  spent, 
the  students  dined  together  at  twelve  o' clock  in  the  halls  of 
their  respective  Colleges.  After  dinner  there  was  generally 
again  an  hour  or  two  of  attendance  on  the  declamations 
and  disputations  of  contending  graduates  either  in  College 
or  in  the  "public  schools."  During  the  remainder  of  the 
day,  with  the  exception  of  attendance  at  the  evening-ser 
vice  in  Chapel,  and  at  supper  in  the  hall  at  seven  o' clock, 
the  students  were  free  to  dispose  of  their  own  time.  It  was 
provided  by  the  statutes  of  Christ's  that  no  one  should  be 
out  of  College  after  nine  o'clock  from  Michaelmas  to  Easter, 

,  or  after  ten  o'clock  from  Easter  to  Michaelmas. 

Originally  the  rules  for  the  daily  conduct  of  the  students 
at  Cambridge  had  be^r^excessively  strict.  Residence  ex 
tended  over  nearly  the  whoTe~~y^arj  and  abacnco  wos-per* 

1  The  distinction  between  College-  superseded  the  University.  Even  in 
studies  and  University-exercises  must  be  Milton's  time  this  process  was  far  ad- 
kept  in  mind.  Gradually,  as  all  know,  vanced.  The  University,  however,  was 
the  Colleges  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  still  represented  in  the  public  disputa- 
originally  mere  places  of  residence  for  tions  in  "  the  schools  " ;  attendance  on 
those  attending  the  University,  have,  which  was  obligatory. 
iu  matters  of  teaching,  absorbed  or 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625.  13£ . 


mitted  only  for  very  definite  reasons.  While  in  residence, 
the  students  were  confined  closely  within  the  walls  of  their  ^> 
Colleges,  leaving  them  only  to  attend  in  the  public  schools.  I 
At  other  times,  they  could  go  into  the  town  only  by  special  j 
permission ;  on  which  occasions  no  student  below  the  ^ 
standing  of  a  B.A.  in  his  second  year  was  suffered  to  go 
unaccompanied  by  his  tutor  or  by  a  Master  of  Arts.  In 
their  conversation  with  each  other,  except  during  the  hours 
of  relaxation  in  their  chambers,  the  students  were  required 
to  use  Latin,  or  Greek,  or  Hebrew.  When  permitted 
to  walk  into  the  town,  they  were  forbidden  to  go  into  \ 
taverns  or  into  the  sessions,  or  to  be  present  at  boxing- 
matches,  skittle-playings,  dancings,  bear-fights,  or  cock 
fights,  or  to  frequent  Sturbridge  fair,  or  even  to  loiter  in 
the  market  or  about  the  streets.  In  their  rooms  they  were 
not  to  read  irreligious  books,  nor  to  keep  dogs  or  "fierce 
birds,"  nor  to  play  at  cards  or  dice,  except  for  about  twelve 
days  at  Christmas,  and  then  openly  and  in  moderation.  To 
these  and  other  rules  obedience  was  enforced  by  penalties. 
yThere  were  penalties  both  by  the  Colleg^^nd-b^the  Uni 
versity,  according  as  the  offence  concerned  the  one  or  the 
other.  For  smaller  offences  there  were  fines  according 
to  the  degree  of  delinquency;  imprisonment  might  be 
inflicted  for  gravo  and  repeated  offences ;  rustication,  with 
the  loss  of  one  or  more  terms,  for  still  more  flagrant  misbe 
haviour  ;  and  expulsion  from  College  and  University  was 
the  punishment  for  heinous  criminality.  The  tutor  could 
punish  for  negligence  in  the  studies  of  his  class,  or  inatten 
tion  to  the  lectures;  College  offences  of  a  more  general 
character  came  under  the  cognisance  of  the  Master  or  his 
substitute ;  and  for  non-attendance  in  the  public  schools, 
and  other  such  violations  of  the  University  statutes,  the 
penalties  were  exacted  by  the  Vice- Chancellor.  All  the 
three — the  Tutor  and  the  Master  as  College  authorities,  and 
the  Vice-Chancellor  as  resident  head  of  the  University — 
might,  in  the  case  of  younger  students,  resort  to  corporal 
punishment.  "  Si  tamen  adultus  fuerit,"  say  the  statutes  of 
Christ's,  referring  to  the  punishments  of  fine,  &c.,  which  the 


138  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

Tutor  might  inflict  on  a  pupil ;  "  alioquin  viryd  corriyatur." 
The  Master  might  punish  in  the  same  way  and  more  pub- 
-Jicly.  In  Trinity  College  there_3Kas_a_jregular  service  of 
corporal  punidiment_JD^the  hall  everyJThursday  evening  at 
seven  o'clock,  in  .the  presence  of  all  theun3yrgrad  uatesj- 
on  such  junior  delinquents  as  had  beefT  reserved  for~the 
ceremony  during  the  week.  The  University  statutesTaTso " 
recognise  the  corporaT~pTlni~shinent  of  non-adult  students 
offending  in  the  public  schools.  At  what  age  a  student  was 
to  be  considered  adult  is  not  positively  defined ;  but  the 
understanding  seems  to  have  been  that  after  the  age  of 
eighteen  corporal  punishment  should  cease,  and  that  even 
younger  students  when  above  the  rank  o£~  undergraduates 
should  be  exempt  from  it. l 

It  had  been  impossible  to  keep  up  so  strict  a  system  of 
discipline.  Through  the  sixty-five  years  which  had  elapsed 
since  the  passing  of  the  Elizabethan  statutes  the  decrees  of 
the  University  authorities  and  their  acts  interpreting  the 
statutes  had  been  uniformly  in  the  direction  of  relaxation ; 
and  practice  had  outstripped  the  written  law.  In  the 
matter  of  residence  there  was  much  more  indulgence  than 
had  been  contemplated  by  the  statutes.  The_rule_of  not 
ermitting  students  to  go  beyond  the^walls  of  their 

lieges  was_jdgQjnuch  modified.  Students  might  be  seen 
wandering  in  the  streets,  or  walking  along  the  Trumpington 
Road,  with  very  little  security  that  they  would  talk  Latin  on 
their  way,  or  that,  before  returning  to  College,  they  might 
not  visit  the  Dolphin,  the  Rose,  or  the  Mitre.  These  three 
taverns — the  Dolphin  kept  by  Hamon,  the  Rose  by  Wolfe, 
and  the  Mitre  by  Farlowe — were  the  favourite  taverns  of 
Cambridge  -,  "  the  best  tutors/'  as  the  fast  students  said, 
"in  the  University ."  When  the  Mitre  fell  down  in  1634, 
Randolph,  then  a  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  gave  this 
receipt  to  the  landlord  for  re-edifying  it : — 

"  Then  drink  sack,  Sam,  and  cheer  thy  heart ; 
Be  not  dismayed  at  all ; 

1  Statutes  of  Christ's  Coll.  in  MS. ;  "  Privileges  of  tlie  University  of  Cam- 
Statutes  of  the  University  of  the  12th  bridge  ;  "  and  Dean  Peacock's  "Obser- 
of  Elizabeth  (1561)  printed  in  Dyer's  vations  on  the  Statutes  "  1841. 


CAMBEIDGE   AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625.  139 

For  we  will  drink  it  up  again, 

Though  we  do  catch  a  fall. 
We'll  be  thy  workmen  day  and  night, 

In  spite  of  bug-bear  proctors  : 
Before,  we  drank  like  freshmen  all ; 

But  now  we'll  drink  like  doctors." 1 

In  spite  of  old  decrees  to  the  contrary,  bathing  in  the  Cam 
was  a  daily  practice.  The  amusements  "of  the  "collegians 
included  many  of  the  forbidden  games,  ^moking  was  an 
_all.._butjiniversal  habit  in  the  University.2  The  academic 
costume  wai^sadly  neglected!  itfmany  Colleges "the 
^gfaduates~wore ""  new-fashioned  gowns  6Flmy~coIourrwliat- 
"  soever,  blue  or  green,  or  red  or  mixt,  without  any 
"  uniformity  but  in  hanging  sleeves,  and  their  other  gar- 
"•  ments  light  and  gay,  some  with  boots  and  spurs,  others 
"  with  stockings  of  diverse  colours  reversed  one  upon 
"  another,  and  round  rusty  caps."  Among  graduates  and 
priests  also,  as  well  as  the  younger  students,  "we  have  fair 
"  roses  upon  the  shoe,  long  frizzled » hair  upon  the  head, 
"  broad  spread  bands  upon  the  shoulders,  and  long  large 
"  merchants'  ruffs  about  the  neck,  with  fair  feminine  cuffs 
"  at  the  wrist."  To  these  irregularities  arising  from  the 
mere  frolic  and  vanity  of  congregated  youth  add  others  of  a 
graver  nature  arising  from  different  causes.  While,  on  the 
one  hand,  all  the  serious  alike  complained  that  "  nicknaming 
and  scoffing  at  religion  and  the  power  of  godliness,"  and 
even  "  debauched  and  atheistical "  principles,  prevailed  to 
an  extent  that  seemed  "  strange  in  a  University  of  the 
Reformed  Church,"  the  more  zealous  Churchmen  about 
the  University  found  special  matter  for  complaint  in  the 
increase  of  Puritanical  opinions  and  practices,  more  par 
ticularly  in  certain  Colleges  where  the  heads  and  seniors 
were  Puritanically  inclined.  It  had  become  the  habit  of 
many  Masters  of  Arts  and  Fellow- Commoners  in  all 
Colleges  to  absent  themselves  from  public  prayers.  Upon 
Fridays  and  all  fasting  days  the  victualling  houses  prepared 

1  Cooper's  Annals,  III.  266.  should  not,  during  his  Majesty's  stay, 

2  When    the    tobacco-hating    King  visit  tobacco-shops,  nor   smoke  in   St. 
James  visited  Cambridge  for  the  first  Mary's  Chapel  or  Trinity  Hall,  on  paiu 
time,  in  1615,  one  of  the  orders  issued  of  expulsion  from  the  University. 

to  graduates  and  students  was  that  they 


140  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOKY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

flesh  in  "  good  store  for  all  scholars  that  will  come  or  send 
-,  unto  them."  In  the  churches,  both  on  Sundays  and  at 
other  times,  there  was  little  decency  of  behaviour ;  and  the 
regular  forms  of  prayer  were  in  many  cases  avoided:  "  In- 
"  stead  whereof,"  it  was  complained,  te  we  have  such  private 
"  fancies  and  several  prayers  of  every  man's  own  making 
<f  (and  sometimes  suddenly  conceiving  too)  vented  among 
"  us  that,  besides  the  absurdity  of  the  language  directed  to 
"  God  himself,  our  young  scholars  are  thereby  taught  to 
"  prefer  the  private  spirit  before  the  public,  and  their  own 
"  invented  and  unapproved  prayers  before  the  Liturgy  o 
"  the  Church."  In  Trinity  College  "they  lean  or  sit  or 
"  kneel  at  prayers,  every  man  in  a  several  posture  as  he 
"  pleases ;  at  the  name  of  Jesus  few  will  bow;  and,  when 
"  the  Creed  is  repeated,  many  of  the  boys,  by  some1  men's 
te  directions,  turn  to  the  west  door."  In  other  Colleges  it 
was  as  bad  or  worse.  In  Christ's  College  there  was  very 
good  order  on  the  whole  ;  but  "  hard  by  this  House  there  is 
"  a  town  inn  (they  call .  it  The  Brazen  George)  wherein 
"  many  of  their  scholars  live,  lodge,  and  study,  and  yet  the 
"  statutes  of  the  University  require  that  none  lodge  out  of 
"the  College."1 

It  yet  remains  to  describe  the  order  of  the  curriculum 
which  students  at  Cambridge  in  Milton's  time  went  through 
during  the  whole  period  of  their  University  studies.  This 
period,  extending,  in  the  Faculty  of  Arts,  over  seven  years 
in  all,  was  divided,  as  now,  into  two  parts.  There  was  the 
period  of  Undergraduateship,  extending  from  the  time  of 
admission  to  the  attainment  of  the  B.  A.  degree ;  and  there 
was  the  subsequent  period  of  Bachelorship,  terminating 
with  the  attainment  of  the  M.A.  degree. 

By  the  original  statutes,   a   complete   quadriennium,  or 

i  For  a  detailed  account  of  Univer-  description  of  the  state  of  morals  and 

sity  disorders  and  deviations  from  dis-  manners  at  the  University,  as  it  ap- 

cipliue,  arising  more   especially  from  peared  to  a  serious  and  well-behaved 

Puritan  opinions,  see  a  paper  submitted  student  of  Puritanical  ^tendencies,  see 

to   Archbishop   Laud   in   1636  by  Dr.  Autobiography  of  Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes, 

Cosin,  Master  of  Peterhouse,  and  Dr.  Bart.,  edited  from   the  MS.  by  J.  O. 

Sterne,   Master   of   Jesus   College,   in  Halliwell.  1845.     D'Ewes  was  admitted 

Cooper's  Annals,  III.  280—283.    For  a  a  student  of  St.  John's  in  1618, 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625.  141 

four  years'  course  of  studies,  measured  by  twelve  full  terms 
of  residence  in  a  College,  and  of  matriculation  in  the  books 
of  the  University,1  was  required  for  the  degree  of  B.A. 
Each  year  of  the  guadriennium  had  its  appropriate  studies ; 
and  in  the  last  year  of  it  the  students  rose  to  the  rank  of 
"  Sophisters,"  and  were  then  entitled  to  partake  in  the  dis 
putations  in  the  public  schools.  In  the  last  year,  and 
practically  in  the  last  term,  of  their  quadriennium,  they 
were  required  by  the  statutes  of  the  University  to  -keep 
two  "  Acts  "or  "  Responsions  "  and  two  "  Opponeneies  "• 
in  the  public  schools, — exercises  for  which  they  were  piper 
sumed  to  be  prepared  by  similar  practice  in  their  Colleges. 
The  nature  of  these  ^Acts jj  and  J^_0pponencies  "  was  as 
follows : — One  of  the  Proctors  having,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  academic  year,  collected  the  names  of  all  the  students  of 
the  various  Colleges  who  intended  to  take  the  degree  of 
B.A.  that  year,  each  of  these  received  an  intimation, 
shortly  after  the  beginning  of  the  Lent  term,  that  on  a 
future  day,  generally  about  a  fortnight  after  the  notice  was 
given,  he  would  have  to  appear  as  "  Respondent "  in  the 
public  schools.  The  student  so  designated  had  to  give  in  a 
list  of  three  propositions  which  he  would  maintain  in  debate. 
The  question  actually  selected  was  usually  a  moral  or  meta 
physical  one.  The  Proctor  then  named  three  Sophisters, 
belonging  to  other  Colleges,  who  were  to  appear  as  "  Oppo 
nents."  When  the  day  arrived,  the  Respondent  and  the  A 
Opponents  met  in  the  schools,  some  Master  of  Arts  presid 
ing  as  Moderator,  and  the  other  Sophisters  and  Graduates 
forming  an  audience.  The  Respondent  read  a  Latin  thesis 
on  the  selected  point;  and  the  Opponents,  one  after 
another,  tried  to  refute  his  arguments  syllogistically,  in 
such  Latin  as  they  had  provided  or  could  muster.  When 
one  of  the  speakers  was  at  a  loss,  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
Moderator  to  help  him  out.  When  all  the  Opponents  had 

1  The  reader  must   distinguish    be-  student's  connexion  with  his  Coll-ege 

tween   admission  into   a   College   and  and  residence  there ;  but,  for  degrees 

matriculation  in  the  general  University  and  tha  like,  a  student's  standing  in 

Registers.     Both  were  necessary,  but  the    Uaiversifcy    was   certified    by   the 

the  acts  were  distinct.     The  College  matriculation-book  kept  by  the  Uaiver- 

books  certified  all  the  particulars  of  a  sity  Registrar. 


142  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIMS. 

spoken,  and  the  Moderator  had  dismissed  them  and  the 
Respondent  with  such  praise  as  he  thought  they  had 
severally  deserved,  the  "  Act "  was  over. 

When  a  student  had  kept  two  Responsions  and  two  Op- 
ponencies, — and,  in  order  to  get  through  all  the  Acts  of  the 
two  or  three  hundred  Sophisters  who  every  year  came 
forward,  it  is  evident  that  the  "  schools "  must  have  been 
continually  busy, — he  was  farther  examined  in  his  own 
College,  and,  if  approved,  was  sent  up  as  a  "  quasstionist," 
or  candidate  for  the  B.  A.  degree.  The  ' '  quasstionists " 
from  the  various  Colleges  were  then  submitted  to  a  distinct 
examination,  usually  on  three  days  in  the  week  before  Ash 
Wednesday  week,  in  the  public  schools,  before  the  Proctors 
and  others  of  the  University.  Those  who  passed  this  ex 
amination  were  furnished  by  their  Colleges  with  a  supplicat 
to  the  Vice-Chancellor  and  Senate,  praying  that  they 
might  be  admitted,  as  the  phrase  was,  ad  respondendum 
qucestioni.  Then,  on  a  day  before  Ash  Wednesday,  all  the 
qusestionists  from  each  College  went  up,  headed  by  a  Fellow 
of  the  College,  to  the  public  schools,  for  the  process  of 
"  entering  their  Priorums,"  i.  e.  proposing  and  answering, 
each  of  them,  some  question  out  of  Aristotle's  Prior  Analytics; 
after  which  they  became  what  was  called  "determiners." 
From  Ash  Wednesday  till  the  Thursday  before  Palm  Sunday 
the  candidates  were  said  to  stand  in  quadragesima ,  and  had 
a  farther  course  of  exercises  to  go  through;  and  on  this 
latter  day  their  probation  ended,  and  they  were  pronounced 
by  the  Proctor  to  be  full  Bachelors  of  Arts.1 

Many  students,  of  course,  never  advanced  so  far  as  the 
B.A.  degree,  but,  after  a  year  or  two  at  the  University, 
removed  to  study  law  at  the  London  Inns  of  Court,  or  to 
begin  other  business.  Oliver  Cromwell,  for  example,  had 
left  Sidney  Sussex  College,  in  1617,  after  about  a  year's 
residence.  Those  who  did  take  their  B.A.  degree  and 
meant  to  advance  farther  were  required  by  the  original 

1  In   this  account  I   have   followed  absolutely  essential,  for  example,  that 

ean  Peacock's    Observations    on    the  the  B.A.  degree  should  be  taken  in  the 

Statutes  ;  but    there   were    deviations  Lent  Term. 

from  the  general  practice.     It  was  not 


CAMBRIDGE    AND    ITS    DONS    IN    1625.  143 

statutes  to  reside  three  years  more,  and  during  that  time  to 
go  through  certain  higher  courses  of  study  and  perform 
certain  fresh  Acls  in  the  public  schools  and  their  Colleges. 
These  regulations  having  been  complied  with,  they  were, 
after  having  been  examined  in  their  Colleges  and  provided 
with  supplicats,  admitted  by  the  Chancellor  or  Vice- Chan 
cellor  ad  incipiendum  in  artibus ;  and  then,  after  certain 
other  formalities,  they  were  ceremoniously  created  Masters 
of  Arts  either  at  the  greater  Comitia  or  general  "  Com 
mencement"  at  the  close  of  the  academic  year  (the  first 
Tuesday  in  July),  or  on  the  day  immediately  preceding. 
Those  two  days — the  Vesperice  Comitiorum,  or  day  before 
Commencement-day,  and  the  Comitia,  or  Commencement- 
day  itself — were  the  gala- days  of  the  University.  Besides 
the  M.A.  degrees,  such  higher  degrees  as  LL.D.,  M.U., 
and  D.D.,  were  then  conferred. 

By  the  original  statutes,  the  connexion  of  the  scholar 
with  the  University  was  not  yet  over.  Every  Master  of 
Arts  was  sworn  to  continue  his  "regency"  or  active 
University  functions  for  five  years;  which  implied  almost 
continual  residence  during  that  time,  and  a  farther  course 
of  study  in  Theology  and  Hebrew,  with  Acts,  disputations, 
and  preachings.  Then,  after  seven  full  years  from  the  date 
of  commencing  M.A.,  he  might,  by  a  fresh  set  of  forms, 
become  a  Doctor  of  either  Law  or  Medicine,  or  a  Bachelor 
of  Divinity ;  but  for  the  Doctorate  of  Divinity  five  additional 
years  were  necessary.  Thus,  in  all,  nineteen  years  at  the 
University  were  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  the  rank  of  / 
D.D.,  and  fourteen  years  for  the  attainment  of  the  Doctorates 
of  Law  and  Medicine. 

Framed  for  a  state  of  society  which  had  passed  away,  and 
too  stringent  even  for  that  state  of  society,  these  rules  had 
fallen  into  modification  or  disuse.  (1.)  As  respected  the 
quadriennium,  or  the  initiatory  course  of  studies  preparatory 
to  the  degree  of  B.A.,  there  had  been  a  slight  relaxation, 
consisting  in  an  abatement  of  one  term  of  residence  out  of 
the  twelve  required  by  the  Elizabethan  statutes.  This  had 
been  done  in  1578  by  a  formal  decree  of  the  Vice- Chancellor 


144  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

and  Heads.  It  was  then  ordered  that  every  student  should 
enrol  his  name  in  the  University  Register  and  take  his 
matriculation  oath  within  a  certain  number  of  days  after  his 
first  joining  any  College  and  coming  to  reside,  and  that,  for 
the  future,  all  persons  who  should  have  so  enrolled  and 
matriculated,  "  before,  at,  or  upon  the  day  when  the  ordin 
ary  sermon  ad  Clerum  is  or  ought  to  be  made  in  the  begin 
ning  of  Easter  Term,"  and  who  should  be  proved  by  the 
commons-books  of  their  Colleges  to  have  in  the  meantime 
resided  regularly,  should  be  considered  to  have  "  wholly 
and  fully "  discharged  their  quadriennium  in  the  fourth 
Lent  following  the  said  sermon.1  In  other  words,  the  Lent 
Term  in  which  a  student  went  through  his  exercises  for  his 
B.A.  degree  was  allowed  to  count  as  one  of  the  necessary 
twelve.  Since  that  time  another  of  the  required  terms  has 
been  lopped  off,  so  that  now  ten  real  terms  of  residence  are 
sufficient.  This  practice  seems  to  have  been  introduced 
before  1681  ;2  but  in  Milton's  time  the  interpretation  of 
1578  was  in  force.  Even  then,  however,  matriculation 
immediately  after  joining  a  College  was  not  rigorously  in 
sisted  on,  and  a  student  who  matriculated  any  time  daring 
the  Easter  Term  might  graduate  B.A.  in  the  fourth  Lent 
Term  following.  (2.)  It  was  impossible,  consistently  with 
the  demands  of  the  public  service  for  men  of  education,  that 
all  scholars  who  had  taken  their  B.A.  degree  should  there 
after  continue  to  reside  as  punctually  as  before  during  the 
three  additional  years  required  for  their  M.A.  degree,  and 
should  then  farther  bind  themselves  to  seven  years  of  active 
academic  duty  if  they  aspired  to  the  Doctorate  in  Laws  or 
Medicine,  and  to  still  longer  probation  if  they  aspired  to 
the  Doctorate  in  Theology.  Hence,  in"spite  of  oaths,  there 
had  been  gradual  relaxations.  The  triennium  of  continued 
residence  between  the  B.A.  degree  and  the  M.A.  degree 
was  still  for  a  good  while  regarded  as  imperative;  but  after 
this  second  degree  had  been  taken  the  connexion  with  the 
University  was  slackened.  Those  only  remained  in  the 

1  Dyer's  "  Privileges  of  the  Univer-          2  See  Decree  of  Vice-Chancellor  and 
sity  of  Cambridge,"  I.  282-3.  Heads  in  that  year  in  Dyer,  I.  330. 


CAMBRIDGE    AND   ITS   DONS    IN    1625.  145 

University  beyond  this  point  who  had  obtained  Fellowships, 
or  who  filled  University  offices,  or  who  were  assiduously  pursu 
ing  special  branches  of  study;  and  the  majority  were  allowed 
to  distribute  themselves  in  the  Church  and  through  society, 
devices  having  been  provided  for  keeping  up  their  nominal 
connexion  with  the  University,  with  a  view  to  their  advance 
to  the  higher  degrees.  (3.)  Not  even  here  had  the  process 
of  relaxation  stopped.  The  obligation  of  three  years  of  con 
tinued  residence  between  taking  the  B.A.  degree  and  com 
mencing  M.A.  had  been  found  to  be  burdensome ;  and,  after 
giving  way  in  practice,  it  had  been  formally  abrogated. 
The  decree  authorizing  this  important  modification  was 
passed  on  the  25th  of  March  1608,  so  that  the  modification 
was  in  force  in  Milton's  time  and  for  seventeen  years  before 
it.  ' '  Whereas,"  says  this  decree,  "  doubt  hath  lately  risen 
"whether  actual  Bachelors  in  Arts,  before  they  can  be 
" admitted  ad  incipiendum  [i.e.  commencing  M. A.],  must 
"  of  necessity  be  continually  commorant  in  the  University 
te  nine  whole  terms,  We,  for  the  clearing  of  all  controversies 
"  in  that  behalf,  do  declare  that  those  who,  for  their  learn- 
"ing  and  manners,  are,  according  to  statute,  admitted 
"  Bachelors  in  Arts  are  not  so  strictly  tied  to  a  local  com- 
"  morancy  and  study  in  the  University  and  Town  of  Cam- 
"  bridge,  but  that,  being  at  the  end  of  nine  terms  able  by 
"  their  accustomed  exercises  and  other  examinations  to 
''approve  themselves  worthy  to  be  Masters  of  Arts,  they 
"  may  justly  be  admitted  to  that  degree."  Reasons,  both 
academical  and  social,  are  assigned  for  the  relaxation.  At 
the  same  time,  lest  it  should  be  abused,  it  was  provided  that 
the  statutory  Acts  and  Exercises  ad  incipiendum  should  still 
be  punctually  required,  and  also  that  every  Bachelor  who 
should  have  been  long  absent  should,  on  coming  back  to 
take  his  Master's  degree,  bring  with  him  certificates  of 
good  conduct,  signed  by  "three  preaching  ministers, 
Masters  of  Arts  at  least,  living  on  their  benefices  "  near  the 
place  where  the  said  Bachelor  had  been  longest  residing.1 

1  Dyer,  I.  289—292. 
VOL.  I.  L 


CHAPTER  II. 

MILTON'S  SEVEN  YEARS  AT  CAMBRIDGE,  WITH  THE 

INCIDENTS  OP  THAT  PERIOD. 

1625—1632. 


HAVING  described  the  conditions  of  University  life  at 
Cambridge  at  the  time  when  Milton  went  thither,  I  pro 
ceed  to  what  may  be  called  the  external  history  of  that 
portion  of  Milton's  life  which  he  did  actually  pass  in  con 
nexion  with  Cambridge.  What  follows,  in  fact,  may  be 
vAfygWlp<l  n.a  a.  frfctnry  of  t.hft  TTm'yersity  of  Cambridge  in 
rggneral,  and  of  Christ's  College^jii^^articulai^^arby  yjar 


from  1624Tto  1632,  in  so  far  as  that  history  involved  also 
the  facts  of  Milton's  life  through  the  same  seven  years.1 


1  The  materials  are  very  various.  Mil 
ton's  own  letters  and  poems  during  the 
period  are  a  part  of  them.  I  think  it 
right  at  the  outset,  however,  to  men 
tion  two  authorities  which  I  have  used 
largely. — One  is  the  Annals  of  Cam 
bridge,  by  Charles  Henry  Cooper,  late 
Town-Clerk  of  Cambridge,  and  formerly 
Coroner  of  the  town,  published  in  4  vols. 
8vo.  between  1842  and  1852.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  admirable  works  of  the  kind 
known  to  me,  a  very  model  of  succinct 
and  accurate  research.  It  was  followed, 
in  1858  and  1861,  by  the  first  and 
second  volumes  of  the  same  author's 
projected  Athena  Cantabrigienses,  car 
rying  on  the  list  of  Cambridge  men, 
with  their  biographies,  from  1500  to 
1609.  The  two  works  together,  the 
Annals  and  the  Athena,  entitle  Mr. 
Cooper's  memory  to  the  same  immortal 
respect  at  Cambridge  that  is  due  at 
Oxford  to  the  memory  of  Anthony 
Wood. — While  availing  myself  of  Mr. 
Cooper's  "Annals"  for  the  years  in 
which  I  am  interested,  I  have  enriched 
my  account  by  references  to  an  im 
portant  MS.  hitherto  but  slightly  used. 
Among  the  Harleian  MSS.  in  the 
British  Museum  are  two  bulky  volumes 
(Nos.  389  and  390)  consisting  of  Let 
ters  written  by  Joseph  Meade,  Fellow  of 


Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  to  Sir  Martin 
Stuteville,  at  Dalham  in  Suffolk,  from 
December  1620  to  April  1631  inclusively. 
The  nature  of  these  letters  may  be  in 
ferred  from  the  account  I  have  already 
given  of  Meade  and  his  habits  of  news- 
collecting.  At  least  once  every  week 
he  had  a  budget  of  gossip  from  cor 
respondents  in  London,  with  sometimes 
a  printed  coranto  included ;  and  re 
gularly  every  week  he  sent  off  to  Stute 
ville,  either  in  the  originals  or  in 
abstracts  by  his  own  hand,  the  news  he 
had  thus  received,  generally  adding  a 
shorter  or  longer  paragraph  of  Cam 
bridge  and  University  news,  and  of 
gossip  about  himself.  Such  being  the 
nature  of  the  MS.  volumes,  they  have 
naturally  at  various  times  been  con 
sulted.  One  or  two  of  Meade's  letters 
were  printed  by  Sir  Henry  Ellis  in 
his  collections  of  "  Original  Letters 
illustrative  of  English  History,"  and 
larger  use  of  them  was  made  by  the 
editor  of  "  The  Court  and  Times  of 
Charles  I.  illustrated  by  authentic 
Letters,  &c."  1848.  The  fact  that  the 
letters  were  written  from  Christ's  Col 
lege  at  the  time  when  Milton  was  there 
induced  me  to  go  through  them  for 
myself. 


MILTON'S  FIRST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1624-5.        147 


ACADEMIC    YEAR    1624-5. 

MILTON  setat.  16. 

Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  JOHN  MANSELL,  President  of  Queens'  College. 

Proctors,  WILLIAM  BOSWELL,  M.A.,  of  Jesus  College,  and  THOMAS  BOULD,  M.A., 

of  Pembroke  Hall. 

MICHAELMAS  TEEM  .  October  10, 1624.  to  December  16,  1624. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1624-5,  to  April  8,  1625. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  27,  1625,  to  July  8, 1625. 


By  the  above  it  will  be  seen  that  the  date  of  Milton's 
admission  into  Christ's  College,  February  12,  1624-5,  was 
towards  the  middle  of  the  Lent  or  second  term  of  the  cur 
rent  academic  year.  The  subjoined  letter  of  his  proves  that 
he  did  not  remain  in  Cambridge  through  the  whole  of  this 
term,  but  was  again  in  London  some  time  before  the  close 
of  it.  We  translate  from  the  Latin  : — 

"  To  THOMAS  YOUNG,  HIS  PRECEPTOR. 

"  Although  I  had  resolved  with  myself,  most  excellent  Preceptor, 
to  send  you  a  certain  small  epistle  composed  in  metrical  numbers, 
yet  I  did  not  consider  that  I  had  done  enough  unless  I  wrote  also 
another  in  prose ;  for  the  boundless  and  singular  gratitude  of  mind 
which  your  deserts  justly  claim  from  me  was  not  to  be  expressed  in 
that  cramped  mode  of  speech,  straitened  by  fixed  feet  and  syllables, 
but  in  a  free  oration,  or  rather,  were  it  possible,  in  an  Asiatic  ex 
uberance  of  words.  Albeit,  in  truth,  to  express  sufficiently  how 
much  I  owe  you  were  a  work  far  greater  than  my  strength,  even  if 
I  should  ransack  all  those  hoards  of  arguments  which  Aristotle  or 
which  that  Dialectician  of  Paris  [Ramus  f]  has  amassed,  or  even  if 
I  should  exhaust  all  the  fountains  of  oratory.  You  complain, 
indeed,  as  justly  you  may,  that  my  letters  to  you  have  been  as  yet 
few  and  very  short ;  but  I,,  on  the  other  hand,  do  not  so  much  grieve 
that  I  have  been  remiss  in  a  duty  so  pleasant  and  so  enviable  as  I 
rejoice,  and  all  but  exult,  at  holding  such  a  place  in  your  friendship 
that  you  should  care  to  ask  for  frequent  letters  from  me.  That  I 
should  never  have  written  to  you  for  now  more  than  three  years, 
however,  I  pray  you  will  not  interpret  to  my  discredit,  but,  in 
accordance  with  your  wonderful  indulgence  and  candour,  view  with 
a  charitable  construction.  For  I  call  God  to  witness  how  much  in  i 
the  light  of  a  Father  I  regard  you,  with  what  singular  devotion  I  \ 

L  2 


148  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

have  always  followed  you  in  thought,  and  how  I  feared  to  trouble 
you  with  my  writings.  My  first  care,  I  suppose,  is  that,  since  there 
is  nothing  else  to  commend  my  letters,  their  rarity  may  commend 
them.  Next,  as  that  most  vehement  desire  after  you  which  I  feel 
makes  me  always  fancy  you  with  me,  and  speak  to  you  and  behold 
you  as  if  you  were  present,  and  so  (as  generally  happens  in  love) 
soothe  my  grief  by  a  certain  vain  imagination  of  your  presence,  it 
is  in  truth  my  fear  that,  as  soon  as  I  should  meditate  a  letter  to  be 
sent  you,  it  should  suddenly  come  into  my  mind  by  what  an  interval 
of  earth  you  are  distant  from  me,  and  so  the  grief  of  your  absence, 
already  nearly  lulled,  should  grow  fresh,  and  break  up  my  sweet 
dream.  The  Hebrew  Bible,  your  truly  most  acceptable  gift,  I 
received  some  time  since.  These  lines  I  have  written  in  London 
amid  city  distractions,  and  not,  as  usual,  surrounded  by  books  (non 
libris,  ut  soleo,  circumseptus)  :  if,  therefore,  anything  in  this  epistle 
shall  please  you  less  than  might  be,  and  disappoint  your  expect 
ation,  it  shall  be  made  up  for  by  another  more  elaborate  one  as  soon 
as  I  have  returned  to  the  haunts  of  the  Muses. 
"London:  March  26,  1625." 

The  inference  from  this  letter  is  that  Milton's  visit  to 
Cambridge  in  the  Lent  Term  of  1624-5  had  been  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  enrolling  his  name  in  the  College  books, 
choosing  his  rooms,  &c.,  and  that,  after  staying  a  week  or 
two,  he  had  returned  to  London  for  a  holiday  before  fairly 
commencing  his  new  life  as  a  Cantab.  This  was  a  common 
practice. 

While  Milton  was  penning  his  letter  to  Young  the  news 
round  him  in  London  was  that  King  James  was  breathing  his 
last.  He  died  the  following  day,  March  27,  1625.  For  a 
time  the  rumour  ran  that  he  had  been  poisoned.  This  at 
last  settled  into  what  seems  to  have  been  the  truth  :  viz. 
that,  when  the  king  was  dying,  Buckingham  and  his  countess 
had  applied  a  plaster  to  him  without  the  consent  or  know 
ledge  of  the  physician,  and  that  the  physician  was  very- 
angry  and  talked  imprudently  in  consequence.  On  a  post 
mortem  examination,  his  heart  "was  found  of  an  extraor- 
"  dinary  bigness/'  and  "  the  semiture  of  his  head  so  strong 
"  as  they  could  hardly  break  it  open  with  a  chisel  and  a 
"  saw,  and  so  full  of  brains  as  they  could  not,  on  the  open- 


MILTON'S  FIRST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1624-5.         149 

"  ing,  keep  them  from  spilling, — a  great  mark  of  his  infinite 
"judgment."1  Any  lamentations,  however,  that  there  were 
for  the  death  of  the  large-brained  Scotchman  were  soon 
drowned  in  the  proclamation  of  his  successor  of  the  narrow 
forehead.  Charles  was  in  his  twenty-fifth  year. 

f  Milton  returned  to  Cambridge  within  twelve  days  after 
_ *he~ ttig-'a  death. — This  is  proved  by  the  date  of  his  matri 
culation  entry,^Tiicn~i3^A.pril  9, 11)25.  ^O"n~that  day  he 
must  have  presentecTTiTmself  personallyTwith  other  fresh 
men,  before  Mr.  Tabor  the  Registrar,  and  had  his  name 
enrolled  in  the  University  books.  There  were  in  all  seven 
matriculations  from  Christ's  College  on  that  day,  as  fol 
lows  : — 

Fellow  Commoners :  Thomas  Aldridge  and  .Richard  Earle. 
Lesser  Pensioners :  John  Milton,  Robert  Pory,  and  Robert  Bell. 
Sizars :  Edmund  Barwell  and  Richard  Britten.3 

Of  the  six  thus  matriculated  along  'with  Milton  three  are 
already  known  to  us,  as  having  been  among  the  fourteen 
admitted  into  Christ's  in  the  same  half-year  with  him ;  but 
Aldridge,  Bell,  and  Barwell  are  new  names.  It  is  worth 
noting,  also,  that  Pory,  from  Jjh^  vpry  Jjegmning,  seems  to 
^stick  close  to  Milton.  They  had  probably  returned  to 
Cambridge  together]  Both  of  them  had  been  admitted  of 
Christ's  College  in  the  reign  of  James  ;  but  they  did  not 
become  registered  members  of  the  University  till  that  of 
Charles  had  begun. 

Through  the  Easter  term  of  1625,  which  was  Milton's  first 
effective  term  at  the  University,  there  was  still  a  good  deal 
of  bustle  there  in  connexion  with  the  death  of  the  old  king 
and  the  accession  of  the  new.  It  was  difficult  for  the  dons 
and  the  scholars,  accustomed  as  they  had  been  so  long  to 
the  formula  C(  Jacobum  Regem  "  in  their  prayers  and  graces, 
to  bring  their  mouths  all  at  once  round  to  "  Carolum 

i  Meade  to  Stuteville,  April  9,  1625,      Komilly,  the  Eegistrar  of  the  Univer- 
and  another  letter,  quoted  in  Sir  Henry      sity.     Five  of  the  names  are  given  in 
Ellis's   Original  Letters,  series  I.  vol.      one  of  Baker's  MSS.  (Harl.  7041),  pro 
fessing  to  be  a  list  of  matriculations 
These  names  I  had  from  the  Ma-       from  1544  to  1682. 
triculation-book,  by  the  courtesy  of  Mr. 


150  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Regem  "  instead.  Meade  tells  of  one  Bachelor  of  his  College 
who  was  so  bent  on  remembering  that  "  Jacobus "  had 
gone  out  and  "  Carolus "  had  come  in  that,  when,  in  pub 
licly  reading  the  Psalms,  he  came  to  the  phrase  "  Deus 
Jacobi "  (God  of  Jacob),  he  altered  it,  before  he  was  aware, 
into  "  Deus  Carol!"  (God  of  Charles),  and  then  stood  horror- 
struck  at  his  mistake.1  As  was  usual  on  such  occasions,  the 
University,  like  her  sister  of  Oxford,  got  up  a  collection  of 
Greek  and  Latin  verses  in  praise  of  the  departed  sovereign 
and  in  congratulation  of  his  successor.2  Then,  on  the  7th 
of  May,  or  ten  days  after  the  opening  of  the  term,  being 
the  day  of  the  funeral  of  the  late  King  at  Windsor,  "  all  the 
University  did  meet  at  the  schools  in  their  formalities,  at 
nine  o' clock  in  the  morning,  and  went  from  thence  to  St. 
Mary's,"  where,  the  walls  being  all  hung  with  black,  and 
pinned  over  with  many  escutcheons  and  verses,  Dr.  Collins, 
the  Provost  of  King's,  preached  a  sermon,  preparatory  to 
a  Congregation  held  in  the  same  place  in  the  afternoon, 
when  Mr.  Thorndike,  the  deputy- orator,  delivered  a  speech.3 
This  was  probably  the  first  University  proceeding  at  which 
Milton  assisted. 

Before  the  term  had  begun  Sir  Martin  Stuteville  had 
intimated  his  intention  of  sending  his  son  John  to  the 
University,  and  had  consulted  Meade  whether  Christ's 
College  or  St.  John's  was  the  preferable  house.  Meade  had 
replied,  March  26,  in  favour  of  Christ's  ;  and  Stuteville  had, 
accordingly,  decided  to  enter  his  son  there  under  Meade's 
tutorship.  Owing  to  the  crowded  state  of  the  College, 
however,  there  was  some  difficulty  about  his  accommoda 
tion.  Writing  on  the  23rd  of  April,  Meade  explains  that  the 
choice  is  between  the  "  old  building,  where  there  are  four 
studies  in  each  chamber,"  and  "  the  new,  where  there  are 
but  two  studies  and  two  beds  "  in  each  chamber.  The  follow 
ing,  written  April  25,  shows  how  the  matter  was  settled : — 

"  For  chamber,  the  best  I  have  in  my  power.  That  John  Higham 
[an  older  pupil  of  Meade's,  of  a  family  known  to  the  Stutevilles  and 

1  Meade  to  Stuteville,  April  9,  1625:      men,"  &c.  cantab.  1625. 

the  day  of  Milton's  matriculation.  3  Cooper's  Annals.  III.  178. 

2  "  Cantabrigieusium  Dolor  et  Sola- 


MILTON'S  FIRST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1624-5.         151 

living  near  them]  keeps  in  hath  4  studies,  and  near  me  ;  and  I  had 
thought  to  have  devised  some  change  that  they  [i.  e.  John  Higham 
and  young  Stuteville]  should  keep  together.  Otherwise,  I  must 
dispose  of  your  son  in  the  new  building,  where  I  have  a  study  void 
in  one  of  the  best  chambers ;  but  a  Master  of  Arts  is  the  chamber- 
fellow  makes  it  [sic]  thereby  inconvenient  for  my  use.  I  have  no 
way  but  to  get  one  of  my  Bachelors  (March),  who  keeps  in  the  same 
building,  to  keep  with  the  Master  of  Arts,  and  let  yours  have  the  use 
of  his  study,  though  it  be  not  in  so  good  a  chamber.  For  bedding  we 
shall  make  a  shift  perhaps  for  a  week,  till  we  know  better  what  is 
needful.  If  he  keeps  in  the  new  building  he  must  have  a  whole 
bedding,  because  he  lies  alone  ;  if  in  another  chamber,  where  he  hath 
a  bedfellow,  they  must  take  a  bed  between  them,  and  his  part  will  be 
more  or  less,  according  as  his  bedfellow  is  furnished." 

Thus  settled,  young  Stuteville  becomes  a  fellow-collegian_of 
Milton,  onepf  the  select  knot  pnVieade's  pupils,  as  distinct 
from  those  en  the  other  tutors.  ~^  Y'ouiFsonT7"  writes  Meade 
to  Sir  Martin  on  the  30fch  of  Ap~nT,  "  is  gowned,  but  we  are 
"  not  yet  settled  to  our  studies :  we  will  begin  the  next 
"  week ;  for,  this  week,  he  had  to  look  about  him  to  know 
"where  he  was."  On  the  28th  of  May  he  says,  "  My  pupil 
is  well,  and  gives  me  yet  good  content,  and  I  hope  will 
continue."  On  the  4th  of  June  he  writes  inquiring  about 
"  one  Tracey  of  Moulton,  an  attorney's  son,"  whom  John 
Higham  has  been  recommending  to  him  as  a  new  pupil,  but 
respecting  whom  and  his  connexions  he  wishes  to  be  farther 
informed.  Sir  Martin's  reply  was  satisfactory,  for  on  the 
14th  of  June  Meade  writes,  "Your  request  1  take  for 
"  a  testimonial :  let  him  come  some  week  before  the  Com- 
"  mencement."  Before  the  end  of  the  term,  accordingly, 
Tracey  is  added  to  the  number  of  Meade's  pupils. 

A  great  matter  of  gossip  at  Cambridge,  as  everywhere 
else,  was  the  mflrrjngpjvC  thp  young  TTio^wit-h  the  French 
Princejs_Hej:rj^iJ^41^rig^  On  the  llth  ofMaypor  four~~ 
days  after  Jam^s~4>o%~wW4aidJnJjie~^ 
was  solemnized  by  proxy  at  Paris.  For  a  m on tli  afterwards 
the  country  was  on  tiptoe  for  the  arrival  of  the  Queen.  On 
the  17th  of  June  Meade  sends  to  Stuteville  an  account  of 
the  first  meeting  between  Charles  and  his  bride  at  Dover  on 
the  preceding  Monday,  the  13th;  which  was  the  day  after 
she  had  landed.  Having  heard,  when  at  breakfast,  that  the 
King  had  arrived  from  Canterbury,  she  "went  to  him, 


152  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS   TIME. 

"  kneeled  down  at  his  feet,  took  and  kissed  his  hand.  The 
"  King  took  her  up  in  his  arms,  kissed  her,  and,  talking 
"  with  her,  cast  his  eyes  down  to  her  feet  (she,  seeming 
"  higher  than  report  was,  reaching  to  his  shoulders)  :  which 
tf  she  soon  perceiving,  discovered  and  showed  him  her  shoes, 
"  saying  to  this  effect,  {  Sir,  I  stand  upon  mine  own  feet  ;  I 
"  have  no  helps  by  art.  Thus  high  I  am,  and  neither  higher 
"  nor  lower.'  Where  and  when  one  presently  wrote  with  a 
"  coal  these  lines  following  :  — 

'  All  places  in  this  castle  envy  this, 
Where  Charles  and  Mary  shared  a  royal  kiss. 

"  She  is  nimble  and  quick,  black-eyed,  brown-haired,  —  in  a 
"  word,   a   brave   lady/'     Th^_marriage   gave   occasion  to 
of  UnWersity  verses,  to  which  the  chief 


contributors  were  the  Duke^  of  Lennox, 
Collins,  Abraham  Whelock  of  Clare  Hall,  and  James  Duport 
and  Thomas  Randolph  of  Trinity.1  This  was  old  Downes's 
last  literary  appearance.  He  lived  some  time  longer,  but 
the  duties  of  the  Professorship  were  discharged  by  Creighton. 
Mixed^up  with  tho  gossip  about  the^  King's  marriage  are 
Elusions  in  Meajj^s  letters  to  a  matter  of  more  gloomy 
The  Plague  wasjn  EnglancTr  In  Eoncfon  it  ragecT~ 
^  It  beherTTnJj.a 


weekly  average  of  forty-five  deaths,  audit  increased  through 
June  and  July,  till  the  mortality  reached  the  number  of 
2,471  in  one  week.  Other  parts  of  the  country  began  to  be 
infected,  ^a-mbridge  remained  free ;  but  there  were  cases 
Jn  some  o?  the  villages  rouncTT^  W  riling  to~S?u1^Bvifte"OTT4rhe 
9tli  of  JulyTthe  day~~aftrarTEe~5kree  of  the  term,  Meade 
says  :  "  It  grows  very  dangerous  on  both  sides  to  continue 
"  an  intercourse  of  letters,  not  knowing  what  hands  they 
( '  may  pass  through  before  they  come  to  those  to  whom  they 
' '  are  sent.  Our  Hobson  and  the  rest  should  have  been  for- 
"  bidden  this  week,  but  that  the  message  came  too  late. 
"However,  it  is  his  last."  The  same  letter  contains  an 
account  of  another  matter  which  was  then  the  talk  of  Cam- 

1  "  Epithalamium  Illustriss.  et  Fell-      Cantabrigiensibus  decantatum  "  :  Cau- 
ciss.   Priucipum   Caroli,    &c.,  a  Musis      tab.  1625. 


MILTON'S  FIRST  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1624-5.         153 

bridge,— the   suicide,  the   day  before,  of  Dr.  Bloinfield  of 
Trinity  HalT^an  old~and  frail  man,  by  hanging  himself  in  his 


ItisTpossible  that  JVEil  ton  remained  part  of  the  long  vaca 
tion  in  College;  for  on  tEcTlTth-ef  July -Meade-w rites  -to — 
Stuteville  that  "  the  University  is  yet  very  full  of  scholars/*" 
and  that  he  must  postpone  an  intended  visit  to  Dalham,  i.  e. 
to  Stuteville's  place  in  Suffolk.  On  the  1st  of  August,  how 
ever,  a  grace  was  passed  for  discontinuing,  on  account  of 
the  plague,  all  sermons  and  other  public  exercises  that 
would  otherwise  have  been  held  during  the  vacation;  and 
on  the  4th  of  the  same  month  a  royal  proclamation  was 
issued  forbidding,  for  the  same  reason,  the  holding  of  the 
great  annual  fair  at  Sturbridge  near  Cambridge.1  The  town 
was  thus  thinned ;  and  such  members  of  the  University  as 
had  not  gone  off  lived  shut  up  in  their  Colleges,  afraid  to  go 
out  much,  and  alarmed  daily  by  reports  that  the  plague  had 
appeared  in  the  town.  On  the  4th 'of  September  Meade 
writes : — 

"  I  desire  to  be  at  Dalham  Monday  come  se'ennight,  which  will  be 
soon  here :  a  week  is  soon  gone.  I  cannot  sooner  .  .  .  but  I  think 
I  shall  think  the  time  long,  and  be  forced  to  you  for  want  of  victual. 
All  our  market  to-day  could  not  supply  our  commons  for  night.  I 
am  steward,  and  am  fain  to  appoint  eggs,  apple-pies,  and  custards,  for 
want  of  other  fare.  They  will  suffer  nothing  to  come  from  Ely.  Eels 
are  absolutely  forbidden  to  be  brought  to  our  market ;  so  are  rooks. 
You  see  what  it  is  to  have  a  physician  among  the  Heads.  [This  is  an 
allusion  to  Dr.  Gostlin,  Head  of  Caius,  whose  sanitary  knowledge 
would  be  in  request  at  such  a  time.]  We  cannot  have  leave  scarce  to 
take  the  air.  We  have  but  one  M.A.  in  our  College  ;  and  this  week 
he  was  punished  lOd.  for  giving  the  porter's  boy  a  box  on  the  ear 
because  he  would  not  let  him  out  at  the  gates.  You  may  by  this 
gather  I  have  small  solace  with  being  here,  and  therefore  will  haste 
all  I  can  to  be  in  a  place  of  more  liberty  and  society  ;  for  I  have  never 
a  pupil  at  home.  And  yet,  God  be  thanked,  our  town  is  free  so  much 
as  of  the  very  suspicion  of  infection." 

Milton,  we  may  suppose,  had  left  College  before  it  was 
reduced  to  the  condition  described  in  this  letter,  and  was 
passing  the  interval  with  his  parents  in  London  or  elsewhere.^ 
As  many  as  35^000  persons  were  said  to  have  died  of  the/ 
plague  that  autumn  in  London. 

1  Cooper's  Annals,  III.  179. 


154  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 


ACADEMIC  YEAR  1625-6. 

MILTON  setat.  17. 

Vice-Chancellor,  JOHN  GOSTLIN,  M.D.,  Master  of  Caius  College. 
Proctors,  JOHN  NORTON  of  King's,  and  KOBERT  WARD  of  Queens' 

MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10, 1625,  to  December  16, 1625. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1625-6,  to  March  31,  1626. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  19, 1626,  to  July  7, 1626. 


When  the  Colleges  reassembled  the  plague  was  still 
raging.  ^Jndeed,  asj^itej^llax^  tq^ 

send  to  jvEuteville  the  weekly  bills  of  mortality  receivecflfom 
his  London^fiorrespondents.  Before  the  end  of  the  MicEaefc 
mas  Term,  however,  the  number  of  cases  had  fallen  so  low 
that  the  public  mind  was  reassured ;  and  in  Cambridge, 
where  there  had  not  been  one  case,  there  was,  after  the  first 
week  or  two  of  the  session,  no  interruption  of  the  usual 
routine.  The  following  scraps  from  Meade's  letters  will 
indicate  the  nature  of  the  smaller  matters  of  gossip  which 
occupied  him  and  others  at  Cambridge  during  the  academic 
year : — 

Nov.  5,  1625. — "  My  pupil  had  wrote  last  week,  but  sent  too  late. 
It  will  not  be  so  easy  for  a  child  to  find  continual  invention  for  a  mere 
expression  of  duty  and  thankfulness,  unless  you  appoint  him  some 
material  to  write  of,  whereout  he  might  pick  somewhat,  and  usher  it 
with  suitable  expressions." 

Dec.  10. — "  This  is  good  handsome  winter  weather." 

March  25,  1626.—"  I  pray,  tell  me  what  you  know  of  such  a  knight 
as  Sir  John  Tasborough  in  your  shire.  He  was  with  me  this  week 
about  placing  two  of  his  sons.  He  is  utterly  unknown  to  me,  farther 
than  I  learned  of  a  gentleman,  a  stranger  too,  who  came  with  him  to 
my  chambers.  He  brought  not  his  sons,  and  I  was  a  great  while  very 
shy,  suspending  my  promise  to  entertain  them  unless  I  knew  them 
well  grounded,  &c. ;  yet  I  yielded  at  length,  and  they  should  come,  and 
himself  with  them,  in  Easter- week.  He  told  me  he  knew  yourself 
very  well  .  .  I  thank  my  lady  [Lady  Stuteville]  for  my  cheese ; 
and,  if  I  had  a  box  to  keep  them  from  breaking,  I  would  have  sent 
her  a  collop  and  an  egg,  an  orange  or  a  limpn,  a  green  peascod  and 
cracked  walnut-shell,  &c.,  all  of  sugar,  and  in  their  colours  scarce  to 
be  discerned  from  natural.  A  gentleman  whom  I  never  saw  sent 
them  to  me.  But  I  dare  not  trust  Parker's  man's  panniers  with  them ." 

April  1. — "  I  cannot  possibly  stir  with  convenience  till  Easter  be 
past,  expecting  Sir  John  Tasborough  and  his  sons  that  week  ;  of 
which  gent.  I  desired  before  and  do  still  some  information  from  you, 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1625-6.       155 

especially  of  his  estate,  that  I  be  not  again  burnt  with  Fellow-Com 
moners  as  I  have  already." 

April  8.—"  Thank  you  for  your  information  of  the  knight.  Of 
his  wife's  recusancy  himself  told  me,  and  that  he  desired,  in  that 
respect,  that  there  should  be  a  special  care  taken  of  his  sons  for 
training  them  in  the  true  religion  ;  whom  he  hoped  as  yet  were 
untainted,  though  not  very  well  informed,  by  default  of  some  school 
masters  he  had  trusted."  * 

May  13.—  "Mr.  Hewlett  [i.  e.  Hewlett  of  Sidney  Sussex  College, 
who  had  been  Oliver  Cromwell's  tutor]  yesterday  carried  away  my 
store  [i.  e.  budget  of  news],  which  I  doubt  not  but  ere  now  is  arrived 
with  you  .  .  .  My  pupil  shall  not  need  come  home  for  close  [clothes]." 

June  24.  —  "  I  will  now  tell  you  of  an  accident  here  at  Cambridge, 
rare  if  not  strange,  whereof  I  was  yesterday  morning  an  eye-witness 
myself."  ---  Meade  then  tells  of  a  codfish,  in  whose  maw,  when  it  was 
opened  in  the  fish-market,  there  was  found  "  a  book  in  decimo-sexto 
of  the  bigger  size,"  together  with  two  pieces  of  sailcloth.  The  book, 
on  being  dried,  was  found  to  consist  of  three  religious  treatises,  bound 
together.  One  was  entitled  The  Preparation  to  the  Crosse  and  to 
Death,  &c.,  the  author  being  Richard  Tracey,  and  the  date  1540  ; 
the  second  was  A  Mirrour  or  Glasse  to  knoive  Thyself  e  :  being  a 
Treatise  made  by  John  Frith  whiles  hee  was  prisoner  in  the  Tower  of 
London,  A.D.  1532  ;  the  third  was  entitled  The  Treasure  of  Know 
ledge,  &c.  ''Some  of  the  graver  sort  "  were  disposed  to  regard  the 
accident  as  preternatural  ;  and  the  three  treatises  were  reprinted  in 
London  in  the  following  year  under  the  title  Vox  Piscis.2 

More  important  matters  than  the  above  were  talked  over  at 
the  University  through  the  same  eight  or  nine  months. 

on  the  9th  of  April,  and  thejinterest 


which  the  University  would  in  any  case  have  felt  in  this 
event  was  increased  by  the  fact  that  the  deceased  had  be 
queathed  a  sum  of  money  to  endow  a  Lectureship  in  Natural 
Philosophy,  tenable  by  any  Englishman  or  foreigner  not 
already  professed  (this  was  characteristic  of  Bacon)  in  any 
one  of  the  three  faculties  of  divinity,  law,  or  physic.  The 
intention  was  all  for  which  the  University  was  indebted  to 
her  illustrious  son  ;  for,  when  his  estate  was  realized,  it  was 
found  that  there  were  not  sufficient  funds.3 

i  In   a  letter  in   the    State    Paper      "  worth  you  a  £1000,  and  me  as  much 
Office,  dated  "  Dorset  House,  March  4,      "  more,  if  you  choose  ;  and  this  it  is  :  — 


1628-9,"  and  addressed  by  Sir  John 
Sackville  to  a  courtier  not  named,  I 
find  a  farther  allusion  to  this  Suffolk 
knight,  Tasborough,  and  his  sou, 
Meade's  pupil.  "  I  am  so  well  acquainted 
"  with  your  noble  disposition,"  writes 
Sackville,  "that  it  emboldens  me  to 
move  a  business  unto  you,  which  I 


'  Sir  John  Tasborough,  a  Suffolk  man, 
'  lies  very  sick  and  cannot  escape.    His 
'  son  is  not  20  years  old ;  and,  if  you  can 
'get  his  wardship  of   his  Majesty,  I 
'  think  £2000  would  be  given  for  it.  It 
is  true  the  gentleman  hath  a  mother  ; 
but   she   cannot   compound    for    his 
wardship,  for  she  is  a  Papist." 


;  think  you  may  with  a  word  get  of  the          a  Cooper's  Annals,  III.  196-7. 
'  King.    If  you  can  get  it,  it  will  be          3  Cooper,  III.  184-5. 


156 


LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


-arcadeniic  yearr  was  signalised  by  wliat  would 
now^be_called_a^  movement  for  University  Reform.  When 
Charles's  first  ParliajnentonaiLinJhe  previo  us  summer  (Jtme 
of 


of  the  first  matt^^ 

tiQn"was  the~"statej)f  the  Ujxiyersitigs:  They  preserSecTlt 
petition  to  the  King  (July  8)  complaining  of  the  increase  of 
Popery  and  other  abnses  both  at  Oxford  a^tTTamb  ridge, 
oil  ffT}he  restoration  Qfjjhe  ancienTciiscjgljne. 


jt  wasat  Oxford,  whither  the  Parliament  had  adjonrned  on  _.. 
vacpQunfc^^of  the  plague,  that  the  Kingjreturned_h.is  answer 
(Aug.  8).  iDTmfOrrned  theTarliament  that  he  apj)r7)v~elJ"af~ 
their  recommendation,  and  would  cause  the  Chancellor  of 
each  University  to  take  means  for  carrying  it  into  effect. 
The  disagreement  between  Charles  and  the  Commons  on 
other  points,  however,  having  proved  irreconcilable,  Parlia 
ment  was  hastily  dissolved  four  days  afterwards  (Aug.  12, 
1625),  not  one  Act  having  been  passed  during  the  brief 
session,  nor  any  supplies  voted.  But  the  Universities  them 
selves  had  caught  the  alarm,  and  they  hastened,  as  soon  as 
they  reassembled,  to  make  clean  at  least  the  outside  of  the 
cup  and  platter.  Thus,  at  Cambridge,  on  the  19th  of 
December,  1625,  a  decree  was  passed  by  the  Vice-Chancellor 
and  eleven  of  the  sixteen  Heads  of  Colleges,  containing  the 
following  regulations,  amongst  others  :  — 

"  That,  for  the  future,  no  woman,  of  whatever  age  or  condition,  dare 
either  by  herself,  or,  being  sent  for,  be  permitted  by  others,  in  any 
College,  to  make  any  one's  bed  in  private  chambers  ;  or  to  go  to  the 
hall,  or  kitchen,  or  buttery  ;  or  carry  any  one's  commons,  bread,  or 
beer  to  any  scholar's  chamber  within  the  limits  of  the  College,  unless 
she  were  sent  for  to  nurse  some  infirm  sick  person. 

"  That  the  nurses  of  sick  persons,  and  all  laundresses,  should  be  of 
mature  age,  good  fame,  and  wives  or  widows,  who  themselves  should 
take  the  scholar'  s  linen  to  wash  and  bring  the  same  back  again  when 
washed. 

"  That  young  maids  should  not  be  permitted,  upon  any  pretext 
whatsoever,  to  go  to  students'  chambers."  l 

All  this  amounted  to  something,  but  it  was  not  enough. 
The  King,  at  a  loss  for  supplies,  and  thwarted  more  and 
more  in  his  efforts  to  raise  them  by  his  own  authority,  had 

1  Cooper,  III.  182. 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1625-6.        157 

convened  a  second  Parliament,  to  meet  on  the  6th  of  Feb 
ruary,  1625-6  ;  and,  before  facing  this  Parliament,  he  thought 
it  advisable  to  do  something  towards  carrying  out  his  former 
promise  of  University  Reform.  Accordingly,  on  the  26th 
of  January,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  as 
Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  recapitulating 
the  petition  of  the  preceding  Parliament,  and  requiring  him 
to  direct  the  Vice-Chancellor  and  the  Heads  of  Houses  to 
meet  and  seriously  consider  "  what  are  or  have  been  the 
true  occasions  of  this  general  offence  taken  at  their  govern 
ment,"  and  what  might  be  the  proper  remedies.  The  Earl 
forwarded  the  King's  letter  to  Dr.  Gostlin  and  the  Heads, 
imploring  them  in  his  own  name  to  "  put  all  their  brains 
"  together  and  be  all  of  one  mind,  as  one  entire  man,  to  bring 
"  home  that  long  banished  pilgrim,  Discipline." l  This  led 
to  some  activity ;  but,  before  much  could  be  done,  an  event 
happened  which  interrupted  for  the  time  all  other  academic 
proceedings. 

The  event  was  nothing  less  than  the  death  of  the  Earl  of 
Suffolk,  leaving  the  Chancellorship  of  the  University  vacant. 
He  died  on  Sunday,  the  28th  of  May;  and  next  day  all 
Cambridge  was  thrown  into  commotion  by  the  arrival  of 
Dr.  Wilson,  chaplain  to  Mountain,  Bishop  of  London,  with 
a  message  from  the  Bishop,  to  the  effect  that  it  was  his 
Majesty's  pleasure  that  the  Senate  should  elect  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  to  the  vacant  dignity.  It  was  a  message  of 
startling  import.  Apart  from  the  general  unpopularity  of  the 
Duke,  his  election  at  that  particular  time  would  be  an  open 
defiance  of  Parliament.  Following  up  certain  charges  of  the 
preceding  Parliament,  the  Parliament  then  sitting  had,  in 
March,  impeached  the  Duke  for  misconduct  of  the  Spanish 
"War  and  for  other  political  crimes.  The  King  had  been 
obliged  to  consent  to  the  prosecution.  Naturally,  therefore, 
when  the  Heads  met  on  the  receipt  of  Dr.  Wilson's  message, 
there  was  a  difference  of  opinion  among  them.  Wren  of 
Peterhouse,  Paske  of  Clare  Hall,  Beale  of  Pembroke,  Mawe 
of  Trinity,  with  others,  urged  immediate  compliance  with 

1  Copy  of  Letter  in  State  Paper  Office,  of  date  February  27,  1625-6. 


158  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

the  King's  wishes ;  but  many  demurred  to  such  haste  in 
so  grave  a  matter.  The  Bishop's  chaplain  had  brought 
no  letters  with  him ;  and  was  a  mere  verbal  message  to  be 
received  as  a  sufficient  voucher  for  the  King's  pleasure  ? 
Whatever  force  there  was  in  this  argument  was  effectually 
destroyed  next  day  by  the  receipt  of  letters  from  Neile, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  stating  that  the  King  had  set  his  heart 
upon  the  Duke's  election,  and  by  the  arrival  of  the  Bishop 
of  London  in  person,  and  of  Mr.  Mason,  the  Duke's  Secre 
tary,  to  conduct  the  canvass. 

"  On  news  of  this  consultation  and  resolution  of  the 
"  Heads,"  says  Meade,  "  we  of  the  Body  murmur;  we  run 
"  to  one  another  to  complain  ;  we  say  that  the  Heads  in  this 
"  election  have  no  more  to  do  than  any  of  us ;  wherefore  we 
"  advise  what  to  do."  Some  bold  spirits  resolved  to  set  up 
the  Earl  of  Berkshire,  a  son  of  the  deceased  Chancellor,  in 
opposition  to  the  Duke.  They  did  not  wait  to  consult  the 
nobleman,  but  immediately  canvassed  for  him.  What  passed 
in  the  day  or  two  preceding  the  election,  which  took  place 
on  the  1st  of  June,  and  the  result  of  the  election  itself,  will 
be  learnt  from  Meade's  letter  dated  June  3rd  : — 

"  My  Lord  Bishop  labours ;  Mr.  Mason  visits  for  Ms  lord ;  Mr. 
Cosins  for  the  most  true  patron  of  the  clergy  and  of  scholars.  Masters 
belabour  their  Fellows.  Dr.  Mawe  sends  for  his,  one  by  one,  to  per 
suade  them  :  some  twice  over.  On  Thursday  morning  (the  day 
appointed  for  the  election)  he  makes  a  large  speech  in  the  College- 
chapel,  that  they  should  come  off  unanimously :  when  the  School  bell 
rung,  he  caused  the  College  bell  also  to  ring,  as  to  an  Act,  and  all  the 
Fellows  to  come  into  the  Hall  and  to  attend  him  to  the  Schools  for 
the  Duke,  that  so  they  might  win  the  honour  to  have  it  accounted 
their  College  Act.  Divers  in  town  got  hackneys  and  fled,  to  avoid 
importunity.  Very  many,  some  whole  Colleges,  were  gotten  by  their 
fearful  Masters,  the  Bishop,  and  others,  to  suspend,  who  otherwise 
were  resolved  against  the  Duke,  and  kept  away  with  much  indigna- 
/  tion :  and  yet,  for  all  this  stir,  the  Duke  carried  it  but  by  three  votes 
\[The  exact  numbers  were  108  votes  for  the  Duke  against  102  for  Lord 
Berkshire].  .  .  .  You  will  not  believe  how  they  triumphed  (I  mean  the 
Masters  above-named)  when  they  had  got  it.  Dr.  Paske  made  his 
College  exceed  that  night,  &c.  Some  since  had  a  good  mind  to  have 
questioned  the  election  for  some  reason  ;  but  I  think  they  will  be 
better  advised  for  their  own  ease.  We  had  but  one  Doctor  in  the 
whole  town  durst  (for  so  I  dare  speak)  give  with  us  against  the  Duke ; 
and  that  was  Dr.  Porter  of  Queens'.  What  will  the  Parliament  say 
to  us  ]  Did  not  our  burgesses  condemn  the  Duke  in  their  charge 
given  up  to  the  Lords  1  I  pray  God  we  hear  well  of  it ;  but  the 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1625-6.        159 

actors  are  as  bold  as  lions,  and  I  half  believe  would  fain  suffer,  that 
they  might  be  advanced." 

The  election,  as  Meade  had  anticipated,  did  cause  much 
public  excitement.  The  Duke  wrote  to  the  Vice- Chancellor, 
acknowledging  the  honour  conferred  upon  him,  and  asking 
the  Heads  to  allow  him  to  postpone  his  official  visit  for  some 
months ;  and  the  Bishop  of  Durham  also  wrote,  conveying 
the  "ing's  thanks.  The  election,  in  fact,  had  been  a  stroke 
of  Court  policy  in  opposition  to  Parliament,  and  the  courtiers 
were  delighted  with  their  success.  The  Commons,  on  the 
other  hand,  took  the  matter  up  warmly,  and  spoke  of  calling 
the  University  to  account ;  and  there  was  a  tart  skirmish  of 
messages  and  counter-messages  on  the  subject  between  them 
and  the  King.  The  whole  question,  with  many  others,  was 
suddenly  quashed  by  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament  on 
the  15th  of  June.  The  Parliament  had  sat  four  months,  but, 
like  its  predecessor,  had  been  unable  to  pass  a  single  bill. 
Scarcely  had  it  been  dissolved  when  (-July  1626)  differences 
with  France  led  to  a  war  with  that  country,  in  addition  to 
the  war  already  on  hand  with  Spain. 

The  tradition  of  some  incident  in  Milton's  University  life 
Qf^such   a   kind    that    his    enemies,    by    exaggerating   and 
misrepresentrng^it^-Were  ablfi  n.fl-.flvwgr«Tg  t.n  nag  i*.  to  his 
_discre3i^1^  rary  old.     It  was  probably  first  presented  in 
the  definite  shape  in  which  we  now  have  it  by  Dr.  Johnson    / 
in  his  memoir  of  the  poet.     tf  There  is  reason  to  believe," 
says  Johnson,  "  that  Milton   was  regarded  in   his   College 
"  with  no  great  fondness.     That  he  obtained  no  fellowship 
"  is  certain  ;  but  the  unkindness  with  which  he  was  treated 
"  was  not  merely  negative.     I  am  ashamed  to  relate  what  I  f 
"fear  is  true,  that  Milton  was  one  of  the  last  students  in 
"either  University  that    suffered   the   public   indignity    of 
"  corporal   correction."      The  question  of  Milton's  general 
Ppjpu!sydty-  at  College  will l5M9^o^ideredTiereaf|er",  and  it  is  " 
with  the  special  statement  IhatTwe  areTcqnj 

^  we  now  know,  was 

(^Aubrey's  MS.  Life  of  Milton,^  either  seen  by  himself  in 


160  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  Ashmolean,  or  inspected  there   by  some  one  whom  he 
knew.     The  original  passage  there  is  as  follows  : — 


And  was  a  very  hard  student  in  the  University,  and  performed 
\      all  his  exercises  with  very  good  applause.     His  first  tutor  there  was 

whipt  him 

\     Mr.  Chappell,  from  whom  receiving  some  unkindness,  he  was  (though 
I     it  seemed  contrary  to  the  rules  of  the  College)  transferred  to  the 
tuition  of  one  Mr.  To  veil  [mis  written  for  Toveyl,  who  died  parson  of 
Lutterworth."  '  ^ 

This  passage  occurs  in  a  paragraph  of  particulars  expressly 
set  down  by  Aubrey  in  hisMS^asJjQ^-iTig  frftgn-d^rivftrl  from- 
^jEe  poet's  brofc£er_Christopher.  It  seems  impossible,  there 
fore,  to  doubt  that  it  is  in  the  main  authentic.  Of  the  whole 
statement,  however,  precisely  —  that  which  has'teast  the  look 
of  authenticity  is  the  pungent  fact  of  the  interlineation. 
That  it  is  an  interlineation,  and  not  a  part  of  the  text,  sug 
gests  that  Aubrey  did  not  get  it  from  Christopher  Milton, 
but  picked  it  up  from  gossip  afterwards  ;  and  it  is  exactly 
the  kind  of  fact  that  gossip  delights  to  invent.  But  take 
the  passage  fully  as  it  stands,  the  interlineation  included, 
and  there  are  still  two  respects  in  which  it  fails  to  bear  out 
Johnson's  formidable  phrase,  "  one  of  the  last  students  in 
either  University  who/'  &c.,  especially  in  the  circumstantial 
form  which  subsequent  writers  have  given  to  the  phrase  by 
speaking  of  the  punishment  as  a  public  one  at  the  hands  of 
,  the  College  Master.  In  the  first  place,  so 


far  as  Aubre^rhintsT^h^nqu^frel  was  originally  but  a  private 
]V1  1  1  ton  "~5jnt"  ||TLS_  tutor   Ohappell,—  -at   most 


tussle  between  Jihe  tntorjmd  the  papilinjbhe  tutoT^roomj 

with  which  Bainbrigge  may  have  had  nothing  to  do.  In 
the  second  piacer;~ie1rtKe^incident  have  been  as  flagrant  as 
-^possible,  it  yet  appertains  and  can  appertain  only  to  one 
particular  year,  and  that  an  early  one,  of  Milton's  under- 
graduateship.  At  no  time  in  the  history  of  the  University 
had  any  except  undergraduates  been  liable  by  statute  to 
corporal  punishment  ;  and  even  undergraduates,  if  over  the 
age  of  eighteen,  had  usually,  if  not  invariably,  been  con- 

1  Aubrey,  as  we  have  seen,  is   not      died  parson  of  Ayleston,  in  the  same 
-*  quite  correct    in   saying    that    Tovey      county,  in  1658. 
"  died  parson    of    Lutterworth."     He 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1625-6.        161 


sidered  exempt.  Now,  Milton  attained  the  age  of  eighteen 
complete  on  the  9th  oF  .December  Ib'^t).  Uuleys,  Ihei'efurty 
he  were  made  an  "exception" to  all  rule,  the  incident  inustr 


~-^s; 


ve  taken  place,jrit'"tgolr'ptag^^  his  fiial 

"Tieriii  of  residence,  or  in  the  course^)f  that  year  1625-6  witF 
whic<V  we  are  now  concerned.1 

-  That  the  quarrel,  whatever~was  its  form,  did  take  place  in 
this  very  year  is  all  but  established  by  a  reference  which        I 
l^iltan  has  himself  made  to  it.     The  reference  occurs  in  the      / 
firstjaf  his  Latin  Elegies  ;  which  is  a  poetical  epistle  to  his      ] 
friend  Dio^ati7~composed,  itr  can  be  fixed  with  something      1 
like  certainty,  in  April  or  May'1626.2 

Diodati,    it   will    be    remembered,    had   been   at    Trinity^ 
College,  Oxford,  since  Feb7Tb'^2-3.    tie  and  Milton,  however, )" 
hacT~been  in  the  habit  of  meeting  each  other  inJLoiidon  in 
_jthe  College  vacations,  and  of  corresponding  with  each  other 
at  other  times.     Diodati,  it  seems,  had  a  fancy  for  writing 
Tils  Tetters  occasionally  in  Greek  ;  and*  two  Greek  letters  of 
his  to  Milton  are  still  extant.3     Neither  is  dated ;  but  the 
first    bears    evidence    of  having   been    written    in    or   near 


1  Warton,  Todd,  and  others,  have 
entered  somewhat  largely  into  the  ques 
tion  of  the  possibility  of  the  alleged 
punishment  consistently  with  the  Col 
lege  practice  of  the  time.  On  this  head 
there  is  no  denying  that  the  thing  was 
possible  enough.  The  "  virgd  a  stiis 
corriyatur  "  of  the  old  statutes  certainly 
remained  in  force  for  young  under 
graduates  both  at  Oxford  and  Cam 
bridge.  As  late  as  1649,  Henry  Stubbe, 
a  writer  of  so  much  reputation  in  his 
day  that  Wood  gives  a  longer  memoir 
of  him  than  of  Milton,  was  publicly 
flogged  in  the  refectory  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  when  eighteen  years 
of  age.  for  "  insolent  and  pragmatical " 
conduct.  Other  instances  might  be 
produced  to  show  that  in  any  case 
Johnson's  phrase,  "  one  of  the  last  at 
either  University  who,"  &c.,  would  be 
historically  wrong.  There  can  be  no 
donbt,  however,  that  the  practice  was 
getting  out  of  repute.  In  the  new 
Oxford  statutes  of  1635  corporal  pun 
ishment  was  restricted  (though  Stubbe, 
it  seems,  did  not  benefit  by  the  restric 
tion)  to  boys  under  sixteen.  In  con 
nexion  with  this  tendency  to  restrict 
VOL.  I.  M 


the  practice  to  very  young  students,  it 
is  worth  noting,  as  weakening  still 
farther  the  likelihood  of  Aubrey's  state 
ment,  that  one  of  Aubrey's  errors  is 
with  respect  to  Milton's  age  when  he 
went  to  College.  He  makes  him  to  go 
thither  at  fifteen,  whereas  he  was  over 
sixteen. 

2  The   elegy   unfortunately   has    no 
date  affixed  to  it ;  but,  as  these  and 
other  juvenile  pieces  of  Milton  are  ar 
ranged  by  himself  with  some  regard 
to  chronological  order,  and  as   we  can 
positively  determine  the  elegy  which 
comes   next  to  have  been  written  in 
September    1626,   we  can   hardly  but 
assume  this  to  have  been  written  earlier 
in  the  same  year.     An  allusion  in  the 
elegy  itself — "  tempora  veris  " — deter 
mines  the  season  of  the  year. 

3  The  originals,  in  Diodati's  writing, 
with  one  or  two  marginal  corrections 
of  the   Greek   by  Milton,  are   in   the 
British  Museum   (Add.  MS.  5016*,  f. 
64).     Mr.  Mitford  printed  the   letters 
in  the  Appendix  to  his  Memoir  of  Milton 
in  Pickering's  edition  of  Milton's  works, 
vol.  I.  pp.  cxciii.,  cxciv.     The  Greek  is 
not  so  good  as  the  sense. 


162  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

London,  and  sent  to  Milton  by  a  messenger,  when  the 
distance  between  the  two  friends  was  not  so  great  but  that 
Diodati  might  have  gone  with  it  himself.  I  see  grounds  for 
dating  it  in  the  long  vacation  of  1625  ;  and,  if  that  date  is 
wrong,  it  does  not  matter  much.  The  missive,  whicTd  is 
headed  ©coVdoros  MtArw^t  evtypaivecrOai  ("Diodati  to  IS'lton, 
to  cheer  up  ")  runs  as  follows  : — "  The  present  condition  of 
"  the  weather  appears  too  jealously  disposed  for  what  we 
' '  agreed  upon  lately  at  parting,  stormy  and  unsettled  as  it 
"  has  been  now  for  two  whole  days ;  but,  for  all  that,  so 
"  much  do  I  long  for  your  society  that,  in  my  longing,  I  am 
"  dreaming,  and  all  but  prophesying,  fine  weather,  and  calm, 
"  and  all  things  golden,  for  to-morrow,  that  we  may  regale 
"  ourselves  mutually  with  philosophical  and  learned  dis 
courses.  On  this  account,  therefore,  I  wished  to  write 
to  you,  expressly  to  invite  you  forth  and  put  courage 
tf  into  you,  fearing  that,  in  despair  of  sunshine  and  enjoy- 
"  ment,  at  least  for  the  present,  you  were  turning  your  mind 
"  to  something  else.  Yet  now  take  courage,  my  friend, 
"  and  stand  to  what  was  arranged  between  us,  and  put  on  a 
"  holiday  frame  of  mind  and  one  gayer  than  to-day  deserves. 
"  For  to-morrow  all  will  go  well,  and  air  and  sun  and 
"  stream  and  trees  and  birds  and  earth  and  men  will  keep 
"  holiday  with  us,  and  laugh  with  us,  and,  be  it  said  without 
with  us.  Only  you  be  ready,  either  to  start 


"  when  I  call  fbTyoti;"or7without  being  called  for,  to  come 
"  to  one  who  is  longing  for  you.  Aurojuaro?  8e  ot  ?]A0e  /3or)i> 
"  ayaObs  MereAao?.1  Farewell."  —  Not  long  after  the  excur 
sion  anticipated  in  this  letter,  if  it  ever  came  off  and  if  we 
have  dated  it  correctly,  the  two  friends  had  separated  again, 
to  return  to  their  Colleges,  Milton  for  his  second  year  at 
bridge,  ana  Diodati  for  his  fourth  at  T)xford.  On  the 

tdolrtis~B.  A.   degree.2 


^  _ 

the  degreehfi^seems  tohave  lefFhisTJollege  to 
reside  for  a  while  in  Cheshire,  not  thatnis  c7rnn"eirion-  with 
Oxford  was  yet  over,  but  becauseThe-was  drawn  to  Cheshire 

1  Iliad,  II.  408.  2  Wood,  MS.  in  the  Ashmolean,  8506. 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1625-6.       163 

for  a  while  by  some  reason  of  pleasure  or  of  business, 
before  beginning  his  intended  study  of  medicine.  It  was 
from  Cheshire,  if  my  surmise  is  correct,  and  in  the  spring 
of  1626,  that  he  sent  to  Milton  the  second  of  his  preserved 
Greek  epistles.  It  is  headed  0eoV8oroy  MiArom  xatptiv 
("  Diodati  to  Milton,  greeting  "),  and  is  in  the  same  sprightly 
tone  as  the  first,  as  follows : — "  I  have  no  fault  to  find  with 
"  my  present  mode  of  life,  except  this  alone,  that  I  lack  some 
"kindred  spirit  that  can  give  and  take  with  me  in  convers- 
"  ation.  For  such  I  long ;  but  all  other  enjoyments  are 
"  abundant  here  in  the  country ;  for  what  more  is  wanting 
"  when  the  days  are  long,  the  scenery  blooming  beautifully 
"  with  flowers,  and  waving  and  teeming  with  leaves,  on  every 
"branch  a  nightingale  or  goldfinch  or  other  small  bird 
"  glorying  in  its  songs  and  warblings,  most  varied  walks,  a 
"  table  neither  scant  nor  overloaded,  and  sleep  undisturbed. 
"  If  I  could  provide  myself  in  addition  with  a  good  com 
panion,  I  mean  an  educated  one  and  initiated  in  the 
"  mysteries,  I  should  be  happier  than  the  King  of  the 
"  Persians;  But  there  is  always  something  left  out  in  huma 
"  affairs ;  wherefore  moderation  is  needed.  But  thou, 
"  wonder  that  thou  art,  why  dost  thou  despise  the  gifts  of 
"  nature  ?  why  dost  thou  persist  inexcusably  in  hanging  all 
"  night  and  all  day  over  books  and  literary  exercises  ?  Live, 
"laugh,  enjoy  youth  and  the  hours  as  they  pass,  and  desist 
"from  those  researches  of  yours  into  the  pursuits,  and 
"  leisures,  and  indolences  of  the  wise  men  of  old,  yourself 
"  a  martyr  to  overwork  all  the  while.  I,  in  all  things  else 
"  your  inferior,  both  think  myself  and  am  superior  to  you  in 
"  this,  that  I  know  a  measure  in  my  labours.  Farewell,  and 
"  be  merry,  but  not  after  the  fashion  of  the  effeminate 
"  Sardanapalus." — This  letter  is  of  so  much  interest  that 
one  wishes  it  had  been  dated.  If  it  was  not  written  from 
Cheshire  and  in  tlie  spring  or  early  summer  of  1626,  some 
other  letter  of  Diodati's,  not  now  preserved,  was  certainly 
sent  by  him  to  Milton  from  that  neighbourhood  at  that 
time.  To  that  letter,  if  not  to  this  Greek  one,  Milton 
replied  in  an  epistle  in  Latin  elegiacs,  of  which  the  following, 

M  2 


164  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

for  lack  of  something  better,  may  pass  as  a  pretty  literal 
version,  both  in  words  and  in  form  : — 

TO  CHARLES  DIODATI. 


HEEE  at  length,  my  dear  friend,  is  your  welcome  letter  before  me, 

Bringing  your  uttered  words  faithfully  messaged  on  white, 
Bringing  them  hither  to  me  from  Chester's  Dee,  where  its  current, 

Rapidly  flowing  west,  seeks  the  Vergivian  sea. 
Much,  believe,  it  delights  me  distant  lands  should  have  nurtured 

Heart  so  attached  to  myself,  one  so  unchangeably  mine, 
And  that  the  far-away  spot  which  owns  my  sprightly  companion 

Will,  at  the  bidding  of  love,  render  him  back  to  me  soon. 
Me  for  the  present  imagine  here  in  the  Thames-watered  city, 

Tarrying,  nothing  loth,  under  my  father's  dear  roof, 
Free  for  the  time  from  the  care  of  return  to  the  Cam  and  its  reed-beds, 

Where  my  forbidden  cell  causes  me  little  regret. 
My  taste  is  not  for  bare  fields  denying  all  softness  of  umbrage ; 

Little  befits  such  a  place  Phoebus's  worshipful  sons. 
Neither  suits  it  me  always  to  bear  the  gruff  threats  of  a  Master, 

Other  things ^so_atj£hiciL-tenipe.rs  Iike_mme_mujt^r^e]r3^~ 
If  it  be  banishment  this,  to  have  gone  to  the  house  ofmy  father, 

There  at  my  ease  to  seek  quiet  amusement  at  will, 
Certainly  neither  the  name  nor  the  lot  of  an  exile  refuse  I, 

Glad  as  I  am  to  enjoy  banishment  circumstanced  so. 
O  had  it  chanced  that  never  heavier  hap  had  befallen 

That  unfortunate  bard  exiled  to  Scythia's  wilds  ! 
Nothing  then  had  he  yielded  even  to  Ionian  Homer ; 

Neither  would  thine  be  the  praise,  Maro,  of  Ovid's  defeat. 
Here  I  may  offer  my  leisure  at  large  to  the  genial  Muses ; 

Here  my  books,  my  life,  ravish  me  all  to  themselves ; 
Hence,  when  I  feel  fatigued,  the  resplendent  Ibeatrajfcakes _mg1_ 

Where  the  garrulous  stage_calls  for  its  claps  of  applause  j 
Be  it  the  cautious  elder  or  spendthrift  heir  that  is  speaking, 

City-gallant  in  love,  soldier  with  helmet  unlaced, 
Ay,  or  the  man  of  law,  grown  fat  with  ten  years  of  a  lawsuit, 

Mouthing  his  crackjaw  words  forth  to  the  ignorant  mob. 
Often  the  serving  knave,  in  league  with  young  Hopeful  the  lover, 

Cheats  to  his  very  nose  leathery -visaged  Papa ; 
Often  the  maiden  there,  surprised  with  novel  sensations, 

Knows  not  what  love  is,  yet,  while  she  knows  it  not,  loves. 
Raging  Tragedy,  too,  will  shake  her  gore-reddened  sceptre, 

Tossing  her  dreadful  head,  haggard  with  tempests  of  hair : 
Pain  is  in  looking,  and  yet  in  the  pain  of  such  looking  is  pleasure ; 

For  that  sometimes  in  tears  lurks  a  rough  touch  of  the  sweet. 
Haply  a  wretched  boy,  who  has  left  his  bliss  unaccomplished, 

All  in  a  piteous  plight  sinks  with  the  wreck  of  his  love ; 


METRICAL    EPISTLE    TO    DIODATI.  165 

Else  'tis  the  crime-tracking  ghost,  who,  recrossing  the  Stygian  hell- 
gloom, 

Flashes  his  funeral  torch  so  that  the  guilty  are  found, 
Whether  the  house  of  Pelops  or  that  of  Troy  is  in  mourning, 

Ay,  or  Creon's  hall  rues  its  incestuous  sires. 
Not  that  within-doors  always  or  here  in  the  city  we  burrow ; 

Far  from  unused  by  us  pass  the  delights  of  the  spring. 
Much  of  us,  too,  has  the  grove  thick-set  with  neighbouring  elm-trees  ; 

Much  the  suburban  park,  nobly  beskirted  with  shade. 
Oft  may  you  here,  like  stars  diffusing  a  radiant  gladness, 

See  our  maidens  in  troops  daintily  tripping  along. 
Ah  !  and  how  often  have  /  been  amazed  by  some  wonder  of  beauty 

Fit  to  make  even  Jove  own  himself  youthful  again ; 
Ah  !  and  how  often  been  startled  by  eyes  that  surpassed  in  their 

flashings 

Gems  and  whatever  lights  both  of  the  hemispheres  wheel ; 
Ay,  and  by  necks  more  white  than  the  shoulders  of  twice-living 

Pelops, 

Or  than  the  milky  way  dashed  with  the  nectar  divine ; 
Ay,  and  such  exquisite  brows,  such  hair  light-blown  in  the  breezes, 

Golden  snares  for  the  heart  set  by  the  cunning  of  Love ; 
Oh !  and  the  lip-luring  cheeks,  to  which  hyacinthian  purple 

Poor  is,  and  even  the  blush  seen  on  Adonis's  flower. 
Yield,  ye  heroic  fair  ones,  the  themes  of  cycles  of  legend, 
Even  the  f amousest  nymph  wooed  by  a  vagabond  god ; 
Yield,  ye  Persian  girls  with  the  turbaned  foreheads,  and  ye  too, 

Susa's  native  maids,  Nineveh's  maidens  besides ; 
Ye  too,  damsels  of  Greece,  bend  low  your  emblems  of  honour ; 

Ye  too,  ladies  of  Troy,  ladies  of  Rome  at  your  best ; 
Nay,  nor  let  Ovid's  muse  make  boast  of  the  porch- walk  of  Pompey, 

Where,  or  in  robes  at  the  play,  Italy's  beauties  were  seen. 
"~  Glory  the  foremost  is  due  to  these  our  virgins  of  Britain ; 

Be  it  enough  for  you,  foreigners  fair,  to  come  next. 
Thou  too,  London  City,  erst  built  by  Dardanian  settlers, 
Raising  thy  head  of  towers  wide  to  be  seen  from  afar, 
Blest  above  measure  art  thou  in  holding  ringed  in  thy  circuit 

What  of  fairest  make  breathes  on  our  pendulous  orb  : 
Not  in  thy  clearest  sky-vault  sparkle  so  many  starlets, 
All  an  attendant  crowd  circling  Endymion's  queen, 
No,  as  of  maidens  hast  thou,  full  fair  and  golden  to  look  at, 
Glittering  every  day  all  through  the  midst  of  thy  streets. 
Hither,  conveyed  by  her  twin-doves,  once  came  (we  credit  the  story) 

Loveliest  Venus  herself,  girt  with  her  quivered  reserves, 
Sworn  to  prefer  it  to  Cnidus,  the  vales  which  Simois  waters, 

Luscious  Paphos  even,  rosy-red  Cyprus  itself. 
As  for  myself,  while  yet  the  blind  boy  lets  me,  I  purpose 
Soon  as  I  can  to  leave  walls  of  such  fortunate  luck, 


166 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


Shunning  far  on  my  path  false  Circe's  infamous  mansions, 
Safe  by  the  mistletoe's  charm,  godliest  charm  that  there  is. 

Also  'tis  fixed  that  I  do  return  to  the  Cam  and  its  sedge-swamps, 
There  to  be  drawn  again  into  the  roar  of  the  schools. 

Meanwhile  accept  this  trifle,  the  gift  of  my  friendly  aifection, 
These  few  words  of  mine,  coaxed  into  metres  altern. 

This  interesting  epistle  so  far  tells  its  own  story.  It 
shows  that  some  time  in  the  course  of  the  spring  of  1626 
Milton  was  in  London,  amusing  himself  as  during  a  holiday, 
.and  occasionally  visiting  the  theatres  in  Bankside.  The 
question,  however,  remains,  what  was  the  cause  of  this 
temporary  absence  from  Cambridge,  and  how  long  it  lasted. 
Was  it  merely  that  Milton  spent  the  Easter  vacation  of  that 
year  with  hiaJ353itv  in  lowu^as  any~r?tfaer  student  might; 
kave  done,  quitting^anibridge  on  the  31st  of  March,  when 
tl^e  Lent  Term  ended,  and  returning  by  the  19thof  April, 
when  the  Easter  Term  began  ?  The  language  and  tone  of 
variouspafts  of  the  epistle  se"em  to  render  this  explanation 
insufficient.  The  passage  from  line  9  to  line  20,  in  particular, 
suggests  a  good  deal  more.  Lest  the  translation  should 
have  failed  to  convey  its  exact  meaning,  it  may  be  given 
here  in  the  original  :  — 

"  Me  tenet  urbs  reflua  quam  Thamesis  alluit  und&, 

Meque  nee  invitum  patria  dulcis  habet. 
Jam  nee  arundiferum  mihi  cura  revisere  Camum, 

Nee  dudum  vetiti  me  laris  angit  amor. 
Nuda  nee  arva  placent,  umbrasque  negantia  molles  : 

Quam  male  Phoebicolis  convenit  ille  locus ! 
Nee  duri  libet  usque  minas  perferre  inagistri, 

Cseteraque  ingenio  non  subeunda  meo. 
Si  sit  hoc  exilium,  patrios  adiisse  penates, 

Et  vacuum  curis  otia  grata  sequi, 
Non  ego  vel  profugi  nomen  sortemve  recuso, 

Lsetus  et  exilii  conditione  fruor."1 


i  Although,  in  accordance  with  the 
general  opinion,  and  with  Cowper  in 
his  free  paraphrase  of  the  Elegy,  I 
have  understood  the  line  "  Nee  dudum 
vetiti  me  laris  angit  amor  "  to  mean, 
"  Nor  does  the  love  of  my  lately  for 
bidden  College-rooms  cause  me  pain," 
I  am  not  sure  but  lar  may  have  been 
intended  here  not  for  his  College-rooms, 


but  for  his  father's  house,  and  so  that 
the  translation  might  run,  "  Nor  am  I 
now  pained  with  the  natural  longing  for 
my  lately-forbidden  paternal  hearth." 
Though  this  would  change  the  signifi 
cance  of  that  one  liue,  however,  it 
would  leave  untouched  the  significance 
of  the  sarcasms  against  Cambridge  and 
its  scenery,  and  of  the  phrases,  Si  sit 


MILTON'S  SECOND  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1625-6.       167 

Combining  all  that  is  positive  in  the  statements  of  the 
elegy  with  all  that  seems  authentic  in  the  passage  quoted 
from  Aubrey,  we  may  construe  the  facts  in  this  form  : — 
Towards  the  close  of  the  Lent  Term  of  1625-6  Milton  and 
hTs  tutor  Ohappeil  iiacT  a  disagreement ;  the  disagreement" 
was  of  such  a  kincT  that  Bainbrigge,  as  Master  of  the 
'College,  had  to  interfere ;  the  consequence  was  that  Milton 
withdrew  or  was  sent  from  College  in  circumstances  equiva 
lent  to"  rustication  "  ;  his  absence  extended  probably  ovelr 
the  whole  of  the  Easter  vacation  and  part  of  the  faster 
Term;  but,  at  length,  an  arrangement  having  been  made 
^which  permitted~him  to  return  in  time  to  save  that  term; 
he  dictTettirn,  only — wjujhangmg  the  tutorship  of  Chappell 
for L  thaF2^__To3!iiyiJ__HB--jwa3  baek~iTr  Cambridge,  if  tLis 
calculation  is  correct,  in  time  to  partake  in  the  excitement 
oQtoeelection  of  the  new  Chancellor,  and  to  witness  the 
cxther  incidents  of  the  Easter  Term,  as  mentioned  in  Meade's 


letters.  He  was  probably  still  in  London,  however,  and 
in  his  father's  house  in  Bread  Street,  when  old  Mr.  Stocke 
of  Allhallows  died.  That  death  occurred  on  the  20th  of 
April,  1626.2 


The  Easter  Term  and  the  studies  under  his  new  tutor 
Tovey  once  over  for  that  session,  Milton  returned  to  town 
for  the  long  vacation  of  the  same  year.  ^JPoor  Meade,  we 
find,  remained  at  Cambridge,  confined  to  College  by  an 
btack  of  ague,  then  the  prevalent  diseaseof  the  fenny 
Cambridge  dJstricjbT^and  he  was  not^ahlfl  t.o  gn  •JjfT'Dfl.l'hn.m , 
asJieJimHntended,  till  the  beginning  of  August.3  He  was 
back  inCambridge^^arly  in  September;  and  between  that 
time  and  the  opening  of  the  next  session  on  the  10th  of 
October  he  and  other  members  of  the  University  received 

hoc  exilium,  profugi  nomen,  duri  minas 
perferre  mayistri,  and  catera  inyenio  non 
subeunda  tneo.  The  change,  if  permiss 
ible,  would  sviggest  perhaps  that  the 
cause  of  Milton's  quarrel  with  Chappell 
and  the  College  authorities  had  been 
that  they  had  refused  a  request  of  his 
for  leave  of  absence. 


1  It  is  certain,  as  we  shall  see,  that 
Milton  did  not  lose  a  term  during  his 
College  course. 

2  "The    24th    of    April,   1626,  was 
buried  Mr.  Eichard  Stocke,  parson  of 
this  parish." — Allhallows  Register. 

3  Letters  to  Stuteville,  in  June,  July, 
and  August. 


168  LIFE    OF   MILTON!    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  news  of  two  events  that  must  have  been  heard  of  also, 
with  no  little  interest,  by  Milton  in  London  and  by  English 
men  generally.  One  was  the  death  of  the  learned  and 
eloquent  Lancelot  Andrewes,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  which 
took  placeTaT  Winchester-house,  Southwark,  on  the  21st  of 
September,  1626  ;  and  the  other  was  the  death,  a  fortnight 
later  (Oct.  5,  1626),  of  Nicholas  Felton,  Bishop  of  Ely,  in 
which  diocese  Cambridge  is  situated. 

These  two  deaths,  we  know  positively,  did  occupy  Milton's 
thoughts  daring  his  v^clition-hoMay:     They 


"brated  by  him  in  Latin  verse.  Of  his  Latin  "  Elegies,"  the 
third,  entitled  In  Obitum  Prcesulis  Wintoniensis,  is  a  tribute 
to_the  memory  of  Bishop  Andrewes  ;  and  Bishop  Felton's 
death  is  celeBFated  in  the  third  piece  of  his  Sylvag^entitled 
In  Obitum  Prcesulis  ^Elwiisis.  Brief  abstracts  of  these  pieces 
will  serve  our  purpose  as  well  as  full  translations  :  — 

On  the  Death  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester.  —  Sitting  alone,  sad 
and  silent,  I  ruminate  the  various  sorrows  of  the  year  now  drawing  to 
a  close.  First,  the  terrible  phantom  of  the  Plague,  which  has  recently 
swept  away  so  many  of  my  countrymen,  passes  before  me.  Then  I 
think  of  some  particular  deaths  which  the  year  has  witnessed, 
especially  of  the  deaths  of  some  who  have  fought  heroically  in  the 
-  war  of  German  Protestantism.  But  chiefly  I  lament  the  great  prelate 
who  has  just  died.  Why  cannot  Death  be  content  with  the  flowers 
and  the  woodlands  for  a  prey  ;  why  make  havoc  also  among  noble 
human  beings  1  Meditating  thus,  I  fall  asleep,  when  lo  !  a  beautiful 
vision.  I  wander  in  a  wide  expanse  of  champaign,  all  bright  with 
sunlight  and  colour  ;  and,  while  I  am  wondering  at  the  scene,  there 
stands  before  me  the  venerable  figure  of  the  departed  Bishop,  clothed 
in  white,  with  golden  sandals  on  his  feet,  and  a  white  mitre  on  his 
brow.  As  the  old  man  walks  in  this  stately  raiment,  the  ground 
trembles  with  celestial  sound  ;  overhead  are  bands  of  angels,  moving 
on  starry  wings  ;  and  a  trumpet  accompanies  them  as  they  chant  a 
welcome.  I  know  that  the  place  is  Heaven  ;  and  I  awake  to  wish 
that  often  again  I  may  have  such  dreams. 

On  the  Death  of  the  Bishop  of  Ely*  —  Scarcely  were  my  cheeks  dry 
after  my  tears  shed  for  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  when  hundrecl- 
tongued  Fame  brings  me  the  report  of  the  decease  of  another  prelate, 
the  ornament  of  his  order.  I  again  exclaim  in  execration  of  Death, 
when  suddenly  I  hear  a  divine  voice  reminding  me  what  Death  is  : 
not  the  son  of  Night  and  Erebus,  nor  any  such  fancied  pagan  horror, 
but  the  messenger  of  God  sent  to  gather  the  souls  of  the  good  to 


POEM    ON   THE    DEATH    OP   A   FAIR    INFANT.  169 

eternal  joy,  and  those  of  the  wicked  to  judgment  and  woe.  While 
hearing  this,  behold  !  I  am  rapt  upwards  swiftly  beyond  the  sun,  the 
constellations,  and  the  galaxy  itself,  till,  reaching  the  shining  gates  of 
Heaven,  I  see  the  crystal  hall  with  its  pavement  of  pearl.  But  who 
can  speak  of  glories  like  these  1  Enough  that  they  may  be  mine  for 
ever. 

To  this  same  academic  year,  but  to  an  earlier  period  in 
the  year  than  any  of  the  three  pieces  last  quoted,  belongs 
the  beautiful  English  poem  On  theDeat]^  nf  g. 


ing  of  a  Cough.  The  circumstances  of  the  composition 
wereas~  folio  wsT  —  Towards  the  end  of  162£L-pr  about  a  yeajr_ 
jiffcejL  the_jmajTiage  of  the  poet's  sister  with  Mr.  Edward 
Phillips—  oiLthfl  Crnwn  Office,  there  has  been  born  to  the 
y_Qung  paJ£_  a,  little  girl,  making  the  scriveger_for  ~tEe""nrst 
jime  a  grandfather,  and  the  poet  an  uncle.  But  the  little 
stranger  has  appeared  in  the  world  aT;  an  "untoward  time. 
It  is  in  the  winter  when  the  Pestilence  is  abroad.  Not  to 
the  Pestilence,  however,  but  tcrdeaLh  Urone  of  its  commoner" 
and_J^saZawful_j^r-msJ  walTtliR  child  to  fan~^jginti  TTK  _  ThlT 
poet  has  just  seen  her  and  learnt  to  scan  her  little  features, 
when  the  churlish  and  snowy  winter  nips  the  delicate  blos 
som,  and,  after  a  few  days  of  hoping  anguish  over  the 
difficult  little  breath,  the  mother  yields  her  darling  to  the 
grave.  Ere  he  goes  back  to  Cambridge  for  the  Lent  Term, 
Milton,  with  thecagence  in  his  miird~ot'  one  of  the  little 


poems  in  Shakespeare' s  Passionate  Pilgrim,  writes  the  little 
elegy  which  helped  to  console  the  mother  then,  and  which 
now  preserves  her  grief.     The  heading  ~ ef  aniio"~celati8~T7~7r' 
fixes "£Ke~year;'an^1bne  allusions  in  the  poem  determine  the 
season. 

"  O  fairest  flower,  no  sooner  blown  but  blasted, 
Soft  silken  primrose  fading  timelessly, 
Summer's  chief  honour,  if  thou  hadst  outlasted 
Bleak  Winter's  force  that  made  thy  blossom  dry ; 
For  he,  being  amorous  on  that  lovely  dye 

That  did  thy  cheek  envermeil,  thought  to  kiss, 
But  killed,  alas  !  and  then  bewailed  his  fatal  bliss." 

Continuing  this  fancy,  the  poet  tells  how  Winter,  first  mount 
ing  up  in  his  icy -pearled  car  through  the  middle  empire  of 


170  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  freezing  air,  then  descended  from  his  snow-soft  eminence 
and  all  unawares  unhoused  the  little  soul  of  the  virgin  by 
his  cold-kind  touch.  Then,  after  some  stanzas  in  which  he 
asks  whether  the  fair  young  visitant  of  the  earth  had  been 
a  higher  spirit  sent  hither  on  an  errand,  or  some  star  fallen 
by  mischance  from  "the  ruined  roof  of  shak't  Olympus," 
he  concludes  : — 

"  But  oh  !  why  didst  thou  not  stay  here  below 
To  bless  us  with  thy  heaven-loved  innocence, 
To  slake  His  wrath  whom  sin  hath  made  our  foe, 
To  turn  swift-rushing  black  perdition  hence, 
Or  drive  away  the  slaughtering  pestilence, 

To  stand  'twixt  us  and  our  deserved  smart? 
But  thou  canst  best  perform  that  office  where  thou  art. 

"  Then,  thou  the  mother  of  so  sweet  a  child, 
Her  false-imagined  loss  cease  to  lament, 
And  wisely  learn  to  curb  thy  sorrows  wild ; 
Think  what  a  present  thou  to  God  hast  sent, 
And  render  Him  with  patience  what  He  lent. 

This  if  thou  do,  He  will  an  offspring  give 
That  till  the  world's  last  end  shall  make  thy  name  to  live."1 

One  thinks  of  the  youth  of  seventeen  who  could  write 
thus  going  back  among  the  Bainbrigges,  the  Chappells,  and 
the  rest,  to  sit  beneath  them  at  table,  be  directed  by  them 
what  he  should  read,  and  lectured  by  them  in  logic  and  in 
literature.  As  we  shall  see,  the  dons  of  Christ's  did  in  the 
end  come  to  appreciate  the  qualities  of  their  young  scholar. 
Chappell  had  lost  a  pupil  that  would  have  done  him  honour ; 
and,  if  Tovey  did  not  know  at  the  time  what  a  pupil  he 
had  gained,  he  was  to  have  occasion  to  remember  him  a 
good  deal  afterwards,  when  he  was  parson  of  Wycliffe's 
Lutterworth. 

1  That  the  "fair  infant  "of  this  poem  The  poem  was  written,  says  Phillips, 

was  the  child  of  Milton's  sister  there  is  "upon  the  death  of  one  of  his  sister's 

nothing  in  the  poem  itself  to  prove  ;  "  children  (a  daughter)   who   died  in 

but  the  fact  is  decided  by  a  reference  "  infancy." 
to  the  poem  in  Phillips' s  Life  of  Milton. 


MILTON'S  THIRD  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1626-7.        171 

ACADEMIC    YEAR    1626-7. 
MILTON  setat.  18. 

Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  HENRY  SMITH,  Master  of  Magdalen  (in  which  office  he  had 

recently  succeeded  Dr.  Barnaby  Gooch). 

Proctors,  SAMUEL  HICKSON  of  Trinity  College,  and  THOMAS  WAKE  of  Cains. 
MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10,  1626,  to  December  16,  1626. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1626-7,  to  March  17,  1626-7. 

EASTER  TERM   ....  April  4,  1627,  to  July  6, 1627. 


This  being  MiltoirVthird  _n,fWlflmip. 


of  course,  many  students,  both  in  his  own  College  and  in 
tie  rest  of  the  University,  whom  he  could  regard  as  his 
juniors.  In  the  vacation  just  past,  for  example,  Benjamin 
Whichcote  had  been  matriculated  as  a  student  of  Emanuel, 
and  there  had  been  the  following  admission  at  Caius  :  — 

"Jeremy  Tailor,  sou  of  Nathaniel  Tailor.  r,arber,  born  at  Cam 
bridge,  and  there  instructed  for  ten  years  in  the  public  school  under 
Mr.  Lovering,  was  admitted  into  our  College  Aug.  18,  1626,  in  the 
fifteenth  year  of  his  age,  in  the  capacity  of  a  poor  scholar  (pauper 
scholaris),  by  Mr.  Batchcroft;  and  paid  entrance  fee  of  12V1 

Among  the  new  names  of  the  session  at  Milton's  own 
College  we  may  mention  those  of  a  George  Winstanley,  a 
William  More,  a  Christopher  Bainbrigge,  related  to  the 
Master,  a  Richard  Meade,  related,  we  may  presume,  to  the 
tutor,  and  a  Christopher  Shute,  the  son  of  an  eminent  parish 
clergyman  in  London.  More  important  than  any  of  these 
were  the  two  names  whose  addition  to  the  roll  of  students 
at  Christ's  is  thus  recorded  in  the  admission-  book  :  — 


"  Roger  and  Edward  Kingg.  sons  of  John,  Knight  of  York  (both 
born  in  Ireland :  Roger  near  Dublin,  Edward  in  the  town  of  Boyle  in 
Connaught),  Roger  aged  16,  Edward  14,  were  educated  under  Mr. 
Farnabie,  and  were  then  admitted  into  this  College  as  Lesser  Pen 
sioners,  June  9,  1626,  under  the  tutorship  of  Mr.  Chappell."  * 

Sir  John__King,_  the  father  jrfjthese  two  young  men,  filled 
'the  office  of  Secretary  for  Ireland  under  Queen  Elizabeth^ 

1  "Wood's  Athena,  III.  781 :  note  by  which  I  have  placed  within  parentheses 
Bliss.  is  in  a  different  ink  and  handwriting 

2  Copy  furnished  me   by  Mr.  Wol-  from  the  rest,  evidently  an  addition  a 
stenholme  of  Christ's  College,  who  in-  few  years  later,  when  the  brothers  were 
formed  me  that  the  part  of  the  entry  better  known  at  Christ's. 


172  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

and  James  I.,  and  also  during  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 
TEe  family  was  well  connected  inTrelandr  One  of  "the  young 
men's  sisters  was  already  married,  or  was  soon  afterwards 
married,  to  Lord  Charlemont ;  another  was  the  wife  of  Sir 
George  Loder,  or  Lowther,  Chief  Justice  of  Ireland;  and 
their  uncle,  Edward  King,  held  the  Irish  bishopric  of 
Elphin. 

By  the  usage  of  the  University,  though  the  academic 
year  opens  on  the  10th  of  October,  and  the  Proctors  are 
elected  on  that  day,  the  election  of  the  new  Vice-Chancellor 
does  not  take  place  till  the  3rd  of  November.  In  the  year 
now  under  notice  it  happened  that  Dr.  Gostlin  died  before 
the  day  on  which  he  would  have  resigned  the  Vice-Chan 
cellor's  office.  His  death  took  place  on  the  21st  of  October 
1626.  The  Vice- Chancellorship  was  filled  up  by  the  ap 
pointment  of  Dr.  Smith,  of  Magdalen ;  and,  after  a  good 
deal  of  opposition,  the  vacant  Mastership  of  Caius  was 
given  to  the  Mr.  Batchcroft  just  mentioned  as  Jeremy 
Taylor's  tutor.  While  these  arrangements  were  in  pro 
gress,  there  was  another  death  of  a  well-known  University 
official,  that  of  Richard  Ridding,  of  St.  John's,  Master  of 
Arts,  the  senior  Esquire  Bedel.  As  his  will  is  proved 
Nov.  8,  1626,  he  must  have  died  almost  simultaneously  with 
Gostlin.  Both  deaths  were  naturally  topics  of  interest  to 
the  Cambridge  Muses;  and~among~lhe~^opies~of"verSBs 
written,  and  perhaps  circulated,  in  connexion  with  them, 
were  two  by  Milton.  That  on  Gostlin  is  in  Horatian 
stanzas,  and  is  entitled  In  Obitum  Procancellarii  Medici ; 
that  on  Ridding  is  in  elegiacs,  and  is  entitled  In  Obitum  Prce- 
conis  Academici  Cantabrigiensis.  Abstracts  of  them  wiITbe 
enough : — 

On  the  Death  of  the  Medical  Vice-Chancellor. — Men  of  all  conditions 
must  submit  to  fate.  Could  strength  and  valour  have  given  exemp 
tion  from  the  general  doom,  Hercules  and  Hector  would  have  escaped 
it.  Could  enchantments  have  stopped  death,  Circe  and  Medea  had 
lived  till  now.  Could  the  art  of  the  physician  and  the  knowledge  of 
herbs  have  saved  from  mortality,  neither  Machaon,  the  son  of  ^Escu- 
lapius,  nor  Chiron,  the  son  of  Philyra,  should  have  died.  Above  all, 
had  medicine  been  thus  efficacious,  the  distinguished  man  whom  the 


MILTON'S  THIRD  TEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1626-7.         173 

gowned  race  are  now  mourning  would  still  have  been  discharging  his 
office  with  his  old  reputation.  But  Proserpina,  seeing  him,  by  his  art 
and  his  potent  juices,  save  so  many  from  death,  has  snatched  himself 
away  in  anger.  May  his  body  rest  peacefully  under  the  turf,  and 
may  roses  and  hyacinths  grow  above  him !  May  the  judgment  of 
^Eacus  upon  him  be  light,  and  may  he  wander  with  the  happy  souls 
on  the  Elysian  plain  !  l 

On  the  Death  of  the  Cambridge  University-Bedel. — Death,  the  last 
beadle  of  all,  has  not  spared  even  that  fellow-officer  of  his  who  has 
so  often,  conspicuous  with  his  shining  staff,  summoned  the  studious 
youth  together.  Though  his  locks  were  already  white,  he  deserved  to 
have  lived  for  ever.  How  gracefully,  how  like  one  of  the  classic 
heralds  in  Homer,  he  stood,  when  performing  his  office  of  convening 
the  gowned  multitudes !  Why  does  not  death  choose  as  its  victims 
useless  men  who  would  not  be  missed  ?  Let  the  whole  University 
mourn  for  him,  and  let  there  be  elegies  on  his  death  in  all  the  schools  ! 2 

Within  the  same  fortnight  Milton,  who  appears  to  have 
been  in  a  verse-making  humour,  wrote  a  more  elaborate 
poem  in  Latin  hexameters  on  a  political  topic  of  annual 
interest.  It  was  now  oiie-and-twenty  years  since  the  Gun 
powder  Plot  had  filled  the  nation  with  horror ;  and  regularly 
every  year,  as  the  5th  of  November  came  round,  there  had 
been  the  usual  prayers  and  thanksgivings  on  that  day  in  all 
the  churches,  the  usual  bonfires  in  the  streets,  and  the  usual 
demonstrations  of  Protestant  enthusiasm  and  virulence  in 
sermons  and  verses.  There  were  probably  opportunities  in 
the  Colleges  of  Cambridge  for  the  public  reading  of  corn- 
positions  on  the  subject  by  the  more  ambitious  of  the 
students.3  At  all  events,  there  are  five  distinct  pieces  "  On 
The  Gunpowder  Treason,"  besides  a  cognate  one  on  the 
Inventor  of  Firearms,  among  Milton's  juvenile  Latin  poems. 
Four  of  them  are  short  epigrams,  hard  and  ferocious,  of 
a  few  lines  each.  In  one  of  these  the  poet  blames  Guy 

1  Sylvarum  Liber,  I.     Milton,  when       anno  setatis  17." 

he  dates  his  poems,  usually  does  so  ac-  3  By  a  decree  of  the  Vice-Chancellor 

curately,  except  that  he  gives  himself  and  Heads,   passed  Oct.  20,  1606  (see 

the  apparent  advantage  of  a  year  by  Dyer's  "  Privileges,"  I.  310),  it  was  or- 

using  the  cardinal  numbers  instead  of  dered  that  on  every  following  5th  of 

the  ordinal.     In  the  present  instance,  November  for  ever  there  should  be  a 

however,  there  is  an  error.     The  poem  sermon  in  St.  Mary's  by  one  of  the 

in  the  original  copies  is  headed  "  anno  Heads  in  the  morning,  and  in  the  after- 

(etatis  16,"  whereas,  when  Gostlin  died,  noon    an    oration   in    King's    College 

Milton  had  nearly  completed  his  eigh-  Chapel   by  the   Public   Orator  or   by 

teenth  year.  some  one  appointed  in  his  stead. 

2  Eleyiarum  Liber :  "  Elegia  Secuuda, 


174  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Fawkes  for  not  having  blown  the  priests  of  Rome  and  the 
other  "  cowled  gentry  "  themselves  to  heaven,  hinting  that, 
but  for  some  such  physical  explosion,  there  was  little  likeli 
hood  of  their  ever  taking  flight  very  far  in  that  direction. 
These  four  epigrams  are  not  dated ;  but  they  were  probably 
written  at  Cambridge,  as  well  as  the  fifth  and  much  longer 
poem  on  the  same  subject,  the  date  of  the  composition  of  which 
is  fixed  by  the  heading,  In  Quintum  Novembris  :  anno  cetatis 
17,  to  hfl.vftV>gpp  tli  ft  ftf.TT  T^yrimKgrll^^  This  piftp.fv,  t.homyTT 
ori*B  of  the  very  cleverest  and  most  poetical  of  all  Milton's 
youthful  productions,  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  character 
istic,  has  remained  totally  unknown  hitherto,  except  to  the 
few  who  have  read  the  Latin  for  themselves.  The  gentle 
spirit  of  Cowper,  or  his  timid  religious  taste,  did  not  permit 
him  to  include  it  amongTisT  translations  or  paraphrases  of 
Milton's  Latin  poems  for  English  readers  three  generations 
ago.  As  we  are  bound  to~be~Tess  scrupulous  here,  and  as 
any"emphatic  bit  of  Milton's  young  mind  may  be  left  now 
to  take  its  own  chances  of  pleasing  or  irritating  the  public, 
no  apology  seems  necessary  for  the  following  attempt  at  a 
complete  and  pretty  close  translation,  unless  it  be  perhaps 
an  apology  to  the  original  it  professes  to  render : — 

ON  THE  FIFTH  OF  NOVEMBER. 

Scarce  had  the  pious  James  from  his  distant  northern  dominion 
Come  to  be  king  of  our  Troy-sprung  people  and  take  as  his  birthright 
Albion's  spreading  possessions ;  scarce  was  there  sealed  this  con 
junction, 

Ne'er  to  be  severed  again,  of  Scotia's  crown  with  the  English ; 
Happy  and  wealthy  he  sat,  a  sovereign  rarely  pacific, 
Here  on  his  new- won  throne,  untroubled  by  foe  or  by  treason  : 
When  the  fierce  tyrant  who  reigns  by  Acheron's  fire-rolling  river, 
He,  the  fell  Father  of  Furies,  an  exile  from  starry  Olympus, 
Chanced  to  be  out  on  wing  surveying  the  round  of  our  Earth-Ball, 
Counting  his  allies  in  guilt  and  the  faithful  slaves  of  his  service, 
Who  at  their  death  will  share  his  kingdom  infernal  for  ever. 
Here  in  middle  air  he  rouses  the  terrible  tempests ; 
There  mid  friends  of  one  mind  he  scatters  the  tares  of  disunion  ; 
Nations  unconquered  as  yet  he  arms  for  mutual  gashing ; 
Realms  over- waving  with  olives  of  peace  he  throws  into  tumult ; 
WThosoever  he  sees  are  lovers  of  truth  and  of  virtue, 


POEM    ON   THE    FIFTH    OF   NOVEMBER.  175 

These  tie  is  fain  to  annex  to  his  rule ;  and,  master  of  wiles,  he 
Works  to  corrupt  each  heart  that  is  yet  untainted  of  evil, 
Setting  his  snares  in  the  dark  and  silently  stretching  his  meshes, 
So  as  to  catch  the  unwary,  just  as  the  Caspian  tiger 
Follows  his  prey  in  its  pantings  through  the  passageless  desert 
Under  the  moonless  night  and  twinklings  of  myriad  star-points. 
Thus  as  he  flies,  this  king  of  the  damned,  over  nations  and  cities, 
Girt  with  whirlings  of  smoke  and  green-blue  circles  and  flashings, 
Lo !  the  fair  fields  of   the  land  white-ringed  with  the  sea-roaring 

ramparts 

Burst  into  view,  that  land  which  is  best  beloved  of  the  Sea-god, 
Once  indeed  taking  its  name  from  Neptune's  primitive  offspring, 
Breed  of  such  mettle  that  even  Amphitryon's  terrible  son  they, 
Swimming  the  sea  to  the  task,  would  challenge  to  murderous  battle, 
Back  in  ages  old  ere  Troy  had  seen  her  besiegers. 

Soon  as  this  land  he  beholds,  all  happy  in  peace  and  in  riches, 
Field  after  field  of  fatness  brave  with  the  bounty  of  Ceres, 
Ay,  and,  what  grieved  him  more,  the  populous  throng  of  its  natives 
Worshipping  one  true  God,  at  the  sight  a  tempest  of  sighings 
Broke  from  him,  blazing  of  hell  and  shotted  with  stenches  of  sulphur, 
Such  as,  imprisoned  by  Jove  deep  down  in  Trinacrian  ^Etna, 
Breathes  from  his  pest-breeding  mouth  the'ghastly  monster  Typhoeus. 
Glare  his  red-rolling  eyes,  arid  gratingly  grinds  he  and  gnashes 
Iron  rows  of  teeth,  with  a  clash  as  of  lances  on  armour. 
"  Here  in  my  range  of  the  globe  this  single  discomforting  object 
"  Find  I,"  he  said,  "  and  here  the  single  race  that  is  rebel, 
"  Spurning  off  my  yoke  and  defying  my  art  to  subdue  it : 
"  Yet  shall  it  not,  if  aught  exertion  now  can  avail  me, 
"  Long  go  unpunished  so,  or  escape  a  visit  of  vengeance." 
Thus  much  he  said  ;  and  on  pinions  of  pitch  through  the  air  he  floats 

onwards ; 

Still,  as  he  flies,  great  gusts  of  adverse  winds  go  before  him, 
Clouds  grow  thick  and  dark,  and  quick  come  the  gleams  of  the 

lightning. 
Now,  his  swift  flight  having  crossed  the  chain  of  the  Alps  and  their 

ice-peaks, 

Italy  lay  in  his  gaze.     Here,  leftwise,  stretched  'neath  his  vision 
Apennine's  cloud-capped  range  and  the  ancient  land  of  the  Sabines  ; 
There,  on  the  right,  Hetruria,  sorcery-noted,  and  also 
Thee,  O  Tiber,  he  sees,  in  thy  stealthy  meanderings  seawards. 
Swooping  down,  he  alights  on  Mars's  imperial  city. 
Fit  was  the  hour.    It  was  then  that  time  of  the  year  when  at 

twilight 

He  of  the  three-crowned  hat  goes  round  the  city  to  bless  it, 
Bearing  his  bread-made  gods  and  hoisted  high  on  men's  shoulders, 
Kings  preceding  his  chair  with  patient  flexure  of  hip-joint, 
Begging  friars  likewise  in  endless  length  of  procession, 


176  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

Candles  of  wax  in  their  hands,  the  poor  obfuscated  mortals  ! 

Born  in  Cimmerian  darkness,  and  dragging  lives  of  confusion. 

Enter  they  now  the  temple,  lit  up  with  numerous  torches 

(For  'twas  the  Eve  of  St.  Peter's) ;  and  frequent  thunders  of  singing 

.Roll  through  the  empty  vaults  and  thrill  the  enormous  inane. 

Such  are  the  howlings  of  Bacchus  and  all  the  crew  of  his  drunkards, 

Singing  their  orgies  over  Boeotian  Mount  Aracynthus, 

So  that  bewildered  Asopus  quakes  in  his  clear-flowing  river, 

And  from  afar  in  his  cavern  rings  the  response  of  Cithseron. 

Ended  at  length  these  rites  and  all  the  solemn  performance, 
Silently  Night  forsakes  the  embraces  of  Erebus  aged. 
Hastes  she  her  headlong  steeds  by  the  smart  of  the  lash  on  their 

journey : 

Typhlos  the  blind  to  lead,  and  with  him  the  fierce  Melanchaetes, 
Torpid  Siope  next,  whose  sire  was  Acherontseus, 
Coupled  with  shaggy  Phrix,  whose  mane  flew  cloudily  round  her. 
Meanwhile  the  Tamer  of  Kings,  the  heir  of  the  sceptre  infernal, 
Enters  his  couch  (nor  imagine  the  secret  adulterer  uses 
Ever  to  spend  his  nights  without  a  pretty  companion). 
Scarcely,  however,  had  sleep  closed  up  his  slumbering  eyelids 
When  the  black  lord  of  shadows,  the  ruler  and  head  of  the  silent, 
Fell  destroyer  of  men,  disguised  in  a  suitable  likeness, 
Stood  by  his  bed.     A  show  of  grey  hair  silvered  his  temples ; 
Down  his  breast  flowed  a  beard;  an  ash-grey  garment  depended, 
Sweeping  the  ground  with  its  train ;   a  cowl  was  perched  on  his 

hind-head 

Where  it  was  shaven ;  nay,  that  nought  that  was  fit  might  be  wanting, 
Round  his  lusty  loins  a  hempen  rope  he  had  tightened, 
And,  as  he  slowly  walked,  you  could  see  that  his  sandals  were 

bandaged. 

Such,  as  tradition  tells,  was  Francis,  when  in  the  desert 
Wandered  he  all  alone  amid  lairs  of  the  savagest  creatures, 
Bearing  words  of  salvation  there  to  the  folks  of  the  forest, 
Graceless  himself,  and  subduing  the  wolves  and  the  Libyan  lions. 
Masked  in  such  garb,  however,  the  crafty  serpent  bent  o'er  him, 
Opening  his  lying  mouth  with  these  reproachful  addresses  : — 
"  Sleep'st  thou,  son  of  my  heart  1  and  has  drowsiness  seized  thee 

already, 
"  Mindless,  for  shame !  of  the  faith,  and  forgetting  the  care  of  thy 

cattle, 

"  Now  when  thy  chair,  your  Holiness,  yea  and  thy  triple  tiara, 
"  Serve  as  a  jest  in  the  north  to  all  that  barbarous  nation, 
"Now  when  thy  Papal  rights  are  the  scorn  of  the  well-weaponed 

Britons'? 

"  Rise  and  be  stirring  thee  !  rise  from  thy  sloth,  thou  god  of  the  Latins, 
"  Thou  at  whose  word  fly  unlocked  the  gates  of  the  convex  of  heaven  ! 
"  Break  their  spirits  of  brag,  and  crush  their  obstinate  worship, 


POEM    ON   THE    FIFTH    OF    NOVEMBER.  177 

"  So  that  the  wretches  may  know  what  power  is  in  thy  malediction, 

"  What  is  the  power  of  the  keys  in  Apostolical  keeping. 

"  Seek  for  a  way  to  avenge  the  scattered  western  Armada, 

"  Wrecks  of  the  Spanish  galleons  sunk  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean, 

"  Deaths  of  saints  who  were  hung  in  scores  on  the  infamous  gibbet 

"  Through  the  recent  reign  of  that  Amazonian  virgin. 

"  Should  it  be  still  thy  choice  to  loll  in  thy  couch  like  a  sluggard, 

"  Losing  what  chance  there  may  be  to  shatter  the  enemy's  forces, 

"  Then  will  that  enemy  fill  the  Tyrrhene  sea  with  her  soldiers, 

"  Plant  her  emblazoned  banners  atop  the  hill  Aventinus, 

"  Break  into  pieces  thy  ancient  relics,  burn  them  in  bonfires, 

"  Set  her  impious  feet  on  thy  Pontifical  neck,  whose 

"  Offered  shoe-soles  kings  of  the  earth  have  been  happy  in  kissing. 

"  Neither  is  need  to  venture  on  open  war  and  aggression  : 

"  Bootless  a  labour  like  that ;  but  try  some  fraudulent  method : 

"  Heretics  being  the  game,  all  nets  are  equally  lawful. 

"  Listen. — Now  their  great  king  from  all  extremes  of  the  country 

"  Summons  his  nobles  to  council,  and  those  that  are  next  to  the 

peerage, 

"  Sages  august  with  age  and  grey  with  the  honours  of  office  : 
"  These,  all  limb  from  limb,  thou  canst  blow  at  once  to  perdition, 
"  Blast  into  ashes  at  once,  by  putting  powder  of  nitre 
"  Under  the  chamber  floors  whereon  they  hold  their  assembly. 
"  Instantly  therefore,  thyself,  all  such  as  in  England  are  faithful 
"  Warn  of  the  deed  and  purpose.     Will  any  owning  thy  priesthood 
"  Dare  to  refuse  an  act  prescribed  them  by  Papal  commandment  1 
"Then,  when  stunned  by  the  shock,  and  aghast  with  the  sudden 

disaster, 

"  See  that  the  ruthless  Gaul  or  the  bloody  Spaniard  invade  them  : 
"  Thus  shall  return  among  them  at  last  the  Marian  times,  and 
"  Thou  shalt  govern  again  in  the  land  of  the  valorous  English. 
"  Do  not  doubt  of  success :  the  gods  and  goddesses  aid  thee, 
"  All  on  thy  calendared  list  that  are  duly  honoured  with  saints'  days." 
These  were  the  words;  and  the  Fiend,  then  doffing  his  friar-like 

vesture, 
Fled  to  his  doleful  abode  in  the  joyless  stagnations  of  Lethe. 

Rosy  Tithonia  meanwhile,  opening  the  gates  of  the  morning, 
Tinges  the  sombred  earth  with  returning  gold ;  but,  unable 
Yet  to  restrain  her  tears  for  the  death  of  her  swart- coloured  offspring, 
Sprinkles  the  tops  of  the  hills  with  drops  of  ambrosial  moisture. 
Then  the  watch  of  the  starry  hall  drove  back  from  its  doorway 
Sleep  and  nocturnal  shapes  and  all  the  pleasures  of  dreamland. 

Far  there  exists  a  place  begirt  with  unchangeable  night-gloom, 
Once  the  foundations  vast  of  a  dwelling  crumbled  to  ruins, 
Now  the  den  of  pitiless  Murder  and  double-tongued  Treason, 
Which  at  one  birth  came  forth  as  the  issue  of  Termagant  Discord. 
Here,  mid  rubbish-heaps  and  disrupted  masses  of  stone-work, 

VOL.  I.  JN 


178  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Coffinless  bones  lie  about  "and  iron-spigoted  corpses ; 
Here,  with  his  in-screwed  eyes,  sits  Stratagem  moodily  musing, 
Strife  at  his  elbow  close,  and  Calumny  shooting  her  fangs  out : 
Fury  is  there,  and  the  sight  of  a  thousand  fashions  of  dying ; 
Fear  is  in  hiding  there,  and  pale-faced  Horror  keeps  winging 
Kound  and  over  the  spot ;  and  ceaselessly  ghosts  through  the  silence 
Howl  of  their  woe ;  and  even  the  ground  is  stagnant  with  bloodshed. 
Here  in  the  innermost  cavern's  recesses  lie  savagely  lurking 
Murder  and  Treason  themselves ;  none  else  will  adventure  that  cavern, — 
Cavern  horrid  and  craggy  and  dark  with  hideous  shadows, 
Shunned  by  the  souls  in  guilt,  who  turn  their  eyes  as  they  pass  it. 
These,  the  two  bullies  of  Rome,  found  faithful  through  ages  of  service, 
Calls  to  him  Babylon's  priest,  and  thus  for  his  business  bespeaks 

them  : — 

'  Islanded  up  in  the  west,  where  Europe  ends  in  the  surges, 
'  Dwells  a  race  I  detest,  whom  prudent  Nature  was  careful 
4  Not  to  join  altogether  to  this  our  world  of  the  mainland. 
*  Thither,  so  I  command,  let  your  swiftest  effort  convey  you ; 
'  There  with  the  powder  of  hell  be  blown  at  once  into  fragments 
'  King  and  nobles  alike,  and  the  pride  of  the  whole  generation ; 
"  Whoso  there  are  inflamed  with  zeal  for  the  orthodox  worship 
"Take  as  the  friends  of  your  plot  and  the  means  for  its  instant 

enactment." 
Ended  he  thus,  and  amain  were  the  twain  on  the  move  to  obey  him. 

Meanwhile,  deep-bending  low  the  gracious  archings  of  heaven, 
He  from  his  glory  looks  down,  the  Lord  of  the  skies  and  the  thunder ; 
Laughs  at  the  vain  attempts  of  all  the  wrong-headed  rabble, 
And  will  Himself  defend  the  cause  of  the  people  who  serve  Him. 

Rumour  there  is  of  a  place  where,  severed  from  Asia's  limits, 
Europe  extends  her  skirts  in  sight  of  the  waters  of  Egypt. 
Here  stands  proudly  the  Tower  of  Fame,  the  Titanian  goddess, 
Brazen,  and  broad-built,  and  sounding,  and  nearer  the  tracks  of  the 

meteors 

Than  would  be  Athos  or  Pelion  superimposed  upon  Ossa, 
Faced  with  a  thousand  doors,  and  slit  with  as  many  windows, 
So  that  the  vastness  within  shines  through  in  glimmering  outline. 
Here  from  a  thick-gathered  throng  ascends  a  hubbub  of  noises, 
Such  as  when  armies  of  flies  attack  and  cloud  with  their  buzzings 
Pails  on  the  dairy-floor  or  mats  of  rush  in  the  sheep-pens, 
Deep  in  the  summer's  heat,  when  highest  is  climbing  the  dog-star. 
High-enshrined  in  the  midst  sits  the  goddess  herself,  who  avenges 
Hope  her  mother,  and  raises  a  head  in  which  ears  by  the  hundred 
Catch  every  smallest  whisper  and  airiest  murmur  that  rises 
Over  the  farthest  flats  of  the  world  extended  beneath  her  ; 
Nay,  nor  even  didst  thou,  false  keeper  of  heifer-shaped  Isis, 
Roll  in  thy  cruel  face  more  eyes  than  serve  her  to  see  with, 
Eyes  that  are  never  drowsy  with  any  noddings  of  slumber, 


POEM    ON   THE    FIFTH    OF   NOVEMBER.  179 

Eyes  that  survey  at  once  the  earth's  whole  surface  and  circuit, 
Eyes  that  she  often  uses  to  pierce  into  places  that  never 
Light  can  reach  and  the  rays  of  the  sun  are  powerless  to  enter. 
What  she  thus  hears  and  beholds  she  has  thousands  of  tongues,  too, 

to  publish 

Heedless  to  all  that  listen,  and  lyingly  now  will  diminish 
What  may  be  true,  and  again  will  swell  it  out  with  additions. 
Heartily  we  at  least  ought  to  raise  a  song  in  thy  honour, 
Fame,  for  a  service  done  to  us  true  as  ever  was  rendered  ; 
Worthy  thou  of  our  song,  nor  need  we  grudge  thee  the  longest 
Strain  of  thanks  in  our  power,  we  English,  saved  from  destruction 
All  by  a  freak  of  thy  kindness  vouchsafed  in  the  moment  of  danger. 

Thee  did  the  Lord  who  sways  the  eternal  fires  in  their  orbits 
Thus,  with  lightning  before  him,  and  earth  all  trembling,  admonish  :  — 
"  Fame,  art  thou  silent  ]  or  how  has  this  hideous  business  ecaped  thee, 
"  This  great  plot  of  the  Papists,  conspired  against  me  and  my  Britons, 
"  This  new  slaughter  intended  for  James  that  carries  their  sceptre." 
More  was  not  said;    for  at  once,  on  the   spur  of  the  Thunderer's 

mandate, 

Swift  though  she  was,  she  put  on  two  whizzing  wings  to  be  swifter, 
Covered  her  slender  shape  with  feathers  of  .various  plumage, 
Took  in  her  right  her  trumpet  of  sounding  brass  Temesaean, 
Sped  on  her  errand,  her  pinions  beating  the  rush  of  the  breezes, 
Clouds  flying  past  in  her  course  as  she  cleaves  their  successive 

resistance. 

Now,  having  left  behind  her  the  winds  and  the  steeds  of  the  sun-god, 
First,  in  her  usual  way,  throughout  the  cities  of  England 
Scatters  she  doubtful  words  and  sounds  of  ambiguous  import  ; 
Then,  more  pointedly,  blazons  all  the  damnable  story, 
How  the  treason  was  hatched,  and  what  its  horrible  purpose  ; 
Names  its  authors  plainly,  and  even  hints  of  the  cellars 
Stuffed  with  the  devilish  fuel.     Aghast  at  the  dreadful  relation, 
Young  men  and  maidens  alike  are  seized  with  a  general  shudder, 
Old  men  not  the  less  ;  and  the  sense  of  the  boundless  disaster 
Lies  like  a  heavy  weight  on  every  age  and  condition. 
Yet  hath  the  Heavenly  Father,  regarding  His  folk  with  compassion, 
Baulked  the  design  meanwhile,  and  foiled  at  the  critical  instant 
Papist  bloodthirstiness  :  sharp  and  quick  the  doom  of  the  guilty  : 
Then  to  the  Deity  rises  the  incense  of  thanks  and  of  homage  ; 
Hundreds  of  streets  are  ablaze  with  the  joy  and  the  smoke  of  their 

bonfires  ; 

Boys  are  dancing  in  rings  ;  and  still  in  the  round  of  the  twelvemonth 
No  day  returns  more  marked  than  this  same  Fifth  of  November. 


On  this  ferocious  piece  of  poetical  ultra-Protestantism, 
concocted  doubtless  for  the  customary  celebration  of  Ciuy 
FawkeVs  day  at  the  University,  the  undergraduate  of 


180  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Christ's  College  Jhad---^vidently  bestowecLmuch  pains.  It  is 
full  of  ..elaborate  classicism,  as  well  as  of  ittgemOTnr~Tnven- 
tipn;  and,  besides  the  proofs  of  abundant  readings  of  the 
classic"  sort,  one  notes  the  familiarity  shown  in  it  with 
Chauceris—  Jlazise  —  of  Fame.  One  guesses  also  that  the 
author,  when  he  had  successfully  begun,  and  found  himself 
in  the  full  flow  of  his  subject,  intended  a  longer  compo 
sition,  but  was  obliged,  for  some  reason  or  another,  to 
become  more  rapid  after  he  had  brought  Fame  to  Britain, 
and  so  to  huddle  up  the  close.  As  it  was,  what  with 
the  Protestant  pungency  of  the  sentiment,  what  with 
the  poWeT^oT^Se^poetic  invention.  whaJLJgith  the_Z<atimty7^ 
young  Milton7^  In  Q  uintwn  Novembris  may  well  have 


it   did  not  even  circulate  with  applause  among 
Colleges. 


a  syllable  respecting  Milton  or  his  verses,  however, 
have  we  from  Meade.  On  the  25th  of  November  he  writes 
to  Stuteville  of  the  sudden  death  of  Dr.  Hills,  Master  of 
Catharine  Hall  ;  and  on  the  2nd  of  December,  after  announc 
ing  that  Dr.  Sibbes  has  been  elected  to  the  vacant  Master 
ship,  he  mentions  a  matter  of  pecuniary  interest  to  himself. 
"  I  am  troubled,"  he  says,  "  with  Mr.  Higham's  backward- 
"  ness  ;  who  is  £10  in  my  debt,  besides  this  quarter  ;  which 
"  will  make  it  near  £15.  Neither  he  nor  Mr.  Tracey  are  so 
"good  paymasters  as  I  had  hoped  for."  On  the  9th  of  the 
same  month  he  speaks  of  young  Stuteville  as  having  been 
more  than  usually  negligent  of  his  studies,  but  adds  that  he 
is  "  about  a  declamation,  and  must  have  pardon  till  it  be 
over."  And  thus,  so  far  as  Meade  enlightens  us,  ended  the 
Michaelmas  Term. 

His  letters  during  the  Lent  Term  are  of  considerably 
more  interest.  On  the  27th  of  January  1626-7  he  writes 
complaining  that  he  has  still  heard  nothing  from  Mr. 
Higham  ;  on  the  3rd  of  February  he  speaks  of  some  new 
arrangements  he  has  been  making  respecting  young  Stute- 
ville's  room  in  College  ;  on  the  10th  of  the  same  month  he 
sends  Sir  Martin  a  copy  of  "  old  Geffrey  Chaucer,"  price 


MILTON'S  THIRD  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1626-7.        181 

13s.  4d. ;  and  on  the  17th,  in  reply  to  an  application  which 
Sir  Martin  has  sent,  that  he  would  receive  as  a  pupil  his 
nephew,  the  son  of  Sir  John  I  sham,  of  Lamport,  North 
amptonshire,  he  writes  as  follows  : — 

"I  am  not  only  willing,  but  in  some  respects  desirous,  to  accept  Sir 
John  Isham's  son  under  my  tuition,  if  I  can  provide  a  fit  chamber  for 
him ;  but  whether  I  shall  do  or  not  I  know  not  Our  Master  here 
hath  the  absolute  disposal  of  chambers  and  studies :  howsoever  the 
statute  limits  his  power  by  discretion  to  dispose  according  to  quality, 
desert,  and  conveniency,  yet,  himself  being  the  only  judge,  that 
limitation  is  to  no  purpose.  And — to  tell  tales  forth,  of  school — our 
present  Master  is  so  addicted  to  his  kindred  that,  where  they  may 
nave  a  benefit,  there  is  no  persuasion,  whosoever  hath  the  injury 
....  The  plot  is  first  to  get  the  chambers  that  are  convenient  out 
'  of  the  possession  of  others,  and  then  to  appropriate  them  to  his 
kinsmen-fellows,  so  to  allure  gentlemen  to  choose  their  tuition,  as 

stored  with  rooms  to  place  them I  have  not  yet  spoken  to  our 

Master,  because  it  is  a  little  hell  for  me  to  go  about  it ;  but  I  shall 
take  the  fittest  opportunity,  though  I  know  not  how  it  will  prove." 

The  important  business  of  procuring  a  chamber  for  Sir 
John  Isham's  son  was  not  settled  when  the  whole  Uni 
versity  was  roused  from  its  routine  by  the  arrival  of  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  with  a  large  retinue  of  bishops  and 
courtiers,  to  go  through  the  ceremony  of  his  installation 
as  Chancellor.  He  arrived  on  the  3rd  of  March  1626-7; 
on  which  day  Meade  writes  to  Stuteville  : l — 

"  The  Duke  is  coming  to  our  town  ;  which  puts  us  all  into  a  com 
motion.  The  bells  ring  ;  the  posts  wind  their  horns  in  every  street. 
Every  man  puts  up  his  cap  and  hood,  ready  for  the  Congregation ; 
whither,  they  suppose,  his  Grace  will  come.  He  dines,  they  say,  at 
Trinity  College :  shall  have  a  banquet  at  Clare  Hall.  I  am  afraid 
somebody  [Bainbrigge  f]  will  scarce  worship  any  other  god  as  long  as 
he  is  in  town.  For  mine  own  part,  I  am  not  like  to  stir  ;  but  hope  to 
hear  all  when  they  come  home." 

On  the  following  Friday  (March  10)  Meade  forwards  to 
fiis  correspondent  some  more  particulars"  of  "tEe~DufeB*s  visit, 
which  had  lasted  two~days : — — 

"  Our  Chancellor  on  Saturday  sat  in  the  Regent  House  in  a  Master 
of  Arts'  gown,  habit,  cap,  and  hood :  spoke  two  words  of  Latin — 
Placet  and  Admittatur.  Bishop  Laud  was  incorporated.  The  E.  of 
Denbigh,  Lo.  Imbrecourt,  Lo.  Eochefort  (Miles  de  Malta),  Mr.  Edw. 

1  This  and  some  other  letters  of  whole  year  in  the  binding  of  the  MS. 
Meade's  have  been  misplaced  by  a  volumes  in  the  British  Museum. 


182  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Somerset,  nephew  to  the  Earl  of  Worcester,  Mr.  Craven,  and  Mr. 
Walter  Montague,  were  made  Masters  of  Arts.  His  Grace  dined  at 
Trinity  College  ;  had  banquets  at  various  other  Colleges, — King's,  St. 
John's,  Clare  Hall,  &c.  He  was  on  the  top  of  King's  College  Chapel, 
but  refused  to  have  his  foot  imprinted  there  [i.  e.  to  have  the  impression 
of  his  foot  cut  on  the  leaden  roof]  as  too  high  for  him.  He  was 
wonderful  courteous  to  all  scholars  of  any  condition,  both  in  the 
Regent  House,  where  every  one  that  came  in  had  his  Grace's  congie, 
and  in  the  town,  as  he  walked.  If  a  man  did  but  stir  his  hat,  he 
should  not  lose  his  labour  .  .  .  Dr.  Paske,  out  of  his  familiarity,  must 
needs  carry  him  to  see  a  new  library  they  are  building  in  Clare  Hall, 
notwithstanding  it  was  not  yet  furnished  with  books.  But,  by  good 
chance,  being  an  open  room,  two  women  were  gotten  in  thither  to  see 
his  Grace  out  at  the  windows ;  but,  when  the  Duke  came  thither,  were 
unexpectedly  surprised.  '  Mr.  Doctor,'  quoth  the  Duke,  when  he  saw 
them,  '  you  have  here  a  fair  library ;  but  here  are  two  books  not  very 
4 well  bound.'" 

In  the  same  letter  Meade  returns  to  the  subject  of  Sir 
John  Isham's  son.  The  "  business,"  he  says,  "  makes  him 
almost  sick " ;  but,  as  Bainbrigge  is  away  from  home,  it  is 
not  yet  concluded.  There  is  also  a  postscript  referring  to 
Higham  and  his  unpaid  bills  : — "  Mr.  Higham  was  here  on 
"  Saturday  with  his  son's  bills ;  where  I  found  him  (the 
"  son)  to  have  purposely  altered  and  falsified  them  to  con- 
"  ceal  from  his  father  some  expenses,  which  yet  he  was 
"  most  impatient  at  any  time  to  have  denied.  He  had  left 
"  out  some  17s.  in  the  particulars  since  Midsummer,  and 
"  altered  the  general  sums  according  unto  it ;  and,  to  do 
' '  this,  he  took  the  pains  not  to  send  the  bills  that  lie  wrote 
"  out  at  my  chambers,  or  that  I  gave  him  with  my  own 
"  hand,  but  to  make  them  over  anew  in  his  study."  The 
consequence  was  that  Meade  resolved  to  get  rid  of  young 
Hi  wham.  He  intimates  this  in  a  letter  to  Stuteville  on  the 

O 

17th  of  March,  the  last  day  of  the  term  : — 

"  I  have  moved  our  master  in  behalf  of  Mr.  Justinian  Isham,  and, 
having  no  hope  otherwise  to  prevail,  I  offered  an  unreasonable  bargain, 
— to  yield  a  chamber  of  4  studies  and  of  the  best,  to  be  put  in  actual 
possession  of  a  chamber  having  but  2,  and  those  also  mine  de  jure  by 
former  assignation  and  payment  for  them.  Upon  this  offer,  being  to 
be  very  beneficial  to  one  of  his  kinsmen-fellows,  he  says  he  will  do 
what  he  can ;  and  I  am  sure  he  may  do  something  if  he  will, — which 
is  but  to  remove  a  couple  of  lawless  people  whom  most  of  the  fellows 
would  give  consent  to  be  expelled,  and  unfit  they  should  keep  in  that 
manner.  If  I  may  obtain  this,  my  purpose  is  Mr.  Justinian  and  your 
son  shall  keep  together.  For  this  his  chamber  I  must  take  a  surren- 


MILTON'S  THIRD  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1626-7.        183 

der  of  two  others :  whereof  Mr.  Higham  is  one  I  mean  to  cashier ; 
and  the  fourth  to  provide  for  himself.  Is  not  this  a  slaughtering 
bargain  1 " 1 

The  admission  of  Mr.  Justinian  Isham  was  managed  one 
way  or  another;  for  on  the  21st  of  April,  or  some  time  after 
the  beginning  of  the  Easter  term,  Meade  writes  to  Stuteville 
that  Isham  has  arrived.  On  the  5th  of  May  he  writes,  "  Mr. 
"  Isham  is  well,  and,  as  I  think,  will  prove  a  sober,  dis- 
"  creet,  and  understanding  gent/'  The  following  letter  will 
show  what  bad  blood  there  might  be  among  those  reverend 
seniors  of  Christ's  College  whom  Milton  was  required  to 
respect  as  his  superiors  and  instructors.  Meade  evidently 
writes  under  great  provocation.2 

May  19th,  1627. — "I  should  have  picked  up  some  more  news  for 
you  last  night,  but  that  my  thoughts  were  troubled  not  a  little  with  a 
deep  perplexity  at  the  very  instant  by  a  scurvy,  villainous  and  pandar- 
like  letter  which  Mr.  Power  [the  Senior  Fellow  of  Christ's]  sent  to 
your  cousin  Isham.  I  account  it  a  special  sign  of  Divine  favour  that 
by  mere  chance  it  fell  into  my  hands  before  it  came  to  his.  Never 
theless  it  took  my  stomach  quite  from  my  supper,  and  hindered  my 
sleep  this  night :  not  so  much  for  fear  in  the  gent's  behalf  (in  whose 
discretion  and  understanding  I  have  as  much  confidence  as  ever  I  had 
in  any  of  his  years),  but  in  respect  to  that  son  of  Belial,  whose  fury 
in  this  villainous  attempt  I  saw  so  lively  and  wickedly  expressed, — 
nay,  I  may  say,  blasphemously.  For  one  of  his  passages  towards  the 
close  was  this,  that '  if  he  durst  not  express  his  affection  and  do  him 
that  sweet  favour  by  clay,  for  fear  of  the  Pharisees,  yet  that  he  would 
be  a  good  Nicodemus  and  visit  him  by  night.'  You  may  guess  the 
rest  of  the  contents  by  this.  I  was  but  newly  come  into  my  chamber 
and  had  some  occasion  to  send  for  Mr.  Justinian ;  and,  looking  to 
espy  somebody  in  the  court  to  send,  I  saw  his  man  going,  and  a  sizar 
before  him,  as  I  had  thought,  towards  the  butteries  or  back,  but,  in 
the  event,  up  Mr.  Power's  stairs ;  for  he  [Mr.  Power]  had  sent  a  sizar 
for  his  [Mr.  Justinian's]  man  to  betrust  him  with  a  letter  to  his 
master.  I  sent  a  scholar  to  bid  him  [the  man]  come  to  me ;  but  he 

1  The  revelations  contained  in   this  temporary  rustication,  or  whatever  it 

letter,  and  in  others  of  Meade's,  respect-  was,  with  the  affair  of  this  letter.     I 

ing  the  internal  state  of  Christ's  Col-  may  add  that  I  have  seen  MS.  letters 

lege,  and  the  relations  of  the  Fellows  of  Bainbrigge  on  College  business  in 

to  the  Master  and  to  each  other,  are  the  State  Paper  Office  which  bear  out 

such  as  to  throw  some  additional  light,  Meade's  character  of  him. 

-I  think,  on  the  tradition  of  Milton's  2  As   some    of    the    extracts    from 

'   quarrel  with   the  College  authorities.  Meade's   letters  may   modify  for   the 

Observe  particularly  Bainbrigge's  and  worse  the   account  left  us  of  Meade's 

Meade's  plan  for  securing  accommoda-  character,  it  is  right  to  state  that  his 

tion  for  the  knight's  son,— "  removing  a  letters  altogether  make  one  like  him, 

couple    of    lawless    students  "  not   in  and  give,  if  not  so  high  a  notion  of  his 

favour  with  any  of  the  Fellows.     Had  ability  as  might  be  expected  from  his 

it  been  in  the  preceding  year,  I  should  reputation,  a  pleasant  impression,  at 

have  been  tempted  to  connect  Milton's  least,  of  his  integrity  and  punctuality. 


184  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

was  gone  upstairs  before  he  overtook  him.  Yet,  as  soon  as  he  had  his 
errand  there,  he  came  to  me  for  mine  :  which  was  then  changed, — for 
I  asked  him  what  he  did  with  Mr.  Power  and  what  he  said  to  him. 
He  told  me  he  [Mr.  Power]  said  little  to  purpose,  but  gave  him  that 
to  carry  to  his  master ;  and  showed  me  the  letter.  Which,  when  I 
had  read,  I  sent  him  back  to  deliver,  and  bid  his  master  come  to  me. 
I  acquainted  Sir  John  Isham  with  this  danger  before  my  pupil  came, 
and  with  much  passion  entreated  him  to  send  both  him  and  his  man 
fortified  with  a  direct  charge,  &c. ;  which  letter  he  gave  them  both  to 
read.  I  confess  I  love  the  gent,  upon  this  short  experience  with  some 
degree  more  than  a  tutor's  affection  •  but  so  much  greater  and  stronger 
is  my  jealousy, — which,  if  it  should  be  occasioned  to  continue  upon 
like  cause  to  this,  would  oppress  me,  and  I  could  not  bear  it.  I  find 
so  much  that  I  have  suffered  already.  But  I  am  somewhat  easy,  now 
I  have  told  you." 

^""       The  explanation  of  this  letter  and  of  Meade's  discom- 
\       posure  seems  to  be  that  Power   (who  was  not  only  senior 
\       Fellow  of  Christ's,  but  also  Margaret  preacher  in  the  Uni- 
I      versity)  was  suspected  of  being  a  Jesuit  in  disguise,  and 
I      was  in  any  case  a  malicious,  if  not  a  dissolute,  old  person, 
I     who,  having  no  pupils  himself,  employed  his  time  in  stirring 
\    up  feuds  against   those   who  had,  and    especially  against 
L-Meade.     So  much  we  gather  from  subsequent  passages  in 
Meade's  letters,  in  which  he  calls  Power  an_^old  foolJ.!_ancL. 
relates  new  instances  of  his  spite  against  himself  and  his 
endeavours  to  win  the  confidence  of  his  pupils,  and  make 
them  "  little  better  than  filii  Gehenna."     That  Power  had 
the  reputation  in  the  University  of  being  a  concealed  Papist 
is  proved  by  other  accounts  of  him.1    No  further  harm,  how 
ever,  came  at  this  time  of  his  attempts  to  make  mischief; 
the  Easter  Term  passed  without  any  incidents  of  particular 
note ;  and  before  the  close  of  that  term  Meade  was  gratified 
by  an  invitation  to  spend  part  of  the  long  vacation  at  Sir 
John  Isham's  place  in  Northamptonshire.     He  went  there 
in  July,  and  was  received  with  all  imaginable  kindness. 

To  the  long  vacation  of_1627  belongs  aLatin 
epistle  from  Milton  to  his  old   tutor,  Thomas  Young.     It  is 

1  On  the  overhauling  of  the  Univer-  Pope,  a  Pope,"  and  would  not  suffer 
sity  in  1643  by  the  Puritan  party,  him  to  go  into  the  pulpit.  See  "  Car- 
Power  was  not  only  ejected  from  his  ter's  History  of  the  University  of  Cam- 
fellowship,  but  pursued  in  the  streets,  bridge,  1753"  ;  also  Walker's  "  Suffer- 
as  he  was  going  to  preach,  by  a  mob  of  ings  of  the  Clergy/' 
soldiers  and  others,  who  cried  out,  "  A 


MILTON'S  THIRD  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1626-7.        185 

headed  "  To_  Thomas  Young,  his  preceptor,  discharging  the 
office   of  Pastor   among~~the  English   mercJianis    trading    at 

^^  quoted  ; 


but  an  abstract  of  the  rest  may  be  given  :  — 

"  In  what  circumstances  will  this  epistle  find  you  in  the  German 
city?  Will  it  find  you  sitting  by  your  sweet  wife,  with  your  children 
on  your  knee,  or  turning  over  large  tomes  of  the  Fathers,  or  the  Bible 
itself,  or  instructing  the  minds  of  your  charge  in  Divine  truth  1  It  is 
long  since  we  have  exchanged  letters  ;  and  what  now  induces  me  to 
write  is  the  report  that  Hamburg  and  its  neighbourhood  Jiasce_been  _ 
visitfi4jbyjhe^orrorsj  of  war7  One  has  heard^muclflately  of  battles 
there  betweenthe  German  ProtestanTf  League  and  the  Imperialists 
under  Tilly.  How  precariously  must  you  be  situated  in  such  a  state  of 
things,  a  foreigner  unknown  and  poor  in  a  strange  land,  seeking  there 
that  livelihood  which  your  own  country  has  not  afforded  you  !  Hard 
hearted  country,  thus  to  exile  her  worthiest  sons,  and  that  too  on 
account  of  their  faithfulness  in  religion  !  But  the  Tishbite  had  to 
live  a  while  in  the  desert  ;  Paul  had  to  flee  for  his  life  ;  and  Christ 
himself  left  the  country  of  the  Gergesenes.  Take  courage.  God  will 
protect  you  in  the  midst  of  danger;  and  onc*e  more  you  will  return  to 
the  joys  of  your  native  lanci."  x 

The  prediction  was  very  soon  fulfilled.  Before  many 
months  were  over,  %aung^  did  return  to  England  ;  and  on 
theJ27th^of  March  1628  he  was~~im3tituted  to  the  united 
vicarages  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Mary  in  Stowmarket,  Suffolk. 
T_be  living  was  worth  about  3Q01,  a  year,  _wbicb  was  a  very 
good  benefice  in  tbose  days.  -^Young  wasindebted  for  it  to  a 
"  Mr.  John  Howe,  a  gentleman  then  residing  in  Stowmarket, 
whose  ancestors  had  been  great  clotb-manufacturers  in  the 
neighbourhood  "  ;  but  in  what  way  Howe  had  become  ac 
quainted  witb  Young,  so  as  to  form  such  an  opinion  of  his 
deserts  as  tbe  presentation  implies,  is  not  known.  Stow 
market  is  the  ancient  county  town  of  Suffolk.  .  It  ia 


eigbj^-one_miles_distant  from  London,  and  about  fortv_from_ 
Cambridge.    The  parish 


market  St.  Peter,  which  served  also  for  tbe  adjacent  parish 
of  Stow  Upland,  was  built  in  tbe  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
Under  a  marble  slab  in  the  chancel  lie  the  bones  of  Richard 
Pernham,  B.D.,  Young's  predecessor  in  tbe  vicarage. 

1  Eleyiarum  Liber:  "  Elegia  Quarta,  anno  setatis  18." 


186 


LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OP    HIS    TIME. 


Young  was  to  be  connected  with  Stowmarket  during  the 
whole  remainder  of  his  life,  and  was  also  to  leave  his  bones 
in  the  church,  and  his  memory  in  the  traditions  of  the 
place.1 


ACADEMIC    YEAR    1627-8. 

MILTON  aetat.  19. 

Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  THOMAS  BAINBEIGGE,  Master  of  Christ's  College. 
Proctors,  THOMAS  LOVE  of  Peterhouse,  and  EDWARD  LLOYD  of  St.  John's. 

MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10, 1627,  to  December  16, 1627. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1627-8,  to  April  4th,  1628. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  23, 1628,  to  July  4th,  1628. 


Among  the  newly-admitfced  students  whom  Milton  found 
on  his  return  to  College  was  one  whose  admission  is  thus 
recorded  in  the  entry-book  : — 

"September  4,  1  fiflY.-^-Tnlm  H1ftYj|fand,jiative  of  Loughborough  in 
Leicestershire,  son  of  Thomas,  ifi^ractedinletters  at  Hinckley  under 
Mr.  Vines,  aged  fifteen  years,  was  admitted  a  lesser  pensioner  under 
Mr.  Siddall."2 


This  was  Cleveland  or  Clieveland,  afterwards  so  celebrated 
"HisTfather  was  vicar  7xf~tfaB"parish~m  Leicester-" 


jia_a_satirist. 

shire  iiPwhTch  he  had  been  born  (June  1613),  and  he  was 
the  second  of  eleven  children,  and  the  eldest  son.  __  Of  all 
^Milton's  colleg-e-Mlow-a-^t-Ohrisila-Done  attained_to  greater 
r.ftpntn.t.iQn_  during1  his  life.  It  jnay  be^wejl^  therefore,  to 
l^eep  in  mind  the  fact  that  he  and  Miitonwere  collejye- 
leTTows,  andlmist4rave~Tmown  eachother  very  familiarly. 
TDHe 


f  the  session  passed  by,  so  t'aT~as- 

Meade's  letters  inform  us,   without  any  incident  of  note. 
The  Lent  Term  was  more  eventful.     On  the  17th  of  January 


1  "Supplement  to  the  Suffolk  Tra 
veller  ;  or  Topographical  and  Genea 
logical  Collections  concerning  that 
County.  By  Augustine  Page.  Ipswich 
and  London,  1844,"  pp.  549—552.  See 
also  "  The  History  of  Stowmarket,  the 
ancient  County  Town  of  Suffolk.  By 
the  Rev.  A.  G.  H.  Hollingsworth,  M.A.. 
Rural  Dean,  and  Vicar  of  Stowmarket : 


Ipswich  and  London,  1844."  This  work 
contains  a  sketch  of  Young's  life  (pp. 
187 — 194),  incorrect  in  some  points, 
but  supplying  the  most  authentic  par 
ticulars  of  his  connexion  with  Stow 
market. 

3  Extract  furnished  me  by  Mr.  Wol- 
stenholme,  Fellow  of  Christ's  College. 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1627-8.       187 

1627-&3Ieade  writes^  to^jir  Martin  that  one  of  the  fellow 
ships  of  Gliriati^vacarit  by  thQ  r^mgnatiion  rt"  Mr 


by  the  election  of  a  Mr.  Fenwicke.     His 


letters  of  the  following  month  speak  of  "two  comedies  rr~m 
preparation  for  performance  at  Trinity  College  at  Shrove 
tide,  and  also  of  an  approaching  event  of  more  than  ordinary 
interest,  —  to  wit,  a  visit  of  his  Majesty  to  Cambridge.  The 
Court  was  then  at  the  royal  hunting-station  of  Newmarket, 
about  thirteen  miles  from  Cambridge,  so  that  the  visit  could 
easily  be  made.  The  royal  intention  was  talked  of  in  the 
end  of  February  ;  but,  as  the  visit  was  to  be  somewhat  of  a 
private  nature,  Meade,  writing  to  Stuteville  on  the  24th  of 
that  month,  is  unable  to  say  when  it  will  take  place.  He 
mentions,  however,  another  honour  which  the  University 
had  received  from  his  Majesty,  —  an  invitation  to  the  leading 
doctors  to  prea^hJ_7n~^rn7~^t[aT''8^eAson^_the  jasual__Lent 
sermons  at  Court.  ^Dr.  Bainbrigge,  as  Vice-Chancellor,  was 
to  preach  first,  greatly  to  the  chagrin  of  Wren,  Master  of 
Peterhouse,  who  intrigued  for  the  honour.  What  with  this 
visit  to  Court  at  the  head  of  a  retinue  of  Doctors,  and  what 
with  the  return  visit  of  the  king  to  Cambridge  some  time 
before  the  29th  of  April,1  Dr.  Bainbrigge  was  unusually 
fortunate.  A  royal  visit  to  the  University  did  not  happen 
often  ;  and  the  Head  in  whose  Vice-Chancellorship  such  an 
event  occurred  might  hope  for  something  from  it. 

Xhg^courtesies  of  the  King  to  the  University  were  not 
without  a  motive]  Driven  to  desperation  by  the  resistance 
-r—  *ffl  fo?  »t-t-ft*npf-g  to  raise  suppliesT^harlus,  by  the  advice  o-f 
Buckingham,  had  resolved  on  aMbhTrT~Parliament.This 
Parliament,  —  the  first  in  which  Oliver  Cromwell  Isat^—  •  met 
ogLJbhe~T7th  of  lfrarcfe—±t)27-8.  Tfie"~dtgcontent  of  thj 


Country  found  vent  through  it.     First,  there  was  the  famous 
Petition  of  RiqKtT  Then,  the  king  hesitating., 


-memorable  resolution  of  the   Commons  that   "  supplies  and 
grievances  "  should  go  together.     Then,  through  April  and 

i  On  this  day  Mr.  Cooper  (Annals,  ing  the  king.    Among  the  expenses  are 

III.  200)  finds  certain  entries  in  the  10s.  "  payed  unto  the  jester,"  and  other 

corporation-books  of  sums  repaid  to  the  sums  to  "  ushers,"  "  pages,"  "  grooms," 

mayor  for  expenses  incurred  in  receiv-  "  trumpeters,"  &c. 


188 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


May,  there  were  threats  of  the  King  ^nd^counter-messages 


of  firmness, 


struggle  lasted  till  the  end  of  the  firstjweek  in  June,  when^ 
the  Commons  becoming  terrible  jntheir__excitement,  the 
King  found  it  necessary  to  yield.    He  did  so,  it  was  thougEtT 
most  handsomely7~pronouncing,  on  the  7th  of  June,  as  his 
fully  considered  answer  to  the  Petition  of  Eight,  the  regal 
formula,  &)it  faitcomme  il  esLdesire.  _A11  having  been  thus 
settled,  subsidies  were  voted,  and  on  the  26th  of  June  Par 
liament  was  prorogued  till  the  20th  of  October. 


Though  it  was  tftrm-time.,.lVfi1trm  wa^-fog-aome  reason  or 
a^oth^r^au^ooddeal  in  London  during  that  month  of  May 
1628  in  whichthe  strife  between"  the  Pagiamegtr-tti±drihe~ 

Kmg"was  hottest!    This  improved  i^L-twaldocuments  under 

___ s>  — . ____—- — F j 

his  own  hand.     One  is  his  seventh  Latin  Elegy,  dated  1628, 


ana 


Jbejfell_him  in  London  on  the  1st  or  2nd  of  May  in  that 
year;  theTother  is~~a  LaLin"^rose  Epistle  tcPEEe  younger 
gill,  dated  "London,  May  20,  1628."  We  take  the  docu 
ments  in  the  order  of  time. 

Every  one  has  heard  the  romantic  stor^  which  tellshow 
Foreigp  ladyTpassing  in  a  carriage,  with  her  elder 
^companion,    thlT~spot  ^neal*   Cambridge   where   Milton 

nder  aTTl'ee,  Was^o_a|rut.ck::w±^"faia   beauty- that, 


qfter  align  tingto  look  at  him,  she  wrote  in  pencil  some 
Italian  Imjs^ and  placed  them,  nnperceived  as  she  thought^ 
there  were..k4i«hiSff~stu^ents 


hajid^and  howj^ilton.  when  he  awoke,  read  the  lines, jmd, 
on  learning  how  they  caine__there,  conceived  such  a  passion^ 
.for  the  fair  unknown  that  he  went  afterwards  to  Italy  in 
quest  of  hert~a^i3jJiought-QLher  to^hejend^Qf  his  days  as 
his  Lost  Paradise.  -Hi£i--story  is  a  pure  myth,  and  belongs 
to.  the  lives  of  various  poets  besides  Milton.1  But,  in  com- 


pensation  for  the  loss  of  it,  the  reader  may  have,  on  Milton's 


i  Todd's  Life  of  Milton :  Edit.  1809, 
pp.  26-7.  I  am  informed  that  at  Rome 
they  have  the  same  myth  about  Milton, 


but  make  the  scene  of  the  adventure 
the  suburbs  of  Rome,  and  the  time 
Milton's  visit  to  that  city. 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1627-8.       189 

own  testimony  in  the  above-named  Elegy,  an  incident  not 
dissimilar,  and,  if  less  romantic,  at  least  authentic  as  to — 
jlace  andTHate^     The  following  is  a  versiuu  of  th6  Elegy, 
literal  in  the  more  important  passages  : — 

"  Not  yet,  O  genial  Amathusia,  had  I  known  thy  laws,  and  my 
breast  was  free  from  the  Paphian  fire.  Often  I  scorned  the  arrows  of 
Cupid  as  but  boyish  darts,  and  derided  his  great  deity.  '  Child,'  I 
said,  '  pierce  timid  doves :  that  kind  of  soft  warfare  befits  so  tender  a 
'  warrior.  Or  win  triumphs,  young  one,  over  sparrows  :  these  are  the 
'  worthy  trophies  of  thy  valour.  Against  brave  men  thou  canst  do 
'  nothing.'  The  Cyprian  boy  could  not  bear  this ;  nor  is  any  god  more 
prompt  to  anger  than  he.  It  was  Spring,  and  the  light,  raying  along 
the  topmost  roofs  of  the  town,  had  brought  to  thee,  O  May,  thy  first 
day ;  but  my  eyes  yet  sought  the  flying  night  and  could  not  endure 
the  morning  beam.  Love  stands  by  my  bed,  active  Love  with  painted 
wings.  The  motion  of  his  quiver  betrayed  the  present  god ;  his  face 
also  betrayed  him,  and  his  sweetly  threatening  eyes,  and  whatever 
else  was  comely  in  a  boy  and  in  Love.  [Here  a  farther  description  of 
him.]  *  Better,'  he  said,  *  hadst  thou  been  wise  by  the  example  of 
'  others ;  now  thou  shalt  thyself  be  a  witness  what  my  right  hand 
'can  do.'  [Cupid  then  enumerates  some  of  his  victories  over  the 
heroes  of  antiquity.]  He  said,  and,  shaking  at  me  a  gold-pointed 
arrow,  flew  off  to  the  warm  bosom  of  his  Cyprian  mother.  I  was  on 
the  point  of  laughing  at  his  threats,  nor  was  I  at  all  in  fear  of  the 
boy.  Anon  I  am  taking  my  pleasure,  now  in  those  places  in  the  city 
where  our  citizens  walk  ('  qua  nostri  spatiantur  in  urbe  Quirites'},  and 
now  in  the  rural  neighbourhood  of  the  hamlets  round.  A  frequent 
crowd — in  appearance,  as  it  might  seem,  a  crowd  of  goddesses — is 
going  and  coming  splendidly  along  the  middle  of  the  ways ;  and  the 
growing  day  shines  with  twofold  brightness.  I  do  not  austerely  shun 
those  agreeable  sights,  but  am  whirled  along  wherever  my  youthful 
impulse  carries  me.  Too  imprudent,  I  let  my  eyes  meet  their  eyes, 
and  am  unable  to  master  them.  One  by  chance  I  noted  as  pre-eminent 
over  the  rest,  and  that  glance  was  the  beginning  of  my  malady.  She  ^ 
kokecLas  Venus  herself  would  wish  to  appear  to  mortals,  as  the 
-Queen  of  tiie  Gods  was  tobe  seen  of  old.  This  fair  one  mischievous 
Cupid,  remembering  his  tEreat^  had  thrown  in  my  way ;  he  alone  wove 
the  snare  for  me.  Not  far  oft  lurked  the  sly  god  himself,  with  many 
arrows  and  the  great  weight  of  his  torch  hanging  from  his  back.  And 
without  delay  he  clings  first  to  the  maiden's  eyebrows  and  then  to  her 
mouth ;  now  he  nestles  in  her  lips  and  then  he  settles  on  her  cheeks ; 
and,  whatever  parts  the  nimble  archer  wanders  over,  he  wounds  my 

1  The  Elegy  bears  no  title,  as  the  tetatis    undevigesimo).       This   fixes  the 

others   do,  but    is    headed    simply, —  year  as  1628  ;  the  Elegy  itself  gives  the 

"  Seventh  Elegy,  in  the  author's  nine-  month  and  day,  and  also,  I  think,  the 

teenth  year "   (Eleyia    Septima,    anno  place. 


190  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

unarmed  heart,  alas  !  in  a  thousand  places.  Immediately  unaccus 
tomed  pains  were  felt  in  my  heart.  Being  in  love,  I  inly  burn,  and 
am  all  one  flame.  Meanwhile  she  who  alone  pleased  me  was  snatched 
away  from  my  eyes,  never  to  return.  I  walk  on  silently,  full  of  com 
plaint  and  desponding,  and  often  in  hesitation  I  wish  to  retrace  my 
steps.  I  am  divided  into  two;  one  part  remains,  and  the  other 
follows  the  object  of  love  ;  and  it  is  my  solace  to  weep  for  the  joys  so 
suddenly  reft  from  me.  What  shall  I,  unfortunate,  do?  Overcome 
with  grief,  I  can  neither  desist  from  my  begun  love  nor  follow  it  out. 
O,  would  it  were  given  me  once  again  to  behold  the  beloved  counte 
nance,  and  to  speak  a  sad  word  or  two  in  her  presence  !  Perchance 
she  is  not  made  of  adamant  ;  perchance  she  might  not  be  deaf  to  my 
prayers.  Believe  me,  no  one  ever  burned  so  unhappily;  I  may  be  set 
up  as  the  first  and  only  instance  of  a  chance  so  hard.  Spare  me,  I 
pray,  thou  winged  god  of  love  ;  let  not  thine  acts  contradict  thine 
office.  Now  truly  is  thy  bow  formidable  to  me,  O  goddess-born,  and 
its  darts  nothing  less  powerful  than  fire.  Thy  altars  shall  smoke  with 
our  gifts,  and  thou  alone  amongst  the  celestials  shalt  be  supreme  with 
me.  But  take  away,  at  length,  and  yet  take  not  away,  my  pains  : 
I  know  not  why,  but  every  lover  is  sweetly  miserable.  But  do  thou 
kindly  grant  that,  if  any  one  is  to  be  mine  hereafter,  one  arrow  may 
transfix  us  both  and  make  us  lovers." 

If  this  is  to  be  literally  interpreted,  it  is  a  statement  by 
Milton  that  in  the  month  of  May  1628  he  was,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  conscious  of  love's  wound,  his  conqueress 
being  some  beauty  whom  he  had  seen  by  chance  in  a  public 
place  in  London  on  the  1st  or  2d  of  that  month,  and  was 
never  likely  to  see  again.  Have  there  not  been  such  things 
in  other  centuries  than  the  seventeenth  as  the  disturbing 
vision  of  a  lovely  face  thus  shot  everlastingly,  even  from 
the  streets  and  highways,  into  the  current  of  a  young  man's 
dreams  ?  l 

In  the  letter  toGiljj  dated  the_2ilthofjlie_same  month, 
recolleconoftlie  vanished^fair  ~ 


^ 

vivid,  Milton  says  nothing  of  the  incident,  but  is 
rough, 


"To  ALEXANDER  GILL. 

"  I  received  your  letter,  and,  what  wonderfully  delighted  me,  your 
truly  great  verses,  breathing  everywhere  a  genuine  poetical  majesty 

1  I  do  not  think  that,  consistently  but  the  place  is  more  vaguely  indicated 
with  the  language  of  the  Elegy,  the  in-  than  -the  date,  and  Cambridge  might 
cident  can  be  referred  to  Cambridge  ;  contest  the  point. 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1627-8.       191 

and  a  Virgilian  genius.  I  knew,  indeed,  how  impossible  it  would  be 
for  you  and  your  genius  to  keep  away  from  poetry  and  rid  the  depths 
of  your  breast  of  those  heaven-inspired  furies  and  that  sacred  and 
ethereal  fire,  since  et  tua,  as  Claudian  said  of  his,  '  totum  Spirent  pr<z- 
cordia  Phoebum.'  Therefore,  if  you  have  broken  the  promises  made 
to  yourself,  I  here  praise  your  (as  you  call  it)  inconstancy  ;  I  praise 
the  sin,  if  there  be  any  ;  and  that  I  should  have  been  made  by  you 
the  judge  of  so  excellent  a  poem  I  no  less  glory  in  and  regard  as  an 
honour  than  if  the  contending  musical  gods  themselves  had  come  to 
me  for  judgment,  as  they  fable  happened  of  old  to  Tmolus,  the 
popular  god  of  the  Lydian  mountain.  I  know  not  truly  whether  I 
should  more  congratulate.  Henry  of  Nassau  on  the  capture  of  the  city 
or  on  your  verses  ;  for  I  think  the  victory  he  has  obtained  nothing 
more  illustrious  or  more  celebrated  than  this  poetical  tribute  of  yours. 
But,  as  we  hear  you  sing  the  prosperous  successes  of  the  Allies  in  so 
sonorous  and  triumphal  a  strain,  how  great  a  poet  we  shall  hope  to 
have  in  you  if  by  chance  our  own  affairs,  turning  at  last  moi*e  fortunate, 
should  demand  your  congratulatory  muses  !  Farewell,  learned  Sir,  and 
believe  that  you  have  my  best  thanks  for  your  verses. 
"London,  May  20,  1628."3 

TJaere  is  something  like  an  allusion  '  here  to  the  state  of 
public  affairs  at  the  time.  The  letter,  indeed,  was  written 
at  the  very  crisis  of  the  controversy  between  Parliament 
and  the  King,  when  the  eyes  of  all  Englishmen  were  turned 
towards  London  in  expectation  of  the  issue. 

Meade,  who  seldom  came  to  London,  was  attracted  thither 
by  the  unusual  interest  of  what  was  going  on;  and,  if 
Milton  remained  in  town  over  May,  he  and  Meade  may 
have  been  there  together.  Meade,  at  any  rate,  was  in 
London  on  Thursday  the  5th  of  June,  the  most  memorable 
llxe  wKoIeTyear,  and  a  day  still  memorable  in  the 


annals_ofJEngland.     The  following  is  a  letter  of  his  written 
to  Stuteville,  on  the  15tn,  after  his  return  to  Cambridge. 

"  I  know  you  have  heard  of  that  black  and  doleful  Thursday,  the 
day  I  arrived  in  London.    Which  was  by  degrees  occasioned  first  by 

1  Epist.  Fam.  II.    The  poem  referred  reprinted     in     Gill's    Foetid    Conatus 

to  was  probably  a  set  of  Latin  Hex-  (1632).     If  it  was  no  better,  however, 

ameters  on  a  recent  victory  of  Prince  than  some  of  the  pieces  there,  Milton 

Frederick-Henry  of  Nassau,  who  had  must  have  exaggerated  his  praises.  But 

succeeded  his  brother  Maurice  as  Stadt-  Gill  was  a  noisy  man,  with  some  force 

holder  of  Holland  in   16:25,  and   was  over  those  about  him  ;  and  Milton  was 

keeping  up  the  military  reputation  of  but  one  of  many  who  thought  highly 

his   family    in    the   war    against    the  of  his  talents. 
Spaniards.     It  is  not  among  the  pieces 


192  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

his  Majesty's  unsatisfactory  answer  on  Monday,  increased  by  a  mes 
sage  delivered  afterward,  that  his  Majesty  was  resolved  neither  to  add 
to  nor  alter  the  answer  he  had  given  them  [i.  e.  given  the  Commons 
respecting  their  Petition  of  Right].  Hereupon  they  fall  to  recount 
the  miscarriages  of  our  Government,  and  the  disasters  of  all  our 
designs  these  later  years ;  representing  everything  to  the  life,  but  the 
first  day  glancing  only  at  the  Duke,  not  naming  him.  On  Wednesday 
they  proceed  farther  to  the  naming  of  him,  Sir  Edward  Coke  breaking 
the  ice  and  the  rest  following.  So  that  on  Thursday,  they  growing 
more  vehement  and  ready  to  fall  right  upon  him,  a  message  was  sent 
from  his  Majesty  absolutely  forbidding  them  to  meddle  with  the 
government  or  any  of  his  ministers,  but,  if  they  meant  to  have  this 
a  session,  forthwith  to  finish  what  they  had  begun;  otherwise  his 
Majesty  would  dismiss  them.  Then  appeared  such  a  spectacle  of 
passions  as  the  like  hath  seldom  been  seen  in  any  assembly :  some 
weeping;  some  expostulating'  some  prophesying  of  the  fatal  ruin  of 
our  kingdom :  some  playing  tne  divines  in  confessing  their  own  and 
their  country  s  sins,  which  drew  these  judgments  upon  us ;  some  find 
ing,  as  it  were,  fault  with  them  that  wept,  and  expressing  their  bold 
and  courageous  resolutions  against  the  enemies  of  the  King  and  King- 
lorn.  I  have  been  told  by  Parliament-men  that  there  were  above  an 
hundred  weeping  eyes,  many  who  offered  to  speak  being  interrupted 
and  silenced  with  their  own  passions.  But  they  stayed  not  here ;  but, 
as  grieved  men  are  wont,  all  this  doleful  distemper  showered  down 
upon  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  as  the  cause  and  author  of  all  their 
misery, — in  the  midst  of  these  their  pangs  crying  out  most  bitteriy 
against  him  as  the  abuser  of  the  King  and  enemy  of  the  Kingdom. 
At  which  time  the  Speaker,  not  able,  as  he  seemed,  any  longer  to 
behold  so  woful  a  spectacle  in  so  grave  a  senate,  with  tears  flowing  in 
his  eyes,  besought  them  to  grant  him  leave  to  go  out  for  half-an-hour ; 
which  being  granted  him,  he  went  presently  to  his  Majesty,  and 
informed  him  what  state  the  House  was  in,  and  came  presently  back 
with  a  message  to  dismiss  the  House  and  all  Committees  from  pro 
ceeding  until  next  morning,  when  they  should  know  his  Majesty's 
pleasure  further.  The  like  was  sent  to  the  Lords'  House,  and  not 
there  entertained  without  some  tears, — both  Houses  accepting  it  as  a 
preparation  to  a  dissolution,  which  they  expected  would  be  the  next 
morning.  But  this  is  observable  (I  heard  it  from  a  Parliament 
Knight)  that,  had  not  the  Speaker  returned  at  that  moment,  they  had 
voted  the  Duke  to  be  an  arch-traitor  and  arch-enemy  to  King  and 
Kingdom,  with  a  worse  appendix  therein,  if  some  say  true.  They 
were  then  calling  to  the  question  when  the  Speaker  came  in ;  but  they 
delayed,  to  hear  his  message." 

As  we  have  seen,  matters  did  not  end  so  badly  as  the 
Houses  that  day  anticipated.  The  next  day,  Friday,  June 
6^  Meade^was  himself  in  Westminster  Hall  when  the  Lords 
sent  to  ask  the  Cominolis~1;6^]oin^ 

King  once  more  for  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  Petition  of 
Right.  The  day  after,  Saturday,  June  7,  the  King  appeared 
in  person,  and,  having  thought  better  of  the  risk  he  was 
running,  drew  down  a  joyous  burst  of  acclamation  by  his 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1627-8.       193 
Soit,  fait  comme  il  est  desire.     As  the  news  spread  through 


the  city,  bonfires  wgre^  light eHrthe~Follo  wore  set.  ringing^: 
and  the  mob~persuaded  themselves  that  before  night  the 
detested  Duke  would  be  in  the  Tower. 

As  usual,  three  days  before  the  close  of  the  academic  year, 
?'.  e.  on  Tuesday,  the  1st  of  July,  1628,  there  was  held  at 
Cambridge  the  great  public  ceremony  of  the  "  Commence 
ment."1  As  Dr.  Bainbrigge  was  to  preside  at  this  Com 
mencement,  it  must  naturally  have  had  more  interest  for 
Milton  than  any  preceding  one  at  which  he  had  .been  pre 
sent.  Apart  from  this  circumstance,  and  for  a  reason  more 
personal  to  himself,  he  was  interested  in  it,  and  very  con- 
sid erably .  ThiaTw e  Tear n  from  the  following  letter  of  Iris 
written  the  very  day after  lilieT "ceremony.  As  before,  We 
translate  from  the  Latin  : — 

"To  ALEXANDER  GILL. 


"  In  my  former  letter  I  did  not  so  much  reply  to  you  as  stave  off 
my  turn  of  replying.  I  silently  promised  with  myself,  therefore,  that 
another  letter  should  soon  follow,  in  which  I  should  answer  somewhat 
more  at  large  to  your  most  friendly  challenge ;  but,  even  if  I  had  not 
promised  this,  it  must  be  confessed  on  the  highest  grounds  of  right  to 
be  your  due,  inasmuch  as  I  consider  that  each  single  letter  of  yours 
cannot  be  balanced  by  less  than  two  of  mine, — nay,  if  the  account 
were  more  strict,  not  by  even  a  hundred  of  mine.  The  matter  respecting 
which  I  wrote  to  you  rather  obscurely  you  will  find  contained  and 
expanded  in  the  accompanying  sheets.  I  was  labouring  upon  it  with 
all  my  might  when  your  letter  came,  being  straitened  by  the  shortness 
of  the  time  allowed  me  :  for  a  certain  Fellow  of  our  College  who  had  to 
act  as  Respondent  in  the  philosophical  disputation  in  this  Commence 
ment  chanced  to  entrust  to  my  puerility  the  composition  of  the  verses 
which  annual  custom  requires,  to  be  written  on  the  questions  in  dis 
pute,  being  himself  already  long  past  the  age  for  trifles  of  that  sort, 
and  more  intent  on  serious  things.  The  result,  committed  to  type,  I 
have  sent  to  you,  as  to  one  whom  I  know  to  be  a  very  severe  judge  in 
poetical  matters,  and  a  very  candid  critic  of  my  productions.  If  you 
shall  deign  to  let  me  have  a  sight  of  your  verses  in  return,  there  will 

1  The  name  "  Commencement,"  as       new  Doctors  and  Masters  of  Arts  were 
applied  to  the  final  academic  ceremony       said  to  "  commence  "  (incipere)  their 
of  the  year,  is  somewhat  confusing.  It       respective  degrees, 
arose  from  the  fact  that  on  this  day  the 
VOL.  I.  O 


194  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

assuredly  be  no  one  who  will  more  delight  in  them,  though  there  may 
be,  I  admit,  who  will  more  rightly  judge  of  them  according  to  their 
worth.  Indeed,  every  time  I  recollect  your  almost  constant  conversa 
tions  with  me  (which  even  in  this  Athens,  the  University  itself,  I  long 
after  and  miss),  I  think  immediately,  and  not  without  grief,  what  a 
quantity  of  benefit  my  absence  from  you  has  cheated  me  of, — me,  who 
never  left  your  company  without  a  manifest  increase  and  liridome  of 
literary  knowledge,  just  as  if  I  had  been  to  some  emporium  of  learning. 
Truly,  amongst  us  here,  as  far  as  I  know,  there  are  hardly  one  or  two 
that  do  not  fly  off  unfeathered  to  Theology  while  all  but  rude  and 
uninitiated  in  either  Philology  or  Philosophy, — content  also  with 
the  slightest  possible  touch  of  Theology  itself,  just  as  much  as  may 
suffice  for  sticking  together  a  little  sermon  anyhow,  and  stitching  it 
over  with  worn  patches  obtained  promiscuously :  a  fact  giving  reason 
for  the  dread  that  by  degrees  there  may  break  in  among  our  clergy 
the  priestly  ignorance  of  a  former  age.  For  myself,  finding  almost  no 
•  real  companions  in  study  here,  I  should  certainly  be  looking  straight 
back  to  London,  were  I  not  meditating  a  retirement  during  this 
summer  vacation  into  a  deeply  literary  leisure,  and  a  period  of  hiding, 
so  to  speak,  in  the  bowers  of  the  Muses.  But,  as  this  is  your  own 
daily  practice,  I  think  it  almost  a  crime  to  interrupt  you  longer  with 
my  din  at  present.  Farewell. 
"  Cambridge,  July  2,  1628." 

To  explain  this  letter,  it  may  be  well  to  describe  here  the 
ceremonial  of  those  annual  Cambridge  "  Commencements," 
of  which  Milton,  in  tn~e  course  of  his  academic  careerTmusT 
vhave  witnessed  sevenjn^all.     Not  tilljihe  last  of  the  seven, 
the  Commencement   of  1632,  when  he  took  his  full  M.A.. 
degree,  could  he  be  present  in  any  other  capacity  than  that 
of^a  mere  looker-on ;  and  thB"^^Jjvajv,  whilfl  orftjran  under^.. 
graduate,  lie  had  some  little  share  by  proxy  in  the  Com 
mencement  of  1628  is  in  itself  a  small  item  in  his  biography. 

The  Eve  of  the  Commencement  and  the  Commencement 
itself,  the  J!^j2er^^mi&^mm  ^^ 

v^ere  the  gala-days_of  the  UniversityJ_jhe  days  on  which 
Cambridge  put  forth  all  her  strength  and  all  her  hospitality. 
The  town  walTfutLfiljdsi^^  feasts'"  lif  all 

tha  Colleges.  The  real  business  was  the  conferring,  on  the 
second  of  the  two  days,  of  the  higher  degrees  of  the  year : 
the  degree  of  M.A.,  for  which  the  candidates  were  generally 
between  two  and  three  hundred;  the  degree  of  D.D.,  for 
which  the  candidates  were  sometimes  as  few  as  two  or  three, 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1627-8.       195 

and  sometimes  as  many  as  twelve  or  fifteen ;  and  the  still 
rarer  degrees  of  M.D.,  LL.D.,  and  Mus.  D.1  The  entertain 
ment,  however,  consisted  in  the  disputations  and  displays 
of  oratory  which  accompanied  the  conferring  of  these 
degrees.  From  morning  till  late  in  the  afternoon  on  both 
days  there  were  disputations  in  Xiatin  before  crowded  assem 
blies:  theological  disputations  to  represent  the  faculty  of 
Theology;  philosophical  disputations  to  represent  the-foculty 
of_Arts;  and  generally  also  disputations  in  Civil  Law, 
^edicine^~B^dr'Music.  The  conduct  of  these  disputations, 
more  especially  on  the  second  day,  was  regulated  by  special 
•statutes. 

All  the  preparations  for  the  ceremonial  had  been  mac 
beforehand.  The  Inceptors  in  the  various  faculties  had  pro 
vided  themselves  with  the  gowns  and  other  badges  which 
denoted  the  new  academic  grade  they  were  that  day  to 
attain.  It  had  also  been  settled  who  were  to  be  the 
Moderators,  or  presidents  in  the  disputations  in  each  faculty, 
and  who  were  to  be  the  Fathers  who  should  introduce  the 
candidates  in  each  and  go  through  the  forms  of  their 
creation.  In  the  Faculty  of  Arts  the  Father  was,  when 
possible,  one  of  the  Proctors,  chosen  by  the  Inceptors. 
More  important,  however,  than  the  choice  of  the  Moderators 
and  Fathers  in  each  faculty  was  the  choice  of  the  Disputants  : 
viz.  the  "Respondent,"  who  should  open  the  debate  in 
each,  and  the  "  Opponents,"  who  should  argue  against  him. 
In  the  Faculties  of  Law,  Medicine,  and  Music,  there  was 
not  much  difficulty,  the  new  men  in  those  faculties  not 
being  so  numerous  as  to  cause  hesitation.  For  this  very 
reason,  however,  the  disputations  in  these  faculties  excited 
less  interest  than  the  disputations  in  Theology  and  Philo 
sophy.  It  was  upon  these  that  the  brilliancy  of  the  day 

1    Only  the  full    degrees    in    each  Mus.  B. — took  place,  not  at  the  Magna 

faculty,  it  will  be  observed, — viz.  those  Comitia  in  July,  but  in  a  more  ordinary 

of  M.A.,  D.D.,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  and  Mus.  way,  between  Ash  Wednesday  and  the 

D., —  were  conferred    at    the    Magna  Thursday  before   Palm  Sunday  every 

Comitia  in  July.     The  "  profession "  of  year  (Stat.  cap.  II.).    As  regards  the 

those  who  had  attained  the  minor  or  B.A.  degree,  this  has  been  already  ex- 

Eachelors'  degrees  in  each  faculty — viz.  plained  (ante,  pp.  141, 142). 
those  of  B.A.,  B.D.,  M.B.,  LL.B.,  and 

0  2 


196  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

depended,  and  it  was  in  preparing  for  these  that  the 
Proctors  and  Heads  took  most  trouble. — (1.)  There  were 
usually  two  theological  disputations  at  the  Comitia.  One 
was  for  the  senior  Divines,  the  Respondent  in  which  was 
usually  one  of  the  three  or  six  or  twelve  commencing 
Doctors  of  the  year ;  and  the  other  was  for  the  junior 
Divines,  the  Respondent  in  which  was  usually  one  of  the 
ten  or  twenty  or  thirty  who  had  been  last  admitted  to  the 
degree  of  B.D.  Opponents  were  supplied  in  sufficient 
number  from  among  the  rest  of  the  Doctors  and  Bachelors 
present.  (2.)  As  the  number  of  the  Inceptors  in  Arts 
every  year  exceeded  two  hundred,  it  could  not  have  been 
difficult,  one  would  think,  for  the  Proctors  to  find  among 
them  some  able  and  willing  to  act  as  "  Respondent "  and 
' '  Opponents  "  in  the  philosophical  discussion.  It  had  been 
provided,  however,  by  a  decree  in  1582,  that,  "whenever 
fit  men  should  not  be  found "  among  the  Inceptors,  then 
the  Vice- Chancellor  should  be  entitled  to  choose  the  Dis 
putants  from  among  the  Masters  of  Arts  of  not  more  than 
four  years'  standing.  In  some  similar  way,  but  seemingly 
by  a  kind  of  popular  election,  was  chosen  another  function 
ary  connected  immediately  with  the  philosophical  disputation, 
but  deemed  an  important  figure  in  the  Commencement  as 
a  whole.  This  was  the  "  Prasvaricator,"  or  "  Varier,"  the 
licensed  humourist  or  jester  of  the  occasion,  whose  business 
it  was  to  enliven  the  proceedings  with  witticisms  in  Latin 
and  hits  at  the  Dons.  He  seems  to  have  existed  rather  by 
right  of  custom  than  by  statutory  recognition ;  but  his 
pranks  were  so  much  relished,  especially  by  the  younger 
men,  that  the  Commencement  would  have  been  thought  a 
tame  affair  without  him.1 

The  preparations  for  the  Comitia  having  all  been  made, 
the  Bedels  began,  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  to 
muster  the  various  orders  in  the  University  for  the  cere- 

1  The  various  regulations  respecting  Grace  of  1582  (Dyer  I.  286) ;  Grace  of 

the  Great   Comitia  are  contained  in  1608  (Dyer  I.  228-231) ;  Grace  of  1624 

Chap,  xxxii.  of  the  Statutes,  and  in  the  (Dyer  I.   236) ;  and  Decree    of    1626 

following  modifying  Graces  and  De-  (Dyer  I.  293-4). 
crees  .—Decree  of  1575  (Dyer  I.  307) ; 


MILTON'S  FOURTH  YEAE  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1627-8.       197 

monial  of  the  day.  The  procession,  when  completed,  moved 
on  to  St.  Mary's  church,  where  the  Vice-Chancellor,  the 
Doctors  of  his  faculty,  and  the  Father  in  Divinity  and  his 
sons,  took  their  places  at  the  west  end ;  the  other  Fathers 
with  their  sons  distributing  themselves  in  other  assigned 
parts  of  the  church.  The  remaining  space  was  filled  with 
spectators,  the  more  distinguished  visitors  in  the  best  places. 
By  the  time  that  all  were  seated  it  was  about  eight  o'clock. 
The  assembly  was  then  opened  by  a  prayer  and  a  short 
speech  by  the  Moderator  in  Divinity ;  after  which  came  the 
business  of  the  day,  as  follows : — I.  THE  DIVINITY  ACT  AND 
GRADUATIONS.  The  Father  in  Divinity  introduces  this  part 
of  the  business  by  a  short  speech,  and,  on  being  desired  by 
the  Proctor,  calls  up  the  Respondent  in  Divinity.  The 
Respondent,  after  a  prayer,  reads  the  positions  or  theses 
which  he  has  undertaken  to  maintain ;  and,  while  he  is 
doing  so,  "  the  Bedels  deliver  verses  and  groats  to  all 
Doctors  present,  as  well  strangers  as  gremials," — the  dis 
tribution  of  such  Latin  verses  on  the  subjects  in  debate, 
and  also  of  small  coins,  being,  it  seems,  an  old  academic 
custom.  The  Respondent,  having  stated  and  expounded  his 
theses,  was  then  tackled  by  a  series  of  Opponents,  each  of 
whom,  after  a  short  preliminary  speech,  propounded  a  series 
of  arguments  in  rigid  syllogistic  form,  which  the  Respond 
ent  had  to  answer  on  the  spot  one  by  one  in  the  same  form, 
but  with  a  little  more  liberty  of  rhetoric.  It  was  the  business 
of  the  Moderator  all  the  while  to  keep  the  debaters  to  the 
point ;  and  no  speaker  was  to  exceed  half  an  hour  continu 
ously.  When  the  last  of  the  Opponents  had  been  "  taken 
off,"  the  Moderator  made  a  suitable  compliment  to  the 
Respondent,  and  the  Act  was  ended.  The  second  Divinity 
Act  then  followed,  if  two  distinct  Divinity  Acts  had  been 
arranged  for.  The  disputations  seem  to  have  been  over  be 
tween  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock,  when  it  was  time  to  proceed 
to  the  ceremony  of  graduation.  Accordingly,  beginning  with 
the  senior  Inceptor,  and  passing  on  to  the  rest,  the  senior 
Proctor  went  through  the  necessary  formalities.  Each  In 
ceptor,  placing  his  right  hand  in  the  right  hand  of  the  Father, 


198  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

pledged  his  faith  respecting  his  past  and  his  future  observa 
tion  of  the  statutes,  privileges,  and  approved  customs  of  the 
University ;  then,  placing  his  hand  on  the  Book,  he  swore 
that  he  would  continue  his  Regency  for  two  years,  and  also 
that  he  would  not  commence  in  any  faculty,  or  resume  his 
lectures,  in  any  other  University  than  Oxford,  or  acknow 
ledge  as  a  Doctor  in  his  faculty  any  one  graduating  in  it 
anywhere  else  in  England,  except  Cambridge;  and,  finally, 
he  read  from  a  printed  copy  a  solemn  profession  of  his  faith 
in  'the  Canonical  Scriptures  and  in  the  Holy  Apostolic 
Church  as  their  lawful  interpreter.  These  ceremonies, 
applied  to  each  Inceptor,  with  certain  forms  with  a  cap,  a 
ring,  &c.,  and  certain  words  spoken  by  the  Vice- Chancellor, 
completed  the  creation  of  the  Doctors  in  Divinity.  II.  THE 
PHILOSOPHICAL  ACT  AND  GRADUATIONS  IN  ARTS.  Of  this  part 
of  the  proceedings,  which  usually  began  between  twelve 
and  one  o'clock,  the  following  is  a  succinct  official  account : 
— te  The  Proctor,  presently  after  he  hath  sworn  the  Inceptors 
"  in  Divinity,  begins  his  speech ;  which  ended,  the  Father  in 
"  Philosophy,  having  his  eldest  Son  on  his  left  hand,  begin- 
"  neth  his  speech,  and,  at  the  end  thereof,  creates  his  Son  by 
"  putting  on  his  cap,  &c.  Then  the  Varier  or  Prsevaricator 
"  maketh  his  oration.  Then  the  Son  maketh  a  short  speech 
"  and  disputeth  upon  him.  Then  the  Answerer  (Respondent) 
' '  in  Philosophy  is  called  forth,  and,  whilst  he  is  reading  his 
"position,  the  Bedels  distribute  his  verses,  fyc.  When  the 
"  position  is  ended,  the  eldest  Son  and  two  Masters  of  Arts 
"  reply  upon  him.  The  senior  Master  of  Arts  usually  makes 
"  a  speech  before  he  replieth ;  but  the  second  Opponent  doth 
" not"  By  the  time  the  Act  was  ended,  and  the  Moderator 
had  dismissed  the  Respondent  with  a  compliment,  it  was 
usually  between  two  and  three  o'clock.  The  ceremonies  of 
graduation  immediately  followed.  With  some  alterations 
in  the  words  of  the  oaths  and  the  other  forms,  they  resembled 
those  of  the  graduation  of  the  Doctors.  The  Inceptors  of 
King's  College  were  graduated  first,  to  the  number  of  about 
ten  or  twelve;  after  which,  in  order  to  save  time,  the 
Proctor  stood  up  and  said,  "  Reliqui  expect  abunt  creationem 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  COMMENCEMENT  OF  1628.       199 

in  Scholis  Philosophicis."  ("  The  rest  will  wait  their  creation 
in  the  Philosophical  Schools/')  Accordingly,  the  remaining 
two  hundred  or  so  adjourned  immediately  from  the  church 
to  the  public  schools,  accompanied  by  the  Father,  the 
Proctor,  and  one  of  the  Bedels;  and  there  they  were 
"knocked  off"  more  rapidly. — III.  The  LAW  ACT  and  the 
creation  of  the  Law  Doctors  followed  next,  and  then  the 
PHYSIC  ACT  (if  there  was  one)  and  the  creation  of  the 
Doctors  of  Physic.  About  an  hour  each  was  deemed  suffi 
cient  for  these  Acts;  after  which,  and  a  speech  from  the 
Proctor,  apologising  for  any  omissions  and  defects,  came 
the  closing  Music  ACT,  in  the  shape  of  a  hymn.  By  this 
time  it  was  near  five  o'clock,  and  all  were  well  tired.1 

Such,  sketched  generally,  was  the  order  of  the  proceed 
ings  at  those  annually  recurring  "  Commencements/'  recol 
lections  of  which  lived  afterwards  pleasantly  in  the  memories 
of  Cambridge  men  when  much  else  was  forgotten.  In 
order  to  fill  up  the  sketch,  the  reader  must  imagine  the 
variations  of  the  proceedings  according  to  time  and  circum 
stance,  the  bustle  and  nutter  of  the  gowned  assembly,  the 
goings  out  and  comings  in  during  the  nine  hours  of  the 
ceremonies,  the  gesticulations  of  the  speakers,  the  applause 
when  a  syllogism  was  well  delivered,  the  bursts  of  laughter 
when  the  Prevaricator  made  a  hit,  and,  above  all,  the  havoc 
of  food  and  wine  with  which  the  fatigue  of  the  day  was 
assuaged  while  it  lasted  and  appeased  when  it  was  over. 

The  Commencement  of  1628  seems  to  have  been  nowise 
extraordinary^xcept  jor  the  single  fact,  then  hardly 
that  Milton  of  Christ's  had  something  to  do  with  it.  Eleven 
new  Doctor&oF~~DmrFftyrwere  created7 two  new~ITocTors  of 
"Law,  and  three  of  Medicine ;  and  the  number  of  those  who 
graduated  M. A.  was  2167  "TEefe^WSfB  two  Divinity  Dispu* 
tations,  in  one  of  which  the  Respondent  was  Dr.  Belton  of 
Queens',  in  the  other  Mr.  Chase,  B.D.,  of  Sidney  Sussex 

1  The  above  account  has  been  derived  John  Buck,  one  of  the  Esquire  Bedels, 

partly  from  the  Statutes  and  Graces  and  printed  as  Appendix  B.  to  Deau 

already  referred  to,  and  partly  from  a  Peacock's  "  Observations  on  the   Sta- 

couteniporary  official  code  of  the  cere-  tntes."     Buck   was  Bedel    as   late   as 

mouies  of  the  University,  left  in  MS.  by  1665. 


200  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

College.  Belton's  theses  were  these  : — {( 1.  Auctoritas  Sacrce 
Scripturce  non  pendet  ab  Ecclesia.  2.  Defectus  gratice  non  tollit 
dominium  temporale"  ("  1.  The  authority  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  does  not  depend  on  the  Church.  2.  Defect  of 
grace  does  not  take  away  the  right  of  temporal  dominion") ; 
Chase's  theses  were  these  : — "  1 .  Secessio  Ecclesice  Anglicance 
a  Romand  non  est  schismatica  ;  2.  Fides  justificans  prcesup- 
ponit  veri  nominis  poenitentiam"  ("1.  The  secession  of  the 
English  from  the  Roman  Church  is  not  schismatic  ;  2 .  Justi 
fying  faith  presupposes  true  repentance").  _It__was  not, 
"however,  for  either  BeltonjorChasej  but  for  tTieJ 
in  the  Philosophical  Act,  that  Milton  performed  the  poetic 
service  to  which  he  refers  in  his  letter  to  Gill.  Unfortunately, 
the  authority  from  which  we  learn  the  names  of  the  Theo- 
-logical  Respondents  and  the  subjects  on  which  they  debated,1 
gives  us  no  similar  information  respecttn^fefee-PhiTosophical 
'Act,.  Milton's  own  letter,  how ev^v-4istinctly-^ta,t€s  that 
the  Respondent  on  the  occasion  was  one  of  the  Fellows  of 
Christ's  College.  I  conjecture  that  he  was  Alsop,  or 
Sandelands,  or  Fenwicke. 

Whoever  the  Respondent  was,  we  know  the  subject  of  the 
debate.  In  the  preceding  year  (1627)  there  had  been  pub 
lished  by  the  University  press  of  Oxford  a  book  which  still 

/holds  its  place  in  libraries  as  of  some  speculative  merit, — 

\      the  Rev.  Dr.  George  HakewilPs  "  Apologie  of  the  Power  and 

Providence  of  God  in  the  Government  of  the  World  ;  or  an 

Examination  and  Censure  of  the    Common  Err  our  touching 

I      Nature's  perpetuall  and  Universal  Decay."      Hakewill  was 

/       Archdeacon  of  Surrey.     He   had   published  several   theo- 

^^ logical  treatises  before  this  Apologie.     The  tenor  of  that 

work  is  indicated  by  the  title,  and  by  the  text  of  Scripture 

placed  on  the  title-page  (Eccl.  vii.    10)  : — "  Say  not  thou, 

What  is  the  cause  that  the  former  days  were  better  than 

these  ?  for  thou  dost  not  enquire  wisely  concerning  this." 

1  Harl.   MS.   (one   of    Baker's)  No.  Comitia,  &c. ;  but  it  seldom  notices  the 

7038.     This  MS.  gives  brief  annals  of  accompanying  Philosophical  Acts.     On 

the  University  year  by  year,  usually  inquiry   I   found    that   no   records   of 

mentioning,  inter  alia,  the  names  of  the  these  are  kept  among  the  University 

Theological  Respondents  at  the  Great  archives. 


MILTON'S  VERSES  FOE  THE  COMMENCEMENT  OF  1628.    201 

Proceeding  from  this  text,  the  author  combats,  in  four 
successive  books,  the  notion  so  common  then  with  poets  and 
rhetoricians,  and  even  with  a  certain  class  of  philosophers 
and  divines,  that  Nature  is  subject  to  a  law  of  gradual 
degeneracy,  discernible  on  a  sufficient  comparison  of  the 
present  state  of  the  world  with  its  state  in  former  times. 

The  work  produced  a  more  than  ordinary  sensation.1  It 
was~talke3  of  at  Cambridge  as -^weH-  us  air  Oxford. The 
question  which  it  discussed  was  well  adapted  for  debate, 
being,  in  factTlihat  questiog  between Jbelief  in  human  pro- 
gress~and  belief  in  no^suchthing  which  has  lasted  almost  to 
pur  own  days.  The  theologians  of  the  old  school  found 

JieTe^-4B--Hgke^nfrr^  the  younger  a^II^iess-:pogjeyotts: 

^spirits  seem  to  have  ranged^themselves  on  his  side.  Little 
wondeTTh"eBrtharth~e  doetrineroT his  book  had  been  selected 
as^Srthesrs~for  the  PhilosophicairUispubation  at  the  Cam- 
I>ridge~Commencement  of  1628.  That  some  form  of  that 

^doctrine  hadHbeen  selectedT  lor  the  purpose_appears_from 
the  title  and  strain  ofHie  verses  which  MiTtonwrote  for  the 
Respondent,  and  printed  copies  of  which  were  distributed 

ISyth'e'lBedetsiu  Si.  Marv*a  during  the  debate.  The^erseT 
afe~Eatm  Hexameters,  ent,ifte3L~c*~Naturam  iwn-p&ti^mumr," 
and  may  be  rendered  thus  : — 

THAT  NATURE  is  NOT  LIABLE  TO  OLD  AGE. 

AH  !  how,  wearied  by  endless  fallacies,  totters  and  staggers 
Man's  misdirected  mind,  and,  immersed  in  deepest  of  darkness, 
Hugs  herself  close  in  a  midnight  worse  than  CEdipus  groped  in, 
Daring  now,  as  she  does,  by  her  own  small  actions  to  measure 
Deeds  of  the  gods,  and  laws  adamantine  eternally  graven 
Liken  to  laws  of  her  own,  and  bind  what  Time  cannot  swerve  from, 
Fate's  determined  plan,  to  the  paltry  hours  that  are  passing. 

Is  it  really  so  that,  seamed  with  furrowing  wrinkles, 
Nature's  face  is  to  shrivel,  and  she,  the  mother  of  all  things, 
Barren  with  age,  is  to  shrink  the  womb  of  her  potent  conceiving? 
Must  she  own  herself  old,  and  walk  with  footsteps  uncertain, 
Tremulous  up  to  her  starry  head  (\    Shall  Eld,  with  its  foulness, 
Ceaseless  rust,  and  hunger  and  thirst  of  years  in  their  sequence, 
Tell  on  the  steadfast  stars ;  and  shall  Time,  the  sateless  devourer, 

1  A  second  edition  of  it  was  pub-       Stewart,  if  I  remember  rightly,  praises 
lished  in  1630  ;  a  third  in  1635.  Dugald       the  book. 


202  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Eat  up  Heaven  itself  and  engorge  the  Father  he  sprang  from  1 

Ah !    could  not  near  -  sighted  Jove  have  armed  his  towers  at  their 

building 

'Gainst  such  spite  as  this,  and  from  all  such  temporal  mischief 
Made  them  safe  from  the  first,  and  conferred  everlasting  endurance  'I 
Hence  shall  it  come  that  some  day,  collapsing  in  horrible  thunder, 
Down  shall  tumble  the  scaffolded  dome,  and,  meeting  the  ruin, 
Creak  shall  the  great  world's  axle,  and  sheer  from  his  mansions 

Olympic 

•"all  shall  the  Kuler,  and  Pallas,  her  Gorgon  glaring,  fall  with  him, 
Like  as  on  Lemnos  ^Egean  the  unwelcome  offspring  of -Juno 
Fell  that  day  he  was  flung  from  the  sacred  celestial  ramparts] 
Thou  too,  Phoebus,  shalt  copy  thy  son's  once  fatal  disaster 
High  on  thy  headlong  car,  and  be  hurried  in  swift-rushing  ruin 
Downwards,  till  Nereus  old  shall  smoke  with  thy  torch's  extinction, 
Sounding  the  hiss  of  thy  fate  over  all  the  amazement-struck  waters. 
Then  too,  his  roots  of  rock  uptorn,  shall  air-soaring  Haemus 
Burst  asunder  atop,  while,  sinking  down  into  hell's  depths, 
Those  Ceraunian  hills  shall  fright  the  Stygian  Pluto 
Erst  which  he  used  in  his  warfare  against  his  brother-immortals. 

No  !  For  the  Father  Almighty,  far  firmer  founding  the  star-vaults, 
Cared  for  the  sum  of  things,  and  equipoised  with  exactness 
Destiny's  fatal  scales,  and,  all  in  order  consummate, 
Ruled  that  whatever  exists  should  hold  its  tenure  for  ever. 
Hence  does  the  world's  prime  wheel  roll  round  in  motion  diurnal, 
Whirling  the  ambient  heavens  in  common  dizziness  with  it. 
Never  more  slow  than  his  wont  moves  Saturn,  and  fierce  as  of  yore  yet 
Flashes  the  red  light  of  Mars,  the  hairy-helmeted  planet. 
Always  in  youth's  first  freshness  glows  the  unwearying  Sun-God ; 
Nor  by  abrupt  inclines  does  he  warm  Earth's  chilly  expanses, 
Bending  down  his  team ;  but,  for  ever  genial-beaming, 
Runs  his  mighty  career  the  same  through  the  signs  in  succession  : 
Equally  fair  he  rises  from  perfumed  India's  ether, 
Who  on  the  snowy  Olympus  gathers  the  flocks  of  the  welkin, 
Calling  them  home  at  morning  and  driving  them  late  to  their  pastures, 
Parting  different  realms  by  double  colours  and  seasons. 
Ay,  and  the  soft-shining  moon  alternates  duly  her  crescents, 
Clasping  the  kindled  blue  with  equal  sickles  of  silver. 
Likewise  the  elements  break  not  their  faith ;  and  with  crash  keen  as 

ever 

Rattle  the  lightning-shafts  on  the  rocks  they  shiver  in  fragments. 
Not  o'er  the  deep,  when  it  blows,  is  the  West- Wind's  murmuring 

gentler ; 

Ruthlessly  still  as  of  old  does  the  North- Wind's  churlishness  torture 
Scythia's  war-hordes,  breathing  of  ice  and  rolling  its  mist-wreaths. 
Still  as  he  used,  full  strength,  at  the  bases  of  Sicily's  headlands 
Batters  the  sea-king  old,  and  Ocean's  trumpeter  round  him 


LETTER    TO    THOMAS    YOUNG.  203 

Roars  his  hoarse  shell ;  nor  less  in  bulk  does  the  Giant  ^Egseon 
Rest  up-borne  on  the  spines  of  sunk  Balearican  monsters. 
Nay,  nor  to  thee,  O  Earth,  is  the  pith  of  the  age  of  thy  springtide 
Wanting  as  yet :  Narcissus  has  still  his  primitive  fragrance ; 
This  bright  boy  and  that  other  are  graceful  as  ever  to  look  at, 
Thine,  O  Phrebus,  and  thine  too,  O  Venus ;  richlier  never 
Down  in  the  caves  of  the  hills  held  Earth  her  golden  temptation, 
Down  in  the  sea-caves  her  gems.     And  so  for  ages  to  come  yet 
On  shall  all  things  march  in  their  well-adjusted  procession, 
Till  that  the  final  flame  shall  envelope  the  sphere  of  existence, 
Tonguing  round  the  poles  and  up  the  copings  of  heaven, 
One  vast  funeral  fire  consuming  the  frame  of  the  world. 

From  the  close  of  the  letter  to  Gill  it  app ear s-that  Milton 


did  not  mean  to  return  home  during  the  long  vacation,,  but 
^o  spendjitleast  a_good  part  of  it  in  haTd  and  recluse  study 
at  College.  Accordingly,  his  next  letter,  dated  the  21st  of 
July,  is  also  from  Cambridge.  It  is  addressed  to  Thomas 
Young  at  Stowmarket : — 


"To  THOMAS  YOUNG. 

"  On  looking  at  your  letter,  most  excellent  preceptor,  this  alone 
struck  me  as  superfluous,  that  you  excused  your  slowness  in  writing; 
for,  though  nothing  could  be  more  welcome  to  me  than  your  letters, 
how  could  I  or  ought  I  to  hope  that  you  should  have  so  much  leisure 
from  serious  and  more  sacred  affairs  as  to  have  time  always  to  answer 
me,  especially  as  that  is  a  matter  entirely  of  kindness,  and  not  at  all 
of  duty?  That  I  should  suspect  that  you  had  forgotten  me,  however, 
your  so  many  recent  kindnesses  to  me  by  no  means  allow.  I  do  not 
see,  either,  how  you  could  dismiss  into  oblivion  one  laden  with  so 
great  benefits  by  you.  Having  been  invited  to  your  part  of  the 
country,  as  soon  as  spring  is  a  little  advanced,  I  will  gladly  come,  to 
enjoy  the  delights  of  the  season,  and  not  less  of  your  conversation, 
and  will  withdraw  myself  from  the  din  of  town  for  a  while  to  your 
Stoa  of  the  Iceni  \_Stoam  Icenorum,  a  pun  for  $fowmarket  in  Suffolk, 
the  Iceni  having  been  the  inhabitants  of  the  parts  of  Roman  Britain 
corresponding  to  Suffolk,  Cambridgeshire,  <fcc.],  as  to  that  most  cele 
brated  Porch  of  Zeno  or  the  Tusculan  Villa  of  Cicero,  where  you, 
with  moderate  means  but  regal  spirit,  like  some  Serranus  or  Curius, 
placidly  reign  in  your  little  farm,  and,  contemning  fortune,  hold  as  it 
were  a  triumph  over  riches,  ambition,  pomp,  luxury,  and  whatever  the 
herd  of  men  admire  and  are  amazed  by.  But,  as  you  have  deprecated 
the  blame  of  slowness,  you  will  also  in  turn,  I  hope,  pardon  me 
the  fault  of  haste ;  for,  having  put  off  this  letter  to  the  last,  I  have 


204  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

preferred  writing  little,  and  that  in  a  rather  slovenly  manner,  to 
not  writing  at  all.     Farewell,  much  to  be  respected  Sir. 
"  Cambridge;  July  21,  1628."] 


The 


jlujing-jdiicli^&it^^ 
k— Oct.  10,  1628)  was  not  the 


least  eventful  pactiaq^of  an  al 


the  declaration  of  the  war  with  France  in  July  1626  the 
efforts  of  Britain  in  carrying  it  on  had  been  confined  to  an 
occasional  attempt  to  send  naval  assistance  to  the  city  of 
Kochelle,  which,  as  the  chief  stronghold  of  the  French 
Calvinists,  Bichelieu  was  then  besieging  with  vigour.  In 
June  1627  Buckingham  had  set  out  with  a  fleet  for  Rochelle  ; 
but  the  expedition  had  proved  a  total  failure.  Another 
expedition,  in  April  1628,  under  Lord  Denbigh,  had  been 
equally  unsuccessful.  To  repair  these  disasters,  which  had 
been  made  grounds  for  the  Duke's  impeachment,  a  third 
expedition  was  resolved  upon  as  soon  as  the  King  obtained 
his  subsidies  from  Parliament.  The  Duke,  commanding  it 
in  person,  was  to  retrieve  his  credit  with  his  countrymen, 


i  Epist.  Fam.  4. — If  the  tradition 
still  current  in  the  town  of  Stowmarket 
is  to  be  believed,  Milton  not  only  did 
pay  the  visit  to  Young  which  he  here 
promises,  but  was  also  a  frequent  vis 
itor  at  Young's  vicarage  during  the 
rest  of  his  incumbency  (1628-1655). 
Tradition  has,  of  course,  improved 
wonderfully  on  the  recorded  fact.  An 
old  mulberry-tree  which  stood  in  1844, 
with  its  trunk  much  decayed,  but  its 
branches  in  vigorous  bearing,  "  a  few 
"  yards  distant  from  the  oldest  part  of 
"  the  vicarage-house,  and  opposite  the 
"  windows  of  an  upstairs  double  room 
"  which  was  formerly  the  sitting-parlour 
"  of  the  vicar,"  had  been  converted  by 
the  local  imagination  into  a  relic  of 
Milton's  visits  to  his  old  tutor.  No 
fact  in  universal  biography  is  better 
attested  than  that  future  great  men, 
wherever  they  go  in  their  youth,  plant 
mulberry-trees !  The  late  vicar  of 
Stowmarket,  Mr.  Hollingsworth,  who 
records  the  tradition,  furnishes  (His 
tory  of  Stowmarket,  pp.  187—194) 
some  interesting  information  respecting 
Young's  doings  in  the  parish.  "  His 
"  attachment  to  Presbyterianism,"  says 
Mr.  Hollingsworth,  "  was  so  determined 
"  that  before  its  supposed  rights  he 


"  willingly  assisted  in  sacrificing  the 
<£  peace,  order,  stability,  and  well-being 
';  of  the  Throne  and  Church."  This  is 
Mr.  Hollingsworth's  opinion  respecting 
a  portion  of  Young's  career  which  is 
still  to  come.  He  is  more  purely  his 
torical  when  he  tells  us  that  Young 
regularly  presided  at  the  audit  of  the 
annual  accounts  of  the  parish,  and  that 
a  portrait  of  him  had  been  preserved 
in  the  vicarage.  "  It  possesses,"  he 
says,  "  the  solemn  faded  yellowness  of 
"  a  man  given  to  much  austere  medita- 
"  tion  ;  yet  there  is  sufficient  energy  in 
"  the  eye  and  mouth  to  show,  as  he  is 
"preaching  in  Geneva  gown  and  bands, 
"  with  a  little  Testament  in  his  hand, 
"  that  he  is  a  man  who  could  both 
"  speak  and  think  with  great  vigour," 
The  portrait  was  taken  after  he  and  the 
people  of  Stowmarket  were  better  ac 
quainted.  In  1628  he,  his  wife  Rebecca, 
and  their  children,  were  new  to  the 
vicarage. — A  photozinocograph  of  the 
portrait  is  prefixed  to  the  late  Mr. 
David  Laing's  Biographical  Notices  of  - 
Thomas  Young,  printed  in  1870.  Though 
much  blurred,  it  represents  a  rather 
comely  face,  of  the  full  and  soft  type, 
with  abundant  hair,  parted  in  the 
middle  and  flowing  to  the  shoulders. 


DEATH  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  BUCKINGHAM.         205 

and   to   save    the   Huguenots   of    Rochelle    at    their   last 
extremity. 

The  intended  departure  of  the  Duke  from  England  was 
heard  of  at  Cambridge  with  mixed  feelings.  Since  his 
appointment  to  the  Chancellorship  two  years  before,  he 
had  been  a  friend  to  the  University.  He  had  promised  to 
build  them  a  new  library ;  and  they  were  at  this  moment 
depending  on  his  influence  in  a  dispute  which  had  arisen 
between  the  University  and  the  London  Stationers  as  to  the 
right  of  the  University  Press  to  the  exclusive  printing  of 
certain  books.  In  these  circumstances  the  Vice- Chancellor 
and  Senate  addressed  a  letter  to  him,  July  7,  in  a  somewhat 
melancholy  strain.  "While  we  may  behold  you,"  writes 
Bainbrigge  as  Vice-Chancellor,  "  while  we  may  lay  hold 
"upon  your  knees,  we  little  esteem  the  rage  of  mortals, 
"  and,  being  hid  in  our  recesses,  may  safely  employ  our 
"  honours  in  learning.  Now  your  Highness  doth  prepare  a 
"  new  warfare, — which  God  Almighty  grant  may  be  glorious 
"  to  your  name,  prosperous  to  the  Christian  Religion,  happy 
"  to  us  all, — to  what  dangers  are  we  exposed !  Some  will 
"  seek  to  dry  up  our  river,  even  that  fountain  from  which 
"  perhaps  themselves  have  drawn  their  waters  ;  others  will 
"seek  to  take  away  again  the  faculty  of  printing.  Most 
"illustrious  Prince,  our  goods  are  but  few,  our  household 
"  little,  the  circuit  of  our  Athens  narrow;  yet  no  riches  of 
"  Croesus  or  of  Midas  are  sought  after  more  vehemently  by 
"the  snares  of  lewd  men  than  this  unarmed  and  naked 
"  poverty  of  ours." 1  The  Duke  replied  very  graciously, 
July  30,  assuring  the  Vice- Chancellor  and  Heads  that  he 
"  has  most  humbly  recommended  them  to  the  justice  of  his 
"  Royal  Master,"  and  "  to  the  bosoms  of  some  friends  where 
"  they  shall  meet  with  mediation  and  protection,  to  what 
"  part  of  the  world  soever  my  master  or  the  State's  service 
"  shall  call  me." 2  He  must  have  had  in  his  mind  here 
Laud  more  particularly,  who  in  that  very  month,  just  after 
the  rising  of  Parliament,  had  been  promoted  from  the 

1  The  quotation  in  the  text  is  from  a       Annals,  III.  203. 
contemporary  translation  :  see  Cooper's  2  Cooper's  Annals,  III.  204. 


206  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

bishopric  of  Bath  and  Wells  to  that  of  London,  and  who  was 
thenceforward  to  be  the  second  minister  about  the  King 
after  the  Duke,  and  the  first  and  most  confidential  minister 
in  the  Duke's  absence.  But  the  Duke  himself  was  not  to 
go  very  far.  He  was  at  Portsmouth,  superintending  the 
outfit  of  the  expedition  for  Rochelle,  when  Felton's  knife 
removed  him  from  the  world  at  the  age  of  thirty- six,  Aug. 
23,  1628.  Such  was  the  end  of  a  man  who,  for  ten  years  or 
more,  had  been  the  supreme  English  minister,  and  whose 
personality  during  that  time  had  been  more  widely  and 
more  floridly  dashed  over  public  affairs  than  that  of  any 
other  subject.  Some  faint  image  of  his  vast  and  yet  very 
evanescent  magnificence  still  survives  in  our  histories ;  but 
it  is  necessary  to  turn  over  the  documents  of  the  period, 
and  to  see  his  name  in  every  page  of  them,  to  realize  the 
intensity  of  varied  feeling  with  which,  in  the  first  years  of 
Charles's  reign,  all  Englishmen,  from  bishop  to  beggar, 
thought  of  "  The  Duke/'  A  year  before  he  died  this  had 
been  a  popular  epigram  :  — 

"  Now  Hex  and  Grex  are  both  of  one  sound, 
But  Dux  doth  both  Rex  and  Grex  confound ; 
O  Rex,  thy  Grex  doth  much  complain 
That  Dux  bears  Crux  and  Crux  not  Dux  again. 
If  Crux  of  Dux  might  have  her  fill, 
Then  Rex  of  Grex  might  have  his  will ; 
Three  subsidies  to  five  would  turn, 
And  Grex  would  laugh,  which  now  doth  mourn." l 

-  Eelton's  assassination  of  the  great  Duke  became  imme 
diately  the  subject  of  universal  conversation  throughout 
England.  The  tide  of  popular  sympathy  ran  strongly  ii 
Jagggrio^the  assassin.  Fanatic  or  not,  had  he  notobne  ~a 
splendid  service  to  his  country  by  ridding  her  of  the  "one- 
man  whose  life  stood  in  the  way  of  her  prosperity  and 
iibextiesjL-  The  manifestations  oT  this  teeling  came~irom~a1T 
quarters,  and  in  most  extraordinary  forms.  "  God  bless 
thee,  little  David/'  called  out  one  old  woman,  as  they  were 
bringing  Felton  through  the  town  of  Kingston  on  Thames, 
on  his  way  from  Portsmouth  to  the  Tower  to  wait  his  trial 

i  MS.  Letter  of  Meade's,  May  11, 1627. 


ALEXANDER   GILL    IN    TROUBLE.  207 

and  doom,  the  small  stature  of  the  hero  reminding  her  of 
the  Hebrew  who  had  brought  down  Goliath ;  "  Lord  com 
fort  thee,"  and  the  like,  were  the  exclamations  from  the 
crowds  in  the  boats  as  he  passed  up  the  river,  till  the 
Tower  received  him  j  and  the  passion  for  drinking  Felton's 
health  spread  from  London  through  other  towns  like  an 
epidemic.  Of  all  this  the  Government,  bent  at  any  rate  on 
ascertaining  whether  Felton  had  acted  alone  or  was  only 
the  instrument  of  a  conspiracy,  could  not  fail  to  take  uneasy 
note ;  and  in  certain  cases  they  were  able  to  lay  hands  on 
specially  flagrant  examples  of  the  general  Felton-worship. 
Thejgase  of  greatest  notoriety  by^for  wtv=f  ^TIQ  thaj^a™0  very 
cjr>g^  f-.n  Milfcon^  the  person  implicated  being  no  other  than 
£hat  friend  and  late  teacEer~of  hTs,  Alexander__Gillthe 
y^m^ym^J-^  IIP.  TiarTan  recently  gmTJhJvwoJetters  o£- 

such  elaborate  compliment,  the  second  enclosing  a  copy 
nfhfa  printed  .Latin  verses  distributed  at  the  late  Cam- 

*idgeCommenceinent.     The  story  was  an  odd  one  at  the- 
tirne,  and  deserves  to  be  told  with  some  minuteness.  _ 

The  blustering,  loud-tongued,  usher  of  St.  Paul's  school, 
it  appears,  was  in  the  habit  of  running  down  to  Oxford  as 
often  as  his  duties  at  the  school  under  his  father  would 
permit.  On  such  occasions  Trinity  College,  and  the  old 
College  friends  whom  he  had  left  there  as  still  resident 
fellows  or  graduates,  naturally  saw  most  of  him ;  and  he 
seems  to  have  taken  pleasure,  more  particularly,  in  the 
society  of  one  of  them,  a  certain  William  Pickering,  M.A., 
whom  he  used  as  a  butt  for  his  witticisms  and  practical 
jokes,  and  with  whom  he  kept  up  a  scurrilous  and  some 
times  mystifying  correspondence  from  London.  It  was  in 
the  last  days  of  August  or  the  very  first  of  September,  just 
after  the  assassination  of  the  Duke,  that  Gill  was  on  one  of 
those  visits.  On  a  Monday  morning,  at  all  events,  he  and 
his  friend  "  Pick,"  or  "  Don  Pickering,"  as  he  called  him, 
were  dawdling  about  Trinity  College  and  the  streets  adjacent, 
now  in  the  grove  of  the  College,  now  in  the  buttery  or 
cellar  there,  now  in  Pickering's  rooms,  not  without  sus 
picion  of  adjournment  once  or  twice  to  a  tavern  outside 


208  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

for  more  wine  than  they  had  already  had  within  the  College. 
Of  "  divers  others/'  that  joined  them  and  went  about  with 
them,  or  sat  with  them,  for  part  of  the  time  at  least,  three  are 
conspicuously  mentioned.  There  was  a  Mr.  Powell  of  Hart 
Hall ;  and  there  were  two  additional  men  of  Trinity  College 
itself,  one  named  Craven,  and  the  other  no  less  a  person 
than  William  Chillingworth,  M.A.,  then  six-and-twenty 
years  of  age,  and  admitted  to  his  distinguished  fellowship 
in  the  college  not  three  months  before.  Gill,  who  had  been 
the  principal  talker  all  along,  and  who  had  become  more 
and  more  uproarious  and  reckless  as  the  wine  got  into  his 
head,  astounded  them  at  last.  From  Felton  and  the  assas 
sination  of  the  Duke  he  passed  to  the  King  himself  and  his 
government.  te  We  have  a  fine  wise  king :  he  has  wit 
"  enough  to  be  a  shopkeeper,  to  ask  What  do  you  lack  ?  and 
"  that  is  all " :  such  is  one  report  of  his  outburst,  corroborated 
by  another,  which  gives  the  words  thus  :  ' '  Fitter  to  stand 
"  in  a  Cheapside  shop,  with  an  apron  before  him,  and  say 
"  What  do  you  lack?  than  to  govern  a  kingdom."  Then 
he  would  have  them  drink  Felton's  health,  protesting  "  he 
"  was  sorry  Felton  had  deprived  him  of  the  honour  of  doing 
"  that  brave  act,"  or  asserting,  as  the  words  are  otherwise 
given,  ' '  that  he  had  oftentimes  had  a  mind  to  do  the  same 
"  thing  upon  the  Duke,  but  for  fear  of  hanging/'  Worse 
and  worse,  "  If  there  was  a  hell,  or  a  devil  in  hell,  the  Duke 
"  was  with  him,"  varied  in  another  report  into  "  The  Duke 
"  was  gone  to  hell  to  meet  James  there."  Something  was 
also  said  of  the  familiarity  either  of  his  late  Majesty  or  his 
present  Majesty  with  the  Duke,  shown  in  the  habit  of 
calling  him  Steenie,  with  an  addition  to  the  effect  that  there 
was  some  profound  mystery  in  that  affair,  "  that  cannot  be 
"  fathomed."  The  especial  scene  of  this  tirade  seems  to 
have  been  the  buttery  or  cellar  of  the  college ;  but  Gill,  in 
his  excitement,  seems  to  have  favoured  his  auditors  with 
repetitions  of  it,  the  rather  because  the  audience  swelled 
a  little  as  he  went  on,  Chillingworth  attaching  himself  to 
the  group  among  the  latest,  or  re-attaching  himself  after  he 
had  left  it.  While  some  of  the  auditors  sympathized,  others 


ALEXANDER  GILL  IN  TROUBLE. 


209 


took  Gill  to  task.  "  He  deserves  hanging,"  one  of  them 
said,  after  his  speech  about  the  King  ;  and,  though  some 
drank  Felton's  health  with  him,  others  refused,  Pick 
ering  among  them,  so  that  Gill,  turning  round  upon  him, 
asked  jeeringly,  "  What  ?  is  Pick  a  Dnkist  too  ?  "  The 
impression  among  those  who  were  afterwards  interrogated 
as  to  Gill's  condition  at  the  climax  of  his  outbreak  was  that 
"  he  was  not  absolutely  drunk,  for  it  was  early  in  the  morn- 
if  ing,"  but  was  certainly  far  from  sober. 

Interrogation  came  quickly  enough.     Gill    had   returned 


RfVhool    on    the 


consternation  of  the   school  anctof  his  old 
ursTSanEs^l^^ 

ud's  orders  ;  ana  uij 


father,    two 

They  had  been  sent  by  Bishop 
-taken  first  to  the  Bishop'slodgings,  which  were  then  in 
/W^&tffl4sstexL___A£ber  having1 

C^  - ' 

Bishop  and  Attorney-General  Heath,  he  was  committed  to 
the    Gatehouse   in   Westminster,  "  so   close  jgrisoner   that 


nor 


day,  Sunday,  September  6,  Laud  informed  the  King  him 
self  of  the  capture  and  of  the  reasons  for  it.  "  I  here 
f<  present  your  Majesty,"  he  wrote,  "  with  the  examination 

T  a.m  >mfl.rb'1y_gorry   I  must    ell 


"•your    Majesty   he   is  a   divine,   since   he   is   void    of~aIT~ 
"  huma/nity.    ^ETs~~is~Bul;   hjs^first    exafiSiualiun,  and    nut  — 
"  upon  oath.     When   the   information  came  to  me  against— 
"  him,  as  T  could  not  in  duty  but  take  present  care  of  the 
"  business,  so  I  thought  it  was  fit  to  examine  him  as  pri- 
TVately   as   I   might,   because    the    speeches    are    so   foul 
"  against  religion,  allegiance,  your   Majesty's  person,  and 
"  my    dear   lord   by    execrable   hands   laid  in    the    dust." 
in  thisjetter  were  the  minutes  of  the  examination 


story  of  the  escapade  at  OxfordGilPs^insolent 

roooivcd 


y 


from  private  infermatton  and~a^iTow"cQT 


id  substantially 
by  GilPs  confession.     There  was  a  memorandum  also  foi 

VOL.    I.  P 


210  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

Majesty  of  the  names  of  the  three  most  important  witnesses 
of  the  enormity,  Chillingworth  designated  vaguely  as  "  one 
Mr.    Shilling  worth.  "     His    Majesty    had    probably    never 
heard  of  that  young  Oxonian  before,  Laud's  godson  though 
he  was,  and  one  of  his  clients  and  correspondents. 
f  The  arrest  and  impri^QjLment_pXJ&ill  made  a  great  stir  in 
London,  and  there  was  much  talk  among  his  friends  and 
^acquaintances  as  ^o"the  possible  consequences,  not  only  for 
jHjlJ:^  of  the  others^  concerned,    v 

.especially  Pickering.  _  On  the  10th  of  September,  a  certain 
Samuel  Fisher,  seemingly  an  Oxonian  of  Trinity  College  who 
chanced  then  to  be  in  London,  wrote  to  Pickering  at 
Oxford,  telling  him  what  had  happened  to  Gill.  ..  "  Chilling- 
cCw^r-th_is_thought  to  be  his  accuser,"  proceeds  Fisher  in 
this  letter,  "ancTl  tear  had  no  other  bujinjs£irrT]fm(toSr 
"  One  of  our  house  for  certain  is  the  man.  Chilling- 
"  worth  left  me  at  the  turning  to  Westminster  and  made 
"  speed  thither  ;  which  makes  me  believe  so/'  From  the 
sequel  of  the  letter.it  appears  that  the  information  had  been 
first  sent  from  Oxford  in  a  letter,  so  that  the  arrival  of 
Chillingworth  personally  in  London  on  the  business  had 
been  a  subsequent  affair.  .JThe  writer  also  expresses  his 
f  others  that  Pickering  "~ 


i  trouble,  and  adds,  ^LBir_  Morly  ancLMr^  Deodat 
nf  m 


-"  Mr,  Deodat  "  here  meationejLJs,  of  course,  Mlton's  friend, 
Charles  Diodati^^fo^  whor™  t.Tie^njjflirj^nnT^^vft^^^ 
interest,  as  affecting  not  only  his  and  Milton's  old  teacher, 
but^kp_the^credit^of  the  Oxford  CnTTagR  to  whioh^he_him^ 
self  belonged  n-""^  w^ii'r>h^he__had  but  recently^lfift-  witk-tike 
.^degree  of  M.A.  Nor  were  the  fears  for  Pickering  ground 
less?  There  ~!s-*till  extant  the  letter  of  Dr.  Accepted 
Frewen,  then  Vice-  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford, 
to  the  Privy  Council,  dated  September  14,  in  which  he 
informs  the  Council  that  he  and  Mr.  Laurence  Whittaker, 
one  of  the  Clerks  of  the  Council,  sent  down  for  the  purpose, 
have  obeyed  the  directions  of  their  lordships  by  searching 
the  chamber,  study,  and  pockets  of  William  Pickering,  M.  A., 


ALEXANDER   GILL    IN    TROUBLE.  211 

of  Trinity  College,  and  examining  him  as  to  his  relations 
with  Gill,  and  that  the  result,  in  the  shape  of  "  divers  libels 
"  and  letters,  written  by  Alexander  Gill  and  others,  all  of 
"  them  touching  on  the  late  Duke  of  Buckingham,"  is 
herewith  sent  to  their  lordships,  —  the  head  of  Trinity  College 
having  been  instructed  to  see  that  Pickering  himself  should 
remain  forthcoming.  Tha^packet  of  papers  so  sent^up  to 
tke  Privy  Council  included  that  very  letter  which  Pickering 
^had_just  received~~jroja  Jb'isher,  and  in  which  Diodati  is 
^mentioned.  But  it  included  agreaFdeaj^moreT  It  included 
various  letters  that  had_been  sent  by  ^jjFto~TiaKeriiig^n 
pastjnonths,  containing  rambling  remark^abQJj£tEe~King, 
the  Duke,  Bishops,  and  other  public  persons  and  things,  as 
well  as  about  his  own  and  Pickering's  affairs.  In  one  of 
these,  dated  as  far  back  as  April  28,  1626,  Gill,  after  men 
tioning  that  his  brother  George  had  '  '  preached  last  Sunday 
in  Mr.  Skinner's  church,"  and  that  a  Jack  Woodford,  known 
to  him  and  Pickering,  was  in  doubts  as  to  taking  his  degree, 
had  proceeded,  "The  Duke,  as  they  say  of  him,  morbo 
"  comitiali  laborat  :  I  would  his  business  were  off  or  on  ;  for 
"  he  is  like  Davus,  perturbat  otia."  Besides  these  letters 
in  Gill's  own  name,  however,  there  were  several  anonymous, 
or  semi-anonymous,  letters  and  papers  of  a  still  more 
scurrilous  and  personal  character.  Some  of  these  were 
traced  to  a  William  Grinkin,  M.A.,  of  Jesus  College, 
lj  who  _geems  to^jiave  taken  pleasure  in_acting 


^  _ 

GilPs  accomplice  in  a  mischievous  side-correspondence  for 
tSeljmrpose'of  annoymg~and  mystifym^^Pic^ertErgr,~"aTrd"Tcr 
iave  occasionally  copied  ouT  communications  which~"feally 
came  from  Gill.  OneTof  these"  contained  a  poem~on  the 
King,  with  GilFs  name  put  upon  it,  of  which  this  was  a 
portion  :  — 

"  And  now,  great  God,  I  humbly  pray 
That  thou  wilt  take  that  slime  away 
That  keeps  my  sovereign's  eyes  from  viewing 
The  things  that  will  be  our  undoing. 
Then  let  him  hear,  good  God,  the  sounds 
As  well  of  men  as  of  his  hounds  : 
Give  him  a  taste,  and  timely  too, 
Of  what  his  subjects  undergo  ; 
p  2 


212 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 


Give  him  a  feeling  of  their  woes  ; 

And  then  no  doubt  his  royal  nose 

Will  quickly  smell  those  rascals'  savours 

Whose  blacky  deeds  eclipse  his  favours. 

Though  found  and  scourged  for  their  offences, 

Heavens  bless  my  king  and  all  his  senses  !  " 


Altogether,  frill*  a   fvn 

qf  possible,  from  these  discovered 


darker 
w«.a  matter 

enojigh^for  a  very  serious  ca^e_iirJilie^tai^Chamber.  Pick- 
ering,  indeed,  who  had  meanwhile  been  brought  to  London, 
and  who  was  examined  on  the  26th  of  September  by 
Attorney-  General  Heath,  both  as  to  his  general  connection 
with  Gill  and  as  to  the  late  scene  in  Trinity  College,  cleared 
himself  so  far.  Not  only  had  he  refused  to  drink  Felton's 
health  on  the  late  dreadful  occasion';  but  he  could  plead 
that  ({  Mr.  Chillingworth  can  witness  for  him  that,  before 
"  any  questioning  of  these  things,  he  did  warn  the  said 
"  Gill."  It  seems  to  have  been  thought  enough,  therefore, 
to  dismiss  Pickering  with  an  admonition.  Grinkin,  though 
he  professed  himself  heartily  ashamed  of  his  part  in  the 
affair,  could  not  be  dismissed  so.  He  was  kept  in  custody, 
for  trial  in  the  Star-  Chamber  along  with  Gill.  As  the  pun 
ishment  might  be  very  severe,  there  continued  to  be  nearly 
as  much  interest  in  the  suspended  case  of  Gill  and  Grinkin, 
prisoners  in  the  Gatehouse,  as  in  that  of  Felton  himself, 
prisoner  in  the  Tower.1 

in  the  issue  must  have  been  peculiarly 
jbTe  thajMbjs^  own  two  recent  Latin 
letters  to  Gill  jmight  have  beenin-GilFs 
he  wa&  arrested  by  Laud's  pursuivants.  Meanw^lS-thouglt 
it  was  the  long  vacation,  Milton  does  not  seem  to  have  left 


i  The  narrative  in  the  text  is  from 
documents  of  the  given  dates,  and  of 
July,  1628,  in  the  State  Paper  Office, 
either  as  read  there  by  myself  long  ago 
and  partly  transcribed,  or  as  cited  in 
abstract  in  the  published  Calendar  of 
Domestic  Papers  for  1628-9,  but  with 
help  from  mentions  of  the  case  in 
Meade's  correspondence  with  Stute- 
ville,  and  with  reference  to  Aubrey's 
memoir  of  Chillingworth  in  his  Lives. 
Aubrey  there  says  that  Chillingworth 
was  in  the  habit,  in  his  younger  days  at 


Oxford,  of  sending  Laud  "  weekly  in 
telligence  of  what  passed  in  the  Uni 
versity,"  and  adds  that  he  had  been 
positively  informed  by  Sir  William 
Davenant,  who  was  very  intimate  with 
Chillingworth,  that  it  was  Chilling- 
worth,  "  notwithstanding  his  great 
reason,"  that  informed  against  Gill. 
Probably  Chillingworth,  with  his  po 
litical  and  ecclesiastical  notions  at  the 
time,  felt  himself  obliged,  in  the  in 
terests  of  Church  and  State,  to  do  as 
he  did. 


MILTON'S  FIFTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1628-9.        213 

Cambridge.  The  probability  is  that  he  had  remained  there 
Hfr^fcfaa^JlBap^Kfaarftry  rftfirementTall  by^Sim^el^of^wErclilie" 
had  advertised  Gill  in  the  second  of  his  letters. 


ACADEMIC   YEAK    1628-9. 

MILTON  setat.  20. 

Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  MATTHEW  WREN,  Master  of  Peterhouse. 
Proctors,  KICHARD  LOVE  of  Clare  Hall,  and  MICHAEL  HONETWOOD  of  Christ's. 

MICHAELMAS  TERM.  October  10, 1628,  to  December  16, 1628. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1628-9,  to  March  27,  1629. 

EASTER  TERM    .  .  .  April  15, 1629,  to  July  10, 1629. 


At  the  beginning  of  this  session  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
bustle  among  t^  chief  s^th^^Ttiversity4i^ 
•41"  irntnllntiPTi^nf  thr  nmv  Hum  mil  or  T>H 


at  the  King's  request,  to  annoeed  the  Duke. 
The  ceremony  did  not  take  place  at  Cambridge,  but  in 
London,  on  the  29th  of  October. 

Parliament,  it  may  be  remembered,  had  been  prorogued 
till  the  20th  of  October.  By  a  farther  prorogation,  how 
ever,  the  time  of  reassembling  was  postponed  till  the  20th 
of  January  following.  The  postponement  was  not  satis 
factory.  Although  the  King  and  the  Parliament  had  parted 
in  June  last  in  comparatively  good  humour,  various  things 
had  occurred  in  the  interval  to  disturb  equanimity.  The 
assassination  of  the  Duke  had  provoked  a  feeling  of  revenge 
in  the  Court,  which  took  the  shape  of  renewed  antagonism 
to  the  Commons.  In  spite  of  the  assent  to  the  Petition  of 
Bight,  the  King  had  clung  to  his  privilege  of  raising 
"  tonnage  and  poundage  "  by  his  own  authority  ;  and  several 
merchants  who  had  resisted  the  claim  had  suffered  seizure 
of  their  goods  or  had  been  imprisoned.  Moreover,  since 
the  rising  of  Parliament,  the  royal  favour  had  been  ex 
tended  in  a  very  marked  way  to  some  of  the  men  whom 
Parliament  had  stigmatized  and  censured.  Dr.  Mainwaring, 


214  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  King's  chaplain,  who  had  been  prosecuted  and  fined  for 
sermons  in  defence  of  arbitrary  power,  had  received  remis 
sion  of  his  fine,  and  had  been  presented  by  the  Crown  to 
the  rich  living  of  Stamford-  Rivers  in  Essex,  the  insult  to 
the  Parliament  having  been  rendered  more  glaring  by  the 
promotion  of  the  former  holder  of  that  living,  Dr.  Richard 
Montague,  to  the  Bishopric  of  Chichester,  notwithstanding 
that  since  1626  he  also  had  been  under  Parliamentary  censure. 

7  Laud  himself,  who,  next  to  Buckingham,  had  been  the  man 
most  under  the  ban  of  the  Commons,  and  whose  recent  pro 
motion  to  the  Bishopric  of  London  had  been  regarded  as 
another  omen  of  evil,  was  now  almost  ostensibly  the  Vizier 
in  Buckingham's  place.  All  these  things  rankled  in  the 
public  heart,  and  it  was  clear  that,  when  Parliament  reas 
sembled,  there  would  be  a  storm. 

It  was  in  November  1628,  while  the  storm  was  gathering, 
that  the  Star-Chamber  decision  respecting  Gill  and  Grinkin 
was  made  public.     Alexander  Gill,  "  Bachelor  of  Divinity,  __ 
jtndJJsjb^in_St.  Paul's  School,^  having  been  brought  before,  __ 
the  Star-Chamber  on  Friday  the  6th  of  that  month,  and  his 
words  concerning  the  assassination  of  the  Duke  having  been 

^-rt?a^-Tir-open-JJiiiii!t^ 

5  J*  hjs_censure  wastojbedegraded  both  from  his  ministry 
•'  '  and  -degrooo  taken  in  tn^BTTOBiaifc^  to  lose  onojoau-add 


"  London  andjih"  "***"•  n-t-  O^ford^jiid  to  be  fined  £2000.^ 
The  sentence  on  Grinkin  was  similar.  This  was  terrible 
news  to  reach  Milton  at  Cambridg67~andr  it  must  have  been 
a  great  relief  when,  later  in  the  course  of  the  ~  "saine-TnQnth., 
the  intelligence  came  :  —  "  Gill  and  Grinkin  are  degraded  ; 
"  but,  for  their  fines  and  corporal  punishment,  there  is  ob- 
"  tained  a  mitigation  of  the  first  and  a  full  remission  of  the 
"  latter,  upon  old  Mr.  Gill  the  father's  petition  to  his  Majesty, 
"  which  my  Lord  of  London  seconded,  for  his  coat's  sake  and 
"  love  to  the  father."  On  the  29th  of  the  same  month,  when 
Felton  was  hanged  at  Tyburn,  the  excitement  over  the 
Duke's  assassination  and  the  incidents  connected  with  it 
had  fairly  run  its  course.  Gill  and  Grinkin,  however,  were 
not  yet  set  at  large.  They  remained  prisoners  for  about  two 


MILTON'S  FIFTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1628-9. 


215 


^years,  or  till  November  1  630,  old  Mr.  Gill  contriving  all  that 
while  tcTcarry  on  St.  Pauljs~school  with  the  assistance  oi 

some   substitute  in   the   ushership  for  his   unfortunate  and 
vexatious  son.1 

to  prorogation,  on  the  20th  of 


^ 

January,  1628-9.    Immediatel 

arfces.''  These  grievances  were  of  two^  kinds.  There  was 
tne  "  tonnage  and  poundage"75  question,  as  part  of  the 
general  question  of  the  right  of  the  Crown  to  raise  money 
without  consent  of  Parliament  ;  and  there  was  the  great 
question  of  the  state  of  religion,  in  connexion  with  the 
alleged  spread  of  Arminian  and  Popish  doctrines,  and  with 
the  promotions  of  men  holding  these  doctrines  to  high  places 
in  the  Church.  The  first  place  was  given  to  the  religious 
question.  In  order  thoroughly  to  consider  this  great  sub 
ject,  the  House  of  Commons  resolved  itself  into  a  Committee 
of  Religion.  "  It  was  in  this  Committee  of  Religion,  on 
"  the  llth  day  of  February,  1628-9,"  says  Mr.  Carlyle,  "  that 
"<Mtv  -Cromwell,  member  for  Huntingdon"  [then  in  his 
"  thirtieth  yjBar]__"'  stood  np  and  made  his"  first  upoucLr-*' 
"  fragmentruf  which  has  found  --its-way-iuta  hisiory^  jand  is 
to  all  mankind.  He  said  i'  He  had  heard  by 


^ 

"  '  relation  from  one  Dr.  Beard  (his  old  schoolmaster  at  Hunt- 
"  '  ingdon)  that  Dr.  Alablaster  '  [prebendary  of  St.  Paul's  and 
"  rector  of  a  parish  in  Herts]  '  had  preached  flat  Popery  at 
"'Paul's  Cross;  and  that  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  (Dr.  Neile) 
"  '  had  commanded  him,  as  his  Diocesan,  he  should  preach 
"  '  nothing  to  the  contrary.  Mainwaring,  so  justly  censured 
"  '  in  this  House  for  his  sermons,  was  by  the  same  Bishop's 
"  '  means  preferred  to  a  rich  living.  If  these  are  the  steps  to 
"  '  Church-preferment,  what  are  we  to  expect  ?  '  "  Cromwell's 
facts  on  this  occasion  were  but  two  out  of  many  which  were 


i  Letters  of  Meade  to  Stuteville  of 
dates  Nov.  15  and  Nov.  22, 1628,  with 
entries  in  Calendar  of  Domestic  State 
Papers  under  dates  Oct.  18  and  Nov. 
30,  1630.— Of  old  Mr.  Gill's  anxiety 
about  his  son  while  his  fate  was  in 
suspense  there  is  touching  proof  in 
the  preserved  minute,  as  it  had  been 
sent  by  Laud  to  the  King,  of  the  first 


examination  and  confession  of  the 
younger  Gill  the  day  after  his  arrest 
(ante,  p.  209).  Besides  the  attesting 
signatures  of  Laud,  Heath,  and  Finch, 
and  the  younger  Gill's  own  signature  in 
subscription  to  his  confession,  there  is 
a  second  signature,  "Alex.  Gil,"  evi 
dently  that  of  the  father,  permitted  to 
be  present  with  a  heavy  heart. 


216  LIFE    OF    MILTON  AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

brought  under  the  attention  of  the  House.  The  Committee 
of  Religion  were  proceeding  to  great  lengths  with  their 
inquisitions,  when,  there  being  no  other  means  of  checking 
them,  Parliament  was  dissolved.  The  circumstances  of  this 
dissolution  are  sufficiently  memorable  : — A.  Remonstrance  to 
the  King  had  been  drawn  up  in  a  bolder  strain  than  any 
that  had  preceded ;  Speaker  Finch  had  refused  to  put  this 
Remonstrance  to  the  vote ;  twice  the  House  had  adjourned ; 
and,  at  last,  on  the  2d  of  March,  the  Speaker  still  refusing 
to  put  the  question,  he  was  held  down  by  main  force  in  his 
chair  by  Deuzil  Holies  and  other  members,  and,  the  doors 
having  been  locked,  three  resolutions  were  hastily  passed 
by  acclamation,  to  the  effect  that  whosoever  should  encourage 
Popery  or  Arminianism,  or  should  advise  the  levying  of 
tonnage  and  poundage  by  the  King  on  his  own  authority, 
;or  should  pay  the  same  so  levied,  should  be  accounted  an 
'enemy  to  the  kingdom  and  state  of  England.  The  result 
was  decisive.  Indictments  in  Star  Chamber  were  ordered 
against  Sir  John  Eliot,  Denzil  Holies,  John  Selden,  Benjamin 
Valentine,  William  Longe,  William  Coriton,  William  Strode, 
Sir  Miles  Hobart,  and  Sir  Peter  Hayman,  as  the  leaders  in 
the  recent  proceedings  ;  they  were  committed  to  the  Tower; 
and  on  the  10th  of  March  the  Parliament  was  dissolved  with 
words  of  unusual  contumely.  It  was  the  last  Parliament  in 
England  for  more  than  eleven  years.  It  was  to  be  penal 
even  to  speak  of  the  assembling  of  another. 

Coincident  in  time  with  this  crisis  were  two  events  of 
considerable  passing  interest.  ^^>n^__jzeals__the_Jbirth  of  the 
.^King's  first  child,  who  surviveclonly  long  enough  to~ 
baptized  by  the  name  of  Charles  James  (March  18,  1628-9) ; 
and  the  other  was  the  proclamation  of  a  peace  between 
England  and  France,  ending  the  foolishly  begun  and  fool 
ishly  conducted  war  between  the  two  countries  (May  29, 
1629). 

While  the  country  at  large  was  thus  occupied  JVHlton, 
'  sharing  more  or  less  in  the  interest  universally  excited,  was 
busy  iu  a  matter  of  some  private  importance.     The  Lent 


MILTON'S  GEADUATION  AS  B.A. 


217 


term  of  the  current 
his  residencen  Hs 
"wntci 


,  therefore,  .the  termjn 
ofjinderg^radjiajie&hipclosed,  an< 


in  which  he  was  ready  for  his  B.A.  degree. 


his  College  and  the  University, 


lie  was  one  of  those  who,  in  the  beginning  of  this  term, 
wera  admittedTo^  respondendum  ^ffiataojn^jnH^wHo,  having 
in  the  course  of  jhe_^ajnj_jtejan^Aily--gone^  through  the 
remaining  formalities,  were  pronounced  by  the  Proctor,  on 
the  26th  of  Marc]O§25r^^ 

and  were  allowed,  according  tojthe  academic   reckoning, 
to   date  their  admission  into  that     degree    from    January 
1628-9. 

The  most  important  formality  connected  with  the.jyradua- 
was  thejaibscjjption_jiL-t]ie  names  of  the  graduates  by 

the  presence_of 


,  under  the  three  Articles  of  Rely 

as  the  indispensable~^sFot'  s"ound  English   faith,  by  the 
•SOth"  of  the  ^Ec^siasJagS^anon|[gfjL^3--4.     IIeite'ls~£Ee~ 
cbnrptete  formula  of  subscription  :  —  >  — 

"  That  the  King's  Majesty,  under  God,  is  the  only  supreme  governor 
of  this  realm,  and  of  all  other  his  Highness's  dominions  and  countries, 
as  well  in  all  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical  things  or  causes  as  temporal  ; 
and  that  no  foreign  prince,  person,  prelate,  state,  or  potentate  hath, 
or  ought  to  have,  any  jurisdiction,  power,  superiority,  pre-eminence, 
or  authority,  ecclesiastical  or  spiritual,  within  his  Majesty's  said 
realms,  dominions,  and  countries. 

"  That  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  of  Ordering  of  Bishops, 
Priests,  and  Deacons  containeth  in  it  nothing  contrary  to  the  Word 
of  God,  and  that  it  may  lawfully  so  be  used. 

"  That  we  allow  the  Book  of  Articles  of  Religion  agreed  upon  by 
the  Archbishops  and  Bishops  of  both  provinces  and  the  whole  Clergy 
in  the  Convocation  holden  in  London  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1562, 
and  acknowledge  all  arid  every  the  Articles  therein  contained,  being 
in  number  Mne-and-Thirty,  besides  the  Ratification,  to  be  agreeable 
to  the  Word  of  God. 

"  We  whose  names  are  here  underwritten  do  willingly  and  ex 
animo  subscribe  to  the  three  Articles  above-mentioned  and  to  all 
things  in  them  contained."  ' 


i  It  was  only  since  1623  that  sub 
scription  to  the  three  Articles  was  re 
quired  at  the  graduation  of  Bachelors 
or  Masters  of  Arts.  Before  that  time 


the  test  had  been  required  only^n*- 
Divinity  graduations  and  the  like  ;  but 
King  James  had  insisted  on  the  exten- 


218               LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND  HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

The  total  number  of  students  admitted  at  Cambridge  in  the 
year  1628-9,  out  of  all  the  sixteen  Colleges,  to  the  degree  of 

B.A.  by  the  subscription  of  the  above  formula,  was  259. 
Of  these  30  were  of  Christ's  College.1  We  give  their 
names : — 

Edward  Dogge.  John  Milton. 

Nicolas  Cudworth.  Philip  Smith. 

Peter  Pury.  Samuel  Clethero. 

Richard  Garthe.  John  Boutflower. 

Samuel  Viccars.  Philip  Bennett. 

Roger  Rutley,  John  Hieron. 

William  Wildman.  William  Jackson. 

Daniel  Proctor.  John  Harvey. 

Thomas  Carr.  William  Finch. 

Robert  Seppens.  Samuel  Boulton. 

Edmund  Barwell.  Robert  Cooper. 

George  Sleigh.  William  Dun. 

Thomas  Baldwin.  John  Browne. 

Richard  Buckenham.  Robert  Pory. 

John  Welbey.  Thomas  Chote.2 

Our  first  trace  of  Milton  aft ^ej^e__hj,d_. taken. Jiis  B.A. 
degree  is  in  a  Latin  poem,  "Jn  AdventumVeris  "  ("  On  the 
Approach  of  Spring ").  printed_as  the  fifth~~Qf~^rs^legies^ 

1  Of  the  total  259,  however,  thirty-  might  have  acquired  during  the  gradua- 
three  graduated  irregularly,  i.  e.  not  in  tion-exercises,  no  record  of  it  was  kept 
the  Lent  Term,  but  at  other  times  of  as  now  in  the  Registers.     It  is  more 
the  year.    Such  graduations  were  dated  important  to  observe  that  of  Milton's 
collectively  not  from  January,  but  from  nine-and-twenty  College-fellows  men- 
the  "  Feast  of  the  Baptist."    Only  two  tioned  in  the  list  as  having  graduated 
of  the  thirty  graduations  from  Christ's  in  the  same  year  with  him   (twenty- 
were  of  this  kind.  seven  of   whom  were  admitted  along 

2  The  list  is  from  Add.  MS.  Brit.  with  him  at  the  regular  time  in  January 
Mus.  5885  (one  of  Cole's  MSS.),  contain-  1628-9),  six— to    wit,    Eoger    Eutley, 
ing  a  catalogue  year  by  year,  of  those  Thomas   Baldwin,  Philip  Smith,  Wil- 
who    graduated    B.A.    at    Cambridge  Ham  Jackson,  Robert  Pory,  and  Thomas 
from  1500  to  1735.    By  the  courtesy  Chote — are  already  known   to   us  as 
of  Mr.  Komilly,  late  Registrar  of  the  having    been   admitted    into    Christ's 
University,  I  was  enabled  to  compare  College  contemporaneously  with  Mil- 
the  list  with  that  in  the  graduation-  ton,  in  February  or  March  1624-5.  The 
book,  and  to  correct  some  mistakes.  majority  of  the  others,  we  have  also 
The  arrangement  of  the  names  in  the  the   means   of    knowing,   dated    their 
graduation-book  is  somewhat  different  matriculation  in   the   University  from 
from  what  it  is  in  the  MS.,  but  there  the  same  term   as  Milton,  —  i.e.  the 
also  Milton's  name  comes  almost  exactly  Easter  term  of   1625.     The  inference 
in  the  middle.     It  is  written  in  Latin,  from  these  facts  is  that  any  punishment 
"  Joannes  Milton,"  in  a  very  neat  clear  to  which  Milton  may  have  been  sub- 
hand.    Of  the  other  signatures  some  jected  during  his  residence  at  the  Uni- 
are  in  Latin  and  some  in  English.    The  versity  cannot  have  involved  the  loss  of 
order  in  which  the  names  occur  has  no  even  one  term.    He  took  his  B.A.  degree 
academic  significance.    The  custom  of  in  the  fourth  Lent  term  following  the 
graduating  with   honours,  as  distinct  date  of  his  matriculation,  precisely  at 
from  ordinary  graduation,  had  not  then  the  time  when  his  coevals  at  Christ's 
been  introduced    at    the   University ;  did,  his    old     schoolfellow    Pory    in- 
and,  whatever  superiority  some  students  eluded. 


MILTON'S  FIFTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1628-9. 

Its  tenor  and  the  appended  date,  "  Anno  cetatis  20,"  prove      \ 
it  to  have  been  composed  in  April  1629;  but  whether  at       \ 
Cambridge  or  in  London  there  is  nothing  to   show.     The        \ 
following,  in  translation,  is  the  opening  of  the  poem  :  — 


in  his  ceaseless  round,  now  again  calls  forth,  by 
warmth  of  Spring,  the  fresh  J^xhyrs  ;  Irnct  the 


6rT~a  short  youth  ;  andj£EfiI.grQim3»-Xej.^s^^rom"Trost,  grows 
Sweetly  greenT^-^afCLiaistakeiij^^ 


verses,  and  is  my  genius  with  me  by  the  gift  of  Spring?  It  is  with 
me  by  the  gift  of  Spring,  and  by  this  means  (who  would  think  it  ?)  is 
reinforced,  and  already  is  demanding  for  itself  some  exercise.  Castalia 
and  the  cleft  hill  flit  before  my  eyes,  and  my  nightly  dreams  bring 
Pirene  to  my  vision.  My  breast  burns,  stirred  by  secret  commotion, 
and  the  sacred  rage  and  tumult  of  sound  possess  me  inwardly.  Apollo 
himself  comes !  I  see  his  locks  enwreathed  with  Thessalian  laurel ; 
Apollo  himself  comes  ! " 

After  this  prelude,  the  poet  goes  on  to  celebrate  the  effects 
of  Spring's  return  on  the  pulses  of  universal  nature,  from 
the  hard  frame  of  the  Earth  outwards  and  upwards  to  the 
thoughts  of  its  animated  creatures,  and  even  of  the  frolic 
some  fauns  as  they  patter  in  the  woods  after  the  coy 
evading  nymphs.  rAUugether  tiia^ioem  is  a  pleasantjndica- 
tion  that,  in  becoming  a  Bachelor  of  Arts,  Milton  had  not 
42e^,sed~lo~be  a  Bachelor  otr  .Nature. 

Milton  can  hardly  have  failed  to  be  present  at  the  Com- 
,niencement  of  this~year  on  the  /th  ot  July^  There  were 
but  three  "cfeatiDira"  of  Doutors^of 


Doctors  of  Laws  ;  but  the  number  of  those  admitted  to  the 
M.A.  degree  was  226.  .Among_the  incorrjorations  in  the 
TVLj\.  degree  at  the  same  Commencement  the  most  interest- 


Milton  must  have  been  that  of  his  friend 


As  he  haj^raduated  MJLJn  his  own  Universitv 


of  Oxford  only  in  the  previousjjily^Jiis  incorporation 


or   a   few    days   may   have   been   an 


eing   with    Mil 


1  The  fact  of  Diodati's  incorporation 
at  Cambridge  at  this  date  I  derive 
from  an  alphabetical  list  of  Incorpor 
ations  at  Cambridge,  transcribed  by 


Cole  (Add.  MS.  Brit.  Mus.  5884).  The 
date  of  his  graduation  as  M.A.  at 
Oxford  was  July  8,  1628  (Wood  MS. 
Ashm.  Mus.  8507). 


220  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

There  was  virtually  a  second  Commencement  in  this  year, 
occasioned  by  a  visit  paid  to  the  University  during  the  long 
vacation  by  the  Chancellor,  Lord  Holland,  in  company  with 
M.  de  Chateauneuf,  the  French  Ambassado^1  Extraordinary. 
Among  those  admitted  to  the  honorary  degree  of  M.A.  on 
that  occasion  was  no  less  celebrated  a  person  than  Peter 
Pnnl  Knboua^Jjie  painter,  then  fifty-two  years  of  age,  and 
residingln_England.  He  had  doubtless  come  in  the  train 
of  the  Ambassador,  the  incidents  of  whose  visit  are  described 
in  a  letter  from  Meade  to  Stuteville,  dated  Sept.  26  : — 

"The  French  Ambassador  came  hither  on  Wednesday,  about  3 
o'clock,  and  our  Chancellor  with  him  ;  was  lodged  at  Trinity  College. 
That  night  came  also  nay  Lord  of  Warwick  with  very  many  horse,  &c. 
On  Thursday  morning  they  had  an  Act  at  the  schools  well  performed ; 
went  thence  to  our  Regent  House  to  be  incorporated,  when  the  Orator 
entertained  him  with  a  speech ;  then  dined  at  Trinity  College,  where 
were  great  provisions  sent  in  before  by  our  Chancellor,  and  a  gentle 
man  of  his  also  with  them  to  order  that  part  of  the  entertainment. 
At  3  o'clock  they  went  to  the  Comedy,  which  was  '  Fraus  Honesta] 
acted  some  seven  years  since.  The  actors  now  were  not  all  so  perfect 
as  might  have  been  wished,  yet  came  off  handsomely ;  the  music  was 
not  so  well  supplied  as  heretofore,  said  those  who  have  skill  that  way. 
On  Friday  morning  they  visited  many  of  the  Colleges,  where  they 
were  entertained  with  speeches  and  banquets, — and,  amongst  the  rest, 
at  ours  and  Emanuel.  From  thence  they  went  to  Peterhouse,  the 
Vice- Chancellor's  College,  where  was  also  a  banquet,  and  where  the 
Orator  made  the  farewell  speech.  All  this  was  so  early  done  that  they 
went  home  to  London  that  night." 

The  Orator  who  figured  so  much  on  this  occasion  was  not 
the  poet  Herbert,  who  had  vacated  that  office  in  1627,  but 
his  successor,  the  Scotchman  Creighton.  In  the  Act  or 
public  disputation,  which,  according  to  custom,  formed  so 
great  a  part  of  the  entertainment,  the  theses  were  these  : — 
(1.)  "  Productio  animce  rationalis  est  nova  creatio;"  (2.) 
"  Origo  fontium  est  a  mari  ;  "  (3.)  Regimen  monarchicum 
hcereditarium  prcestat  elective."  (1.  "The  production  of  a 
rational  soul  is  a  new  creation ; "  2.  "Streams  have  their 
origin  from  the  sea ;  "  3.  "  Hereditary  monarchical  govern 
ment  is  better  than  elective.")  The  Proctor,  Mr.  Love, 
moderated ;  the  Eespondent  was  a  Mr.  Wright  of  Emanuel, 
and  his  three  Opponents  were  Hall  of  Trinity,  Booth  of 


UNIVERSITY    THEATRICALS    IN    1629.  221 

Corpus  Christi,  and  Green  of  Magdalen.1  But,  however 
well  the  Disputation  in  the  morning  came  off,  it  was,  of 
course,  poor  amusement  as  compared  with  the  Comedy  in 
the  afternoon. 

Ike-custom  of  pftrforjnvng-  plays  at  public  schools  and  the 
Universities  was  at  ii^eigh^n^hejrga^i'^alicjggg^pf' 
.   and  15haTle3.~^ 


personage,  the  entertainment  always  included  dramatic  per 
ormances^  preceding""or  folio  wing^banq  uet  s.  TEe  plays, 
though  sometimes  in  English,  were  morel'reque"nLlym  Latm, 
ftithgrJgjcgTi  from  a>sirnn.lLsl1i)rrir-^!ready  on  hand 


for  thft  nfpfl.gjrvn^   Of  these  University^plays,  as 


>r  twg_had  obtained^jconaiderable  reputation.^ ^ 

^At  Cambridge,  among  four  plays  acted  on  four  successive 
nights  during  the  first  visit  of  King  James  to  the  University 
in  March  1614-15,  one  had  been  so*  decidedly  successful 
that  all  England  heard  of  it.  This  was  the  celebrated  Latin 
comedy  of  Ignoramus,  written  by  George  Ruggle,  M.A., 
then  one  of  the  Fellows  of  Clare  Hall.  Notwithstanding 
the  extreme  length  of  the  play,  which  occupied  six  hours  in 
the  acting,  the  King  was  so  pleased  with  it  that  he  made  a 
second  visit  to  Cambridge  to  see  it  again.  Ruggle,  who 
lived  till  1622,  never  published  the  play  ;  but  copies  of  it 
had  been  taken,  and  from  one  of  these  it  was  to  be  given  to 
the  press  in  1630. 

te  success  of  Ruggle.' a   Tgnox^wnus  had  induced. 


University~men  to  try  iheir  hands  in  Latin  comedies.  Among 
^afeber^elluw  uf-Tfimty  College",  pro3ucea~aT 


play  under  the  title  of  "  Fra^Bjonesta,  "  ("  Honest  Fraud  "), 
which  was  acted  at  that  College  in  the  year  1616.  This  is 
the  play  mentioned  by  Meade  as  having  been  revived  for 
the  entertainment  of  Lord  Holland  and  the  French  Am 
bassador.  It  was  published  in  London,  in  a  small  duodecimo, 

i  From  Harl.  MS.  7038.    This  MS.  the  Act,  and  two  copies  of  the  speech 

gives  only  the  topics  of  debate  ;  but  in  of  the  University  Orator,  Creighton. 
the  State  Paper  Office  I  have  seen  a  2  See    article   on   University  Plays, 

copy  of  the  Proctor's  speech  in  opening  Retrospective  Keview,  vol.  XII. 


222  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

in  1632,  and  we  are  able,  therefore,  to  give  some  account 
of  it.  The  dramatis  persona?  were  as  follows  : — 

Cleomachus,  otherwise  Charilaus,  the  father  of  Callidamus. 
Diodorus,    otherwise    Theodosia    in   man's   clothes,   the   wife  of 

Charilaus. 

Callidamus,  a  young  man,  the  lover  of  Callanthia. 
Ergasilus,  a  waggish  servant  of  Callidamus . 
Perillus,  otherwise  Floretta  in  man's  clothes,  the  true  daughter  of 

Onobarus  and  Nitella. 
Chrysophilus,  an  old  miser. 
Cuculus,  the  son  of  Chrysophilus. 
Onobarus,  an  uxorious  person. 
Nitella,  a  shrewish  wife. 
Floretta,  the  supposed  daughter  of  Onobarus,  in  reality  the  daughter 

of  Fabricius. 

Misogamus,  a  dealer  in  pithy  maxims. 

Canidia  Sanctimonialis,  otherwise  Lupina,  wife  of  Chrysophilus. 
Three  Watchmen. 
Six  boys. 

Choruses  of  Singers. 
Persons  mentioned  in  the  play : — Alphonsius  and  Albertus,  Dukes 

of  Florence,  and  Fabricius,  father  of  Callanthia. 

Out  of  these  characters,  and  with  Florence  as  the  scene, 
a  story  is  constructed  answering  to  the  title.  Songs  are 
interspersed;  and  there  is  a  series  of  duets,  ending  in  a 
chorus,  at  the  close.  By  way  of  specimen  of  the  dialogue, 
take  the  opening  of  the  first  scene,  where  Cleomachus  makes 
his  appearance,  after  a  long  absence,  in  one  of  the  streets  of 
Florence. 

"Cleo.  Auspicate  tandem  eedes  has  reviso  quondam  mihi  notas 

optime; 
At,  Dii  boni,  quam  ab  his  annis  quindecim  mutata  jam 

videntur  omnia ! 

Florentia  non  est  Florentiaj  verum  omnia  mortalium  assolent. 
Hie  sedes  sunt  Chrysophili,  quocum  ego  abiens  Callidamum 

reliqui  filium. 

O  Dii  Penates  !  hunc  si  mihi  jam  vivum  servastis  reduci, 
Non  me  tot  belli  malis  hucusque  etiam  superesse  pcenitet. 
Et  certe,  si  bene  memini,  hie  ipsus  est  Chrysophilus  quern 

exeuntem  video." 

A  sample  of  the  broader  humour  of  the  piece  is  the 
opening  of  Act  V.  Scene  5,  where  Cuculus  comes  on  the 
stage  drunk,  with  six  boys  hallooing  after  him,  and 
Ergasilus  and  Floretta  following  : — 

"Ptieri.  Heigh,  Cucule;  whnp,  Cucule  ! 
Cue.  Apagite,  nequam  pueri  ! 

Ubi  es,  Floretta  mea?  quo  fugis,  scelerata? 


UNIVERSITY   THEATRICALS    IN   1629.  223 

1  P-uer.  Ego  te  ad  Florettam 

Ducam  modo. 

2  Puer.  Ego  modo  potius. 

3  Puer.  Hac  eas  ! 

4  Puer.  Hac,  inquam  ! " 

But  the  rubbish  will  do  as  well  in  English : — 

"  Boys.  Heigli,  Cuculus ;  whup,  Cuculus  ! 
Cue.  Be  off,  you  rascally  boys  ! 

Where  art  thou,  my  Floretta?  whither  dost  flee,  traitress1? 
1st  Boy.  I  will  lead  you  to  Floretta  presently. 
2d  Boy.  I'll  do  it  better. 
3d  Boy.  This  way. 
4th  Boy.  No  !  this  way,  say  I. 
bth  Boy.  That  way,  that  way. 
6th  Boy.  No,  go  back. 
Cue.  Let  go,  I  say,  let  go.     Faith,  Heaven's  lamps,  the  stars,  are 

nearly  out.    Whup,  whup,  whuch  1    You,  my  man  in  the  moon 

up  there,  lend  me  your  lantern,  that  I  may  seek  for  my  Floretta. 
1st  Boy,  Speak  up,  speak  up :  Endymion,  whom  you  are  calling,  is 

asleep. 

Cue.  O  that  nose  ! 

2d  Boy.  By  Jupiter,  you  have  an  excellent  voice ;  but  call  louder. 
Cue.  0  those  ears  ! 
All  the  Boys.  Capital,  capital ! 
Cue.  If  I  catch  you,  villains — 
All.  Here,  I  say,  Cuculus. 
3c?  Boy.  Here,  you  ass. 

4th  Boy.  After  him  now.     (Cuculus  clasps  a  post.) 
Cue.  I'll  hold  you,  rogue  ! 

AIL  Hold  him,  hold  him  tight :  good-bye,  good-bye ! 
Ergas.  O  Cuculus,  are  you  embracing  another,  and  despising  your 

Floretta? 
Cue.  Floretta1?    Are  you  here,  my  dear?    How  hugely  I  love  you ! 

I  pray  you  now,  eamus  cubitum"  &c. 

Such  was  the  trash  acted  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
Earl  of  Holland,  the  French  Ambassador,  and  the  rest  of 
the  distinguished  visitors  at  Cambridge,  the  painter  Bubens^ 
among  them,  in  September  1629.  In  all  probability  the 
actors  were  students  of  Trinity  College,  with  one  or  two 
Masters  of  Arts  from  other  colleges,  and  with  Stubbe  him 
self  as  manager.  The  place  of  performance  was  the  great 
hall  of  Trinity,  which,  on  such  occasions,  could  be  fitted  up 
to  accommodate  2,000  persons.  The  noble  visitors  and 
their  ladies  had,  of  course,  the  best  seats  near  the  stage  or 
upon  it ;  the  next  best  places  were  reserved  for  tho  Doctors 
and  other  dons ;  and  the  body  of  the  hall  was  filled  with  the 


224 


LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


mass    of  the   students,   the  bachelors  of   arts  and   under 
graduates  huddled  together  at  the  far  end,  where,  despite 
the  proctors,  they  whooped,  whistled,  threw  pellets  at  each 
other,  and  even  sent  up  now  and  then  a  whiff  of  tobacco- 
smoke.  -*tfe-w^^-fey-4haiL^ieGided   the  fate  of  n,  play — II 
they  liked  it,  theycheered  and  clapped ;  if  they  diclikecLuV. 
jibey  ^nTssert    without — marry.     From   Meade's   account   we 
infer  that  Stubbed  play  was  on  the  whole  successful,  but 
there   was    some   hissing,    especially   at   the    singing 


nong  those  who  hissed,  we  canaver  with  gmrm 
nl)f  Christ7  a. 


have  given 


of  the_play  this   will  not  acorn  impro3iaMelIE?^~th^re  is" 
something  like  proof  in  a  pamphlet  published  by  him  in 
1642  in  answer  to_an  anonymoua_fcract_which 


in  confutation  of  one  of  his  previous  writings^-  The  author 
of  the  anonymous  tract  (whom  Milton  supposed  to  be  a 
prelate)  had  upbraided  him  with  the  fact  that  he,  a  Puritan, 
had 


TrU  writings  to  theatres  an<3 


worse.  p1«.ftftg,  ali  owing  flin.f.  frftwaa  more  fq.Tifii'1ia-p~with_fchem~^ 
t.lmp.hfi«ftfiTnpf1  Tiia  profpflfajr^a.^fter  discussing  the  "  worse 
places,"  and  showing  how  any  such  acquaintance  with  them 
as  he  had  exhibited  might  have  been  very  innocently 
acquired,  if  only  by  reading  dramas  written  by  English 
clergymen,  Milton  refers  to  his  supposed  familiarity  with 
playhouses  and  their  furniture.  "  But,  since  there  is  such 
"necessity,"  he  says,  "to  the  hearsay  of  a  tire,  a  periwig,  or 
"  a  vizard,  that  plays  must  have  been  seen,  what  difficulty 
"  was  there  in  that,  when,  in  the  Colleges,  so  many  of  the 
"  young  divines,  and  those  of  next  aptitude  to  Divinity,  have 
"  been  seen  so  oft  upon  the  stage,  writhing  and  unboning 
"  their  clergy  limbs  to  all  the  antic  and  dishonest  gestures  of 
"  Trinculoes,  buffoons,  and  bawds,  prostituting  the  shame  of 
"  that  Ministry  which  either  they  had  or  were  nigh  having  to 
"  the  eyes  of  courtiers  and  court-ladies,  with  their  grooms 
"  and  mademoiselles  £  There,  while  they  acted  and  overacted, 
ong  other  young  scholars,!  was  a  spectator:  they  thought 
ant  men,  and  I  thoughttEnTToi 


UNIVERSITY   THEATRICALS   IN    1629.  225 

made  sport,  and  I  laughed;  they  mispronounced,  and  I 
;  and,  to  mlifeenipTIie~jS^ism 


"  I  hissed." 1     AsTslmifieH  in  this  passage,  Milton  had  more 

opportunities  than  the  present  of  seeing  plays 

was  at  Cambridge.  Exce^o>iijDJi^e^faey-QJicasion,  however, 

halljbavejo  refer,  the  presentwas  the  only  very1 


_ 

^  performance  of  a  play  in  the  UnTversrEy^n  his  time" 

before  courtly  visitors  ;__a^dli^iui^ajlubiuiis'  in^jj^jjaai^Lgu 
"seem  to  show  that,  if  he  had  the  performance  of  any  one 
University  play  more  in  his  mind  than  another,  it  was  that 
of  Stubbed  Fraus  Ilonesta  before  the  French  Ambassador 
in  the  first  year  of  his  Bachelorship.  We  have  not  now  to 
consider  particularly  the  question  of  Milton's  opinion  coii- 

,*cerhing  theatre^going;  in  general.     We  have  seen,  however/ 
that  'Ee^gjTja^  the| 

'regular  theatres,  j^hojJjyh^_tojyive'  his  sarcasm  morelorce^in; 
the  fbreg'omg  passage,  he_^y^id^mentiomng  that  fact  ;  nor| 

J  whileie  Was  at 


seem  to  have  been  such  as  could  lead  him  to  refrain  from 
seeing  a  comedy  in  Trinity,  when   there  was  one  to  1)6 


Among  the  Colleges  which  Lord  Holland  and  the  Ambas 
sador  visited  on  the  day  after  the  play,  and  at  each  of  which 
they  had  "  speeches  and  banquets,"  one,  as  Meade  informs 
us,  was  Christ's.  There  was  necessarily,  according  to  the 
usual  arrangements  in  such  cases,  a  set  Latin  oration  by 
one  of  the  students.  Probably  it  was  according  to  custom 
to  choose  one  of  the  youngest  students  in  the  College.  At 
all  events,  the  honour  fell  to  Siddall's  pupil,  young  Jack 
Cleveland,  who  had  then  just  finished  his  first  year  at  the 
College,  and  was  not  over  sixteen.  The  brief  speech  which 
Hhe  sprightly  lad  did  deliver  may  be  found  among  his  works, 
as  subsequently  published.2  Such  is  the  splendour  of  the 
two  august  presences  then  in  Christ's  College,  he  says,  that, 
if  one  of  the  sun-  worshipping  Persians  were  there  to  look, 

1  Apology  for  Smectymnuus  :  Works,       dam  Gallicum,  et  Hollandia  Comitem, 
III.  267-8.  tunc  temporis  Academi*  Cancellanum 

2  «  Oratio  habita  ad  Legatum,  quen-       Cleveland's  Works  :  Edit.  1677,  p.  108. 

VOL.  I. 


226  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

he  would  think  there  were  two  suns  in  the  heaven,  and 
would  divide  his  sacrifice  !  A  few  more  such  compliments 
complete  the  speech,  the  sense  of  which  is  poor  enough, 
and  the  Latin  none  of  the  most  classical.  Milton,  had  the 
task  been  appointed  to  him,  would  have  performed  it  far 
better. 


ACADEMIC   YEAE    1629-30. 

MILTON  setat.  21. 
Vice-Chancellor,  HENRY  BUTTS,  D.D.,  Master  of  Benet  or  Corpus  Christi  College 

(in  which  office  he  had  succeeded  Dr.  "VValsall  in  1626). 

Proctors,  THOMAS  GOADE  of  Queen's  College,  and  WILLIAM  EGBERTS  of  Corpus 
Christi,  who,  dying  in  office,  was  succeeded  by  Eobert  King  of  Trinity  Hall. 

MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10, 1629,  to  December  16, 1629. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1629-30,  to  March  19, 1629-30. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  7, 1630,  to  July  9, 1630. 


of  this  ^earjwe  have  nothing  to 
rjgcord.     Milton  seems  to  have  duly  fulfilled  it,  and  then  to 
have  gone  back  to  spe5d~~tho  Christmas  Tarnation  in 

,  he 


Latin  Elegy  to  his  friend  Diodati.  It  is  the  Elegy  which 
stands  sixth  in  the  printed  seriespand  it  TE~1ftere~headed 
^as  follows  :  —  "  To  CHAELES^  DioDATiTliAKiNG  A  STA?  IN  THE 
"  COUNTRY  :  who,  having  written  to  the  author  on  the  13th 
"  of  December,  and  asked  him  to  excuse  his  verses.if'  they 
"were  less  good  than  usual,  on  the  ground  that,  in  the 
"  midsfe  of  the  festivities  -with  wfechr-ke-4iad  been  received 
"  by  his  friends,  he  wasjonable  to  give-  a  suJSciaatlv__pros- 
"  perous  attention  to  the  Muses,  had  the  following  reply." 
From  this  heading  it  is  to  be  inferred 


his  incorporation  at  Cambridge  injhg  pr^p^lng  .July, 
again,  before  the  end  of  the  year.  returuejLto-soina,  part  of 
the  country  to  which  he  was  accustomed,  whether_in_Cheshire 
or  elsewhere,  and  had  written  a  metrical^epistle  thence  to 
Milton,  telling  him  of  his  occupations  and  plejtSLvres.  An 
abstract  of  Milton's  reply  will  suffice,  with  only  parts  trans- 


MILTON'S  SIXTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1629-30.        227 

lated  fully,  and  one  passage  of  peculiar  importance  thrown 
in  rhythmically : — 

You  seem  to  be  enjoying  yourself  rarely.  How  well  you  describe 
the  feasts,  and  the  merry  December  and  preparations  for  Christmas, 
and  the  cups  of  French  wine  round  the  gay  hearth !  Why  do  you 
complain  that  poesy  is  absent  from  these  festivities?  Festivity  and 
poetry  are  surely  not  incompatible.  Song  loves  Bacchus,  and  Bacchus 
loves  song.  All  antiquity  and  all  mythology  prove  that  wine  and 
poetry  go  well  together.  The  verses  which  Ovid  sent  home  from  his 
Gothic  place  of  banishment  were  bad  only  because  he  had  there  no 
dainties  and  no  wine.  So  also  with  Anacreon  and  Horace.  Why 
should  it  be  different  with  you]  But,  indeed,  one  sees  the  triple 
influence  of  Bacchus,  Apollo,  and  Ceres  in  the  verses  you  have  sent 
me.  Arid,  then,  have  you  not  music, — the  harp  lightly  touched  by 
nimble  hands,  and  the  lute  giving  time  to  the  fair  ones  as  they  dance 
in  the  old  tapestried  room1?  Believe  me,  where  the  ivory  keys  leap, 
and  the  accompanying  dance  goes  round  the  perfumed  hall,  there  will 
the  Song-God  be.  But  let  me  not  go  too  far.  Light  Elegy  is  the 
care  of  many  gods,  and  calls  any  one  of  them  by  turns  to  her  assist 
ance, — Bacchus,  Erato,  Ceres,  Venus,  and  little  Cupid  besides.  To 
poets  of  this  order,  therefore,  conviviality  is  allowable ;  and  they  may 
often  indulge  in  draughts  of  good  old  wine. 

Ay,  but  whoso  will  tell  of  wars  and  the  world  at  its  grandest, 

Heroes  of  pious  worth,  demigod  leaders  of  men, 
Singing  now  of  the  holy  decrees  of  the  great  gods  above  us, 

Now  of  the  realms  deep  down,  guarded  by  bark  of  the  dog. 
Sparely  let  such  an  one  still,  in  the  way  of  the  Samlan  master, 

I^ve,  and  let  homely  herbs  furnish  his  simple  repast ; 
Near  him,  in  beechen  bowl,  be  only  the  crystal-clear  water ; 

Sober  drafts  let  him  drink  fetched  from  the  innocent  spring; 
Added  to  this  be  a  youth  of  conduct  chaste"and  reproachless, 

Morals  rigidly  strict,  hands  without  sign  of  a  stain  : 
All  as  when  thou,  white-robed,  and  lustrous  with  waters  of  cleansing, 

Bisest,  augur,  erect,  facing  the  frown  of  the  gods. 
All  in  this  fashion,  they  tell  us,  after  the  loss  of  his  eyesight, 

Sage  Tiresias  lived ;  Theban  Linus  the  same ; 
Calchas,  the  fugitive  seer  from  the  doom  of  his  household ;  and  aged 

Orpheus  when  all  the  beasts,  lone  in  their  caves,  had  been  tamed ; 
Thus  too,  scanty  of  diet  and  drinking  but  water,  did  Homer 

Carry  his  Grecian  man  safe  through  the  laboursome  straits, 
Safe  through  the  palace  of  Circe  and  all  its  monstrous  bewitchments, 

Safe  where  siren-songs  lure  in  the  low-lying  bays, 
Safe  through  the  under-darkness,  where  by  a  bloody  libation 

Thralled  he  is  said  to  have  held  flocks  of  the  shadowy  ghosts  : 

Q  2 


228 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    IIISTOUY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


For  that  the  poet  is  dear  to'the  gods  and  the  priest  of  their  service,  ' 
Heart  and  mouth  alike  breathing  the  indwelling  Jove. 

And  now,  if  you  will  know  what  I  am  myself  doing,  or  indeed 
think  it  of  consequence  to  know  that  I  am  doing  anything,  here  is  the 
fact:—  We  are  engaged  in  singing  the  heavenly  birth  of  the  King  of 
Peace,  and  the  happy  age  promised  by  the  holy  books,  and  the  infant 
cries  and  cradling  in  a  manger  under  a  poor  roof  of  that  God  who 
rules,  with  his  Father,  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  the  sky  with  the 
new-sprung  star  in  it,  and  the  ethereal  choirs  of  hymning  angels,  and 
the  gods  of  the  heathen  suddenly  flying  to  their  endangered  fanes. 
This  is  the  gift  which  we  have  presented  to  Christ's  natal  day.  On 
that  very  morning,  at  daybreak,  it  was  first  conceived.  The  verses, 
which  are  composed  in  the  vernacular,  await  you  in  close  keeping  : 
you  shall  be  my  model  critic  to  whom  to  recite  them. 


>em  here  described  by  Milton  so 
^  -sts/ntially^as  having  beerTTns  occupation  out  and  just-after 

Nativity.     The  Ode",  now  so  classic,  and  whicfa-Saitam  pro- 


language,  accords  exactly  with'  the  ciescript 

Diodati The  poet  represents  himself lis  waking  before  tho 

dawn  on  Christmas  morning,  and  thinking  of  tHePgFBat 


TheiTthe 


thought  strikes  him  :  — 


Say,  heavenly  Muse,  shall  not  thy  sacred  vein 
Afford  a  present  to  the  infant  God  1 
Hast  thou  no  verse,  no  hymn,  or  solemn  strain, 
To  welcome  Him  to  this  his  new  abode, 
Now  while  the  heaven,  by  the  sun's  team  untrod, 
Hath  took  no  print  of  the  approaching  light, 
And  all  the  spangled  host  keep  watch  in  squadrons  bright? 

See  how  from  far  upon  the  eastern  road 
The  star-led  wizards  haste  with  odours  sweet  ! 
O  run  ;  prevent  them  with  thy  humble  ode, 
And  lay  it  lowly  at  his  blessed  feet  : 
Have  thou  the  honour  first  thy  Lord  to  greet, 
And  join  thy  voice  unto  the  angel  quire, 
From  out  his  secret  altar  touched  with  hallowed  fire.    / 

Accordingly,  at  this  point,  the  form  of  the  stanza  is  changed, 
and  "  The  Hymn  "begins  :  — 

Itlwas  the  winter  wild 
While  the  heaven-born  child 


ODE    ON   THE   NATIVITY.  229 

All  meanly  wrapt  in  the  rude  manger  lies ; 
Nature,  in  awe  to  Him, 
Had  doffed  her  gaudy  trim, 

With  her  great  Master  so  to  sympathise. 
It  was  no  season  then  for  her 
To  wanton  with  the  Sun,  her  lusty  paramour. 

Only  with  speeches  fair 
She  wooes  the  gentle  air 

To  hide  her  guilty  front  with  innocent  snow, 
And  on  her  naked  shame, 
Pollute  with  sinful  blame, 

The  saintly  veil  of  maiden  white  to  throw, 
Confounded  that  her  Master's  eyes 
Should  look  so  near  upon  her  foul  deformities. 

But  He,  her  fears  to  cease, 
Sent  down  the  meek-eyed  Peace. 

She,  crowned  with  olive  green,  came  softly  sliding 
Down  through  the  turning  sphere, 
His  ready  harbinger, 

With  turtle  wing  the  amorous  clouds  dividing; 
And,  waving  wide  her  myrtle  wafid, 
She  strikes  a  universal  peace  through  sea  and  land. 

Then,  after  farther  description  of  Nature  waiting,  and  of 
the  shepherds  feeding  their  flocks,  on  that  Syrian  night  and 
morning,  the  poet  imagines  the  heathen  gods  amazed  and 
confounded  by  the  great  event.  Apollo's  oracles  are  dumb ; 
the  Nymphs  and  Genii  forsake  their  haunts ;  Peor  and 
Baalim  and  mooned  Ashtaroth  feel  that  their  reign  is  over ; 
nor  is  Egyptian  Osiris  at  ease. 

He  feels  from  Juda's  land 
The  dreaded  Infant's  hand  ; 

The  rays  of  Bethlehem  blind  his  dusky  eyne  ; 
Nor  all  the  gods  beside 
Longer  dare  abide, 

Not  Typhon  huge  ending  in  snaky  twine  : 
Our  Babe,  to  show  his  godhead  true, 
Can  iii  his  swaddling  bands  control  the  damned  crew. 

So,  when  the  sun,  in  bed 
Curtained  with  cloudy  red, 

Pillows  his  chin  upon  an  orient  wave, 
The  nocking  shadows  pale 
Troop  to  the  infernal  jail, 

Each  fettered  ghost  slips  to  his  several  grave, 


230  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

And  the  yellow-skirted  fays 

Fly  after  the  night-steeds,  leaving  their  moon-loved  maze. 

Jt  has  been  supposed^ that-Jliis   Ode  waa_jsgritten  as.  %r 
College  exercise  for  the  Christmas  season.     There  seems  to 

ilpn,  but  ratEeFtiiat  it  was  a 
.suddenly 

finisEecT  for   his    own  pleasure.     This   is   the   more   likely_ 
because,  not  long  afterwards,  he  attempted  a  kincTof  con- 


may 


)oems  under  the  title  of  The^  Passio^i 
of  an  anniversary 

^sequel  tcTthe 

Ode-nn  tho  Nati  vitg-writteuj or  the  preceding  Ch5 
It  links  itself  to  that  ode,  in  fact,  both  by  similarity  of  stanza 
and  by  positive  reference  in  the  expression.     Thus  : — 

Erewhile  of  music  and  ethereal  mirth 
Wherewith  the  stage  of  Air  and  Earth  did  ring, 
And  joyous  news  of  heavenly  Infant's  birth, 
My  muse  with  Angels  did  divide  to  sing  ; 
But  headlong  joy  is  ever  on  the  wing, 

In  wintry  solstice  like  the  shortened  light 
Soon  swallowed  up  in  dark  and  long  outliving  night. 

For  now  to  sorrow  must  I  tune  my  song, 
And  set  my  harp  to  notes  of  saddest  woe, 
Which  on  our  dearest  Lord  did  seize  ere  long, 
Dangers,  and  snares,  and  wrongs,  and  worse  than  so, 
Which  he  for  us  did  freely  undergo  : 

Most  perfect  hero,  tried  in  heaviest  plight 
Of  labours  huge  and  hard,  too  hard  for  human  wight. 

The  author  had  projected  a  longish  poem,  the  theme  not  to 
include  the  whole  life  of  Christ  on  earth,  but  to  be  confined 
to  the  latest  scenes  of  the  agony  and  death  at  Jerusalem. 
He  stopped  short,  however,  at  the  eighth  stanza ;  after  which, 
when  the  piece  was  published  in  1645,  the  following  note 
was  inserted  : — "  This  subject  the  author,  finding  to  be 
"  above  the  years  he  had  when  he  wrote  it,  and  nothing 
' '  satisfied  with  what  was  begun,  left  it  unfinished."  The 


demic  inciHents~oTrEEaT  term  the  only  one  ofmuch  import=- 
ance  had  been  a  royal  injunction  addressed  on  the  4th  of 
March  to  the  authorities  of  the  University,  reflecting  severely 
on  some  laxities  of  discipline  which  had  been  reported  to 
the  King.  The  chief  matter  of  complaint  was  that  of  late 
years  many  students,  forgetful  of  "  their  own  birth  and 
quality/'  had  made  contracts  of  marriage  '  '  with  women  of 
mean  estate  and  of  no  good  fame"  in  the  town  of  Cam 
bridge,  greatly  to  the  discontent  of  their  parents  and  friends, 
and  to  the  discredit  of  the  University.  To  prevent  such 
occurrences  in  future,  the  authorities  were  enjoined  to  be 
more  strict  in  their  supervision  of  the  students.  Should 
any  innkeeper,  victualler,  or  other  inhabitant  of  the  town, 
have  a  daughter  or  other  girl  about  his  house  of  too  seduc 
tive  manners,  they  were  forthwith  to  order  her 
and,  should  the  family  resist,  they  _weriL_resort  to  im- 


MILTON'S  SIXTH  YEAE  AT  CAMBRIDGE:  1629-30.        231 

judgment  was  correct.     No  one  can  read  the  fragment  called 

The  Passion  without  feeling  its  inferiority  to  the  Ode  on  the          \ 

Nativity. 

Before  the  later  of  those  two  pieces  was  written  the  Lent 
Term  of  the  academic  year  hacTpassed  t(r~ar  close. — Of  ana-= — - 


if  necessaryBeforetnTPHvy 


If  students  were  sometimes  inveigled  into  marriages 
below  their  rank,  the  case  was  sometimes  the  contrary, 
and  very  idle  students  made  very  good  matches.  The 
reader  may  remember  Meade's  pupil,  young  Higham,  the 
good-for-nothing  fellow  who  TalsifiecL  the  bTHs  which  he 


sent  home   to  Tiis   father,   and   of  wfioin   Meade 
thereFore"~HS  soon  as  possible. 


That 


got   rid 
as  two~years  ago, 


and  since  then  ^feade  had  heard   little  of  Higham,  and 
wqj3_still  out  of  the  money  due  for  his  tuition.     Early 
•  March 


Jjicky  scapegrace   has  married   a  young 
tune,  a  relative  of  Stuteville's. 


232  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

"  March  6.  I  am  now  certainly  informed  that  it  is  my  pupil  that 
married  your  kinswoman,  and  that  they  were  married  about  Candle 
mas  last.  The  country  supposes  he  hath  gotten  a  rich  match.  I  hope 
therefore  I  shall  not  long  stay  for  the  debt  due  unto  me  since  he  was 
under  my  tuition.  I  have  patiently  waited  for  such  a  good  time  as 
this,  and  my  confidence  is  beyond  my  expectation  thus  strengthened 
by  the  relation  I  have  to  Dalham ;  which  interest  will  be  as  good  as 
a  solicitor  in  my  behalf.  The  debt  is  £7.  8s.  8d. ;  in  which  sum  I 
reckon  nothing  for  tuition  for  the  last  three  quarters  his  name  con 
tinued  in  the  College,  because  himself  discontinued  :  yet  the  ordinary 
arrearages  for  the  College  could  not  be  avoided,  which  are  some  9s. 

"March  13.  On  Thursday  my  sometime  pupil  and  your  new 
cousin,  in  the  vagary  which  new-married  men  are  wont  to  take,  came 
hither  to  my  chamber  in  his  bravery;  asked  pardon  for  his  long 
default ;  paid  me  my  debt ;  would  needs  force  a  piece  upon  me  in  token 
of  his  love ;  then  invited  me  to  dinner,  where  he  was  so  prodigal  as  if 
he  had  made  a  marriage-feast  ...  I  hear  his  younger  brother,  who 
was  here  also  with  him,  shall  marry  the  other  sister,  and  so  between 
them  have  your  uncle's  whole  estate." 

In  the  same  letters,  or  in  others  written  during  the  same 
month,  are  various  references  to  matters  of  public  gossip  at 
the  time,  such  as  the  King's  growing  obstinacy  in  raising 
money  by  monopolies,  Sir  John  Eliot's  imprisonment  in  the 
Tower,  and  the  Queen's  expected  accouchement.  In  the 
midst  of  this  miscellaneous  gossip,  here  is  one  horrible  little 
scrap  from  a  letter  of  March  27: — "At  Berkshire  assizes 
"was  a  boy  of  nine  years  old  condemned  and  executed  for 
' f  example,  for  burning  a  house  or  two ;  who  only  said  upon 
"  the  ladder,  'Forgive  me  this,  and  I'll  do  so  no  more,' ' 
One's  nerves  do  tingle  at  this ;  but  may  there  not  be  facts 
in  our  civilisation  that  shall  be  equal  tortures  and  incredi 
bilities  to  the  nerve  of  the  future  ? 

The  University  reassembled  for  the  Easter  term  on  the 
7th  of  April  iflsn  Tt^^L^n^  tinWpYPrj  thn*-  **«*.  +.»™ 
should  be  brought  prematurely  to  a  close.  Whoever  has 
read  tihfi  jw 

'staiit  subject  of  alarm  to  Er»g"d,^as  weir~as~~tD~Dthor 
nations,  was  the_Plague._^JEvery  ten  or  fifteen  years  there 
was  either  a  visit  of  it  or  a  rumour  of  its  coming.  The  last 
visit  had  been  in  162^6j__on^ which  occasion,  though  it 
raged  in  London  and  other  districts,  Cambridge  had  escaped. 
Only  five  years  had  elapsed,  and  now  again  the  Plague  was 


THE    PLAGUE    IN   CAMBRIDGE  :    1630.  233 

in  the  land.  There  were  cases  in  London  as  early  as  March, 
during  which  month  Meade,  while  sending  to  Stuteville 
other  such  general  pieces  of  news  as  we  have  mentioned, 
sends  him  also  abstracts  of  the  weekly  returns  of  deaths  in 
London.  te  The  last  week,"  he  writes  on  the  20th  of  March, 
"  there  died  two  of  the  plague  in  London,  one  in  Shoreditch, 
11  another  in  Whitechapel ;  and  I  saw  by  a  letter  yesterday 
"that  there  were  four  dead  this  week,  and  all  in  St.  Giles's 
"  parish."  In  subsequent  letters  we  hear  of  the  progress 
of  the  plague  in  the  metropolis,  and  at  length,  on  the  17th 
of  April,  1630,  or  ten  days  after  the  beginning  of  the  Easter 
term,  we  have  the  following  : — 

"  There  died  this  week  of  the  plague  at  London  11  ...  Six  parishes 
infected  ...  I  suppose  you  have  heard  of  the  like  calamity  begun 
and  threatened  us  here  in  Cambridge.  We  have  some  7  died  :  the 
first  last  week  (suspected  but  not  searched),  a  boy ;  on  Monday  and 
Tuesday,  two,  a  boy  and  a  woman,  in  the  same  house;  and  on 
Wednesday  two  women,  one  exceeding  foul,  in  two  houses.  On 
Thursday,  a  man,  one  Holmes,  dwelling  in  the  midst  between  the  two 
former  houses.  For  all  these  stand  together  at  Magdalen  College  end. 
It  began  at  the  further  house,  Forster's  a  shoemaker;  supposed  by 
lodging  a  soldier  who  had  a  sore  upon  him,  in  whose  bed  and  sheets 
the  nasty  woman  laid  two  of  her  sons,  who  are  both  dead,  and  a 
kinswoman.  Some  add  for  a  cause  a  dunghill  close  by  her  house, 
in  the  hole  of  which  the  fool  this  Lent-time  suffered  some  butchers, 
who  killed  meat  by  stealth,  to  kill  it  and  to  bury  the  garbage." 

^Wm-Uia-iia±fi  of  jhjajgttflr  t ha ,  plague  spread  with  fearful 
ra^idi|vj:n^ambridge ;  and  during  the  rest  of  the  year  that 
town  seemed  to^be  its  favourite  encampment.  Thus,  on  the 
24th  of  Aprilponiy  a  week  afk-r  the  preceding  letter  : — 

"  Our  University  is  in  a  manner  wholly  dissolved,  all  meetings  and  \ 
exercises  ceasing.  In  many  colleges  almost  none  left.  In  ours,  of 
twenty-seven  mess  we  have  not  five.  Our_  gates  strictly  kept ;  none 
but  Fellows  to  go  forth,  or  any  to  be  let  in  without  the  consent  of 
the  major  part  of  our  society,  of  which  we  have  but  seven  at  home  at 
this  instant  [i.  e.  seven  of  the  members  of  the  foundation] ;  only  a 
sizar  may  go  out  with  his  tutor's  ticket  upon  an  errand.  Our  butcher, 
baker,  and  chandler  bring  the  provisions  to  the  College-gates,  where 
the  steward  and  cook  receive  them.  We  have  taken  all  our  officers 
we  need  into  the  College,  and  none  must  stir  out.  If  he  doth,  he  is 
to  come  in  no  more.  Yea,  we  have  taken  three  women  into  our 
College,  and  appointed  them  a  chamber  to  lie  in  together  :  two  are 
bed-makers,  one  a  laundress.  We  have  turned  out  our  porter,  and 
appointed  our  barber  both  porter  and  barber,  allowing  him  a  chamber 
next  the  gates.  Thus  we  live  as  close  prisoners,  and,  I  hope,  without 
danger." 


234  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF  "HIS   TIME. 

(Before  the  end  of  the  same  month  most  of  the  Colleges  were 
formally  broken  up,  masters,  fellows,  and  students  flying 
from  Cambridge  as  from  a  doomed  place.  All  University 
exercises  and  meetings  proper  to  the  Easter  term  were 
adjourned  to  the  following  session.  Accordingly,  in  the 
history  of  the  University  the  remainder  of  this  academic  year 
is  a  mere  blank.  "  Grassante  peste,  nulla  publica  comitia" 
is  the  significant  entry  made  by  Baker  under  this  year.1 

"While  the  gownsmen  were  able  to  consult  their  safety  by 
flight,  the  poor  townsmen  were  necessarily  obliged  to  re 
main  where  they  were.  After  all,  the  mortality  in  Cambridge 
was  not  so  great  as  might  have  been  expected.  The  entire 
number  of  deaths  from  plague  from  April  1630  to  January 
1630-1  was  but  347,  or  somewhat  more  than  one  a  day 
for  the  whole  period.  To  understand  the  terror,  how 
ever,  one  must  imagine  the  state  of  the  town  during  the 
summer  months,  when  the  cases  were  most  numerous,  the 
unusually  deserted  streets,  the  colleges  all  locked  up,  and, 
most  fearful  of  all,  the  brown  and  white  tents  on  the  adja 
cent  commons,  whither  the  plague-patients  were  removed. 
Nor  was  the  plague  the  only  calamity.  What  with  the 
shutting-up  of  the  colleges,  what  with  the  interruption  of 
communication  with  the  rest  of  the  country,  business  was 
at  a  stand-still ;  hundreds  of  poor  persons  who  had  lived  by 
performing  offices  about  the  colleges  were  left  destitute ; 
and  tradesmen  who  had  been  in  tolerably  good  circum 
stances,  but  who  depended  on  their  receipts  rather  than 
their  savings,  were  suddenly  impoverished.  As  many  as 
2,800  persons,  or  839  families,  had  to  be  supported  by 
charity,  while  of  the  remainder  of  the  population  not  more 
than  140  persons  were  in  a  condition  to  contribute  to  their 
relief.  It  became  necessary  to  appeal  to  the  country  at 
large.  Accordingly,  a  royal  proclamation~[was  issued,  on 
the  25th  of  June  1630,  in  which,  after  setting  forth  the 
extraordinary  "misery  and  decay "  of  Cambridge,  his 
Majesty  instructs  the  Bishops  of  London,  Winchester,  and 

i  Harl.  MS.  7038. 


THE    PLAGUE    IN   CAMBRIDGE:    1630.  235 

Lincoln  to  take  means  for  a  general  collection  in  their 
dioceses  for  the  relief  of  the  afflicted  town.  Some  thousands 
of  pounds  were  collected.1 

No  man  won  such  golden  opinions,  by  his  brave  and 
humane  conduct  during  the  time  of  the  plague,  as  the  Vice- 
Chancellor,  Dr.. Butts.  While  most  of  the  otlJ^FHeads  had  ' 

fffiri  from    t-hpjmt^2l!2ILl]!l^-^mni1'pQ^   ^   niR  rOF!^  n'n^j  HI— 
"-T3OBjunctIon  with  a  few  others,  did  whatever  he  could  to 
maintain  order  and  distribute  relief.     The  following  is  an 
extract  from"srteffief~o¥  his,  s~ent  TnTthe "course  of  the  autumn 
to  Lord  Coventry,  as  High  Steward  of  the  Town  : — 

"The  sickness  is  much  scattered,  but  we  follow  your  Lordship's 
counsel  to  keep  the  sound  from  the  sick ;  to  which  purpose  we  have 
built  near  forty  booths  in  a  remote  place  upon  our  commons,  whither 
we  forthwith  remove  those  that  are  infected :  where  we  have  placed 
a  German  physician  who  visits  them  day  and  night ;  and  he  ministers 
to  them.  Besides  constables,  we  have  certain  ambulatory  officers  who 
walk  the  streets  night  and  day,  to  keep  our  people  from  needless  con 
versing,  and  to  bring  us  notice  of  all  disorders.  Through  God's  mercy, 
the  number  of  those  who  die  weekly  is  not  great  to  the  total  number 
of  the  inhabitants.  Thirty-one  hath  been  the  highest  number  in  a 
week,  and  that  but  once.  This  late  tempestuous  rainy  weather  hath 
scattered  it  into  some  places,  and  they  die  fast-  so  that  I  fear  an 
increase  this  week.  To  give  our  neighbours  in  the  country  content 
ment,  we  hired  certain  horsemen  this  harvest-time  to  range  and  scour 
the  fields  of  the  towns  adjoining,  to  keep  our  disorderly  poor  from 
annoying  them.  We  keep  great  store  of  watch  and  ward  in  all  fit 
places  continually.  We  printed  and  published  certain  new  orders 
for  the  better  government  of  the  people;  which  we  see  observed. 
We  keep  our  court  twice  a-week  and  severely  punish  all  delinquents. 
Your  Lordship,  I  trust,  will  pardon  the  many  words  of  men  in  misery. 
It  is  no  little  ease  to  pour  out  our  painful  passions  and  plaints  into 
such  a  bosom.  Myself  am  alone,  a  destitute  and  forsaken  man  :  not 
a  scholar  with  me  in  College ;  not  a  scholar  seen  by  me  without.  God 
all-sufficient,  I  trust,  is  with  me;  to  whose  most  holy  protection  I 
humbly  commend  your  Lordship,  with  all  belonging  unto  you,"  2 

Through  this  miserable  summer  and  autumn  Meade  was 
at  Dalham,  whither  his  good  friends,  Sir  Martin  and  Lady 
Stuteville,  had  invited  him,  and  where  he  was  so  happy, 
smoking  his  pipe,  talking  with  Sir  Martin  in  his  library, 
and  going  about  the  grounds,  that,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was 
not  without  regret  that  he  left  the  place  when  it  became 
necessary  to  return  to  his  College.  Milton  also  was  away 

1  Cooper,  III.  223-225.  2  Cooper,  III.  227-8. 


236  LIFE   OP    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY   OP   HIS   TIME. 

from  Cambridge^  —  living1.  we-jnay  suppose,  either  in  his 
-%tber*s  house  in  London,  or  in  some  suburban  seclusion,  if 
indeed  he  did  not  at  this  time  fulfil  his  promised  visit  to 
Young  at  Stownxarket.  Wherever  he  was,  it  was  probably 
in  this  summer  or  autumn,,  as  it  was  certainly  some  time  in 
"this-  year  1630,  that  there  came  from  his  pen  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  all  his  shorter  scraps  jpf  '..  .Engli  slT^|rsgrHEt-Tg' 
hie  famous  epitaph  on  Shakespeare,  afterwards  published 
and  dated  by  himself  as  follows  :-  —  -~ 

ON  SHAKESPEAKE,  1630. 

What  needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones 
The  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones, 
Or  that  his  hallowed  relics  should  be  hid 
Under  a  star-ypointing  pyramid  ? 
Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame, 
:^E^SE£g4kii 


Thou  in  our  woncler  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thyself  a  livelong  monument  ; 

For,  whilst  to  the  shame  of  slow-endeavouring  art, 

Thy  easy  numbers  flow,  and  that  each  heart 

Hath  from  the  leaves  of  thy  unvalued  book 

Those  Delphic  lines  with  deep  impression  took, 

Then  thou,  our  fancy  of  itself  bereaving, 

Dost  make  us  marble  with  too  much  conceiving, 

And  so  sepulchred  in  such  pomp  dost  lie 

That  kings  for  such  a  tomb  would  wish  to  die. 

These  lines  were  probably  written  on  the  blank  leaf  of  a 
copy  of  the  Folio  Shakespeare  of  1623,  the  only  edition  of 
Shakespeare's  collected  Plays  then  in  existence.  The  word 
ing  of  the  lines  might  almost  suggest  that  there  was  some 
talk  in  the  year  1630,  as  there  has  been  so  often  since,  of 
erecting  a  great  national  monument  to  Shakespeare,  distinct 
from  his  local  monument  in  Stratford  Church,  and  that 
Milton  thought  the  project  superfluous.  »Yory—  possibly, 
ho  WBverT-Miltoflr-  kad^Jbeen  reading  the  obituary  verses  to 
^Shakespeare  by  BenJonson  and  Leonard 
to  the  First  FQUo7^TQd~^nTy~ai^ptige^in  hisown  lines  an 
idea  already  expressed  in  both  those  pieces. 


MILTON'S  SEVENTH  YEAR  AT  CAMBRIDGE  :  1630-31.     237 


ACADEMIC   YEAE    1630-31. 

MILTON  setat.  22. 
Vice-chancellor ',  Dr.  HENRY  BUTTS  of  Benet  (re-elected  for  his  eminent  services 

in  the  preceding  year). 
Proctors,  PETER    ASHTON    of    Trinity  College,  and    KOGEII    HOCKCHESTER    of 

Pembroke. 
MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10, 1630,  to  December  16, 1630. 

LENT  TERM January  13,  1630-1,  to  April  1,  1631. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  20, 1631,  to  July  8, 1631. 


Tift  Plague  had  greatlyabated  at  Cambridge  by 
Obtober,  it  had  not  quite  gone,  ancPit  was  not  till  late  in 
November  that  tne  Oolieges  began  again  k>  beTuTL  Meade 
siemsTo  Iiavenbeen~one  of  the  ITrst~to TeTurnT On  the  20th 
of  October  he  writes  to  Stuteville,  not  from  Cambridge,  but 
from  Balsham,  a  village  near  Cambridge,  as  follows  : — 

"  Coming  to  the  College,  I  found  neither  scholar  nor  fellow  re 
turned,  but  Mr.  Tovey  only,  and  he  forced  tp  dine  and  sup  in  chamber 
with  Mr.  Power  and  Mr.  Siddall,  unless  he  would  be  alone  and  have 
one  of  the  three  women  to  be  his  sizar,  for  there  is  but  one  scholar  to 
attend  upon  them.  I,  being  not  willing  to  live  in  solitude,  nor  to  be 
joined  with  such  company,  after  some  few  hours'  stay  in  the  College, 
turned  aside  to  Balsham,  hoping  to  have  chatted  this  night  with  the 
Doctor  [who  '  the  Doctor '  was  we  do  not  know] ;  but,  alas !  I  find 
him  gone  to  Dalham,  but  hope  he  will  return  soon,  and  therefore  stay 
,  here  to  expect  him.  I  left  order  to  have  word  sent  me  as  soon  as  Mr. 
Chappell  or  Mr.  Gell  come  home,  and  then  I  am  for  the  College." 

The  deaths  during  the  preceding  week  had  been  but 
three,  and  were  diminishing.  On  the  27th  Meade  again 
writes  from  the  same  place,  saying  he  had  been  in  Cam 
bridge,  partly  "to  furnish  himself  with  warmer  clothing," 
partly  to  see  if  any  of  his  College  friends  had  come  back. 
No  more,  however,  had  yet  made  their  appearance,  and 
Chappell  had  written  to  say  that  he  should  not  return  for  a 
month.  Meade  is  pining  for  society,  and  says  his  ' '  heart  is 
at  Dalham."  It  is  not  till  the  27th  of  November  that  he 
finds  himself  once  more  in  his  element.  On  that  day  he 
writes : — 

"  I  have  been  at  the  College  ever  since  Monday  at  dinner ;  and  yet 
never  so  well  could  I  fancy  myself  to  be  at  my  old  and  wonted  home 
as  now  when  I  take  my  pen  on  Saturday  evening  to  write  according 


[ 


238  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

to  my  custom  unto  Dalham.  Such  is  the  force  of  so  long  a  continued 
course,  which  is  almost  become  a  second  nature  to  me.  .  .  .  All  the 
play-houses  in  London  are  now  again  open.  ...  I  will  add  a  list  of 
our  College  officers  and  retainers  who  either  have  died  or  beea.  en 
dangered  by  the  plague,  —  which  I  understood  not  well  till  now  :  — 
1.  Our  second  cook  and  some  three  of  his  house.  2.  Our  gardener 
and  all  his  house.  3.  Our  porter's  child  ;  and  himself  was  at  the 
green  [i.  e.  among  the  sick  on  the  common].  4.  Our  butcher  and  three 
of  his  children.  5.  Our  baker,  who  made  our  bread  in  Mr.  Atkinson's 
bake-house,  had  two  of  his  children  died,  but  then  at  his  own  house, 
as  having  no  employment  at  the  bake-house.  6.  Our  manciple's 
daughter  had  three  sores  in  her  father's  house;  but  her  father  was 
then  and  is  still  in  the  College.  7.  Our  laundress  (who  is  yet  in  the 
College)  her  maid  died  of  the  infection  in  her  dame's  house.  _  8.  Add 
one  of  our  bed-makers  in  the  College,  whose  son  was  a  prentice  in  an 
house  in  the  parish  whither  the  infection  came  also.  .  .  .  We  keep  all 
shut  in  the  College  still,  and  the  same  persons  formerly  entertained 
are  still  with  us.  We  have  not  had  this  week  company  enough  to  be 
in  commons  in  the  hall,  but  on  Sunday  we  hope  we  shall.  It  is  not 
to  be  believed  how  slowly  the  University  returneth  :  none  almost  but 
a  few  sophisters  to  keep  their  Acts.  We  are  now  eight  Fellows  : 
Benet  College  but  four;  scholars  not  so  many.  The  most  in  Trinity 
and  St.  John's,  &c.  The  reassembling  of  the  University  for  Acts  and 
sermons  is  therefore  again  deferred  to  the  16th  of  December." 


They  did  dine  in  hall  in  Christ's  on  Sunday  the  28th  of 
November;  and  on  the  5th  of  December  Meade  was  able  to 
report  that  there  had  been  no  case  of  plague  during  the  past 
week.  The  students  then  rapidly  returned ;  but,  for  many 
years  to  come,  there  was  a  great  falling  off  in  the  total 
numbers  of  the  University,  in  consequence  of  the  disaster 
of  this  fatal  year. 

returned — 4o — (yfymbridcrfi.   "Kh^rf*    was   one 


_ 

change  in  Chrisi^g^College,  not  noted  by  Meade,  which,  if 
tradition  is  toJop  trngt.^  Trmafr  have  interested  hJm_jn_a_ 
ifl/p  manner.     AsaB.A.  of  two  years'  standing,  and  as 
an  acknowledged  ornament  of  his  College,,  lie  was  by  this  tnmT 
entitled  to  suppose  that,  when  a  fellowship   became  vacant 
so  as  to  be  at  the  disposal  of  the  College  authorities,  he  had 
as  good  a  claim  to  it  as  any  other.     That  he  had  some  ex 
pectation  of  this  kind  would  be 


Baker,  thej^mbridge__antiquaryj  had  Hok-kaadod  jcLawa--tko 
traditioih  But,  if  so,  hejwas  disappointedL__Jiist  about_the 
time  of  the  breaking-up  of  the  College  on  account  of  the 
plague,  it  was  known  that  Mr.  Sandelands,  one  of  the 


EDWARD   KING   PROMOTED   TO   A   FELLOWSHIP.  239 

younger  fellows,  was  about  to  resign.     The  following  docu 
ment  will  show  who  was  to  be  his  successor.     It  is  a  royal 
mandate  addressed  to  the  Master  and  Fellows  of  Christ's  :  — 
"  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 
f  '  made  void,  and  being  well  ascertained  both  of  tha-prBseiat-—  ^ 
/«u~ffieienj3y  and  future  hopes  of  a  young  schola^  Edward 
{i"Kinj^  noV  B.A^  We,  out  ojfjOurprincely  care  that^Eh~ose^ 
"jiopeMjparts  in  him  may  receive^cherishing  and  entourage-  ~ 
rrrn.nionslypTftaHfld  HO  far  to   express  Oar  royal 


"intention  towar  ds_him  _,as_j^ej:ebv_tQ  .wjll  an  d  require  ,you 
"that,  when  the  same  fellowship  shall  become  void,  you  do 
(  '  presently  admit  the  said  Edward  King  into  the  same,  ribt- 
fr"withstanding  any  statute,  ordinance,  or  constitution,  to 
"  the  contrary.  And  for  the  doing  thereof  these  shall  be 
{  '  both  a  sufficient  warrant  unto  you,  and  We  shall  account 
"  it  an  acceptable  service.  —  Given  under  Our  signet  at  Our 
"manor  of  St.  James's,  June  10,  1630,  in  the  sixth  year  of 
te  Our  reign."  l  Such  royal  interferences  with  the  exercise  of 
College  and  University  patronage  were  far  from  uncommon, 
and  caused  a  good  deal  of  complaint.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  how,  in  the  case  of  a  youth  of  such  influential  connexions 
as  King,  the  favour  should  have  been  obtained.  The  missive 
must  have  reached  the  College  when  there  were  few  Fellows 
there  to  act  upon  it  ;  nor  can  we  tell  at  what  precise  time  it 
was  carried  into  effect.  jBythe  time  that  Milton  returned 
tp_the__Colleg%  however^  the  fellowship  of  S  an  d  elan  ds  had 
passed  to  King.  Prpbablyi_any_  _feeling_  of  disappointment 
that  Hilton  may  have  had  was  by  this  time  over  ;  linTTKing 
was  really  an  amiable  and  accomplished  youth,  liked  by  "aft",  ' 
and  by  Milton  not  least.  It  was  rather  hard,  however,"  for"" 
MirfonTnowjn  hisJarnntly^iHTrd  year,-ta  sec  a  youth  of  j 
.eighteen  seated  above  him  at  the  Fellows'  table.2 

Hardly  had  matters  settled  into  their  ordinary  course  in 

1  Copy  by  Baker  (Harl.  MS.   7036,  2  About  a  year  after  this  date  there 

p.   220)   of    "  Some  notes  concerning  was  another  Fellowship  vacant  in  the 

Christ's  College,  from  a  MS.  Book  of  College  ;  on  which  occasion  I  find,  from 

Mr.  Michael  Honeywood."  a  letter  of  Bainbrigge's  iii  the  State 


240 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 


Cambridge  in  the  winter  of  1630-31  when  an  incident 
occurred  of  some  local  note.  This  was  the  death  of  old 
Hobson  the  carrier,  in  the 

his  journeys  to  and  from  iTondon 
had  been  prohibited,  as  theyhadjbeeiijor  a  similar  reason 
~T625.     (Jn~this  occasion,  ^however,  the  interrujrEio! 


n 


a  longer  period  than  on^thejrevious  one.  ^From  April 
the  summer  and  autumn,  the  old  man 


had  been  obliged  to  remain  in  Cambridge,  shut  up,  like  the 
rest  of  the  inhabitants,  for  fear  of  the  infection.  In  his 
case  the  privation  was  unusually  hard.  "  Heigh  ho  !  "  says 
the  carrier  in  Shakespeare's  Henry  IV.,  going  into  the  inn- 
yard  at  Rochester  early  in  the  morning,  with  a  lantern  in 
his  hand,  to  prepare  for  his  journey,  —  <"  heigh  ho  !  an't  bo 
"not  four  by  the  day,  Fll  be  hanged:  Charles's  Wain  is 
ff  over  the  new  chimney/'  There  is  the  joy  of  a  carrier's  life, 
and  Hobson  now  missed  it.  Tough  old  man  as  he  was,  the 
}  plague  never  came  near  him  ;  but  ennui  took  him  off.  Some 
time  in  November  or  December,  just  as  the  plague  TTET} 
and  IfeTf  a3TTJhe~  prospect  of  mounting  his  wain  again, 


he  took  to  his  bed  ;  011  "the  2  ith  of  December  he  had  his 
w^jOTa/wn^out  ;  he  added  codicils  to  this  will  on  the  27th 
and  31st  of  December  and  on  the  1st  of  January;  and  on 
tljjs  last  day  he  dig(L_  He  was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  St. 
Benedict's  Church.  Both  his  wives  had  died  before  him,  as 
well  as  his  three  sons  and  two  of  his  daughters  out  of  the 
family  borne  to  him  by  his  first  wife.  His  eldest  son, 
Thomas,  however,  had  been  married,  and  had  left  a  family 
of  six  children  ;  and  to  these  six  grandchildren  and  his  two 
surviving  daughters,  —  one  of  whom  had  married  Sir  Simon 
Clarke,  a  Warwickshire  baronet,  —  was  bequeathed  the  bulk 
of  the  carrier's  property.  Over  and  above  the  lands  and 


Paper  Office  (July  20,  1631),  that  the 
Secretary  of  State,  Lord  Dorchester, 
was  pressing  the  election  of  young  Shute 
(see  p.  146),  then  just  admitted  B.A. 
Bainbrigge  writes  to  Dorchester,  pro 
fessing  his  willingness  to  do  all  he  could 
for  Shute's  interests  at  another  time, 
but  has  evidently  made  up  his  mind  in 
favour  of  some  one  else,  and  is  much 


perplexed  lest  his  Lordship  should  be 
angry.  "In  all,  I  humbly  beg,"  he 
says,  "  your  Honour's  better  thoughts 
to  hold  me  an  honest  man."  From  the 
glimpse  such  letters  give  of  the  in 
trigues  in  elections  to  Fellowships,  I 
should  imagine  that  Milton's  chance 
was  small  throughout. 


EPITAPHS    ON    HOBSON    THE    CAREIER.  241 

goods,  in  Cambridgeshire  and  elsewhere,  distributed  amongst 
them,  there  remained  a  considerable  property  in  houses, 
land,  and  money,  to  be  distributed  among  a  sister-in-law,  a 
godson,  two  cousins,  and  other  kindred,  and  to  furnish  small 
bequests  to  his  executors,  and  one  or  two  acquaintances  and 
servants.  Nor  hajUELobson  forgotten  the  town  of  his  affec 
tions.  During  kisjife  he  had^FeerTa  charitable  tiiid  public- — 
v— - — spirite'CTman.  As  lately  as  1628  he  had  made  over  to  twelve— 

-trustees,  on  tllBI^rt-^-4fhe— Umversity  and  TownT^^mes- 
suage  and  various  tenements  in  the  parish  of  St.  Andrew, 
without  Barnwell-gate,  in  order  to  the  erection  there  of  a 
workhouse,  where  poor  people  who  had  no  trade  might  be 
taught  some  honest  one,  and  where  also  stubborn  rogues 
and  beggars  might  be  compelled  to  earn  their  livelihood  by 
their  own  labours.  To  further  this  scheme  he  now  left  by 
his  will  100Z.  more,  for  the  purchase  of  land  near  the  work 
house.  But  perhaps  his  most  remarkable  bequest  to  the 
town  was  one  of  a  f&iuiitar_y_jmture,  which  may  have  been 

.jsuggested  by  the  recent  experience  of  what  was  needed, — 
to  wic,  "  seven  le^illor^ai^uTe^TaliS^7^^  the  perpetual 
nmiiTihfinn.nfipi  of  thg_conduit  in  Cambridge,  togetFer  wiUTa 
present  .sum__of  Wl.  to  be  applied  in  raising  the  top  of  the 
conduit  half  a  yard  higher  thanTt  was.1  The  consequence' 
is  that  now  the  visitor  to  Oambridge~~sees  what  is  not  to 

-be  seen  perhaps  in  any  other  town  in  Great  Britain,  not 
.only  a  handsome  conduit  in  the  middle  of  the  town,  but  a. 


of  fresh  clear  water  running  along  the  main  streets,  in 
the  glace  wherein  other  towns  there  is 


At  Cambridge  Hobson  is  still,  in  a  manner, 
_'     Milton's  two  epitaphs  on  the  celebrated  carrier,  though 
h n morons  in  their~foTmyilave  a  certain" Imfdli n ess" m~tlietr~" 
spirit"."    As  fenrtlliactfiictja  of  the  puel/s  Oambi'idge~1tfev  they 
are  worth  quoting  : — 

"  On  the  University  Carrier,  who  sickened  in  the  time  of  the  Vacancy, 
being  forbid  to  go  to  London  by  reason  of  the  Plague. 

Here  lies  old  Hobson.     Death  hath  broke  his  girt, 
And  here,  alas  !  hath  laid  him  in  the  dirt ; 

i  Cooper's  Aimals,  III.  234-5. 
VOL.    I.  R 


21-2  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Or  else,  the  ways  being  foul,  twenty  to  one 

He's  here  stack  in  a  slough,  and.  overthrown. 

'Twas  such  a  shifter  that,  if  truth  were  known, 

Death  was  half  glad  when  he  had  got  him  down 

For  he  had  any  time  this  ten  years  full 

Dodged  with  him  betwixt  Cambridge  and  The  Bull 

And  surely  Death  could  never  have  prevailed 

Had  not  his  weekly  course  of  carriage  failed ; 

But,  lately,  finding  him  so  long  at  home, 

And  thinking  now  his  journey's  end  was  come, 

And  that  he  had  ta'en  up  his  latest  inn, 

In  the  kind  office  of  a  chamber] in 

Showed  him  his  room  where  he  must  lodge  that  night, 

Pulled  off  his  boots,  and  took  away  the  light. 

If  any  ask  for  him,  it  shall  be  said, 

"  Hobson  has  supped,  and's  newly  gone  to  bed." 

Another  on  the  Same. 

Here  lieth  one  who  did  most  truly  prove 
That  he  could  never  die  while  he  could  move  ; 
So  hung  his  destiny,  never  to  rot 
While  he  might  still  jog  on  and  keep  his  trot ; 
Made  of  sphere-metal,  never  to  decay 
Until  his  revolution  was  at  stay. 

ime  numbers  motion,  yet  (without  a  crime 
'Gainst  old  truth)  motion  numbered  out  his  time  ; 
And,  like  an  engine  moved  with  wheel  and  weight, 
His  principles  being  ceased,  he  ended  straight. 
Rest,  that  gives  all  men  life,  gave  him  his  death, 
And  too  much  breathing  put  him  out  of  breath  ; 
Nor  were  it  contradiction  to  affirm 
Too  long  vacation  hastened  on  his  term. 
Merely  to  drive  the  time  away  he  sickened, 
Fainted,  and  died,  nor  would  with  ale  be  quickened. 
"  Nay,"  quoth  he,  on  his  swooning  bed  outstretched, 
"  If  I  mayn't  carry,  sure  I'll  ne'er  be  fetched, 
"  But  vow,  though  the  cross  doctors  all  stood  hearers, 
"  For  one  carrier  put  down  to  make  six  bearers." 
Ease  was  his  chief  disease ;  and,  to  judge  right, 
He  died  for  heaviness  that  his  cart  went  light. 
His  leisure  told  him  that  his  time  was  come, 
And  lack  of  load  made  his  life  burdensome, 
That  even  to  his  last  breath  (there  be  that  say't), 
As  he  were  pressed  to  death,  he  cried  "  More  weight ! 
But,  had  his  doings  lasted  as  they  were, 
He  had  been  an  immortal  carrier. 


CHEISTOPIIEK  MILTON   ADMITTED   AT   CHRIST'S.  243 

Obedient  to  the  moon,  he  spent  his  date 
In  course  reciprocal,  and  had  his  fate 
Linked  to  the  mutual  flowing  of  the  seas  ; 
Yet,  strange  to  think,  his  wain  was  his  increase. 
His  letters  are  delivered  all  and  gone  ; 
Only  remains  this  superscription. 

JThese  verses  might  have  been  written  in  London,,  but  they 
seem  rather  to  have  been  written  at  Cambridge.  At  all 
events,  Milton  must  have  been  at  CamJDridge~oirthe  T5th  of 
the  month  following  that  of  the  carrier's  death  -,  oiLwhich 
day  the  following  entry  was  made  in  the  admission-book  of 


"Feb.  15,  1630-31.  -^Christopher  Milton,  Londonerj^SjOjLiiLJJcitmj^ 
grounded  in  lettepg^qfrdggpMrfr-  Grill  in  PaulV^puHicrschool,  was  ad- 
'  mitted  a  lesser  pensioiierriir  the  loth  yeardTEis  age,  under  the  charge 
t>f-Mr;  -Tovey."  - 

v.ThuSj  it^seemsj  Milton's  younger  brother  Christopher,  after 
having  been  educated  at  the  same  school  in  London  as  him-  — 
'  self,  was  sent  to  the  same  College  in  CambridgeTand  there 
placed  under  the   same  tutor.     The  fact   proves,   at  least, 
~"  that,  ^hateverTault  Milton  may  hav 


tutor  Chappelljjhe  was  satisfied  with  Tovey.  He  was  done 
wltli  Tovey  now  himself,  but  could  superintend  his  younger 
brother's  behaviour  under  the  tutorship  of  that  gentleman. 
On  April  4,  1631,  or  within  two  months  after  Christopher 
Milton's  admission  at  Christ's,  we  may  here  note,  there  were 
matriculated  in  the  University  books^twiL-new  st.nd  Pints  of 
sjich  subsequent  celebrity  as  was  never  to  be  Christopher's. 
These  were  Isaac  Barrow,  studentpf  FetelLOUse,and  John 


From  this  point  forward  we  have  not  the  advantage  of 
Meade's  letters  to  Stuteville,  the  series  closing  in  April 
1631.2  It  is  from  other  sources  that  we  learn  that,  soon 

i  Extract  from  the  admission-book  the  Diary  of  John  Rous,  Incumbent  of 

of  Christ's,  furnished  me  by  Mr.  Wol-  Santon-Dotcnham,  Suffolk,  from  1625  to 

steiiholme  ;  and  Harl.  MS.  7041.  1642,  edited  by  Mrs.  Everett  Green  for 

«  The  cause  of  this  cessation  of  the  Camden  Society  :—'v  That  day  at 

Meade's  letters  to  Stuteville  I  find  "  night  (June  13,  1631),  Sir  Martin 

explained  in  the  following  passage  in  "  Stutvil  of  Dalham,  coming  from  the 

R2 


244 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


after  Chnstoghe£_Miltcm^_^4i^ission  at  Christ's,  he  had  the_ 
Opportunity  of  seeing_a  Latin  comedy  in_oneof  tlie  Colleges. 
The  College  was  Queens'  ;  the  title  of  thejnece_was  Senile 
Odium;  the  actors  were  the  young  men  of  Queens'  ;  and  the 
author  was  Peter  Hausted,  M.A.,  of  that  society,  afterwards 
a  clergyman  in  Hertfordshire.  The  play  was  printed  at 
Cambridge  in  1633  ;  on  which  occasion,  among  the  com 
mendatory  Latin  verses  prefixed  to  it,  were  some  Iambics 
by  Edward  King  of  Christ's. 

To  the  same  Easter  Term  of  1631  is  to  be  referred  the 
composition  of  another  of  Milton's  minor  English  poems, 
that  entitled  An  TVpiiajthjrti.  iTi.fi  Mri.rrMnnfiss  nf  Winf-faster^ 
The  My  th"g~£<wrrm'^l  ro^-J^ajv,  nrm  pf  jhhftj^nWh  f.ora  Of 
Viscount.-  f-Uvagp.  of  Rook  S.iv.igOj  Chpshii^  by  his  > 
Elizabeth  Darcy,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Earl  Rivers.  She 
John  Paulet7~Efth  MarquisTof 


in 


February  1628.  Both  before  and  after  lier  maTriBgeTto  this 
Catholic  no"5Ie~man,  afterwards  distinguished  t'or  his  loyalty 
Wars,  she  was""^pa&eiT  of  a^~ohe  of  the  most 


oeautiful"  an 

Suddenly,  on  the  15th  of  April  1631,  while  she  was  yet  in 
tlie  bloom  of  early  youth,  she  was  cut  off  by  a  miserable 
accident.  The  circumstances  are  recorded  in  the  following 
passage  in  a  news-letter  of  the  period:  —  "  The  lady  Marquess 
tf  of  Winchester,  daughter  to  the  Lord  Viscount  Savage, 
"  had  an  imposthume  upon  her  cheek  lanced  ;  the  humour 
"  fell  down  into  her  throat  and  quickly  dispatched  her,  being 
"big  with  child  :  whose  death  is  lamented  as  well  in  respect 
"  of  other  her  virtues  as  that  she  was  inclining  to  become  a 
"Protestant/'1  The  incident  seems  to  have  caused  general 


"  Sessions  at  Bury  with  George  Le 
"  Hunt,  went  into  the  Angel,  and  there, 
"  being  merry  in  a  chair,  either  ready 
"  to  take  tobacco,  or  having  newly  done 
"  it,  leaned  backward  with  his  head, 
"  and  died  immediately." 

1  Letter  dated  "  London,  April  21, 
1631,"  sent  from  John  Pory  to  Sir 
Thomas  Puckering,  Bart.,  of  Priory, 


Warwickshire,  and  quoted  in  The 
Court  and  Times  of  Charles  /.,  vol.  II. 
p.  106.  Pory,  who  had  been  member 
of  Parliament  and  secretary  to  the 
Colony  of  Virginia,  was  a  London  cor 
respondent  of  Meade  and  Puckering. 
He  was  perhaps  an  uncle  or  other 
relation  of  Milton's  College-fellow, 
Pory. 


THE    MARCHIONESS    OF    WINCHESTER.  245 

and  unusual  regret.  It  forms  the  subject  of  one  of  the 
longest  of  JBen  Jonson's  elegies,  printed  in  his  Under 
woods  : — 

"Stay,  stay !_ I  feel 

A  horror  in  me ;  all  my  blood  is  steel ; 

Stiff,  stark,  my  joints  'gainst  one  another  knock  ! 

Whose  daughter  *?— Ha  !  great  Savage  of  the  Rock. 

He's  good  as  great.     I  am  almost  a  stone  ; 

And,  ere  I  can  ask  more  of  her,  she's  gone  !— 
*  *  *  * 

Her  sweetness,  softness,  her  fair  courtesy, 

Her  wary  guards,  her  wise  simplicity, 

Were  like  a  ring  of  virtues  'bout  her  set, 

And  piety  the  centre  where  all  met. 

A  reverend  state  she  had,  an  awful  eye, 

A  dazzling,  yet  inviting  majesty  : 

What  Nature,  Fortune,  Institution,  Fact 

Could  sum  to  a  perfection  was  her  act. 

How  did  she  leave  the  world  !  with  what  contempt  ! 

Just  as  she  in  it  lived,  and  so  exempt 

From  all  affection  !    When  they  urged  the  cure 

Of  her  disease,  how  did  her  soul  assure 

Her  sufferings,  as  the  body  had  been  away, 

And  to  the  torturers,  her  doctors,  say  : — 

'  Stick  on  your  cupping-glasses ;  fear  not ;  put 

1  Your  hottest  caustics  to  ;  burn,  lance,  or  cut : 

'  Tis  but  the  body  which  you  can  torment, 

'  And  I  into  the  world  all  soul  was  sent.' " 

Davenant  and  others  of  the  poets  of  the  day  also  celebrated 
the  melancholy  event.1  How  itjcame  to  interest  Milton's 
muse  does  not  appear:  buljbhe^KlHnes~~gf  Milto»~QiL_thc. 


have  come  into  the  hands  of  many  who 


This  rich  marble  doth  inter 

The  honoured  wife  of  Winchester, 

A  Viscount's  daughter,  an  Earl's  heir, 

Besides  what  her  virtues  fair 

Added  to  her  noble  birth, 

More  than  she  could  own  from  Earth. 

1  In  the  poems  of  Sir  John  Beaumont,  daughter  of    Thomas    Cecil,   Earl    of 

printed   posthumously  by  his   son  in  Exeter,    and    grand-daughter    of    the 

1629,  there  are  some  lines  on  the  death  great  Cecil,  was  the  wife  of  William 

of  "  the  truly  noble  and  excellent  Lady,  Paulet,  the  fourth  Marquis  of   Win- 

the  Lady  Marquesse  of   Winchester."  Chester,  and  was  the  mother  of  the  fifth 

The  Marchioness  whom  Beaumont  cele-  Marquis,  the  husband  of  Milton's  Mar- 

brates,  however,  was  not  the  one  cele-  chioness.     She  died  as  early  as  1614  ; 

brated  by  Jonson,'  Davenant,  and  Mil-  and  Beaumont's  lines  must  have  been 

ton,  but  a  preceding  Marchioness,  who,  written  in  that  year.    This  explanation 

had  she  lived,  would  have   been  the  is  necessary,  as  the  two  ladies  have  been 

mother-in-law  of  this  one.     Lucy  Cecil,  confounded  by  commentators  on  Milton. 


246  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Summers  three  times  eight  save  one 

She  had  told ;  alas  !  too  soon 

After  so  short  time  of  breath, 

To  house  with  darkness  and  with  death  ! 

*  #  *  * 

Once  had  the  early  matrons  run 
To  greet  her  of  a  lovely  son  ; 
And  now  with  second  hope  she  goes, 
And  calls  Lucina  to  her  throes  ; 
But,  whether  by  mischance  or  blame, 
Atropos  for  Lucina  came, 
And  with  remorseless  cruelty 
Spoiled  at  once  both  fruit  and  tree. 

*  #  *  * 

Gentle  Lady,  may  thy  grave 
Peace  and  quiet  ever  have  ! 
After  this  thy  travail  sore 
Sweet  rest  seize  thee  evermore, 
That,  to  give  the  world  increase, 
Shortened  hast  thy  own  life's  lease ! 
Here,  besides  the  sorrowing 
That  thy  noble  house  doth  bring, 
Here  be  tears  of  perfect  moan 
Wept  for  thee  in  Helicon  ; 
And  some  flowers  and  some  bays, 
For  thy  hearse  to  strew  the  ways, 
Sent  thee  from  the  banks  of  Came, 
Devoted  to  thy  virtuous  name. 

There  is  some  interest  in  comparing  the_grace  of  these  lines 
by  the_young  Cambridge  student  with  the  more  ponHerousT 
tribute  which  the  veteran  laurt 
occasion^1 

i  TVre  is  an  early  manuscript  copy  of  Chr.  Coll.  Camlr."   It  seems  possible, 

of  Milton's  Epitaph  on  the  Marchioness  therefore,  that  the  poem  appeared  in 

of  Winchester  in  volume  1446  of  the  some  fugitive  printed  form  before  it 

Ayscough  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum.  caught  the  eye  of  this  collector.     The 

It  contains  pieces  by  Ben  Jonson,  Wil-  «*ly  important  difference  between  this 

Ham  Stroud,  and  other  poets  of  the  MS.  copy  and  the  poem  as  now  printed 

time  of  Charles,  transcribed  by  some  occurs  after   line    14 ;  where,   for   o:ir 

private  collector  for  his  own  satisfac-  present  eleven  lines  15—25,  this  MS. 

tion.      Milton's    poem    occurs   at    pp.  g"res  but  seven,  thus  :— 

72-74.    It  is  headed,  "  On  the   Mar-  "  Seven  times  had  the  yearly  star 

chionesse  of  Winchester,  whoe  died  in  In  every  sign  set  up  his  car 

childbedd:  Ap.  15,  1631." — a  heading  Siace  for  her  they  did  request 

which  has  enabled  me  to  insert  in  the  The  God  that  sits  at  marriage  feast, 

text    the    exact    date    of    the    event,  When  first  the  early  matrons  run 

hitherto  known  but  approximately  ;  and  To  greet  her  of  her  lovely  son  ; 

at  the  end  is  subscribsd  "  Jo.  Milton  And  now  with  second  hope,"  &c. 


MILTON'S    LAST    YEAR   AT    CAMBRIDGE:    1631-2.  247 


ACADEMIC    YEAR    163 1-2. 

MILTON  a) tat.  23. 

rice-Chancellor,  Dr.  HENRY  BUTTS  of  Benet  (elected  to  the  office  for  the  third 

time,  in  unusual  compliment  to  his  zeal  and  efficiency). 

Proctors,  THOMAS  TYRWHIT  of  St.  John's,  and  LIONEL  GATFIELD  of  Jesus. 

MICHAELMAS  TERM  .  October  10,  1631,  to  December  16,  1631. 

LENT  TERM January  13.  1631-2,  to  March  23,  1631-2. 

EASTER  TERM  ....  April  11,  1632,  to  July  6.  1632. 


This  was  to  be  Milton's  last  year  at  Cambridge  ;  and,  as 
it  involved  his  preparations  for  his  M.  A.  degree,  it  was  neces 
sarily  the  busiest  of  the  three  subsequent  to  his  atcairitng 
the  degree  of  Bachelor.  During  this  session,  accordingly, 
aTinost  the  only  thing  of  a  non-academical  character  we 
have  from  his  pen  is  the  famous  English  sonnet__"  On  his 
having  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty  -three."  Ifcjadll  be  best  to 
defer  farther  notice  of  that  Sonnet  till  it  can  be  taken  in 
connexion  with  an  English  letter  of  Milton's,  of  somewhat 
later  date,  with  which  it  is  associated  biographically. 

Late  in  1(331  there  was  published  at  Cambridge  a  volume 
of  academical  verses,  to  which  Milton,  if  he  had  chosenTlrnght 
have  been  a  contribu^or._j[t  was  now  eighteen  months  since 
a  living  heir  to  the  throne  had  been  born  in  young  Prince 
Charles,  afterwards  Charles  II.  ;  .but,  as  the  event  had 
happened  when  the  University  was  broken  up  by  tLTe~plagu~e~ 
(May  29,  1630}^  Cambridge  "..'had.,  not"-  been  able,  like  .  her~ 
more  fortunate  sister  of  Oxford,  _tQ_CQllect_  Jher  muses  for 


customary  homage.  The  omission  had  lain  heavily  on 
her  heart;  and,  the  Queen  having  again  (Nov.  4,  1631) 
presented  the  nation  with  a  royal  babe,  the  Princess  Mary, 
afterwards  Mary  of  Orange,  and  mother  of  William  III., 
the  University  poets  thought  it  best  to  celebrate  this  birth 
and  the  former  together.1  Among  the  contributors  to  the 
volume  were  Thomas  Comber,  Master  of  Trinity  College, 
James  Dupont  of  Trinity,  Henry  Feme  of  Trinity,  Thomas 
Randolph  of  Trinity  (now  a  Fellow  there),  Peter  Hausted  of 

1  "  Genethliacnm     Illustrissimorum       Cautabrigiensibus  celebratum  :  Cantab* 
Prmcipuni   Caroli   et    Man*   a   Musis       1631." 


248  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Queens',  Abraham  Whelock  of  Clare  Hall,  Thomas  Fuller  of 
Sidney  Sussex,  and  Edward  King  of  Christ's.  I£hat  Milton 
did  not  aj)^Leajiin_^iicli_^es|)ectable  company,  and  that  his 
name^does  not  occur  in  any  of  the  similar  collections  of 
loyal-verses  publishedZJSJleJhe  was  connected  with~~Gam- 
bridge,  canjbardly  have  been  acci(^nj;al.__J^_^ 
from  no  defect  of  local_jc^  jicademi^ 

seen  that  he  was  quite  ready  with  his  pen  when  ?«,  Bishop 
Andrewes,  or  a  T5r.  Gostlin,  or  a  Senior  Bedel,  or  any  other 
worthy  ~~of  ~€/aTn  bridge,  7'  even    Hobson    the    carrier,     died. 
[Probably  fae_JLiked  to^qhoose  his  own  subjeGts^and_Jhund_ 
com  plimentary  verses  to  royalty 


Among  the  students  who  joined  the  University  in  this, 
the  last,  year  of  Milton's  Cambridge  residence,  there  were 
one  or  two  of  considerable  subsequent  note.  Thajnatricu- 
lation  of_Ric]iard  —  ^cawshn^Yj  th"  p^Qt-J_g^___gptn^QT^f  of 
Pembroke,  that  of  the  famous  Ralph  Cudworth,  as~aTstudenT 
of  Emanuel,  that  of  his  friend  John  Worthington,  as  a 
student  of  the  same  College,  and  that  of  John  Pearson, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Chester  and  Expositor  of  the  Creed, 
as  a  student  of  King's,  all  date  from  this  year.1  Among  the 
new  admissions  at  Christ's,  besides  a  Ralph  Widdrington, 
afterwards  of  some  note  as  a  physician,  a  Charles  Ilotham, 
and  others  whose  subsequent  history  might  be  trace7T,~Th~eT5~~ 
was  one  youth  at  whom^MiltonJiad  he  foreseen  what  hqjvas 
to^Jbe,  would  certajnlyJ^^J^oked^ 


attention.  This  was  a  tall  thin  stripling,  of  clear  olive  com 
plexion,  and  a  mild  and  rapt  expression,  whose  admission 
is  recordedjn-4he^ntry-book  thus  :  — 


"December  31,  163/k^Henry  Mon^&erl  of  Alexander,  born  at 
Grantham  in  the  CouW^LJLu^oInT^onnded  in  letters  at  Eton  by 
Mr.  Harrison,  was  admitted,  in  the  17th  year  of  his  age,  a  lesser 
pensioner  under  Mr.  Gell."2 

TJbis  new  student,  whose  connexion  with  Christ's  thus  began 
just   asThat^  ^f  Milton~waS  drawirTg  toaT  close,  was  the 

so  famous  as  the  Cambridge  Tlato- 


nist,    and    so    memorable^  in    the    history   of   the    College. 

~~T-"  Baker,  HartrM^r^tt:  — 

2  Copy  furnished  me  by  Mr.  Wolstenholme  of  Christ's  College. 


249 

Already  ,_at  the  time  of  his  coming  to  Christ's  from  Eton, 
lifer  e  were  the  germs  in  him  ot  the  future  mystic.  The 
following  is  aTsketch  by  himself  of  his  lite  to  this  point7 
introducjjc^^ 

of  a  popular  illustration  of  his^  cardinal  Platonic  tenet,  that 
the  Tmman  mind  is  not,  as  philosophers  ol  the  opposite 
yT'a  mere  abrusa  tabula,  ofnblanksheet,  waiting  to 


in  it,  of  a  priori  origin  :  — 

"Concerning  which  matter  I  am  the  more  assured,  in  that  the 
sensations  of  my  own  mind  are  so  far  from  being  owing  to  education 
that  they  are  directly  contrary  to  it,  —  I  being  bred  up  to  the  almost 
14th  year  of  my  age  under  parents  and  a  master  that  were  great 
Calvinists  (but  withal  very  pious  and  good  ones).  At  which  time,  by 
the  order  of  my  parents,  persuaded  to  it  by  my  uncle,  I  immediately 
went  to  Eton  School  ;  not  to  learn  any  new  precepts  and  institutes  of 
Religion,  but  for  the  perfecting  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues. 
But  neither  there  nor  anywhere  else  could  I  ever  swallow  down  that 
hard  doctrine  concerning  Fate.  On  the  contrary,  I  remember  that  I 
did,  with  my  eldest  brother  (who  then,  as  it  happened,  had  accom 
panied  my  uncle  thit^f)7~v^ry  stoutly  and  earnestly  for  my  years 
dispute  against  thi^>  Fatk  ^6r  Galyinistic  Predestination,  as  ^  it  is 
usually  called  ;  and  tmJtrrny  imcle,^when  he  came  to  know  it,  chid  me 
severely,  adding  menaces  withal  of  correction  and  a  rod  for  my 
immature  frowardness  'in  philosophising  concerning  such  matters  : 
moreover,  that  I  had  such  a  deep  aversion  in  my  temper  to  this 
opinion,  and  so  firm  and  unshaken  a  persuasion  of  the  Divine  justice 
and  goodness,  that,  on  a  certain  day,  in  a  ground  belonging  to  Eton 
College,  where  the  boys  used  to  play  and  exercise  themselves,  musing 
concerning  these  things  with  myself,  and  recalling  to  my  mind  this 
doctrine  of  Calvin,  I  did  thus  seriously  and  deliberately  conclude 
within  myself,  viz.  :  *  If  I  am  one  of  those  that  are  predestined  unto 
*  Hell,  where  all  things  are  full  of  nothing  but  cursing  and  blasphemy, 
'  yet  will  I  behave  myself  there  patiently  and  submissively  towards 


,  ,..          , 

demeaned  myself,  He  would  hardly  keep  me  long  in  that  place. 
Which  meditation  of  mine  is  as  firmly  fixed  in  my  memory,  and  the 
very  place  where  I  stood,  as  if  the  thing  had  been  transacted  but  a 
day  or  two  ago.  And,  as  to  what  concerns  the  existence  of  God, — 
though  on  that  ground  mentioned,  walking,  as  my  manner  was, 
slowly  and  with  my  head  on  one  side,  and  kicking  now  and  then  the 
stones  with  my  feet,  I  was  wont  sometimes,  with  a  sort  of  musical 
and  melancholy  murmur,  to  repeat,  or  rather  hum,  to  myself  these 
verses  of  Claudian, 

4  Oft  hath  my  anxious  mind  divided  stood 
Whether  the  gods  did  mind  this  lower  world, 
Or  whether  no  such  ruler  wise  and  good 
We  had,  and  all  things  here  by  chance  were  hurled,3 


250  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

—  yet,  that  exceeding  hale  and  entire  sense  of  God  which  Nature 
herself  had  planted  deeply  in  me  very  easily  silenced  all  such  slight 
and  poetical  dubitations  as  those.  Yea,  even  in  my  first  childhood, 
an  inward  sense  of  the  Divine  presence  was  so  strong  upon  my  mind 
that  I  did  then  believe  there  could  be  no  deed,  word,  or  thought 
hidden  from  Him  ;  nor  was  I  by  any  others  that  were  older  than 
myself  to  be  otherwise  persuaded.  .  .  .  Endued  as  I  was  with  these 
principles,  .  .  .  having  spent  about  three  years  at  Eton,  I  went  to 
Cambridge,  recommended  to  the  care  of  a  person  both  learned  and 
pious,  and  (what  I  was  not  a  little  solicitous  about)  not  at  all  a  Cal- 
vinist,  but  a  tutor  most  skilful  and  vigilant  [i.  e.  Gellj.  Who,  pre 
sently  after  the  first  salutations  and  discourse  with  me,  asked  me 
whether  I  had  ;a  discernment  of  things  good  and  evil.5  To  which, 
answering  in  somewhat  a  low  voice,  I  said,  'I  hope  I  have';  when 
at  the  same  time  I  ja:as  Conscious  to  mv^elf  that  I  had  from  my  very 
jmdainoststrong_  sense  and  javoury  ^iscriminatiplTlis--ttT'Tdi  tliose_ 
:t^n^wit{Tst;n.nHing?  thp.  rno.a.mvhilf^  n.  mighty  and  almost 


immoderate  thirst  after  knowledge  possessed  me  throughout,  —  espe- 

above  all  others,  that  which 


_ 

tjje  first  and  highest  phnosbphydr^viMonTL  Attef  which,~whei 
mj^pruclent  and  pious  tutor  ob^eTveiir-myTQmTi~to--:be  inflamed  arid 
carried  with  so  eager  and  vehement  a  career,  he  asked  me  on  a  cer 
tain  time,  '  Why  I  was  so  above  measure  intent  upon  my  studies  1  ' 
that  is  to  say,  for  what  end  I  was  so  ;  suspecting,  as  I  suppose,  that 
there  was  only  at  the  bottom  a  certain  itch  or  hunt  after  vain-glory, 
and  to  become  by  this  means  some  famous  philosopher  amongst 
those  of  my  own  standing.  But  I  answered  briefly,  and  that  from 
my  very  heart,  'That  I  may  know.'  'But,  young  man,  what  is 
the  reason,'  saith  he  again,  'that  you  so  earnestly  desire  to  know 
things'?'  To  which  I  instantly  returned,  'I  desire,  I  say,  so  ear 
nestly  to  know,  that  I  may  know.'  J^IL  pyp,r|  n.t  flint  timp  jthe 
lpip^ledge__ofnatural  and  divine  things  seemed  to  me  the  highest 
33Jeasu7e_jaji(^^  .  Tnu^tnen^  pprgnqHfid  and 

estgejmn^t_w5aF^aTTiighly^t,  I  immerse  myself  over  head  and 
fiat's  injthe  study"of  philosophy,  prOrMsriig  m.yHutf-ia-mtTstr^^iiderjjjljzi, 
happiness"  in  it.     ArisTotle,  therefo're,  Cardan,  Julius  Scaliger,  and 
olher~philos6pliei'S  of  the  greatest  note,  I  very  diligently  peruse  ;  tir~" 
which,  &c."1 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  he  found  this  philosophy  unsatis 
factory,  and  to  describe  how  the  light  of  a  better  dawned 
upon  hinian3~gEve~iriin^peace.  Without  following  him  thus 
far,  we  have  quoted  enough  to  show  that  Mr.  Cell's  new 

a  commonplace"yolitfc  —  Glerelan  d 
~been   perhaps   the   mosTnotrrbie 


^si  after  Milton";  bnt  neither  of  these  was  to 
Confer  suchcrediton  .fch 


^rfMeade,  in  Christ's  College  Chapel. 

Quoted  in  the  Life  of  More  by  the  Rev.  Richard  Ward,  1710,  pp.  6—10. 


MORE   UNIVERSITY   THEATRICALS.  251 

In  the  Lent  Terra  of  this  yeaiU^ambridge  had  the  honour 
of  anotl^e'f"visit=_frmn_^p^^ty:___^e  J^ng^and^Qaeen  this 
time  canie^ogetherT  They  came  from  NewmarlZet,  where 
theCourt  then  was,  on  theTlQth  of  March,  and  seem  to  have 
spent  more  than  one  day  in  or  about  Cambridge.  Great 
preparations  had  been  made  for  their  reception.  The  whole 
University  was  drawn  up  in  the  streets  to  cheeTT^rnH-tt 
LatiiTas  they  drove  in ;  there  was  much  speech-making  and 
banqueHng,  chiefly  in  Trinity  College  ;  nor  was  theatrical 
entertainment~wanEmg]  Among  the  regulations  issHecHjy 
theYice- Chancellor  and  Heads  in  anticipation  ot  the  visit 


no  tobacco  be  taken  in  the  Hail, 
"nor  anywhere  else  publicly,  and  that  neither  at  their 
"  standing  in  the  streets,  nor  before  the  comedy  begin,  nor 
"all  the  time  there,  any  rude  or  immodest  exclamations 
"be  made;  nor  any  humming,  hawking,  whistling,  hissing 
"  or  laughing  be  used,  or  any  stamping  or  knocking,  nor 
tf  any  such  other  uncivil  or  mischolarlike  or  boyish  de- 
"meanour,  upon  any  occasion;  nor  that  any  clapping  of 
"  hands  be  had  until  the  Plaudite  at  the  end  of  the  Comedy, 
"except  his  Majesty,  the  Queen,  or  others  of  the  best 
"  quality  here,  do  apparently  begin  the  same/'  Although 
here  "  the  comedy  "  is  spoken  of  in  the  singular  number, 
there  were,  in  reality,  two  comedies,  both  in  English,  and 
both  published  immediately  afterwards.  One  was  The  .Rival 
Friends,  by  Peter  Hausted  of  Queens',1  already  known  to  us 
as  the  anthor  of  the  Latin  play  of  "  Senile  Odium"  acted  in 
the  preceding  year;  the  other  was  The  Jealous  Lovers,  by 
Thomas  Randolph  of  Trinity.2  Both  had  been  prepared 
expressly  for  the  occasion  ;  and  before  the  arrival  of  their 
Majesties  there  seems  to  have  been  a  controversy  among  the 


1  "  The  Rivall  Friends  :  a  Comoedie  ;  except  Hansted's  own.E 

as  it  was  acted  before  the  King  and  2  "  The  Jealous  Lovers,  presented  to 

Queen's  Majesties,  when  out  of  their  their  gracious  Majesties  at  Cambridge 

princely  favour  they  were  pleased  to  by   the  students  of   Trinity  College ; 

visit  their  Universitie   of   Cambridge,  written   by  Thomas   Randolph,   M.A., 

upon  the  19th  of  March,  1631 :  London,  and  Fellow  of  the  House  :   printed  by 

1632."  I  have  seen  a  copy  in  the  British  the    Printers    to    the    University   of 

Museum,  with  the  names  of  the  actors  Cambridge,  A.D.  1632." 
added   in    MS., — none   known   to    me 


252  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

-1 

Heads  as  to  which  should  have  the  precedency.  The  Trinity 
men  backed  their  own  man,  Randolph,  whose  popularity  as 
a  wit  and  a  good  fellow  was  already  established  throughout 
the  University;1  the  men  of  Queens',  on  the  other  hand, 
together  with  a  sprinkling  of  the  more  steady  and  perhaps 
of  the  more  crotchety  men  in  other  Colleges,  stood  by 
Hausted.  It  was  a  case  of  rivalry,  partly  between  the  two 
authors,  and  partly  between  the  two  Colleges. 

Chiefly,  it  would  appear,   through  the  influence   of  the 
Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  Butts,  Hausted's  play  was  acted  first. 

of  March,  by  Hausted  him 
self  and  a  band  of  hisfeIav^coTTegians  orQueens^  Hausted 
undertaking  two  parts.  Alas  !  in  spite  of  the  care  spent  on 
the  preparation,  and  in  spite  of  the  peremptory  order  above 
quoted,  it  was  unmistakeably  damned, — damned  under  the 
"eyes  of  Royalty,  and  with  no  power  and  no  effort  of  Royalty 
to  save  it.  We  learn  as  much  from  Hausted' s  own  words 
when  he  gave  himself  the  poor  consolation  of  publishing  it. 
"  Cried  down  by  boys,  faction,  envy,  and  confident  ignorance, 
"approved  by  the  judicious,  and  now  exposed  to  the  public 
"  censure,"  are  among  the  words  on  the  title-page;  and 
prefixed  to  the  play  is  a  tetchy  and  desponding  preface,  in 
which,  after  speaking  of  "  this  poor  neglected  piece  of 
"mine/'  "black-mouthed  calumny/'  "base  aspersions  and 
"  unchristiaiilike  slanders,"  &c.,  the  author  adds,  "  How  it 
"  was  accepted  of  their  Majesties,  whom  it  was  intended  to 
"  please,  we  know  and  had  gracious  signs ;  how  the  rest  of 
"  the  Court  was  affected  we  know  too ;  as  for  those  who 
"  came  with  starched  faces  and  resolutions  to  dislike,"  &c. 
There  is  also  a  hint  about  "  the  claps  of  the  young  ones  let 
in  to  make  a  noise."  Unfortunately,  we  know  from  other 
quarters  that  the  King  and  Court  were  as  little  pleased  with 
the  piece  as  the  "  young  ones  "  whose  noise  ruined  it ;  and 
the  piece  itself  remains  to  convince  us  that,  though  the 

1  Iii  proof  of  Randolph's  early  popu-  of  Trinity  for  the  Bishopric  of  Bath 

larity  at   Cambridge,  there  is  in  the  and  "Wells,  recommending  Randolph  to 

State   Paper   Office   a   letter   of    date  Lord   Holland,  the   Chancellor,  for   a 

August  11,  1629,  addressed  by  Mawe,  living,  and  expressing  a  desire  that  the 

\vho  had  then  just  left  the  Mastership  King  would  do  something  for  him. 


MORE    UNIVERSITY    THEATRICALS.  253 

Trinity  men  and  Randolph's  admirers  may  have  mustered 
with  fell  intentions,  the  catastrophe  was  owing  chiefly  to  the 
author's  want  of  tact  in  the  subject  and  the  composition. 
The  so-called  comedy  is  a  satire  against  simony  and  other 
scandals  of  ecclesiastical  patronage,  supported  by  a  crowd 


fjnn  fewer  than  tihT^y  nhftiwtfftyfl  —  "  RaiTWft  TTnnTr5; 
simoniacal  patron  "  ;  "  Pandora,  his  fair  daughter";  "Anteros 
(acted  by  Hausted  himself),  an  humorous  mad  fellow  that 
could  not  endure  women";  "Placenta,  a  midwife";  "  Hammer- 
skin,  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  "  (also  by  Hausted)  ;  "  Zealous 
Knowlittle,  a  box-maker  "  ;  "  Hugo  Obligation,  a  precise 
Scrivener,"  &c.  As  every  one  knows,  such  plays  with  a 
Amoral,  and  especially  a  political  moral,  blazoned  in  their 
forefront,  are  seldom  popular;  and,  if  Ben  Jonson  himself 
used  to  find  this  to  his  cost  before  an  audience  of  London 
citizens,  what  hope  was  there  for  Hausted  before  his  more 
difficult  assembly?  He  had,  of  course,  his  "  judicious" 
friends,  who  consoled  him  as  well  as  they  could  in  his  great 
disaster;  and  among  them  was  Edward  King  of  Christ's. 

Tp.  fnilnro  miisMiayp  bppn  all  the  more  galling  to 


4um_that  Randolph's  comedy,  which  followed,  was  a  complete 
success.  The  play__jiad  probably  cost  its  ready  author  tar 
less  trouble  than  Hausted  bestowed  upon  his,  there  being 

Jiiu.t-iQm^eigh.teen  parts  111  it,  and  these  of  the  old  and  ap^ 
proved  kind  that  had  done~service^  since  the  days  of  Plautus:> 
There  was  "Tyndarus,  son  of  Demetrius,  and  supposed  " 
brother  to  Pamphilus,  enamoured  of  Evadne";  there  was 
"  Pamphilus,  supposed  son  to  Demetrius,  but  son  indeed  to 
Chremylus  "  ;  there  was  "  Evadne,  supposed  daughter  of 
Chremylus";  there  was  "  Simo,  an  old  doting  father"  ;  there 
was  "Asotus,  his  profligate  son";  there  was  "Ballio,  a 
pandar  and  tutor  to  Asotus";  and  there  was  "  Phryne,  a 

courtesan."    ^UjLEiaildQlph  .Was  a-jTrrmnript-.  wTin 


he  was  about;and,  where  Hausted  had  hisses,  he  had 
nothing  but  applause.  When  the  piece  was  published,  it 
was  dedicateSTFo  the  Rev.  Dr.  Comber,  Master  of  Trinity  ; 
and  among  the  laudatory  verses  prefixed  are  some  by  the 
eminent  Grecian,  James  Duport.  In  these  lines  there  is  a 


254  LIFE    Or    MJLTON    AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

hit  at  Hausted's  contemporary  publication  and  its  snappish 
preface  :  — 

"  Thou  hadst  th'  applause  of  all  :  King,  Queen,  and  Court, 
And  University,  all  liked  thy  sport. 
No  blunt  preamble  in  a  cynic  humour 
Need  quarrel  at  dislike,  and,  spite  of  rumour, 
Force  a  more  candid  censure  and  extort 
An  approbation  maugre  all  the  Court. 
Such  rude  and  snarling  prefaces  suit  not  thee  : 
They  are  superfluous  ;  for  thy  comedy, 
Backed  with  its  own  worth  and  the  author's  name, 
Will  find  sufficient  welcome,  credit,  fame." 

From  comedy  to  tragedy  is  frequent  enough,  and  there 
was'  anTlnstance  now\  The  man  who  did  the  "honours  "or* 
the  Unij_er^it^durmg^the  royal  vtstt^  a[id~sat~conspicuoust 
among  the  crowcTof  gownsTii  his  coloured  robes,  beside  or 
opposite  the  King  and_Qaeen7^ripg  the  peTformance"~bf 
tbe—eom^die^jwas  the  Vice-  Chancellor,  Dr.  But£s.  It  is 
.ghn.qtly  now  to  imnginA  w1m.fr.  ;  nrry'^afr  the  flutterjjver  which 
lie  presided,  must  have  been  in  that  man's  mind. 

fr'^  bustle  of 


the  visit  is  over  ;  and  the  Heads  and  Doctors  compose  them 
selves  after  it  for  the  solemnities  of  Passion  Week  and 
Easter,  then  close  at  hand.  Passion  Week  passes  ;  and 
Easter  Day  arrives,  Sunday,  the  1st  of  April  1632.  The 
Sunday  morning  breaks  ;  the  bells  ring  their  Easter  peal  ; 
and  the  people  assemble  in  the  churches.  Dr.  Butts,  as 
Vice-Chancellor,  was  to  have  preached  the  Easter  sermon 
before  the  University  ;  but  it  was  known  that  he  had  not 
been  quite  himself  since  the  King's  visit,  and  was  unable 
for  the  duty.  There  was  no  surprise,  therefore,  when 
another  filled  his  place.  Hardly,  however,  had  the  con 
gregation  dispersed  from  the  morning  service  when  news 
.spread  through  the  town  the  like  of  which  had  never  been 
heard  there  on  an  Easter  morning  before.  Dr/TTuTFs  Had 
been  found  hanging  dead  in  his  chamber  in-Gorpus  Christ! 
.^College,  the  deed  done  by^  his  own__hand.  ^The^ay^  the 
^xSice  held  by  the~l^icide7the  peculiarity_o^jiis^antecedents 
irTthe  office,  all  added  to  the  horror.  Some  mystery  still 
Tiangs  over  the  cause  "of  the~  act,  the  circumstances  having 


SUICIDE    OP   DR.    BUTTS.  255 

been  apparently  hushed  up  at  the  time,  so  as  not  to  be 
easily  recoverable  afterwards.  But  the  verdict  wsi^Felo  de" 
ptT^jand  the  tradition  handedT  down  by  Baker  ana  other 
chroniclers  is  that  the  cause  of  the  act  was  his  having,  at 
the  time  of  the  JCin^^~~vist£,  been  ^unexpectedly  called" 
"  upon  to  a  reckoningOiQW  he  had  Disbursed  certain  sums 
"of  money  gathered  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  in  the  time  of 
"^thejickness/7  The  maiTso  charged,  be  it  remembered, 
was  the  man  of  whom  it  stands  recorded  that,  "  when  the 
"  plague  was  in  Cambridge,  the  rest  of  the  Heads  removing, 
"  lie^ remained  alone,"  braving  infection  and  labouring  with 
the  strengthof  ten.  The  reader  may  turn  back  to  his  own 
words  at  the  time  :  "  Alone,  a  destitute  and  forsaken  man ; 
"  not  a  scholar  with  me  in  the  College,  not  a  scholar  seen 
"'  byjne  without :  God,  all-sufficient,  I  trust,  is  with  me." 

It  is  never  too  late  to  do  justice ;  and  the  following  con 
temporary  letter,  while  it  explains  more  clearly  than  hitherto 
an  event  still  recollected  among  the  traditions  of  Cambridge, 
seems  at  the  same  time  to  explain  why  the  matter  was  kept 
in  mystery,  by  showing  that  it  was  connected,  too  unplea 
santly  for  much  public  commentral  the  Lime,iyijjijjie  recent" 
incidents  of  the  Koyal  visit,  and  even  with  the  trivial  cir 
cumstance of  tih1T~~Hyalry between  the  two  U  niversity" 
'"comedies  ancTThe  failure  of  HaustecPs.  The  "origmaToF  the 
'letter  is  in  the  State  Paper~0mce,  endorsed  Relation  of  the 
manner  of  tho  death  of  Dr.  Butts,  Vicccli.  of  Cambridge. 
The  writer,  who  was  clearly  a  member  of  Corpus  Christi, 
does  not  append  his  name;  nor  is  the  person  named  to 
whom  the  letter  was  sent.  It  was  evidently  communicated 
by  the  receiver  to  some  state  official,  and  it  may  have  been 
seen  by  the  Kiog  : — 

"  It  is  more  fitting  for  you  to  desire  than  for  me  to  relate  the  history 
of  our  Vice -Chancellor's  death ;  yet,  because  we  may  all  make  good 
use  of  it,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  ill,  and  will  burn  your  intelligence 
when  you  have  perused  it,  and  be  sparing  in  relating,  I  will  somewhat 
satisfy  your  desire. 

u  He  was  a  man  of  great  kindred  and  alliance,  in  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk,  with  the  best  of  the  gentry;  was  rich  both  in  money  and 
inheritance ;  had  a  parsonage  in  Essex  and  this  Mastership.  He  got 
this  about  nVe  years  since,  by  the  lesser  part  of  the  Fellows  making 


256  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HIST011Y    OF    HIS    TIME. 

or  finding  a  flaw  in  the  greater's  proceedings  for  another.  A  speech 
he  then  braggingly  uttered  hath  ever  since  stuck  in  my  mind,  im 
printed  there  by  mine  aversion  [at  the  time],  and  now  renewed  by 
this  event.  He  boasted  against  his  opponent  aforehand  that  he  never 
entered  into  business  with  any  but  prevailed ;  intimating  a  fancy  that 
the  elevation  of  his  genius  was  high,  and  a  governing  power  went 
with  his  attempts.  He  seemed  likewise  to  have  had  an  high  esteem 
of  his  merit  in  government  the  two  last  years ;  and,  because  the  King 
and  Court  gave  him  thanks  and  countenanced  him  in  regard  of  his 
diligence  in  the  plague-time,  he  (according  to  that  "  Quce  expectamus 
facile  credimus")  began  to  hope  for  great  matters.  To  consummate 
these,  he  desired  to  be  Vice-Chancellor  the  third  time,  because  of  the 
King's  coming. 

"  He  hath  been  observed  somewhat  to  droop  upon  occasion  of 
missing  a  prebend  of  Westminster,  which  he  would  have  had  (as  he 
said)  and  the  Mastership  of  Trinity.  But  his  vexation  began  when 
the  King's  coming  approached  and  Dr.  Comber  and  he  fell  foul  of 
each  other  about  the  precedency  of  Queens'  and  Trinity  comedy, — he 
engaging  himself  for  the  former.  But  the  killing  blow  was  a  dislike., 
of  that  comedy  and  a  check  of  the  Chancellor  [Lord  Holland],  who  is 
said  to  have  told  him  that  the  King  and  himself  had  more  confidence 
in  his  discretion  than  they  found  cause,  in  that  he  thought  such  a 
comedy  fitting,  &c.  In  the  nick  of  this  came  on  the  protestation  of 
some  of  both  Houses  against  his  admission  of  the  Doctors,  and  bitter 
expostulation,  and  the  staying  of  the  distribution  for  the  Doctors' 
month's  continuance,  and  denying  their  testimony  of  the  degree,  and 
all  because  he  would  not  be  content  to  admit  some  known  to  deserve 
well,  but,  by  slanderous  instigation,  ill.  He  said  then,  'Regis  est 
mandare  et  in  mandatis  dare ;  nostrum  est  obsequi  et  obedire.'  But  it 
came  from  him  guttatim,  and  so  as  made  them  wonder  who  read  not 
the  cause  in  his  countenance. 

"  As  he  came  from  the  Congregation,  they  say  he  said,  '  I  perceive 
all  mine  actions  are  misinterpreted,  and  therefore  I  will  go  home  and 
die.'  Soon  after  (some  say  the  next  day)  he  would  have  made  away 
with  himself  with  a  knife,  but  was  hindered.  Another  time,  his  wife 
urging  him  to  eat,  and  telling  him  he  had  enough  and  none  to  provide 
for,  &c.,  he  bade  her  hold  her  peace,  lest  he  laid  violent  hands  upon 
her,  and  that  she  knew  not  what  the  frown  of  a  king  was.  On 
Thursday  last  they  got  him  into  a  coach  to  carry  him  to  his  sister's 
son  at  Barton  Mills ;  but  he  would  needs  return  after  he  had  gone  a 
little  way.  On  Friday  again  they  got  him  out,  and  thither  he  went, 
but  would  needs  return  on  Saturday  betimes.  His  nephew  following 
to  attend  him  to  Cambridge,  he  leapt  out  of  the  coach,  sat  on  the 
ground,  and  said  he  would  not  stir  thence  till  he  was  gone.  Mr. 
Sterne,  going  several  times  to  visit  him,  once  had  speech  with  him, 
who  said  '  that  the  day  of  mercy  was  past :  God  had  deserted  him,' 
&c.,  but  would  not  hear  him  reply.  He  was  another  time  as  it  were 
poising  his  body  on  the  top  of  the  stairs,  as  if  lie  was  devising  how  to 
pitch  so  as  to  break  his  neck ;  but  was  prevented. 

"  On  that  happy  morning  of  exaltation  to  others,  but  his  downfall, 
he  lay  in  bed  till  church-time ;  said  he  was  well  and  cheerful ;  bade 
his  wife  go  to  church;  when  she  was  gone,  charged  his  servants  to 
go  down  for  half  an  hour,  he  would  take  his  rest,  tfec.  Then  arose  in 
his  shirt,  bolted  the  door,  took  the  kercher  about  his  head  and  tied  it 
about  his  neck  with  the  knot  under  his  chin ;  then  put  an  handkerchief 
under  it,  and  tied  the  handkerchief  about  the  superlim'inare  of  the 


MILTON  S    GRADUATION    AS    H.A. 


257 


portal  (the  next  panel  to  it  being  a  little  broken),  which  was  so  low 
that  a  man  could  not  go  through  without  stooping  ;  and  so  wilfully 
with  the  weight  of  his  body  strangled  himself,  his  knees  almost 
touching  the  floor.  By  his  servants  coming  up  by  another  way  he 
was  found  too  late.  Quis  taliafando  temper  et  a  lacrymis? 
"  April  the  4tk,  1632."1 

The  successor  of  |Pj\_.  Butts.  m.tKaYica-CIi.ancdj^i^liipjw^s 

4rrs-Ti7aT;Di'.  Cnmhm*  of  Tnrn'f-y  ;   nnrl  ih  w^.ajjnr[m^V>ia  first 

ternrT>f  office,—  thoEastcr  or  Midsummer  Term  of  1682,  — 

that^Milton  compjctedjiis_career  at  the  University.  Having 

"fulfilled  his  studies  and  his  exercises  during  that  term,  ho 

Was     One      nf__907      ^p^Al^^-^Wrm-  nil      f^n      Pnllnfron,     T^hrr 

MjiaflprR  of  fl  rfa  afc  the  Commencement  held 


32.     OuJihat  occasion  only  two  were  admitted 


to  the  degree  of  D.D.  The  Respondent  in  the  first  Divinity 
Act  was  Dr.  Gilbert,  whose  theses  were  as  follows  :  —  "  1. 
Sola  Scriptura,  est  rccjula  fidoi  ;  2.  Reliquiae  peccatl  manent 
in  rcnatis  etiam  post  baptismwn"  ("  1.  Scripture  alone  is 
the  rule  of  faith  ;  2.  The  dregs  of  sin  remain  in  the  regen 
erate  even  after  baptism").  The  Respondent  in  the  second 
Divinity  Act  was  Mr.  Breton,  of  Emanuel  College  ;  and  his 
questions  were:  —  "  1.  In  optimis  renatorwn  operibus  datur 
culpabilis  defectus  ;  2.  Nudus  assensus  divinitus  revelatis 
non  est  fides  justificans  "  ("  1.  In  the  best  works  of  tho 
regenerate  there  is  a  culpable  defect;  2.  Bare  assent  to 
what  is  divinely  revealed  is  not  justifying  faith").  Tho 
subjects  of  the  Philosophy  Act,  and  the  name  of  tho 
Respondent,  are  unknown. 

In  taking  his  M.A.  degree,  Milj 

rticles  mentioned  in  the  rSfit.Ti  of 

tical  canons  of  1603-4,  or,  in  other  words,  to  acknowledge^ 
mpremacy  in  al 


i  There  are  in  the  State  Paper  Office 
several  letters  of  Butts's  own,  while  he 
was  Vice-Chancellor,  on  University 
business,  written  in  a  large,  hurried 
hand.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  only 
literary  relic  of  him  is  a  curious  little 
12mo.  volume,  published  in  1599,  with 
the  following  title  :  "  Dyet's  Dry  Din 
ner,  consisting  of  eight  severall  courses, 
— 1.  Fruites;  2.  Hearbes ;  3.  Flesh;  4. 

VOL.    I. 


Fish ;  5.  Whitmeats  ;  6.  Spice  ;  7. 
Sauce  ;  8.  Tobacco :  by  Henry  Butts, 
M.A.,  and  Fellow  of  C.  C.  College,  in 
Cambridge :  printed  in  London,  by 
Thomas  Creede,  for  William  Warde." 
It  is  a  kind  of  culinary  manual,  with 
medical  notes  and  anecdotes  for  table 
talk.  The  author  advertises  a  com 
panion  volume  on  Drinks  ;  but  it  never 
appeared. 


258  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

^ndJhe_Doj&ij^^  the  Church  of  England 

*~rfhe  subscription,  like  that  on  taking  the  B.  A.  degree,  was 

graduation-book  in  presencS~uf  tlie 
TtrS^ollowing  is  thehst   of  the  names  from 
and  order  in  which  they 
are  stilt  to  be  seen  in 

Joannes  Milton.  John  Welbye. 

Robertus  Pory.  Petrus  Pury. 

John  Hieron.  Samuel  Boulton. 

Samuel  Viccars.  Thomas  Carre. 

Daniel  Proctor.  Robert  Cooper. 

William  Dun.  William  Finch. 

Robert  Seppens.  Philip  Smith. 

John  Boutflower.  Roger  Rutley. 

Thomas  Baldwyne.  Bernard  Smith. 

John  Browne.  William  Wildman. 

Rycard.  Garthe.  John  Cragge. 

Edmund  Barwell.  Gulielmus  Shotton. 

Richard  Buckenham.  Richard  Pegge.1 
Johannes  Newmann, 

Milton,  therefore,  took  his  M.A.  degree  along  with  twenty- 
six  others  from  his  College,  one-  and-  twenty  of  whom  had 
taken  the  prior  degree  of  B.A.  along  with  him  three  years 
before.  Is  the  circumstance  that  his  name  stands  first 
purely  accidental;  or  are  we  to  suppose  that,  when  the 
twenty-seven  graduates  from  Christ's  appeared  before  the 
Begistrar,  Milton  was,  by  common  consent,  called  011  to 
sign  first  ?  Pory,  it  will  be  noted,  comes  next.  He  seems 
to  adhere  to  Milton  like  a  Boswell. 
«^murrgr  the  oaths  on  takmgtfao  Master*  s~degfee  was~thafc 

/>f  P.nrrtJnnpfJ    TE.pnfA^ny  in   f.Vm   TTTii'yprrifjTfmi.£y-ft-ygOT»n  nnQVft  » 

tot  in  practice,  as  we  have  seen,  this  oath  was_jnow  next  jhr^ 
meaningless.     In  July    1632  Milton's   effective,  co-nnexiori 
with  the  University~cease"d^^ 

1  Copied  from  the  original  by  the  permission  of  Mr.  Romilly,  the  University 
Registrar. 


v 


CHAPTER  III. 


ACADEMIC  STUDIES  AND   RESULTS  :    MILTON'S  PROLUS10NES  ORATORIES. 

IN  the  main  what  has  preceded  has  been  an  external 
history  of  Milton's  life  in  connexion  with  the  annals  of  the 
seven  years  which  he  passed  at  the  University.  In  his 
letters  and  in  his  poems  through  this  period  we  have  had 
glimpses,  indeed,  of  the  history  of  his  mind  during  the 
same  period,  or,  at  all  events,  information  respecting  the 
manner  in  which  the  circumstances,  of  the  time  and  the 
place  affected  him,  and  respecting  the  nature  of  his  contem 
porary  musings  and  occupations.  To  complete  the  view 
thus  obtained,  however,  it  is  necessary  now  to  make  some 
farther  inquiries  and  to  use  some  materials  that  have  been 
kept  in  reserve. 

The  system  of  study  at  Cambridge  in  Milton's  time  was 
very  different  from  what  it  is  at  present.  The  avatar  of  <- 
Mathematics  had  not  begun.  Newton  was  not  born  till  ten 
years  after  Milton  had  left  Cambridge ;  nor  was  there  then, 
nor  for  thirty  years  afterwards,  any  public  chair  of  Mathe 
matics  in  the  University.  Milton's  connexion  with  Cam 
bridge,  therefore,  belongs  to  the  closing  age  of  an  older 
o_£)feducation,  the  aim  ofwJiich 


o  the  meaning  of  that  term 


over  Eurorje.__JIhis^system  had  been  founded  very  much  on 
10  mediaeval  notion  of  what  coiistituted_ihQ_Tojum~scibiler 
According  to  this  notion_tl 
apart  from  and  subordinate  to  Philosophy  proper  and 
Theology.  ^Grammar,  Logic,  mid  lUietorio 
what  was  called  the  Trivium;  after  which  came  Arithmetic, 


260  LIFE    OF   MILTOX    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIMF,. 

Geometry,  Astronomy,  and  Music,  forming  together  what 
was  called  the  Qaadnvium.  Assuining_sojmLe^iiiad4moiifc3  o£ 
Jbhese  arts  asjiaving  been  acquired  in  school,  the  Univer- 
sifcies  undertook  the  rest,  paying  most  attention,  how 
ever,  to  the  studies  of  the^rwiuni,  and  to  Philosophy  as 
their  sequel. 

**~~By  the  Elizabethan  Statutes  of  1561,  the  following  was 
the  septennium  of  study  prescribed  at  Cambridge  before 
admission  to  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  :  — 


Qwadriennium  of  Under  gi  -aduateship  :  —  First  year,  Rhetoric  ; 
second  and  thirdpirefftr;-  [uurthj--f7i/il<osop/iy  ;—  these  studies  to  be 
carried  on  both  in  College  and  by  attendance  on  the  University 
lectures  (domi  forisque)  ;  and  the  proficiency  of  the  student  to  be 
tested  by  two  disputations  in  the  public  schools  and  two  responsions 
in  his  own  College.1 

2.,  The  Triennium  of  Bachelorship  .-—Attendance  during  the  whole 
time  on  the  public  lectures  irT  Philosophy  &&  before,  and  also  on  those 
in  Astronomy,  Perspective,  and  Greek;  together  Math  a  continuance  of 
the  private  or  College  studies,  so  as  to  complete  what  had  been  begun  ; 
—  moreover,  a  regular  attendance  at  all  the  disputations  of  the  Masters 
of  Arts  for  the  purpose  of  general  improvement,  three  personal 
responsions  in  the  public  schools  to  a  Master  of  Arts  opposing,  two 
College  exercises  of  the  same  kind,  and  one  College  declamation.2 

There  had,  of  course,  been  modifications  in  this  scheme 
of  studies  before  Milton's  time.  Studies  formerly  reserved 
for  the  Triennium  were  now  included  in  the  business  of  tho 
Quadriennium.  Thus  Greek  was  now  regularly  taught 
from  the  first  year  of  a  student's  course.  So  also  with 
arithmetic  and  such  a  smattering  of  geometry  and  physical 
science  as  had  formerly  been  comprehended  under  the 
heads  of  Astronomy  and  Perspective.  But,  besides  these 
modifications,  there  had  been  a  further  modification,  arising 
from  the  changed  relations  of  the  Colleges  to  the  Uni 
versity.  In  the  scheme  of  the  statutes  it  is  presumed 
that  the  instruction  in  the  various  studies  enumerated  is  to 
be  received  domi  forisque,  or  equally  in  the  Colleges  of  the 
students  under  their  tutors  and  in  the  Public  Schools  under 
the  University  lecturers  or  professors.  Since  then,  how 
ever,  the  process  had  been  going  on  which  has  raised  tho 

1  Statutes,  Cap.  VI.    "  Dyer's  Privileges,"  I.  164. 

2  Statutes,  Cap.  VII.     Dyer,  I.  164. 


ACADEMIC  STUDIES  AND  RESULTS.  261 

importance  of  the  Colleges  at  the  expense  of  the  University 
and  all  bnt  entirely  superseded  the  teaching  function  of  tho 
public  professors.  The  professors  still  lectured,  and  their 
lectures  were  in  certain  cases  attended.  But,  in  the  main, 
tho  work  of  instruction  was  now  carried  on  in  the  separate 
5oth~~by  ^hlT^rivate"  tutors  among  whom  the 

^^ 

Jrom  amon~g  the  TutgrsT-^yfeo,  under  tho  nam^-aM2o1I 
IectuFe^rs7'1WGr&-^a^>poirrted,  annually  oj^-t^tfaeTwIse,  to  "Iioh 
classes  on  particular  "Objects:;  Save  in  so  far  as  the  stu 
dents  thus  trained  in  the  several  Colleges  met  to  compete 
with  each  other  in  the  disputations  in  tho  public  schools, 
there  was  no  means  of  ascertaining  how  they  stood  .among 
themselves  for  ability  and  proficiency  as  members  of  tho 
entire  University.  That  system  of  examinations  had  not 
yet  been  devised  which,  by  annually  comparing  tho  best 
men  of  all  the  Colleges  and  classifying  them  as  Wranglers, 
&c.,  has  in  some  degree  revived  the  prerogative,  if  not  the 
teaching  function,  of  tho  University,  and  knit  the  Colleges 
together. 

In  Trinity  College  the  arrangements  for  the  collegiate 
education  of  the  pupils  seem  to  have  been  very  complete. 
Under  one  head-lecturer,  or  general  superintendent,  there 
were  eight  special  lecturers  or  teachers,  each  of  whom 
taught  and  examined  an  hour  or  an  hour  and  a  half  daily — 
the  Lector  Humanitatis,  sive  Linguce  Latinos,  who  also  gave 
weekly  lectures  on  Ilhetoric ;  the  Lector  Grcecce  Gfram- 
maticce;  the  Lector  Linguce  Grcecce;  the  Lector  Mathe- 
maticus ;  and  four  Subledorcs,  under  whom  the  students 
advanced  gradually  from  elementary  Logic  to  the  higher 
parts  of  Logic  and  to  Metaphysics.1  In  St.  John's  College, 
the  next  in  magnitude  after  Trinity,  the  instruction — if  we 
may  judge  from  the  accounts  given  by  Sir  Simon ds  D'Evves 
of  his  studies  there  in  1618  and  1619 — does  not  seem  to 
have  been  so  systematic.  For  this  reason,  it  may  be  taken 
as  the  standard  of  what  was  usual  in  other  colleges,  such  as 
Christ's. 

1  Dean  Peacock's  Observations  on  the  Cambridge  Statutes. 


262  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND   HISTOEY   OP   HIS   TIME. 

D'Ewes,  being  a  pious  youth,  was  in  the  habit,  of  his  own 
accord  and  while  he  was  yet  but  a  freshman,  of  attending  at 
the  Divinity  Professor's  lectures,  and  also  at  the  Divinity 
Acts  in  the  Schools.  He  also  attended  the  public  lectures 
of  old  Downes  in  Greek  (the  De  Corona  of  Demosthenes 
being  the  subject)  and  those  of  the  poet  Herbert  in  Rhe 
toric.  This  was  voluntary  work,  however,  undertaken  all 
the  more  readily  because  the  lectures  were  gratis  ;  and,  when 
Downes,  who  was  a  fellow  of  St.  John's,  offered  to  form  a 
private  Greek  class  for  the  benefit  of  D'Ewes  and  a  few 
others,  D'Ewes  was  alarmed  and  sheered  off.  "  My  small 
"  stipend  my  father  allowed  me/'  he  says,  "  affording  me 
"  no  sufficient  remuneration  to  bestow  on  him,  I  excused 
"  myself  from  it,  telling  him,"  &c.,  and  keeping  out  of  his 
way  afterwards  as  much  as  possible.  All  the  education 
which  D'Ewes  received  in  his  College  during  the  two  years 
he  was  there  consisted  (1)  in  attendance  on  the  problems, 
sophisms,  disputations,  declamations,  catechizings,  and 
other  exercises  which  were  regularly  held  in  the  College 
chapel;  (2)  in  the  daily  lessons  he  received  in  Logic,  Latin, 
and  everything  else,  from  his  tutor,  Mr.  Holdsworth  ;  and 
(3)  in  his  additional  readings  in  his  own  room,  suggested 
by  his  tutor  or  undertaken  by  himself.  Here,  in  his  own 
words,  under  each  of  these  heads,  is  an  exact  inventory  of 
his  two  years'  work  : — 

(1.)  Public  Exercises  in  the  Cha2)el,  &c.  "Mine  own  exercises, 
performed  during  my  stay  here,  were  very  few  : — replying  only  twice 
in  two  Philosophical  Acts  :  the  one  upon  Mr.  Richard  Salstonstall  in 
the  Public  Schools,  it  being  his  Bachelor's  Act ;  the  other  upon  Mr. 
Nevill,  a  fellow- commoner  and  prime  student  of  St.  John's  College,  in 
the  Chapel.  My  declamations  also  were  very  rarely  performed, — the 
first  in  my  tutor's  chamber,  and  the  other  in  the  College-chapel." 
(2.)  Readings  with  his  Tutor.  "Mr.  Richard  Holdsworth,  my  tutor, 
read  with  me  but  one  year  and  a  half  of  that  time  \i.  e.  of  the  whole 
two  years];  in  which  he  went  over  all  Seton's  Logic1  exactly,  and 

1  "  Dialectica  Joannis  Setoni,  Canta-  which  time  it  seems  to  have  been  the 
brigiensis,  annotationibus  Petri  Carteri,  favourite  elementary  text-book  in  logic 
tit  clarissimis,  ita  brevissimis,  explicata.  at  Cambridge.  The  appended  "  Arith- 
Huic  accessit,  ob  artium  ingenuarum  metic"  of  Buclteus  (Buckley)  is  a 
inter  se  cognationem,  Gulielmi  Buclsei  series  of  rules  in  addition,  subtraction, 
Arithmetica  :  Londiui,  1611."  There  &c.,  in  memorial  Latiu  verse, — a  curies- 
were  editions  of  this  work,  with  exactly  ity  in  its  way. 
the  same  title,  as  early  as  1572,  from 


ACADEMIC    STUDIES   AND   RESULTS.  263 

part  of  Keckermann '  and  Molinaeus.2  Of  Ethics  or  Moral  Philosophy 


ing  historical  abbreviations  out  of  it  in  mine  own  private  study;  in 
which  also  I  perused  most  of  the  other  authors  [i.  e.  of  those  mentioned 
as  read  with  his  tutor],  and  read  over  Gellius'  Attic  Nights  and  part 
of  Macrobius'  Saturnals.  .  .  .  My  frequent  Latin  letters  and  more 
frequent  English,  being  sometimes  very  elaborate,  did  much  help  to 
amend  and  perfect  my  style  in  either  tongue  ;  which  letters  I  sent  to 
several  friends,  and  was  often  a  considerable  gainer  by  their  answers, 
—  especially  by  my  father's  writing  to  me,  whose  English  style  was 
very  sententious  and  lofty.  .  .  I  spent  the  next  month  (April,  1G19) 
very  laboriously,  very  busied  in  the  perusal  of  Aristotle's  Physics, 
Ethics,  and  Politics  [in  Latin  translations,  we  presume]  ;  and  I  read 
Logic  out  of  several  authors.  I  gathered  notes  out  of  Floras'  Roman 
History.  At  night  also,  for  my  recreation,  1  read  [Henry]  Stephens' 
Apology  for  Herodotus,  and  Spenser's  Faerie  Queen,  being  both  of 
them  in  English.  I  had  translated  also  some  odes  of  Horace  into 
English  verse,  and  was  now  Englishing  his  book  De  Arte  Poetica. 
Nay,  I  began  already  to  consider  of  employing  my  talents  for  the 
public  good,  not  doubting,  if  God  sent  me  life,  but  to  leave  somewhat 
to  posterity.  I  penned,  therefore,  divers  imperfect  essays  ;  began  to 
gather  collections  and  conjectures  in  imitation  of  Aulus  Gellius, 
Fronto,  and  Csesellius  Vindex,  with  divers,  other  materials  for  other 
writings.  All  which  I  left  imperfect." 

The  names  of  the  books  mentioned  by  D'Ewes  bear 
witness  to  the  fact,  otherwise  known,  that  this  was  an  age  of  1 
transition  at  Cambridge  out  of  the  rigid  scholastic  discipline 
of  the  previous  century  into  something  different.  The  time 
of  modern  Mathematics,  as  superior  co-regnant  with  Phil 
ology  in  the  system  of  study,  had  not  yet  come;  and 
that  which  reigned  along  with  Philology,  or  held  that 
place  of  supremacy  by  the  side  of  Philology  which  Mathe 
matics  has  since  occupied,  was  ancient  Logic  or  Dia 
lectics.5  Ancient  Logic,  we  say;  for  Aristotl^  was  still 


1  "  Keckermanni  Barthol.     Systema  eus  of  Sienna  (ob.  1604),  whose  "  Uni- 
Logicse.    8vo.  Hauov.   1600."    Keeker-  versa   Philosophia  de    Moribus,"  pub- 
mann  was  also  author  of  "  Prtecognita  lished  first  at  Venice,  was  a  widely-read 
Logica  :    Hanov.  1606,"  and  of  other  book.  —  For  this  correction  of  a  note  in 
works.  the  first  edition  I  am  indebted  to  Pro- 

2  Molinseus  is  Peter  du  Moulin,  one  fessor  Flint. 

of    whose    numerous    works    was    an  4  Joannes   Magirus    was    author  of 

"  Elementary  Logic."  "  Anthropologia,  hoc  est  Comment,  in 

a  Theophilus  Golius  was  the  author  P.  Melaucthonis  Libellum  de  Anima: 

of  an  "  Epitome  Doctrinse  Moralis  ex  Franc.   1603  ;  "    also    of    "  Physiologia 

libris  Ethicorum  Aristotelis,"  published  Peripatetica  :  1611." 

at  Strasburg  in  1592,  among  the  subse-  5  Speaking  generally,  one  may  say 

quent  editions  of  which  is  one  at  Ox-  that  the  old  system  at  Cambridge  was 

ford   as   late  as  1825.     Pickolomineus  Philology  in  conjunction  with   Logic, 

was,  doubtless,  Frauciscus  Piccolomiu-  and  that  the   later  system  has  beeti 


* 


26  i  LIFE   OP   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

in  great  authority  in  this  hemisphere,  or  rather  two- 
thirds  of  the  sphere,  of  the  academic  world.  Not  only 
were  his  logical  treatises  and  those  of  his  commentators 
and  expositors  used  as  text-books,  but  the  main  part  of  the 
active  intellectual  discipline  of  the  students  consisted  in  the 
incessant  practice,  on  all  kinds  of  metaphysical  and  moral 
questions,  of  that  art  of  dialectical  disputation  which,  under 
the  name  of  the  Aristotelian  method,  had  been  set  up  by 
the  schoolmen  as  the  means  to  universal  truth.  Already, 
however,  there  were  symptoms  of  decided  rebellion : — 
(1.)  Although  the  blow  struck  at  Aristotle  by  Luther,  and 
by  some  of  the  other  Reformers  of  the  preceding  century, 
in  the  express  interest  of  Protestant  doctrine,  had  been  but 
partial  in  its  effects,  and  Melanchthon  himself  had  tried  to 
make  peace  between  the  Stagirite  and  the  Reformed 
Theology,  the  supremacy  of  Aristotle  had  been  otherwise 
shaken.  In  his  own  realm  of  Logic  he  had  been  assailed, 
and  assailed  furiously,  by  the  Frenchman  Ramus  (1515 — 
1572)  j  and,  though  the  Logic  of  Ranrns,  which  he  offered 
as  a  substitute  for  that  of  Aristotle,  was  not  less  scholastic, 
nor  even  essentially  different,  yet  such  had  been  the  effect 
of  the  attack  that  Ramism  and  Aristotelianism  now  divided 
Europe.  In  Protestant  countries  Ramus  had  more  fol 
lowers  than  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  but  in  almost 
every  University  his  Logic  was  known  and  studied.  Intro 
duced  into  Scotland  by  Andrew  Melville,  it  became  a  text 
book  in  the  Universities  of  that  country.  In  Oxford  it 
made  little  way ;  but  there  is  good  evidence  that  in  Cam 
bridge,  in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Ramus 

Philology  in  conjunction  with  Mathe-  the    Transactions    of    the    Cambridge 

matics.    Philology,  or  at  least  Classic  Philosophical  Society,  1858.    Noticing 

Philology,  has    been    the    permanent  the  fact  of  the  recent  revival  of  logical 

element ;  the  others  have  alternated  in  studies,  Mr.  De  Morgan  speculated  as 

power,  as  if  the  one  must  be  out  if  the  to  the  possibility  that  the  time  had 

other  was  in.     On  this  mutual  jealousy  arrived  when  the  incompatibility  would 

of    Logic   and   Mathematics    hitherto,  begin  to  cease,  and  logic  and  rnathe- 

and  their  apparent  inability  to  co-exist  matics    would    sulkily    shake     hands. 

in  one  centre  of  knowledge,  whether  a  That  there  were  then  (1858)  a  few  who, 

university  or  the  brain  of  an  individual  already,  with  Mr.  De  Morgan  himself 

thinker,  see  some  fine  and  humorously  to  lead  them,  united  the  characters  of 

comprehensive  remarks  by  the  late  Pro-  the  logician  and  the  mathematician, 

fessor  De  Morgan,  in  his  paper  "  On  the  was  a  notable  .symptom. 
Syllogism,  and  on  Logic  in  general,"  in 


ACADEMIC    STUDIES   AND    RESULTS.  265 

had  his  adherents.1  (2.)  A  still  more  momentous  influence 
was  at  work,  however,  tending  to  modify  the  studies  of  the 
place,  or  at  least  the  respect  of  the  junior  men  for  the 
studies  enforced  by  the  seniors.  Bacon,,  indeed,  had  died 
as  recently  as  1626;  and  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the 
influence  of  his  works  in  England  was  yet  wide  or  deep. 
It  was  already  felt,  however;  more  particularly  in  Cam 
bridge,  where  ho  himself  had  been  educated,  with  which  ho 
had  been  intimately  and  officially  connected  during  his  life, 
and  in  the  University  library  of  which  he  had  deposited, 
shortly  before  his  death,  a  splendidly-bound  copy  of  his 
Instauratio  Magna,  with  a  glorious  dedication  in  his  own 
hand.  Descartes,  still  alive,  and  not  yet  forty  years  of  age, 
can  have  been  little  more  than  heard  of.  But  the  new 
spirit,  of  which  these  men  were  the  exponents,  already 
existed  by  implication  in  the  tendencies  of  the  time 
exemplified  in  the  prior  scientific  labours  of  such  me 
Cardan,  Kepler,  and  Galileo.  How  fast  the  new  spirit 
worked,  after  Bacon  and  Descartes  had  given  it  systematic 
expression,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  within  the 
next  quarter  of  a  century  there  was  a  powerful  movement 
in  England  for  reforming  the  entire  system  nf 
studies  on  principles  thoroughly  and  professedly 
and  in  the  spirit  of  the  utmost  modern  Utilitarianism 
one  very  remarkable  treatise  in  aid  of  thisrnovement,  Web 
ster's  Academiarum  Examen,  which  appeared  in  1653,  the 
author  quotes  Bacon  throughout  ;  he  attacks  the  Univer 
sities  for  their  slavishness  to  antiquity,  and  their  hesitations 
Hamutj,  as  if  either  were  of  Lhu 


est  consequence_j_Jie_srgues  for  the  use  of  English  instead 
of  Latin  as  the  vehicle  of  instruction  ;  and  he  presses  for  tho 
introduction  of  more  Mathematics,  more  Physics,  and  more 
of  what  he  calls  the  "  sublime  and  never-sufficiently  praised 

i  "  The  Logic  of  Ramus,"  says  Pro-  "  bridge   in   1590.     His  '  Commentarii 

fessor  De  Morgan  (paper  above  cited),  "  in  P.  Kami   Dialecticarn  (Frankfort, 

"  was   adopted  by  the   University   of  "  1616),'  is   an   excellent    work."    As 

«'  Cambridge,  probably  in  the  sixteenth  Seton's  text-book  is  not  a  Ramist  book, 

"  century.    George  Downame,  or  Dow-  Mr.  De  Morgan   supposes  that  Dow- 

"  nam,  who  died  Bishop  of   Derry  in  nam  was  tho  Cambridge  apostle  of  this 

"  1634,  was  projector  of  logic  at  Cam-  doctrine. 


266  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

science  of  Pyrotechny  or  Chymistry,"  into  the  course  of 
academic  learning.  "If  we  narrowly  take  a  survey,"  lie 
says,  "  of  the  whole  body  of  their  scholastic  theology,  what 
"  is  there  else  but  a  confused  chaos  of  needless,  frivolous, 
te  fruitless,  trivial,  vain,  curious,  impertinent,  knotty,  un- 
"  godly,  irreligious,  thorny,  and  hell-hatched  disputes, 
"  altercations,  doubts,  questions,  and  endless  janglings, 
"  multiplied  and  spawned  forth  even  to  monstrosity  and 
"  nauseousness  ?"*  This  was  not  written  till  twenty  years 
after  Mjlton  had  left  CambricjgQ  ;  "hit 


there,  as  we^sjiali-  sec,  aomothing  o£j^ie  same  feeling  was 
already  operative  in  the  University. 

mutandis,  the'course  of  Milton's  actual  education 
may  be  inferred  from  that  of  IPEwes"     Tn 


passing  from  D'Ewes  to  Milton,  however,  the  mutanda  are, 
of  course,  considerable.  In  the  first  place,  Milton  had 
come  to  College  unusually  well  prepared  by  his  priol1  train- 
ing^  Chappell  and  Tovey,  we  should  fancy,  received  in  him 
a  pupil  whosej3revious  acquisitions  might  Be  rather  trouble 
some.  There  need  be  no  doubt,  however, 


thetr~d.uty  by  him.  Chappell,  to  whose  charge  he  was  first 
committedT  must  have  read  Latin  and  Greek  with  himj_and 
in  Logic,  Rhetoric  ,  and  Philosophy,  where  ChappfVII  wg.a 
greatest.  Milton  must^have  been  more  at  his  mercy.  Toy  ey 

very  much  in  the  Ingiftnl    n,nd 


e^  inferred  Jrorn  t.lifl  f«-ct  of  his  having^filled  the  office 
of  ^ollpg^  Ipp.fiirfir  ™  TiQffiri  in  Ifiai.  —  Under  him,  we  should 
fancy,  Latin  and  Greek  for  Milton  would  be  very  much  ad 
libitum,  and  the  formal  lessons  in  these  tongues  would  bo 
subservient  to  Logic.  Whatever  arrangements  there  were 
in  Christ's  for  collegiate  instruction,  as  distinct  from  the 
instruction  of  the  students  under  their  respective  tutors,  of 
these  also  Milton  would  avail  himself  to  the  utmost.  He 
was  probably  assiduous  in  his  attendance  at  the  <e  problems, 
catechisings,  disputations,  &c."  in  the  Chapel.  There,  as 
well  as  in  casual  intercourse,  he  would  come  in  contact  with 

1  "  Academiarum    Examen  ;    or  the       John  Webster:  London,  1653."    It  was 
Examination   of    Academies,    &c.,    by       dedicated  to  Major-General  Lambert. 


ACADEMIC    STUDIES   AND    EESULTS. 


267 


Meade,  Honeywood,  Gell,  and  the  other  fellows,  and  with 
Bainbrigge  himself;  nor,  after  a  little  while,  would  there  be 
an  unfriendly    distance   between    Chappell   and   his  former 
pupil.     Altogether,  Milton's  education  domi,  or  within  the^ 
walls  of  his  own  College,  must  have'  been  very  miscellaneous. 
There  still  remains  to  be  taken  into  account,  however,  the 
contemporary  education  foris,  or  in  the  University  Schools. 
Of  what  of  this  consisted  in  the  statutory  attendance  at  acts, 
disputations,    &c.,  Milton   had,    of  course,    his    full    share. 
Seeing,  however,  that  his  father  did  not  grudge  expense,  as 
D'Ewes's  father  had  done,  we  may  assume  that  from  the  very 
first,  and  more   particularly    during  the  triennium,  he  at 
tended  various  courses  of  instruction  out  of  his   College. 
He  may  have  added  to  his  Greek  under  Downes's  successor, 
Creighton  of  Trinity.     If  there  were  any  public  lectures  on 
Rhetoric,  they  were  probably  also  by  Creighton,  who  had 
succeeded   Herbert   as   Public    Orator   in    1627.      Bacon's 
intention   at   his   death  of  founding  a  Natural  Philosophy 
professorship  had  not  taken  effect;    but  there  must  have 
been  some  means  about    the  University  of  acquiring  a  little 
mathematics.     A  very  little  served ;  for,  more  than  twenty 
years  later,  Seth  Ward,  when  he  betook  himself  in  earnest 
to   mathematics,   had   to    start   in    that    study  on  his  own 
account,  with  a  mere  pocketful  of  College  geometry  to  begin 
with.1     In  Hebrew  the  University  was  better  off,  a  Hebrew 
Professorship   having  existed  for  nearly  eighty  years.     It 
was   now  held   by  Metcalfe,  of  St.  John's,  whose  lectures 
Milton  may  have   attended.     Had  not  Whelock's    Arabic 
Lecture   been   founded    only  just   as    Milton   was    leaving 
Cambridge,  he  might  have  been  tempted  into  that  other 
oriental    tongue.     Davenant,    the    Margaret    professor    of 
Divinity,   had   been   a   Bishop    since  1621 ;    but  excellent 
lectures  were  to  be  heard,  if  Milton  chose,  from  Davenant' s 
successor,  Dr.  Samuel  Ward,  as  well  as  from  the  Regius 
professor   of   Divinity,    Dr.    Collins,    Provost    of    King's. 
Lastly,  to  make  a  leap  to  the  other  extreme,  we  know  it  for 
a  fact   that   Milton  could  fence,  and,  in  his  own  opinion, 

1  Powell's  History  of  Natural  Philosophy. 


268  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

fence  well.1  It  is  probable  that  he  took  his  first  lessons  in 
this  accomplishment  at  Cambridge.  If  so,  they  were  not 
taken  from  Chappell  or  Tovey. 

Of  the  results  of  all  these  opportunities  of  instruction  wo 
have  already  had  means  of  judging.  There  was  not  in  the 
whole  University,  I  believe,  a  more  expert,  a  more  cultm-ecT 
than  Milton^whethey  in  ^rose^oy-4H 
(TTT^V  n.nrl  Ijebrew  tongues 


so  directly  tested;   but  there  is  ei- 


^ 

deiQCO  of  ETs  acquaintance  with  Greek  authors,  and  of  his 
than  ventured  on  HebreSv.2     That  in  Lo 


and  Philosophy  he  had  done  all  that  was  expecte 
assiduous  student  might  be  taken  for  granted,  even  were 
some  proofs  wanting  that  we  shall  presently  adduce.  It 
seems  not  improbable  that  the  crude  material  which  served 
him,  long  afterwards,  for  his  published  Latin  summary  of 
the  Logic  of  Ramus,  entitled  Artis  Logiccc  Plcnior  Institiitio, 
already  lay  by  him  at  Cambridge  in  the  form  of  a  student's 
notes  and  abstracts.  In  the-  matter  cf  miscellaneous  private 
readings,  at  all  events,  we  can  hardly  exaggerate  what 
Milton  must  have  achieved  during  his  seven  academic  years. 
Aulus  Gellius,  Macrobius,  Stephens's  Apology  for  Herod 
otus,  and  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  are  the  chief  authors  on 
>D'Ewes's  list;  but  what  a  list  of  authors,  English,  Latin, 
and  Italian,  we  should  have  before  us  if  there  survived  an 
exact  register  of  Milton's  voluntary  readings  in  his  chamber 
through  his  seven  years  at  Christ's  College  !  One  has  to 
imagine  the  piles  of  ephemeral,  or  now  obsolete,  books  and 
pamphlets  in  these  tongues,  over  and  above  Shakespeare, 
Spenser,  Homer,  Virgil,  Dante,  and  the  other  universal 

1  Defensio  Secunda  :  Works,  pp.  266,  price  paid  for  the  book.    On  the  titlc- 
2Q1.     "  page  is  this  line  from  Ovid  in  Milton's 

2  In  the  British  Museum  there  is  a  hand  :—  "  Cum  sole  et  luna  semper  Ara- 
copy  of  Aratus,  the  Greek  astronomical  ties  erit."     In  the  margin  of  the  hook 
poet,  which  belonged  to  Milton.    It  is  there  are  occasional  corrections  of  the 
a  qxiarto  edition,  published  by  Morel  of  text,  various  readings,  and  brief  refer- 
Paris  in  1559,  and  containing,  besides  ences  to  authorities,  showing  the  care 
the  poet's  works,  scholia  and  a  com-  with  which  Milton  must  have  read  the 
meutary.     On  the  fly-leaf  is  Milton's  poet.    These  marginal  notes  may  be 
name,  "  Jo.  Milton,"  very  neatly  writ-  seen  in  the  Addenda  to  the  Rev.  John 
ten,  with  the  date  "1631,"  and  the  Mitford's  Life  of  Milton,  prefixed  to  his 
words  "  pre.  2s.  6d",  indicating    the  edition  of  the  poet's  works. 


ACADEMIC    STUDIES   AND   RESULTS.  269 

classics,  not  forgetting  the  commonplace-books,  filled  with 
notes  and  extracts,  that  gradually  grew  about  the  reader. 

It  is  well,  however,  to  have  before  us,  in  literal  form,  the 
written  testimonies  that  remain  to  Milton's  industry  at  the 
University,  and  to  the  degree  of  his  reputed  success  there 
in  comparison  with  his  coevals  : — 

Aubrey's  Statement. — "And  was  a  very  hard  student  in  the  Uni 
versity,  and  performed  all  his  exercises  there  with  very  good  applause." 

Wood's  Statement. — "There  [at  Christ's  College],  as  at  school  for 
three  years  before,  'twas  usual  with  him  to  sit  up  till  midnight  at  his 
book ;  which  was  the  first  thing  that  brought  his  eyes  into  the  danger 
of  blindness.  By  his  indefatigable  study  he  profited  exceedingly  .  .  ., 
performed  the  collegiate  and  academical  exercises  to  tlie  admiration 
of  all,  and  was  esteemed  to  be  a  virtuous  and  sober  person,  yet  not  to 
be  ignorant  of  his  own  parts." 

Phillips 's  Statement.—  "Where,  in  Christ's  college  .  .  .,  he  studied 
seven  years  and  took  his  degree  of  Master  of  ^  Arts,  and,  for  the  extra 
ordinary  wit  and  reading  he  had  shown  in  his  performances  to  attain 
his  degree,  ...  he  was  loved  and  admired  by  the  whole  University, 
particularly  by  the  Fellows  and  most  ingenious  persons  of  his  House." 

Milton's  oivn  Statement  in  1652. — "  There  for  seven  years  I  studied 
the  learning  and  arts  wont  to  be  taught,  far  from  all  vice  (procul  omni 
flagitio)  and  approved  by  all  good  men,  even  till,  having  taken  what 
they  call  the  Master's  degree,  and  that  with  praise  (cum  laude  etiam 
adeptus),  I  ...  of  my  own  accord  went  home,  leaving  even  a  sense  of 
my  loss  among  most  of  the  Fellows  of  my  College,  by  whom  I  had  in 
no  ordinary  degree  (hand  mediocriter)  been  regarded."  * 

Milton's  own  Statement  in  1642.  "  I  must  be  thought,  if  this  libeller 
(for  now  he  shows  himself  to  be  so)  can  find  belief,  after  an  inordinate 
and  riotous  youth  spent  at  the  University,  to  have  been  at  length 
'  vomited  out  thence.'  For  which  commodious  lie,  that  he  may  be 
encouraged  in  the  trade  another  time,  I  thank  him ;  for  it  hath  given 
me  an  apt  occasion  to  acknowledge  publicly,  with  all  grateful  mind, 
that  more  than  ordinary  respect  which  I  found,  above  any  of  my 
equals,  at  the  hands  of  those  courteous  and  learned  men,  the  Fellows 
of  that  College  wherein  I  spent  some  years ;  who,  at  my  parting,  after 
I  had  taken  two  degrees,  as  the  manner  is,  signified  many  ways  how 
much  better  it  would  content  them  that  I  would  stay ;  as  by  many 
letters  full  of  kindness  and  loving  respect,  both  before  that  time  and 
long  after,  I  was  assured  of  their  singular  good  affection  towards  me." 2 

These  passages,  and  especially  the  last  of  them, — pub 
lished  only  ten  years  after  Milton  had  left  College,  and  when 
Bainbrigge  was  still  Master  there,  and  most  of  the  Fellows 
were  either  still  in  their  old  places,  or  alive  and  accessible 
elsewhere, — distinctly  prove  that,  when  Milton  closed  his 

1  Defensio  Secunda :  Works,  VI.  287. 

2  Apology  for  Smectyranuus :  Works,  III.  265. 


270  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOKY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

connexion  with  the  University,  his  reputation  there  was 
extraordinary. 

So  far,  therefore,  Johnson's  statement,  "  There  is  reason 
"  to  believe  that  he  was  regarded  in  his  College  with  no 
"  great  fondness,"  is  flatly  contradicted.  Yet  Johnson's 
statement  was  not  made  at  random.  We  have  seen  that  in 
the  first  or  second  year  of  Milton's  stay  at  College  he  and 
the  College  authorities  did  not  agree  well  together.  What 
ever  we  make  of  the  tradition  of  his  rupture  with  Chappell 
and  his  temporary  rustication,  the  allusions  in  his  first  Latin 
Elegy  to  the  "  reedy  Cam,"  its  "  bare  and  shadeless  fields/' 
the  "  uiisuitableness  of  the  place  for  worshipers  of  Apollo," 
the  "  threats  of  the  harsh  master,"  and  "  the  hoarse  hum 
"  of  the  schools,"  all  signify  something.  Later  still,  in  his 
fourth  academic  year,  we  have  his  words  to  Gill,  complain 
ing  of  the  want  of  genial  companionship  at  Cambridge,  and 
of  the  low  intellectual  condition  of  those  with  whom  he  was 
obliged  to  consort.  Johnson's  error,  therefore,  was  not  so 
much  in  making  the  statement  which  he  has  made  as  in 
extending  its  application  to  Milton's  University  career  as  a 
whole,  instead  of  confining  it  to  the  period  of  his  under- 
graduateship.  And  yet,  here  again,  Johnson  does  not 
speak  without  reason.  With  whatever  reputation  Milton 
left  his  College  in  1632,  there  remains  the  fact  that  within 
from  tha"t~"date  a  report  did  arise,  and  was  circu^~ 
latedJiLjirm^  by  his  adversaries,  that  behind  theUnjversity 
had  parted  on  bad  terms.  The  report  was  a  calumnyr  ancT 
he  was  able  to  give  it  theTie;  but  that  a  calumny  against 
him  should  have  taken  thisT  form  shows  that~there~v^efe 
circumstancjesjiiding^in  its  invention.  It  is  not  difficufiPto 
see  what  these  wereT  At  the  time  when  the  calumny  was 
produced  Milton  had  begun  his  polemic  against  those 
institutions  in  Church  and  State  which  had -their  most  deter 
mined  supporters  among  the  University  chiefs ;  he,  a 
University  man,  was  vexing  the  soul  of  his  Alma  Mater ; 
and  what  more  likely  than  that,  if  there  was  any  single  fact 
in  his  University  career  on  which  the  charge  could  be  raised 
that  he  had  always  been  a  rebellious  son,  it  should  now  be 


ACADEMIC    STUDIES   AND    EESULTS.  271 

recollected  and  whispered  about  ?  Nay,  more,  at  the  very 
time  when  Milton  was  contradicting  the  calumny  he  was 
furnishing  additional  provocations  which  were  very  likely 
to  perpetuate  it.  Immediately  after  the  passage  last  quoted 
from  his  pamphlet  of  1642,  he  takes  care  to  let  his  calum 
niator  know  that,  while  speaking  of  the  mutual  esteem 
which  existed  between  him  and  the  best  men  at  the  Univer 
sity  while  he  was  there,  he  does  not  mean  to  extend  the 
remark  to  the  system  of  the  University. 

"  As  for  the  common  approbation  or  dislike  of  that  place,  as  it  now 
is,  that  I  should  esteem  or  disesteem  myself  or  any  other  the  more  for 
that,  too  simple  and  too  credulous  is  the  Confuter,  if  he  think  to 
obtain  ^with  me  or  any  right  discerner.  Of  small  practice  were  that 
physician  who  could  not  judge,  by  what  both  she  [Cambridge]  and 
her  sister  [Oxford]  hath  of  long  time  '  vomited,'  that  the  worser  stuff 
she  strongly  keeps  in  her  stomach,  but  the  better  she  is  ever  kecking 
at  and  is  queasy.  She  vomits  now  out  of  sickness,  but,  ere  it  be  well 
with  her,  she  must  vomit  by  strong  physic  ...  In  the  meanwhile  .  . 
that  suburb  [in  London]  wherein  I  dwell  shall  be  in  my  account  a  . 
more  honourable  place  than  his  University.  iVhip.h  nx,  in  the,  time  of 
,  her  better  health_andm/mfi  own  younger  judgment,  I  never  greatly' 
admired,  so  now 


It  is  to  the  statement  in  the  last  sentence  that  we  would 
at  present  direct  attention.  "\Wfr  TT"i  varsity  m^n_do  look 
jpack  with  affectionJ^i  their  Alma  Mater,  and  it  is  natural 
tljut  they  should.__ICke-  place  where  a  man  has  been  educated,  " 
where  he  has  formed  his  first  friendships,  where  he  has  first 
learnt  to  think  or  imagine  that  he  did  so,  where  he  has  first 
opened  his  lips  in  harangue  and  exchanged  with  other  bold 
youths  his  darling  crudities  on  the  universal  problems,  —  one 
does  not  usually  Ifke  to  hear  of  one  in  whom  the  memory  of 
such  a  place  survives  otherwise  than  in  pleasant  associa 
tions.  What  matters  it  that  the  system  was  wrong,  that 
half  the  teachers  were  dotards  who  used  to  be  ridiculed  and 
mimicked  to  their  faces,  or  that  some  were  a  great  deal 
worse  ?  One  must  be  educated  under  some  system  ;  one 
must  struggle  up  to  the  light  through  some  pyramid  of 
superincumbent  conventions  ;  it  is  hard  if  even  in  the  worst 
system  there  are  not  sterling  men  who  redeem  it  and  make 

i  Works,  III.  265-6. 


272 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME- 


it  answer;  and,  where  there  cannot  be  reminiscences  of 
respect  and  gratitude,  there  may  at  least  be  reminiscences 
of  hilarity  and  fan.  There  have  been  men  of  eminence, 
however,  who,  having  been  old  enough  or  serious  enough 
to  note  the  defects  of  their  University  training  while  it  was 
in  progress,  have  kept  the  account  open,  and,  setting  aside 
pleasant  reminiscences  as  irrelevant,  have  sued  for  the 
balance  as  a  just  debt  during  all  the  rest  of  their  lives. 
Wordsworth  would  not  own  much  filial  respect  for  Cam 
bridge.1  It  was  the  same  with  Milton  before  him.  His 
:  references  to  his  first  tutor,  Young,  and  to  Gill,  as  his 
teacher  at  St.  Paul's  School,  are  uniformly  respectful ;  but 
his  subsequent  allusions  to  the  University  are  uniformly 
critical. 

The  consideration  of  his  more  mature  views  on  the  sub 
ject  of  University  education  awaits  us  twelve  years  hence. 
For  the  present  it  is  enough  to  say  that,  as  Milton  came  to 
bo  one  of  those  who  advocated  a  radical  reform  in  the 
system  of  the  English  Universities,  and  helped  to  bring  the 
system  as  it  existed  into  popular  disrepute,  so  the  dissatis 
faction  which  then  broke  out  so  conspicuously  had  begun, 
and  had  been  already  manifested  by  him,  while  he  was  still 
at  Cambridge.  In  ot.hpr  jgcrds^  Milton,  while  at  Cam- 

one  of  those  younger, 
Platomsls,as  they  might  be  called,  collectivel     or 


distributively, — who  were  at  war  with  the  methods  of  the 


indeed,  the  whole  history  of  Miltor&rrelaLluiis  Lo 


and,  through  Cambridge,  to  the  intellectual  tendencies  of 


proccc( 

sojn£_ajiditionaV  materials  of  a  contemporary  kind  which  his 
worksjmpply. 


EOLUSIOKES    0  RAW  RLE. 


In  1674,  the  last  year  of 
widely  known  as  the  author  oj 


1  See  the  part  of  his  Prelude  ref ervlng  to  his  residence  at  the  University. 


MILTON'S  PROLUSION ES  ORATORIO.  273 

Jate  to  be  while  living,  there  was  pujilisliedJay-a  bookseller,, 
named  Brabazon  Aylmer,  aiTtheThree  Pigeons  in  Cornhill, 
a  little  volume  containing  those  Epistolce  Familiares  of  the 
poet  the  earliest  of  which  we  have  already  given  in  trans 
lation.  It  had  been  intended  to  include  in  the  volume  his 
Latin  Public  Letters,  or  "  Letters  of  State/'  written  while 
he  was  Latin  Secretary  to  the  Commonwealth  and  to  Crom 
well's  Government.  As  we  learn,  however,  from  a  Latin 
preface  in  the  printer's  name  prefixed  to  the  volume,  it  had 
been  found  impossible  to  fulfil  this  intention.  "  With 
"  respect  to  the  Public  Letters,"  he  says,  "  having  ascer- 
"  tained  that  those  who  alone  had  the  power  [the  Govern- 
"  ment  officials  of  Charles  II.]  were  for  certain  reasons 
"  opposed  to  their  publication,  I,  content  with  what  I  had 
"got,  was  satisfied  with  giviug  to  the  world  the  Familiar 
"  Letters  by  themselves."  Here,  however,  there  occurred 
a  publisher's  difficulty.  "  When  I  found  these  Familiar 
"  Letters  to  be  somewhat  too  scanty  for  a  volume  even  of 
"  limited  size,  I  resolved  to  treat  with  the  author  through  a 
"  particular  friend  of  both  of  us,  in  order  that,  if  he  chanced 
"  to  have  by  him  any  little  matter  in  the  shape  of  a  treatise, 
"  he  might  not  grudge  throwing  it  in,  as  a  make- weight,  to 
"  counterbalance  the  paucity  of  the  Letters,  or  at  least 
"  occupy  the  blank.  He,  influenced  by  his  adviser,  having 
"  turned  over  his  papers,  at  last  fell  upon  the  accompanying 
"juvenile  compositions,  scattered  about,  some  here  and 
"  others  there,  and  at  my  friend's  earnest  request,  made 
"  them  over  to  his  discretion.  These,  therefore,  when  I 
' '  perceived  that,  as  they  were  sufficiently  approved  of  by 
"  the  common  friend  in  whom  I  trusted,  so  the  author  did 
1  e  not  seem  to  think  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  them,  I 
"  have  not  hesitated,  juvenile  though  they  are,  to  give  to 
"  the  light,  hoping,  as  it  is  very  much  my  interest  to  do, 
"  that  they  will  be  found  not  less  vendible  by  me  than 
"  originally,  when  they  were  recited,  they  were  agreeable 
"to  their  auditors."1  The  "juvenile  compositions"  thus 

1  Translated  from  the  preface  to  the       liares,"  1674.     I  may  here  remark  on 
original  edition  of  the  "  Epistolae  Fami-       the  impropriety  of  the  practice,  too 
VOL.  I.  T 


27J:  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    IIIS    TIME. 

thrown  in  to  fill  up  the  volume,  were  certain  Latin  Pro- 
lusiones  Oratorios  or  Rhetorical  Essays  of  Milton,  written 
while  he  was  at  College,  and  the  manuscripts  of  which  had 
remained  by  him  through  the  intervening  two-and-forty 
years.  They  have,  accordingly,  been  sometimes  printed  since 
among  Milton's  collected  prose  works.  Though  printed, 
however,  they  do  not  seem  ever  to  have  been  read  ;  and,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  it  has  fallen  to  me  for  the  first  time  to  give 
an  account  of  their  contents.1  I  have  reserved  them  till 
now  because  they  illustrate  Milton's  College  career  as  a 
whole,  and  throw  light  on  various  points  that  might  be 
otherwise  obscure. 

The  separate  title  prefixed  to  the  little  body  of  Essays  in 
Brabazon  Aylmer's  little  volume  is  "  Joannis  Miltonii  Pro- 
lusiones  qucedam  Oratorice  "  ("  Some  Oratorical  Exercises  of 
John  Milton"),  while  on  the  general  title-page  the  addi 
tional  words,  "jam  olim  in  Collegia  A  dole  scent  is"  ("in  his 
youth  at  College  long  ago  ")  define  their  nature  more  par 
ticularly.  The  Frolusiones  are  seven  in  number,  filling  in 
all  about  ninety  pages  in  the  small  duodecimo  original,  and 
about  sixty  in  ordinary  octavo  reprint,  and  are  headed 
severally  as  follows  : — 

1.  "  UTRUM  DIES  AN  Nox  PR.ESTANTIOR  SIT  ? "    ("  Whether  Day  or 
Night  be  the  more  excellent  ? ").  pp.  16  in  the  original  duodecimo. 

2.  "  IN  SCHOLIS  PUBLICIS  :  '  DE  SPILERARUM  CONCENTU.'  "    ("  In 
the  Public  Schools  :  '  Of  the  Music  of  the  Spheres.' ").  pp.  5. 

3.  "!N  SCHOLIS  PUBLICIS:  'CONTRA  PHILOSOPHIAM  SCHOLASTI- 
CAM.'"    ("In  the  Public  Schools:   'Against  the  Scholastic  Philo 
sophy.'"),  pp.  8. 

4.  "  IN  COLLEGIO,  &c.  THESIS  :  '  IN  REI  CUJUSLIBET  INTERITU  NON 

DATUR  RESOLUTIO  AD  MATERIAM  PRIMAM.'  "     ("  TlieSlS  ill  College  :  '  In 

the  destruction  of  whatever  substance  there  is  no  resolution  into  first 
matter.' ").  pp.  10. 

5.  "  IN  SCHOLIS  PUBLICIS  :  '  NON  DANTUR  FORM^E  PARTIALES  IN 

common,  of  reprinting  the  writings  of  through    by    any    editor    of    Milton's 

authors  in  what  are  offered  as  "  Col-  Works.      The    punctuation    of    them 

lected  Works,"  without   reprinting  at  proves   this,  being  so   deplorably   bad 

the  same  time  all  original  prefaces,  £c.,  that  frequently  it  is  only  by  neglecting 

such  as  the  present,  which  might  throw  the  points  as  they  stand,  and  changing 

light  on  the  circumstances  of  the  iucli-  commas  into  periods  and  the  like,  that 

vidual  publications,  and  so  on  the  lives  sense  is  to  be  made  of  important  pas- 

of  the  authors.  sages.     This  remark  applies,  however, 

1  The  "  Prolusiones  "  do  not  seem  tojiearly  all  Milton's  Latin  prose, 
even  to  have  been  read  intelligently 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  275 

ANIMALI  PRJETER  TOTALEM."'  ("In  the  Public  Schools :  'There  are 
no  partial  forms  in  an  animal  in  addition  to  the  total.' ").  pp.  (i 

6.  "!N  FERIIS  ^STIVIS  COLLEGII,  SED  CONCURRENCE,  UT  SOLET, 
TOTA  FERE  ACADEMIC  JUVENTUTE,  ORATio :  '  Exercitationes^  non- 
nunquam  ludicras  Philosophies  studiis  non  obesse.' "     ("  Speech  in  the 
summer  vacation  of  the  College,  but  almost  all  the  youth  of  the 
University  being,  as  usual,  present.  Subject:  '  That  occasional  sportive 
exercises  are  not  obstructive  to  philosophical  studies.' ")    To  this 
Speech  there  is  appended  a  Prolusio,  delivered  after  it,  and  in  con 
nexion  with  it.     pp.  22. 

7.  "  IN  SACRARIO  HABITA  PRO  ARTE   ORATIO  :   *  BEATIORES  REDDIT 

HOMINES  ARS  QUAM  IGNORANTIA.'  "  ("  Speech  in  Chapel  in  defence 
of  Art : '  Art  is  more  conducive  to  human  happiness  than  Ignorance.'"). 
pp.  20. 

Of  these  seven  exercises,  three,  it  will  be  seen,  were  read 
or  recited  in  the  public  schools — the  2d,  the  3d,  and  the 
5th — forming,  doubtless,  a  portion  of  the  statutory  exercises 
required  there.  Three  others — the  1st,  the  4th,  and  the 
7th — were  read  or  recited  in  College,  also  according  to 
regulation ;  the  title  of  the  last  seeming  to  indicate  that  it 
was  the  "  declamation "  required  as  the  last  exercise  in 
College  before  the  M.A.  degree.  The  6th  exercise  stands 
by  itself,  as  a  voluntary  discourse  delivered  by  appointment 
at  a  meeting  of  the  students  of  Christ's  and  of  other  youths 
of  the  University,  held,  by  way  of  frolic,  in  the  autumn 
holidays.  This  exercise,  it  can  be  ascertained,  was  written 
in  the  autumn  of  1628,  when  Milton  was  in  his  twentieth 
year  and  a  sophister  looking  forward  to  his  B.A.  degree. 
The  date  of  the  7th,  if  my  surmise  is  correct,  must  be  fixed 
in  the  session  1631-2.  The  dates  of  the  others  are  uncertain. 
It  is  presumed,  however,  that  they  extend  pretty  equally 
over  Milton's  University  course  and  may  jointly  represent 
the  whole  of  it.  We  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  they 
stand.1 

EXERCISE  I. 

This  is  the  opening  speech  or  argument  in  a  College  disputation 
on  the  question  "  WHETHER  DAY  OR  NIGHT  BE  THE  MORE  EXCEL 
LENT  1 "  The  reader  must  fancy  the  fellows  and  students  assembled 
in  the  Hall  or  in  the  Chapel  at  Christ's,  a  moderator  presiding  over 
the  debate,  and  Milton  standing  on  one  side  in  a  little  pulpit  or 

i  As,  at  this  point,  I  constitute  my-  of  Milton's  writings,  I  pnt  my  own 
self  the  translator  and  editor,  after  a  connecting  and  explanatory  remarks 
fashion,  of  a  hitherto  unedited  portion  into  small  type. 

T2 


276  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

tribune,  with  his  manuscript  before  him.  His  thesis  is  that  Day  is 
altogether  a  much  more  excellent  institution  than  Night.  The  treat 
ment,  as  one  might  anticipate,  is  only  semi-serious,  the  orator  all  the 
while  smiling,  as  it  were,  at  the  absurdity  of  the  question.  Never 
theless,  he  enters  fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  affair,  and  advocates  the 
cause  of  Day  splendidly.  He  begins  thus  (save  that  we  give  lame 
English  for  his  sounding  Latin)  : — 

"All  the  noblest  Masters  of  Rhetoric  have  left  it  everywhere 
written  behind  them,  nor  has  the  fact  escaped  yourselves,  Fellow- 
Academics,  that  in  each  of  the  kinds  of  speaking,  whether  the  demon 
strative,  the  deliberative,  or  the  judicial,  the  exordium  ought  to  be 
drawn  from  what  will  ensure  the  favour  of  the  hearers,  and  that 
otherwise  neither  can  the  minds  of  the  hearers  be  moved  nor  can  the 
cause  succeed,  according  to  purpose.1  But,  if  this  is  the  case, — and, 
not  to  conceal  the  truth,  it  is,  I  know,  a  maxim  fixed  and  ratified  by 
the  assent  of  all  the  learned, — alas  for  me !  to  what  straits  am  I  this 
day  reduced,  fearing  as  I  do  that,  in  the  very  outset  of  my  oration,  I 
may  be  on  the  point  of  bringing  forward  something  far  from  oratorical, 
and  may  have  necessarily  to  deviate  from  the  first  and  chief  duty  of 
an  orator.  For  how  can  I  hope  for  your  good  will,  when,  in  this  so 
great  concourse,  as  many  heads  as  I  behold  with  my  eyes,  almost  the 
same  number  do  I  see  of  visages  bearing  malice  against  me,  so  that  I 
seem  to  have  come  as  an  orator  to  persons  not  exorable  ?  Of  so  much 
efficacy  in  producing  private  grudges  is  the  rivalry  even  in  schools  of 
those  who  follow  different  studies  or  different  principles  in  the  same 
studies.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  that  I  may  not  wholly  despond,  I  do, 
unless  I  am  mistaken,  see  here  and  there  some,  who,  even  by  their 
silent  aspect,  signify  not  obscurely  how  well  they  wish  me ;  by  whom, 
however  few  they  may  be,  I,  for  my  part,  would  rather  be  approved 
than  by  numberless  hundreds  of  those  unskilled  ones  in  whom  there 
is  no  mind,  no  right  reason,  no  sound  judgment,  but  only  pride  in  a 
certain  overboiling  and  truly  laughable  foam  of  words ;  from  whom  if 
you  strip  the  rags  they  have  borrowed  from  new-fangled  authors,  then? 
immortal  God  !  how  much  barer  than  my  nail  you  would  behold  them, 
and,  reduced  to  dumbness  by  the  exhaustion  of  their  empty  stock  of 
words  and  little  aphorisms,  M$*  ypv  00eyye<r0at  [not  able  to  emit  a 
grunt].  O,  with  what  difficulty  Heraclitus  himself  would  refrain 
from  laughing,  if  he  were  yet  among  the  living,  and  were  to  see  these 
(please  the  gods !)  little  orators,  whom  a  little  before  he  might  have 
heard  spouting  forth  grandeurs  in  the  buskined  Orestes  of  Euripides, 
or  in  Hercules  madly  dying,  walking  with  lowered  crest  after  they 
have  got  through  their  very  slender  store  of  a  certain  sort  of  terms,  or 

1  In  this  sentence  we  see  the  student  and  the  judicial  is  Aristotle's;  the  rule 

of    Aristotle,   Cicero,   and    the    other  about  the  exordium  ("  reddere  auditores 

ancient  writers  on  .Rhetoric.     The  divi-  lenevotos,  attentos,  dociles  ")  is  Cicero's 

siou  of  oratory  into  the  three  species  of  and  everybody's, 
the    demonstrative,   the    deliberative, 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  277 

creeping  away  with  indrawn  horns  like  certain  little  animals  !  But 
I  come  back  from  this  little  digression.  If,  then,  there  is  any  one 
who,  scorning  terms  of  peace,  has  declared  truceless  war  against  me, 
him  at  present  I  will  not  disdain  to  beg  and  entreat  to  set  aside 
rivalry  for  a  little  while  and  give  ns  his  presence  here  as  a  fair  arbiter 
in  this  debate,  not  allowing  the  fault  of  the  orator,  if  there  is  any,  to 
prejudice  a  cause  the  best  and  most  illustrious  intrinsically.  And, 
should  you  think  all  this  a  little  too  biting,  and  dashed  with  too  much 
vinegar,  I  profess  that  I  have  done  the  thing  purposely  ;  for  I  wish 
the  beginning  of  my  speech  to  resemble  the  first  streak  of  morning, 
out  of  which,  when  it  is  somewhat  cloudy,  there  generally  springs  a 
very  clear  Day.  And,  whether  this  said  Day  be  a  more  excellent  thing 
than  Night  -  " 

This  Exordium  is  certainly  a  castigation  for  somebody,  if  not  for 
the  whole  College  of  Christ's.  A  freshman  could  hardly  have  ventured 
on  such  language  :  I  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  exercise  was  written 
'  in  or  about  the  third  year  of  Milton's  course.  At  whatever  time  it 
was  written,  the  fact  is  distinctly  intimated  that  the  author  was  then, 
for  some  reason  or  another,  unpopular  in  the  College.  He  had  a  few 
friends,  he  says,  but  the  majority  were  against  him.  The  allnsiona  te~. 

Certain    peculiarities   in   thp.    fr'tw^nn   or   jp   f^  ™M^r>rl    nf    In'n  ntn^^ 

as  theprobabie  cause  of  his  unpopularity,  are  worth 


After  the  Exordium,  tne  orator  proceeds  to  the  Question.  He 
undertakes  to  show  the  superiority  of  Day  over  Night  on  three 
grounds  :  —  first,  the  ground  of  more  honourable  parentage;  secondly, 
that  of  the  greater  respect  of  antiquity  ;  and,  thirdly,  that  of  higher 
utility  for  all  human  uses.  Under  the  first  two  heads  there  is  an 
examination  of  the  pedigrees  of  Day  and  Night  respectively,  accord 
ing  to  the  ancient  Greek  mythology,  with  quotations  from  Hesiod  and 
others.  On  the  whole,  from  this  logomachy,  Day  dances  out  beauti 
fully,  as  the  nobler-born  and  the  more  classically  applauded  ;  and  the 
remainder  of  the  oration  is  taken  up  chiefly  with  a  contrast  by  the 
speaker  himself  between  the  phenomena  of  Night  and  those  of  Day. 
Here  the  genius  of  the  poet  breaks  through  the  mock-heroic  argu 
mentation  and  the  heaviness  of  the  Latin  :  — 

"And  truly,  first,  how  pleasant  and  desirable  Day  is  to  the  race 
of  all  living  things  what  need  is  there  to  expound  to  you,  when  the 
very  birds  themselves  cannot  conceal  their  joy,  but,  leaving  their  little 
nests,  as  soon  as  it  has  dawned,  either  soothe  all  things  by  their 
sweetest  song  of  concert  from  the  tops  of  trees,  or,  balancing  them 
selves  upward,  fly  as  near  as  they  can  to  the  sun,  eager  to  congratulate 
the  returning  light1?  First  of  all  the  sleepless  cock  trumpets  the 
approaching  sun,  and,  like  some  herald,  seems  to  admonish  men  that, 
shaking  off  sleep,  they  should  go  forth  to  meet  and  salute  the  new 
Aurora.  The  kids  also  skip  in  the  fields,  and  the  whole  world  of 
quadrupeds  leaps  and  exults  with  joy.  Sorrowful  Clytie,  having 
waited,  her  countenance  turned  eastwards,  for  her  Phoebus  almost  all 
through  the  night,  now  smiles  and  looks  caressingly  towards  her 


278  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

coming  lover.  The  marigold  also  and  the  rose,  not  to  be  behind  in 
adding  to  the  common  joy,  opening  their  bosoms,  breathe  forth  their 
odours,  preserved  for  the  sun  alone,  which  they  disdain  to  impart  to 
the  night,  shutting  themselves  up  in  their  little  leaves  as  soon  as  the 
evening  touches  them ;  and  the  other  flowers,  raising  their  heads  a 
little  drooping  and  languid  with  dew,  offer  themselves,  as  it  were,  to 
the  Sun,  and  silently  ask  him  to  wipe  away  with  his  kisses  those  little 
tears  which  they  had  given  to  his  absence.  The  Earth,  too,  clothes 
herself  for  the  Sun's  approach  with  her  comelier  vestment ;  and  the 
near  clouds,  cloaked  in  various  colours,  seem,  with  solemn  pomp  and 
in  lengthened  train,  to  wait  on  the  rising  god.  [Here  folloivs  a 
quotation  from  the  hymn  of  Orpheus  to  Morning.']  And  no  wonder, 
since  Day  brings  not  less  utility  than  delight,  and  is  alone  suited  for 
the  encountering  of  business;  for  who  could  endure  to  cross  broad 
and  immense  seas  if  he  despaired  of  the  advent  of  day  1  Men  would 
then  navigate  the  ocean  no  otherwise  than  as  ghosts  do  Lethe  and 
Acheron,  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  soul-appalling  darkness.  And 
every  one  would  shut  himself  up  in  his  own  crib,  scarcely  ever  daring 
to  creep  abroad ;  so  that,  necessarily,  human  society  would  be  straight 
way  dissolved.  .  .  .  Justly,  therefore,  have  the  poets  written  that 
Night  takes  its  rise  from  Hell ;  for  it  is  clearly  impossible  that  from 
any  other  place  could  so  many  and  so  great  evils  be  brought  in  among 
mortals.  For,  when  Night  comes  on,  all  things  grow  sordid  and 
obscure ;  nor  is  there  truly  then  any  difference  between  Helen  and 
Canidia,  or  between  the  most  precious  stones  and  common  ones, 
except  that  some  gems  conquer  even  the  obscurity  of  night.  To  this 
is  added  the  fact  that  even  the  most  pleasant  places  then  strike  a 
horror  into  the  mind,  which  is  increased  by  the  deep  and  sad  kind  of 
silence;  and,  if  any  creature  is  then  abroad  in  the  fields,  whether 
man  or  beast,  it  makes  with  all  haste  either  to  house  or  to  caves,  where, 
stretched  on  bed,  it  shuts  its  eyes  against  the  terrible  aspects  of  Night. 
You  will  behold  none  abroad  save  robbers  and  light-shunning  rascals, 
who,  breathing  murder  and  rapine,  plot  against  the  goods  of  the 
citizens,  and  wander  only  at  night,  lest  they  should  be  detected  in  the 
day,  because  Day  searches  out  all  criminality,  unwilling  to  suffer  her 
light  to  be  stained  by  deeds  of  that  nature ;  you  will  meet  nothing 
but  the  goblins  and  phantoms  and  witches  which  Night  brings  in  her 
company  from  the  subterranean  regions,  and  which,  while  night  lasts, 
claim  the  earth  as  in  their  control  and  as  common  to  them  with 
human  beings.  Therefore  I  think  it  is  that  night  has  made  our 
sense  of  hearing  sharper,  in  order  that  the  groanings  of  ghosts,  the 
hootings  of  owls  and  night-hags,  and  the  roarings  of  lions  whom 
hunger  calls  forth,  may  the  sooner  pierce  our  ears,  and  afflict  our  souls 
with  heavier  fear." 

'  From  this  scenic  contrast  of  the  phenomena  of  Day  with  those  of 
Night,  forming  the  body  of  the  discourse,  the  orator  passes,  with 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  279 

a  humorous  ingenuity  which  the  auditors  may  have  relished,  to  a 
knock-down  conclusion  against  his  antagonist. 

"  Who,  then,  except  a  son  of  darkness,  a  burglar,  a  gambler,  or  one 
accustomed  to  spend  the  whole  night  in  debauchery  (inter  scortorum 
greges)  and  to  snore  through  entire  days, — who,  I  say,  except  such 
would  have  undertaken  the  defence  of  so  dishonourable  and  so 
invidious  a  cause  as  that  of  Night  ?  Truly,  I  wonder  that  he  dares  to 
face  this  sun,  and  to  enjoy,  in  common  with  others,  the  light  which 
he  ungratefully  vilifies, — deserving  as  he  does  to  be  killed,  like  a  new 
Python,  by  the  strokes  of  the  sun's  adverse  rays  ;  deserving  to  be  shut 
up  in  Cin^e^ajojlaikness,,  there  to  end  his  long  and  hated  life ;  nay, 
deserving,  last  of  all,  to  see  his  speech  move  his  auditors  to  sleep,  so 
that  whatever  he  says  shall  no  more  convince  than  a  dream,  and  that, 
drowsy  himself,  he  shall  be  deceived  into  the  fancy  that  his  nodding 
and  snoring  auditors  are  assenting  to  him  and  applauding  his  perora 
tion.  But  I  see  the  swart  eyebrows  of  Night,  and  I  feel  black  dark 
ness  rising  [7s  this  a  jest  at  the  personal  appearance  of  his  opponent  ?]  ; 
I  must  withdraw,  lest  Night  crush  me  unawares.  You,  therefore,  my 
hearers,  since  Night  is  nothing  else  than  the  decline  and  as  it  were 
death  of  Day,  do  not  allow  Death  to  have  tlje  preference  over  Life  ; 
but  deign  to  adorn  my  cause  with  your  suffrages ;  So  may  the  Muses 
prosper  your  studies,  and  may  Aurora,  the  friend  of  the  Muses, 
hearken  to  you,  and  Phoebus  also,  who  sees  all  things,  and  hears  how 
many  favourers  of  his  praise  he  has  in  this  assembly  !  I  have  done." 

EXEECISE  II. 

This  is  a  short  Essay  "  ON  THE  Music  OF  THE  SPHERES,"  read  in 
the  Public  Schools.  From  the  modest  tone  in  which  it  opens  we  infer 
that  it  was  among  the  first  of  Milton's  public  exercises  in  the  Uni 
versity.  It  appears,  moreover,  to  have  been  delivered  on  some  day  of 
special  note  in  the  calendar,  as  one  of  many  speeches,  and  as  a 
rhetorical  prelude  to  a  disputation  on  the  same  subject.  Here  is  the 
opening  : — 

"  If  there  is  any  room,  Academicians,  for  my  insignificance,  after  so 
many  great  orators  have  to-day  been  fully  heard,  I  also  will  endeavour, 
according  to  my  small  measure,  to  express  how  well  I  wish  to  the 
solemn  celebration  of  this  day,  and  will  follow  like  one  far  in  the  rear 
in  this  day-long  triumph  of  eloquence.  While,  therefore,  I  wholly 
eschew  and  abominate  those  threadbare  and  hackneyed  subjects  of 
discourse,  my  mind  is  kindled  and  at  once  roused  up  to  the  arduous 
attempting  of  some  new  matter  by  the  thought  of  the  day  itself,  as 
well  as  of  those  who,  I  was  not  wrong  in  guessing,  would  speak  what 
would  be  worthy  of  the  day ;  which  two  things  might  well  have  added 
energy  and  acumen  even  to  a  genius  otherwise  sluggish  and  obtuse. 
Hence,  accordingly,  it  falls  to  me  to  preface,  with  opened  hand,  as 


280  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

they  say,  and  oratorical  exuberance,  a  few  things  concerning  that 
Celestial  Music  about  which  there  is  presently  to  be  a  dispute  as  it 
were  with  closed  fist1;  account,  however,  being  taken  of  time,  which 
at  once  urges  me  on  and  straitens  me." 

The  orator  then  goes  on  to  say  that  this  notion  of  the  Music  of  the 
Spheres  is  not  to  be  taken  literally.  Pythagoras  was  too  wise  a  man 
to  have  inculcated  such  a  puerility;  and  whatever  harmony  of  the 
spheres  he  taught  was  nothing  else  th'an  the  friendly  relations  of  the 
celestial  orbs  and  their  obedience  to  fixed  law. 

"  It  was  Aristotle,  the  rival  and  constant  calumniator  of  Pythagoras 
and  Plato,  who,  desiring  to  strew  his  own  way  to  glory  with  the 
wrecks  of  the  opinions  of  those  great  men,  attributed  to  Pythagoras 
the  notion  of  this  unheard  symphony  of  the  heavens,  this  music  of 
the  spheres.  But,  if  either  fate  or  chance  had  so  allowed  it,  Father 
Pythagoras,  that  thy  soul  had  passed  into  me,  there  would  then  not 
be  wanting  one  to  defend  thee,  however  long  labouring  under  heavy 
obloquy.  And,  truly,  why  should  not  the  heavenly  bodies,  in  those 
perennial  circuits  of  theirs,  produce  musical  sounds'?  Does  it  not 
seem  just  to  you,  Aristotle  1  On  my  word,  I  should  hardly  believe 
that  your  own  intelligences  could  have  endured  that  sedentary  labour 
of  rolling  the  heaven  for  so  many  ages,  unless  that  unspeakable 
melody  of  the  stars  had  kept  them  from  leaving  their  places,  and  per 
suaded  them  to  stay  by  the  charm  of  music.  And,  if  you  take  from 
space  those  fine  sensations,  you  give  up  your  ministering  deities  also 
to  a  bridewell,  and  condemn  them  to  a  treadmill." 

The  speaker  then  proceeds  to  cite  those  stories  of  the  ancient 
mythology  which  show  the  universality  of  the  belief  in  music  as 
filling  space.  V/hat  of  Arion  and  his  lyre  ?  What  of  Ap«U°'s  skill 
as  a  musician?  How  of  that  fable  of  the  Muses  dancing  day  and 
night,  from  the  first  beginning  of  things,  round  Jove's  altars  1  And 
what,  he  continues,  though  no  one  on  earth  now  has  ever  -heard  this 
starry  symphony  ?  Shall  all  above  the  moon's  sphere  be  therefore 
supposed  mute  I  Rather  let  us  accuse  our  own  feeble  ears,  which 
either  are  not  able  or  are  not  worthy  to  receive  the  sounds  of  so  sweet 
a  song.  (Here  Milton  must  have  had  in  his  mind  the  well-known 
passage  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Act  V.  sc.  i)  Nay,  but  the  starry 
music  may  be  heard  : — 

"If  we  carried  pure  and  chaste  and  snow-clean  hearts,  as  did 
Pythagoras  of  old,  then  should  our  ears  resound  and  be  filled  with 
that  sweetest  music  of  the  over-wheeling  stars,  and  all  things  should 
on  the  instant  return  as  to  the  golden  age,  and  thus,  free  at  last  from 

i  Milton  here  uses  a  common  com-  the  same  as  the  opened  and  outspread 

parison  of  the   schools,  according  to  hand  is  to  the  closed  fist.    Constitu- 

which   the   rhetorical   treatment   of   a  tionally,  Milton  himself  preferred  the 

stibject  was  to  the  logical  treatment  of  opened  and  outspread  hand. 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIES.  281 

misery,  we  should  lead  a  life  of  easy  blessedness,  enviable  even  by 
the  gods." 

EXERCISE  III. 

This,  like  the  last,  is  an  oration  of  about  half-an-hour  before  an 
audience  in  the  Public  Schools.  It  is  "AGAINST  THE  SCHOLASTIC 
PHILOSOPHY."  After  a  modest  introduction,  in  which  Cicero's  observ 
ation  is  quoted,  that  a  good  speech  ought  at  once  to  instruct,  delight, 
and  actively  influence,  the  orator  proceeds : — 

"  I  shall  produce  abundant  active  effect  at  present  if  I  can  induce 
you,  my  auditors,  to  turn  over  seldomer  those  huge  and  almost  mon 
strous  volumes  of  the  subtle  doctors,  as  they  are  called,  and  to  indulge 
a  little  less  in  the  warty  controversies  of  the  sophists." 

He  undertakes  to  show  that  Scholastic  Studies  are  neither  pleasant 
nor  fruitful.  Under  the  first  head  he  says  :— 

"  Often,  my  hearers,  when  there  chanced  to  be  imposed  upon  me 
now  and  then  the  necessity  of  investigating  these  subtle  trivialities, 
after  blunting  both  my  mind  and  my  eyesight  with  a  day's  reading, — 
often,  I  say,  I  have  stopped  to  take  breath,  and  thereupon,  measuring 
the  task  with  my  eyes,  I  have  sought  a  wretched  relief  from  my 
fatigue ;  but,  as  I  always  saw  more  remaining  than  I  had  got  through 
in  my  reading,  I  have  wished  again  and  again  that,  instead  of  these 
enforced  vanities,  there  had  been  assigned  me  the  task  of  a  recleansing 
of  the  Augean  cow-house,  and  have  called  Hercules  a  happy  fellow, 
to  whom  Juno  in  her  good  nature  had  never  commanded  the  endur 
ance  of  this  kind  of  toil.  Nor  is  this  nerveless,  languid,  and  earthy 
matter  elevated  or  dignified  by  any  beauty  of  style.  ...  I  think  there 
never  can  have  been  any  place  for  these  studies  on  Parnassus,  unless 
perhaps  some  uncultivated  nook  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  unlovely, 
rough  and  horrid  with  brambles  and  thorns,  overgrown  with  thistles 
and  thick  nettles,  far  removed  from  the  dance  and  company  of  the 
goddesses,  producing  neither  laurel  nor  flowers,  and  never  reached  by 
the  sound  of  Apollo's  lyre." 

Poetry,  Oratory,  and  History,  he  says,  are  all  delightful,  each  in  its 
own  way ;  but  this  Scholastic  Philosophy  does  nothing  but  irritate. 
He  then  passes  to  the  second  argument  against  it,  that  from  its 
inutility : — 

"  By  these  two  things  in  chief  have  I  perceived  a  country  to  be  ad 
vanced  and  adorned — either  noble  speaking  or  brave  action ;  but  this 
litigious  battling  of  discordant  opinions  seems  unable  either  to  qualify 
for  eloquence,  or  to  instruct  in  prudence,  or  to  incite  to  brave  deeds. 
.  . .  How  much  better  would  it  be,  Academicians,  and  how  much  more 
worthy  of  your  reputation,  to  walk  as  it  were  with  the  eyes  over  the 
universe  of  earth  as  it  is  portrayed  in  the  map,  to  see  places  trodden. 


282  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

by  the  ancient  heroes,  to  traverse  regions  ennobled  by  wars,  triumphs, 
and  even  the  fables  of  illustrious  poets, — now  to  cross  the  stormy 
Adriatic,  now  to  approach  safely  the  flame-emitting  ./Etna ;  further 
more  to  observe  the  manners  of  men  and  the  fairly  ordered  states  in 
which  nations  have  arranged  themselves,  and  then  to  investigate  and 
study  the  natures  of  all  living  things,  and  from  these  again  to  direct 
the  mind  downward  to  the  secret  virtues  of  stones  and  plants  !  Nor 
hesitate,  my  hearers,  even  to  soar  into  the  heavens,  and  there  contem 
plate  the  multiform  shows  of  the  clouds,  and  the  collected  power  of 
the  snow,  and  whence  those  morning  tears,  and  then  look  into  the 
coffers  of  the  hail,  and  survey  the  magazines  of  the  lightnings ;  nor  let 
there  be  hidden  from  you  what  either  Jupiter  or  Nature  means  when 
a  dreadful  and  vast  comet  menaces  the  heaven  with  conflagration; 
nor  let  even  the  minutest  little  stars,  in  all  their  number,  as  they  are 
scattered  between  the  two  poles,  escape  your  notice;  nay,  follow  the 
wandering  sun  as  his  companions,  and  call  time  itself  to  a  reckoning, 
and  demand  an  account  of  its  eternal  march.  But  let  not  your  mind 
suffer  itself  to  be  contained  and  circumscribed  within  the  same  limits 
as  the  world,  but  let  it  stray  even  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the 
universe ;  and  let  it  finally  learn  (which  is  yet  the  highest  matter)  to 
know  itself,  and  at  the  same  time  those  holy  minds  and  intelligences 
with  whom  hereafter  it  is  to  enter  into  everlasting  companionship. 
But  why  too  much  of  this  1  Let  your  master  in  all  this  be  that  very 
Aristotle  who  is  so  much  delighted  in,  and  who  has  left  almost  all 
these  things  scientifically  and  exquisitely  written  for  our  learning. 
At  the  mention  of  whose  name  I  perceive  you  to  be  now  suddenly 
moved,  Academicians,  and  to  be  drawn  step  by  step  into  this  opinion, 
and,  as  it  were,  to  be  borne  on  in  it  more  resolutely  by  his  invitation." 

The  reader  will  observe  Milton's  prepossession  in  favour  of  that 
real  or  experimental  knowledge  (Geography,  Astronomy,  Meteorology, 
Natural  History,  Politics,  &c.),  which  it  was  Bacon's  design  to  recom 
mend  in  lieu  of  the  scholastic  studies.  He  will  also  observe,  however, 
the  reverent  mention  of  Aristotle  as  himself  an  authority  and  exemplar 
in  the  right  direction. 

EXERCISE  IV. 
This  is  a  College  thesis  on  the  proposition,  "  IN  THE  DESTRUCTION 

OF    WHATEVER    SUBSTANCE    THERE     IS     NO    RESOLUTION    INTO    FIRST 

MATTER."  As  might  be  guessed  from  the  heading,  the  exercise  is,  in 
fact,  one  of  those  metaphysical  ingenuities  of  the  schools  on  the 
absurdity  and  uselessness  of  which  Milton  has  just  been  heard.  As 
if  loth  to  enter  upon  the  question,  he  opens  with  a  somewhat  long 
and  irrelevant  introduction  on  the  potency  of  error  in  the  world,  in 
the  course  of  which  he-  seems  again  to  glance  at  the  unsatisfactory 
nature  of  the  scholastic  discussions.  He  then  continues : — 

"  But  I  seem  to  hear  some  grumbling,  '  What  is  he  driving  at  now  ? 
While  he  is  inveighing  against  error,  he  is  himself  errant  through  the 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES   ORATORIO.  283 

whole  universe.'  I  confess  the  error;  nor  should  I  have  acted  thus  if 
I  had  not  promised  myself  much  from  your  indulgence.  Now,  there 
fore,  at  length  let  us  gird  ourselves  for  the  prescribed  task ;  and  from 
these  so  great  difficulties  may  the  goddess  Lua  (as  Lipsius  says) 
happily  deliver  me  !  The  question  which  is  this  day  proposed  to  us 
to  be  disentangled  is  this :  Whether  in  the  destruction  of  anything 
whatever  there  takes  place  a  resolution  into  first  matter1?  Which  in 
other  words  is  wont  to  be  stated  thus :  Whether  any  accidents  that 
were  in  a  corrupted  substance  remain  also  in  that  produced  from  itT 
that  is,  Whether,  the  form  perishing,  there  perish  also  all  the  accidents 
that  pre-existed  in  the  compound?" 

'  There  are  illustrious  names,  he  says,  on  both  sides  of  this  contro 
versy  ;  but  he  takes  part  with  those  who  contend  that,  in  the  destruc 
tion  of  a  substance,  there  is  never  a  resolution  into  first  matter. 

"If  there  is  resolution  into  first  matter,  it  is  essentially  implied 
that  this  is  rashly  predicated  of  first  matter, — to  wit,  that  it  is  never 
found  pure.  Adversaries  will  reply,  '  This  is  said  in  respect  of  form ' ; 
but  let  those  sciolists,  then,  thus  hold  that  substantial  forms  are 
nowhere  found  apart  from  accidental  forms.  ^But  this  is  trifling,  and 
does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  case.  Stronger  arguments  must  be 
used.  And  first  let  us  see  what  ancient  philosophers  we  have  favour 
ing  our  side.  Lo  !  as  we  inquire,  Aristotle  spontaneously  presents 
himself,  and,  with  a  chosen  band  of  his  interpreters,  gives  us  the 
advantage  of  his  bulk ;  for  I  would  have  you  understand,  my  hearers, 
that  this  battle  was  begun  under  the  leadership  and  advice  of  Aristotle 
himself,  and  begun  with  good  auspices,  as  I  hope.  Who  himself 
seems  to  hint  the  same  that  we  think,  Metaph.  VII.  Text  8,  where  he 
says  that  quantity  first  of  all  inheres  in  matter.  Whoever  shall 
oppose  this  opinion  is,  I  may  tell  him,  guilty  of  heresy  against  what 
has  been  ruled  by  all  the  sages.  Moreover,  Aristotle  elsewhere  clearly 
means  quantity  to  be  a  property  of  first  matter,  which  is  also  asserted 
by  most  of  his  followers;  but  who,  even  on  the  sentence  of  a  judge 
selected  on  his  own  side,  would  tolerate  the  disseverance  of  a  property 
from  its  subject]  But  come,  let  us  proceed  piece  by  piece,  and  con 
sider  what  reason  advises.  Our  assertion,  then,  is  proved  first  from 
this,  that  matter  has  proper  actual  entity  from  its  own  proper  exist 
ence,  and  accordingly  may  support  quantity,  or  at  least  that  kind  of 
it  which  is  called  indeterminate.  What  though  some  confidently 
affirm  that  form  is  not  received  into  matter  except  through  the  medium 
of  quantity?  Secondly,  if  an  accident  is  destroyed,  it  must  neces 
sarily  be  destroyed  only  in  these  ways — either  by  the  introduction  of 
a  contrary,  or  per  desitionem  termini,  or  by  the  absence  of  another 
conserving  cause,  or,  finally,  from  the  defect  of  the  proper  subject  in 
which  it  inheres.  Quantity  cannot  be  destroyed  in  the  first  way, 
inasmuch  as,"  &c. 


284  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

After  two  or  three  pages  of  metaphysical  reasoning  of  this  kind, — 
utterly,  and,  I  think,  purposely  bewildering  to  the  wits  of  his  auditors, 
but  in  which  the  old  metaphysical  terms,  Substance,  Accident.,  Quanti 
tative,  Extension,  Intension,  &c.  are  apparently  used  in  their  proper 
senses  and  nourished  about  in  the  most  approved  academic  fashion, — 
the  disputant  emerges,  with  a  smile  on  his  face,  thus  : — 

"I  might  have  dwelt,  and  I  ought  to  have  dwelt,4onger  on  this 
subject.  Whether  to  you  I  know  not,  however,  but  certainly  to 
myself  I  am  a  great  bore.  It  remains  that  we  now  descend  to  the 
arguments  of  our  opponents ;  which  the  Muses  grant  I  may  pound  if 
possible  into  first  matter,  or  rather  into  nothing  ! " 

There  is  then  another  plunge  into  the  metaphysical  region  in  pursuit 
of  his  opponents ;  but  whether  he  overtakes  them  there,  and  succeeds 
in  executing  his  threat  upon  them,  the  reader  may  find  out,  in  the 
original  Latin,  for  himself. 

EXERCISE  V. 

This  is  another  physio-metaphysical  discussion, — read,  however, 
not  in  College,  like  the  last,  but  in  the  Public  Schools.  The  proposi 
tion  maintained  is,  "  THERE  ARE  NO  PARTIAL  FORMS  IN  AN  ANIMAL 
IN  ADDITION  TO  THE  WHOLE."  As  before,  there  is  a  rhetorical  intro 
duction  of  some  length,  in  itself  quite  irrelevant  to  the  topic  on  hand, 
but  which  the  speaker  cleverly  makes  relevant.  He  dilates  for  about 
a  page  on  the  singular  growth  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  its  ultimate 
destruction  by  barbaric  invasion;  and  then  he  says  that  all  this 
reminds  him  of  the  position  of  truth  in  this  world,  assailed  by  so 
many  errors  and  enemies.  One  of  these  errors  he  is  to  discuss,  and 
he  promises  to  be  very  brief. 

"Some  pertinaciously  contend  that  there  is  a  plurality  of  total 
forms  in  an  animal,  and  each  of  them  defends  this  opinion  according 
to  his  own  taste ;  others  assert]  more  importunately  that  there  is  one 
only  total  form,  but  a  multiplicity  of  partial  forms  lodged  in  the  same 
matter.  With  the  former  for  the  time  we  in  warlike  fashion  make 
truce,  while  we  direct  the  whole  strength  and  force  of  the  battle 
against  the  latter.  In  the  forefront  be  placed  Aristotle,  who  is  clearly 
with  us,  and  who,  towards  the  close  of  his  first  book  De  Animd, 
favours  our  assertion  not  obscurely.  To  add  some  arguments  to  this 
authority  needs  no  long  disquisition.  First  there  offers  himself  to  me 
Chrysostomus  Javellus,  from  whose  rubbish-heap,  despite  his  horrid 
and  unpolished  style,  we  may  dig  out  gold  and  pearls,  which  if  any 
one  is  fine  enough  to  despise,  ^Esop's  fable  of  the  cock  will  fit  him 
rather  nicely.  He  argues  much  in  this  fashion :— The  distinction 
and  organization  of  dissimilar  parts  must  precede  the  introduction  of 
the  soul,  as  this  is  the  act  not  of  any  body  whatever,  but  of  the  organic 
physical  agent ;  wherefore,  immediately  before  the  production  of  the 
total  form,  the  partial  ones  must  necessarily  be  destroyed,"  &c.  &c. 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  285 

After  a  continuation  in  the  same  strain,  Milton  again  takes  refuge 
in  more  congenial  rhetoric,  and  concludes  with  a  fine  passage  on  the 
invincibility  of  truth. 

EXERCISE  VI. 

This  is  by  far  the  most  interesting  of  the  Essays  autobiographically. 
It  was  delivered,  as  we  shall  see,  in  the  summer  or  autumn  of  1628, 
the  place  being  the  hall  of  Christ's  College,  and  the  occasion  a  great 
meeting  of  the  Fellows  and  Students,  both  of  that  College  and  of 
others,  for  the  purpose  of  fun  and  frolic  after  the  labours  of  the 
session.  The  essay  consists  of  two  parts,  the  first  a  dissertation  on 
the  compatibility  of  occasional  frolic  with  philosophical  studies,  the 
second  a  frolicsome  discourse  introductory  to  the  other  sports  of  the 
day.  We  feel  bound  to  translate  both  nearly  at  length. 


ORATION. 

"  THAT  SPORTIVE  EXERCISES  ON  OCCASION  ARE  NOT  INCONSISTENT 
WITH  THE  STUDIES  OF  PHILOSOPHY." 

"When  lately,  Academicians,  I  returned  hither  from  that  city 
which  is  the  head  of  cities  [i.  e.  London],  filled,  even  to  repletion, 
with  all  the  delights  with  which  that  place  overflows,  I  hoped  to  have 
again  for  some  time  that  literary  leisure  in  which  as  a  mode  of  life  I 
believe  that  even  celestial  souls  rejoice,  and  it  was  quite  my  intention 
to  shut  myself  up  in  literature  and  apply  myself  to  sweetest  philosophy 
day  and  night ;  for  the  change  from  work  to  pleasure  always  removes 
the  fatigue  of  satiety,  and  causes  tasks  left  unfinished  to  be  sought 
again  with  more  alacrity.  But,  just  as  I  was  getting  into  a  glow,  this 
almost  annual  celebration  of  a  very  old  custom  has  suddenly  called 
me  and  dragged  me  from  these  studies,  and  I  am  ordered  to  transfer 
to  trifles  and  the  excogitation  of  new  frivolities  those  pains  which  I 
had  first  destined  for  the  acquisition  of  wisdom.  As  if,  forsooth,  all 
the  world  were  not  at  this  moment  full  of  fools ;  as  if  that  illustrious 
Ship  of  Fools,  no  less  celebrated  in  song  than  the  Argo,  had  gone  to 
wreck;  as  if,  finally,  matter  for  laughter  were  now  wanting  to 
Democritus  himself ! 

"  But  pardon  me,  I  pray,  my  hearers ;  for  this  custom  of  ours  to-day, 
though  I  have  spoken  of  it  a  little  too  freely,  is  indeed  not  foolish, 
but  much  rather  laudable ; — which,  indeed,  is  what  I  have  proposed 
now  exhibiting  more  lucidly  to  you.  And,  if  Junius  Brutus,  that 
second  founder  of  the  Roman  state,  that  great  avenger  of  regal  lust, 
deigned  to  suppress,  under  simulated  idiotcy,  a  soul  almost  a  match 
for  the  immortal  gods  and  a  wondrous  genius,  truly  there  is  no  reason 
why  /  should  be  ashamed  of  playing  the  fool  for  a  little  while,  especi 
ally  at  the  bidding  of  him  whose  business  it  is,  as  our  sedile,  to  take 
charge  of  these  solemn  games,  if  I  may  call  them  such.  Then  also 
there  drew  and  invited  me,  in  no,  ordinary  degree,  to  undertake  this 


286  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

part,  your  very  recently  discovered  graciousness  to  me, — you,  I  mean, 
who  are  of  the  same  College  with  myself.  For,  when,  some  few 
months  ago,  I  was  about  to  perform  an  oratorical  office  before  you, 
and  was  under  the  impression  that  any  lucubrations  whatsoever  of 
mine  would  be  the  reverse  of  agreeable  to  you,  and  would  have  more 
merciful  judges  in  J^acus  and  Minos  than  almost  any  of  you  would 
prove,  truly,  beyond  my  fancy,  beyond  any  small  particle  of  hope  L1 
had,  they  were,  as  I  heard,  nay  as  I  myself  felt,  received  with  the  no 
ordinary  applause  of  all — yea,  even  of  those  who^' at  .othe^Jjmes ,1 
were,  on  account  of  disagreements  in  our  studies,  altogetfieF'of  ~an| 
angry  and  unfriendly  spirit  towards  me.1  A  generous  mode  of 
exercising  rivalry  this,  and  not  unworthy  of  a  royal  breast,  if,  when 
friendship  itself  is  wont  often  to  misconstrue  much  that  is  blamelessly 
done,  yet  then  sharp  and  hostile  enmity  did  not  grudge  to  interpret 
much  that  was  perchance  erroneous,  and  not  a  little,  doubtless,  that 
was  unskilfully  said,  more  clemently  than  I  merited.  .  .  . 

"  In  truth,  I  am  highly  delighted  and  wonderfully  pervaded  with 
pleasure  at  seeing  myself  surrounded  and  on  all  sides  begirt  with  so 
great  a  crowd  of  most  learned  men ;  and  yet  again,  when  I  descend 
into  myself,  and  secretly,  as  it  were  with  inturned  eyes,  behold  my 
weakness,  I  am  conscious  of  many  a  blush,  and  a  certain  intruding 
sadness  depresses  and  chokes  my  rising  joy.  .  .  .  Let  no  one  wonder 
if  I  triumph,  as  one  placed  among  the  stars,  that  so  many  men 
eminent  for  erudition,  and  nearly  the  whole  flower  of  the  University, 
have  nocked  hither.  For  I  hardly  think  that  more  went  of  old  to 
Athens  to  hear  the  two  supreme  orators,  Demosthenes  and  ^Eschines, 
contending  for  the  sovereignty  of  eloquence,  nor  that  such  felicity 
ever  befell  a  declamation  of  Hortensius,  nor  that  so  many  unusually 
cultivated  men  ever  graced  with  their  company  a  speech  of  Cicero's ; 
so  that,  though  I  should  discharge  this  duty  all  the  more  lamely,  it 
will  yet  be  no  despicable  honour  for  me  even  to  have  uttered  words 
in  so  great  a  concourse  and  assembly  of  such  excellent  men.  ...  I 
have  said  all  this  not  in  a  spirit  of  boasting ;  for  I  would  that  there 
were  now  granted  me  any  such  honeyed,  or  rather  nectarean,  flood  of 
eloquence  as  of  old  ever  steeped,  and,  as  it  were,  celestially  bedewed, 
Athenian  or  Roman  genius ;  I  would  that  it  were  given  me  to  suck 
out  the  whole  marrow  of  persuasion,  and  to  pilfer  the  very  scrips  of 
Mercury  himself,  and  thoroughly  to  exhaust  all  the  hiding-places  of 
the  elegancies,  so  that  I  might  bring  hither  something  worthy  of  so 
great  expectation,  of  so  illustrious  an  assembly,  of  so  polished  and 
delicate  ears.  .  .  . 

"  However  this  may  be,  I  entreat  you,  my  hearers,  that  none  of  you 
repent  of  giving  yourselves  a  brief  holiday  with  these  frivolities  of 
mine ;  for  the  report  is  that  all  the  gods  themselves  have  often,  the 

i  If  the  reader  will  refer  back  (p.  275-  oration  which  stands  first  in  the  pre- 
279)  he  will  probably  conclude,  as  I  do,  sent  series, — i.  e.  that  on  the  superiority 
that  the  reference  here  is  to  the  College  of  Day  to  Night. 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES   ORATORIO.  287 

care  of  their  heavenly  polity  laid  aside  for  the  time,  been  present  at 
the  spectacle  of  pigmies  fighting;  sometimes  even  they  are  related, 
not  disdaining  humble  cottages,  and  received  with  a  poor  hospitality 
to  have  made  a  meal  of  beans  and  leeks.  I,  in  like  manner,  beseech 
and  beg  you,  my  excellent  hearers,  that  this  poor  little  entertainment 
of  mine,  such  as  it  is,  may  pass  for  a  feast  to  your  subtle  and  knowing 
palates.  Truly,  though  I  know  very  many  sciolists  with  whom  it  is  a 
constant  custom,  if  they  are  ignorant  of  anything,  haughtily  and 
foolishly  to  contemn  that  same  in  others  as  a  thing  not  worth  their 
bestowing  pains  upon, — this  one  for  example  impertinently  carping  at 
Dialectics,  which  he  never  could  acquire,  and  this  other  making  no 
account  of  Philosophy,  because  Nature,  that  fairest  of  the  goddesses, 
never  deemed  him  worthy  of  such  an  honour  as  that  she  should  let 
him  behold  her  naked  charms, — yet  I  will  not  grudge  to  praise,  to  the 
extent  of  my  power,  festivities  and  jests,  in  which  I  do  acknowledge 
my  faculty  to  be  very  slight  (festivitates  et  sales,  in  quibus  quoque 
perexiguam  agnosco  facultatem  meam),  premising  only  this,  that  it 
seems  an  arduous  and  far  from  easy  task  for  me  this  day  to  praise 
jocularity  in  serious  terms. 

"  Nor  are  my  praises  undeserved.  What  is  there  that  sooner  con 
ciliates  and  longer  retains  friendship  than  a  pleasant  and  festive 
disposition  1  Let  there  be  a  person  who  has  no  jests,  nor  fun,  nor  * 
nice  little  facetiaa  in  him,  and  you  will  hardly  find  one  to  whom  he  is 
agreeable  and  welcome.  And,  were  it  our  daily  custom,  Academicians, 
to  go  to  sleep  and  as  it  were  die  in  Philosophy,  and  to  grow  old  among 
the  thickets  and  thorns  of  Logic,  without  any  relaxation  or  any 
breathing-time  granted,  what  else,  pray,  would  philosophising  be  but 
prophesying  in  the  cave  of  Trophonius  and  following  Cato's  too  rigid 
sect  ?  The  very  rustics  themselves  would  say  that  we  lived  on  mustard. 
Add  that,  as  those  who  accustom  themselves  to  field  strife  and  sports 
are  rendered  much  stronger  than  others,  and  readier  for  all  work,  so 
in  like  manner  it  happens  that  by  this  intellectual  gymnastic  the 
sinews  of  the  mind  are  strengthened,  and  better  blood  and  juice,  as  it 
were,  is  procured,  and  the  genius  becomes  clearer  and  acuter,  and 
nimble  and' versatile  for  everything.  But,  if  there  is  any  one  who 
would  rather  not  be  considered  urbane  and  gay,  let  him  not  take  it  to 
heart  if  he  is  called  country-bred  and  clownish.  Well  do  we  know  a 
certain  illiberal  kind  of  fellows,  who,  utterly  morose  and  unfestive 
themselves,  and  silently  taking  measure  of  their  own  meanness  and 
ignorance,  can  never  hear  any  remark  of  a  sprightly  nature  without 
immediately  thinking  it  is  levelled  at  them,— deserving,  in  fact,  to 
have  that  happen  to  them  which  they  wrongly  suspect,  and  to  be 
pelted  with  the  jeers  of  all  till  they  almost  think  of  hanging  them 
selves.  Those  riff-raff  gentry,  however,  avail  nothing  against  the 
freedom  of  elegant  politeness. 

"  Do  you  wish,  my  hearers,  that  on  this  foundation  of  reason  I 
should  pile  an  argument  from  instances'?     Such  are  supplied  me 


283  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY  OF    HIS   TIME. 

abundantly.  First  of  all  there  is  Homer,  that  morning  star  of  civilized 
literature  with  whom  all  learning  was  born  as  a  twin ;  for  he,  some 
times  recalling  his  divine  mind  from  the  counsels  of  the  gods  and  the 
deeds  in  heaven,  and  turning  aside  into  the  humorous,  described 
most  amusingly  the  battles  of  the  mice  and  the  frogs.  Moreover, 
Socrates,  the  wisest  of  mortals,  the  Pythian  himself  being  witness,  is 
said  often  to  have  baffled  with  pleasantry  the  brawling  bad  temper  of 
his  wife.  Then  we  read  reports  everywhere  of  the  pithy  sayings  of 
the  old  philosophers,  well  sprinkled  with  salt  and  classic  wit ;  and 
surely  it  was  this  alone  that  conferred  an  eternity  of  name  on  all  the 
ancient  writers  of  comedies  and  epigrams,  both  Grecian  and  Latin. 
Moreover,  we  hear  of  Cicero's  jokes  and  facetiae  as  having  filled  three 
books,  when  collected  by  a  disciple.  And  every  one  now  has  in  his 
hands  that  most  ingenious  Encomium  of  Folly,  the  work  of  no  low 
writer  [Erasmus],  and  many  other  not  unamusing  essays  of  very 
celebrated  speakers  of  late  times  are  extant  on  laughable  topics.  Will 
you  have  the  greatest  commanders,  kings,  and  warriors'?  Take 
Pericles,  Epaminondas,  Agesilaus,  and  Philip  of  Macedon,  who  (if  I 
may  speak  in  the  Gellian  manner)  are  related  by  historians  to  have 
abounded  in  jocosities  and  witty  sayings,  and,  with  them,  Caius 
Lselius,  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio,  Cneius  Pompeius,  Caius  Julius 
Caesar,  and  also  Octavius  Csesar,  who  are  said,  on  the  authority  of  M. 
Tullius,  to  have  excelled  all  their  contemporaries  in  this  sort  of  thing. 
Will  you  have  yet  greater  names'?  The  poets,  most  sagacious  in 
shadowing  forth  the  truth,  bring  in  Jupiter  himself  and  the  rest  of 
the  celestials  abandoning  themselves  to  joviality  amid  their  feasts 
and  cups.  .  .  . 

"But  perchance  there  are  not  wanting  certain  Bearded  Masters, 
very  crabbed  and  harsh,  who,  thinking  themselves  great  Catos,  and 
not  little  Catos,  and  composing  their  countenances  to  a  Stoic  severity, 
and  shaking  their  stiff  polls,  will  tetchily  complain  that  everything 
now-a-days  is  in  confusion  and  tending  to  the  worse,  and  that,  in 
place  of  an  exposition  of  the  Prior  Analytics  of  Aristotle  by  the 
recently  initiated  Bachelors,  scurrilities  and  empty  trivialities  are 
shamelessly  and  unseasonably  bandied  about,  this  day's  exercise  too, 
doubtless  rightly  and  faithfully  established  by  our  ancestors  with  a 
view  to  some  signal  benefit  whether  in  Ehetoric  or  in  Philosophy, 
now  of  late  giddily  changing  itself  into  a  display  of  insipid  witticisms.1 

i  The  scurrilities  and  jokes  indulged  with  literate  elegance  "  were  to  be  en- 
in  by  disputants  in  the  Public  and  couraged  in  the  Philosophical  Act, 
College  Acts  had  long  been  a  matter  of  especially  in  the  prevaricator.  Again, 
complaint  with  the  heads  and  graver  as  late  as  1620  (in  Gostlin's  Vice- 
seniors  of  the  University.  Thus,  by  a  Chancellorship),  it  had  been  decreed 
grace  of  1608,  it  had  been  provided  that,  whereas  ridiculous  gesticulations, 
that  "  all  scurrility  and  foolish  and  ira-  facetious  remarks,  and  jests  against  the 
proper  jesting  moving  to  theatrical  laws  and  the  authorities  of  the  Univer- 
laughter "  should  be  banished  from  sity,  were  but  too  common  in  College 
disputations  at  the  Commencement,  and  University  disputations,  all  such 
though  "  graceful  witticisms  concocted  irreverence  should  be  repressed  in 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  289 

But  I  have  an  answer  at  hand  and  ready  for  such.  Let  them  know, 
if  they  do  not  know,  that  letters  had  hardly  been  brought  from 
foreign  countries  to  these  coasts  at  the  time  when  the  laws  of  our 
Literary  Republic  were  first  framed ;  on  which  account,  as  skill  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin  tongues  was  then  exceedingly  rare  and  unusual,  it 
was  fitting  that  men  should  labour  and  aspire  after  them  by  all  the 
harder  study  and  all  the  more  assiduous  exercises.  But  we,  worse 
moralled  than  our  predecessors,  but  better  instructed,  ought  to  leave 
studies  that  have  not  much  difficulty  and  go  on  to  those  to  which 
they  would  have  betaken  themselves  if  they  had  had  leisure.  Nor 
has  it  escaped  you  that  all  early  legislators  are  wont  always  to  pro 
mulgate  edicts  a  little  harder  and  more  severe  than  can  be  borne,  so 
that  men  by  deviating  and  gradually  relapsing  may  hit  the  right 
mean.  .  .  .  But  truly  I  think  that  the  man  who  is  wont  to  be  so  taken 
with  jests  as  plainly  to  neglect  for  them  what  is  serious  and  more 
useful — I  think,  I  say,  that  such  a  man  cannot  make  much  progress 
either  in  this  line  or  in  that :  certainly  not  in  serious  matters,  because, 
were  he  equipped  and  fashioned  by  nature  for  treating  serious  things, 
I  believe  he  would  not  so  easily  suffer  himself  to  be  drawn  away  from 
them;  nor  yet  in  lightsome  affairs,  because  scarce  any  one  can  jest 
well  and  gracefully  unless  he  has  first  learnt  to  act  seriously. 

"But  I  fear,  Academicians,  I  have  drawn  out  the  thread  of  my 
discourse  longer  than  I  ought.  I  will  not  excuse  myself  as  I  might, 
lest,  in  excusing  myself,  I  should  aggravate  the  fault.  And  now, 
released  from  all  oratorical  laws,  we  are  about  to  plunge  into  comic 
licence.  In  which  if  by  chance  I  shall  outgo  by  a  finger's  breadth,  as 
they  say,  my  proper  character  and  the  rigid  laws  of  modesty,  know, 
fellow-academicians,  that  I  have  thrown  off  and  for  a  little  while  laid 
aside  my  old  self  in  your  interest ;  or,  if  anything  shall  be  said  loosely, 
anything  floridly,  consider  it  suggested  to  me  not  by  my  own  mind 
and  disposition,  but  by  the  rule  of  the  time  and  the  genius  of  the 
place.  Accordingly,  what  comic  actors  are  wont  to  beg  as  they  go  off 
the  stage  I  entreat  as  I  begin.  Plaudite  et  ridete" 

The  reader  will  understand  that  here  Milton  breaks  off  his  serious 
introductory  discourse,  and  dashes,  as  the  leader  of  the  absurdities  of 
the  day,  into  an  expressly  comic  and  even  coarse  extravaganza. 

THE  PROLUSION. 

"  By  what  merit  of  time  I  have  been  created  Dictator  in  the  labour 
ing  and  all  but  down-tumbling  Commonwealth  of  Fools  I  am  verily 
ignorant.  Wherefore  /,  when  that  very  Chief  and  Standard-bearer  of 
all  the  Sophisters  was  eagerly  ambitious  of  this  office  and  would  have 
most  valiantly  performed  its  duties  1  For  that  veteran  soldier  some 

future  by  severe  penalties.  Milton  had  evidently  these  regulations  and  their 
promotors  in  view. 

VOL.  I.  U 


290  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

little  time  ago  laboriously  led  about  fifty  Sophisters  armed  with  short 
bludgeons  through  the  Barnwellian  fields,  and,  as  he  was  about  to 
besiege  the  town,  did  in  proper  military  fashion  throw  down  the 
aqueduct,  that  he  might  force  the  townsmen  to  a  surrender  by  thirst. 
In  truth  I  am  greatly  vexed  that  the  gentleman  has  gone  off,  if  so  be 
that,  by  his  departure,  he  has  left  all  of  us  Sophisters  not  only  head 
less  but  also  beheaded.^ 

"  And  now,  my  hearers,  suppose  with  yourselves  that,  though  this 
is  not  the  first  of  April,  the  feast  of  Hilary,  dedicated  to  the  mother 
of  the  gods,  is  near,  or  that  divine  homage  is  being  paid  to  the  god 
Laughter.  Laugh,  therefore,  and  raise  a  cachinnation  from  your 
saucy  spleens,  wear  a  cheerful  front,  hook  your  nostrils  for  fun,  but 
don't  turn  up  your  noses;  let  all  things  ring  with  most  abundant 
laughter,  and  let  a  still  freer  laugh  shake  out  tears  of  joy,  that,  these 
being  all  exhausted  with  laughing,  grief  may  not  have  a  single  drop 
left  with  wrhich  to  grace  her  triumph.  I,  in  truth,  if  I  see  any  one 
laughing  too  niggardly  with  suppressed  grinning,  will  say  that  he  is 
hiding  teeth  either  bad  and  decayed  and  covered  with  scurf  or  stick 
ing  out  all  misplaced,  or  else  that,  in  dining  to-day,  he  has  so  filled 
his  stomach  iit  non  audeat  ilia  ulterius  distendere  ad  risum,  ne  prce- 
cinenti  ori  succinat,  et  cenigmata  qucedam  nolens  affutiat  sua  non 
Sphinx  sed  sphincter  anus,  quce  medicis  interpretanda,  non  (Edipo, 
relinqiio"  .  .  . 

Here  follows  a  long  passage  (not  now  very  intelligible)  alluding  to 
certain  portions  of  the  ceremonial  of  the  orgy  over  which  the  speaker 
was  presiding, — in  particular  to  certain  "  fires,"  "  flames,"  and  "  whirl 
ing  clouds  of  smoke,"  with  the  College  porter  and  his  imps  looming 
diabolically  amidst  them,  through  which,  it  appears,  all  had  to  pass 
on  entering  the  hall,  to  join  in  the  Saturnalia.  This  over,  he 
resumes  : — 

"  I  return  to  you,  my  hearers.  Repent  not  of  so  troublesome  and 
formidable  a  journey  hither.  Lo!  the  entertainment  prepared  for 
you,  the  tables  spread  with  quite  Persian  luxury,  and  loaded  with  the 
most  exquisite  dainties,  such  as  would  delight  and  appease  the  most 
jf  Apician  taste.  They  say  that  eight  whole  wild  boars  were  set  before 
:  Antony  and  Cleopatra  at  a  feast ;  but  here  for  you,  for  the  first  course, 
are  fifty  full-fed  wild  boars  that  have  been  soaked  in  pickle  for  three 
years,  and  are  yet  so  brawny  that  they  may  well  fatigue  even  your 
dog  teeth  [the  older  undergraduates,  doubtless"].  Next,  as  many 
capital  oxen  with  splendid  tails,  just  roasted  before  the  door  by  our 
servant ;  but  I  fear  they  may  have  exuded  all  their  juice  into  the 
dripping-pan.  After  them  behold  as  many  calf -heads,  very  crass  and 
fleshy,  but  with  a  supply  of  brains  so  very  small  as  not  to  suffice  for 

i  The  reader  must  make  what  he  can  the  memory  of  which,  and  of  the  ring- 

of  this  passage,  which  seems  to  be  a  leader  in  it,  was  still  fresh.    There  may 

reference  to  some  University  frolic  in  be  some  pun  on  the  ringleader's  name 

which  the  town-conduit  suffered,  and  in  the  italic  words. 


MILTON'S  PEOLVSIONES  ORATOEIJE.  291 

seasoning.     Then  again  also  a  hundred  kids,  more  or  less,  but  too 
lean,  I  think."  .  .  . 

Besides  these  there  are  "  rams,"  "  Irish  birds,"  "  parrots,"  a  "  very 
fat  turkey-cock,"  "eggs,"  "apples,"  &c. — all    metaphorical  names,  I 
suppose,  for  students  or  classes  of  students  present.  In  the  description    \ 
of  some  of  these  metaphorical  viands  Milton,  it  is  right  that  thei  \ 
reader  should  know,  is  about  as  nauseous  and  obscene  as  the  resources;   * 
of  the  Latin  dictionary  could  well  enable  onejto  be. 

"But  now  I  proceed  to  what  more  nearly  concerns  me.  The 
Romans  had  their  Floralia,  rustics  have  their  harvest-homes,  bakers 
have  their  oven- warmings ;  and  we  also,  being  more  particularly  at 
this  time  free  from  cares  and  business,  are  wont  to  sport  in  a  Socratic 
manner.  Now,  the  Inns  of  Court  have  their  Lords,  as  they  call  them, 
even  thus  indicating  how  ambitious  they  are  of  rank.  But  we, 
fellow-academicians,  desiring  as  we  do  to  get  as  near  as  possible  to 
paternity,  take  pleasure  in  acting  under  a  feigned  name  that  part 
which  certainly  we  dare  not  act  unless  in  secret1 ;  just  as  girls  solemnly 
play  at  pretended  weddings  and  child-births,  thus  catching  at  and 
enjoying  the  shadows  of  jvhat  they  sigh  for  and  desire.  On  what 
account  this  solemnity  was  let  pass  last  year  truly  I  cannot  divine, 
unless  it  was  that  those  who  were  to  act  the-part  of  Fathers  behaved 
so  valiantly  in  town  that  he  who  had  the  care  of  the  arrangements, 
pitying  the  labours  they  had  undergone,  voluntarily  released  them 
from  their  duty.  But  why  is  it  that  /  am  so  suddenly  made  Father  ? 
Ye  gods,  support  me!  What  prodigy  is  this,  beating  all  Pliny's 
portents  !  Have  I,  for  killing  some  snake,  become  liable  to  the  fate 
of  Tiresias1?  Has  some  Thessalian  witch  smeared  me  with  magic 
ointment1?  An  denique  ego  a  deo  al'iquo  vitiatus,  ut  olim  Cnceeus, 
virilitatem  pactus  sum  stupri  pretium,  ut  sic  repente  t«  QqXftai;  IIQ 
appiva  aXXaxQtirjv  dv  1  By  some  of  you  I  used  lately  to  be  nicknamed  ! 
'The  Lady."' 

Here  I  must  interrupt  the  speaker  with  an  explanation.  The 
original  words  in  the  last  sentence  are  "  a  quibusdam  audivi  nuper 
'  Domino,,' "  which  might  mean  also,  "  I  heard  some  of  you  lately  caJl 
out  *  Lady.' "  In  that  case  what  follows  would  have  to  pass  as  said 
extempore.  As  this  is  unlikely,  however,  I  have  preferred  the  other 
translation.  In  any  case  we  have  the  interesting  fact  here  authenti 
cated  for  us  by  Milton  himself  that,  at  Christ's  College,  he  used  to  go 
by  the  nickname  of  "  The  Lady."  The  fact  is  independently  handed 
down  to  us  by  Aubrey,  and,  after  him,  by  Wood.  "  He  was  so  fair," 
says  Aubrey,  "that  they  called  him  'The  Lady  of  Christ's  Coll.'"; 
and  Wood  says,  "  When  he  was  a  student  in  Cambridge,  he  was  so 
fair  and  clear  that  many  called  him  '  The  Lady  of  Christ's  College.' " 
From  the  sequel  it  will  be  seen  that  it  was  not  only  with  reference  to 
his  clear  complexion  that  this  nickname  was  used. 

1  On  academic  occasions  of  this  kind  the  elected  president  was  called  "  The 
Father." 

U  2 


292  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"Why  seem  I  to  them  too  little  of  a  man?  Is  there  no  regard  for 
Priscian  ?  Do  pert  grammaticasters  thus  attribute  the  propria  quce 
maribus  to  the  feminine  gender?  Is  it  because  I  have  never  been 
able  to  quaff  huge  tankards  lustily,  or  because  my  hands  have  not 
grown  hard  by  holding  the  plough,  or  because  I  have  never,  like  a 
seven  years'  herdsman,  laid  myself  down  and  snored  at  midday ;  in 
fine,  perchance,  because  I  have  never  proved  my  manhood  in  the  same 
way  as  those  debauched  blackguards  ]  I  would  they  could  as  easily 
doff  the  ass  as  I  can  whatever  of  the  woman  is  in  me.  But  see  how 
absurdly  and  unreflectingly  they  have  upbraided  me  with  that  which 
I  on  the  best  of  grounds  will  turn  to  my  glory.  For  Demosthenes 
himself  was  also  called  too  little  of  a  man  by  his  rivals  and  adversaries. 
Quintus  Hortensius,  too,  the  most  renowned  of  all  orators  after  M. 
Tullius,  was  nicknamed  'a  Dionysiac  singing-woman'  by  Lucius 
Torquatus.  .  .  . 

"  I  turn  me  therefore,  as  Father,  to  my  sons,  of  whom  I  behold 
a  goodly  number;  and  I  see  too  that  the  mischievous  little  rogues 
acknowledge  me  to  be  their  father  by  secretly  bobbing  their  heads. 
Do  you  ask  what  are  to  be  their  names  1  I  will  not,  by  taking  the 
names  of  dishes,  give  my  sons  to  be  eaten  by  you,  for  that  would  be 
too  much  akin  to  the  ferocity  of  Tantalus  and  Lycaon;  nor  will  I 
designate  them  by  the  names  of  parts  of  the  body,  lest  you  should 
think  that  I  had  begotten  so  many  bits  of  men  instead  of  whole  men ; 
nor  is  it  my  pleasure  to  call  them  after  the  kinds  of  wine,  lest  what  I 
should  say  should  be  not  according  to  Bacchus.  I  wish  them  to  be 
named  according  to  the  number  of  the  Predicaments,  that  so  I  may 
express  their  distinguished  birth  and  their  liberal  manner  of  life ;  and 
by  the  same  means  I  will  take  care  that  all  be  promoted  to  some 
degree  before  my  death.1  .  .  . 

"I  do  not  wish,  my  children,  in  giving  advice  to  you,  to  be  excess 
ively  laborious,  lest  I  should  seem  to  have  taken  more  pains  in 
instructing  you  than  in  begetting  you ;  only  let  each  of  you  beware 
lest  of  a  son  he  become  a  nephew ;  and  don't  let  my  sons  get  drunk,  if 
they  would  have  me  for  a  father.  [There  are  puns  in  the  Latin  here 
which  cannot  be  translated:  " Tantum  caveat  quisque  ne  ex  filiofiat 
nepos;  liberique  mei  ne  colant  Liber um,  si  me  velint  patrem."~\  If  I 
am  to  give  my  advices,  I  feel  that  they  ought  to  be  proffered  in  the 
vernacular  tongue ;  and  I  will  make  my  utmost  effort  that  you  may 
understand  all.  But,  first,  Neptune,  Apollo,  Vulcan,  and  all  the 
Artificer-Gods  are  to  be  implored  by  me,  that  they  may  have  the 
goodness  either  to  strengthen  my  ribs  with  wooden  stays  or  to  bind 

1  The  joke  seems  to  be  as  follows : —  will  not  call  them  Beef,  Mutton,  Pork, 

"  You  have  made  me  your  Father  on  real,  &c. ;  nor  will  I  call  them  Head, 

this  occasion,"  says  the  speaker,  "  that  Neck,  Breast,  Back,  &c. ;  nor  will  I  call 

being  the  name  you  bestow  on  your  them  Sack,  Rhenish,  Sheens,  &c.     No ; 

president   in   such    solemnities.     I  ac-  I  will  call  them  after  the  ten  Predica- 

eept  the  title,  and  fancy  I  see  my  sons.  ments  or  Categories  of  Aristotle." 
How  shall  the  rogues  be  named?    I 


'VERSES  "AT  A  VACATION  EXERCISE."  293 

them  round  with  plates  of  iron.  Moreover,  Goddess  Ceres  is  likewise 
to  be  supplicated  by  me,  that,  as  she  gave  Pelops  an  ivory  shoulder, 
in  like  manner  she  may  deign  to  repair  my  almost  exhausted  sides. 
Nor  is  there  reason  why  any  one  should  be  surprised  if,  after  so  great 
a  bawling  and  the  birth  of  so  many  sons,  they  should  be  a  little 
weaker  than  usual.  In  these  matters,  therefore,  I  have  in  a  Neronian 
sense  delayed  longer  than  enough;  and  now,  leaping  over  the  Uni 
versity  Statutes,  as  if  they  were  the  walls  of  Romulus,  I  run  across 
from  Latin  to  English.  Let  those  of  you  whom  such  things  please 
now  give  me  attentive  ears  and  minds." 

Here  the  orator,  as  he  has  just  forewarned  his  hearers,  breaks  off 
his  Latin  prose  harangue,  and  commences  a  peroration  in  English 
verse.  This  peroration  is  not  included  in  the  "  Prolusio?ies"  as  pub 
lished  in  1674;  but  the  bulk  of  it  had  already  appeared  in  a  new 
edition  of  the  Minor  Poems,  published  in  the  preceding  year,  1673, 
and  it  is  consequently  to  be  seen  still  in  all  the  later  editions  of  the 
Poetical  Works.  It  is  the  piece  headed:  "ANNO  ^ETATIS  19:  ATA 
VACATION  EXERCISE  IN  THE  COLLEGE,  PART  LATIN,  PART  ENGLISH; 
THE  LATIN  SPEECHES  HAVING  ENDED,  THE  ENGLISH  THUS  BEGAN."1 
As  it  stands  in  all  our  copies,  detached  from  the  exercise  of  which  it 
formed  a  part,  the  piece  is  almost  unintelligible ;  and  I  am  glad  to  be 
able  to  restore  it  here  to  its  proper  connexion.  The  reader  will  see, 
however,  that  some  parts  of  the  original  are  omitted,  and  the  blanks 
filled  up  with  explanatory  prose.  The  piece  must  originally  have 
been  considerably  longer :  whence  perhaps  Milton's  prayer  for  stronger 
ribs  in  order  to  do  it  justice  after  so  much  previous  speaking. 

Hail,  Native  Language,  that  by  sinews  weak 
Didst  move  my  first  endeavouring  tongue  to  speak, 
And  mad'st  imperfect  words  with  childish  trips, 
Half  unpronounced,  slide  through  my  infant  lips, 
Driving  dumb  Silence  from  the  portal  door 
Where  he  had  mutely  sat  two  years  before  : 
Here  I  salute  thee,  and  thy  pardon  ask 
That  now  I  use  thee  in  my  latter  task. 
Small  loss  it  is  that  thence  can  come  unto  thee ; 
I  know  my  tongue  but  little  grace  can  do  thee. 
Thou  need'st  not  be  ambitious  to  be  first ; 
Believe  me  I  have  thither  packed  the  worst : 
And,  if  it  happen  as  I  did  forecast, 
The  daintiest  dishes  shall  be  served  up  last. 

1  This  heading  fixes  the  date  of  the  the   Lines  "  On   the  Death  of  a   Fair 

Exercise;  which,  however,  is  also  indi-  Infant."   They  had  probably,  therefore, 

cated  by  allusions  contained  in  it.    The  been  recovered  by  Milton   among  his 

lines,  as  stated  in  the  text,  were  first  papers    as    the    volume   was    passing 

printed  in  1673,  having  been  omitted  in  through  the  press  ;  and  possibly  they 

the  first  edition  of  the  Poems  in  1645.  were  then  recovered  because   he  was 

In  the  volume  of  1673  they  are  printed  searching  for  the  "Prolusiones  "  to  eke 

near  the  end ;  but  there  is  a  notice  in  put  the  prose  volume  which  appeared 

the  Errata  directing  them  to  be  placed  in  the  following  year, 
near  the  beginning,  immediately  after 


294  LIFE    OF   MILTON  AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

I  pray  tliee,  then,  deny  me  not  thy  aid 

For  this  same  small  neglect  that  I  have  made ; 

But  haste  thee  straight  to  do  me  once  a  pleasure, 

And  from  thy  wardrobe  bring  thy  chiefest  treasure  : 

Not  those  new-fangled  toys  and  trimming  slight 

Which  takes  our  late  f  antastics  with  delight ; 

But  cull  those  richest  robes  and  gayest  attire 

Which  deepest  spirits  and  choicest  wits  desire. 

I  have  some  naked  thoughts  that  rove  about, 

And  loudly  knock  to  have  their  passage  out, 

And,  weary  of  their  place,  do  only  stay 

Till  thou  hast^decked  them  in  thy  best  array, 

That  so  they  may,  without  suspect  or  fears, 

Fly  swiftly  to  this  fair  assembly's  ears. 

Yet  I  had  rather,  if  I  were  to  choose, 

Thy  service  in  some  graver  subject  use, 

Such  as  may  make  thee  search  thy  coffers  round, 

Before  thou  clothe  my  fancy  in  fit  sound  : 

Such  where  the  deep  transported  mind  may  soar 

Above  the  wheeling  poles,  and  at  Heaven's  door 

Look  in,  and  see  each  blissful  deity, 

How  he  before  the  thunderous  throne  doth  lie, 

Listening  to  what  unshorn  Apollo  sings 

To  the  touch  of  golden  wires,  while  Hebe  brings 

Immortal  nectar  to  her  kingly  sire ; 

Then,  passing  through  the  spheres  of  watchful  fire, 

And  misty  regions  of  wide  air  next  under, 

And  hills  of  snow,  and  lofts  of  piled  thunder, 

May  tell  at  length  how  green-eyed  Neptune  raves, 

In  Heaven's  defiance  mustering  all  his  waves ; 

Then  sing  of  secret  things  that  came  to  pass 

When  beldam  Nature  in  her  cradle  was ; 

And  last  of  kings  and  queens  and  heroes  old, 

Such  as  the  wise  Demodocus  once  told 

In  solemn  songs  at  king  Alcinous'  feast, 

While  sad  Ulysses'  soul  and  all  the  rest 

Are  held,  with  his  melodious  harmony, 

In  willing  chains  and  sweet  captivity. 

But  fie  !  my  wandering  Muse,  how  thou  dost  stray  ! 

Expectance  calls  thee  now  another  way. 

Thou  know'st  it  must  be  now  thy  only  bent 

To  keep  in  compass  of  thy  Predicament. 

Then  quick  about  thy  purposed  business  come, 

That  to  the  next  I  may  resign  my  room. 


VERSES    "AT   A   VACATION   EXERCISE.  295 


The  ENS  is  represented  as  Father  of  the  Predicaments,  his  ten  Sons; 
whereof  the  Eldest  stood  for  SUBSTANCE,  with  his  canons;  which  ENS, 
thus  speaking,  explains : l 

Good  luck  befriend  thee,  Son ;  for  at  thy  birth 

The  faery  ladies  danced  upon  the  hearth. 

Thy  drowsy  nurse  hath  sworn  she  them  did  spy 

Come  tripping  to  the  room  where  thou  didst  lie, 

And,  sweetly  singing  round  about  thy  bed, 

Strew  all  their  blessings  on  thy  sleeping  head. 

She  heard  them  give  thee  this,  that  thou  shouldst  stf  11 

From  eyes  of  mortals  walk  invisible 

Yet  there  is  something  that  doth  force  my  fear ;  / 

For  once  it  was  my  dismal  hap  to  hear 

A  sibyl  old,  bow-bent  with  crooked  age, 

That  far  events  full  wisely  could  presage, 

And,  in  Time's  long  and  dark  prospective  glass, 

Foresaw  what  future  days  should  bring  to  pass  : 

"  Your  son,"  said  she,  "  (nor  can  you  it  prevent) 

"  Shall  subject  be  to  many  an  Accident. 

"  O'er  all  his  brethren  he  shall  reign  as  king, 

"  Yet  every  one  shall  make  him  underling ; 

"  And  those  that  cannot  live  from  him  asunder 

"  Ungratefully  shall  strive  to  keep  him  under. 

"  In  worth  and  excellence  he  shall  outgo  them ; 

"  Yet,  being  above  them,  he  shall  be  below  them. 

"  From  others  he  shall  stand  in  need  of  nothing ; 

"  Yet  on  his  brothers  shall  depend  for  clothing. 

"  To  find  a  foe  it  shall  not  be  his  hap, 

"  And  peace  shall  lull  him  in  her  flowery  lap ; 

"  Yet  shall  he  live  in  strife,  and  at  his  door 

"  Devouring  war  shall  never  cease  to  roar ; 

1  The  Aristotelian  Categories  or  Pre-  anoe  than  the  other  nine,  which  all  arise 

dicameuts  (i.  e.  conditions  or  affections  out    of  Accident,   and   are    so    many 

of  real  being,  in  one  or  other  of  which  modifications  of    Accident.     He   may 

every  object  whatever  must  necessarily  therefore  well  be  called  the  eldest  son 

be  predicated,  if  it  is  thought  of  at  all)  of  ENS.     Milton,  as  Father,  speaks  for 

are  all  so  many  subdivisions  of  ENS  or  ENS,  we  may  suppose ;  but  whether,  by 

Being  generally  ;  which  may  therefore  way  of  keeping  up  the  dramatic  form, 

be  called  their  Father.    ENS  or  Being  he  got  other  students  to  represent  the 

is  subdivided  into, — 1.  Ens  per  se  or  ten  Predicaments,  and  either  speak  as 

Substance,  and,  2.  Ens  per  Reddens  or  his  sons  or  be  addressed  by  him  iu  that 

Accident.    By  farther  subdivisions  of  capacity,  we  cannot  say.      Substance, 

Accident,  there  arise   as  its    varieties  it  will  be  seen,  makes  no  speech  him- 

these  nine :   Quantity,  Quality,   Rela-  self,  but    listens    to    one    from   ENS  ; 

tion,    Action,    Passion,    Place    where,  Quantity  and  Quality  do  speak,  but  it 

Time  when,  Posture,  and  Habit.    These  is  in  prose ;  Relation  also  is  called  up 

nine,  together  with  Substance,  make  the  and  probably   speaks  ;    but  what  use 

Ten  Predicaments ;  but  it  is  evident  was  made  of  Action,  Passion,  Where, 

that  they  are  not  of  co-ordinate  rank.  When,  Posture,    and    Habit,    is    left 

Substance  is  clearly  of  greater  import-  untold. 


290  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  Yea,  it  shall  be  his  natural  property 

"  To  harbour  those  that  are  at  enmity." 

What  power,  what  force,  what  mighty  spell,  if  not 

Your  learned  hands,  can  loose  this  Gordian  knot  1 

The  next — QUANTITY  and  QUALITY — spake  in  prose;  then  RELATION 
was  called  by  his  name: — 

RIVERS,  arise  :  whether  thou  be  the  son 

Of  utmost  Tweed,  or  Ouse,  or  gulfy  Dun, 

Or  Trent,  who,  like  some  earth-born  giant,  spreads 

His  thirty  arms  along  the  indented  meads, 

Or  sullen  Mole,  that  runneth  underneath, 

Or  Severn  swift,  guilty  of  maiden's  death, 

Or  rocky  Avon,  or  of  sedgy  Lee, 

Or  coaly  Tyne,  or  ancient  hallowed  Dee, 

Or  Humber  loud,  that  keeps  the  Scythian's  name, 

Or  Medway  smooth,  or  royal-towered  Thame. 1 

" The  rest  was  Prose" 

I  shall  not  attempt  any  commentary  upon  this  somewhat  extra 
ordinary  production,  but  shall  leave  it  to  make  its  own  impression. 
It  will  be  seen,  by  those  who  have  read  it,  that  Milton's  preliminary 
apology  for  anything  in  it  that  might  be  out  of  keeping  with  his 
usual  character  was  not  altogether  unnecessary.  Every  year  there 
were  in  the  University  such  revelries,  in  which  the  Latin  tongue 
was  ransacked  for  terms  of  buffoonery  and  scurrility,  and  the  classic 

1  To  these  lines  "Warton  appended  part  of  the  Predicament  RELATION  in 
this  note : — "  It  is  hard  to  say  in  what  the  Extravaganza,  and  was  therefore 
"  sense  or  in  what  manner  this  intro-  the  person  addressed  by  Milton  iu 
"  duction  of  the  rivers  was  to  be  applied  his  character  of  Father  Exs.  The  in- 
"  to  the  subject."  Warton  only  ex-  quiry  was  successful,  the  Admission- 
pressed  here  what  all  readers  of  the  Book  of  Christ's  College  showing  that 
lines  must  have  felt  puzzled  by  till  the  on  the  10th  of  May,  1628,  two  brothers, 
other  day.  The  lines  are  excellent,  and  named  George  and  Nizell  Eivers,  sons 
the  conversation  of  the  rivers  so  poet-  of  Sir  John  Rivers,  a  Kentish  baronet, 
ical  and  sonorous,  after  the  Spenserian  had  entered  the  College  as  lesser  pen- 
manner,  that  one  lingers  over  it  with  a  sioners,  under  the  tutorship  of  Mr. 
kind  of  enchanted  fondness ;  but  how  Gell,  the  elder  in  his  fifteenth  year,  the 
did  they  come  there,  and  what  is  it  all  younger  in  his  fourteenth.  The  elder 
about?  Not  till  1859,  just  after  the  of  these,  George  Rivers,  still  a  fresh- 
publication  of  the  first  edition  of  the  man  of  only  a  month  or  two  in  the 
present  volume,  was  the  mystery  College  at  the  time  of  this  Summer 
solved,  and  then  by  a  neat  little  dis-  Vacation  Extravaganza,  was  doubtless 
covery  of  the  late  Mr.  W.  G.  Clark,  the  student  whom  Milton  addressed 
Vice-Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cam-  and  upon  whose  name  he  punned  so 
bridge.  Having  been  shrewd  enough  elaborately.  In  prosaic  substance,  it  is 
to  detect  the  key  to  the  passage  in  the  as  if  he  had  said,  "  Get  up.  you  young 
prefixed  prose-intimation, "  Then  RELA-  booby  ;  they  call  you  RIVERS,  it  seems  ; 
TION  was  called  by  his  name"  followed  but  where  in  the  world  do  you  come 
immediately  by  the  opening  words,  from,  and  which  of  the  English  rivers 
"  RIVERS,  arise,"  he  took  the  trouble  to  do  you  represent  ?  "  There  may,  as  I 
inquire  whether  there  might  not  have  have  already  hinted,  be  other  latent 
been  some  student  in  Christ's  College  puns  of  the  kind  through  the  Latin 
of  the  name  of  RIVERS  who  took  the  parts  of  the  Extravaganza. 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  297 

mythology  for  its  gross  anecdotes.     From  what  I  have  seen  of  other 
extant  specimens  of  such  revelry,  I  think  I  can  aver  that  Milton, 
could  beat  the  Clevelands  and  the  Randolphs  even  in  this  sort  of] 
thing  when  he  chose.     His  Latin  fun,  if  not  so  brisk  and  easy  as  / 
theirs,  is  more  ponderous,  outrageous,  and  smashing.     I  note,  too, 
in  comparing  Milton's  oratorical  exercises  generally  with  those  of 
Cleveland  and  others,1  that  Milton's  are  uniformly  much  the  longer. 
I  fancy  that  his  auditors  may  have  thought  him  laborious  and  long- 
winded.     The  present  oration,  for  example,  cannot  have  occupied  in 
the  delivery  less  than  an  hour  and  a  half. 

EXERCISE  VII. 

This  is  also  a  long  oration.  It  must  have  occupied  about  an  hour 
in  speaking.  It  was  delivered  in  the  chapel  of  the  College,  most 
probably  in  1631-2,  as  the  "Declamation,"  or  perhaps  as  part  of  the 
"  Act,"  required  of  all  intending  commencers  in  the  Master's  degree. 
The  proposition  maintained  is  : — "  ART  is  MORE  CONDUCIVE  TO  HUMAN- 
HAPPINESS  THAN  IGNORANCE."  The  oration  opens  thus : — 

"Although  nothing  is  more  agreeable  and  desirable  to  me,  my 
hearers,  than  the  sight  of  you,  and  the  crowded  attendance  of  gentle 
men  in  gowns,  and  also  this  honourable  office  of  speaking,  which  on 
more  occasions  than  one  I  have  with  no  unpleasant  pains  discharged 
among  you,  yet,  to  confess  the  actual  truth,  it  always  so  happens  that, 
though  neither  my  genius  nor  the  nature  of  my  studies  is  at  all  out 
of  keeping  with  the  oratorical  office,  nevertheless  I  scarcely  ever  come 
to  speak  of  my  own  free  will  and  choice.  Had  it  been  in  my  power, 
I  should  not  unwillingly  have  spared  myself  even  this  evening's 
labour ;  for,  as  I  have  learned  from  books  and  from  the  deliverances 
of  the  most  learned  men  that  no  more  in  the  orator  than  in  the  poet 
can  anything  common  or  mediocre  be  tolerated,  and  that  whoever 
would  truly  be  and  be  reputed  an  orator  must  be  instructed  and 
finished  with  a  certain'circular  subsidy  of  all  the  arts  and  all  science, 
so,  my  age  not  permitting  this,  I  would  rather  be  working  with  severe 
study  for  that  true  reputation  by  the  preliminary  acquisition  of  that 
subsidy  than  prematurely  snatching  a  false  reputation  by  a  forced  and 
precocious  style.  In  such  meditation  and  purpose  daily  chafed  and 
kindled  more  and  more,  I  have  never  experienced  any  hindrance  and 
delay  more  grievous  than  this  frequent  mischief  of  interruption,  and 
nothing  more  nutritive  to  my  genius  and  conservative  of  its  good 
health,  as  contra-distinguished  from  that  of  the  body,  than  a  learned 
and  liberal  leisure.  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  steepest  solitudes  of  Mount  Caucasus,  where  he 
became  the  wisest  of  gods  and  men,  so  that  even  Jupiter  himself  is 

1  Cleveland's  Academic  Orations  and       Latin,  are  worth  looking  at  in  connexion 
Prolusions,  printed  in    his    works  in       with  Milton's. 


298  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

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  goddesses)  I  remember  with  such  pleasure  the  supreme 
delight  I  had  with  the  Muses ;  where  I  too,  amid  rural  scenes  and  se 
questered  glades,  seemed  as  if  I  could  have  vegetated  through  a  hidden 
eternity.  Here  also  I  should  have  hoped  for  the  same  large  liberty 
of  retirement,  had  not  this  troublesome  business  of  speech-making 
quite  unseasonably  interposed  itself ;  which  so  disagreeably  dispelled 
my  sacred  dreams,  so  wrenched  my  mind  from  other  matters  on  which 
it  was  fixed,  and  proved  such  an  impediment  and  burden  among  the 
precipitous  difficulties  of  the  Arts,  that,  losing  all  hope  of  continued 
repose,  I  began  sorrowfully  to  think  how  far  off  I  was  from  the  tran 
quillity  which  letters  first  promised  me, — to  think  that  life  would  be 
painful  amid  these  heats  and  tossings,  and  that  it  would  be  better 
even  to  have  parted  with  recollection  of  the  arts  altogether.  And  so, 
scarce  master  of  myself,  I  undertook  the  rash  design  of  appearing  as 
the  eulogist  of  an  Ignorance  that  should  have  none  of  these  inflictions 
to  disturb  her,  and  proposed  accordingly  for  debate  the  question  which 
of  the  two  made  her  votaries  happier,  Art  or  Ignorance  ?  But,  what 
it  is  I  know  not,  either  fate  or  my  genius  has  willed  that  I  should  not 
desert  from  my  once  begun  love  of  the  Muses ;  nay,  blind  Chance 
herself,  as  if  suddenly  become  prudent  and  provident,  seems  to  have 
set  herself  against  the  same  result.  Sooner  than  I  could  have  antici 
pated,  Ignorance  has  found  her  own  advocate,  and  Knowledge  is  left 
to  be  defended  by  me."  .... 

After  this  characteristic  introduction,  Milton  proceeds  to  his  sub 
ject.     The  discourse,  though  the  title  has  the  trivial  look  common  in 
5  such  debating-society  questions,  is  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  Latin 
S;  prose  ever  penned  by  an  Englishman.     The  Latin  differs  from  Bacon' s 
Latin  precisely  as  Milton  himself  differed  from  Bacon.     It  is  eloquent 
after  a  different  fashion,  a  mugnanimqus  chant  rather  than  a  splendid 
dissertation.     It  might  be  worth  while  to  translate  the  whole  into 
English,  so  as  to  compare  Milton's  essay  "  On  the  objects,  pleasures, 
and  advantages  of  Knowledge "  with  others  that  are  better  known. 
Abbreviation  here,  however,  may  not  be  amiss. 

"  I  regard  it,  my  hearers,  as  known  and  accepted  by  all  that  the 
great  Maker  of  the  Universe,  when  he  had  constituted  all  things  else 
fleeting  and  corruptible,  did  mingle  up  with  Man,  in  addition  to  that 
of  him  which  is  mortal,  a  certain  divine  breath,  as  it  were  part  of 
Himself,  immortal,  indestructible,  free  from  death  and  extinction ; 
which,  after  it  had  sojourned  purely  and  holily  for  some  time  in  the 
earth  as  a  heavenly  guest,  should  flutter  aloft  to  its  native  heaven, 
and  return  to  its  proper  home  and  fatherland  :  accordingly,  that 
nothing  can  deservedly  be  taken  into  account  as  among  the  causes  of 
our  happiness  that  does  not  somehow  or  other  regard  both  that  ever 
lasting  life  and  this  civil  life  below." 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  299 

Such  being  his  main  proposition,  he  argues  that  it  is  only  by  the 
exercise  of  the  soul  in  contemplation,  so  as  to  penetrate  beyond  the 
grosser  aspects  of  phenomena  to  the  cardinal  ideas  of  things  human 
and  divine,  that  man  can  be  true  to  his  origin  and  destiny,  and  so  in 
the  highest  sense  happy.  He  then  passes,  in  poetic  rather  than  in 
logical  order,  to  such  thoughts  as  the  following  : — 

"  That  many  very  learned  men  have  been  of  bad  character,  slaves  to 
anger,  hatred,  and  evil  lusts,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  many  men 
ignorant  of  letters  have  proved  themselves  good  and  excellent, — what 
of  that  1  Is  Ignorance  the  more  blessed  state  ?  By  no  means.  .  .  . 
Where  no  Arts  flourish,  where  all  learning  is  exterminated,  there  is  no 
trace  of  a  good  man,  but  cruelty  and  horrid  barbarism  stalk  abroad. 
I  call  as  witness  to  this  fact  not  one  state,  or  province,  or  race,  but 
Europe,  the  fourth  part  of  the  globe,  over  the  whole  of  which  during 
some  bygone  centuries  all  good  Arts  had  perished.  The  presiding 
Muses  had  then  long  left  all  the  Universities ;  blind  inertness  had 
invaded  and  occupied  all  things ;  nothing  was  heard  in  the  schools 
except  the  impertinent  dogmas  of  stupid  monks ;  the  profane  and 
formless  monster,  Ignorance,  having  forsooth  obtained  a  gown, 
capered  boastingly  through  our  empty  reading-desks  and  pulpits, 
and  through  our  squalid  cathedrals.  Then  piety  languished,  and 
Religion  was  extinguished  and  went  to  wreck,  so  that  only  of  late, 
and  scarce  even  at  this  day,  has  there  been  a  recovery  from  the 
heavy  wound.  But,  truly,  my  hearers,  it  is  sufficiently  agreed 
upon,  as  an  old  maxim  in  philosophy,  that  the  cognisance  of  every 
art  and  every  science  belongs  .only  to  the  Intellect,  but  that  the 
home  and  abode  of  the  virtues  and  of  goodness  is  the  Will.  Since, 
however,  in  the  judgment  of  all,  the  human  intellect  shines  eminent 
as  chief  and  ruler  over  the  other  faculties  of  the  mind,  so  it  is  this 
clearness  of  the  intellect  that  tempers  and  illuminates  the  will  itself, 
otherwise  blind  and  dark,  the  Will,  like  the  moon,  then  shining  with 
borrowed  light.  Wherefore,  though  we  concede  and  grant  most 
willingly  that  virtue  without  knowledge  is  better  for  a  happy  life 
than  knowledge  without  virtue,  yet,  when  once  they  have  been 
mutually  consociated  in  a  happy  union, — as  they  generally  ought 
to  be,  and  as  very  often  happens,— then  straightway  Science  appears 
and  shines  forth,  in  her  high  superiority,  with  countenance  erect 
and  lofty,  placing  herself  on  high  with  king  and  emperor  Intellect, 
and  thence  regarding  as  humble  and  low  under  foot  whatever  is  done 
in.the  Will." 

The  orator,  then  passes  to  civil  life  and  to  historical  instances. 
After  speaking  of  great  princes  who  had  voluntarily  retired,  in  the 
ends  of  their  lives,  into  the  recluse  enjoyment  of  letters,  as  a  happi 
ness  higher  than  that  of  conquest  or  statesmanship,  he  continues : — 

"  But  the  greatest  share  of  civil  happiness  generally  consists  in 
human  society  and  the  formation  of  friendships.  Now,  many  coin- 


300  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

plain  that  the  majority  of  those  who  pass  for  learned  men  are  harsh, 
uncourteous,  of  ill-ordered  manners,  with  no  graciousness  of  speech 
for  the  conciliation  of  the  minds  of  their  fellows.  I  admit,  indeed, 
that  one  who  is  almost  wholly  secluded  and  immersed  in  studies  is 
readier  to  address  the  gods  than  men,— whether  because  he  is  generally 
at  home  with  the  gods,  but  a  stranger  and  pilgrim  in  human  affairs, 
or  because  the  mind,  enlarged  by  the  constant  contemplation  of  divine 
things,  and  so  wriggling  with  difficulty  in  the  straits  of  the  body,  is 
less  expert  than  it  might  otherwise  be  in  the  nicer  gestures  of  social 
salutation.  But,  if  worthy  and  suitable  friendships  are  formed  by 
such  a  person,  no  one  cherishes  them  more  sacredly  ;  for  what  can  be 
imagined  pleasanter  or  happier  than  those  colloquies  of  learned  and 
grave  men,  such  as  the  divine  Plato  is  said  to  have  often  and  often  held 
under  his  plane-tree, — colloquies  worthy  to  have  been  listened  to  with 
attentive  silence  by  the  whole  human  race  together  !  But  to  talk 
together  stupidly,  to  humour  one  another  in  luxury  and  lusts,  what 
is  this  but  the  friendship  of  Ignorance,  or  rather  the  ignorance  of 
Friendship '? 

Moreover,  if  civil  happiness  consists  in  the  honourable  and  liberal 
delectation  of  the  mind,  there  is  a  pleasure  in  Learning  and  Art 
which  easily  surpasses  all  pleasures  besides.  What  a  thing  it  is  to 
have  compassed  the  whole  humour  of  heaven  and  its  stars ;  all  the 
motions  and  vicissitudes  of  the  air,  whether  it  terrifies  untaught 
minds  by  the  august  sound  of  its  thunders,  or  by  the  blazing  hair  of 
its  comets,  or  whether  it  stiffens  into  snow  and  hail,  or  whether  it 
descends  soft  and  placid  in  rain  and  dew ;  then  to  have  thoroughly 
learnt  the  alternating  winds,  and  all  the  exhalations  or  vapours  which 
earth  or  sea  gives  forth;  thereafter  to  have  become  skilled  in  the 
secret  forces  of  plants  and  metals,  and  understanding  in  the  nature 
and,  if  possible,  the  sensations  of  animals  ;  further,  to  have  studied 
the  exact  structure  and  medicine  of  the  human  body,  and  finally  the 
divine  vis  and  vigour  of  the  mind,  and  whether  any  kno\\dgtlge 
reaches  us  of  what  are  called  guardian  spirits  and  genii  and  demons  ! 
There  is  an  infinitude  of  things  besides,  a  good  part  of  which  might 
be  learnt  before  I  could  have  enumerated  them  all.  So,  at  length, 
my  hearers,  when  once  universal  learning  has  finished  its  circles,  the 
soul,  not  content  with  this  darksome  prison-house,  will  reach  out  far 
and  wide  till  it  shall  have  filled  the  world  itself,  and  space  beyond 
that,  in  the  divine  expatiation  of  its  magnitude.  .  .  .  And  what 
additional  pleasure  it  is  to  the  mind  to  wing  its  way  through  all  the 
histories  and  local  sites  of  nations,  and  to  turn  to  the  account  of  pru 
dence  and  of  morals  the  conditions  and  mutations  of  kingdoms,  states, 
cities,  and  peoples!  This  is  nothing  less,  my  hearers,  than  to  be 
present  as  if  living  in  every  age,  and  have  been  born  as  it  were  coeval 
with  Time  herself ;  verily,  while  for  the  glory  of  our  name  we  look  for 
ward  into  the  future,  this  will  be  to  extend  and  outstretch  life  back- 


MILTON'S  PROLUSIONES  ORATORIO.  301 

ward  from  the  womb,  and  to  extort  from  unwilling  fate  a  certain 
foregone  immortality. 

"  I  omit  that  with  which  what  can  be  counted  equivalent  ?  To  be 
the  oracle  of  many  nations  ;  to  have  one's  house  a  kind  of  temple  ;  to 
be  such  as  kings  and  commonwealths  invite  to  come  to  them,  such  as 
neighbours  and  foreigners  flock  to  visit,  such  as  to  have  even  once 
seen  shall  be  boasted  of  by  others  as  something  meritorious  :  these 
are  the  rewards,  these  the  fruits,  which  Learning  both  can  and  often 
does  secure  for  her  votaries  in  private  life.  But  what  in  public  life  1 
It  is  true  the  reputation  of  learning  has  elevated  few,  nor  has  the 
reputation  of  goodness  elevated  many  more,  to  the  summit  of  actual 
majesty.  And  no  wonder.  Those  men  enjoy  a  kingdom  in  them 
selves,  far  more  glorious  than  all  dominion  over  realms  ;  and  who, 
without  incurring  the  obloquy  of  ambition,  affects  a  double  sove 
reignty  ?  I  will  add  this  more,  however,  that  there  have  been  but 
two  men  yet  who  have  held  in  their  possession  as  a  gift  from  heaven 
the  universal  globe,  and  shared,  over  all  kings  and  dynasts,  an  em 
pire  equal  to  that  of  the  gods  themselves, — to  wit,  Alexander  the 
Great  and  Octavius  Csesar,  both  of  them  pupils  of  philosophy.  It  is 
as  if  a  kind  of  model  of  election  had  been  divinely  exhibited  to  men, 
showing  them  to  what  sort  of  man  above  all  the  baton  and  reins  of 
affairs  ought  to  be  entrusted. 

The  orator  then  discusses  certain  cases — particularly  that  of  the 
ancient  Spartans  and  that  of  the  modern  Turks— in  which  it  might 
be  said  there  had  been  powerful  political  rule  by  illiterate  men.  He 
disposes  of  this  objection,  and  proceeds  to  consider  the  objection 
involved  in  the  common  complaint  that  "  Life  is  short  and  Art  is 'long." 
With  all  deference  to  Galen,  he  says,  as  the  author  of  that  celebrated 
saying,  it  results  chiefly  from  two  removable  causes, — the  one  the  bad 
tradition  of  Art  itself,  the  other  our  own  laziness, — that  this  saying 
does  not  give  place  to  its  opposite,  "  Life  is  long  and  Art  is  short." 
In  expounding  this  sentiment,  he  becomes  more  than  Baconian  in  his 
measure  of  what  is  possible  to  man  regulating  his  reason  by  right 
methods. 

"  If,  by  living  modestly  and  temperately,  we  choose  rather  to  tame      /  >^ 
the  first  impulses  of  fierce  youth  by  reason  and  persevering  constancy      I 
in  study,  preserving  the  heavenly  vigour  of  the  mind  pure  and  un 
touched  from  all  contagion  and  stain,  it  would  be  incredible,  my       V    * 
hearers,  to  us  looking  back  after  a  few  years,  what  a  space  we  should        \ 
seem  to  have  traversed,  what  a  huge  sea  of  learning  to  have  over-  \ 

navigated  with  placid  voyage.  To  which,  however,  this  will  be  an  im-  ^/ 
portant  help, — that  one  shall  know  the  Arts  that  are  useful,  and  how 
rightly  to  select  what  is  useful  in  the  Arts.  How  many  despicable 
trifles  there  are,  in  the  first  place,  among  grammarians  and  rhetori 
cians  !  You  may  hear  some  talking  like  barbarians,  and  others  like 
infants,  in  teaching  their  own  Art.  What  is  Logic?  The  queen, 


302  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

truly,  of  Arts,  if  treated  according  to  her  worth.  But  alas  !  what 
madness  there  is  in  reason.  Here  it  is  not  men  that  live,  but  only 
finches  feeding  on  thistles  and  thorns.  0  dura  messorum  ilia  !  Why 
should  I  repeat  that  the  art  which  the  Peripatetics  call  Metaphysics 
is  not,  as  the  authority  of  great  men  would  have  me  believe,  an  ex 
tremely  rich  art, — is  not,  I  say,  for  the  most  part,  an  Art  at  all,  but 
an  infamous  tract  of  rocks,  a  kind  of  Lerna  of  sophisms,  invented  to 
cause  shipwrecks  and  breed  pestilence  1  .  .  .  When  all  those  things 
which  can  be  of  no  profit  have  been  deservedly  contemned  and  cut 
off,  it  will  be  a  matter  of  wonder  how  many  whole  years  we  shall 
save.  ...  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,  useless,  then  certainly,  within  the  age  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  we  shall  have  made  a  greater  and  more  glorious  conquest  than 
that  of  the  globe,  and  so  far  shall  we  be  from  accusing  the  brevity  of 
life  or  the  fatigue  of  knowledge  that  I  believe  we  shall  be  readier, 
like  him  of  old,  to  weep  and  sob  that  there  remain  no  more  worlds 
for  us  to  conquer.' ' 

One  last  argument,  he  goes  on  to  say,  Ignorance  may  still  plead  on 
her  side.  It  is  this  : — 

"  That,  whereas  a  long  series  and  onward  course  of  years  has  cele 
brated  the  illustrious  men  of  antiquity,  we,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
under  a  disadvantage  by  reason  of  the  decrepit  old  age  of  the  world 
and  the  fast  approaching  crash  of  all  things ;  that,  should  we  leave 
anything  deserving  to  be  spoken  of  with  eternal  praise,  yet  our  name 
has  but  a  narrow  limit  of  time  to  have  dealings  with,  inasmuch  as 
there  will  be  scarcely  any  posterity  to  inherit  the  memory  of  it ;  that 
already  it  is  in  vain  that  so  many  books  and  excellent  monuments  of 
genius  are  being  produced,  when  that  last  fire  of  the  world  is  so  near 
that  will  burn  them  all  in  its  conflagration." 

To  this  argument  he  answers  as  follows  : — 

"  I  do  not  deny  that  this  may  be  likely ;  what  I  say  is  that  the 
very  .habit  of  not  hankering  after  glory  when  one  has  done  well  is 
itself  above  all  glory.  What  a  nothing  has  been  the  happiness  con 
ferred  on  those  very  heroes  of  the  past  by  the  empty  speech  of  men, 
since  no  pleasure  from  it,  no  sense  of  it  at  all,  could  reach  the  absent 
and  the  dead  !  Let  us  expect  an  eternal  life  in  which  at  least  the 
memory  of  our  good  deeds  on  earth  shall  never  perish  ;  in  which,  if 
we  have  done  anything  fairly  here,  we  shall  be  present  ourselves  to 
hear  of  it ;  in  which,  as  many  have  seriously  speculated,  those  who 
have  formerly,  in  a  virtuously  spent  life  on  earth,  given  all  their  time 
to  good  acts,  and  by  them  been  helpful  to  the  human  race,  shall  be 
aggrandized  with  singular  and  supreme  science  above  ail  the  rest  of 
the  immortals." 


PROLUSION    ON    EARLY    RISING.  303 

To  the  foregoing  seven  Academic  Exercises  of  Milton,  all 
given  to  the  world  by  himself  in  1674,  the  last  year  of  his 
life,  under  the  title  Prolusiones  Qucedam  Oratories,  save  that 
the  English  portion  of  the  sixth  of  them  had  appeared  in  a 
detached  form  in  the  second  edition  of  his  Minor  Poems  in 
the  preceding  year,  there  may  be  added,  I  believe,  two 
more  scraps  from  his  pen,  which  have  all  the  appearance  of 
having  been  also  College  or  University  exercises  of  his 
daring  his  stay  at  Cambridge  : — 

PROLUSION  ON  EARLY  RISING,  WITH  VERSES. 

Together  with  the  interesting  Common-Place  Book  of  Milton 
recently  found  by  Mr.  Alfred  J.  Horwood,  when  examining  the 
family-papers  of  Sir  Frederick  U.  Graham,  of  ISTetherby,  Cumberland, 
Bart.,  for  the  purposes  of  the  Historical  Manuscripts  Commission, 
and  edited  by  Mr.  liorwood  for  the  Camden  Society  in  1877,  there 
was  found  a  single  loose  leaf  of  foolscap  paper,  "  much  damaged  by 
damp  and  its  left  margin  destroyed,"  which  had  evidently  belonged 
to  Milton,  and  had  passed  after  his  death  into  the  same  hands  that 
had  obtained  the  Common-Place  Book.  On  this  loose  leaf,  still  at 
Netherby  with  the  Common-Place  Book,  there  was  found  a  short 
Latin  Essay,  headed  "  MANE  CITUS  LECTUM  FUGE  "  ("  Get  up  Early 
in  the  Morning"),  with  a  copy  of  appended  verses  in  Latin  elegiacs, 
and  also  an  imperfect  fragment  of  Latin  verse  in  Choriambic  Tetra 
meters.  Both  the  essay  and  the  verses  have  been,  very  properly, 
printed  by  Mr.  Horwood,  as  an  appendix  to  his  edition  of  the  Com 
mon-Place  Book.  He  entitles  them  there  "  PROLUSION  AND  VERSES 
PRESUMED  TO  BE  BY  JOHN  MILTON,"  choosing  that  ambiguous  title 
because,  though  parts  of  the  writing  have  "  a  strong  likeness  to  some 
of  Milton's  undoubted  writing,"  yet  "  the  writing  is  not  as  a  whole 
like  any  that  has  been  heretofore  known  as  Milton's,"  but  is  "  a  stiff 
legal  hand,  with  a  shade  of  timidity."  All  the  same  he  has  next  to 
no  doubt  that  the  Essay  and  the  Verses  are  of  Milton's  composition. 
Not  only  was  the  leaf  containing  them  found  in  the  same  box  at 
Netherby  with  Milton's  Common-Place  Book;  but  the  left-hand 
margin  of  the  leaf  exhibits  the  name  Milton  written  on  a  level  with 
the  first  line  of  the  Essay,  and  the  preceding  letters  es,  evidently  the 
remainder  of  Joannes,  were  distinctly  visible  when  the  leaf  was  found, 
though  that  part  of  the  paper  soon  crumbled  away.  Farther,  the 
internal  evidence  is  all  to  the  effect  that  Milton  must  have  been  the 
author,  as  Mr.  Horwood_makes  clear  by  a  comparison  of  the  language 
with  that  of  the  "  Prolusion  on  the  Superiority  of  Day  to  Night,"  and  as 
the  reader  wih1  perceive  for  himself  from  the  following  translation  : — 

"  It  is  a  trite  old  proverb,  To  rise  ivith  the  daivn  is  most  healthful ; 
nor  is  the  proverb  less  true  than  ancient.  In  fact,  were  I  to  try  to 
produce  in  order  the  several  uses  of  the  practice,  I  should  seem  like  one 
performing  an  arduous  task.  Rise,  then  ;  rise,  thou  sluggard  ;  let  not 
thy  soft  couch  detain  thee  for  ever ;  little  knowest  thou  what  delights 


304  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

the  morning  offers.  Would  you  delight  your  eyes  1  Behold  the  sun 
rising  in  purple,  the  heaven  pure  and  healthful,  the  grass-grown 
greenness  of  the  fields,  the  variety  of  all  the  flowers.  Would  you 
regale  your  ears  1  Hearken  the  brisk  songs  of  the  birds  and  the  light 
murmurs  of  the  bees.  Would  you  please  your  nostrils  ?  You  cannot 
have  enough  of  the  sweetness  of  the  odours  breathed  forth  from  the 
flowers.  But,  if  all  this  is  not  to  your  taste,  have  some  regard,  I  beg 
you,  for  your  own  health  ;  since  to  get  up  from  bed  on  the  top  of  the 
morning  conduces  not  a  little  to  firm  bodily  strength.  It  is  also  the 
time  fittest  for  studies,  for  then  you  have  your  genius  at  its  readiest. 
Furthermore,  it  is  the  duty  of  a  good  king  not  to  pamper  his  body 
with  immoderate  sleep  and  lead  a  lazy  and  unemployed  life,  but  to 
mind  state-business  night  and  day,  as  Theocritus  shrewdly  advises  :— 


Ov  x.9 

And  in  Homer  Sleep  thus  addresses  Agamemnon  :— 


,  'nnroddp.oio  \ 
Ov  xpj)  Travvv^iov  tvSeii>  f3ov\r](j>6pov  avdpa. 


Wherefore  do  the  poets  fable  that  Tithonus  and  Cephalus  were 
lovers  of  Aurora  1  Doubtless  because  they  were  extremely  spare 
sleepers,  and  were  in  the  habit  of  leaving  their  beds  to  stroll  over  the 
painted  fields,  clothed  with  their  many-coloured  vegetation.  But, 
radically  to  extirpate  sleepiness,  to  leave  no  trace  of  it  remaining,  I 
shall  endeavour  to  expose  the  numberless  inconveniences  which  flow 
from  it  to  all.  It  is  this  that  blunts  and  numbs  the  nimble  genius  and 
does  all  possible  harm  to  the  memory  ;  and  can  anything  be  more  dis 
creditable  than  to  snore  far  into  the  day  and  as  it  were  dedicate  the 
greatest  part  of  your  life  to  death  ?  But,  thou  who  presidest  in  state 
affairs,  it  is  thy  duty  above  all  to  attend  to  the  night-watches  and 
wholly  to  shake  off  the  stealthy  advance  of  too  close  sleep.  For 
there  are  many  instances  of  persons  who,  attacking  their  enemies 
when  they  were  laden  and  as  it  were  buried  in  heavy  sleep,  have  slain 
them  slaughteringly,  and  effected  such  a  massacre  of  them  as  it  is  a 
misery  to  see  or  hear  of.  Thousands  of  cases  of  this  kind  are  at  hand 
which  I  could  relate  at  inexhaustible  length.  But,  if  I  should  imitate 
that  style  of  Asiatic  exuberance,  I  fear  I  should  kill  my  wretched 
auditors  with  fatigue." 

As  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  little  prolusion  is  Milton's,  so 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  the  appended  Latin  Elegiacs  and 
Asclepiadics  are  his.  They  are  a  mere  metrical  repetition  of  the  ideas 
of  the  Prolusion,  the  Elegiacs  emphasising  the  general  advice  to  get  up 
early  and  insisting  again  on  the  delights  of  morning  sounds  and 
scenery  and  on  the  benefits  to  health,  while  the  fragment  of  Asclepia 
dics  applies  the  lesson  specially  to  a  king  or  commander  by  citing 
historical  examples  of  nocturnal  surprises  of  sleeping  armies  and 
camps.  The  whole  trifle  having,  therefore,  to  be  accepted  as  a 


'DE  IDEA  PLATONICA.  305 

recovered  specimen  of  Milton's  early  Latin,  the  sole  question  is  to 
what  date  it  is  to  be  referred.  From  the  somewhat  boyish  style  of 
the  sentence-making,  not  to  say  the  questionable  character  of  the 
Latin  here  and  there,  it  might  be  a  very  fair  guess  that  the  thing  was 
one  of  his  exercises  at  St.  Paul's  School,  of  which  he  had  preserved  a 
copy.  If  so,  the  probability  is  that  old  Mr.  Gill  or  young  Mr.  Gill  had 
on  some  occasion  prescribed  the  subject  of  early  rising,  with  its 
advantages  in  particular  to  a  king  or  other  public  man,  as  a  theme  for 
Latin  prose-composition  and  verse-making,  and  that  Milton's  perform 
ance  was  the  best.  In  that  case,  it  would  be  one  of  those  productions 
of  Milton  of  which,  as  he  tells  us  in  one  of  his  letters  to  the  younger 
Gill,  he  had  found  that  gentleman  a  very  candid  critic,  and  the 
proper  place  for  a  notice  of  it  would  have  been  in  a  former  chapter  of 
the  present  volume,  in  connexion  with  the  juvenile  English  Para 
phrases  of  the  two  Psalms.  It  is  perfectly  possible,  however,  and  is 
even  suggested  by  the  oratorical  cast  of  the  Prolusion  and  the  phrases 
implying  its  public  delivery  before  an  audience,  that  we  are  right  in 
including  the  scrap  here  among  Milton's  Academic  Exercises  at  Cam 
bridge.  If  so,  it  must  have  been  a  College-exercise,  and  of  earlier 
date  than  any  of  the  seven  College  and  University  exercises  he 
thought  worth  publishing  afterwards.^  It  may  even  have  been  his 
very  first  in  Christ's. 

OF  THE  PLATONIC  IDEA  AS  UNDERSTOOD  BY  ARISTOTLE. 

Clearly  an  Academic  Exercise,  but  with  no  such  signs  of  juvenility 
in  it,  but  rather  every  sign  of  having  been  done  late  in  his  under- 
graduateship,  or  even  after  he  had  taken  his  B.A.  degree,  is  the  piece 
of  Iambic  Trimeters,  headed  DE  IDEA  PLATONICA  QUEMADMODUM 
ARISTOTELES  INTELLEXIT,  published  by  Milton  among  the  Sylvce  in 
the  first  edition  of  his  Minor  Poems  in  1645,  and  again  in  the  second 
edition  in  1673,  and  placed  in  both  editions  immediately  after  the 
Hexameters  entitled  NATO  RAM  NON  PATI  SENIUM.  These  last,  as  we 
know,  were  for  the  Commencement  Day  of  1628,  and  the  Iambic 
Trimeters  may  have  been  for  some  similar  University  occasion.  They 
may  be  given  in  pretty  close  translation  thus  : — 

"  Declare,  ye  goddess-guardians  of  the  sacred  groves, 
And  thou,  O  blessed  mother  of  the  Muses  nine, 
^ame  Memory,  and  thou  who  in  some  distant  cave 
jiest  outstretched  at  ease,  lazy  Eternity, 
Keeping  the  archives  and  established  laws  of  Jove, 
The  heavenly  daybooks  and  the  almanacs  divine, 
Who  was  that  first  original  in  whose  image 
All-cunning  Nature  schemed  and  shaped  the  human  race, 
Himself  eternal,  incorrupt,  the  world's  coeval, 
Single  and  universal,  copy  of  God  Supreme. 
Not  as  twin-brother  of  the  never- wedded  Pallas 
Dwells  he,  a  birth  internal,  in  the  mind  of  Jove ; 
But,  howsoe'er  his  nature  be  more  general, 
Yet  he  exists  apart  in  individual  form, 
And,  strange  to  say,  is  tied  to  a  fixed  bound  of  space  : 

VOL.    I.  X 


306  LIFE    OF   MILTON  AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS  TIME. 

Whether,  as  everlasting  comrade  of  the  stars, 

He  roams  at  large  all  ranges  of  the  ten-fold  heaven, 

Or  haunts  the  moony  circuit  nearest  to  ourselves  ; 

Whether,  amid  the  souls  that  wait  to  be  embodied, 

He  sits  in  torpid  doze  by  Lethe's  drowsy  tide  ; 

Whether,  mayhap,  in  some  vague  outfield  of  the  earth 

He  walks  a  giant  huge,  the  archetype  of  man, 

And  to  the  gods  erects  the  terrors  of  his  crest, 

Outbulking  Atlas  even  who  bears  the  starry  load. 

Never  did  he  to  whom  his  blindness  gave  deep  sight, 

Dircsean  Augur  old,  compass  a  glimpse  of  him  ; 

Never  in  silent  night  has  swift-foot  Mercury 

Descending  shown  him  to  the  sapient  prophet-choir  : 

No  ken  of  him  has  the  Assyrian  priest,  although 

He  can  repeat  the  list  of  all  the  sires  of  Ninos, 

And  tell  of  pristine  Belos  and  Osiris  famed  ; 

Neither  has  he,  so  glorious  with  the  triple  name, 

Egypt's  thrice-greatest  sage,  though  read  in  secret  lore, 

Left  any  hint  of  such  for  those  that  worship  Isis, 

But  thou,  perennial  ornament  of  Academe, 

If  thou  'twas  first  brought  in  these  monsters  to  the  schools, 

Surely  forthwith  those  poets  banished  from  thy  city 

Thou  wilt  recall,  as  biggest  fabler  of  the  tribe, 

Or,  founder  though  thou  art,  thyself  go  forth  the  gates." 

These  Latin  Iambics  of  Milton,  Warton  tells  us,  were  reprinted  in 
a  burlesque  volume  of  1715  as  "a  specimen  of  unintelligible  meta 
physics."  They  ought  never  to  have  been  unintelligible  in  the  least. 
They  are  an  interesting  proof  of  Milton's  early  affection  for  Plato  and 
the  Platonic  Philosophy.  "With  an  evident  admiration  of  Plato," 
as  I  have  elsewhere  annotated  the  piece,  "  and  an  imaginative  sym- 
"  pathy  with  Plato's  doctrine  of  an  Eternal  Idea  or  Archetype,  one  and 
"  universal,  according  to  which  man  was  formed,  and  which  repro- 
"  duces  itself  in  men's  minds  and  thoughts,  it  yet  shows  how,  by  a  too 
"  physical  or  too  coldly  satirical  construction  of  this  doctrine,  it  may, 
"  be  turned  into  burlesque.  Where  shall  that  famous  personage,  the 
"Idea  or  Archetype,  be  sought,  or  who  has  ever  been  able  to  lay 
"  salt  on  his  tail  1 "  This  is  the  substance  of  Milton's  meaning  in  his 
ironical  version  of  Aristotle's  criticism  of  the  Platonic  Theory  of  Ideas. 
It  was  an  entire  misapprehension,  he  virtually  says,  of  the  Platonic 
Theory,  and  Plato  himself  would  have  been  the  first  to  laugh  at  the 
notion  of  such  a  hunt  for  the  Archetype  through  the  purlieus  of 
physical  existence  and  experience. 

The  reader  will  now,  I  think,  agree  with  me  that  these 
Academic  Exercises  of  Milton  possess  much  autobiographic 
value.  They  throw  light  upon  Milton's  career  at  Cam 
bridge.  They  illustrate  the  extent  and  nature  of  his  read 
ing,  his  habits  and  tastes  as  a  student,  the  relation  in  which 


MILTON    IN    HIS    TWENTY-FOURTH  YEAR.  307 

lie  stood  to  the  University  system  of  his  time,  and  to  the 
new  intellectual  tendencies  which  were  gradually  affecting 
that  system.  They  also  settle  in  the  most  conclusive  man 
ner  the  foot  that  Milton  passed  through  two  stages  in  his 
career  at  the  University, — a  stage  of  decided  unpopularity, 
in  his  own  College  at  least,  which  lasted  till  about  1628, 
and  a  final  stage  of  triumph,  when  his  powers  were  recog 
nised.  These  same  essays,  however,  taken  along  with  the 
materials  previously  exhibited,  afford  us  the  means  of  now 
attempting,  by  way  of  summary,  some  more  exact  sketch  of 
Milton's  character  as  a  whole  at  the  point  of  his  life  to 
which  we  have  brought  him. 

When  Milton  left  Cambridge  in  July  1632,  he  was  twenty- 
three  years  and  eight  months  old.  In  stature,  therefore,  he 
was  already  whatever  he  was  to  be.  "  In  statute/'  he  says 
himself  at  a  later  period,  when  driven  to  speak  on  the  sub 
ject,  "I  confess  I  am  not  tall,  but  still  of  what  is  nearer  to 
"  middle  height  than  to  little  :  and  what  if  I  were  of  little  ; 
11  of  which  stature  have  often  been  very  great  men  both  in 
t(  peace  and  war, — though  why  should  that  be  called  little 
"  which  'is  great  enough  for  virtue  ?  *91  This  is  preciso 
enough;  but  we  have  Aubrey's  words  to  the  same  effect. 
"  He  was  scarce  so  tall  as  I  am,"  says  Aubrey ;  to  which, 
to  make  it  more  intelligible,  he  appends  this  marginal  note  : 
— "  Qu.  Qt.iot  feet  I  am  high  ?  Resp.  Of  middle  stature/' 
— i.  e.  Milton  was  a  little  under  middle  height.  "  He  had 
light  brown  hair,"  continues  Aubrey, — putting  the  word 
"abrown"  ("auburn")  in  the  margin  by  way  of  synonym 
for  "  light  brown  ;  " — "  his  complexion  exceeding  fair ;  oval 
face ;  his  eye  a  dark  grey."  As  Milton  himself  says  that 
his  complexion,  even  in  later  life,  was  so  much  "  the  reverse 
of  bloodless  or  pallid  "  that,  on  this  ground  alone,  he  was 
generally  taken  for  ten  years  younger  than  he  really  was, 
Aubrey's  "  exceeding  fair "  must  mean  a  very  delicate 
white  and  red.  Then,  he  was  called  ' '  The  Lady  "  in  his 

1  Defensio  Secunda  (written  1654) :  Works,  VI.  26ft 
x2 


308  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

College,  an  epithet  which  implies  that,  with  this  unusually 
delicate  complexion,  the  light  brown  hair  falling  to  his  ruff 
on  both  sides  of  his  oval  face,  and  his  slender  and  elegant 
rather  than  massive  or  powerful  form,  there  was  a  certain 
prevailing  air  of  the  feminine  in  his  look.  The  feminine, 
however,  was  of  that  peculiar  sort  which  could  consist  with 
clear  eyes  of  a  dark  grey  and  with  a  "  delicate  and  tunable 
voice  "  that  could  be  firm  in  the  low  tenor  notes  and  carry 
tolerably  sonorous  matter.  And,  ladylike  though  he  was, 
there  was  nothing  effeminate  in  his  demeanour.  "  His  de 
portment,"  says  Wood,  "was  affable,  his  gait  erect  and 
manly,  bespeaking  courage  and  undauntedness."  Here 
Wood  apparently  follows  Milton's  own  account,  where  he 
tells  us  that  in  his  youth  he  did  not  neglect  ee  daily  practice  " 
with  his  sword,  and  that  he  was  not  so  '  '  very  slight  "  but 
that,  '  f  armed  with  it,  as  he  generally  was,  he  was  in  the  habit 
"  of  thinking  himself  quite  a  match  for  any  one,  even  were  ho 
"  much  the  more  robust,  and  of  being  perfectly  at  ease  as 
"•to  any  injury  that  any  one  could  offer  him,  man  to  man/' 
peculiar  blending  that  there  was  of  the  feminine 
in  the  ujjpuai'ance  'OftEe"""  Lady  of  OJmst/s/^" 
we  have  some  means  of  judgingloFbur  selves  in  a  y^~ex&wi£-. 

hile 


he  was  stlQ  a  •£/'»  wlwidg^I^iTT^mTt..  JThp^rarnlrl  s  nnrrcfrly  bo 
a  finer  picture  of  pure  and  ingenuous  En^TisTrytriithr-^-ajidy 
if  Milton  had  the  portrait  beside  him  when,  in  later  Tife,"~ire 
Ifad  to  allude,  in  reply  to  his  opponentspto~~the  delicate 
subject  of  his  personal  appearance,  there  must  have  been  a 
tuuch  of  slyness  in  his  statement  that  "  so  far  as  he  knew 
he  Jiad^never  been  thought  ugly  by  any'one  who  had  seen 
him."^  _  Tn  sT-iorf^  thetradition^fjliB~~gn^ftt  personal  beauty 
in  youth  requires  no  abatement.1 

1  This  seems  the  place  for  an  account  the  portrait  of  him  (supposed  to  be  by 

of  those  portraits  of  Milton  which  Jansen)  when  he  was  a  boy  of  ten  ;  the 

belong  to  the  period  of  his  life  em-  other  a  portrait  of  him  (artist  unknown) 

braced  in  the  present  volume  —  viz.  when  he  was  a  student  at  Cambridge. 

portraits  of  him  taken  before  1640,  The  existence  and  the  authenticity  of 

when  he  was  in  his  thirty-second  year.  these  two  portraits  are  certified  beyond 

So  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  there  were  dispute.  (1.)  Aubrey  mentions  both  as 

two,  and  only  two,  original  portraits  of  well  known  to  himself,  and  as  being 

him  belonging  to  this  period  :  the  one  still  in  the  possession  of  Milton's 


MILTON    IN    HIS    TWENTY- FOURTH    YEAR. 


309 


In  this  "  beautiful  and  well-proportioned  body,"  to  use 
Aubrey's  words,  there  lodged  "  a  harmonical  and  ingeniose 


widow  in  London  after  her  husband's 
death.  "What  he  says  of  the  boy  por 
trait  we  have  already  seen  (pp.  65—68). 
Eespecting  the  other  he  says,  "  His 
widow  has  his  picture,  drawn  very  well 
and  like,  when  a  Cambridge  scholar ; 
which  ought  to  be  engraven,  for  the 

Sictures  before  his  books  are  not  at  all 
ke  him";  and  a  little  farther  on  in 
the  MS.  Aubrey  writes,  by  way  of  me 
morandum  for    himself,   these   words, 
"  Write  his  name  ia  red  letters  on  his 
picture  with  his  widow  to  preserve." 
(2.)  The  engraver   "Vertue,   when   en 
gaged,  in  the  year  1721,  in  engraving, 
for  the  first  time,  a  head  of  Milton  (of 
whom  afterwards  he  executed  so  many 
engravings),  was  very  anxious  to  know 
that  the  picture  which  had  been  put 
into  his  hands  to  be  engraved  was  an 
authentic  likeness.     For  this  purpose 
he  saw  the  poet's  youngest  and  only 
surviving   daughter,   Deborah   Clarke, 
then  living  in  Spitalfields.    His  account 
of  the  interview  remains   in  a  letter, 
dated  August   12,   1721,  addressed  to 
Mr.  Charles  Christian,  and  now  in  the 
British  Museum  (Add.  MS.  5016*  fo. 
71).     He  says,  "Pray  inform  my  Lord 
"  Harley  that  I  have  on  Thursday  last 
"  seen  the  daughter  of  Milton  the  poet. 
"  I  carried  with  me  two  or  three  differ- 
"  ent  prints  of  Milton's  picture,  which 
"  she  immediately  knew  to  be  like  her 
"  father   [these    seem    to    have    been 
prints     after     Faithorne's    picture    of 
him  in  later  life],  and  told   me    her 
"  mother-in-law,    living    in    Cheshire, 
"  had  two  pictures  of  him,  one  when  he 
"  was  a  schoolboy,  and  the  other  when  he 
"  was  above  twenty.    She  knows  of  no 
"  other  picture  of  him.  because  she  was 
"  several  years  in  Ireland,  both  before 
"and  after  his  death.  ...  I   showed 
"  her  the  painting  I  have  to  engrave, 
"  which   she  believes  not    to    be    her 
"  father's  picture,  it  being  of  a  brown 
"  complexion,  and  black  hair  and  curled 
"  locks.     On  the  contrary,  he  was  of  a 
"  fair  complexion,  a  little  red  in  his 
';  cheeks,  and  light  brown  lank   hair." 
Vertue  then  continues,  "  I  desire  you 
"  would  acquaint  Mr.  Prior  I  was  so 
"  unfortunate  to  wait  upon   him,  on 
"  Thursday  morning  last,  after  he  was 
"  gone  out  of  town.     It  was  this  intent, 
"  to  iuqiiire  of  him  if   he  remembers 
"  a  picture  of  Milton  in  the  late  Lord 
"  Dorset's  collection,  as  I  am  told  this 
"  was  ;  or,  if  he  can  inform  me  how  I 
"  shall  inquire  or  know  the  truth  of 


'  this  affair,  I  should  be  much  obliged 
'  to  him,  being  very  willing  to  have  all 
'  certainty  on  that  account  before  I 
'  begin  to  engrave  the  plate,  that  it 
'  may  be  the  more  satisfactory  to  the 
"public  as  well  as  myself."  (3.)  As 
regards  these  two  portraits,  mentioned 
by  Aubrey  and  by  Deborah  Clarke,  we 
know  farther  that  they  were  in  the 
possession  of  Milton's  widow  at  Nant- 
wich,  Cheshire,  at  her  death  in  1727 ; 
for,  in  the  inventory  of  her  effects,  one 
of  the  entries  includes  "  Mr.  Milton's 
pictures." 

These  two  portraits,  therefore,  are 
the  only  two  belonging  to  the  earlier 
part  of  Milton's  life  the  authenticity 
of  which  seems  positively  guaranteed. 
There  may  have  been  others ;  but  any 
portrait  claiming  to  be  a  portrait  of 
Milton  before  1640,  and  not  being  one 
of  the  two  above-mentioned,  would  re 
quire  to  have  its  authenticity  sharply 
looked  to.  The  question,  therefore,  is, 
Are  therfe  two  indubitable  portraits 
still  extant  ?  Eespecting  the  first — the 
boy  portrait — there  can  be  no  doubt. 
I  have  already  given  full  information 
(p.  66)  respecting  its  history  since  it 
was  in  possession  of  Milton's  widow  ; 
and  by  the  kindness  of  its  proprietor, 
Mr.  Disney,  I  have  had  the  satisfaction 
of  giving  in  this  volume  a  new  engrav 
ing  of  it,  taken  from  a  photograph 
made  for  the  purpose.  Respecting  the 
other  portrait  the  following  information 
may  be  interesting.  Vertue,  whose 
veracity  as  an  engraver  was  proverbial, 
and  whose  care  to  authenticate  a  sus 
picious  picture  of  Milton  put  into  his 
hands  in  1721  we  have  just  seen,  did, 
ten  years  afterwards  (1731),  engrave  a 
portrait  of  Milton  as  a  young  man — 
which  portrait  he  had  the  pleasure  of 
knowing  to  be  one  of  the  two  that  had 
been  mentioned  to  him  by  the  poet's 
daughter.  It  was  then  (1731)  in  the 
possession  of  the  Eight  Honourable 
Arthur  Onslow,  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  who  had  bought  it  from 
the  executors  of  Milton's  widow,  after 
her  death  in  1727.  "  Joannes  Milton, 
cetat.  21,  ex  picturd  archetypd  qua 
penes  est  pr&honorabilcm  Arthurum 
Onslow,  Armig.  Vertue  Sc.  1731,"  was 
the  inscription  on  the  quarto  copy  of 
the  engraving ;  and  there  was  also  an 
octavo  copy  in  the  same  year,  with  the 
inscription  somewhat  varied.  There 
were  repeated  engravings  of  the  same 
by  Vertue  in  subsequent  years,  durin-g 


310 


LIFE    OE    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 


soul."  In  describing  that  "soul"  more  minutely,  I  may 
be  allowed  to  proceed  in  a  somewhat  gradual  manner.  I 
may  be  allowed  also  to  avail  myself  of  such  words  of  my 
own  in  a  previous  essay  on  the  same  subject  as  appear  to 
me  still  to  express  the  truth.1 

"  Q^he  prevailing  tone,  the  characteristic  mood  and  dis- 
'*position,  oTon^s^mjjid,  even  in  his  early  youth,  cor? 


a  deep  and 


_gmga^)i^/T     I  used,  and  I 

now  use,  tha  word  in  no  special  or  restricted  sense.     The 
seriousness  of  which  I  speak  was  a  constitutional  serious 
ness,  ratified   and  nourished  by  rational    reflection,  rather 
than  the  assumed  temper  of  a  sect.     From  his_childhood  wo 
se~e  this  seriousness  in  Milton,  this'  tendency  to  the  grave 
</_   and  earnest  in  his  views  of  things! 
/as  Ee~  'growsja.     It  shows  itselfatlh 


»          unustfaTstudiousness  and  perseverance  in 
y^  I 


pations  of  the  place.     It  show-B-  itself  in  ao^abstinence  froor 
_many  of  those  jocosities  and  frivolities_which,  even  in  his 
o^ijudgmenT,  were  innocent  enough,  and  quite  permissible" 
to  those  who  cared  for  them.     "Festivities  and  Jests,  in 
which  lacknowledge  my  faculty  to  be  very  slight,"  are  his 


Speaker  Onslow's  life,Verfcue  having  ap 
parently  had  a  particular  liking  for  the 
picture.  Of  some  sixteen  or  eighteen 
engravings  of  Milton  by  Vcrtue  (see 
Granger's  Biog.  Hist,  and  Bromley's 
Cat.  of  Brit.  Port.)  five  or  six  are 
from  this  portrait ;  one  of  the  last 
being  that  engraved  for  Newton's  edi 
tion  of  Milton  in  1747.  The  same 
"  Onslow  portrait,"  as  it  was  called, 
was  also  engraved  by  Houbraken  in 
3741,  by  Cipriani  in  1760  for  Mr. 
Hollis  (see  Hollis's  Memoirs),  and  by 
other  artists ;  and,  indeed,  this  is  the 
foundation  of  all  the  common  prints  of 
Milton  as  a  youth.  The  last  engraving 
known  to  me  as  direct  from  the  picture 
is  a  not  very  good  one,  published  in 
1794  by  Boydell  and  Nieol,  with  this 
inscription,  "John  Milton,  cetat.  21, 
from  the  original  picture  in  the  posses 
sion  of  Lord  Onslow,  at  Clandon  in 
tiurrey,  purchased  from  the  executor  of 
Milton's  tvidow  by  Arthur  Onsloiv,  Esq., 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  as 
certified  in  his  oivn  handwriting  on  the 
back  of  the  picture;  W.  N.  Gardiner, 


Sculpt."  (Speaker  Onslow  had  died 
1768,  and  his  son  had  succeeded  to  the 
title  of  Lord  Onslow  in  1776,  raised  to 
that  of  Earl  in  1801.)  The  picture,  I  was 
informed  by  the  late  Earl  of  Onslow, 
went  out  of  his  possession  in  or  about 
the  year  1828,  when  it  was  sold  with 
some  other  pictures  ;  nor,  while  I  write 
this  note,  have  I  been  able  to  trace  it 
farther  than  that  it  was  then  purchased 
by  some  one  named  Moore,  "not  a 
dealer."  It,  doubtless,  exists,  however  ; 
and  whoever  has  it  ought  to  attach  to 
it  the  above  facts  in  its  pedigree,  to 
prevent  mistake.  Possibly  Aubrey's 
intended  authentication  in  "red  let 
ters  "  may  be  on  the  picture ;  which 
would  be  an  additional  circumstance  of 
interest.  For  the  present  volume,  the 
choice  was  among  Vertue's  engravings 
made  between  1731  and  1756,  Cipriani's 
of  1760,  and  Gardiner's  of  1794.  In 
every  respect  Vertue's  are  superior  to 
the  others ;  and  I  have  selected  as  the 
best  of  Vertne's  that  of  1731. 

1  Essay  entitled  "Milton's  Youth." 


MILTON   IN   HIS    TWENTY-FOURTH    YEAE.  311 

own  words  on  the  subject.  His  pleasure  in  such  pastimes 
was  small ;  and,  when  he  did  good-humouredly  throw  him 
self  into  them,  it  was  with  an  apology  for  being  ouf^f^fafs^; 
clement.  But  still  more  distinctly  was  the  same  serious 
ness  of  disposition  shown  in  his  notion  of  where  innocence 
in  such  things  ended.  In  the  nickname  of  "jTheJLady," 
as  applied  to  Milton  by  his  Uollege-fellows,  we  see,  from  his 

~own  interpretation  ot'itTnot  only  an  allusion  to  his  jpersonal 
appearance,  but  also  a  charge  of  prudery.  It  was  as  if  they 
calfed  him  "  The  Maid." — He  himself  understands  it  SO; 

"arid  there  are  passages  in  some  ot"  hisHmfrsequenTPWriliiigs  - 
in  which  he  seems  to  regard  it  as  due  to  himself,  and  as 
necessary  to  a  proper  appreciation  of  his  whole  career,  that 
such  references  to  the  innocence  of  his  youth  should  be 
interpreted  quite  literally. 

So  far  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  example  of  Milton 
contradicts  much  that  is  commonly  advanced  by  way  of  a 
theory  of  the  poetical  character.  "Poets  and  artists,"  I 
have  said,  "  are  and  ought  to  be  distinguished,  it  is  generally 
"  held,  by  a  predominance  of  sensibility  over  principle,  an 
"  excess  of  what  Coleridge  called  the  spiritual  over  what  he 
"  called  the  moral  part  of  man.  A  nature  built  on  quick - 
"  sands,  an  organization  of  nerve  languid  or  tempestuous  with 
fe  occasion,  a  soul  falling  and  soaring,  now  subject  to  ecstasies 
"  and  now  to  remorses  :  such,  it  is  supposed,  and  on  no  small 
"  induction  of  actual  instances,  is  the  appropriate  constitu- 
"  tion  of  the  poet.  Mobility,  absolute  and  entire  destitution 
"of  principle  properly  so  called,  capacity  for  varying  the 
"  mood  indefinitely,  rather  than  for  retaining  and  keeping 
"  up  one  moral  gesture  or  resolution  through  all  moods : 
"  this,  say  the  theorists,  is  the  essential  thing  in  the  struc- 
"  ture  of  the  artist.  Against  the  truth  of  this,  however,  as 
"  a  maxim  of  universal  application,  the  character  of  Milton, 
"like  that  of  Wordsworth  after  him,  is  a  remarkable  pro- 
"tesfc.  Were  it  possible  to  place  before  the  theorists  all 
"  the  materials  that  exist  for  judging  of  Milton's  personal 
"  disposition  as  a  young  man,  without  exhibiting  to  them  at 
"  the  same  time  the  actual  and  early  proofs  of  his  poetical 


312  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND  HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

"  genius,  their  conclusion,  were  they  true  to  their  theory 
"would  necessarily  be  that  the  basis  of  his  nature  was  too 
"  solid  and  immovable,  the  platform  of  personal  aims  and 
"  aspirations  over  which  his  thoughts  moved  and  had  foot- 
"  ing  too  fixed  and  firm,  to  permit  that  he  should  have  been 
"a  poet.  Nay,  whosoever,  even  appreciating  Milton  as  a 
"  poet,  shall  come  to  the  investigation  of  his  writings  armed 
"  with  that  preconception  of  the  poetical  character  which  is 
f{  sure  to  be  derived  from  an  intimacy  with  the  character  of 
"  Shakespeare,  will  hardly  escape  some  feeling  of  the  same 
"  kind.  Seriousness,  we  repeat,  a  solemn  and  even  austere 
"  demeanour  of  mind,  was  the  characteristic  of  Milton  even 
(  '  in  his  youth/' 

Connected  with  this  austerity  may  be  noted,  as  a  pecu 
liarity  in  Milton  at  the  same  period,  a  certain  haughty,  yet 
not  immodest,  self-esteem._JChrpq  ghoutall  Milton's  works 
^heremaybe  discerned^  vein  of  noble  egotismTof  unbashTul 
Often,  in  arguing  with  an  opponent,  he  falls 
of  the  mere  TT  tarns  AoyiKTj,  OrTogical  species  of  argur- 


mjsnt^jnto  what  Aris~£otferg^ts]]t]ie  mart?  jtJtKiy,  or  argument 

sjtjwere  :  "  Besides  all  my 
other  reasonings,  take  this  as  the  chieTan3~  conclusive  one, 
that  it  is  I,  a  man  of  such  and  such  antecedents  and  with 
such  and  such  powers,  who  affirm  and  maintain  this."  In 
his  earlier  life,  of  course,  this  feeling  existed  rather  as  an 
undefined  consciousness  of  his  superiority,  a  tendency  silently 
and  with  "  satisfaction  to  compare  his  intellectual  measure 
with  that  of  others,  a  resolute  ambition  to  be  and  to  do 
something  great.  "  Was  esteemed  to  be  a  virtuous  and 
sober  person,"  is  Wood's  account  of  the  impression  made 
by  Milton  at  the  University,  <e  yet  not  to  be  ignorant  of  his 
own  parts."  Wherever  Wood  picked  up  the  last  particular, 
it  hits  the  truth  exactly. 

Here  again  I  may  be  allowed  to  quote  from  myself.  "  One 
"  cannot  help  thinking,"  I  have  said,  "  that  this  particular 
"  form  of  self-esteem  goes  along  with  that  moral  austerity 
"  of  character  which  we  have  alleged  to  be  discernible  in 
"  Milton  even  in  his  youth,  rather  than  with  that  tempera- 


MILTON  IN    HIS   TWENTY-FOUETH    YEAE.  313 

"merit  of  varying  sensibility  which  is,  according  to  the 
"  general  theory,  regarded  as  characteristic  of  the  poet. 
"  Men  of  this  latter  type,  as  they  vary  in  the  entire  mood  of 
"  their  mind,  vary  also  in  their  estimate  of  themselves.  No 
"  permanent  consciousness  of  their  own  destiny,  or  of  their 
f(  own  worth  in  comparison  with  others,  belongs  to  them. 
"  In  their  moods  of  elevation  they  are  powers  to  move  the 
"  world ;  but,  while  the  impulse  that  has  gone  forth  from 
"  them  in  one  of  those  moods  may  be  still  thrilling  its  way 
"  onward  in  wider  and  wider  circles  through  the  hearts  of 
"  myriads  they  have  never  seen,  they,  the  fountains  of  the 
"  impulse,  the  spirit  being  gone  from  them,  may  be  sitting 
"  alone  in  the  very  spot  and  amid  the  ashes  of  their  triumph, 
"  sunken  and  dead,  despondent  and  self-accusing.  It  re- 
"  quires  the  evidence  of  positive  results,  the  assurance  of 
"  other  men's  praises,  the  visible  presentation  of  effects 
"  which  they  cannot  but  trace  to  themselves,  to  convince 
"  such  men  that  they  are  or  can  do  anything.  Whatever 
"  manifestations  of  egotism,  whatever  strokes  of  self-assertion 
"  come  from  such  men,  come  in  the  very  burst  and  phrensy 
"  of  their  passing  resistlessness.  The  calm,  deliberate,  and 
"  unshaken  knowledge  of  their  own  superiority  is  not  theirs. 
"Not  so  was  it  with  Milton.  As  a  Christian,  indeed,  hu- 
"miliation  before  God  was  a  duty  the  meaning  of  which 
"he  knew  full  well;  but,  as  a  man  moving  among  other 
"  men,  he  possessed,  in  that  moral  seriousness  and  stoic 
"  scorn  of  temptation  which  characterised  him,  a  spring  of 
tf  ever-present  pride,  dignifying  his  whole  bearing  among 
1 '  his  fellows,  and  at  times  arousing  him  to  a  kingly  intol- 
"  erance.  In  short,  instead  of  that  dissatisfaction  with  self 
' '  which  we  trace  as  a  not  unfrequent  feeling  with  Shake- 
"  speare,  we  find  in  Milton,  even  in  his  early  youth,  a  recol- 
"  lection  firm  and  habitual  that  he  was  one  of  those  servants 
"  to  whom  God  had  entrusted  the  stewardship  of  ten 
"  talents." 

We  may  now  go  a  little  further.  If  there  is  this  natural 
connexion  between  personal  strictness  of  character  and  that 
courageous  self-reliance  and  habitual  power  of  self-assertion 


314  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OE    HIS   TIME. 

which  we  see  in  Milton  and  in  men  of  his  type, — if,  in  this 
peculiar  sense,  it  is  conscience  that  makes  "  cowards  "  (i.  e. 
diffident  men)  of  us  all, — then,  according  to  Milton's  theory, 
there  ought  to  be  based  on  this  fact  a  rule  of  self-conduct 
for  all  those  who  meditate  great  enterprises,  and  mean,  as 
he  did,  to  accomplish  good  before  they  die.  In  studying 
any  character  it  is  above  all  satisfactory  when  from  the 
man's  own  recorded  sayings,  whether  in  speeches  or  in 
writings,  there  can  be  gathered  certain  recurring  pro 
positions,  certain  favourite  trains  of  thought  and  phraseology, 
expressing  what  were  evidently  "  fixed  ideas  "  in  his  mind, 
fundamental  articles  in  his  moral  creed.  Wherever  this  is 
possible  we  have  the  man  defining  himself.  Now  Milton's 
deepesl^fixedjdea^frpm  his  youth  upwards,  was  that  of 
the  necessity  of  moral  integrity  to  a  life~ofjruIjL-gT  eat  worls 
or  truly ''great  endeavouj.^jf^w.haj^ver"^ind.  There  is  no 
iSeawhic^~o^Curs"oftener  or  is  more  emphatically  stated  in 
the  course  of  his  writings.  We  have  already  seen  it  recur 
very  strikingly  several  times  in  the  course  of  those  of  his 
academic  writings  which  we  have  had  occasion  to  quote. 
Lest  those  passages,  however,  should  be  taken  as  mere 
gleams  of  vicarious  rhetoric,  occurring  where  they  might 
be  supposed  fitting,  let  us  now  cite  a  passage  the  personal 
reference  of  which  is  avowed  and  undoubted.  In  a  con 
troversial  pamphlet  written  in  1642,  and  already  more  than 
once  cited  by  us  as  containing  references  to  his  early  life, 
Milton,  after  speaking  of  his  juvenile  readings,  and  saying 
that  his  favourite  authors  at  first  were  "  the  smooth  elegiac 
poets,"  proceeds  as  follows  : — 

"  Whence,  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,  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.  .  .  . 
By  the  firm  settling  of  these  persuasions  I  became,  to  my  best  memory, 
so  much  a  proficient  that,  if  I  found  those  authors  [Horace  and  Ovid, 


MILTON    IN    HIS   TWENTY-FOURTH    YEAE.  315 

for  example]  anywhere  speaking  unworthy  things  of  themselves,  or 
unchaste  of  those  names  which  before  they  had  extolled,  this  effect 
it  wrought  with  me  : — From  that  time  forward  their  art  I  still 
applauded,  but  the  men  I  deplored,  and  above  them  all  preferred  the 
two  famous  renowners  of  Beatrice  arid  Laura  [Dante  and  Petrarch], 
who  never  write  but  honour  of  them  to  whom  they  devote  their  verse, 
displaying  sublime  and  pure  thoughts  without  transgression.  And 
long  it  was  not  after  when  I  was  confirmed  in  this  opinion,  that  he,  \ 
ivho  would  not  be  frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter  in  laud-  } 
able  things  ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem, — that  is,  a  composition  / 
and  pattern  of  the  best  and  honourablest  things ;  not  presuming  to 
sing  high  praises  of  heroic  men  or  famous  cities  unless  he  have  in 
himself  the  experience  and  the  practice  of  all  that  which  is  praise 
worthy.  These  reasonings,  together  with  a  certain  niceness  of 
nature,  an  honest  haughtiness,  and  self-esteem  either  of  what  I  was 
or  what  I  might  be  (which  let  envy  call  pride),  and  lastly  that 
modesty  whereof,  though  not  in  the  title-page,  yet  here  I  may  be 
excused  to  make  some  beseeming  profession, — all  these,  uniting  the 
supply  of  their  natural  aid  together,  kept  me  still  above  those  low 
descents  of  mind  beneath  which  he  must  deject  and  plunge  himself 
that  can  agree  to  saleable  and  unlawful  prostitutions. 

"  Next  (for  hear  me  out  now,  readers,  that  I  may  tell  ye  whither 
my  younger  feet  wandered)  I  betook  me  among  those  lofty  fables  and 
romances  [Spenser,  &c.]  which  recount  in  solemn  cantos  the  deeds  of 
knighthood  founded  by  our  victorious  kings,  and  from  hence  had  in 
renown  over  all  Christendom.  There  I  read  it  in  the  oath  of  every 
knight  that  he  should  defend,  to  the  expense  of  his  best  blood,  or  of 
his  life  if  it  so  befell  him,  the  honour  and  chastity  of  virgin  or  matron. 
From  whence  even  then  I  learnt  what  a  noble  virtue  chastity  sure 
must  be,  to  the  defence  of  which  so  many  worthies  by  such  a  dear 
adventure  of  themselves  had  sworn.  And,  if  I  found  in  the  story 
afterward  any  of  them  by  word  or  deed  breaking  that  oath,  I  judged 
it  the  same  fault  of  the  poet  as  that  which  is  attributed  to  Homer,  to 
have  written  undecent  things  of  the  gods.  Only  this  my  mind  gave 
me,  that  every  free  and  gentle  spirit,  without  that  oath,  ought  to  be 
born  a  knight,  nor  needed  to  expect  the  gilt  spur,  or  the  laying  of  a 
sword  upon  his  shoulder,  to  stir  him  up  both  by  his  counsel  and  his 
arm  to  secure  and  protect  the  weakness  of  any  attempted  chastity. 
.-So  that  even  those  books  which  to  many  others  have  been  the  fuel  of 
wantonness  and  loose  living,  I  cannot  think  how  unless  by  Divine 
indulgence,  proved  to  me  so  many  incitements,  as  you  have  heard,  to 
the  love  and  steadfast  observation  of  that  virtue  which  abhors  the 
society  of  bordelloes. 

"  Thus,  from  the  laureate  fraternity  of  poets,  riper  years  and  the 
ceaseless  round  of  study  and  reading  led  me  to  the  shady  spaces  of 
philosophy,  but  chiefly  to  the  divine  volumes  of  Plato  and  his  equal 
Xenophon.  Where  if  I  should  tell  ye  what  I  learnt  of  chastity  and 
love, — I  mean  that  which  is  truly  so,  whose  charming-cup  is  only 
virtue,  which  she  bears  in  her  hand  to  those  who  are  worthy  :  the 
rest  are  cheated  with  a  thick  intoxicating  potion  which  a  certain 
sorceress,  the  abuser  of  Love's  name,  carries  about, — and  how  the 
first  and  chief est  office  of  love  begins  and  ends  in  the  soul,  producing 
those  happy  twins  of  her  divine  generation,  Knowledge  and  Virtue, 
with  such  abstracted  sublimities  as  these,  it  might  be  worth  your 
listening  .  .  .  This  that  I  have  hitherto  related  hath  been  to  show 
that,  though  Christianity  had  been  but  slightly  taught  me,  yet  a 


316  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

certain  reservedness  of  natural  disposition,  and  moral  discipline  learnt 
out  of  the  noblest  philosophy,  was  enough  to  keep  me  in  disdain  of 
far  less  incontinencies  than  this  of  the  bordello.  But,  having  had  the 
doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture  unfolding  these  chaste  and  high  mysteries 
with  timeliest  care  infused,  that '  the  body  is  for  the  Lord  and  the 
Lord  for  the  body,'  thus  also  I  argued  to  myself, — that,  if  unchastity 
in  a  woman,  whom  St.  Paul  terms  the  glory  of  man,  be  such  a  scandal 
and  dishonour,  then  certainly  in  a  man,  who  is  both  the  image  and 
glory  of  God,  it  must,  though  commonly  not  so  thought,  be  much 
more  deflowering  and  dishonourable  .  .  .  Thus  large  I  have  pur 
posely  been,  that,  if  I  have  been  justly  taxed  with  this  crime,  it  may 
come  upon  me  after  all  this  my  confession  with  a  tenfold  shame."  ' 

Whoever  would  understand  Milton  must  take  the  sub 
stance  of  this  passage  along  with  him,  whether  he  likes  it  or 
not.  Popularly  it  may  be  expressed  by  saying  that,  what 
ever  other  authorities  may  be  cited  in  support  of  the  "  wild 
r  oats  "  theory,  Milton's  authority  is  dead  against  it.  It  was 
his  fixed  idea  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrate  of  his  hope 
of  being  great,  or  doing  good  hereafter,  ought  to  be  on  his 
guard  from  the  first  against  sensuality,  as  a  cause  of  spiritual 
incapacitation ;  and  he  was  careful  to  regulate  his  own  con 
duct  by  a  recollection  of  this  principle.  The  fact  that  he 
held  it  with  such  tenacity  is  to  be  noted  as  the  most 
characteristic  peculiarity  of  his  youth,  and  as  explaining, 
among  other  things,  his  self-confident  demeanour. 

But  it  is  not  only  Milton's  erect  and  manly  demeanour 
that  is  explained  by  the  fact  under  notice.     It  helps  to 

•e  in  hischaracter, 


which  _th_e__reader  even  of  such  specimens  of  his  youthful 
.writing  a.s  hav^hitheT^oJigfiin  gnnWl  flan  not-  ffl.il 
remarked,-^-the^Jpiievajlmgj_deality  of  his  conceptions,  his 
tendency  to  the  high,  magnificent,  and  contemplative,  rather 
than  to  what  mighT  be  called  the  common,  practical,  and 
precise.  Ideality,  indeed,  is  the  intellectual  characteristic  of 
the  poet  as  such ;  but  there  may  be  an  ideality  of  the  meaner 
and  more  ordinary  sort,  as  well  as  of  the  grander  and  more 
sublime.  For  some  poets,  accordingly,  as  Milton  says,  it 
might  be  no  disqualification  to  be  votaries  of  Ceres,  Bacchus, 
and  Venus.  But  for  a  poet  such  as  he  aspired  to  be  it  was 
different  : — 

1  Apology  for  Smectymnuus :  Works,  III.  269—273. 


MILTON    IN    HIS   TWENTY-FOURTH    YEAR-  317 

"  Ay,  but  whoso  will  tell  of  wars  and  the  world  at  its  grandest, 

Heroes  of  pious  worth,  demigod  leaders  of  men, 
Singing  now  of  the  holy  decrees  of  the  great  gods  above  us, 
Now  of  the  realms  deep  down,  guarded  by  bark  of  the  dog," 

for  such,  a  poet  there  must  be  peculiar  regimen.  Let  Mm 
live  sagely,  soberly,  austerely,  like  the  anchorets  and  seers 
of  old— 

"  All  as  when  thou,  white-robed  and  lustrous  with  waters  of  cleansing, 
Bisest,  augur,  erect,  facing  the  frown  of  the  gods." 

Now,  as  it  was  Milton's  ambition  to  be  a  poet  of  this  order, 
not  merely  a  poeta  but  a  vates,  so,  in  his  case,  the  regimen 
prescribed  seems  to  have  had  the  effect  anticipated.  One 
can  see  how  it  should  be  so.  Is  it  not  noted  that  men 
trained  too  much  in  the  social  crowd  are  apt,  even  if  originally 
well  endowed,  to  sink  to  alow  and  vulgar  pitch  of  endeavour, 
to  fly  near  the  ground  with  gross  wing  themselves,  and  to 
regard  all  flight  in  others  that  leaves  the  ground  very  far 
beneath  as  madness,  phantasy,  and  extravagance  ?  Who  so 
incredulous  of  heroism,  who  so  impatient  of  "  high  art,"  as 
worldly  wits  ?  Who  so  contemptuous  of  any  strain  in  any 
department  that  approaches  what  can  be  nicknamed  "  the 
romantic  "?  It  is  he  who  has  kept  his  soul  pure  and  aloof 
that  still  finds  a  grander  world  of  realities  to  move  in  above 
the  world  of  sense.  It  is  to  the  pale  solitary,  stretched  by 
his  cave  in  the  desert  or  on  the  mountain,  with  his  beechen 
bowl  of  simple  water  beside  him,  or  meditating  alone  in  his 
quiet  watch-tower,  that  nature  whispers  her  sublimer  secrets, 
and  that  the  lost  knowledge  of  things  comes  once  more  in 
visions  and  in  dreams.  Did  we  live  as  erst  did  Pythagoras, 
should  there  not  begin  again  to  resound  in  our  ears,  faint  at 
first,  but  gradually  more  and  more  clear  and  loud,  that 
famous  sphere-music  of  his,  to  which  the  orbs  do  keep  time 
and  the  young-eyed  cherubs  do  unceasingly  listen,  albeit  to 
humanity  at  large  it  has  so  long  been  a  fable  ?  So  Milton 
argued,  and  so  he  proved  in  himself.  When  his  earlier 
writings  are  compared  with  those  of  his  coevals  at  the 
University,  what  strikes  one  most,  next  to  their  vastly 
greater  merit  altogether,  is  their  more  ideal  tone.  As,  more 


318  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

than  any  of  them,  he  was  conscious  of  the  "  os  magna 
soniturum,"  the  mouth  formed  for  great  utterances,  so  all 
that  he  does  utter  has  a  certain  character  and  form  of 
magnitude.  The  stars,  the  gods,  time,  space,  Jove,  eternity, 
immortality,  these  and  all  other  such  notions  and  existences 
of  the  vast,  which  men  in  general  treat  as  belonging  to  the 
high  Platonic  sphere  of  intellect,  and  mention  but  rarely, 
and  then  apologetically  and  with  a  kind  of  shame,  what  are 
they  but  the  intellectual  commonplaces  of  young  Milton, 
the  phrases  which  his  voice  most  fondly  rolls,  the  themes  to 
which  he  habitually  tends  ?  The  very  rhythm  of  his  sen 
tences  corresponds.  In  his  Latin  Poems  and  Academic 
Exercises,  in  particular,  there  is  a  prevailing  tone  of  the 
grandiose  and  magniloquent,  which  his  college-fellows  must 
have  noted,  and  which  might  even  then  have  been  named  or 
nicknamed  the  Miltonic.  And  so,  when,  in  the  course  of  one 
of  those  exercises,  he  tells  to  what  strain  in  his  native 
tongue  his  genius  tended  most,  it  is  — 

Such  where  the  deep  transported  mind  may  stfar 

Above  the  wheeling  poles,  and  at  Heaven'  s  door 

Look  in,  and  see  each  blissful  deity, 

How  he  before  the  thunderous  throne  doth  lie, 

Listening  to  what  unshorn  Apollo  sings 

To  the  touch  of  golden  wires. 


N.        Along  with  this  soaring  tendency 
1    there  may  be  noted,  however,  as  rendered  compatible  with  it 
by  Milton's  peculiar  character,  a  very  decided  dogmatism- 
_s.    Here  again  Milton  contradicts  "the 


usual  theory  of  the  poetical  character.  As  it  is  supposed 
that  the  poet  should  be  characterised  by  mobility  of  nerve 
rather  than  decision  of  principle,  so  it  is  supposed  that  the 
poet  should  not  be  dogmatic  or  opinionative,  should  not  have 
definite  personal  conclusions  leading  him  to  dictate  to  men 
in  respect  of  their  beliefs  or  their  conduct.  '  e  I  have  actually 
no  opinions,  of  my  own  whatever,  except  on  matters  of  taste," 
is  a  confession  of  the  poet  Keats.  Not  even  in  his  tenderest 
youth  could  this  have  been  said  of  Milton.  There  was  from 
the  first  an  unusually  strong  element  of  opinionativeness  in 


MILTON   IN    HIS    TWENTY-FOURTH    YEAE.  319 

him.  He  was  a  severe  critic  of  what  lie  saw ;  and,  as  he  was 
serious  and  austere  in  the  rule  of  his  own  actions,  so  he  con- 
ff oote^the -a~ctro"ns  of  others  with,  a  strict  judicial  gaze~T~ 
He  had  his  opinions  as  to  the  state  of  the  Umv^r^yliTrd-ifee 
reforms  there  necessary,  and  probably  also  he  had  as  decided 
views  respecting  public  and  political  affairs.  How  this 
blending  in  his  constitution  of  the  poet  with  the  man  of 
dogma  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  true  theory  of  poetical 
genius  may  be  a  subject  for  consideration  at  a  later  point. 

In  one  quality,  which  sometimes  comes  to  the  rescue  of  men 
of  austere  conduct  personally,  imparting  a  breadth  and 
toleration  to  their  judgments  of  others,  Milton  was  somewhat 
deficient.  "There  are  and  have  been  men,  as  strict  and  austere 
"  as  he,  who  yet,  by  means  of  a  large  endowment  in  the  quality 
"  of  humour,  have  been  able  to  reconcile  themselves  to  much 
11  in  human  life  lying  far  away  from,  and  even  far  beneath, 
<(  the  sphere  of  their  own  practice  and  conscientious  liking. 
"  As  Pantagruel,  the  noble  and  meditative,  endured  and  even 
"  loved  those  immortal  companions  of  his,  the  boisterous  and 
"  profane  Friar  John,  and  the  cowardly  and  impish  Panurge, 
"  so  these  men,  remaining  themselves  with  all  rigour  and 
"  punctuality  within  the  limits  of  sober  and  exemplary  life, 
"  are  seen  extending  their  regards  to  the  persons  and  the 
"doings  of  a  whole  circle  of  reprobate  Falstaffs,  Pistols, 
"  Clowns,  and  Sir  Toby  Belches.  They  cannot  help  it.  They 
"  may  and  often  do  blame  themselves  for  it ;  they  wish  that, 
"  in  their  intercourse  with  the  world,  they  could  more  habit- 
"  ually  turn  the  austere  and  judicial  side  of  their  character  to 
"  the  scenes  and  incidents  that  there  present  themselves, 
"  simply  saying  of  each,  '  That  is  right  and  worthy/  or  '  That 
"  is  wrong  and  unworthy/  and  treating  it  accordingly.  But 
•"they  break  down  in  the  trial.  Suddenly  some  incident 
"  presents  itself  which  is  not  only  right  but  clumsy,  or  not 
"  only  wrong  but  comic,  and  straightway  the  austere  side  of 
"  their  character  wheels  round  to  the  back,  and  judge,  jury, 
"  and  witnesses  are  convulsed  with  untimely  laughter."  It 
was  not  so  with  Milton.  He  could  occasionally,  when  he 
chose,  condescend  to  mirth  and  jocosity,  but  it  was  not  as 


320  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

one  to  whom  the  element  was  natural.  That  he  had  plenty 
of  wit  and  power  of  sarcasm,  and  also  that  in  a  ponderous 
way  he  could  revel  in  ludicrous  images  and  details,  we  have 
already  seen ;  his  writings  furnish  proofs,  here  and  there, 
that  he  had  more  of  genuine  humour  itself  than  he  has  been 
usually  credited  with;  but  one  would  hardly  single  out 
humour  as  one  of  his  chief  characteristics. 

"  That  office,  however,  which  humour  did  not  perform  for 
' '  Milton  in  his  first  intercourse  with  the  world  of  past  and 
"  present  things  was  in  part  performed  by  what  he  did  in 
"  large  measure  possess, — intellectual  inquisitiveness."  As 
Milton  had  by  nature  an  intellect  of  the  highest  power,  so 
even  in  youth  he  jealously  asserted  its  rights.  There  was 
no  narrowness  even  then  in  his  notions  of  what  it  was  lawful 
for  him  to  read  and  study,  or  even  to  see  and  experience. 
He  read,  as  he  himself  tells  us,  books  which  he  considered 
immoral,  and  from  which  young  men  in  general  derived 
little  that  was  good.  He  thought  himself  quite  at  liberty 
also  to  indulge  in  his  love  of  art  and  music,  and  to  attend 
theatrical  performances,  and  laugh  at  what  was  absurd  in 
them.  Probablyjhere  was  jaoJL-a-_y^uth  at  Cambridge  who 
would  have  more  daringly  resented  any  interference  with 
vhis  intellectual  freedom  from  any  quarter  whatsoever.  They 
might  call  him  "The  Lady"  at  Christ's  College  with  reference 
to  his  personal  demeanour;  but  he  could  show  on  occasion 
that  he  had  no  need  to  yield  to  the  roughest  of  them  with 
respect  to  the  extent  of  his  information.  In.  fine,  I  can  say 
for  myself,  that,  having  read  much  in  the  writings,  both  in 
prose  and  in  verse,  both  in  Latin  and  in  English,  that  remain 
to  show  what  kind  of  men  were  the  most  eminent  by  reput 
ation  and  the  highest  by  place  among  Milton's  academic 
contemporaries  from  1625  to  1632, 1  have  no  doubt  whatever 
left  that,  not  in  promise  merely,  but  in  actual  faculty  and 
acquisition  while  he  yet  moved  amidst  them,  JVlilton  was 
without  an  equal  in  the  whole  University. 


BOOK    III. 

1632—1638. 

HISTORY:— CHURCH  AND  GOVERNMENT  UNDER  KING  CHARLES 
AND  BISHOP  LAUD,  WITH  A  RETROSPECT  TO  1603. 

SURVEY  OF  BRITISH  LITERATURE  IN  1632. 
THE  REIGN  OF  THOROUGH  FROM  1632  to  1638. 

BIOGRAPHY:— HESITATIONS  ABOUT  A  PROFESSION, 
AT  HORTON,  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE^. 


VOL.  I. 


CHAPTER  I. 

HESITATIONS   ABOUT   A    PROFESSION. 

WHEN  Milton  went  to  Cambridge  it  had  been  with  the 
intention  that  he  should  enter  the  Church.  Before  he  had 
taken  his  Master's  degree,  however,  this  intention  had  been 
abandoned.  There  exists  an  interesting  English  letter  of 
his,  written  about  the  time  when  his  determination  against 
the  Church  had  been  all  but  completed ;  and  in  this  letter 
he  describes  the  reasons  of  his  hesitation  at  some  length. 
The  letter,  of  which  there  are  two  undated  drafts  in  Milton's 
handwriting  in  the  Library  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
must  have  been  written  in  1632  or  1633  ;  and  it  was  clearly 
sent,  or  meant  to  be  sent,  to  some  friend,  his  senior  in  years, 
who  had  been  remonstrating  with  him  on  his  aimless  course 
of  life.  It  ought  to  be  quoted  here,  even  if  we  anticipate  a 
little  its  exact  date  r1 — 

SIR, — Besides  that  in  sundry  respects  I  must  acknowledge  me  to 
profit  by  you  whenever  we  meet,  you.  are  often  to  me,  and  were 
yesterday  especially,  as  a  good  watchman  to  admonish  that  the  hours 
of  the  night  pass  on  (for  so  I  call  my  life,  as  yet  obscure  and  unser 
viceable  to  mankind),  and  that  the  day  with  me  is  at  hand,  wherein 
Christ  commands  all  to  labour,  while  there  is  light.  Which  because 
I  am  persuaded  you  do  to  no  other  purpose  than  out  of  a  true  desire 
that  God  should  be  honoured  in  every  one,  I  therefore  think  myself 
bound,  though  unasked,  to  give  you  an  account,  as  oft  as  occasion  is, 
of  this  my  tardy  moving,  according  to  the  precept  of  my  conscience, 
which  I  firmly  trust  is  not  without  God.  Yet  now  I  will  not  strain 
for  any  set  apology,  but  only  refer  myself  to  what  my  mind  shall  have 
at  any  time  to  declare  herself  at  her  best  ease. 

1  I  quote  the  second  draft,  which  is  first  few  sentences,  with  simply  cor- 

much  the  longer ;  but  both  drafts  are  recting  the  language  of  the  first ;  but 

printed  in  Birch's  Life  of  Milton,  pf e-  in  the  remaining  portion  he  throws  the 

fixed  to  his  edition  of  Milton's  Works  first  draft  all  but  entirely  aside,  and 

(vol.  I.  pp.  iv — vi),  and  there  is  some  rewrites   the   s,ame  meaning  more   at 

interest  in  comparing  them.     In  the  large   in   a  series   of    new   sentences, 

second  draft,  Milton  is  content,  for  the  Evidently  he  took  pains  with  the  letter. 

Y    2 


324  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND    HISTOEY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

But,  if  you  think,  as  you  said,  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,  yet  consider  that,  if  it  were  no  more  but  the 
mere  love  of  learning,  whether  it  proceed  from  a  principle  bad,  good. 
or  natural,  it  could  not  have  held  out  thus  long  against  so  strong- 
opposition  on  the  other  side  of  every  kind.  For,  if  it  be  bad,  why 
should  not  all  the  fond  hopes  that  forward  youth  and  vanity  are 
fledge  with,  together  with  gain,  pride,  and  ambition,  call  me  forward, 
more  powerfully  than  a  poor,  regardless,  and  unprofitable  sin  of 
curiosity  should  be  able  to  withhold  me ;  whereby  a  man  cuts  himself 
off  from  all  action,  and  becomes  the  most  helpless,  pusillanimous,  and 
unweaponed  creature  in  the  world,  the  most  unfit  and  unable  to  do 
that  which  all  mortals  most  aspire  to,  either  to  be  useful  to  his  friends 
or  to  offend  his  enemies  ?  Or,  if  it  be  to  be  thought  a  natural  prone- 
ness,  there  is  against  that  a  much  more  potent  inclination  inbred, 
which  about  this  time  of  a  man's  life  solicits  most, — the  desire  of 
house  and  family  of  his  own ;  to  which  nothing  is  esteemed  more 
helpful  than  the  early  entering  into  credible  employment,  and  nothing 
hindering  than  this  affected  solitariness.  And,  though  this  were 
enough,  yet  there  is  another  act,  if  not  of  pure,  yet  of  refined  nature, 
no  less  available  to  dissuade  prolonged  obscurity, — a  desire  of  honour 
and  repute  and  immortal  fame,  seated  in  the  breast  of  every  true 
scholar ;  which  all  make  haste  to  by  the  readiest  ways  of  publishing 
and  divulging  conceived  merits,  as  well  those  that  shall,  as  those  that 
never  shall,  obtain  it.  Nature,  therefore,  would  presently  work  the 
more  prevalent  way,  if  there  were  nothing  but  this  inferior  bent  of 
herself  to  restrain  her.  Lastly,  the  love  of  learning,  as  it  is  the  pur 
suit  of  something  good,  it  would  sooner  follow  the  more  excellent  and 
supreme  good  known  and  presented,  and  so  be  quickly  diverted  from 
the  empty  and  fantastic  chase  of  shadows  and  notions,  to  the  solid 
good  flowing  from  due  and  timely  obedience  to  that  command  in  the 
Gospel  set  out  by  the  terrible  f easing  of  him  that  hid  the  talent. 

It  is  more  probable,  therefore,  that  not  the  endless  delight  of 
speculation,  but  this  very  consideration  of  that  great  commandment, 
does  not  press  forward,  as  soon  as  many  do,  to  undergo,  but  keeps 
off,  with  a  sacred  reverence  and  religious  advisement  how  best  to 
undergo,  not  taking  thought  of  being  late,  so  it  give  advantage  to  be 
more^;  for  those  that  were  latest  lost  nothing  when  the  master  of 
the  vineyard  came  to  give  each  one  his  hire.  And  here  I  am  come  to 
a  stream-head,  copious  enough  to  disburden  itself,  like  Nilus,  at  seven 
mouths  into  an  ocean.  But  then  I  should  also  run  into  a  reciprocal 
contradiction  of  ebbing  and  flowing  at  once,  and  do  that  which  I 
excuse  myself  for  not  doing,  preach  and  not  preach.  Yet,  that  you 
may  see  that  I  am  something  suspicious  of  myself,  and  do  take  notice 
of  a  certain  belatedness  in  me,  I  am  the  bolder  to  send  you  some  of 
my  night  ward  thoughts  some  while  since,  because  they  come  in  not 


LETTEU   TO   A   FRIEND.  325 

altogether  unfitly,  made  up  in  a  Petrarchian  stanza,  which  I  told  you 
of:- 

How  soon  hath  Time,  the  subtle  thief  of  youth, 

Stolen  on  his  wing  my  three-and-twentieth  year  ! 

My  hasting  days  fly  on  with  full  career  ; 

But  my  late  spring  no  bud  or  blossom  shew'th. 
Perhaps  my  semblance  might  deceive  the  truth 

That  I  to  manhood  am  arrived  so  near  ; 

And  inward  ripeness  doth  much  less  appear, 

That  some  more  timely-happy  spirits  endu'  th. 
Yet,  be  it  less  or  more,  or  soon  or  slow, 

It  shall  be  still  in  strictest  measure  even 

To  that  same  lot,  however  mean  or  high, 
Toward  which  Time  leads  me,  and  the  will  of  Heaven. 
\       All  is,  if  I  have  grace  to  use  it  so, 

As  ever  in  my  great  Task-Master's  eye.1 

By  this  I  believe  you  may  well  repent  of  having  made  mention  at 
all  of  this  matter  ;  for,  if  I  have  not  all  this  while  won  you  to  this,  I 
have  certainly  wearied  you  of  it.  This,  therefore,  alone  may  be  a 
sufficient  reason  for  me  to  keep  me  as  I  am,  lest,  having  thus  tired 
you  singly,  I  should  deal  worse  with  a  whole  congregation  and  spoil 
all  the  patience  of  a  parish  ;  for  I  myself  do  not  only  see  my  own 
tediousness,  but  now  grow  offended  with  it,  that  has  hindered  me 
thus  long  ,from  coming  to  the  last  and  best  period  of  my  letter,  and 
that  which  must  now  chiefly  work  my  pardon, — that  I  am 

Your  true  and  unfeigned  friend,  &c. 

In  this  letter,  it  will  be  perceived,  Milton  says  nothing  of 
any  conscientious  objections  lie  may  have  entertained  against 
the  doctrine  or  discipline  of  the  Church.  All  that  he  says 
is  that  lie  did  not  yet  see  his  way  clear  to  the  ministerial 
office,  and  preferred  waiting,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  late 
in  his  decision.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that, 
even  at  the  time  the  letter  was  written,  the  chief  reason  of 
his  reluctance  was  that  w.hicli  he  afterwards  expressed  more 
boldly  thus  : — "  The  Church,  to  whose  service,  by  the  in-  /  — - 
"  tentions  of  my  parents  and  friends,  I  was  destined  of  a 
"  child,  and  in  mine  own  resolutions  till,  coming  to  some 

1  This  sonnet,  originally  published  in  the  letter  cannot   have   been  written 

1645,  fixes  approximately  the  date  of  very  much  later.     The  likeliest  date  is 

the  letter.     The  sonnet  must  have  been  between  the  beginning  of  1632  and  the 

written  on  or  near  Milton's  24th  birth-  middle  of  1633. 
day,  i.  e.  the  9th  of  December,  1631 ; 


326  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

"maturity  of  years,  and  perceiving  what  tyranny  had  in- 
">  ' '  vaded  the  Church, — that  he  who  would  take  orders  must 
"  subscribe  slave,  and  take  an  oath  withal,  which  unless  he 
"  took  with  a  conscience  that  would  retch,  he  must  either 
"  straight  perjure  or  split  his  faith, — I  thought  it  better  to 
' '  prefer  a  blameless  silence  before  the  sacred  office  of  speak- 
"ing  bought  and  begun  with  servitude  and  forswearing. 
"  Howsoever  thus  Church-outed  by  the  Prelates,  hence  may 
"appear  the  right  I  have  to  meddle  in  these  matters,  as 

before   the   necessity   and    constraint   appeared."1 In 

this  striking  passage  Milton  refers  expressly  to  the  subscrip 
tions  and  oaths  required  from  candidates  for  holy  orders  as 
having  been  among  the  causes  that  deterred  him  from  the 
Church.  Yet  these  subscriptions  and  oaths  involved  nothing 
that  he  had  not  submitted  to  already  in  the  course  of  his 
connexion  with  the  University.     The  subscriptions  required 
by  law  from  candidates  for  the  ministry  were  simply  sub 
scriptions  to  those  three  articles  of  the  Thirty-sixth  Canon 
to  which  Milton  had  twice  set  his  hand  already  in  taking 
his  University  degrees  (ante,  p.  217  and  p.  257);  and  the 
accompanying  oaths  were  simply  certain  oaths  of  allegiance, 
supremacy,  and  canonical  obedience,  which  might  be  con 
sidered  as  really  involved  in  that  same  act  of  subscription. 
The  passage  just  quoted,  therefore,  requires  some  latitude 
of  interpretation.     What  Milton  had  in  view,  when  he  hesi 
tated  about  becoming  a  clergyman,  was,  in  all  probability, 
less  the  letter  of  the  articles  to  be  subscribed  and  of  the 
oaths  to  be  taken  than  the  general  condition  of  the  Church 
of  England  at  the  time  when  he  had  to  form  his  resolution. 
That  condition  was  such  as  to  invest  the  necessary  subscrip 
tion  and  oaths  with  a  more  repulsive  character  than  in  other 
circumstances,  or  at  an  earlier  period,  he  might  have  been 
disposed  to  discern  in  them.     He  was  "  Ohurch-outed  by  the 
Prelates  "  is  his  own  brief  and  emphatic  phrase ;  and  it  can 
mean  nothing  else  than  that  he  had  begun  to  detest  the 
entire  system  of  the  Church  of  England  as  it  appeared  to 
him  after  Bishop  Laud  and  his  assessors  had  assumed  the 

1  The  Keason  of  Church-Government  (1641) :  Works,  III.  150. 


r 


"  CHUECH-OUTED   BY   THE    PEELATES."  327 

rule.  Observation  of  the  Laudian  rule  and  its  effects  had 
perhaps  moved  larger  questions  in  his  mind,  questions  going 
deeper  and  farther  back,  than  the  mere  question  between 
Laudian  Prelacy  and  Low- Church  Prelacy ;  but  to  a  Church 
on  Laud's  system,  at  all  events,  he  would  die  rather  than 
belong. 

Finding  himself  thus  "  Church-outed  by  the  Prelates," 
Milton  had  to  resolve  on  some  totally  different  course  of  life. 
There  is  evidence  in  several  allusions  in  his  subsequent 
writings  that  he  at  least  thought  of  Law  as  a  profession.1 
But,  though  the  thought  may  have  occasionally  recurred  in 
his  mind  for  a  year  or  two  after  he  had  left  the  University, 
he  never,  so  far  as  appears,  took  any  steps  towards  carrying 
it  into  effect.  Leaving  it  for  his  brother  Christopher  to 
become  the  lawyer  of  the  family,  he  voluntarily  chose  for 
himself,  or  passively  and  gradually  accepted  as  forced  on 
him  by  circumstances,  a  life  of  less  definite  character  and 
prospects,  hardly  recognised  by  any  precise  designation  in 
the  social  or  professional  nomenclature  of  those  days,  though 
we  can  describe  it  now  as  the  life  of  a  scholar  and  man  of 
letters. 

That  Milton,  before  leaving  the  University,  had  begun  to 

1  In  addition  to  the  evidence  indi-  relations  with  Nantwich.  On  the  title- 
cated  in  the  text,  there  yet  exists,  we  page,  says  Mr.  Hunter,  is  this  inscrip- 
learn  from  Mr.  Hunter's  Milton  Glean-  tion  in  Milton's  handwriting,  JoJtes 
ings,  a  copy  of  Fitz-Herbert's  Natura  Milton  me  possidet ;  and  in  the  same 
Brevium  which  belonged  to  Milton  and  hand  on  the  fly-leaf  is  this  Latin  pen- 
was  among  the  books  left  by  his  widow  tameter,  Dei  Christus  studiis  vela 
at  her  death  at  Nantwich  in  1727.  Sir  secunda  meis.  "  But  this  is  not  all," 
Anthony  Fitz-Herbert  was  a  famous  adds  Mr.  Hunter,  "for  a  little  lower 
lawyer  and  judge  of  the  reign  of  Henry  "on  the  same  page  we  find,  in  an- 
VIII.;  and  his  JVatura  Brevium,  accord-  "other  hand,  Det  Christus  studiis  vela 
ing  to  Wood  (Ath.,  I.  Ill),  "  was  "  secunda  tuis.  We  can  hardly  doubt 
esteemed  an  exact  work,  excellently  "  that  this  was  written  by  the  father, 
penned,  and  hath  been  much  admired  "  with  whose  handwriting  I  am  not 
by  the  noted  men  in  the  common  law."  "  acquainted.  It  is  remarkable  that 
There  were  several  editions  of  it.  That  "  this  copy  of  Fitz-Herbert  appears  to 
under  notice  is  of  the  year  1584 ;  and  "  have  been  in  the  possession  of  an- 
the  volume  is  still  in  "  its  original  "  other  poet  of  the  time,  these  words 
binding  of  dark  brown  calf."  In  1830  "  appearing  on  a  later  fly-leaf,  John 
it  was  in  possession  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  "  Marston  oeth  this  book. — Whoever 
Stedman,  whose  father,  the  Rev.  Mr.  this  John  Marston  was,  he  must  have 
Stedman,  of  St  Chad's,  Shrewsbury,  preceded  Milton  as  the  owner.  The 
had  received  it  as  a  gift  from  Mr.  poet  Marston  died  in  1634 ;  but  there 
Joshua  Eddowes,  a  bookseller  of  were  several  John  Marstons.  One,  the 
Shrewsbury,  born  in  1724,  and  having  poet's  father,  was  a  lawyer. 


328  LIFE   OP   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

have  dreams  of  a  literary  career  as  the  fittest  for  his  powers 
and  tastes  all  in  all  will  have  appeared  already  from  the 
records  of  his  occupations  and  musings  through  his  later 
University  days.     In  that  Letter  to  a  Friend  which  we  have 
just  quoted  it   is   not  difficult  again  to  detect  some  such 
ambition  lurking  under  his  hesitations  about  entering  the 
Church.     But  in  a  later  reference  to  this  period  of  his  life  he 
seems  to  reveal  more  distinctly  the  nature  of  his  then  but 
half-formed  speculations  as  to  his  future  destiny.     Speaking 
of  the  care  bestowed  on  his  education,  both  at  home  and  at 
school  and  the  University,  he   says,  "It   was  found  that, 
"whether  aught  was  imposed  me  by  them  that   had  the 
"  overlooking,  or  betaken  to  of  mine  own  choice,  in  English 
"  or  other  tongue,  prosing  or  versing,  but  chiefly  this  latter, 
"  the  style,  by  certain  vital  signs  it  had,  was  likely  to  live." 
The  interpretation  of  this  seems  to  be  that  already  in  1632, 
on  the  faith  of  the  acknowledged  success  of  such  composi 
tions  of  his  in  Latin  and  English  as  he  had  produced  up  to 
that  date,  whether  as  academic  exercises   or  for  his  own 
recreation,  he  himself  felt,  and  his  friends  felt  also,  that  he 
had  a  vocation  to  authorship  and  especially  to  poetry.     It 
may  be  well,  therefore,  here   to   take   stock   of  the  little 
collection  of  pieces,  all  already  individually  known  to  us,  on 
which  this  judgment  was  formed: — 

LATIN. 

PROSE  : — The  first  'four  of  his  Epistolce  Familiar  es,  the  first  written 
in  1625,  and  the  other  three  in  1628  ;  and  the  seven  or  more  Academic 
Themes  or  Exercises,  entitled  Prolusiones  Qucedam  Oratories,  of  which 
an  account  has  been  given. 

VERSE  : — Seventeen  separate  pieces,  now  printed  in  his  works  as 
follows  : — 

i.  The  seven  Elegies  proper  which  form  the  bulk  of  the  so- 
called  ELEGIARUM  LIBER  :  viz.  :  1.  "Ad  Carolum  Diodatum," 
1626 ;  2.  "  In  Obitum  Prceconis  Academici  Cantabrigiensis,"  1626  ; 
3.  "In  Obitum  Prcesulis  Wintoniensis?  1626;  4.  "Ad  Thomam 
Junium,  prceceptorem  suum"  1627;  5.  "In  Adventum  Veris"  1628-9; 
6.  "  Ad  Carolum  Diodatum  ruri  commorantem"  1629 ;  7.  The  Elegy 
beginning  "  Nondum  blanda  tuas  leges  Amathusia  nor  am"  1628. 

i  Reason  of  Church  Government  (1641):  Works,  III.  144. 


DREAMS    OP   A   LITERARY   LIFE.  329 

ii.  The  first  five  brief  scraps  of  epigram  in  elegiac  verse,  which 
follow  the  Elegies  proper  in  the  ELEGIARUM  LIBER  :  viz. :  "In  Pro- 
ditionem  Bombardicam ";  "In  Eandem";"In  Eandem";  "  In  Ean- 
dem  ";  "  In  Inventorem  Bombardce." 

in.  The  first  five  of  the  pieces,  in  different  kinds  of  verse,  forming 
the  so-called  SYLVARTJM  LIBER  :  viz. :  "  In  Obitiim  Procancellarii 
Medici?  1626;  "In  Quintum  Novembris?  1626;  "In  OUtum  Prce- 
sidis  Miensis,"  1626;  "  Naturam  non  pati  senium,"  1628;  "  De  Ided 
Platonicd  quemadmodum  Aristoteles  intellexit" 

ENGLISH. 

With  the  exception  of  one  Letter  to  a  Friend,  all  the  English 
remains  of  this  period  are  in  verse.  They  are  fifteen  pieces  in  all,  as 
follows  :— Paraphrases  of  Psalms  CXIV.  and  CXXXVL,  1624 ;  "  On 
the  Death  of  a  fair  Infant  dying  of  a  cough,"  1626;  "  At  a  Vacation 
Exercise  in  the  College,"  1628 ;  "  On  the  Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity," 
with  "The  Hymn,"  1629;  "The  Passion,"  1630;  "On  Shake 
speare,"  1630 ;  "  On  the  University  Carrier,"  1630-31 ;  "  Another  on 
the  same,"  1630-31  ;  "  An  Epitaph  on  the  Marchioness  of  Winches 
ter,"  1631 ;  Sonnet  on  his  having  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
Dec.  1631. 

This  collection,  if  printed,  would  have  made  a  sufficient 
little  volume.  Very  few  of  the  pieces,  however,  had  as  yet 
found  their  way  into  type,  even  in  a  separate  and  private 
form.  The  Latin  lines  "Naturam  non  pati  Senium"  wo 
know  for  certain,  had  been  anonymously  printed  in  Cam 
bridge  in  1628,  for  distribution  by  the  University  Bedels  in 
connexion  with  the  Philosophical  Act  or  Disputation  at  the 
Commencement  ceremonial  of  that  year ;  it  is  by  no  means 
unlikely  that  one  or  two  of  the  other  Latin  pieces  of  an 
academic  character  had  been  similarly  thrown  off  in  type 
for  academic  circulation ;  and  there  may  be  a  similar  suppo 
sition  respecting  the  Epitaph  on  the  Marchioness  of  Winchester, 
if  not  also  about  the  Ode  on  the  Nativity,  and  the  Epitaphs 
on  Hobson.  Practically,  and  with  all  allowance  for  these  p 
exceptions,  Milton  was  still  an  unpublished  author,  a  poet  ] 
in  manuscript  and  by  private  reputation  only,  in  the  year 
1632,  when  he  left  the  University.  All  the  more  interesting 
it  is  to  observe  that  in  that  very  year  lie  did  make  his 
appearance  for  the  first  time  in  a  decidedly  public  manner, 
though  still  without  his  name,  in  the  English  book-world, 


330  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

and  to  note  in  what  particular  piece  of  his  he  thus  an 
nounced  his  existence  among  his  literary  contemporaries. 
It  was  in  his  lines  to  the  memory  of  Shakespeare. 

By  the  year  1632  the  thousand  copies  or  so  that  had  been 
printed  of  the  First  or  1623  Edition  of  Shakespeare's  collected 
Plays  had  been  exhausted,  and  a  new  Edition  was  wanted. 
It  appeared  in  what  is  known  as  the  Second  Folio  Shake 
speare,  which  was  published  with  this  title  on  most  of  the 
copies  : — ' '  Mr.  William  Shakespeare*  Comedies,  Histories, 
and  Tragedies.  Published  according  to  the  True  originall 
Copies.  The  second  Impression.  London.  Printed  by  Tho. 
Cotes,  for  Robert  Allot,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  at  the 
signe  of  the  Blaclce  Beare  in  Pauls  Church-yard.  1632." 
This  Second  Folio  is  substantially  a  reprint  of  the  more 
famous  First  Folio,  though  with  variations  in  the  text.  It 
retains  all  the  preliminary  commendatory  matter  that  had 
appeared  in  the  First  Folio  : — to  wit :  Ben  Jonson's  Lines  on 
the  Droeshout  Portrait  of  Shakespeare  as  engraved  on  the 
title-page ;  the  Dedication  to  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and 
Montgomery  by  the  editors  Heminge  and  Condell;  the 
address  of  the  same  editors  "To  the  great  variety  of 
Eeaders  " ;  Ben  Jonsoii's  longer  poem  "  To  the  Memory  of 
my  Beloved,  the  Author,  Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  and 
what  he  hath  left  us";  and  the  three  shorter  pieces  of 
metrical  eulogy  signed  ' '  Hugh  Holland,"  ' ( L.  Digges,"  and 
"  J.  M."  But  the  unpaged  portion  at  the  beginning  con 
tains,  in  addition,  three  pieces  of  commendatory  verse 
that  had  not  been  in  the  First  Folio.  One  of  these,  of  con 
siderable  length,  is  signed  "  J.  M.  S." ;  the  other  two  are 
anonymous  and  are  specially  printed  on  a  leaf  together  just 
after  the  address  "  To  the  great  Variety  of  Eeaders."  It  is 
the  second  of  these  two  short  anonymous  pieces  that  is 
Milton's ;  and  it  can  have  been  by  no  mere  accident  that  the 
lines  he  had  been  keeping  by  him  for  two  years, — written, 
as  we  ventured  to  conjecture,  on  his  own  copy  of  the  First 
Folio, — appeared  now  in  so  distinguished  a  place.  Heminge 
and  Condell,  the  editors  of  the  First  Folio,  were  both 


PUBLICATION    OF    THE    LINES   ON    SHAKESPEARE.  331 

recently  dead,  and  the  superintendence  of  the  Second  Folio 
as  it  passed  through  the  press  must  have  devolved  on  others. 
Whoever  they  were,  it  must  have  been  by  some  fortunate 
leading  of  circumstances  that,  when  they  were  looking  about 
for  some  suitable  new  pieces  of  verse  to  be  added  to  the  old 
pieces  by  Ben  Jonson,  Hugh  Holland,  Leonard  Digges,  and 
J.  M.,  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  the  Second  Folio  to 
the  public,  they  were  offered  and  accepted  the  lines  by  the 
young  Cambridge  graduate.  Ben  Jonson,  Hugh  Holland, 
and  Leonard  Digges  were  all  still  alive  in  1632,  and  all 
three  may  have  read  with  some  interest  the  lines  of  the 
anonymous  Shakespeare-worshiper  that  had  thus  stepped 
into  their  company.  One  might  even  risk  the  conjecture 
that  the  veteran  laureate  must  have  taken  the  trouble  of 
inquiring  and  finding  out  who  the  young  author  was. 
Certain  it  is  that  to  this  day  there  is  no  expression  of  Shake-  ; 
speare-worship  in  our  language  worthier  to  rank  for  ever 
with  Ben  Jonson's  roughly  noble  outburst  of  eighty  lines  in 
posthumous  honour  of  the  man  he  had  known  so  familiarly 
in  life  than  the  sixteen  lines  that  had  been  written,  in 
studious  emulation  of  that  outburst,  by  the  Cambridge 
student  who  had  been  but  a  child  when  Shakespeare  died, 
but  had  learnt  to  adore  his  memory.  They  appeared  in  the 
Second  Folio  in  this  form,  differing  slightly,  it  will  be  seen, 
from  that  which  they  assumed  when  Milton  reclaimed  them 
for  publication  with  his  name  thirteen  years  afterwards  in 
the  First  Edition  of  his  Minor  Poems  : — 

AN  EPITAPH  ON  THE  ADMIRABLE  DRAMATICKE  POET 
W.  SHAKESPEARE. 

What  neede  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honour'd  bones, 

The  labour  of  an  Age,  in  piled  stones, 

Or<that  his  hallow'd  Keliques  should  be  hid 

Under  a  starre-ypointing  Pyramid1? 

Deare  Sonne  of  Memory,  great  Heire  of  Fame, 

What  needst  thou  such  dull  witnesse  of  thy  Name  1 

Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thy  selfe  a  lasting  Monument : 

For  whil'st  to  th'  shame  of  slow-endevouring  Art 

Thy  easie  numbers  flow,  and  that  each  part, 


332  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

Hath  from  the  leaves  of  thy  unvalued  Booke, 
Those  Delphicke  Lines  with  deepe  impression  tooke 
Then  thou  our  fancy  of  her  selfe  bereaving, 
Dost  make  us  Marble  with  too  much  conceiving, 
And  so  Sepulcher'd  in  such  pompe  dost  lie 
That  Kings  for  such  a  Tombe  would  wish  to  die. 

To  this  day,  I  repeat,  there  is  no  nobler  expression  of 
Shakespeare-enthusiasm  in  our  language  than  this  from 
Milton,  printed  in  his  twenty-fourth,  year.  It  is  the  more 
memorable  in  that  respect  because,  though  there  were  to  be 
several  references  to  Shakespeare  by  Milton  in  his  subsequent 
writings,  none  of  them  was  to  rise  •  to  the  same  strain  of 
boundless  superlative.  That  fact  may  be  worth  farther 
attention  hereafter ;  meanwhile  the  fact  deserving  emphasis 
in  Milton's  biography  is  that  it  was  in  such  an  enthusiastic 
tribute  to  the  memory  of  his  great  predecessor  that  Milton 
began  his  career  of  public  authorship. 

Had  Milton  destined  himself  to  be  a  man  of  letters  after 
the  fashion  of  the  great  predecessor  whom  lie  admired  so 
enthusiastically,  he  might  have  been  said,  fairly  enough,  to 
have  only  abandoned  the  Church  for  another  recognised 
profession.  For  more  than  half-a-century  Dramatic  Author 
ship,  especially  if  combined  with  other  forms  of  connexion 
with  the  stage,  had  been  an  established  means  of  livelihood 
in  London,  by  which  some  had  grown  rich,  while  a  goodly 
number  more  had  at  least  managed  to  subsist  and  support 
families.  It  was  to  no  such  mode  of  literary  life,  however, 
to  no  such  association  of  himself  with  Ben  Jonson  and  the 
rest  of  the  cluster  of  the  professional  dramatists  of  London 
in  the  reign  of  Charles,  some  of  them  surviving  Elizabethans 
and  others  recent  recruits,  that  Milton  was  attracted.  The 
mode  of  literary  life  to  which  he  had  resolved  to  dedicate 
himself  was  very  different.  It  was  that  of  recluse  and 
laborious  study  according  to  the  miscellaneous  prompt 
ings  of  his  own  genius,  with  choice  of  subjects  and  occa 
sions  on  which  to  address  his  countrymen  in  prose  or  in 
verse  at  his  leisure,  and  with  the  hope  above  all  of  being 
able  to  do  something  new  and  characteristic  in  the  rarer 


DREAMS   OP   A   LITEKARY  LIFE.  333 

forms  of  English  Poetry.     Now,  though  there  was  a  trade 
in  books  in  those  days,  and  money  was  sometimes  made  by 
the  authors  of  books  that  turned  out  very  popular,  this 
dedication  of  oneself  to  general  scholarship,  with  authorship 
as  a  fitful  outcome,  could  not  then  pass  in  any  sense  as  the 
choice  of  a   profession.      Such   a   life  of  scholarship   and 
authorship  was  possible  enough  in  combination  with  one  of 
the  regular  professions,  and  was  most  frequently  combined 
in  those  days  with  the  clerical  function  or  with  fellowship 
or  other  office  in  one  of  the  Universities.     Milton  hints  that 
the  Fellows  of  Christ's   College,  Cambridge,  would   have 
been  very  glad  if  he  had  remained  among  them  after  ho 
had  taken  his  M.A.  degree.     Bat,  though  he  might  have 
schemed    out   a   life  of  learned   leisure  in  this  continued 
academic  fashion,  it  would  almost  necessarily  have  been  at 
his  own  expense  and  not  in  a  fellowship  or  other  post  of 
emolument,     Such  posts  were  all  but  exclusively  for  those 
who  had  qualified  themselves,  or  were  to  qualify  themselves, 
by  taking  orders ;  and  Milton,  in  declining  the  clerical  pro 
fession,  had  precluded  himself  from  every  form  of  intellectual 
leisure  or  occupation  that  had  shelter  under  that  pretence. 
His  therefore  was  a  very  peculiar  case.     His  resolution  to  c 
adopt  no  profession  at  all,  but  to  live  on  as  a  mere  student, 
arid  a  volunteer  now  and  then  in  the  service  of  the  muses, 
must  have  appeared  little  short  of  madness  to  some  of  those 
about  him.     "Was  he  not,  as  he  had  himself  expressed  it 
in  his  Letter  to  a  Friend,   "cutting  himself  off  from  all 
action,"  straggling  aside  into  mere  aimless  idleness  when  he 
ought  to  have  been  .beginning  the  march  of  life  in  some 
te credible  employment,"  constituting   himself  that  "most 
helpless,  pusillanimous,  and   unweaponed   creature   in   the 
world,"  a  literary  recluse  ? 

The  person  who  demurred  most  to  Milton's  conclusion^ 
respecting  himself,  thus  .formed  in  or  about  1632,  was 
naturally  enough,  that  good  and  indulgent  father  at  whose 
expense  he  had  been  .educated  hitherto,  and  at  whose  expense, 
as  it  now  seemed,  he  must  be  supported  for  ever.  That  his 
son,  the  son  of  his  hopes,  should  now,  in  his  twenty -fourth 


334  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

year,  after  acquiring  all  that  school  and  college  could  give, 
not  only  abandon  his  destined  profession  of  a  Church-of- 
England  Clergyman,  but  propose  nothing  else  for  himself 
instead  than  a  dreamy  life  of  literature,  could  hardly  but 
vex  the  excellent  man.  There  seem  to  have  been  convers 
ations  on  the  subject  between  the  father  and  the  son,  the 
usual  reasonings  between  the  fatherly  man  of  business  and 
the  son  who  will  be  a  poet.  In  this  case,  however,  both  the 
father  and  the  son  were  such  that  the  controversy  was  but 
a  short  one  and  ended  amicably.  So  much  we  gather  from 
Milton's  memorable  Latin  poem  Ad  Patrem,  not  dated,  but 
certainly  written  about  our  present  date  or  not  very  long 
after.  It  may  be  thus  translated  : — 

TO  MY  FATHER. 

Now  through  my  breast  I  should  wish  that  all  the?  Pierian  streamlets 
Windingly  trickled  their  ways,  and  that  through  my  mouth  there  were 

rolling 

Whole  and  in  flood  the  river  let  loose  from  the  double-topped  moun 
tain, 

So  that  my  bold- winged  Muse,  forgetting  her  trivial  ditties, 
Fitly  might  rise  to  the  theme  of  the  honours  due  to  a  parent. 
Howsoe'er  it  may  please  thee,  this  poem,  my  excellent  father, 
Tasks  her  small  utmost  to-day  ;  nor,  verily,  know  we  at  present 
Any  requital  from  us  of  a  kind  or  a  form  that  can  better 
Answer  the  gifts  thou  hast  given,  though  the  largest  requital  could 

never 

Answer  the  gifts  thou  hast  given,  nor  could  any  gratitude  rendered 
Only  in  empty  words  come  up  to  the  great  obligation. 
Such  as  they  are,  this  page  exhibits  all  my  resources  ; 
All  the  wealth  I  possess  I  have  here  told  out  upon  paper, 
All  a  nothing  save  what  the  golden  Clio  has  given  me, 
What  my  dreams  have  produced  in  the  secret  cave  of  my  slumbers, 
What  the  bay-tree  shades  in  the  sacred  Parnassian  thicket. 
Nay,  nor  do  thou  despise  this  god-given  Art  of  the  Poet, 
Surest  sign  that  there  is  of  the  seeds  of  the  heavenly  within  us, 
Man's  ethereal  birth  and  the  source  of  the  soul  we  call  human, 
Keeping  some  sparkles  still  of  the  holy  Promethean  torch-flame. 
Poesy  charms  the  powers  above,  and  is  able  to  summon 
Hell's  dread  depths  into  tumult,  and  bind  the  spirits  abysmal, 
Even  the  sternest  ghosts,  with  fetters  of  triple  endurance. 
How  but  by  Poesy  pierce  they  to  facts  in  the  far-lying  future, 
Phoebus' s  prophet-maids,  and  the  pale-faced  shuddering  Sibyls'? 


POEM   TO    HIS    FATHER.  335 

Poems  attencHhe  solemnest  act  of  the  priest  at  the  altars, 

Whether  he  fells  the  bull  while  the  gilded  horns  are  in  motion, 

Or  when  he  studies  the  secrets  the  smoking  flesh  can  discover, 

Figures  of  fated  events  inscribed  on  the  quivering  entrails. 

Ay,  and  we  ourselves,  when  again  in  our  native  Olympus 

Leisures  eternal  are  ours  in  that  large  life  of  the  restful, 

Crowns  of  gold  on  our  heads,  shall  walk  the  celestial  temples, 

Fitting  those  poems  of  joy  to  the  dulcet  throb  of  the  harp-strings 

Whereto  the  stars  of  both  hemispheres  ever  shall  sound  the  responses. 

That  same  spirit  of  fire  that  wheels  the  sphery  rotation 

Dashes  a  song  even  now  through  all  the  sidereal  mazes, 

Music  more  than  man's  and  poem  that  cannot  be  uttered, 

Red  Ophiuchus  the  while  restraining  the  hiss  of  his  venom, 

Fierce  Orion  so  mild  that  he  slackens  his  radiant  sword-belt, 

Moorish  Atlas  himself  not  feeling  his  starry  burthen. 

Poems  were  wont  to  grace  the  banquets  of  kings  in  the  days  when 

Luxury  yet  was  unknown  and  all  our  measureless  riot 

Merely  in  things  to  eat,  and  the  wine  on  the  tables  was  scanty. 

Then,  by  custom,  the  bard,  in  his  seat  in  the  festive  assembly, 

Garlanded  round  his  flowing  locks  with  leaves  from  the  beech-tree, 

Sang  the  deeds  of  heroes  and  feats  of  noble  example, 

Sang  of  Chaos  old  and  the  wide  world's  early  foundations, 

Gods  when  they  crept  all-fours  and  grew  lusty  on  chestnuts  and  acorns, 

Unsought  yet  the  bolt  that  lay  in  the  bowels  of  ^Etna. 

What,  in  fine,  is  the  use  of  the  voice's  mere  modulation, 

Severed  from  words  and  sense  and  the  craft  of  articulate  numbers  1 

Such  song  suits  a  woodland  dance,  but  hardly  an  Orpheus, 

Who,  when  he  stopped  the  rivers  and  added  ears  to  the  oak-trees, 

Did  it  by  poem,  not  lute,  and  the  phantom  forms  that  were  round  him 

Moved  to  tears  by  his  singing  :  'twas  Poesy  earned  him  such  honours. 

Do  not  thou,  I  beseech,  persist  in  contemning  the  Muses, 
Thinking  them  vain  and  poor,  thyself  the  while  to  their  bounty 
Owing  thy  skill  in  composing  thousands  of  sounds  to  the  verses 
Matching  them  best,  and  thy  cunning  to  vary  the  voice  of  the  singer 
Thousands  of  trilling  ways,  acknowledged  heir  of  Arion. 
Why  shouldst  thou  wonder  now  if  so  it  has  chanced  that  a  poet 
Comes  to  be  son  of  thine,  and  if,  joined  in  such  loving  relation, 
Each  of  us  follows  an  art  that  is  kin  to  the  art  of  the  other  ? 
Phoebus  himself,  proposing  a  twin  bequest  of  his  nature, 
Gifted  one  half  to  me,  with  the  other  gifted  my  parent, 
So  that,  father  and  son,  we  hold  the  god  wholly  between  us. 

Nay,  but,  pretend  as  thou  mayest  to  hate  the  delicate  Muses, 
Lo  !  my  proofs  that  thou  dost  not.     Father,  thy  bidding  was  never 
Given  me  to  go  the  broad  way  that  leads  to  the  market  of  lucre, 
Down  where  the  hope  shines  sure  of  gold  to  be  got  in  abundance  ; 
Nor  dost  thou  force  to  the  Laws  and  the  lore  of  the  rights  of  the 
nation 


336  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

Sorely  ill-kept,  nor  doom  my  ears  to  the  babble  of  asses  ; 

Rather,  desiring  to  see  my  mind  grow  richer  by  culture, 

Far  from  the  city's  noise,  and  here  in  the  depths  of  retirement 

Left  at  my  own  sweet  will  amid  Heliconian  pleasures, 

Lettest  me  walk  all  day  as  Apollo's  bosom-companion. 

Needless  here  to  mention  the  common  kindness  parental ; 

Greater  things  claim  record.    At  thy  cost,  worthiest  father, 

When  I  had  mastered  fully  the  tongue  of  the  Romans,  and  tasted 

Latin  delights  enough,  and  the  speech  for  which  Jove's  mouth  was 

moulded, 

That  grand  speech  of  the  Greeks  which  served  for  their  great  elocu 
tion, 

Thou  'twas  advised  the  vaunted  flowers  of  Gaul  in  addition, 
Thereto  the  language  in  which  the  new  and  fallen  Italian 
Opens  his  lips  with  sounds  that  attest  the  Barbarian  inroads, 
Yea,  and  the  mystic  strains  which  the  Palestine  prophet  delivers. 
Further,  whatever  the  heaven  contains,  and  under  the  heaven 
Mother  Earth  herself,  and  the  air  betwixt  earth  and  the  heaven, 
Whatso  the  wave  overlaps,  and  the  sea's  ever-moveable  marble, 
Thou  giv'st  me  means  for  knowing,  thou,  if  the  knowledge  shall 

please  me. 

Science,  her  cloud  removed,  now  offers  herself  to  my  gazes, 
Nakedly  bending  her  full-seen  face  to  the  print  of  my  kisses, 
Be  it  I  will  not  fly  her,  nor  count  her  favours  a  trouble. 

Go  and  gather  wealth,  what  madman  thou  art  that  pref errest ' 
Austria' s  treasures  ancestral  and  all  the  Peruvian  kingdoms  ! 
What  could  a  father  more  have  bestowed  on  a  son,  were  he  even 
Jove  himself,  and  had  given  his  universe,  heaven  excepted  1 
Nothing  nobler  the  gift,  its  safety  presumed,  which  the  Sun-God 
Gave  to  his  boy  when  he  trusted  the  world's  great  light  to  his  guid 
ance, 

Trusted  the  gleaming  car  and  the  reins  of  the  radiant  horses, 
Trusted  the  spiky  tiar  which  pulsates  the  rings  of  the  day-beams. 
Therefore  shall  I,  however  low  in  the  regiment  of  learning, 
Sit  even  now  'mid  victorious  wreaths  of  ivy  and  laurel, 
Now  obscure  no  more  nor  mixed  with  the  herd  of  the  lazy, 
Eyes  profane  forbidden  from  every  sight  of  my  footsteps. 
Anxious  cares  begone,  and  begone  all  quarrels  and  wranglings, 
Envy's  sharp-beaked  face  with  eyes  askew  at  the  corners  ; 
Savage  Calumny  stretch  not  her  snaky  mouth  to  annoy  me  ! ' 
Me,  ye  disgusting  pack,  your  efforts  avail  not  to  injure  ; 
Your  jurisdiction  I  scorn,  and,  secure  in  the  guard  of  my  conscience, 
Henceforth  shall  walk  erect  away  from  your  viperous  insults. 

So,  my  father  dear,  since  the  perfect  sum  of  your  merits 
Baffles  equal  return,  and  your  kindness  all  real  repayment, 
Be  the  mere  record  enough,  and  the  fact  that  my  grateful  remem 
brance 


POEM   TO    HIS    FATHER.  337 

Treasures  the  itemed  account  of  debt  and  will  keep  it  for  ever. 

Ye  too,  my  youthful  verses,  my  pastime  and  play  for  the  present, 
Should  you  sometimes  dare  to  hope  for  eternal  existence, 
Lasting  and  seeing  the  light  when  your  master's  body  has  mouldered, 
Not  whirled  down  in  oblivion  deep  in  the  darkness  of  Orcus, 
Mayhap  this  tribute  of  praise  and  the  thus  sung  name  of  my  parent 
Ye  shall  preserve,  an  example,  for  ages  yet  in  the  future. 


The  fact  that  Milton  thought  such  a  poem  a  suitable  means 
of  expressing  himself  to  his  father  and  reconciling  his  father 
to  what  was  proposed  suggests  more  about  the  scrivener's 
tastes  and  accomplishments  than  we  should  perhaps  have 
inferred  otherwise.  We  should  have  been  prepared  to 
expect  that  the  "ingeniose"  man,  who  had  taken  such  pains 
with  the  education  of  his  sons,  and  especially  of  his  elder 
son,  was  able  to  read  a  piece  of  ordinary  Latin  ;  but  that  his 
elder  son  should  have  credited  him  with  the  ability  to  relish 
and  duly  interpret  such  a  piece  of  Latin  as  the  foregoing, 
with  its  highly  poetic  Miltonisms,  and  it's  figures  and  flowers 
from  classic  mythology,  raises  our  estimation.  Possibly, 
however,  the  poem  was  written  by  Milton  more  for  himself 
than  for  his  father,  and  with  the  idea  that,  if  his  father  held 
it  in  his  hands,  and  understood  its  purport  generally,  he 
would  take  the  philological  details  for  granted,  and  smilingly 
accept  the  practical  compliment.  Doubtless,  too,  the  sub 
stance  of  all  that  is  here  expressed  poetically  had  passed 
between  father  and  son  often  enough  in  more  prosaic  collo 
quies.  As  the  poem  itself  indicates,  any  little  controversy 
on  the  subject  was  over,  and  the  agreement  already  complete. 
Trusting  his  son,  proud  of  his  son,  and  accustomed  by  this 
time,  with  his  wife,  to  regard  this  son  as  the  principal  person 
in  their  household,  the  scrivener  was  willing,  since  so  it 
must  be,  to  let  him  have  his  own  way. 

Circumstances  permitted  in  this  case  what  might  havo 
been  impossible  in  others.  The  scrivener,  now  about  sixty- 
nine  years  of  age,  had  been  thirty-two  years  in  business, 
and  had  accumulated  a  tolerably  ample  fortune.  Accord 
ingly,  with  the  view  of  "  passing  his  old  age  "  more  serenely, 
as  his  son  expresses  it  ("  transigendcv  sencctutis  causa],  he 
VOL.  i.  z 


338  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

had  arranged  practically  to  retire  from  his  London  business, 
not  entirely  ceasing  to  have  an  interest  in  it,  but  handing 
over  the  active  management  to  a  younger  partner.  The 
partner  he  had  chosen  was  that  Thomas  Bower  whom  we 
had  casually  to  note  as  long  ago  as  1623,  as  then  one  of 
his  apprentices,  witnessing  a  deed  for  him.  There  are 
records  proving  that  this  Thomas  Bower  had  been  duly 
admitted  a  full  member  of  the  Scriveners'  Company  in  1624, 
on  the  conclusion  of  his  apprenticeship  with  Milton;  and, 
though  the  precise  year  in  which  the  partnership  was  formed 
between  him  and  his  old  master  is  uncertain,  evidence  will 
appear  in  due  time  that  it  had  been  formed  before  1632. 
The  evidence  bears  indeed  that  the  partnership  was  complete 
in  1631,  the  very  year  in  which  the  old  scrivener's  resolution 
of  retirement  from  active  business  seems  to  have  been  taken. 
For  the  purpose  of  such  retirement,  he  had  then  acquired, 
if  he  had  not  already  possessed,  a  country  house  in  the  little 
village  of  Horton,  in  Buckinghamshire ;  and  this,  in  fact, 
seems  to  have  been  the  retreat  "  far  from  the  city's  noise  " 
referred  to  so  enthusiastically  by  Milton  in  his  Latin  poem.1 

1  The  evidence  as  to  the  date  of  the  bron."  From  that  date  there  is  no 
partnership  between  old  Mr.  Milton  •  mention  of  him  in  the  Bodleian  MS. 
and  his  former  apprentice  Bower  will  till  1621,  when  a  WM.  BOWER  and  a 
be  produced  hereafter ;  meanwhile  this  KICHAKD  MILTON  are  noted  as  admitted 
may  be  the  place  for  some  facts  in  the  to  the  Company  after  having  been 
history  of  old  Mr.  Milton's  scrivenership  apprentices  of  his.  This  KICHARD 
in  the  Bread  Street  premises  additional  MILTON,  who  is  found  in  business  as  a 
to  those  already  mentioned  in  these  scrivener  as  late  as  1633,  is  ascer- 
pages.  The  facts  are  supplied  by  an  taiued  to  have  been  the  son  of  a  Thomas 
interesting  communication  by  Mr.  Milton.  He  was  very  probably  one  of 
Henry  J.  Sides  of  the  Bodleian  Library,  our  scrivener's  kin,  and  it  is,  at  all 
Oxford,  to  the  Athenceum  of  May  1,  events,  interesting  to  know  that  there  / 
1880,  and  by  a  sequel  by  Mr.  Hyde  was  a  Eichard  Milton  practising  as  a\ 
Clarke  in  the  Athenoum  of  June  10  scrivener  in  London  from  1621  to  1633, 
following : — In  the  Bodleian,  it  appears,  by  the  side  of  John  Milton,  after  haviug  \ 
there  is  a  MS.  volume  (Rawl.  Miscell.,  been  his  apprentice.  Indeed,  from  1629, 
51)  consisting  of  collections  made  in  the  there  was  a  third  Milton  among  the 
latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  London  scriveners, — one  James  Milton, 
from  the  official  records  of  the  Scriven-  whom  Mr.  Sides  finds  admitted  in  that 
ers'  Company  of  London ;  and  Mr.  Sides,  year  as  having  been  apprentice  of 
having  examined  this/  volume  for  traces  Francis  Strange.  Apprentices  of  John 
of  the  scrivener  Milton,  gives  the  re-  Milton,  reported  by  Mr.  Sides  as  men- 
suits  as  follows : — Under  date  "  1599,  tioned  in  the  Bodleian  volume,  besides 
42  Eliz."  the  admission  of  John  Milton  the  above  "VVm.  Bower  and  Richard 
to  the  freedom  of  the  Company  is  duly  Milton,  are  JAMES  HODGKINSGN  and 
entered,  with  the  addition,  as  in  the  THOMAS  BOWER,  both  admitted  of  the 
entry  in  the  Scriveners'  Books  found  Scriveners'  Company  in  1624,  and  JOHN 
long  ago  by  Mr.  Hyde  Clarke,  that  he  HATTON,  admitted  in  1628.  It  was  the 
had  been  apprentice  to  "James  Cole-  second  of  these  that  became  after  wards 


RETIREMENT   TO    HORTON. 


339 


One  infers  that  lie  was  already  there  and  that  the  poem  was 
written  there,  if  not  also  that  Letter  to  a  Friend  which  has 
given  the  key  to  our  present  chapter.  Horton,  at  all  events, 
was  to  be  his  main  residence  for  nearly  six  years  after  his 
leaving  the  University,  or  from  his  twenty- fourth  year  to 
his  thirtieth.  Before  we  follow  him  thither  it  may  be  well 
to  have  some  more  distinct  ideas  respecting  that  condition 
of  Church  and  State  which  had  repelled  him  for  the  present 
from  public  into  private  life,  but  which  was  to  implicate  all 
his  future  career  more  openly  and  engrossingly  than  he 
could  yet  foresee,  and  also  respecting  the  condition  in  1632 
of  that  Literature  of  the  British  Islands  with  which,  in  an 
independent  way  of  his  own,  it  was  his  present  purpose  to 
connect  himself. 


Milton's  partner  ;  and  the  fact  that  the 
third,  Hatton,  is  designated  in  1628  as 
"  apprentice  of  John  Milton "  only 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  part 
nership  between  Milton  and  Thomas 
Bower  had  not  then  heen  formed. — 
Besides  this  information  as  to  appren 
tices  of  Milton  who  became  eventually 
scriveners  themselves,  the  Bodleian 
volume  furnishes,  Mr.  Sides  reports, 
some  particulars  as  to  Milton's  standing 
and  reputation  in  the  Scriveners'  Com 
pany.  Though  found  elected  an  "  As 
sistant  "  of  the  Company,  i.  e.  one  of  the 
court  or  governing  body,  as  early  as 
April  1615,  he  seems  to  have  rather 
held  aloof  from  the  official  or  corporate 
business  of  the  company  after  its  re 
organization  by  its  new  charter  in  the 
following  year.  They  did,  however,  in 
1622  re-elect  him  to  be  one  of  the  two 
"Assistants  taken  in  "  as  coadjutors  to 
the  "  Master  "  and  the  two  "  "Wardens  " 
of  the  Company,  and  he  appears  then 
to  have  served.  In  1625  he  was  chosen 
one  of  the  two  "  Stewards "  of  the 
Company,  along  with  a  Thomas  Hill, 
and  seems  again  to  have  served.  In 
1627  they  elected  him  as  one  of  the 
"  Wardens  "  for  the  year,  the  next  rank 
under  the  Mastership  ;  but,  if  Mr.  Sides 
rightly  interprets  an  asterisk  put  op 
posite  his  name,  and  also  opposite  that 


of  his  former  comrade  in  the  Steward 
ship,  Thomas  Hill,  together  with  the 
fact  that  the  names  of  the  two  persons 
who  did  actually  serve  the  Wardenship 
that  year  "are  given  as  Francis  Mosso 
and  Jeff  ery  Bower,  we  have  to  conclude 
that  he  declined  to  serve  that  year  and 
either  was  excused  or  preferred  paying 
the  statutory  fine  of  £20  exacted  from 
every  elected  Master  or  Warden  who 
refused  the  trouble  of  office.  Finally, 
(though  we  here  anticipate  a  little  in  ; 
date)  Mr.  Sides  finds  that  in  1634  John 
Milton  was  the  person  elected  to  the^/ 
Mastership,  or  highest  office,  of  the 
Scriveners'  Company,  but  that  again  he 
avoided  office,  whether  by  excuse  or  by 
payment  of  the  required  fine,  leaving  the 
Mastership  to  a  Charles  Yeomans.  Mr. 
Sides  thinks  that  this  election  to  the 
Mastership  in  1634  rather  militates 
against  the  supposition  that  the  scrive 
ner  had  retired  from  business  in  1632. 
It  seems  certainly  to  imply  that  he  had 
not  wholly  ceased  to  be  a  recognised 
London  scrivener  and  to  have  an  in 
terest  in  the  Bread  Street  shop  ;  but  it 
is  quite  consistent  with  the  fact  of  his 
retirement  to  Horton  in  1631  or  1632, 
leaving  the  active  management  of  the 
Bread  Street  business  thenceforward  to 
his  younger  partner,  Thomas  Bower. 


Z  2 


CHAPTER  II. 

CHURCH    AND    GOVERNMENT    UNDEE   KING   CHARLES   AND 
BISHOP   LAUD  :    WITH    A    RETROSPECT    TO    1603. 

THE  entire  population  of  England  in  1632  maybe  reckoned 
at  something  under  five  millions.  Though  all  of  these  were 
considered  to  belong  legally  to  the  Church  of  England,  there 
were  exceptions  in  fact. 

One  of  the  exceptional  classes  consisted  of  THE  PAPISTS, 
called  also,  in  a  special  sense,  THE  RECUSANTS.  The  propor 
tion  of  these  to  the  entire  population  cannot  be  exactly 
estimated.  In  the  early  part  of  Elizabeth's  reign  they  are 
said  to  have  amounted  to  one-third,  but  this  proportion  had 
been  vastly  diminished  during  her  reign  and  that  of  her 
successor.  The  degree  of  rigour  with  which  the  laws  against 
Roman  Catholics  were  enforced  had  varied  from  time  to 
time  in  both  reigns,  according  to  ideas  of  state  necessity, 
and  more  particularly  according  to  the  varying  relations  in 
which  England  stood  to  the  Catholic  powers  abroad.  About 
the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  when  the  Pope  had 
excommunicated  her  and  her  subjects,  and  the  English 
Roman  Catholics  were  supposed  to  be  in  traitorous  cor 
respondence  with  the  Spanish  invader,  many  priests  and 
Jesuits  had  been  executed ;  but,  on  the  whole,  towards  the 
end  of  her  reign,  though  the  minor  penalties  of  fine  and 
imprisonment  continued  to  be  inflicted  annually  on  consider 
able  numbers  of  the  Recusants,  their  condition  had  been 
such  as  to  increase  their  confidence.  Under  James  the 
Gunpowder  Plot  had  furnished  for  many  years  a  reason  for 
renewed  severity;  but  about  the  year  1622,  when  the 
Spanish  Match  was  on  hand,  there  had  begun  a  tendency 
the  other  way.  While  the  match  was  pending  meetings  for 


PAPISTS   AND   PKOTESTANT   SEPARATISTS.  341 

.Roman  Catholic  worship  were  openly  held  in  London, 
Jesuits  and  friars  went  about  freely,  nunneries  were  estab 
lished,  and  Richard  Smith,  as  Bishop  of  Chalcedon,  came 
over  from  the  Continent  to  exercise  jurisdiction  over  the 
English  Roman  Catholics  and  appoint  subordinates.  Even 
after  the  Spanish  Match  was  broken  off,  and  Charles  I.  sat 
on  the  throne,  with  the  French  Henrietta  Maria  for  his 
queen,  the  same  reasons  of  state  operated  in  favour  of  the 
Papists.  While  the  Queen  had  her  private  chapel  and 
confessors  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  her  husband  would 
be  more  severe  against  his  Roman  Catholic  subjects  than 
he  could  help.  At  all  events,  after  Charles  had  dismissed 
his  Parliament  in  March  1628-9,  and  had  been  governing 
by  his  own  authority,  he  showed  no  extraordinary  readiness 
against  the  Roman  Catholics.  From  that  time,  on  the  con 
trary,  they  were  regarded  as  a  class  of  his  subjects  whose 
loyalty  it  would  be  worth  while  to  cultivate  against  a  pos 
sible  emergency.  According  to  a  Remonstrance  which  had 
been  drawn  up  by  the  Commons,  there  were  about  ninety 
Papists,  or  suspected  Papists,  some  of  them  noblemen  and 
the  rest  knights  or  gentlemen,  in  places  of  political  or  civil 
trust  about  the  court  or  elsewhere ;  and  Catholic  historians 
give  a  list  of  193  gentlemen  of  property  and  distinction  who 
from  this  time  forward,  through  the  rest  of  Charles's  reign, 
represented  Roman  Catholicism  in  a  more  or  less  resolute 
manner  in  different  English  counties.1 

The  second  exceptional  class  of  the  English  population 
consisted  of  the  PROTESTANT  SEPARATISTS.  These  were  but  a 
handful  numerically,  composed  of  such  extreme  Puritans  as 
had  considered  themselves  bound,  whether  on  doctrinal  or 
on  ritual  grounds,  to  separate  from  the  Church  of  England 
and  set  up  a  worship  of  their  own.  The  majority  of  those 
whose  Puritanism  had  led  them  thus  far  had  found  it  neces 
sary  to  emigrate  to  Holland  or  to  America ;  but  some  re 
mained  at  home,  a  peculiar  leaven  in  English  society.  The 
congregation  of  Independents,  as  they  were  afterwards 
called,  which  had  been  founded  in  London  in  1616  by 

1  Dod's  Church  History :  temp.  Charles  I. 


342  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Henry  Jacob,  still  continued  to  exist  under  the  ministry  of 
Mr.  John  Lathorp,  formerly  a  Church  clergyman  of  Kent ; 
distinct  from  these  Independents  were  a  few  scores  of 
Baptists,  in  London,  in  Norwich,  and  elsewhere,  who  met 
secretly  for  mutual  encouragement  in  brewhouses  and  barns; 
and  distinct  from  both  these  sects  were  the  so-called 
Familists. 

The  Eoman  Catholics  and  the  Protestant  Separatists  were 
exceptional  bodies,  existing  at  the  peril  of  the  law  ;  and  the 
theory  that  the  whole  population  of  England  belonged  to 
the  Church  of  England  was  still  in  substantial  correspond 
ence  with  the  fact.  There  were,  in  all,  9,284  parish-churches 
in  England,  endowed  with  glebe  and  tithes,  and  each  pro 
vided  with  its  minister  appointed  to  the  spiritual  charge  of 
all  within  his  parish.1  Of  these  parochial  charges  only  5,439 
were  filled  by  ^ '  rectors/'  regularly  appointed  by  patrons, 
and  enjoying  the  full  rights  of  the  benefices.  The  remaining 
3,845  were  either  appropriated  (i.e.  in  the  possession  of 
Bishops,  Cathedrals  and  Colleges,  who,  being  themselves 
therefore  both  patrons  and  rectors,  performed  the  duties 
generally  by  means  of  deputies  named  "  vicars,"  to  whom 
they  allowed  only  a  part  of  the  tithes),  or  impropriated  (i.  e. 
in  the  possession  of  laymen  to  whose  ancestors  or  legal 
antecessors  they  had  been  given  at  the  Reformation,  and 
who  also  paid  "  vicars  "  to  do  the  work,  retaining  the  rest 
of  the  fruits  for  themselves).  In  addition,  however,  to  these 
9,284  parish  clergymen  known  as  "  rectors  "  or  "  vicars," 
there  were  the  two  Archbishops,  the  twenty-five  Bishops, 
the  Deans,  the  Archdeacons,  &c.,  and  the  great  body  of 
"  curates  "  or  assistants  to  the  parochial  clergy.  Moreover, 
a  class  of  ministers  of  considerable  importance  at  this  time, 
though  not  very  numerous,  were  the  so-called  "  Lecturers." 
These  were  men  who,  having  obtained  the  necessary  licence 
from  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  were  supported  by  volun 
tary  contributions,  and  employed  simply  as  preachers  in 
localities  where  there  was  a  deficiency  of  the  ordinary  clerical 

1  Fuller,  Church  History :  sub  anno  1630. 


CLERGY   OF   ENGLAND   IN    1632.  343 

means,  or  where  the  people  were  unusually  zealous.  They 
had  no  local  cure  of  souls,  and  did  not  perform  Church  rites, 
but  confined  themselves  to  religious  teaching  and  discoursing 
on  market-days  or  on  Sunday  afternoons.  They  were  first 
heard  of  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  when  the  Puritan  laity  in 
towns,  011  the  one  hand,  were  glad  to  have  such  a  lawful 
means  of  access  to  doctrine  more  to  their  taste  than  was 
always  supplied  by  the  parish  clergy,  and  when,  on  the 
other  hand,  many  Puritans,  educated  for  the  ministry,  wero 
glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of  following  their  calling  with 
out  such  a  degree  of  conformity  to  Church  discipline  as 
would  have  been  necessary  if  they  had  taken  full  priest's 
orders  and  accepted  parochial  livings.  About  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  there  was  a  movement  among  the 
Puritans  for  their  increase,  and  a  scheme  for  that  purpose, 
among  others,  had  been  set  on  foot  by  the  Puritan  leader, 
Dr.  Preston.  A  committee  of  twelve  persons  was  appointed, 
four  of  whom  were  divines,  four  lawyers,  and  four  London 
merchants.  Among  the  clerical  members  of  the  committeo 
were  Sibbes  of  Cambridge  and  Mr.  Stocke  of  London.  The 
twelve,  acting  as  trustees,  were  to  apply  such  funds  as 
might  be  collected  by  themselves  or  others  to  the  purchase 
of  lay  impropriations  as  they  came  into  the  market.  When 
a  lay  impropriation  was  thus  bought,  it  was  in  the  power 
of  the  trustees  not  only  to  appoint  a  minister  of  the  right 
sort,  but  also  to  apply  the  residue  of  the  tithes  to  their 
proper  spiritual  destination  by  using  them  for  the  support 
of  ' f  lecturers  "  over  the  country.  The  scheme  was  effective. 
In  the  course  of  five  years,  it  is  true,  only  thirteen  impro 
priations  were  bought  in,  at  an  expense  of  between  five  and 
six  thousand  pounds,  supplied  chiefly  by  wealthy  Puritans  of 
London ;  but  it  was  calculated  that  in  the  course  of  fifty 
years  all  would  be  bought  in  and  the  Church  thus  rid  of  one 
particular  scandal.1 

Such,  as  regards  the  number  and  classification  of  the  clergy, 
was  the  Church  of  England  in  1632.     But  the  grand  fact  in, 

1  Fuller's  Church  History,  sub  anno  1630 ;  and  Neal's  Puritans,  II.  221-2. 


34i  LIPS    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

the  constitution  of  the  Church  was  the  division  of  the  clergy 
and  the  people  alike  into  the  two  great  parties  of  the  Prelat- 
ists  or  friends  of  the  Hierarchy  and  the  Puritans  or  Non 
conformists.  This  division  was  as  old  as  the  Reformation 
itself,  and  had  been  bequeathed  in  full  vigour  out  of  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth  into  that  of  James. 

ENGLISH   CHURCH-GOVERNMENT   FROM    1603-1625. 

The  condition  and  the  aims  of  the  Puritan  party  in  the 
Church  of  England  at  the  time  of  James's  accession  are 
best  inferred  from  the  "Millenary  Petition"  which  they 
presented  to  the  King  on  his  coming  to  England.  The 
petition  was  signed  by  750  ministers  out  of  five-and-twenty 
counties,  but  was  said  in  the  petition  itself  to  represent  the 
views  of  "more  than  a  thousand  ministers"  altogether. 
Numerically,  therefore,  the  ascertained  Puritans  in  the 
Church  in  1603  were  about  a  ninth  part  of  the  whole  parish 
clergy.  Some  of  the  reforms  for  which  they  pressed  were 
of  a  kind  relating  more  to  the  general  management  of  the 
Church  than  to  the  relief  of  their  own  consciences.  They 
prayed,  for  example,  that  none  should  be  admitted  into  tho 
ministry  but  able  men,  that  all  ministers  should  be  required 
to  preach,  and  that  ministers  incapable  of  preaching  should 
be  removed  or  obliged  to  provide  preachers,  that  non- 
residency  should  not  be  allowed,  that  bishops  should  not 
hold  additional  livings  in  commendam,  that  impropriations 
annexed  to  bishoprics  and  colleges  should  be  converted  into 
regular  rectorial  livings  and  lay  impropriations  mulcted  of  a 
portion  of  their  profits  for  the  support  of  preachers,  that 
there  should  be  no  more  excommunication  "for  twelve- 
penny  matters,"  and  that  the  ecclesiastical  courts  should  bo 
kept  under  better  control.  Some  parts  of  the  Petition,  how 
ever,  were  of  a  nature  more  closely  affecting  the  consciences  of 
the  petitioners.  They  petitioned  that  in  future  no  subscrip 
tion  should  be  required  from  ministers  except  to  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  and  the  Royal  Supremacy.  They  petitioned 
farther,  "that  the  cross  in  baptism,  the  interrogatories  to 


CANONS   OF    1601.  31-5 

"infants,  baptism  by  women,  and  confirmation  be  taken 
"away;  that  the  cap  and  surplice  be  not  urged;  that  the 
"  ring  in  marriage  be  dispensed  with ;  that  the  service  be 
"  abridged ;  that  church  songs  and  music  be  moderated  to 
"  better  edification;  that  the  Lord's  Day  be  not  profaned, 
"nor  the  observation  of  other  holidays  strictly  enjoined; 
"  that  ministers  be  not  charged  to  teach  their  people  to  bow 
"  at  the  name  of  Jesus ;  and  that  none  but  Canonical  Scrip- 
"tures  be  read  in  the  Church."  In  all  this  scarcely  any 
dissatisfaction  was  expressed  with  the  essential  doctrines  of 
the  Church,  but  only  with  certain  of  its  rites  and  cere 
monies. 

With  the  exception  of  one  or  two  small  concessions,  the  \ 
Puritans  gained  nothing  by  their  Millenary  Petition,  or  by 
the  Hampton  Court  Conferences  which  grew  out  of  it.  On 
the  contrary,  they  lost  by  them.  The  King  declared  himself 
at  once  against  the  Puritans ;  and,  the  Bishops,  the  Uni 
versities,  and  the  hierarchical  clergy  having  rallied  all  their 
strength  under  his  encouragement,  there  were  passed  in  the 
Convocation  of  1603-4,  and  ratified  by  royal  authority,  the 
famous  141  Canons  which  settled  for  that  reign  and  for  a 
portion  of  the  next  the  whole  constitution  of  the  English 
Church.  We  have  seen  that  by  the  36th  of  these  Canons 
the  practice  of  subscription  was  made  more  stringent  than 
ever;  but  one  or  two  of  the  other  Canons  may  here  be 
quoted : — 

Canon  VI.  Whosoever  shall  affirm  that  the  rites  and  ceremonies 
of  the  Church  of  England  by  law  established  are  wicked,  anti-Chris 
tian,  superstitious,  or  such  as,  being  commanded  by  lawful  authority, 
men  who  are  zealously  and  godly  affected  may  not  with^any  good 
conscience  approve  them,  use  them,  or,  as  occasion  requireth,  sub 
scribe  unto  them,  let  him  be  excommunicated  ipso  facto,  and  not 
restored,  &c.,  till  after  his  repentance,  &c. 

Canon  VI L  Whosoever  shall  affirm  the  government  of  the  Church 
of  England  by  archbishops,  bishops,  deans  and  arch-deacons,  and  the 
rest  that  bear  office  in  the  same,  is  anti- Christian  or  repugnant  to  the 
word  of  God,  let  him  be  excommunicated  ipso  facto,  and  not  restored, 
&c. 

Canon  X.  Whosoever  shall  affirm  that  such  ministers  as  refuse  to 
subscribe  to  the  form  and  manner  of  God's  worship  in  the  Church  of 
England,  and  their  adherents,  may  truly  take  to  themselves  the  name 
of  another  Church  not  established  by  law,  and  shall  publish  that  their 
pretended  Church  has  groaned  under  the  burden  of  certain  grievances 


346  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

imposed  on  them  by  the  Church  of  England,  let  them  be  excommuni 
cated  ipso  facto,  and  not  restored,  &c. 

Canon  XVIII.  In  the  time  of  divine  service  and  of  every  part 
thereof  all  due  reverence  is  to  be  used.  .  .  .  And  likewise,  when,  in 
time  of  divine  service,  the  Lord  Jesus  shall  be  mentioned,  due  and 
lowly  reverence  shall  be  done  by  all  persons  present,  as  it  hath  been 
accustomed.  .  .  . 

Canon  XXXVIII.  If  any  minister,  after  he  hath  once  subscribed 
to  the  said  Three  Articles,  shall  omit  to  use  the  form  of  prayer  or 
any  of  the  orders  or  ceremonies  prescribed  in  the  Communion  Book, 
let  him  be  suspended  ;  and  if,  after  a  month,  he  do  not  reform  and 
submit  himself,  let  him  be  excommunicated ;  and  then,  if  he  shall 
not  submit  himself  within  the  space  of  another  month,  let  him  be 
deposed  from  the  ministry. 

Canon  L  VIII.  Every  minister,  saying  the  public  prayers,  or  minis 
tering  the  sacraments  or  other  rites  of  the  Church,  shall  wear  a  decent 
and  comely  surplice  with  sleeves,  to  be  provided  at  the  charge  of  the 
parish ;  and,  if  any  question  arise  touching  the  matter,  decency,  or 
comeliness  thereof,  the  same  shall  be  decided  by  the  discretion  of  the 
Ordinary.  Furthermore,  such  ministers  as  are  graduates  shall  wear 
upon  their  surplices  at  such  times  such  hoods  as  by  the  orders  of  the 
University  are  agreeable  to  their  degrees ;  which  no  minister  shall 
wear,  being  no  graduate,  under  pain  of  suspension.  Notwithstanding, 
it  shall  be  lawful  for  such  ministers  as  are  not  graduates  to  wear  upon 
their  surplices,  instead  of  hoods,  some  decent  tippet  of  black,  so  it  be 
not  silk. 

Canon  LXXIV.  The  true,  ancient,  and  flourishing  Churches  of 
Christ,  being  ever  desirous  that  their  prelacy  and  clergy  might  be 
had,  as  well  in  outward  reverence  as  otherwise,  regarded  for  the 
worthiness  of  their  ministry,  did  think  it  fit,  by  a  prescript  form  of 
decent  and  comely  apparel,  to  have  them  known  to  the  people,  and 
thereby  to  receive  the  honour  and  estimation  due  to  the  special 
messengers  and  ministers  of  Almighty  God.  We,  therefore,  following 
their  grave  judgment  and  the  ancient  custom  of  the  Church  of  Eng 
land,  and  hoping  that  in  time  newfangleness  of  apparel  in  some 
factious  persons  will  die  of  itself,  do  constitute  and  appoint  that  the 
archbishops  and  bishops  shall  not  intermit  to  use  the  accustomed 
apparel  of  their  degrees  ;  likewise  all  deans,  masters  of  colleges,  arch 
deacons,  and  prebendaries  in  cathedral  and  collegiate  churches  (being 
priests  or  deacons),  doctors  in  divinity,  law,  and  physic,  bachelors  in 
divinity,  masters  of  arts,  and  bachelors  of  law,  having  any  ecclesias 
tical  living,  shall  usually  wear  gowns  with  standing  collars  and  sleeves 
straight  at  the  hands,  or  wide  sleeves,  as  is  used  in  the  Universities, 
with  hoods  or  tippets  of  silk  or  sarcenet,  and  square  caps  ;  and  that 
all  other  ministers  admitted  or  to  be  admitted  into  that  function  shall 
also  usually  wear  the  like  apparel,  as  is  aforesaid,  except  tippets  only. 
We  do  further,  in  like  manner,  ordain  that  all  the  said  ecclesiastical 
persons  above  mentioned  shall  usually  wear  in  their  journeys  cloaks 
with  sleeves,  commonly  called  priests'  cloaks,  without  guards,  welts, 
long  buttons,  or  'cuts.  And  no  ecclesiastical  person  shall  wear  any 
coif  or  wrought  nightcap,  but  only  plain  nightcaps  of  black  silk,  satin, 
or  velvet.  In  all  which  particulars  concerning  the  apparel  here  pre 
scribed  our  meaning  is  not  to  attribute  any  holiness  or  special  worthi 
ness  to  the  said  garments,  but  for  decency,  gravity,  and  order,  as  is 
above  specified.  In  private  houses,  and  in  their  studies,  the  said 


PRIMACY   OF   BANCROFT. 


347 


persons  ecclesiastical  may  use  any  comely  and  scholar-like  apparel, 
provided  it  be  not  cut  or  pinked,  and  that  in  public  they  go  not  in 
their  doublet  and  hose,  without  coats  or  cassocks,  and  also  that  they 
wear  not  any  light-coloured  stockings.  Likewise,  poor  beneficed  men 
and  curates,  not  being  able  to  provide  themselves  long  gowns,  may  go 
in  short  gowns  of  the  fashion  aforesaid. 

For  six  years  after  the  promulgation  of  the  Canons  the 
Puritans  had  need  of  all  their  patience.     Bancroft,  who  sue-  -' 
ceeded  Whitgift  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1604,  and 
who  held  the  primacy  till  his  death  in  1610,  was  perhaps  the 
most  zealous  for  conformity  of  all  the  prelates  in  the  Church  ; 
and  during  his  primacy  it  was  the  part  of  the  King  and  his 
chief  counsellors  rather  to  moderate  than  stimulate  his  ac 
tivity.  Many  Nonconformists  were  deprived  and  imprisoned,    • 
or  driven  into  exile.     The  consequence  was  that  the  contro 
versy  became  hotter  and  deeper.     Pamphlets  were  printed 
secretly  at  home,  or  imported  from  Holland,  in  which  opinions 
were  broached  far  in  advance  of  any  that  had  appeared  in 
the  Millenary  Petition.     Some  of  the  more  daring  began  to 
discuss  the  lawfulness  and  necessity  of  separation  from  the 
Church  of  England  altogether;  and  propositions  such  as  the 
following  found   favour   with   at   least   a   section : — "  That 
every  congregation  or  assembly  of  men  ordinarily  joining 
together  in  the  true  worship  of  God  is  a  true  visible  Church 
of  Christ "  ;  "  That  there  are  not,  by  divine  institution,  any 
ordinary,  national,  provincial,  or  diocesan  pastors,  to  whom 
the  pastors  of  particular  churches  are  to  be  subject."     Here, 
as  held  by  the  extremest  sect  of  the  Puritans  of  the  day,  we 
have    already   the   full    theory    of    English    Independency.  ' 
Others,  however,  did  not  go  farther  than  a  modified  Presby- 
terianism,   while  others,  again,  approved   the   hierarchical 
organization  as  the  best  in  itself,  and  were  aggrieved  only 
by  certain   excesses  in  the  Church   of  England.     English 
Puritanism  was  in  this  stage  when  Milton  was  born. 

In  1611  Bancroft  was  succeeded  in  the  primacy  by  Arch 
bishop  GEORGE  ABBOT,  a  man  of  very  different  temper. 
Whereas  Bancroft  had  "  understood  the  Church  excellently, 
"  and  almost  rescued  it  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Calvinian 
' '  party,  and  very  much  subdued  the  unruly  spirit  of  the 


348  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

"  Nonconformists,'-'  Abbot,,  as  Clarendon  describes  him, 
brought  "none  of  this  antidote"  with  him.  "He  con- 
"sidered  the  Christian  religion  no  otherwise  than  as  it 
"  abhorred  and  reviled  Popery,  and  valued  those  men  most 
"  who  did  that  the  most  furiously.  For  the  strict  observa- 
"  tion  of  the  discipline  of  the  Church,  or  the  conformity  to 
"  the  Articles  or  Canons  established,  he  made  little  inquiry 
"  and  took  less  care ;  ...  he  adhered  only  to  the  doctrine 
"of  Calvin,  and,  for  his  sake,  did  not  think  so  ill  of  the 
"  discipline  as  he  ought  to  have  done.  But,  if  men  prudently 
"  forbore  a  public  reviling  and  railing  at  the  hierarchy  and 
"ecclesiastical  government,  let  their  opinions  and  private 
"  practice  be  what  it  would,  they  were  not  only  secure  from 
"  any  inquisition  of  his,  but  acceptable  to  him,  and  at  least 
"  equally  preferred  by  him."  x  In  other  words,  Abbot  was 
what  we  should  now  call  a  Low- Church  Archbishop,  and  so 
long  as  he  wielded  an  authority  in  the  Church  corresponding 
to  his  position  the  Puritans  had  reason  to  congratulate 
themselves. 

After  the  first  ten  years,  however,  of  Abbot's  primacy,  his 
real  power  in  ecclesiastical  matters  had  ceased  to  be  co 
extensive  with  his  nominal  functions.  As  early  as  1616, 
when  Lord  Chancellor  Bllesmere  died  and  was  succeeded  by 
Bacon,  and  when  young  Yilliers  was  taking  his  first  steps 
towards  the  supreme  place  in  the  King's  counsels,  it  had 
been  found  necessary  to  manage  a  good  deal  of  Church 
business  through  other  ^prelates  than  Abbot;  and  in  1621, 
when  Buckingham  was  absolute  minister,  and  Abbot's  anti- 
popish  zeal  led  him  to  oppose  the  Court  on  the  two  great 
questions  of  the  Palatinate  War  and  the  Spanish  Match,  the 
awkwardness  of  having  such  a  man  for  primate  had  been 
still  more  seriously  felt.  An  accident  that  year  had  rid  the 
Court  of  much  of  the  inconvenience.  Going  out  in  a  luck 
less  hour  to  shoot  a  buck  with  Lord  Zouch  in  Hampshire, 
the  Archbishop,  unskilled  in  the  cross-bow,  sent  his  arrow 
into  one  of  the  keepers  instead  of  the  deer;  and,  as  the 
man  died,  it  became  a  question  with  the  canonists  whether 

Clarendon,  edit.  1843,  p.  36. 


PRIMACY   OF   ABBOT.  349 

the  homicide  could  continue  to  be  Archbishop.  The  King, 
who  had  a  liking  for  Abbot  personally,  was  very  kind  on 
the  occasion ;  and,  after  much  consultation,  Abbot  was 
acquitted  under  the  broad  seal,  and  restored  to  the  full 
exercise  of  his  office.  But  from  that  time  the  misfortune 
hung  heavily  on  his  memory.  He  appeared  at  Court  but 
seldom,  and  survived  only  as  a  broken  primate,  walking  in 
gloom  among  his  shrubberies  at  Lambeth,  abhorring  the 
sight  of  a  cross-bow,  and  keeping  a  Tuesday  every  month 
as  a  day  of  fast  and  humiliation.  He  was  very  popular,  not 
only  in  England,  but  also  in  Scotland,  where  he  had  spent 
some  time  in  his  earlier  life  and  had  preached  very  often 
in  public. 

From  the  date  of  Abbot's  misfortune  to  the  end  of 
James's  reign  the  chief  man  in  the  realm  after  James  him 
self  and  Buckingham  was  JOHN  WILLIAMS,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 
and  Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal.  He  is  one  of  those 
men  to  whom,  from  various  causes,  history  has  hardly  done 
justice. 

A  Welshman  by  birth,  and  placed,  by  a  singular  accident 
in  his  childhood,  in  the  same  category  physically  as  Origen, 
Narses,  and  some  other  eminent  men  whose  names  may  be 
known  to  the  curious,  he  had  led  from  his  youth  upwards  a 
life  of  prodigious  activity.  At  St.  John's  College,  Cam 
bridge,  where  he  was  educated  under  the  tutorship  of  his 
countryman  Owen  Gwynne,  and  where  he  was  at  first  much 
laughed  at  for  his  ungainly  Welsh  tongue,  he  soon  distanced 
all  his  coevals,  not  only  in  the  art  of  speaking  English,  but 
in  most  things  besides.  He  had  a  handsome  and  stately 
look,  was  lavish  of  his  money,  dressed  well,  and  won  every 
body's  good  opinion  by  a  kind  of  fiery  imperiousness,  coupled 
with  a  courtly  talent  of  the  first  order.  His  power  of  labour 
was  incredible.  He  required,  we  are  told  positively,  but  t 
three  hours  of  sleep  out  of  the  twenty-four ;  and  every  day, 
from  four  o'clock  till  midnight,  he  was  incessantly  at  work, 
reading,  making  notes,  or  writing  letters,  doing  secular 
College  business,  or  whetting  his  wits  in  disputations  and 
table-talk.  His  scholarship  was  great  and  various ;  but  his 


350  LIFE   OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

chief  delight  was  in  History,  in  the  study  of  which  he  was 
served  by  a  miraculous  memory.  He  had  also  a  passion  for 
music  and  considerable  skill  in  it.  Altogether,  he  was  the 
pride  of  the  Welshmen  at  Cambridge,  and  they  had  come  to 
look  on  him  as  their  rising  man.  His  rise  had  been  un 
usually  rapid.  A  Fellow  of  his  College  from  the  time  of  his 
taking  his  B.A.  degree,  he  used  to  go  once  a  year  to  London 
on  a  visit  to  his  kinsman,  Bishop  Vaughan,  through  whom 
he  made  some  useful  acquaintances.  Old  Lord  Lumley,  to 
whom  the  Bishop  had  introduced  him,  supplied  him  with 
money  which  enabled  him,  when  he  took  his  M.A.  degree  in 
1605,  to  give  a  feast  like  any  nobleman.  Four  years  after 
wards,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  he  took  priest's  orders, 
and  became  vicar  of  a  small  parish  at  some  distance  from 
Cambridge;  in  1610  he  had  the  honour  of  preaching  before 
the  King  and  Prince  Henry  at  B/oyston;  and  in  1611- 
12,  when  he  was  junior  Proctor  of  the  University,  he  per 
formed  his  office  in  princely  style.  In  particular,  "  he  gave 
so  noble  and  generous  entertainment,  as  well  in  scholastical 
exercises  as  in  edibles  and  potables,"  to  the  Spanish  Am 
bassador,  then  on  a  state  visit  to  the  University,  that  Lord 
Chancellor  Ellesmere,  who  accompanied  the  ambassador, 
pronounced  him  a  mar:  "fit  to  serve  a  king."  Ellesmere 
helped  to  fulfil  his  own  prognostication  by  making  him  his 
chaplain;  and  till  Ellesmere' s  death  in  1616  Williams  re 
mained  in  attendance  upon  him  in  London  and  at  Court. 
Understanding  "  the  soil  on  which  he  had  thus  set  his  foot, 
that  it  was  rich  and  fertile/'  he  made  the  most  of  his  oppor 
tunities.  f '  He  pleased  his  master  with  his  sermons ;  he 
"  took  him  mainly  with  his  sharp  and  solid  answers  to  such 
"  questions  as  were  cast  forth  at  table  to  prove  his  learning; 
' '  his  fashion  and  garb  to  the  ladies  of  the  family,  who  were 
"  of  great  blood  and  many,  was  more  courtly  a  great  deal 
"  than  was  expected  from  a  scholar ;  he  received  strangers 
"  with  courtesy,  and  laboured  for  their  satisfaction  ;  he  inter- 
"  posed  gravely,  as  became  a  divine,  in  the  disorders  of  the 
"  lowest  servants."  In  brief,  he  became  Ellesmere' s  most 
valued  secretary,  and  helped  him  in  all  his  business.  When 


LOED    KEEPER   WILLIAMS.  351 

Ellesmere  was  dying,  he   sent  his  messages  to  the  King 
through  Williams;  and,  at  his  death,  he  left  Williams  his 
private  papers  and  collections,  with  the  words,  "  I  know  you 
' '  are  an  expert  workman :  take  these  tools  to  work  with ; 
"  they  are  the  best  I  have."   Already,  by  favour  of  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  Williams  had  had  his  share  of  Church  prefer 
ments.     He  was  rector  of  Walgrave  in  Northamptonshire, 
and  of  two  other  parishes  near;  he  was  a  prebendary  and 
canon-resident    in   the    cathedral    church    of   Lincoln,    and 
chanter  in  the  same ;  and  he  had  choral  places  in  the  minster 
of  Peterborough  and  in  the  churches  of  Hereford  and  St. 
David's.     It  might  have  been  well  for  Bacon  in  his  Keeper- 
ship   and   Chancellorship  had  Williams   complied  with  his 
request  that  he  would  continue  to  serve  him  in  the  capacity 
in  which  he  had    served   his   predecessor.     But    Williams 
preferred  his  rectory  in  Northamptonshire,  where  he  lived 
more  like  a  bishop  than  a  rector.     Patronage  pursued  him. 
He  was  made  chaplain  in  ordinary  to  the  King,  rector  of  the 
Savoy  in  London,  and  at  length,  in  1619,  Dean  of  Salisbury. 
There  was  not  an  ecclesiastic  whom  the  King  so  much  liked 
to  have  about  him  as  his  frank  and   ready-witted    Welsh 
chaplain.     James  was  as  fond  of  hunting  his  courtiers  and 
ecclesiastics  in  disputations  at  his  table  as  of  running  down 
deer  in   the   field;   and   no  one  gave  him  such   sport   as 
Williams.    "  There  was  not/'  says  his  panegyrist,  "  a  greater 
"  master  of  perspicuity  and  elucidate  distinctions ;   which 
*'  looked  the  better  in  his  English,  that  ran  sweet  upon  his 
"  tongue,  especially  being  set  out  with  a  graceful  facetious- 
"ness  that  hit  the  joint  of  the  matter."     Above  all  was  the 
King  pleased  with  his  answers  when  he  "  led  him  quite  out 
of  the  road  of  verbal  learning,  and  talked  to  him  of  real  and 
gubernative  wisdom."     But,  though  the  King  might  like 
Williams,  all  depended  on   Steenie.     "  Upon  this  tree  or 
none  must  the  ground-ivy  clasp  "  in  that  day  "  in  order  to 
trail  and  climb."     The  King  himself  having  taken  means  to 
bring  the    two   men   together,   Williams   did    Buckingham 
several  services  which  completed  an  understanding  between 
them.     Hence,  in  1620,  the  Dean  of  Salisbury  became  Dean 


352  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

of  Westminster  and  a  Privy  Councillor.  Even  such  pro 
motion  could  not  have  prepared  the  public  for  what  followed. 
On  the  conviction  and  disgrace  of  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon  in 
1621  the  Court  waited  anxiously  to  learn  who  was  to  be  his 
successor.  Several  great  personages  were  confidently  named  ; 
and,  when  it  was  announced  that  the  King,  passing  over  all 
these,  had  given  the  great  seal  to  the  Dean  of  Westminster, 
the  news  could  hardly  be  credited.  It  would  have  been  a 
surprise  in  any  case  to  see  the  highest  law  office  and  all  but 
the  highest  lay  dignity  in  the  realm  conferred  on  a  church 
man,  and  a  custom  thus  revived  which  was  supposed  to  have 
ceased  in  the  preceding  century.  It  was  a  greater  surprise 
to  see  the  office  conferred  on  a  churchman  who  had  not 
passed  his  thirty-ninth  year  and  whose  special  qualifications 
were  so  problematical.  Nevertheless,,  on  the  9th  of  October 
1621,  Williams  was  inaugurated  as  Lord  Keeper  in  West 
minster  Hall.  The  Bishopric  of  Lincoln  having  fallen  con 
veniently  vacant,  he  was  also  consecrated  to  that  Bishopric 
on  the  llth  of  the  following  month.1 

Lord  Keeper,  Privy  Councillor,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  &c., 
Williams  was,  in  fact,  from  1621  to  the  death  of  James  in 
March  1625,  the  working  partner  of  Buckingham  in  Church 
and  State.  One  can  trace  to  his  influence  a  certain  difference 
in  the  policy  of  the  government  in  the  last  years  of  James's 
reign  from  the  policy  in  the  earlier  part  of  it.  In  state 
matters  the  aim  of  Williams  seems  to  have  been  to  bring 
the  prerogative,  if  possible,  into  greater  harmony  with 
popular  feeling.  In  all  his  own  speeches  and  correspond 
ence,  and  in  every  public  paper  drawn  up  by  his  pen,  there 
is  a  fearless  directness  of  language,  contrasting  strongly 
with  the  usual  style  of  official  documents ;  and  he  seems  to 
have  infused  something  of  this  frankness  into  the  intercourse 
between  James  and  his  last  two  Parliaments.  In  Church 
politics  he  was  in  favour  of  an  inclusive  rather  than  a 

1  Bishop  Racket's  Life  of  Williams,  lively  piece  of  biography,  and  is  full  of 

1693.     Whoever  wants  a  folio  of   the  interesting  and  exact  information  not 

seventeenth  century  for  light  historical  to    be    easily   found    elsewhere.       In 

reading  cannot  do  better  than  procure  copiousness   of    allusion    and    in    wit, 

this  book.    Although  a  continuous  and  Hacket  somewhat  resembles  Fuller, 
extravagant  panegyric,  it  is    a  most 


LOED    KEEPER   WILLIAMS.  353 

coercive  system.  In  modern  language,  his  policy  was  rather  | 
that  of  the  Broad  Church  than  of  either  the  High  Church  or  I 
the  Low  Church.  This  arose  mainly  from  the  eminent 
secularity  of  his  mind.  The  statesman  predominated  in  him 
over  the  churchman.  At  College,  though  he  inclined  de 
cidedly  to  the  Augustinian  side  in  purely  theological  con 
troversies,  and  though  he  was  an  advocate  for  established 
ceremonies  in  worship,  he  had  been  notoriously  so  general 
in  his  friendships,  and  so  tolerant  of  all  differences  in  non- 
fundamentals,  that  many  called  him  "  neutral."  As  he  rose 
in  the  Church,  he  still  argued  against  the  necessity  of  being 
either  a  Guelph  or  a  Ghibelline.  When,  therefore,  he 
became  the  King's  chief  adviser  in  Church  affairs,  he  had 
neither  Abbot's  hostility  to  the  Papists  nor  Bancroft's  to 
Puritans.  "  In  the  relaxation  of  Roman  Catholics'  penalties," 
he  writes  to  Buckingham  at  Madrid,  "  I  keep  off  the  King 
"from  appearing  in  it  as  much  as  I  can,. and  take  all  upon 
"  myself,  as  I  believe  every  servant  of  his  ought  to  do  in 
"such  negotiations."  But,  though  he  reaped  much  un 
popularity  in  consequence,  his  reasons  were  purely  political  j 
and  he  was  ready,  as  soon  as  the  Spanish  marriage  should  be 
concluded,  to  relapse  into  a  more  popular  policy.  Thus, 
writing  to  Buckingham,  still  at  Madrid,  to  inform  him  that 
the  new  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of  Chalcedon  has  come 
privately  to  London,  and  that  he  is  much  perplexed  what  to 
do,  he  concludes  characteristically,  "If  you  were  shipped 
"  with  the  Infanta,  the  only  counsel  were  to  let  the  judges 
"proceed  with  him  presently,  hang  him  out  of  the  way,  and 
"  the  King  to  blame  my  Lord  of  Canterbury  or  myself  for 
"  it."  In  his  relations  to  the  Puritans  there  was  more  of 
personal  kindliness.  In  very  flagrant  cases  of  nonconformity 
in  his  own  diocese  he  did  not  hesitate  to  punish ;  but  his 
general  practice  was  to  overlook  what  could  be  overlooked 
and  to  trust  to  mild  measures  with  delinquents  who  were 
reported  to  him.  "Men  that  are  sound  in  their  morals," 
says  his  biographer  Hacket,  "  and,  in  minutes,  imperfect  in 
"  their  intellectuals,  are  best  reclaimed  when  they  are 

"mignarized  and  stroked  gently."     And  so  in  Williams's 
VOL.  i.  A  A 


354  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

direction  of  the  Church  generally.  In  some  cases  he  pre 
vailed  on  his  colleagues  in  the  prelacy  to  abandon  prosecu 
tions  which  they  had  begun,  and  in  others  he  worked  upon 
the  King's  good  humour  to  obtain  pardon  for  offenders.  In 
short,  the  chief  fault  that  the  Puritans  had  to  find  with 
Williams  was  not  that  he  was  severe  towards  themselves, 
but  that  he  was  too  tolerant  of  the  Papists. 

When  Milton  went  to  Cambridge  in  1625  the  Church 
was  still  regulated  by  the  comparatively  broad  policy  which 
resulted  from  the  paramount  influence  of  Williams,  combined 
with  whatever  degree  of  official  power  still  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  crippled  but  popular  Abbot.  That  Milton  was 
fully  prepared  at  this  time  for  such  a  degree  of  conformity 
as  was  necessary  for  his  quiet  admission  into  the  Church  is 
a  fact  worth  recollection.  Not  only  were  the  same  subscrip 
tions  exacted  from  students  on  taking  their  degrees  that_ 
were  required  from  the  clergy;  but  those  forms  and  cere 
monies  to  which  the  Puritans  most  objected  were  as  rigidly 
enjoined  by  the  Canons  in  colleges  as  in  churches.  Thus, 
by  Canon  xvi.,  it  is  enjoined  that  in  divine  service  in  College- 
chapels  "  the  order,  form  and  ceremonies  shall  be  duly 
observed  as  they  are  set  down  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  without  any  omission  or  alteration";  by  Canon  xvii. 
it  is  enjoined  that  all  students  in  colleges  shall  wear  surplices, 
and  all  graduates  surplices  and  hoods,  in  chapel,  on  Sundays 
and  holidays;  and  by  Canon  xxiii.  it  is  enjoined  that  all 
students  in  colleges  shall  receive  the  communion  four  times 
a  year  at  the  least,  "  kneeling  reverently  and  decently  upon 
their  knees."  In  process  of  time,  as  we  have  seen,  those 
rules  had  been  relaxed,  and  in  some  colleges  they  were 
ostentatiously  disregarded.  In  Christ's,  however,  they  were 
decently  observed ;  and  Milton,  while  there,  must  have  worn 
his  white  surplice  on  Sundays,  and  received  the  communion 
kneeling,  as  punctually  as  the  rest. 

But,  though  the  state  of  the  Church  under  Williams  was 
such  that  young  men  of  Puritan  principles  did  not  feel 
themselves  debarred  from  the  ministry,  there  were  not 
wanting  new  signs  of  alarm.  Hitherto,  as  we  have  said, 


GROWTH    OF   ENGLISH   ANTI- CALVINISM.  355 

the  difference  between  the  Puritans  and  the  Prelatists  had 
been  mainly  on  points  of  Church  government  and  ritual. 
The  most  strenuous  partisans  of  Episcopacy  had  not,  in 
general,  exhibited  any  hostility  to  the  Calvinistic  doctrines 
of  their  opponents.  In  this  respect,  however,  a  change  had 
now  begun  to  be  noted.  As  if,  after  all,  them  .was  an 
organic  connexion  between  the  Calvinistic  theology  and  the 
Calvinistic  Church  polity  and  ritual,  it  began  to  be  observed 
that  strong  Calvinistic  doctrine  was  to  be  found  chiefly 
among  the  Puritan  preachers,  and  that  a  good  many  of  the 
hierarchical  party  tended  towards  a  Romish  or  Armmian 
interpretation  of  the  Articles.  It  was  after  the  Synod  of 
Dort  in  1619  that  this  tendency  to  a  doctrinal  divergence  of 
the  two  Church  parties  became  most  evident.  The  English 
divines  whom  James  had  sent  over  to  represent  the  English 
Church  in  the  Synod  had,  as  James  intended,  taken  the 
Calvinistic  side  on  the  famous  "  five  points  "  in  dispute, — 
to  wit,  Election,  Redemption,  Original  Sin,  Irresistible 
Grace,  and  the  Perseverance  of  the  Saints, — and  had  thus 
contributed  to  the  victory  of  the  Dutch  Calvinists  over  the 
Dutch  Arrninians.  In  the  main,  King  James  and  the  Eng 
lish  clergy  were  highly  satisfied  with  the  manner  in  which 
the  deputies  had  discharged  their  trust.  Here  and  there, 
however,  throughout  England,  there  were  divines  who,  de 
bating  the  " five  points"  over  again  on  their  own  account, 
were  not  so  satisfied  as  the  majority  with  the  issue  of  the 
Dort  Conferences,  and  showed  themselves  to  be  "  tainted  " 
with  that  very  heresy  of  Arminianism  which  the  Synod  of 
Dort  had  been  assembled  to  condemn,  as  well  as  with 
corresponding  opinions  held  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  Some 
of  these  divines  were  in  fellowships  or  other  important 
places  in  the  Universities ;  nay,  one  or  two  of  the  bishops 
were  supposed  to  be  infected.  In  short,  an  Anti-Calvinistic 
spirit  had  been  quietly  forming  itself  in  the  English  Church 
for  many  years,  and  was  now  openly  spreading,  more  parti 
cularly  among  the  younger  clergy.  The  phenomenon  was 
the  more  perplexing  to  the  King  because  these  "  Arminians  " 
and  "  Popishly-inclined  Doctors"  were  generally  the  most 

A  A   2 


356  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

zealous  and  thorough-going  supporters  of  the  royal  prero 
gative  in  the  State  and  of  hierarchical  forms  in  the  Church. 
Pledged  against  their  theology,  but  enamoured  of  their 
principles  of  polity,  which  should  James  prefer  ?  As  was  to 
be  expected,  his  liking  for  their  principles  of  polity  over 
came  his  theological  prejudices ;  and,  just  at  the  time  when 
the  Spanish  Match  was  dragging  on  its  slow  length  and  the 
people  were  sufficiently  excited  already  by  the  concessions 
made  in  its  behalf  to  the  Papists,  it  began  to  be  a  matter  of 
complaint  that  divines  notoriously  Arminian  or  Popish  in 
their  theological  tendencies  were  admitted  to  intimacy  with 
the  King  and  favoured  with  preferments.  The  pulpits 
became  the  organs  of  the  popular  feeling.  Over  the  whole 
country  the  Calvinistic  clergy,  whether  Puritans  or  not, 
betook  themselves  to  expositions  of  the  "  five  points,"  just 
as  soldiers  leave  the  safe  parts  of  the  fortress  to  rush  where 
the  breach  is  being  made ;  and  with  these  expositions  were 
mixed  up  denunciations  of  Arminianism  and  Popish  error, 
lamentations  of  their  increase  in  the  Church,  reflections  on 
the  Government  for  the  toleration  accorded  to  the  Papists, 
and  allusions  to  the  Spanish  Match.  The  steady  Calvinistic 
fire  from  one  set  of  pulpits  was  returned  by  Arminian  sharp- 
shooting  from  another.  Arminian  tenets,  if  not  directly 
inculcated,  were  insinuated ;  and  what  could  not  be  safely 
done  in  the  way  of  attack  on  Calvinistic  doctrine  on  the 
"  five  points  "  was  compensated  by  abundant  dissertation  on 
the  evils  of  Nonconformity. 

To  allay  this  speculative  storm  which  was  passing  over 
the  Church,  the  King  resolved  on  a  characteristic  measure. 
It  was  to  "  command  silence  on  both  sides,  or  such  a  moder 
ation  as  was  next  to  silence.1"  The  secularity  of  Williams's 
mind  made  him  the  very  man  to  acquiesce  in  such  a  policy 
and  to  calculate  on  its  success;  and,  in  1622,  a  circular 
paper  of  Directions  to  Preachers  was  accordingly  drawn  up 
by  him,  and  sent  by  His  Majesty's  command  to  Archbishop 
Abbot,  to  be  by  him  forwarded  to  all  the  bishops,  with 
instructions  that  every  clergyman  or  preacher  in  their 
dioceses  should  receive  a  copy,  and  be  obliged  to  obey 


GROWTH   OF    ENGLISH   ANTI-CALVINISM.  3->7 

its   injunctions.      Among   the   directions   were   the  follow 
ing:— 

1.  That  no  preacher,  under  the  degree  and  calling  of  a  Bishop  or 
Dean  of  a  Cathedral  or  Collegiate  Church  (and  they  upon  the  King's 
days  and  set  festivals),  do  take  occasion,  by  the  expounding  of  any 
text  of  Scripture  whatsoever,  to  fall  into  any  set  discourse  or  common 
place,  otherwise  than  by  the  opening  the  coherence  and  division  of 
the  text,  which  shall  not  be  comprehended  and  warranted,  in  essence, 
substance,  effect,  or  natural  inference,  within  some  one  of  the  Articles 
of  Religion  set  forth  in  1562,  or  in  some  of  the  Homilies  set  forth  by 
authority  of  the  Church  of  England.  .  .  . 

2.  That  no  parson,  vicar,  curate,  or  lecturer  shall  preach  any  sermon 
or  collation  hereafter  upon  Sundays  and  holidays  in  the  afternoon  in 
any  cathedral  or  parish  church  throughout  the  kingdom,  but  upon 
some  part  of  the  Catechism  or  some  text  taken  out  of  the  Creed,  Ten 
Commandments,  or  the  Lord's  Prayer, — funeral  sermons  only  ex- 
cepted.     And  that  those  preachers  be  most  encouraged  and  approved 
of  who  spend  the  afternoon's  exercise  in  the  examination  of  children 
in  their  Catechism  [i.  e.  not  in  preaching  sermons  at  all]  ;  which  is 
the  most  ancient  and  laudable  custom  of  teaching  in  the  Chnrch  of 
England. 

3.  That  no  preacher,  of  what  title  soever,  under  the  degree  of  a 
Bishop  or  Dean  at  the  least,  do  from  henceforth  presume  to  preach 
in  any  popular  auditory  the  deep  points  of  Predestination,  Election, 
Reprobation,  or  of  the  Universality,  Efficacy,  Resistibility,  or  Irre 
sistibility  of  God's  grace,  but  leave  these  themes  rather  to  be  handled 
by  learned  men,  and  that  moderately  and  modestly,  by  way  of  use 
and  application,  father  than  by  way  of  positive  doctrines,  being  fitter 
for  the  schools  than  for  simple  auditories. 

4.  That  no  preacher,  of  what  title  or  denomination  soever  \i.  e.  not 
even  a  Bishop]?  shall  presume,  in  any  auditory  within  this  kingdom, 
to  declare,  limit,  or  bound  out,  by  way  of  positive  doctrine,  in  any 
lecture  or  sermon,  the  power,  prerogative,  and  jurisdiction,  authority 
or  duty,  of  sovereign  princes,  or  otherwise  meddle  with  matters  of 
State  than  as  &c. 

5.  That  no  preacher,  of  what  title  or  denomination  soever,  shall   <-- 
presume  causelessly,  or  without  invitation  from  the  text,  to  fall  into 
bitter  invectives  and  undecent  railing  speeches  against  the  persons  of 
either  Papists  or  Puritans.1  .  .  . 

The  effect  of  these  injunctions  may  be  easily  conceived. 
Here  was  a  king  whose  sovereign  method  for  preserving  the 
peace  of  the  Church  was  that  of  abridging  the  liberty  of 
preaching  !  Scripture  itself  had  declared  all  Scriptures  to 
be  profitable;  but  here  human  authority  had  ventured  to 
declare  what  Scriptures  were  profitable  and  what  not,  what 
doctrines  were  to  be  expounded  and  worked  into  the  human 
soul,  and  what  left  dormant  in  the  sealed  Bible  !  Such  were 
1  Bushworth,  I.  64,  65. 


358  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OP    HIS    TIME. 

the  complaints  of  the  Puritans  and  all  the  Calvinistic  clergy, 
— the  paraphrase  in  that  age  of  our  more  general  claim  of 
the  right  of  free  speculation.  True,  the  injunctions  were 
two-edged,  and,  as  they  cut  down  high  Calvmistic  preaching 
on  the  one  hand,  so  they  cut  down  Arminian  or  Popish 
counter-preaching  on  the  other.  But  the  impartiality,  it 
was  said,  was  more  apparent  than  real.  The  liberty  which 
was  abrogated  was  one  for  which  the  Calvinistic  minis- 

>  ters  cared  more  than  their  opponents.  To  the  Calvinistic 
preachers,  or  at  least  to  many  of  them,  it  was  a  matter  of 
conscience  to  propound  at  full  length,  and  without  any 
abatement,  the  doctrines  of  election,  predestination,  and 
justification  by  faith.  These  were  to  them  the  deep 
points  of  the  Gospel.  They  might  be  called  metaphysical 
subtleties  by  their  opponents,  and  the  teaching  of  them  from 
the  pulpit  might  be  reproached  as  an  unnecessary  troubling 
of  the  common  mind;  but  why  had  the  Christian  Eevel- 
ation  been  given  but  to  import  this  very  metaphysic  into 
the  world,  this  one  supernatural  sword  for  piercing  the 

;>  carnal  heart  ?  From  the  very  nature  of  the  other  system  of 
Divinity,  as  well  as  from  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  it 
was  of  less  vital  concern  to  the  opponents  of  Calvinism  to 
press  their  interpretations  of  the  "five  points,"  unless  by 
way  of  controversy.  Hence,  towards  the  end  of  James's 
reign,  arose  a  new  distinction  of  names  among  the  English 
clergy,  superseding  to  some  extent  the  traditional  distinc 
tion  into  Prelatists  and  Puritans.  On  the  one  hand,  those 
of  the  prelatic  or  hierarchical  party  who  were  most  easy 
under  the  recent  policy  of  the  Court  with  respect  to  the 
Catholics  were  denounced  as  Arminians  and  Semi-Papists ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  new  name  of  Doctrinal  Puritans 
was  invented  as  a  term  of  reproach  for  those  who,  though 
not  accused  of  disaffection  to  the  forms  of  the  Church,  held 
high  Calvinistic  views,  and  shared  in  the  popular  alarm  at 
the  concessions  to  Romanism. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  a  man  appeared  prominently  on  the 
stage  who  was  to  supersede  Williams  in  the  government  of 
the  Church,  and  whose  life  was  to  bo  identified  in  a  very 


RISE    OF   BISHOP   LAUD.  359 

memorable  manner  for  the  next  twenty  years  with  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  history  of  England.  This  was  WILLIAM 
LAUD,  as  yet  only  bishop  of  the  poor  Welsh  diocese  of  St. 
David's,  bat  already  noted  as  an  ecclesiastic  in  whom,  more 
than  in  any  other,  the  spirit  of  the  new  Anglican  Anti-  / 
Calvinism  was  incarnate. 

Laud  was  nine  years  older  than  Williams,  having  been 
born  at  Eeading  in  1573.  His  rise  in  the  Church  had  been 
much  more  slow  and  difficult  than  that  of  the  aspiring 
Welshman.  Elected  a  scholar  of  St.  John's  College, 
Oxford,  in  1590,  he  became  a  Fellow  of  the  College  in  1593, 
and  took  his  M.A.  degree  in  1598;  "at  which  time,"  says 
Wood,  "he  was  esteemed  by  those  that  knew  him  a  very 
forward,  confident,  and  zealous  person."  He  was  of  very 
small  stature,  and  was  known  therefore  to  the  wits  of  the 
University  as  " parva  Lau*"  or  "little  Laud."  He  became 
deacon  in  1600,  priest  in  1601,  and  held  a  Divinity  lecture 
ship  in  his  College  in  the  following  year.  In  1604  he  was 
one  of  the  Proctors  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  and  in  the 
same  year  he  became  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Devonshire. 
In  1607,  being  by  that  time  B.D.,  he  became  vicar  of  Stan 
ford  in  Northamptonshire;  in  1608  he  had  the  advowson  of 
North  Kilworth  in  Leicestershire  given  him;  in  the  same 
year,  being  then  D.D.,  he  became  chaplain  to  Neile,  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  in  order  to  be  near  whom  he  exchanged  the 
advowson  of  North  Kilworth  for  that  of  West  Tilbury  in 
Essex;  and  in  1610,  on  being  presented  by  Neile  to  the 
rectory  of  Cuckstone  in  Kent,  he  resigned  his  fellowship. 
His  connexion  with  Oxford,  however,  was  almost  immediately 
renewed  by  his  election  in  1611,  though  not  without  much 
opposition,  to  the  presidency  of  St.  John's.  In  this  office 
he  remained  for  ten  years,  becoming  in  that  time,  chiefly 
through  the  influence  of  Neile,  who  had  been  transferred 
to  the  see  of  Lincoln,  successively  chaplain  to  the  King, 
Prebendary  of  Bugden  in  Lincoln,  Archdeacon  of  Hunting 
don,  Dean  of  Gloucester,  Hector  of  Ibstock  in  Leicestershire, 
and  Prebendary  of  Westminster.  "In  some  sort,"  says 
Fuller,  "  he  had  thus  served  in  all  the  offices  of  the  Church, 


360  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

from  a  common  soldier  upwards,"  and  so  had  "  acquired  an 
experimental  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  all  such  persons 
as  were  at  last  to  be  subject  to  his  authority."  1  And  yet 
he  "bare  no  great  stream,"  but  flowed  on  in  a  kind  ot 
sombre  privacy,  "  taking  more  notice  of  the  world  than  the 
world  did  of  him."  Those  who  knew  him  best  do  not  seem 
to  have  liked  him,  or  to  have  been  able  to  make  out  exactly 
what  he  meant.  "I  would  I  knew,"  says  Hall,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Norwich,  " where  to  find  you:  to-day  you  are 
"  with  the  Romanists,  to-morrow  with  us ;  our  adversaries 
"  think  you  ours,  and  we  theirs ;  your  conscience  finds  you 
"with  both  and  neither:  how  long  will  you  halt  in  this 
' '  indifferency  ?  "  2  To  the  same  effect,  but  with  more 
hostility,  spoke  Dr.  Robert  Abbot,  brother  of  Archbishop 
Abbot,  and  King's  Divinity  Professor  at  Oxford,  who,  in  a 
sermon  publicly  preached  at  the  University  in  the  year  1614, 
made  the  President  of  St.  John's  the  object  of  a  direct 
attack.  "Men,"  he  said,  "under  pretence  of  truth  and 
"preaching  against  the  Puritans,  strike  at  the  heart  and 
"  root  of  faith  and  religion  now  established  among  us."  Such 
men,  he  added,  saved  their  credit  as  churchmen  by  attacks 
on  the  Puritans,  leaving  the  Papists  alone ;  ' { or,  if  they  do 
"  at  any  time  speak  against  the  Papists,  they  do  but  beat  a 
"  little  upon  the  bush,  and  that  softly  too,  for  fear  of  troub 
ling  or  disquieting  the  birds  that  are  in  it."  Laud,  who 
himself  reports  these  passages  of  the  sermon  to  his  patron 
Neile,  says  that  he  "  was  fain  to  sit  patiently  and  hear  him 
self  thus  abused  almost  an  hour  together,  being  pointed  at 
as  he  sat."  He  adds  that  the  whole  University  was  talking 
of  the  affair,  and  that  his  friends  were  telling  him  his  credit 
would  be  gone  if  he  did  not  answer  Abbot  in  his  own  style ; 
' '  nevertheless,"  he  says,  "  in  a  business  of  this  kind,  I  will 
not  be  swayed  from  a  patient  course."  3  Archbishop  Abbot, 
in  his  memoir  of  his  own  experiences  left  for  the  instruction 
of  posterity,  is  not  less  severe  on  Laud  than  his  brother  had 

1  Church  Hist. ;  Book  X.  p.  90,  and  Book  XI.  p.  216. 

2  Quoted  by  Neal,  History  of  thePuritans,  II.  152. 

3  Eushworth,  1.62. 


EISE    OP    BISHOP    LAUD.  361 

been  to  Laud's  face.  "  His  life  in  Oxford/'  says  the  Arch 
bishop,  "  was  to  pick  quarrels  with  the  lectures  of  the 
"  public  readers,  and  to  advertise  them  to  the  then  Bishop 
"of  Durham  [i.  e.  to  Neile,  transferred  from  Lincoln  to 
"Durham  in  1617],  that  he  might  fill  the  ears  of  King 
"James  with  discontents  against -the  honest  men  that  took 
"  pains  in  their  places  and  settled  the  truth,  which  he  called 
"Puritanism,  on  their  auditors.  He  made  it  his  work  to 
"  see  what  books  were  in  the  press,  and  to  look  over 
"  Epistles  Dedicatory,  and  Prefaces  to  the  Header,  to  see 
' '  what  faults  might  be  found."  l  This,  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered,  is  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  had  reason  to  regard 
Laud  as  his  chief  enemy,  and  whom,  on  the  other  hand, 
Laud  mentions  in  his  Diary  as  already  in  1611  his  enemy 
and  the  "original  cause  of  all  his  troubles."  But  even' 
Laud's  biographer,  Heylin,  admits  that  it  was  thought 
dangerous  at  Oxford  to  be  much  in  his -company  ;  and  there 
is  abundant  evidence  that,  from  the  first,  Laud  had  that 
habit  of  ferreting  out  the  faults  of  his  fellow- clergy  men  and 
reporting  them  privately  in  higher  quarters  which  the 
unfriendly  Archbishop  attributes  to  him,  and  which,  with  all 
allowance  for  any  overstrained  sense  of  canonical  duty  as 
obliging  to  such  work,  men  of  no  party  are  accustomed  to 
think  compatible  with  a  wholesome  or  generous  nature. 
The  truth  is,  what  with  nature  and  what  with  education, 
Laud  had,  from  his  earliest  connexion  with  the  Church, 
resolved  on  a  patient  course  from  which  he  never  swerved. 
He  might  be  an  enigma  to  others,  who  saw  that,  without 
belonging  to  Rome,  he  was  a  little  over  the  frontier  of  the 
Church  of  England  on  that  side  from  which  the  Vatican  was 
visible;  but  he  was  perfectly  clear  and  sure  in  himself.  "I 
"  have  ever,"  he  said  afterwards,2  "  since  I  understood  aught 
"  in  Divinity,  kept  one  constant  tenor  in  this  my  profession^ 
"  without  variation  or  shifting  from  one  opinion  to  another 
"for  any  worldly  ends."  "What  that  "tenor"  was  he  pro 
ceeds  to  explain.  "Of  all  diseases,"  he  says,  "I  have 

1  Eushworth,  I.  440. 

2  On  his  trial,  1643  ;  see  Wharton's  Laud,  p.  224. 


362  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  ever  hated  a  palsy  in  religion,  well  knowing  that  too  often 
"a  dead-palsy  ends  that  disease  in  the  fearful  forgetfulness 
/f  of  God  and  his  judgments.     Ever  since  I  came  in  place  I 
"laboured    nothing   more   than    that    the    external    public 
"worship  of  God,  too  much  slighted  in  most  parts  of  the 
"  kingdom,  might   be  preserved,   and   that  with  as  much 
"  decency  and  uniformity  as  might  be  ;  being  still  of  opinion 
"  that  unity   cannot  long  continue   in   the    Church    where 
( '  uniformity  is  shut  out  at  the  church-door.  And  I  evidently 
"  saw  that  the  public  neglect  of  God's  service  in  the  outward 
"  face  of  it,  and  the  nasty  lying  of  many  places  dedicated  to 
"  that  service,  had  almost  cast  a  damp  upon  the  true  and 
"inward  worship  of  God;  which,  while  we  live  in  the  body, 
te  needs  external  helps,  and  all  little  enough  to  keep  it  in 
"any  vigour."     From  the  first,  according  to  this  account, 
Laud  had  made  up  his  mind  in  favour  of  a  punctual  con 
formity  throughout  the  Church,  to  be  enforced  by  law  and 
canon,   and  also  in  favour  of  a  ceremonial   of  worship  in 
which  advantage  should  be  taken  of  every  external  aid  of 
architecture,  decoration,  furniture,  gesture,  or  costume,  either 
actually  at  the  time  allowed  in  the  Church  of  England,  or 
for  which  there  was  good  precedent  in  more  ancient  ritual. 
Thus,   from   the   first,  he   was  predetermined   against   the 
Puritans   to   a   degree   peculiarly   intense.     But   his  Anti- 
Puritanism  involved  more  than  the  mere  passion  for  uni 
formity  and  fondness  for  ceremonial.     lie  was  one  of  those, 
he  tells  us,  who  believed  in  the  "divine  Apostolical  right " 
of  Episcopacy,  and  who  therefore  could  not  recognise  as  a 
true  portion  of  the  Catholic  Church  of  Christ  any  community 
or  set  of  men  who  pretended  to  have  emancipated  them 
selves  from  Bishops.     "There  can  be  no  Church  without' 
diocesan  bishops,"  he  had  said  in  1603 ;  and  again,  in  1614, 
"  The  Presbyterians  are  as  bad  as  the  Papists."     In   the 
tenacity  with  which  he  held  this  doctrine,  and  the  persist 
ency  with  which  in  his  own  mind  he  urged  it  to  its  conse 
quences  as  regarded  the  Anglican  Church,  in  itself  and  in  its 
relations  to  other  Churches,  he  seems  to  have  been  singular 
even  among  his  prelatic  English  contemporaries.     He  seems 


RISE    OF   BISHOP    LAUD.  363 

also  to  have  carried  farther  than  any  of  them  the  notion  of 
the  superior  value  of  public  worship  over  preaching  in  the 
ordinary  service  of  the  Church.  In  all  this,  too,  he  was  a 
predetermined  Anti-Puritan.  But  perhaps  that  which  gave 
his  Anti-Puritanism  its  peculiar  colour  was  the  ingredient 
of  doctrinal  antipathy  which  he  infused  into  it.  That  he 
held  Popish  tenets  in  theology  is  not  true  to  the  extent  that 
was  asserted  by  his  adversaries.  His  belief  in  the  divine  < 
right  of  Episcopacy  led  him  to  regard  the  Church  of  Eome 
as  a  true  Church,  which  judgment  he  could  not  extend  to 
the  "conventicles"  of  Protestant  sectaries;  he  also  rever 
enced  the  antiquity  of  the  Romish  Church,  and  liked  parts 
of  its  ritual;  but  he  thought  it  a  true  Church  with  such 
"  gross  corruptions/'  as  well  in  doctrine  as  in  practice,  that 
much  purgation  of  it  would  be  necessary  before  the  Anglican 
Church  could  re-unite  with  it,  and  that,  as  it  was,  everything 
should  be  done  to  prevent  it  from  obtaining  converts  in 
England.  At  the  same  time  his  estimate  of  the  doctrinal 
differences  which  separated  the  two  Churches  was  decidedly 
under  the  mark  of  general  English  opinion ;  and  on  one  or 
two  doctrines,  such  as  those  of  the  Eucharist  and  of  Justifi 
cation,  his  interpretation  of  the  Articles  of  the  Church  of  / 
England  had  a  Popish  tinge.  "With  this  Romish  tendency 
on  some  Articles  he  combined  an  Arminian  tendency  on  tho 
points  appertaining  to  the  Predestinarian  controversy.  Not 
that  he  had  imbibed  his  opinions  on  those  points  from 
Arminius  himself  or  his  disciples ;  for,  as  Clarendon  says, 
"he  had  eminently  opposed  Calvin's  doctrine  in  those 
"controversies  before  the  name  of  Arminius  was  taken 
"  notice  of,  or  his  opinions  heard  of."  But  the  opinions 
^hemselves  were  of  the  kind  called  Arminian ;  and  Laud's 
antipathy  to  the  Calvinists  in  behalf  of  them  was  even 
greater  than  that  which  the  Arminians  of  Holland  enter 
tained  against  their  Calvinistic  compatriots.  "  He  had," 
says  Clarendon,  "from  his  first  entrance  into  the  world, 
"  without  any  disguise  or  dissimulation  declared  his  own 
"  opinion  of  that  classis  of  men."  In  fact,  at  a  time  when 
Calvinism  was  still  in  the  ascendancy  in  the  English  Church, 


364  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Laud  had  formed  for  himself  a  new  standard  of  Anglican 
orthodoxy,,  to  which  he  hoped  to  see  the  whole  Church  yet 
conform;  and  he  it  was  who,  at  a  later  period,  when  James's 
Calvinistic  predilections  were  weakened  by  the  events  of  the 
Spanish  Match,  invented  and  put  in  circulation  the  term 
Doctrinal  Puritans,  as  a  synonym  for  all  in  the  Church  of 
England  who  adhered  to  Qalvin  doctrinally,  even  though 
/  they  might  have  no  affection  for  the  Genevan  discipline. 

Till  the  year  1621  this  man  of  most  peculiar  fibre  was 
known  only  within  a  limited  circle,  and  there  rather  as  an 
intense  and  restless  than  as  a  powerful  or  massive  personality. 
*  He  was  forty-eight  years  of  age;  he  was  President  of  St. 
John's  College,  Oxford,  where  his  rule  was  strict;  he  was 
chaplain  to  the  King,  Dean  of  Gloucester,  and  a  Prebendary 
of  Westminster ;  but  he  was  still  only  "  little  Laud,"  going 
and  coming  about  the  Court,  the  smallest  in  body  of  all  the 
ecclesiastics  there  to  be  seen,  with  a  red  face  and  a  kind  of 
cheery  quickness  of  expression,  his  eyes  sharp  and  piercing, 
his  speech  somewhat  testy  and  irascible,  his  garb  plain,  and 
his  hair  cut  unusually  close.1  The  King  did  not  like  him 
nearly  so  well  as  Williams.  Buckingham,  however,  liked 
him  better. 

Some  changes  in  the  English  Episcopate  having  been 
required  at  the  time  when  Williams  came  into  political 
office,  it  had  been  consistent  with  his  broad  policy,  and  also, 
it  seems,  with  his  private  interests,2  to  recommend  Laud  to 
the  King  for  the  bishopric  of  St.  David's,  in  balance  to 
his  nomination  of  the  Calvinistic  Dr.  Davenant  for  the 
bishopric  of  Salisbury.  It  had  not  been  without  difficulty 
that  Williams  gained  his  point.  Archbishop  Abbot  was 
against  Laud,  and  the  King  had  strong  personal  objections. 
Williams,  in  arguing  with  the  King,  reminded  him  of  Laud's 
persevering  services  in  the  cause  of  Conformity,  which  had 
begun  as  far  back  as  the  days  of  the  Millenary  Petition ; 
and  he  represented  at  the  same  time  that,  in  spite  of  all  that 
was  said  to  the  contrary,  the  man  was  a  good  Protestant. 

1  Fuller,  Church  Hist.  Book  XI.  p.  119  ;  and  other  accounts. 

2  "Wharton's  Laud,  Preface. 


RISE   OF   BISHOP   LAUD.  365 

The  King,  after  stating  minor  objections,  burst  forth  as  fol 
lows : — "Because  I  see  I  shall  not  be  rid  of  you  unless  I 
"  tell  you  ray  unpublished  cogitations,  the  plain  truth  is  that 
"I  keep  Laud  back  from  all  place  and  authority  because  I 
"  find  he  hath  a  restless  spirit,  and  cannot  see  when  matters 
"  are  well,  but  loves  to  toss  and  change  and  to  bring  things 
t(  to  a  pitch  of  reformation  floating  in  his  own  brain/'  To  ( 
prove  that  he  was  not  speaking  at  random,  he  informed  ' 
Williams  that  Laud  had  been  privately  pressing  on  him  the  ' 
project  of  bringing  the  Scots  to  "  a  nearer  conjunction  with 
the  Liturgy  and  Canons"  of  the  English  Church,  and  this 
notwithstanding  that,  after  their  General  Assembly  of  1618, 
he  had  pledged  his  royal  word  that  he  would  "  try  their 
obedience  no  farther  anent  ecclesiastical  affairs."  He  had 
rebuffed  Laud  when  the  subject  was  first  mentioned ;  but 
"for  all  this  he  feared  not  mine  anger,  but  assaulted  me 
"again  with  another  ill-fangled  platform  to  make  that 
"  stubborn  Kirk  stoop  more  to  the  English  pattern.  He 
"  knows  not  the  stomach  of  that  people,  but  I  ken  the  story 
"  of  my  grandmother,  the  Queen  Regent,  that,  after  she  was 
f '  inveigled  to  break  her  promise  made  to  some  mutineers  at 
"  a  Perth  meeting,  she  never  saw  good  day,  but  from  thence, 
s '  being  much  beloved  before,  was  despised  of  all  the  people/5 
Williams  still  urging  the  matter,  and  saying  that  Laud 
would  prove  tractable,  "Then  take  him  to  you,"  said  the 
easy  sovereign,  "  but  on  my  soul  you  will  repent  it."  A 
Accordingly,  on  the  18th  of  November  1621,  Laud  was 
consecrated  Bishop  of  St.  David's. 

Except  that  Laud  had  now  a  diocese  in  which  to  carry  out 
his  principles,  his  power  was  not  much  increased  so  long  as 
James  lived.  Events,  however,  were  laying  a  foundation 
for  his  future  pre-eminence.  Most  important  of  these  was 
his  intimacy  with  Buckingham.  It  so  happened  that,  about 
the  beginning  of  1622,  the  mother  of  the  favourite  was 
shaken  in  her  religion  and  gained  over  to  the  Romish 
Church,  and  that,  "  between  the  continual  cunning  labours 
of  Fisher  the  Jesuit  and  the  persuasions  of  the  lady  his 
i  Racket,  Part  I.  p.  64. 


366  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

mother,"  Buckingham  himself  "was  almost  lost  from  the 
Church  of  England."  The  perversion  of  two  such  personages 
at  such  a  time  would  have  been  a  great  scandal ;  and  the 
King,  much  concerned,  employed  Laud  in  the  affair.  He 
had  conferences  with  the  waverers,  engaged  in  a  debate  in 
their  presence  with  Fisher  (May  24, 1622),  wrote  expositions 
for  their  private  perusal,  and,  on  the  whole,  succeeded.  "  I 
"had  God's  blessing  upon  me  so  far  as  to  settle  my  lord 
"  duke  till  his  death ;  and  I  brought  the  lady,  his  mother, 
"  to  the  Church  again,  but  she  was  not  so  happy  as  to  con- 
"  tinue  with  us."  l  Doubtless,  at  this  time  Laud  indoctrin 
ated  the  Marquis  with  his  theory  of  Anglican  orthodoxy, 
which  may  have  been  found  sufficiently  satisfactory  to  the 
family  to  render  migration  to  Rome  unnecessary.  At  all 
events,  from  that  hour,  Laud  and  Buckingham  were  pledged 
to  each  other.  "  June  9,  being  Whitsuntide,"  writes  Laud 
in  his  Diary,  ' '  my  Lord  Marquess  Buckingham  was  pleased 
' '  to  enter  upon  a  near  respect  to  me  :  the  particulars  are  not 
"  for  paper."  Their  nature,  however,  may  be  gathered  from 
the  sequel.  Laud  became  Buckingham's  chaplain;  during 
Buckingham's  absence  in  Spain  with  the  Prince,  from  Feb. 
1622-3  to  Oct.  1623,  Laud  and  he  corresponded,  so  that 
Williams  took  the  alarm;  and  after  the  Duke's  return  Laud 
and  he  were  continually  together.  At  that  time,  in  conse 
quence  of  the  disaffection  of  the  Prince  and  the  Duke  to  the 
Spanish  Match,  while  the  King  still  had  his  heart  set  upon 
it,  there  were  whispers  about  the  Court,  according  to 
Clarendon,  that  the  King  and  Steenie  were  no  longer  on 
such  amicable  terms  as  before,  and  that  the  King  "  wanted 
only  a  brisk  and  resolute  counsellor  to  assist  him  in  destroy 
ing  the  Duke."  The  Lord  Keeper  Williams  was  the  nearest 
approach  to  this  desirable  being ;  and,  accordingly,  there  is 
evidence  that,  in  the  last  year  of  James's  reign,  when  he  was 
obliged  by  his  people  and  Parliament  to  consent  to  the 
Spanish  War,  the  King  and  Williams  stood  together  against 
the  powerful  coalition  of  Steenie,  "Baby  Charles,"  and 
popular  feeling.  An  extract  or  two  from  Laud's  Diary 
i  Laud's  statement  in  1643 ;  Wharton's  Laud,  p.  226. 


BUCKINGHAM   AND   LAUD.  367 

during  this  period  will  give  a  clearer  idea  of  the  character 
of  the  man  : — 


"  Octob.  31,  1623. — I  acquainted  my  Lord  Duke  of  Buckingham 
with  that  which  passed  between  the  Lord  Keeper  and  me." 

"  Decemb.  14  :  Sunday  night. — I  did  dream  that  the  Lord  Keeper 
was  dead :  that  I  passed  by  one  of  his  men  that  was  about  a  monu 
ment  for  him :  that  I  heard  him  say  his  lower  lip  was  infinitely 
swelled  and  fallen,  and  he  rotten  already.  This  dream  did  trouble 
me." 

"  Decemb.  15. — On  Monday  morning  I  went  about  business  to  my 
Lord  Duke  of  Buckingham.  We  had  speech  in  the  Shield  Gallery 
at  Whitehall.  There  I  found  that  the  Lord  Keeper  had  strangely 
forgotten  himself  to  him  [the  Duke],  and  I  think  was  dead  in  his 
affections." 

"Januar.  14, 1623-4. — I  acquainted  my  Lord  Duke  of  Buckingham 
with  that  which  passed  on  the  Sunday  before  between  the  Lord 
Keeper  and  me." 

"  Januar.  25.— It  was  Sunday.  I  was  alone  and  languishing  with 
I  know  not  what  sadness.  I  was  much  concerned  at  the  envy  and 
undeserved  hatred  borne  to  me  by  the  Lord  Keeper.  I  took  into 
my  hands  the  Greek  Testament,  that  I  might  read  the  portion  of 
the  day.  I  lighted,  however,  upon  the  13th  Chapter  to  the  Hebrews  ; 
wherein  that  of  David  (Psalm  Ivi.)  occurred  "to  me  then  grieving  and 
fearing  : — '  The  Lord  is  my  helper  :  I  will  not  fear  what  man  can  do 
unto  me.'  I  thought  an  example  was  set  to  me  ;  and  who  is  not  safe 
under  that  shield  1  Protect  me,  O  Lord  my  God." 

"  Februar.  1  :  Sunday.— I  stood,  by  the  most  illustrious  Prince 
Charles  at  dinner.  He  was  then  very  merry,  and  talked  occasionally 
of  many  things  with  his  attendants.  Among  other  things,  he  said 
that,  if  he  were  necessitated  to  take  any  particular  profession  of  life, 
he  could  not  be  a  lawyer,  adding  his  reasons  :  '  I  cannot,'  saith  he, 
'  defend  a  bad,  nor  yield  in  a  good  cause.'  May  you  ever  hold  this 
resolution  and  succeed,  most  serene  Prince,  in  matters  of  great 
moment,  for  ever  prosperous !" 

"  Februar.  18  :  Wednesday.— My  Lord  Duke  of  Buckingham  told 
me  of  the  reconciliation  and  submission  of  my  Lord  Keeper,  and  that 
it  was  confessed  unto  him  that  his  [the  Duke's]  favour  to  me  was  the 
chief  cause  [of  the  disagreement  between  them].'' 

"May  1,  1624:  Saturday. — E.  B.  married:  the  sign  in  Pisces" 
[E.  B.  is  a  mysterious  personage  mentioned  often  in  the  Diary,  and 
first  thus  :— '  My  great  business  with  E.  B.  began  Januar.  22,  1612  ; 
is  settled  as  it  could  March  5,  1612,  Gomp.  Angl.  It  hath  had  many 
changes,  and  what  will  become  of  it,  God  knoweth.'  From  another 
entry  it  appears  that  on  '  Wednesday  night,  June  4,  1623,'  Laud  had 
a  dream,  in  which  dream 'was  all  contained  that  followed  in  the 
carriage  of  E.  B.  towards  me  ']. 

"  Decemb.  23  :  Thursday.  .  .  .  I  delivered  my  Lord  a  little  tract 
about  Doctrinal  Puritanism,  in  some  ten  heads;  which  his  Grace 
had  spoken  to  me  that  I  would  draw  up  for  him,  that  he  might  be 
acquainted  with  them."  [The  ten  heads,  we  learn  from  another 
source,  were  these  : — '  1.  The  Lord's  Day  or  Sabbath  ;  2.  The  indis 
crimination  of  bishops  and  presbyters ;  3 .  The  power  of  sovereign 
princes  in  ecclesiastical  matters ;  4  and  5.  Doctrines  of  confession 


368  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

and  sacerdotal  absolution  ;  6  to  10.  The  five  points  of  the  Predestin- 
arian  controversy.'] 

"Januar.  23,  1624-5.— The  discourse  which  my  Lord  Duke  had 
with  me  about  witches  and  astrologers." 

"  Januar.  30  :  Sunday  night.— My  dream  of  my  blessed  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ :  one  of  the  most  comfortable  passages  that 
ever  I  had  in  my  life." 

"March  27,  1625  :  Mid-Lent  Sunday.— I  preached  at  Whitehall. 
I  ascended  the  pulpit  much  troubled  and  in  a  very  melancholy 
moment,  the  report  then  spreading  that  His  Majesty  King  James, 
of  most  sacred  memory  to  me,  was  dead.  Being  interrupted  with 
the  dolours  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  I  broke  off  in  the  middle. 
.  .  .  That  same  day,  about  five  o'clock,  Prince  Charles  was  solemnly 
proclaimed  King.  God  grant  to  him  a  prosperous  and  happy  reign  ! " 


ENGLISH    CHURCH    GOVERNMENT    FROM  1625  TO  1628. 

Buckingham,  who  was  all  to  King  Charles  that  lie  had 
been  to  King  James,  confided  to  Laud  the  ecclesiastical 

•  department  of  affairs  under  his  government.  The  relation 
that  subsisted  between  the  two  ministers  from  the  first  day 
of  Charles's  reign  till  the  death  of  the  Duke  may  be  expressed 
by  saying  that,  while  Buckingham  was  the  all-powerful 
Vizier,  Laud  was  the  confidential  Mufti.  The  nature  and 
progress  of  his  influence  through  those  three  important 
years  can  be  better  understood  now  through  documents 
than  was  possible  at  the  time  by  actual  observation. 

From  Charles's  Accession,  March  27,  1625,  to  the  Dissolu 
tion  of  his  First  Parliament,  Aug.  12,  1625. — As  early  as 
the  5th  of  April,  or  within  nine  days  after  the  death  of 
James,  Laud,  as  his  Diary  informs  us,  exhibited  to  the  Duke 

/•  "a  schedule  in  which  were  wrote  the  names  of  many 
churchmen  marked  with  the  letters  0  and  P."  This  was  a 
list  of  the  chief  clergymen  of  the  English  Church,  so  far  as 
they  were  known  to  Laud,  divided  into  Orthodox  and 
Puritanical,  that  the  King  might  know  which  to  promote 

Y  and  which  to  keep  back.  From  the  first,  therefore,  Laud's 
theory  of  Anglican  orthodoxy  was  adopted  by  Charles  as 
the  royal  rule  in  Church  matters.  But  not  even  so  was 
Laud  satisfied.  Before  Charles's  First  Parliament  met  (June 
18)  he  did  his  utmost  to  get  Bishop  Andrewes  to  go  along 
with  him  in  a  scheme  for  bringing  the  general  state  of  the 


BUCKINGHAM    AND    LAUD.  369 

Church  before  the  Convocation  which  was  to  meet  con 
temporaneously  with  the  Parliament.  His  object  was  to 
drive  the  question  of  Arminianism  or  Calvinism  to  an  issue, 
and  secure  some  new  synodical  deliverance  on  the  five 
Calvinistic  points,  which,  when  ratified  by  the  King,  should 
put  the  O's  statutably  in  the  right  and  the  P's  statutably  in 
the  wrong.1  Andrewes,  though  his  ecclesiastical  theories 
were  in  many  respects  a  rich  anticipation  of  those  of  Laud, 
was  too  wise  a  man  thus  to  divide  the  Church  upon  them  by 
a  formal  vote,  and  Laud  was  obliged  to  content  himself 
with  more  secret  methods.  He  it  was  who,  sometimes  alone, 
and  sometimes  in  conjunction  with  Neile  and  other  bishops, 
instructed  the  King  and  the  Duke  in  the  proper  mode  of 
resisting  the  Parliament  on  the  Eeligious  Question  generally, 
and  especially  in  the  matter  of  their  prosecution  of  the  King's 
chaplain,  Montague,  for  his  "  Arminian  and  Popish  "  book. 
"  Some  of  Montague's  alleged  heresies,"  said  Laud,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duke  on  the  subject,  were  "the  resolved 
doctrines  of  the  Church  of  England,"  whereas  some  of  the 
opinions  urged  in  Parliament  were  of  a  kind  to  "  prove  fatal 
to  the  government,  if  publicly  taught/'  True,  these  de 
structive  Calvinistic  notions  had  of  late  "received  counten 
ance  from  the  Synod  of  Dort";  but  that  was  a  Synod 
"  whose  conclusions  have  no  authority  in  this  country,  and, 
it  is  hoped,  never  will."  Besides,  whether  Montague  were 
right  or  wrong,  was  it  for  Parliament  to  meddle  in  the  case  ? 
When  the  English  Clergy  had  acknowledged  the  Royal/ 
Supremacy  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.,  had  it  not  been  on 
the  understanding  that,  in  the  event  of  any  ecclesiastical 
difference,  it  should  be  for  the  King  and  the  Bishops  to 
determine  it  in  a  national  Synod,  apart  from  the  secular 
Parliament  ? 2  Indoctrinated  with  these  views,  the  King 
and  the  Duke  stood  firm,  and  the  refractory  Parliament  was 
dissolved  on  the  Tonnage  and  Poundage  question. 

From  the  Dissolution  of  the  First  Parliament,  Aug.  12, 
1625,  to  the  Dissolution  of  the  Second,  June  11,  1626. — Laud 
was  still  working;  nor  was  there  now  any  hesitation  in 

i  Laud's  Diary :  April  9,  1625.  2  Rushworth,  I.  176-7. 

VOL.    I.  B  B 


370  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

acknowledging  him  publicly  as  the  favoured  Court   prelate, 
^  though  yet  but  bishop  of  a  second-rate  diocese.     Williams, 
1  who  had  been  in   disgrace  from  the  first  day  of  the  new 
reign,  was  formally  deprived  of  the  great  seal  in  October 
1625,  and  retired,  in  a  splendid  Welsh  rage,  to  his  diocese 
of  Lincoln,  there  to  expend  his  waste  energy  on  cathedral 
repairs  and  decorations,  and  in  episcopal  hospitalities  and 
concerts  of  music  such  as  Lincolnshire  had  hardly  known 
before,  letting  loose  his  epigrammatic  and  aphoristic  tongue 
in  sayings  respecting  the  Duke  and  national  affairs  which 
were  duly  caught  up  by  tale-bearers  and  reported  at  Court. 
He  began  more  and  more  to  cultivate  the  Puritans,  and, 
when   informed   of  acts    of  nonconformity  in  his    diocese, 
positively  refused  to  proceed  against  the  delinquents.  Being 
"  already  under  a  cloud,"  he  had  nothing,  he  said,  to  get 
'•  by  such  severities,  and  his  private  impression  was  that  the 
less  he  or  anybody  else  offended  the  Puritans  the  better,  as 
"  they  would  carry  all  things  at  last."     It  was  part  of  his 
disgrace  that  he  was  forbidden  to  be  present  at  the  King's 
coronation  (Feb.  2,  1625-6),  and  that  the  place  which  he 
should  have  occupied  officially  in  the  ceremonial,  as  Dean  of 
Westminster,  was  occupied  by  Laud.     Four  days  after  the 
coronation  the  Second  Parliament  met ;  and  for  four  months 
there  was  a  fierce  renewal  of  the  parliamentary  war  against 
Arminianisrn,  Popery,  illegal  taxation,  Montague,  and  Buck 
ingham.     Had  the  Parliament  triumphed,  Laud  would  have 
gone  down  in  the  whirlpool  along  with  the  favourite ;  but, 
the  King  having  rallied  in  time,  Buckingham  was  saved, 
and  the  Second  Parliament  was  sent  adrift  like  the  First. 
The  dissolution  was  accompanied  by  a  royal  proclamation, 
in  which,  while  it  was  asserted  that  the  outcry  respecting 
Popery  and  Arminianism  was  frivolous,   strict  charge  was 
given  to  all   persons,  lay  or  clerical,  to  refrain  from  con 
troversy    on    subtle    points    and    to   keep    quietly   to    the 
standards. 

From  the  Dissolution  of  the  Second  Parliament,  June  11, 
1626,  to  the  Meeting  of  the  Third,  March  17,  1627-8.— During 
these  twenty-one  months  of  experimental  government  with- 


BUCKINGHAM   AND   LAUD.  371 

out  Parliament,  while  the  King  and  the  Duke  were  raising 
money  for  the  French  war  by  forced  loans,  and  the  people 
were  everywhere  resisting  the  loans  and  gathering  wrath  on 
that  and  other  subjects,  Laud's  advice  was  much  in  request, 
and  he  had   a  rapid    succession  of  preferments.     In  June 
1626  he  was  transferred  from  the  Bishopric  of  St.  David's 
to  that  of  Bath  and  Wells;  in  September  in  the  same  year 
he  succeeded  Bishop  Andrewes  as  Dean  of  the  Chapel  Royal, 
and  at  the  same  time  received  notice  of  the  king's  intention 
that,  in  case  of  Abbot's  death,  he  should  be  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury ;  and  in  April  1627  he  and  Neile,  Bishop   of 
Durham,  were  sworn  of  the  Privy  Council.    This  last  prefer 
ment  brought  him  necessarily  into  closer  contact  with  civil 
affairs;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  by  his  advice  that  Govern 
ment  adopted  the  plan  of  circulating,  in  aid  of  the  measures 
for  forced  revenue,    tracts   expounding  and   enforcing  tho 
true  doctrine   of  the  royal   prerogative.     Dr.    Sibtliorp,  a 
Northamptonshire  vicar,  having  preached  an  assize-sermon 
in  which  he  maintained  that,  "if  princes  command  anything 
"  which  subjects  may  not  perform  because  it  is  against  the 
"  law  of  God,  yet  subjects  are  bound  to  undergo  the  puuish- 
"  ment  without  either  resisting  or  railing,"  the  Court  sent 
the  sermon  to  Archbishop  Abbot  to  be  licensed  for  publica 
tion.     Abbot  refused,  and  stated  his  reasons  in  a  letter  to 
the  King,  which    "  did   prick    to   the    quick."     Laud    was 
commanded  to  answer  Abbot's  objections  ;  Sibthorp's  sermon 
was   licensed   by    Mountain,  bishop    of  London ;    and    the 
opportunity  was  taken  to  suspend  Abbot  and   banish  him 
from  Court,  and  to  vest  the  archiepiscopal   functions  in  a 
commission  of  four  bishops,  of  whom  Laud  was  one.  Having 
once  sprung  this  idea  of  exhibiting  to  the  Government  the 
superior  potency  of  the  Arminian  pulpit  over  the  Calvinistic 
for  Exchequer   purposes,  Laud   gave  it  a  second  trial  by 
himself  licensing  Dr.  Roger  Mainwaring's  celebrated   two 
sermons  preached  at  Court.  Mainwaring  far  outdid  Sibtliorp. 
"  The  King,"  he  said,  "  is  not  bound  to  observe  the  laws  of  / 
"the  realm  concerning  the  rights  and  liberties  of  his  sub- 
( fjects,   but  his  royal  will   and   command  doth  oblige   the 

B  K   2 


372  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  subjects5  conscience  upon  pain  of  eternal  damnation " ; 
moreover,  "the  authority  of  Parliament  is  not  necessary  for 
"  the  raising  of  aids  and  subsidies,"  and  "  the  slow  proceed- 
"  ings  of  such  great  assemblies  are  not  fitted  for  the  supply 
"  of  the  state's  urgent  necessities."  Despite  the  doctrine 
of  Sibthorp  and  Mainwaring,  and  despite  the  stronger 
physical  suasion  used  for  the  same  end,  money  was  not  to 
be  extracted  in  sufficient  quantity,  and  Charles  reluctantly 
called  his  Third  Parliament. 

From  the  Assembling  of  the  Third  Parliament,  March  1 7, 
1627-8,  to  its  Prorogation,  June  26,  1628.— These  were  three 
months  of  unparalleled  danger  both  for  the  Mufti  and  for 
the  Vizier.  Nothing  could  resist  the  wise  energy  of  that 
noble  Parliament,  the  most  memorable  of  all  Charles's 
parliaments  till  his  last  and  longest.  The  schemes  of  the 
courtiers  went  down  like  reeds  before  them.  Again  they 
rolled  their  denunciations  of  Arminianism  and  Popery,  their 
protests  against  illegal  exaction  of  money,  their  claims  of 
Calvinistic  liberty,  and  all  the  varied  discontent  of  the 
nation,  to  the  foot  of  the  throne.  For  a  moment  they 
recoiled  reverentially  to  receive  the  king's  answer;  but,  that 
answer  having  been  unfavourable,  they  advanced  again  with 
doubled  courage,  and  even  with  passions  of  tears,  their 
vengeance  mounting  from  the  meaner  prey  of  the  Montagues, 
and  Sib  thorps,  and  Mainwarings,  to  Laud,  and  Neile,  and 
Buckingham  himself.  At  last,  when  it  seemed  as  if  those 
victims  would  be  dragged  to  ruin  before  his  very  eyes,  the 
King  had  no  option  but  to  yield.  Not  even  while  rejoicing 
over  this  result,  and  passing  from  sobs  to  acclamations  of 
satisfied  loyalty,  did  the  Parliament  forget  its  work.  When 
Mainwaring  was  punished,  Laud  narrowly  escaped  punish 
ment  with  him  for  having  licensed  his  book  ;  and  in  the 
great  Remonstrance  which  the  Parliament  drew  up  between 
their  reconciliation  with  the  King  on  the  7th  of  June  and  their 
prorogation  on  the  26th,  in  order  that  the  King  might  have  a 
full  statement  of  the  national  grievances  to  consider  at  his  lei 
sure  before  they  again  met,  Laud  and  Neile  were  again  named 
as  men  of  whom  it  would  be  necessary  to  take  farther  account. 


373 

From  the  Prorogation  of  the  Third  Parliament,  June  26, 
1628,  to  the  Assassination  of  the  Duke,  Aug.  23, 1628.  These 
two  months  wrought  a  great  change.  Scarcely  had  the 
Parliament  dispersed  when  the  King  and  the  People  were 
again  at  strife.  In  contempt  of  the  Remonstrance,  Laud 
was  promoted  to  the  Bishopric  of  London  (July  15,  1628) ; 
Montague  was  made  Bishop  of  Chichester ;  Mainwaring  was 
pardoned,  and  preferred  to  one  of  the  richest  livings  in  the 
gift  of  the  crown ;  and  again  there  were  rumours  of  distraints 
of  goods  for  illegal  tonnage  and  poundage.  It  was  clear  that 
the  King  and  the  Court  had  resolved  on  a  relapse  into  the 
arbitrary  system,  and  did  not  despair  of  making  all  suitable 
arrangements  against  the  time  that  Parliament  met.  Buck 
ingham  was  the  man  who  made  this  crisis  and  who  expected 
to  go  through  it  as  leader.  But  Felton's  knife  removed  him 
before  he  could  well  measure  the  difficulty,  and  the  work 
and  the  danger  devolved  chiefly  upon  Laud. 

.• 

ENGLISH  CHURCH  AND  GOVERNMENT  FROM  1628  TO  1632. 

Laud's  advent  to  power  on  his  own  account,  after  his  pre 
liminary  period  of  subordinate  authority  in  alliance  with 
Buckingham,  dates  from  August  1628,  when  he  had  been 
Bishop  of  London  somewhat  more  than  a  month,  and  Privy 
Councillor  nearly  a  year  and  a  half.  Not  that  even  yet  his 
power  was  assured.  The  death  of  Buckingham  had  left 
Charles  in  a  kind  of  maze,  deprived  of  the  one  man  to  whom, 
by  the  antecedents  of  his  life,  he  had  been  tied  as  friend  to 
friend  rather  than  as  sovereign  to  minister ;  and  whatever 
new  arrangements  were  to  succeed  had  to  be  formed  gradu 
ally  out  of  elements  that  remained.  Laud  had  been  close  to 
Buckingham  and  Charles;  but  there  were  others  in  the 
Privy  Council  with  different  claims  and  aptitudes,  and  it 
was  expressly  announced  by  Charles  that  there  should 
thenceforward  be  no  single  or  supreme  minister,  but  that 
he  himself  would  govern  and  allot  each  his  part.  Accepting 
these  conditions,  Laud,  as  we  shall  find,  did  become  very 
efficiently  the  single  ruling  minister,  holding  Charles  in  his 


374  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF   IIJS    TIME. 

grasp  while  seeming  to  serve  him ;  but  this  was  a  work  of 
time.  Meanwhile  it  contributed  to  establish  Laud's  influence 
that  the  department  of  affairs  which  was  already  his  by 
inheritance  from  Buckingham's  viziership, — to  wit,  the 
ecclesiastical  department, — was  that  which  had  first  and 
most  violently  to  bear  the  shock  of  collision  with  Parliament 
when  it  reassembled  after  the  prorogation. 

While  sharing  with  the  rest  of  the  Council  the  responsi 
bility  for  new  illegal  arrests,  seizures  of  goods,  &c.,  Laud  and 
his  associate  Neile  signalized  the  period  between  Bucking 
ham's  death  and  the  reassembling  of  Parliament  by  a  new 
document  in  their  own  department,  intended  as  a  manifesto 
of  the  policy  that  was  to  be  pursued  with  respect  to  religion 
| from  that  date  forward.     The  document  was  in  the  form  of 
]&  "Declaration"  ordered  by  the  King  to  be  prefixed  to  an 
authorized  reprint  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.     It  is  still 
always  printed  as  a  preface  to  the  Articles  in  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  but  without  any  date,  or  indication  of  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  originated,  or  even  of  the  reign  or 
century  when  it  was  first  published.     So  read,  the  document 
has  none  of  the  fell  significance  which  the  Calvinists  and 
Puritans  of  England  detected  in  it  in  1628.     It  is  a  docu 
ment   in    seven   paragraphs.      In   the   first   the   King,    as 
"  Defender  of  the   Faith  and   Supreme  Governour  of  the 
"  Church,"  claims  it  as  his  right  "  to  conserve  and  maintain 
the  Church  in  Unity  of  true  Religion  and  in  the  Bond  of 
Peace."     The  second  ratifies  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and 
prohibits    "the  least    difference"   from   them.     The  third 
announces  that,  in  case  of  any  differences  respecting  the 
external  polity  of  the  Church,  it  shall  be  for  "  the  Clergy  in 
their  Convocation  to  order  and  settle  them,  having  first 
obtained  leave  under  our  Broad  Seal  so  to  do,"  and  submit 
ting  what  they  determine  to  the  royal  approbation.     The 
fourth  permits  the  Bishops  and  Clergy,  accordingly,  ef  from 
time  to  time  in  Convocation,  upon  their  humble  desire,"  to 
have  licence  under  the  Broad  Seal  to  deliberate  on  Church 
matters.     The  fifth  alludes  to  "  some  differences"  as  recently 
"  ill  raised,"  but  hopes  that,  as  these  are  "  on  curious  points," 


375 

and  as  all  clergymen,  however  tliey  differ  on  these,  accept 
the  letter  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  no  rupture  will  follow. 
To  that  end,  the  sixth  commands  that  "  all  further  curious 
search  be  laid  aside,  and  these  disputes  shut  up  in  God's 
promises,"  and  that  no  man  hereafter  shall  either  print  or 
preach  to  draw  an  Article  aside  any  way,  "  but  shall  submit 
to  it  in  the  plain  and  full  meaning  thereof,"  not  putting  his 
own  comment  for  the  meaning,  but  taking  it  "in  the  literal 
and  grammatical  sense."  Finally,  it  is  threatened  in  the 
closing  paragraph  that  whoever,  in  the  Universities  or  else 
where,  shall  preach,  print,  or  publicly  dispute  on  any  of  the 
Articles,  to  affix  any  sense  to  them  either  way,  other  than 
already  established,  shall  be  liable  to  censure  in  the  Eccle 
siastical  Commission  and  to  other  pains  and  penalties. 

When  Parliament  did  reassemble  (Jan.  20,  1628-9),  they  r 
fell  upon  this  Declaration  as  the  chief  grievance  of  all.' 
Tonnage  and  poundage,  violations  of  the  Petition  of  Right, 
Montague,  Mainwaring,  Arminianism,  Popery,  all  came  up 
again ;  but  in  the  centre  of  the  discussion  was  the  new 
Declaration.  In  Rushworth  we  still  read  how  fervid,  how 
terrible  in  menace  and  in  directness,  were  the  speeches  of 
the  leaders  on  the  rights  of  Parliament  in  matters  of  Religion. 
We  read  how  Francis  Rous  of  Truro  spoke  as  a  man  nearly 
frantic  with  horror  at  the  increase  of  that  "error  of  Arminian 
ism  which  makes  the  grace  of  God  lackey  it  after  the  will 
of  man,"  and  called  on  the  House  to  postpone  questions  of 
goods  and  liberties  to  this  question  which  concerned  "  eternal 
life,  men's  souls,  yea  God  himself"  ;  how  Cromwell  stuttered 
and  stamped  his  maiden  speech,  inquiring  whither  matters 
were  drifting  ;  how  Pym  avowed  that  ' ( it  belonged  to  the 
duty  of  a  Parliament  to  establish  true  religion  and  to  punish 
false  " ;  how  Eliot  repudiated  the  claim  that  the  Bishops  and  < 
Clergy  alone  should  interpret  Church  doctrine,  and,  profess 
ing  his  respect  for  some  bishops,  declared  that  there  were 
others,  and  two  especially,  from  whom  nothing  orthodox 
could  come,  and  to  empower  whom  to  interpret  would  be 
the  ruin  of  national  belief;  how  the  calmer  Selden  referred 
to  cases  in  which  Popish  and  Arminian  books  were  allowed, 


37(5  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

while  Calvinistic  books  were  restrained,  notwithstanding 
"  that  there  was  no  law  in  England  to  prevent  the  printing 
of  any  books,  but  only  a  decree  in  Star-chamber " ;  and 
how,  on  one  occasion,  the  whole  House  stood  up  together 
and  vowed  a  vow  against  innovations  in  the  Faith.  As  the 
King,  on  the  other  hand,  persevered  unflinchingly,  the  only 
effective  issue  of  the  struggle  would  have  been  a  Civil  War. 
For  this  men's  minds  were  not  yet  made  up.  The  victory, 
therefore,  was  with  the  King.  On  the  10th  of  March 
Parliament  was  ignominiously  dismissed,  the  Commons 
leaving  as  their  last  words  to  the  English  people  these  three 
famous  resolutions,  passed  on  the  2d  in  uproar  and  with 
closed  doors : — 

"  1.  Whoever  shall  bring  in  innovation  of  religion,  or  by  favour  or 
countenance  seem  to  extend  Popery  or  Arminianism  or  other  opinion 
disagreeing  from  the  true  and  orthodox  Church,  shall  be  reputed  a 
capital  enemy  to  this  kingdom  and  commonwealth. 

"  2.  Whosoever  shall  counsel  or  advise  the  taking  or  levying  of  the 
subsidies  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  not  being  granted  by  Parliament, 
or  shall  be  an  actor  or  instrument  therein,  shall  be  likewise  reputed 
an  innovator  in  the  government,  and  a  capital  enemy  to  the  kingdom 
and  commonwealth. 

"3.  If  any  merchant  or  person  whatsoever  shall  voluntarily  yield 
or  pay  the  said  subsidies  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  not  being  granted 
by  Parliament,  he  shall  likewise  be  reputed  a  betrayer  of  the  liberties 
of  England  and  an  enemy  to  the  same." 

From  the  time  when  these  words  were  uttered  England 
was  to  be  without  .a  Parliament  at  all  for  eleven  whole  years. 
Through  those  eleven  years  (March  1628-9  to  April  1640) 
Charles  and  his  Ministers  were  to  govern  the  country  as 
they  best  could  on  the  very  methods  on  which  Parliament 
had  left  so  emphatic  a  stigma.  It  is  with  the  first  three 
years  and  four  months  of  this  period  of  arbitrary  rule,  called 
euphemistically  THE  PERSONAL  GOVERNMENT  OF  CHARLES  I., 
that  we  are  especially  concerned  in  what  remains  of  this 
chapter.  The  facts  may  be  summed  up,  by  anticipation,  by 
saying  that  the  Church  was  then  subjected  to  the  Laudian 
rule  pure  and  simple,  while  Laud  had  also  his  prominent 
share,  with  the  other  ministers  of  Charles,  in  the  manage 
ment  of  state  affairs.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  descend 
to  particulars. 


ENGLISH   PRIVY    COUNCIL   FROM    1628    TO    1632.  377 

The  sole  deliberative  and  legislative,  as  well  as  the  chief  /- 
executive  body  in  the  realm,  was  now,  it  is  to  be  remembered, 
the  King's  Ministry  and  Privy  Council,  consisting  of  the 
great  officers  of  State  and  of  the  Royal  Household,  together 
with  such  other  persons,  lay  or  ecclesiastical,  as  the  King 
chose  to  associate  with  them.1  The  following  is  a  list  of 
this  body  between  1628  and  1632,  as  nearly  complete  as  I 
can  make  it : — 

ABBOT,  ARCHBISHOP  OF  CANTERBURY  :  seldom  present. 

HARSNET,  Archbishop  of  York  :  sworn  of  the  Council  1628.  He 
died  in  1631. 

LAUD,  BISHOP  OF  LONDON  :  sworn  April  29,  1627,  while  he  was 
Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells. 

NEILE,  BISHOP  OF  WINCHESTER  (afterwards  Archbishop  of  York) : 
sworn  April  1627,  while  he  was  Bishop  of  Durham. 

WILLIAMS,  BISHOP  OF  LINCOLN,  Ex-keeper  of  the  Great  Seal :  now 
a  nominal  member  only,  having  been  ordered  to  keep  away. 

THOMAS,  IST  LORD  COVENTRY,  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal.  He  had 
been  put  into  that  place  in  1625  instead  of  Williams.  He  had 
previously  been  a  lawyer  in  great  practice  and  successively 
Recorder  of  London,  Solicitor  General,  and  Attorney  General. 
He  retained  the  Great  Seal  till  his  d'eath,  Jan.  14,  1639-40 ; 
and,  during  this  unusually  long  tenure  of  that  high  office, 
earned  the  character,  according  to  Clarendon,  of  being  a  man 
of  "  wonderful  gravity  and  wisdom,"  but  rather  reserved,  and, 
though  concurring  generally  in  the  policy  of  his  colleagues, 
attending  chiefly  to  judicial  business,  and  committing  himself 
less  politically  than  the  King  would  have  wished  or  his  place 
seemed  to  require. 

RICHARD,  IST  LORD  WESTON,  Lord  High  Treasurer.  He  held  that 
office  from  July  1628,  having  previously,  as  Sir  Richard  Weston, 
been  Privy  Councillor  and  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  under 
King  James.  In  1633  he  was  created  Earl  of  Portland.  His 
wife  and  daughters  were  professed  Roman  Catholics,  and  he 
was  thought  to  tend  the  same  way  himself. 

HENRY  MONTAGUE,  IST  EARL  OF  MANCHESTER,  Lord  Privy  Seal. 
Grandson  of  Sir  Edward  Montague,  a  famous  Chief  Justice  in 
the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  (the  common  ancestor  of  at  least  four 
different  lines  of  Montagues  now  in  the  English  peerage) : 
this  nobleman,  who  had  been  educated  at  Christ's  College, 

1  The  Privy  Council  in  those  days,  Privy  Council,  self-appointed  or  chosen 

consisting  of  the  King's  chief  Officers  or  by  the  Premier,  has  no  legal  or  consti- 

Ministers   and  non-official  councillors  tutional  standing  whatever,  and  keeps 

associated  with  them,  was  really  the  no  minutes.     Neither  the  Cabinet  nor 

Government.     At  present   the  Privy  the  Premiership  existed  in  their  present 

Council  is  a  body  indefinitely  large  and  acknowledged    form   in   the  reign   of 

miscellaneously    composed,    and    the  Charles  I.  nor  for  a  good  while  after, 

Government  lies,  with  what  is  called  though  virtually  the  favourite  minister 

the    Cabinet.     All-important    as   this  for  the  time  being  was  a  Premier,  and 

Cabinet  is  in  modern  times,  it  is  an  the  four  or  five  councillors  consulted 

institution  of   mere  convenience.     It  by  the  king  and  the  favourite  most 

is,  in  fact,  a  close  committee   of  the  confidentially  were  a  Cabinet. 


378  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

Cambridge,  had  risen  to  his  present  rank  through  the  profession 
of  the  law.  He  had  been  in  distinguished  practice  and  a  mem 
ber  of  the  House  of  Commons  before  the  death  of  Elizabeth. 
His  distinction  both  as  a  lawyer  and  as  a  speaker  in  Parliament 
had  increased  during  the  reign  of  James,  by  whom  he  was  first 
knighted,  then  made  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  King1  s  Bench 
and  a  Privy  Councillor,  and  finally  (1620)  elevated  to  the 
peerage  as  Viscount  Mandeville,  Lord  Kimbolton.  Under 
this  title  he  had  been  successively  Lord  High  Treasurer  and 
President  of  the  Council  to  James.  Charles,  continuing  him 
for  a  time  in  the  latter  office,  had  created  him  Earl  of  Man 
chester  (1625-6)  ;  but,  in  1627,  he  had  been  transferred  to  the 
Privy  Seal,  which  he  kept  to  his  death,  at  an  advanced  age,  in 
November.  1642.  " He  was,"  says  Clarendon,  "a  man  of  great 
'industry  and  sagacity  in  business,  which  he  delighted  in 
'  exceedingly,  and  preserved  so  great  a  vigour  of  mind,  even  to 
'his  death,  that  some  who  had  known  him  in  his  younger 
*  years  did  believe  him  to  have  much  quicker  parts  in  his  age 
'than  before."  Clarendon  adds  that,  his  honours  having 
1  grown  faster  upon  him  than  his  fortunes,"  he  was  thought  to 
be  a  little  unscrupulous. 

THOMAS  HOWARD,  EARL  OF  ARUNDEL  AND  SURREY,  Earl  Marshal 
of  England.  He  was  the  haughtiest  man  in  England,  keeping 
Charles  himself  at  a  distance,  concerning  himself  with  English 
politics  only  as  being  the  head  of  the  English  nobility,  but 
otherwise  an  alien,  with  Italian  tastes,  and  "  thought  not  to 
be  much  concerned  for  religion."  He  lived  till  Oct.  1646,  and 
is  remembered  as  a  patron  of  Art  and  Collector  of  the  Arundel 
Marbles. 

WILLIAM  HERBERT,  3RD  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE,  Lord  Steward  of  the 
Household.  He  M7as  Shakespeare's  friend  and  patron,  if  not,  as 
some  suppose,  the  mysterious  "  W.  H."  addressed  in  Shake 
speare's  Sonnets.  He  was  "  the  most  universally  beloved  and 
esteemed,"  says  Clarendon,  "  of  any  man  of  that  age,"  so  that, 
while  he  lived,  he  "made  the  Court  itself  better  esteemed  and 
more  reverenced  in  the  country."  But  he  died  suddenly, 
April  10,  1630,  cetat  50. 

PHILIP  HERBERT,  EARL  OF  MONTGOMERY,  Lord  Chamberlain. 
He  was  the  younger  brother  of  the  preceding,  and  had  been 
conjoined  with  him  by  Shakespeare  s  editors,  Heminge  and 
Condell,  in  their  dedication  of  the  First  Folio  in  1623,  but  was 
a  far  inferior  man,  of  rough  habits,  and  skilled  chiefly,  says 
Clarendon,  in  "  horses  and  dogs."  In  his  youth,  however,  he 
had  been  very  handsome  and  a  favourite  of  James  I.,  who  had 
made  the  peerage  of  Montgomery  for  him.  Succeeding  his 
brother,  he  became  Earl  of  Pembroke  as  well  as  of  Montgomery. 
He  was  then  about  forty-seven  years  of  age,  and  yet  a  great 
courtier ;  but  he  lived  till  1650,  with  various  changes  of 
opinion,  as  well  as  of  fortune. 

EDWARD  SACKVILLE,  4TH  EARL  OF  DORSET,  Lord  Chamberlain  to  the 
Queen.  This  peer  was  the  grandson  of  the  famous  Elizabethan 
statesman  and  poet,  Thomas  Sackville,  Lord  Buckhurst  and 
1st  Earl  of  Dorset,  at  whose  death  in  1608  he  was  already 
eighteen  years  of  age.  During  the  rest  of  James's  reign,  the 
Earldom  being  then  held  first  by  his  father  and  next  by  his 
elder  brother,  he  had,  as  Mr.  Sackville,  and  afterwards  as  Sir 


ENGLISH    PEIVY   COUNCIL    FROM    1628    TO    1G32.  379 

Edward,  been  a  very  shining  figure  about  the  Court,  or  in  Par 
liament  or  on  foreign  missions,  and  finally  in  the  Privy  Council, 
"  his  person  beautiful  and  graceful  and  vigorous,"  says  Claren- 
don,  "  his  wit  pleasant,  sparkling  and  sublime,  and  his  other 
"parts  of  learning  and  language  of  that  lustre  that  he  could  not 
"miscarry  in  the  world."  Not  that  he  was  without  vices, 
according  even  to  the  same  authority,  for  he  "  indulged  to  his 
"  appetite  all  the  pleasures  that  season  of  his  life  (the  fullest  of 
"jollity  and  riot  of  any  that  preceded  or  succeeded)  could 
"  tempt  or  suggest  to  him."  With  such  a  character  and  such  a 
training,  and  having  become  Earl  of  Dorset,  by  his  brother's 
death,  in  1624,  he  had  continued  in  .Charles's  Privy  Council, 
one  of  the  most  important  men  in  it  at  the  time  when  Laud 
joined  it.  He  was  to  live  till  1652. 

HENRY  RICH,  IST  EARL  OF  HOLLAND.  This  peer  was  also  now  in 
the  middle  of  an  eventful  career,  which  was  to  extend  over 
some  twenty  years  more.  Hitherto  all  had  been  prosperity 
with  him.  The  second  son  of  Robert  Rich,  1st  Earl  of  War 
wick,  he  had  been  intended  for  the  military  profession,  and 
had  made  two  or  three  campaigns  in  the  Low  Countries  in  his 
youth  ;  but,  returning  home,  and  being  "  a  very  handsome 
man,  of  a  lovely  and  winning  presence  and  gentle  conversation," 
he  had  "  got  so  easy  an  admission  into  the  Court  and  grace 
"  of  King  James  that  he  gave  over  the  thought  of  further  intend  - 
"  ing  the  life  of  a  soldier."  A  great  favourite  with  James  and 
with  Buckingham,  he  had  been  raise'd  to  the  peerage  first 
(1622)  as  Baron  Kensington,  which  title  he  took  from  the 
manor  of  Kensington  acquired  by  his  marriage  with  a  wealthy 
knight's  daughter,  and  soon  afterwards  (1625)  as  Earl  of  Hol 
land  in  Lincolnshire.  He  was  also  made  Captain  of  the  Guard, 
Knight  of  the  Garter,  a  Privy-Councillor,  and  Gentleman  of 
the  Bedchamber  to  the  Prince  of  Wales.  He  was  much  em- 

Eloyed  in  the  negotiations  for  the  Prince's  marriage,  and  was,  in 
ict,  the  secret  ambassador  through  whom  arrangements  were 
made  at  the  French  Court  for  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  with 
Henrietta-Maria  when  the  Spanish  match  had  become  difficult. 
Hence  of  all  Charles'  s  Councillors  he  was  the  one  whom  the 
Queen  had  most  confidence  in  and  consulted  most,  so  that 
about  the  Court  he  became  recognised  as  the  Queen's  principal 
agent  and  adviser.  "  In  this  state  and  under  this  protection," 
says  Clarendon,  "he  received  every  day  new  obligations  from 
"the  King  and  great  bounties,  and  continued  to  flourish  above 
"  any  man  in  the  Court  whilst  the  weather  was  fair."  It  was 
a  token  of  his  great  favour  at  Court  that,  on  Buckingham's 
death,  he  had  been  chosen  his  successor  in  the  Chancellorship 
of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  His  chief  residence  was 
Holland  House,  Kensington,  which  had  been  built  by  his 
father-in-law  in  1607,  but  which,  coming  to  him  with  the 
manor,  acquired  the  name  under  which  it  is  so  celebrated. 
JAMES  HAY,  IST  EARL  OF  CARLISLE,  First  Gentleman  of  the  Bed 
chamber  and  Master  of  the  Wardrobe.  A  Scot  by  birth,  he 
had  come  into  England  at  James's  accession,  and  been  raised 
to  rank  and  wealth.  He  was  more  popular  with  the  English 
than  "  any  other  of  his  country,"  says  Clarendon,  who  de 
scribes  him  as  "of  a  great  universal  understanding,"  but 
indolent  and  jovial,  and  "  of  the  greatest  expense  in  his  person, 


380  LIFE    OF    MILTON  AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

in  dress  and  housekeeping,  of  any  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived."  He  died  1636. 

THOMAS  ERSKINE,  IST  EARL  OF  KELLIE  :  another  Scot  who  had 
come  in  with  James  and  had  a  similar  run  of  favour. 

JOHN  EGERTON,  IST  EARL  OF  BRIDGEWATER.  The  second  son  of 
the  great  Lord  Chancellor  Ellesmere,  and  his  successor,  in 
1617,  as  Viscount  Brackley,  he  had  been  made  an  Earl  in  the 
same  year.  In  June  1631  he  was  appointed  Lord  President  of 
the  Principality  of  Wales.  He  lived  till  1649. 

WILLIAM  CECIL,  2ND  EARL  OF  SALISBURY.  He  was  son  of  the 
first  Earl  of  that  name,  and  grandson  of  the  famous  Burleigh  ; 
but  inherited  "  not  their  wisdom  and  virtues,"  says  Clarendon, 
"  but  only  their  titles."  He  had  been  admitted  of  the  Council 
by  King  James  ;  "  from  which  time,"  according  to  Clarendon, 
"he  continued  so  obsequious  to  the  Court  that  he  never  failed 
"in  overacting  all  that  he  was  required  to  do."  There  was  to 
be  a  change  of  his  reputation  in  this  respect  before  his  death  ; 
which  did  not  occur  till  1668,  when  he  was  78  years  of  age. 

WILLIAM  CECIL.  2ND  EARL  OF  EXETER.  He  was  a  cousin  of  the 
preceding,  being  the  son  of  Burleigh's  eldest  son,  the  first  Earl 
of  Exeter.  He  was  twenty  years  older  than  his  cousin  Salis 
bury,  and  died  in  1649. 

EDWARD  CECIL,  VISCOUNT  WIMBLEDON.  A  younger  brother  of 
the  preceding,  he  had  been  trained  for  the  military  profession, 
and,  having  followed  "the  wars  in  the  Netherlands  for  the 
"  space  of  thirty-five  years  with  great  applause,"  had  been 
recently  general  of  the  English  forces  sent  against  the  Span 
iards.  Charles  had  raised  him  to  the  peerage,  first  (1625)  as 
Baron  Putney  and  then  (1626)  as  Viscount  Wimbledon.  He 
died  in  1638. 

THEOPHILUS  HOWARD,  2ND  EARL  OF  SUFFOLK,  Lord  Warden  of 
the  Cinque  Ports,  &c.  He  died  June  3,  1640. 

ROBERT  BERTIE,  IST  EARL  OF  LINDSEY,  Lord  Great  Chamberlain. 
The  eldest  son  of  Peregrine  Bertie,  1st  Lord  Willoughby 
D'Eresby,  a  distinguished  military  commander  of  Elizabeth' s 
reign,  he  had  succeeded  his  father  as  2nd  Lord  Willoughby 
D'Eresby  in  1601,  when  about  nineteen  years  of  age;  and  in 
1626  Charles  had  raised  him  to  the  Earldom.  In  Sept.  1628 
he  commanded  the  expedition  sent  for  the  relief  of  Rochelle 
after  Buckingham's  death.  He  lived  till  1642. 

WILLIAM  FIELDING,  IST  EARL  OF  DENBIGH,  Master  of  the  King's 
Wardrobe.  He  was  a  brother-in-law  of  Buckingham.  He  had 
been  raised  to  the  peerage  by  James,  first  as  Baron,  then  as 
Viscount,  Fielding,  and  finally  (1622)  as  Earl  of  Denbigh; 
was  of  the  naval  profession ;  and  had  commanded  the  fleet 
sent  to  Rochelle  in  April  1628.  He  lived  till  1643. 

OLIVER  ST.  JOHN,  VISCOUNT  GRANDISON.  He  had  been  Lord 
Deputy  of  Ireland  under  James. 

HENRY  CAREY,  IST  VISCOUNT  FALKLAND,  Lord  Deputy  of  Ire 
land  from  1625  till  1632.  He  died  1633. 

EDWARD  CONWAY,  IST  VISCOUNT  CONWAY,  Secretary  of  State  from 
1622,  afterwards  President  of  the  Council.  He  died  January  3, 
1630-1. 

EDWARD  BARRET,  BARON  NEWBURGH  (in  Fifeshire),  Chancellor  of 
the  Ducky  of  Lancaster.  He  was  one  of  the  few  Englishmen 
on  whom  Charles,  in  pursuance  of  his  policy  for  uniting  the 


ENGLISH    PRIVY   COUNCIL    FROM    1628   TO    1632.  381 

institutions  of  the  two  kingdoms,  bestowed  Scottish  titles.  He 
had  risen  in  office  under  James,  had  been  raised  to  the  peerage 
in  1627,  and  been  made  a  Privy  Councillor  in  July  1628.  He 
held  for  a  time  the  offices  of  Chancellor  and  Under-Treasurer 
of  the  Exchequer. 

SIR  FRANCIS  COTTINGTON,  KNT.  (made  BARON  COTTINGTON  OF 
HAN  WORTH  in  July  1631),  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and, 
after  1630,  Master  of  the  Wards  in  addition.  He  had  been 
Secretary  to  Charles  as  Prince,  had  accompanied  him  to  Spain, 
had  been  disgraced  by  Buckingham's  influence  after  Charles 
became  King,  but  had  since  recovered  favour.  Altogether  Cot- 
tington  was  one  of  the  most  marked  characters  in  the  Council, 
"  a  very  wise  man,"  according  to  Clarendon,  and  represented 
as  of  a  cool  and  Mephistophelic  temper,  but  unpopular  with 
the  nation,  as  having  spent  so  much  of  his  life  abroad  and  con 
tracted  Spanish  ways  and  sympathies,  including  a  liking  for  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion.  We  shall  hear  more  of  him  through 
his  life,  which  was  protracted,  through  varied  fortunes,  till 
1649. 

SIR  THOMAS  EDMUNDS,  KNT.,  Treasurer  of  the  Household  since 
1618,  and  till  1639. 

SIR  HENRY  VANE,  SENIOR,  KNT.,  Comptroller  of  the  Household. 
Though  but  recently  added  to  the  Privy  Council,  and  in  a 
subordinate  capacity,  this  personage,  so  celebrated  in  the  his 
tory  of  his  time,  both  on  his  own  account,  and  as  being  the 
father  of  the  still  more  celebrated  Sir  Henry  Vane  the 
younger,  was  already  of  some  consequence.  Born  in  1585, 
of  the  ancient  Kentish  family  of  the  Vanes  or  Fanes  (of  one 
branch  of  which  have  come  the  Earls  of  Westmoreland),  and 
succeeding  to  the  large  estates  of  his  father  in  1596,  he  had,  by 
purchase  or  grant  after  he  came  of  age,  added  to  his  other 
properties  that  of  Raby  Castle  in  the  County  of  Durham  ; 
which  became  his  principal  residence.  He  had  been  knighted 
by  James  in  1611,  had  served  in  several  of  the  Parliaments  of 
James  and  Charles,  and  had  been  concerned  in  various  com 
missions  about  raising  loans  for  Charles.  Hence  (after  Buck 
ingham' s  death,  who  had  been  no  friend  of  his,  but  the  reverse) 
his  admission  to  the  Privy  Council,  and  the  peculiar  minis 
terial  post  assigned  to  him.  "  This  place,"  according  to 
Clarendon,  "  he  became  very  well  and  was  fit  for  "  ;  otherwise, 
"  he  was  of  very  ordinary  parts  by  nature,  and  had'  not  cul- 
"  tivated  them  by  art ;  for  he  was  illiterate."  But,  according  to 
the  same  authority,  he  was  "  of  a  stirring  and  boisterous  dis- 
"  position,  very  industrious  and  very  bold."  The  country  was 
to  hear  a  great  deal  more  of  him  before  all  was  done.  He 
lived  till  1654. 

SIR  JULIUS  C.ESAR,  KNT.,  Master  of  the  Rolls  since  1614.  He 
died  1636. 

SIR  HUMPHREY  MAY,  KNT.,  Vice-Chamberlain  to  the  King  since 
1626.  He  died  1630,  when  he  was  succeeded  by  SIR  THOMAS 
JERMYN. 

SIR  ROBERT  NAUNTON,  KNT.,  Master  of  the  Court  of  Wards  till 
his  death  in  1630,  when  Cottington  succeeded  him. 

DUDLEY  CARLETON,  VISCOUNT  DORCHESTER,  .  Vice-Chamberlain  of 
the  Household  till  1629,  and  then  successor  of  Viscount  Con- 
way  as  Secretary  of  State.  He  died  Feb.  1631-2,  and  in  June 


382  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

1632  the  office  of  Secretary  was  conferred  on  SIR  FRANCIS 
WINDEBANKE,  KNT.,  an  old  and  special  friend  of  Laud,  and 
educated  at  the  same  College. 

SIR  JOHN  COKE,  KNT.,  the  other  Secretary  of  State.  He  was  a 
quiet,  methodical  man  of  business,  who  had  long  been  in  em 
ployment,  and  was  now  about  seventy  years  of  age. 

THOMAS,  IST  VISCOUNT  WENT  WORTH,  afterwards  EARL  OF  STRAF- 
FORD.  This  great  man,  by  inheritance  Sir  Thomas  Wentworth, 
Baronet,  of  Wentworth- Woodhouse,  Yorkshire,  had  recently 
made  his  memorable  defection  to  the  King's  side,  after  having 
been  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  popular  cause  in  Parliament. 
He  had  been  immediately  (July  22,  1628)  made  Baron  Went 
worth  of  Newmarch  and  Oversley,  and  soon  afterwards  (Dec. 
1628)  he  was  created  Viscount.  He  wras  admitted  of  the  Privy 
Council  late  in  1629.  As  he  was  then  Lord  President  of  the 
Council  in  the  North,  or  Viceroy  of  all  England  north  of  the 
Trent,  his  head-quarters  were  at  York,  and  his  attendance  at 
the  Privy  Council  could  be  but  occasional.  In  1629  he  was  in 
his  thirty-seventh  year. 

SIR  WILLIAM  ALEXANDER,  Principal  Secretary  of  State  for  Scot 
land.  Born  in  1580,  and  known  as  Mr.  William  Alexander  of 
Menstrie  in  Clackmannanshire  till  1614,  when  he  was  knighted 
by  King  James,  this  not  uninteresting  Scot,  now  remembered 
chiefly  as  one  of  the  very  few  persons  of  his  nation  who  ob 
tained  a  name  for  English  Poetry,  had  lived  in  England 
through  the  greater  part  of  the  reign  of  James,  as  courtier  to 
that  King,  Gentleman  Usher  to  Prince  Charles,  and  the  like. 
He  had  been  appointed  to  the  principal  Secretaryship  of  State 
for  Scotland  in  1626  ;  in  which  capacity,  still  residing  chiefly  in 
London,  he  was  one  of  the  king's  closest  advisers  and  the  chief 
medium  of  official  communication  between  Charles  and  his 
northern  kingdom.  He  was  for  the  present  a  most  prosperous 
man,  and  was  to  be  raised  to  the  Scottish  peerage  as  BARON  OF 
MENSTRIE  and  EARL  OF  STIRLING. 

JAMES,  3RD  MARQUIS  OF  HAMILTON,  Master  of  the  Horse.  This 
Scottish  nobleman  and  kinsman  of  the  king,  born  in  1606, 
and  therefore  now  in  the  first  flush  of  youth,  was  but  com 
mencing  his  eventful  career.  After  having  been  educated,  as 
Ban  of  Arran,  at  Oxford,  he  had  succeeded  his  father  as  Mar 
quis  in  1625,  and  had  immediately  become  one  of  the  hopes  of 
the  Court.  In  1629  he  was  Knight  of  the  Garter,  Gentleman 
of  the  Bedchamber,  and  Privy  Councillor  of  both  Kingdoms,  as 
well  as  Master  of  the  Horse.  The  King  always  addressed 
him  affectionately  as  "  James  "  ;  and  it  was  on  the  King's  own 
solicitation  that  he  had  consented  to  leave  his  native  Clydes 
dale  and  the  wild  splendours  of  his  hereditary  Isle  of  Arran, 
and  to  enter  into  the  service  of  the  state .  Two  lines  of  service 
were  already  marked  out  for  him.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
through  him,  as  the  greatest  of  the  Scottish  nobles,  that  the 
King  hoped  in  time  to  manage  the  affairs  of  Scotland.  In  the 
second  place,  it  was  resolved  that  what  assistance  Charles 
could  give  to  the  Swedish  hero,  Gustavus  Adolphus,  in  his  war 
in  behalf  of  Continental  Protestantism, — an  enterprise  involving 
the  recovery  of  the  Palatinate  for  Charles'  s  sister,  the  Queen 
of  Bohemia,— should  be  given  in  the  shape  of  a  volunteer  expe 
dition  under  the  Marquis  of  Hamilton.  Accordingly,  he  was 


ENGLISH    PRIVY   COUNCIL    PROM    1628    TO    1632.  383 

empowered  to  raise  an  army  of  6,000  men,  chiefly  Scots  ;  with 
this  army  he  sailed  for  the  Continent,  July  1631 ;  and  he 
remained  abroad  in  the  service  of  Gustavus  till  Sept.  1632.1 

In  this  body  of  about  seven  and  thirty  persons  was  vested,  \ 
under  King  Charles,  from  1628-9  onwards,  the  supreme  | 
government  of  England.  Whatever  laws  were  now  passed 
or  other  measures  adopted,  binding  the  subjects  of  the 
English  realm,  were  framed  by  this  body  sitting  in  council 
in  Westminster,  or,  in  certain  cases,  by  a  select  knot  or 
cabinet  of  them  consulted  in  a  more  private  manner  by  the 
King,  and  were  issued  as  proclamations,  royal  injunctions, 
or  Orders  in  Council.  Of  course,  all  the  members  of  the 
Council  were  not  equally  active  or  equally  powerful.  The 
attendance  of  some  at  the  council-meetings  was  exceptional, 
and  depended  on  their  chancing  to  be  at  Court ;  and  the 
number  present  at  a  full  council  seems  rarely  to  have  ex 
ceeded  fifteen  or  twenty.  Even  of  those  who  regularly 
attended,  some,  including  the  secretaries,  were  rather 
listeners  or  clerks  than  actual  ministers.  The  working 
chiefs  among  the  lay  peers,  when  Laud  first  joined  the 
Council,  were  the  Lord  Keeper  Coventry,  the  Lord  Treasurer 
Weston,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  Montgomery,  Sir  Francis 
Cottington,  and  the  Earls  of  Manchester,  Arundel,  Holland, 
and  Dorset.  Moreover,  the  King  himself  took  pleasure  in 
business,  and  in  letting  it  be  known,  now  that  Buckingham 
was  dead,  that  he  meant  to  keep  the  reins  in  his  own  hands.2 

1  The  preparation  of  this  list  of  The  additional  names  are,  with  two  ex- 
Privy  Councillors  from  1628-9  to  1632  ceptions,  those  of  Scottish  nobles  and 
has  been  a  less  easy  matter  than,  in  officials  who,  as  they  resided  chiefly  in 
these  days  of  directories,  it  might  be  Scotland,  can  have  been  but  nominal 
supposed  ;  nor  can  I  certify  that  it  is  members  of  the  Privy  Council,  so  far  as 
absolutely  complete  or  exact.  The  England  was  concerned, 
names  have  been  collected  from  docu-  2  Clarendon  thinks  the  Council  was 
ments  in  Kymer,  Rushworth,  &c.,  and  too  numerous,  or  had  too  many  ciphers 
the  biographical  particulars  from  in  it.  There  had  been  some  such  talk 
Clarendon  and  other  sources.  Since  as  early  as  Charles's  accession ;  when 
the  list  was  made  out,  however,  I  have  (as  I  learn  from  the  title  of  a  paper,  of 
seen  in  the  State  Paper  Office  a  docu-  date  April  23,  1625,  given  in  the  pub- 
ment,  dated  July  12,  1629,  professing  lished  Calendar  of  State  Papers)  there 
to  be  a  list  of  the  "  Lords  and  others  was  a  rumour  of  the  existence  of  "  a 
of  his  Majesty's  most  Hon.  Privy  selected  or  Cabinet  Council,  whereunto 
Council"  at  that  date.  The  list,  none  are  admitted  but  the  Duke  of 
which  includes  forty  names,  confirms  Buckingham,  the  Lords  Treasurer  and 
mine  very  satisfactorily;  but  it  con-  Chamberlain,  Lord  Brooke  and  Lord 
tains  several  names  not  in  mine,  and  Con  way."  This  Cabinet  Council  had 
omits  one  or  two  which  are  in  mine.  doubtless  perpetuated  itself  more  or 


38  i  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

Despite  the  resolution  of  the  King  to  keep  the  reins  in 
his  own  hands,  and  despite  the  natural  reluctance  of  such 
great  hereditary  peers  and  law-lords  as  Arundel,  Dorset, 
Pembroke,  Montgomery,  Salisbury,  Holland,  Coventry, 
Manchester,  and  Weston,  to  allow  the  brisk  little  church 
man,  their  colleague,  more  than  the  share  of  business  which 
they  might  think  proper  for  a  Bishop-Councillor,  it  was  not 
long  before  Laud  succeeded,  somehow  or  other,  in  stamping 
his  personality  upon  all  their  measures.  It  was  impossible 
to  resist  his  assiduity  and  intrusiveness.  The  ecclesiastical 
members  of  the  Council  had,  of  course,  the  right  to  take 
part,  if  they  chose,  in  whatever  civil  business  came  before 
the  whole  body.  And  Laud  did  choose  to  exercise  this 
right.  From  the  very  first  we  see  him  taking  a  leading 
share  in  all  the  discussions  and  proceedings,  and  keeping 
the  Council  in  a  continual  ferment,  such  being  the  heat  of 
his  temper  and  the  natural  sharpness  of  his  tongue  that 
"  he  could  not,"  says  Clarendon,  "  debate  anything  without 
e<  some  commotion,  even  when  the  argument  was  not  of 
"  moment,  nor  bear  contradiction  in  debate."  The  lay  lords, 
especially  Weston,  resented  this  for  some  time ;  and  it  never 
ceased  to  be  one  of  Cottington's  amusements  to  lead  Laud 
on  at  the  Council  Board  so  as  to  make  him  lose  his  temper 
and  say  or  do  something  ridiculous.  "  This  he  chose  to  do 
"  most,"  says  Clarendon,  "  when  the  King  was  present,  and 
"  then  he  (Cottington)  would  dine  with  him  (Laud)  the  next 
"  day."  But,  in  spite  of  the  resentment  of  Weston,  in  spite 
of  the  duller  opposition  of  such  rough  and  proud  nobles  as 
Montgomery  and  Arundel,  in  spite  of  the  grave  resistance 
offered  now  and  then  by  the  prudent  law-lords,  in  spite  of 
the  fine  cynicism  and  sneering  Spanish  humour  of  Cotting 
ton,  Laud  grated  his  way  to  the  mastery.  Nature  had 
formed  the  prelate  for  the  king;  and,  already  filled  with 
Laud's  Church-doctrines,  and  finding  in  them  the  very  creed 
that  satisfied  his  soul,  Charles,  as  he  sat  in  Council,  would 
always  turn  to  Laud,  whatever  was  the  subject  in  discussion, 

less  firmly.     With  respect  to  the  forms       paper   published  in  the  Atlieneeum  of 
and  regulations  of   the  more  general       Sept.  1 1,  1858. 
Council,  see  a  very  interesting  state 


LAUD   IN   THE   COUNCIL   AND    STAE-CHAMBER.  385 

and  expect  his  advice  first.  The  truth  is,  Laud  and  his 
ecclesiastical  colleagues  were  of  a  party  in  the  Council  more 
extreme  and  rigorous  in  their  notions  of  the  royal  prerogative, 
and  more  bent  on  harsh  courses  of  civil  procedure,  than  the 
majority  of  the  lay  lords,  and  especially  than  the  lawyers 
among  them.  A  curious  indication  of  the  respective  degrees 
of  severity  of  the  various  members  of  Council  is  furnished 
by  a  record  of  their  several  votes  in  Star-chamber,  in  May 
1629,  on  the  question  of  the  amount  of  fine  to  be  inflicted 
on  Richard  Chambers,  a  merchant  of  London,  who,  having 
had  a  parcel  of  silk-grogram  goods  seized  by  the  custom 
house  officers,  and  having  been  summoned  before  the  Council 
for  obstinacy  in  the  matter  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  had 
ventured  to  say  even  in  their  august  presence  that  "  the 
merchants  in  England  were  more  wrung  and  screwed  than 
those  of  Turkey."  The  sum  fixed  on  was  £2,000 ;  but  Laud 
and  Neile  had  voted,  with  Weston,  Arundel,  Dorset,  and 
Suffolk,  for  a  higher  sum.  Chambers  refused  to  pay,  and 
wrote  on  the  paper  of  apology  and  submission  which  was 
presented  to  him  for  signature  that  he  "  utterly  abhorred 
and  detested"  its  contents,  and  " never  till  death  would 
acknowledge  any  part "  of  them.  He  was  kept  in  prison 
for  several  years.1 

If  Laud,  at  the  time  of  Buckingham's  death,  was  not  quite 
in  the  position  of  his  acknowledged  successor  as  chief  Crown 
Minister,  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  before  the  close  of 
the  period  with  which  we  are  now  concerned,  i.  e.  before 
July  1632,  he  had  attained  that  position.  By  that  time  his 
pertinacity  had  prevailed ;  and,  though  there  might  still  be 
elements  in  the  Council  chafing  against  him  and  his  Church- 
bred  ideas  of  state-policy,  he  was  at  least  at  the  head  of  a 
party  so  strong,  both  in  the  King's  favour  and  in  the  number 
of  its  votes  in  the  Council,  that  those  elements  had  to  suc 
cumb.  Such  deaths  as  had  occurred  among  the  lay  lords 
of  the  Council  had  probably  increased  Laud's  strength.  The 
popular  Pembroke  was  dead,  and  Viscount  Conway  was 
dead,  and  those  two  deaths  must  have  weakened  the  more 

i  Eushworth,  I.  671-2. 
VOL.  I.  C  C 


386  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

secular,  not  to  say  the  more  liberal,,  constituent  of  the 
Council.  Nor  of  those  who  remained  did  any  one  stand  up 
against  Laud  that  was  sufficiently  resolute  to  be  his  match. 
Wentworth  was  usually  absent  in  his  Presidency  of  the 
North,  where,  from  his  head-quarters  at  York,  he  was 
breaking  that  stubborn  part  of  England  into  submission 
and  obedience.  Rarely  was  his  rugged  iron  face  seen 
beside  Laud's  cheerily  peevish  one  at  the  Board  at  White 
hall  ;  nor,  when  the  two  men  were  together,  did  any  differ 
ence  arise  between  them.  On  the  contrary,  whatever 
estimate  on  the  whole  Wentworth  may  have  formed  to 
himself  of  Laud,  not  only  did  he  see  Laud  in  a  surer  place 
in  the  King's  regard  than  he  himself  had  yet  attained,  but 
the  general  policy  which  Laud  was  representing  at  Whitehall 
was  sufficiently  the  same  with  his  own.  This  natural  agree 
ment  of  Wentworth  with  Laud,  and  open  deference  to  him 
in  letters  and  despatches,  was  necessarily  of  help  to  Laud  in 
his  dealings  with  the  Councillors  in  London. 

A  third  death  among  the  Councillors,  that  of  Dudley 
Carleton,  Viscount  Dorchester,  one  of  the  two  Secretaries  of 
State,  gave  Laud  an  opportunity  which  he  did  not  miss. 
The  appointment, — casually  noted  in  our  list  of  the  Privy 
Council  as  having  occurred  in  June  1632, — of  Laud's  inti 
mate  friend,  Sir  Francis  Windebanke,  to  the  then  vacant 
Secretaryship  of  State  may,  indeed,  be  regarded  as  marking 
the  epoch  after  which  Laud's  paramount  influence  in  the 
government  of  England  is  no  longer  doubtful.  Old  Secre 
tary  Coke  still  held  office  as  Windebanke's  colleague,  and 
they  divided  the  business  between  them ;  but,  as  regarded 
both  the  amount  and  the  nature  of  the  official  work  per 
formed  by  them,  the  real  Secretary  was  Windebanke.  Who 
ever  has  passed  through  his  hands  the  bundles  of  manuscript 
state-papers  of  that  period  still  preserved  in  our  Eecord 
Office,  and  has  seen  the  name  Windebanke,  Windebanke, 
running  through  them  for  a  series  of  years,  and  noted 
Windebanke' s  neat  hand- writing  (or,  latterly,  that  of  his 
nephew  and  chief  clerk,  Robert  Reade)  either  in  the  drafts 
of  secret  and  confidential  letters  which  he  was  employed  to 


SECRETAEY  WINDEBANKE.  387 

draw  up.  or  in  the  careful  endorsements  and  datings  of  all 
letters  received,  will  testify  that  Windebanke  must  have 
been  a  far  more  important  personage  of  his  time  than  many 
that  have  been  more  heard  of,  and  also  that,  so  far  as  in 
dustry  and  business-like  punctuality  went,  the  choice  of 
Windebanke  for  the  Secretaryship  was  greatly  to  Laud's 
credit.  In  those  respects,  at  least,  better  and  able  men 
have  made  far  worse  Secretaries.  But  what  recommended 
him  to  Laud,  in  addition  to  those  qualities,  was  a  fitness  so 
exact  in  other  respects  that,  when  the  day  of  reckoning 
came,  it  would  have  been  better  for  Windebanke  had  those 
very  qualities,  good  in  themselves,  been  less  conspicuous 
in  him.  To  the  very  centre  of  his  mind, — which,  however, 
was  no  great  way, — he  was  Laud's  disciple,  worshipper,  and 
slave.  In  him  Laud  could  have  a  sure  clerk  and  listener 
when  he  was  present  in  the  Council,  and  a  faithful  reporter 
and  repository  of  business  when  he  was  absent.  If  in  any 
thing  Windebanke  had  an  inclination  .of  his  own,  not  incon 
sistent  with  his  duty  to  Laud,  but  forming  a  kind  of  private 
peculiarity  in  which  he  knew  he  could  indulge  without  in 
every  case  consulting  his  chief,  it  was  a  sympathy  with 
Roman  Catholics  when  they  were  in  trouble.  In  his  official 
capacity  as  Secretary,  writing  orders  for  arrests,  releases 
from  prison,  and  the  like,  he  had  opportunities  of  showing 
this  sympathy,  and  of  doing  a  good  turn  now  and  then  to 
some  skulking  priest  or  Jesuit ;  and  it  was  not  long  before 
the  watchful  Puritanism  of  London  had  fastened  on  this~\ 
weak  point  of  Mr.  Secretary  Windebanke  and  debited  his  ) 
special  sins  resulting  from  it  to  the  account  of  Laud. 

So  much  for  the  manner  and  extent  of  Laud's  action  in 
the  general  government  from  March  1628-9  to  July  1632. 
In  the  government  of  the  Church  during  the  same  period 
his  supremacy  was  more  uniform  and  constant,  inasmuch  as 
it  was  assured  from  the  first,  and  had  not  to  encounter 
rivalry  or  competition.  True,  he  was  as  yet  only  Bishop  of 
London.  Archbishop  Abbot,  though  in  fact  superseded, 
still  lived  ;  and  Harsnet,  as  Archbishop  of  York,  had  official 

c  c  2 


388  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTOEY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

precedence.  But  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury  had  been 
promised  to  Laud  as  soon  as  Abbot  should  die ;  and,  what 
with  his  actual  power  as  the  Bishop  of  the  metropolis,  what 
with  the  express  or  tacit  delegation  to  him  of  some  of 
Abbot's  functions,  and  what  with  his  position  as  Charles's 
spiritual  adviser  and  the  one  minister  of  the  Crown  in  all 
Church-matters,  he  was  as  good  as  Archbishop  already. 
Here  too  some  details  will  help  us  to  imagine  more  clearly 
how  things  stood  and  how  Laud  acted. 

The  following  is  a  complete  list  of  the  English  prelatic 
body  at  the  time  when  the  Laudian  supremacy  began,  in 
cluding  the  changes  that  occurred  in  it  by  vacancies  before 
the  end  of  1632.  To  make  the  list  more  instructive,  I  have 
attempted  a  classification  of  the  prelates.  The  letter  L 
designates  those  who,  either  as  absolutely  agreeing  with 
Laud  in  his  theory  of  Anglican  orthodoxy,  or  as  being 
resolute  conformists  of  the  old  Bancroft  school,  were  pre 
disposed  to  co-operate  with  Laud  in  his  Church  policy;  the 
letter  M  designates  those  who,  whether  from  their  Calvinistic 
leanings  in  theology  or  from  their  tolerant  temper,  would 
have  been  disposed,  if  left  to  themselves,  to  a  moderate  or 
middle  course ;  and  the  letter  P  designates  those  exceptional 
prelates  who,  whether  from  the  peculiar  vigour  of  their 
Calvinism  or  from  other  causes,  were  disposed  not  merely 
to  tolerate  the  Puritans,  but  even  to  countenance  them. 

PROVINCE  OF  CANTERBURY. 

1.  ARCHBISHOP  OF  CANTERBURY  :  Dr.  George  Abbot ;  appointed 
1611 ;  suspended  1627  ;  died  Aug.  4, 1633.  (P.) 

2.  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph:  Dr.  John  Hanmer  ;  appointed  1623  ;  died 
June  23, 1629.  (M.}— Succeeded  by  Dr.  John  Owen,  of  Welsh  extrac 
tion,  who  lived  till  1657. 

3.  Bishop  of  Bangor:  Dr.  Lewis  Bayly,  a  Welshman;  appointed 
1616  ;  died  October  26, 1631.  (P.)— Succeeded  by  Dr.  David  Dolben, 
another  Welshman,  who  lived  till  1633. 

4.  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells :  Laud's  successor  in  this  diocese,  in 
July  1628,  was  Dr.  Leonard  Mawe,  already  known  to  us  as  master 
successively  of  Peterhouse  and  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.     He  died 
Sept.  2,  1629.  (L.)—  He  was  succeeded  by  Bishop  Curie,  translated 
from  Rochester  (L. );  who,  on  his  subsequent  translation  (1632)  to 
Winchester,  was  succeeded  by  Bishop  Pierce,  translated  from  Peter 
borough  ;  who  lived  to  1670. 


THE    ENGLISH   EPISCOPATE    FROM    1628    TO    1632.  389 

5.  Bishop  of  Bristol:  From  1622  to  Nov.  1632,  Dr.  Robert  Wright. 
(L.}  —  Succeeded  by  Dr.  George  Coke,  a  brother  of  Secretary  Coke. 


6.  Bishop  of  Chichester:  From  July  1628  to  May  1638,  Dr.  Richard 
Montague,  already  known.  (Z.) 

7.  Bishop  of  St.  David's  :  Dr.  Theophilus  Field,  translated  hither 
from  Llandaff,  to  succeed  Laud,  in  July  1627  ;  held  the  see  till  1635. 
(M.) 

8.  Bishop  of  Ely:  From  April  1628  to  his  death  in  May  1631,  Dr. 
John  Buckridge,  translated  hither  from  Rochester,  where  he  had 
been  Bishop  since  1611  ;  educated  at  St.  John's,  Oxford,  where,  as 
a  fellow  and  tutor,  he  had  had  Laud  for  his  pupil  ;  had  been  Laud's 
immediate  predecessor  as  President  of  that  College.  (Z.)  —  Succeeded 
by  Bishop  White,  translated  from  Norwich;  who  lived  till  1637-8. 

9.  Bishop  of  Exeter  :  From  1627  to  1641,  the  celebrated  Dr.  Joseph 
Hall,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Norwich.  (M.) 

10.  Bishop  of  Gloucester:  From  1624  to  1640,  Dr.  Godfrey  Good 
man,  a  Welshman,  and  remarkable  as  being,  notwithstanding  his 
position,  almost  avowedly  a  Roman  Catholic.     At  all  events  he  died 
(1655)  a  Romanist,  and  "in  his  discourse,"  according  to  Fuller,  "he 
would  be  constantly  complaining  of  the  first  Reformers  ;  "  saying,  for 
example,  that  Ridley  was  "  a  very  odd  man."    Fuller  adds,  however, 
that  he  was  "  a  very  harmless  man,  pitiful  to  the  poor,  and  against 
the  ruin  of  any  of  an  opposite  judgment  "  ;  wherefore  he  may  be 
marked  (J/). 

11.  Bishop  of  Hereford:  From  1617  to  his  death  in  April  1633,  Dr. 
Francis  Godwin,  transferred  to  Hereford  from  LlandafF,  where  he  had 
been  Bishop  since  1601  ;  very  celebrated  as  an  ecclesiastical  anti 
quarian  (his  Lives  of  the  Bishops  being  still  a  standard  work),  and 
manifesting,  in  his  historical  judgments,  something  of  a  "  puritanical 
pique,"  according  to  Wood.  (P.) 

12.  Bishop  of  Lichfield  and  Coventry  :  From  1618-19,  when  he  had 
been  translated  from  Chester,  till  June  1632,  when  he  was  translated 
to  Durham,  Dr.  Thomas  Morton  ;  "  the  neb  of  whose  pen,"  according 
to  Fuller,  "  was  impartially  divided  into  two  equal  moieties  —  the  one 
writing  against  faction,  in  defence  of  three  innocent  ceremonies,;  the 
other    against    superstition."  (M.}  —  Succeeded    by  Bishop  Wright, 
translated  from  Bristol  ;  who  lived  till  1643.  (L.) 

13.  Bishop  of  Lincoln  :  From  1621  to  Dec.  1641,  Dr.  John  Williams, 
already  known.  (M.) 

14.  Bishop  of  Llandaff:  From  1627  to  his  death  in  Feb.  1639-40, 
Dr.  William  Murray,  a  Scot,  transferred  from  the  Irish  see  of  Kilfe- 
nora.  (M.) 

15.  Bishop  of  London:  From  July  11,  1628  to  .Sept.  19,  1633,  Laud 
himself.  (L.) 

16.  Bishop  of  Norwich:  From  Jan.   1628-9,  when  he  had  been 
translated  from  Carlisle,  to  Dec.  1631,  Dr.  Francis  White.  (L.)— 
Succeeded  by.  Bishop  Corbet,  translated  from  Oxford  ;  who  lived  till 
1635.  (M.) 

17.  Bishop  of  Oxford:  From  Sept.  1628  to  May  1632,  Dr.  Richard 
Corbet,  afterwards  of  Norwich  ;  celebrated  as  a  wit  and  poet,  and  as 
the  jolliest  prelate  of  his  day  on  the  English  bench  ;  decidedly  anti- 
Puritanical  in  his  notions,  and  recommended  by  Laud  for  the  see 
when  vacant,  but  "  of  courteous  carriage,"  says   Fuller,  "  and  no 
destructive  nature  to  any  who  offended  him,  counting  himself  plenti- 


390  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

fully  repaid  with  a  jest  upon  him  "  ;  wherefore  he  may  be  marked 
(M.)  —  Succeeded  by  Dr.  John  Bancroft,  a  nephew  of  Archbishop 
Bancroft  ;  who  lived  till  1640-1.  (Z.) 

18.  Bishop   of  Peterborough  :  From  April   1601   to  his  death  in 
August   1630,  Dr.  Thomas  Dove,  one  of  the  old  Queen  Elizabeth 
bishops,  and  a  resolute  anti-Puritan  of  the  old  school.  (Z.)  —  Suc 
ceeded  by  Dr.  William  Pierce  (L.}  on  whose  translation  two  years 
afterwards  (1632)  to  Bath  and  Wells,  a  third  man,  Dr.   Augustine 
Lindsell,  was  appointed  (Z.),  who  lived  till  1634. 

19.  Bishop  of  Rochester  :  From  July  1628  to  Dec.  1629,  when  he 
was  transferred  to  Bath  and  Wells,  Dr.  Walter  Curie,  a  protege  of 
Bishop  Neile.  (Z.)  —  Succeeded  by  Dr.  John  Bowles  ;  who  lived  till 
1637. 

20.  Bishop  of  Salisbury  :  From  1621  to  his  death  in  April  1641, 
Dr.  John  Davenant,  uncle  of  Fuller  the  historian  ;  raised  to  the 
bishopric  after  his  return  from  the  Synod  of  Dort.  (Jf,  or  even  P.) 

21.  Bishop  of   Winchester:  From   Dec.    1628  to   Feb.   1631-2,  Dr. 
Richard  Neile.  (L.)  —  Succeeded  by  Bishop  Curie,  transferred  from 
Bath  and  Wells  ;  who  lived  till  1647.  (Z.) 

22.  Bishop  of  Worcester:  From  Jan.  1616-17  to  his  death  in  July 
1641,  Dr.  John  Thornborough,  who  had  previously  been  Bishop  of 
Bristol  from  1603  to  1616-17,  and,  before  that,  Bishop  of  Limerick  in 
Ireland.  (M.) 

PROVINCE  OF   YORK. 

1.  ARCHBISHOP  OP  YOEK  :  From  Nov.  1628  to  his  death  in  May 
1631,  Dr.  Samuel  Harsnet,  who  had  previously  held  in  succession  the 
bishoprics  of  Chichester  and  Norwich  ;  "  a  zealous  asserter  of  cere 
monies,"  says  Fuller,  "  using  to  complain  of  (the  first,  I  believe,  who 
used  the  expression)  conformable  Puritans,  who  preached  it   [con 
formity]  out  of  policy,  yet  dissented  from  it  in  their  judgments."  (Z.) 
—  Succeeded  by  Neile,  transferred  from  the  Bishopric  of  Winchester  ; 
who  lived  till  Oct.  1640.  (Z.) 

2.  Bishop  of  Carlisle:   From  March  1628-9  to  his  death  in  Jan. 
1641-2,  Dr.  Barnabas  Potter,  who  had  been  a  distinguished  preacher 
of  the  Puritan  party,  and  Provost  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  in  the 
reign  of  James  ;  had  been  chaplain  to  Charles  I.  ;  and  had,  for  some 
exceptional  reason,  though  "  a  thorough-paced  Calvinist,"  been  made 
Bishop  of  Carlisle.     He  was  usually,  according  to  Fuller  and  Wood, 
called  "the  Puritanical  Bishop,"  and  it  was  said  that  "the  very 
sound  of  an  organ  would  blow  him  out  of  church,"  —  which,  however, 
Fuller  does  not  believe,  "  the  rather  as  he  was  loving  of  and  skilful 
in  vocal  music."     He  did  all  he  could  for  the  Nonconformists.  (P.) 

3.  Bishop  of  Chester:  From  1619  onwards  (died  1652)  Dr.  John 
Bridgman.  (M.) 

4.  Bishop  of  Durham:  From  Sept.  1628,  when  he  was  translated 
from  Oxford,  to  his  death  in  Feb.  1631-2,  Dr.  John  Howson.  (Z.)  — 
Succeeded  by  Morton,  transferred  from  Lichfield  and  Coventry  ;  who 
lived  till  1659. 

5.  Bishop  of  Man:  From  1604  to  Aug.  1633,  Mr.  John  Phillips,  a 
Welshman  ;  translator  of  the  Bible  into  Manx. 


1  The  names  in  this  list  are  from  Le  ticulars  are  from  Wood's  Athecse  and 
Neve's  Fasti,  corrected  by  reference  to  Fasti,  Fuller's  Worthies,  and  Fuller's 
Nicolas's  Historic  Peerage;  other  par-  Church  History. 


LAUD'S    ECCLESIASTICAL   LEGISLATION.  391 

Thus,  of  the  twenty- seven  Prelates  in  authority  in  England 
at  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  Laud's  ecclesiastical 
supremacy, — of  whom  no  fewer  than  fourteen,  or  more  than 
one  half,  had  been  appointed  since  the  accession  of  Charles, 
— there  were  about  eleven  who  could  be  reckoned  on  by 
Laud  as  likely  to  co-operate  with  him  zealously  against 
Puritanism,  about  six  who  were  likely  to  dissent  strongly 
from  his  measures,  and  about  ten  who  were  likely  to  be 
neutral,  or  to  obey  whatever  force  could  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  them.  Among  the  Deans,  Archdeacons,  Masters  of 
Colleges,  and  other  dignitaries  inferior  to  the  Bishops,  the 
proportions  may  have  been  about  the  same.  In  the  general 
body  of  the  parish  clergy  and  their  curates  the  Puritan  and 
Calvinistic  elements  were  naturally  in  much  larger  propor 
tion.  Finally,  the  lecturers,  as  many  of  them  as  remained, 
were  almost  exclusively  Puritans. 

It  was  part  of  Laud's  theoretical  system,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  the  right  of  ecclesiastical  legislation  belonged  to  a 
National  Synod  or  Convocation,  with  the  bishops  presiding. 
Now,  however,  that  there  were  no  meetings  of  the  Convoca 
tion  or  ecclesiastical  Parliament,  any  more  than  of  the  secular 
Parliament,1  the  only  method  that  remained  (and  he  proba- 

1  Convocation  was  originally,  it  is  ecclesiastical  law.  Such  were  the  fam- 
supposed,  the  assembly  of  the  clergy  ous  canons  of  1603-4 ;  which,  however,- 
in  the  form  of  a  Parliament, — the  higher  never  having  been  ratified  by  Parlia- 
clergy  personally,  the  inferior  clergy  ment,  but  only  by  the  King,  have  been 
by  their  proctors  or  deputies, — for  the  declared  by  the  courts  of  law  not  to  be 
purposeof  assessingthemselvesin taxes,  binding  on  the  English  laity,  but  only 
at  a  time  when  they  claimed  exemption  on  the  clergy.  As  Convocation  met 
from  the  general  taxation  of  the  coun-  only  when  Parliament  met,  and  was  in 
try  as  settled  in  the  secular  Parliament.  fact  a  necessary  though  independent 
The  assembly,  divided  into  the  two  portion  of  Parliament  considered  in  its 
provincial  synods  of  Canterbury  and  totality,  the  disuse  of  Parliaments  from 
York,  was  convened  by  the  king's  writ  1628-9  onwards  to  1640  led  to  the 
sent  to  the  two  Archbishops,  and  by  abeyance  of  Convocation  for  the  same 
them  downwards,  at  the  commence-  period,  and  consequently  to  the  absence 
ment  of  every  new  Parliament.  As  on  during  that  period  of  such  modified 
such  occasions  the  clergy  took  the  op-  control  over  Laud  and  the  ether 
portunity  of  discussing  ecclesiastical  bishops  as  might  have  resulted  from 
questions,  Convocation  became  (if  it  the  synodical  criticism  of  the  body  of 
had  not  always  been)  the  ecclesiastical  the  clergy.  In  1665  the  clergy  con- 
legislative  body.  At  the  Reformation  sented  to  be  taxed,  with  other  classes 
its  functions  in  this  respect  were  of  the  community,  by  the  general  Par- 
greatly  limited ;  but  it  still  continued  liament, — acquiring,  in  equivalent,  the 
to  meet  with  every  new  Parliament,  right  of  voting  for  knights  of  the 
and  several  times,  with  the  consent  of  shires ;  since  which  time,  accordingly, 
the  Crown,  it  issued  new  bodies  of  Convocation  has  been  nearly  a  nullity, 
canons,  which  the  Crown  ratified  as 


392  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

bly  learned  to  prefer  it)  was  for  himself,  either  alone,  or  in 
conjunction  with  his  colleagues  Neile  and  Harsnet,  to  re 
commend  to  the  King  such  measures  as,  without  amounting 
to  actual  innovation  in  doctrine  or  canon,  should  yet  produce 
effects  desired,  and  then,  having  procured  for  these  measures 
the  King's  consent,  to  see  them  issued  as  orders  in  Council, 
or  royal  declarations  and  proclamations.  This,  accordingly, 
he  did.  On  the  30th  of  December  1629,  for  example,  there 
were  issued  in  the  King's  name  the  following  important 
' '  Instructions  to  the  two  Archbishops  concerning  certain  orders 
to  be  observed  and  put  in  execution  by  the  several  Bishops/' 
these  instructions  being  framed  with  but  slight  variations  on 
"  Considerations  for  the  better  settling  of  the  Church  Govern 
ment^  presented  to  the  King  in  draft  by  Laud,  or  by  Laud 
and  Harsnet,  in  the  preceding  March  : — 1 

"  I.  That  the  Lords  the  Bishops  be  commanded  to  their  several 
sees  to  keep  residence,  excepting  those  which  are  in  necessary  attend 
ance  at  Court. 

"  II.  That  none  of  them  reside  upon  his  land  or  lease  that  he  hath 
purchased,  nor  on  his  commendam  [i.  e.  living  held  by  him  in  addi 
tion  to  his  bishopric],  if  he  should  have  any,  but  in  one  of  the  epis 
copal  houses,  if  he  have  any.  And  that  he  waste  not  the  woods 
where  any  are  left. 

"  III.  That  they  give  in  charge,  in  their  triennial  visitations  and 
all  other  convenient  times,  both  by  themselves  and  the  archdeacons, 
that  the  Declaration  for  the  settling  all  questions  in  difference  be 
strictly  observed  by  all  parties. 

1  The    "  Considerations  "  are    given  "  count  was  begun  before  my  time.    I- 

from  Laud's  paper  by  Rushworth,  II.  "  should  have  been  glad  of  the  honour 

7  ;  the  actual  "  Instructions  "  based  on  "  had  it  begun  in  mine."    In  these  ex- 

them  are  given  by  Rushworth,  II.  30,  planations,  Laud  must  be  understood 

and  more  fully  in  Wharton's  Laud,  pp.  as  using  his  legal  right  as  an  accused 

517-518,  and  it  is  interesting  to  com-  person  to  make  no  unnecessary  admis- 

pare  the  two  documents.     In  his  ac-  sions  hurtful  to  himself,  and  even  to 

count  of  his  trial  Laud  disclaims  the  avail    himself  of    technical    defences, 

sole  authorship  both  of  the  "  Considera-  He  does  not  assert  that, though  Harsnet 

tions"  and  "Instructions"  (see  Whar-  had  a  hand  in  the  Considerations,  they 

ton's  Laud,  356).    "  My  copy  of  Con-  did  not  emanate  from  himself ;  and  the 

siderations,"    he    says,    "  came    from  words  "  before  my  time,"  in  reference 

Archbishop     Harsnet  "  ;     and     again,  to  the  Instructions,  can  mean  only  that 

"  The  king's   Instructions  under  these  they  were  issued  before  his  elevation 

"  Considerations  are  under  Mr.  Baker's  to  the  Archbishopric  in  1633,  and  not 

*'  hand,  who  was  secretary  to  my  pre-  that  they  may  not  have  been  advised 

"  decessor  (i.  e.  to  Archbishop  Abbot),  by  him  in  his  prior  condition  as  Bishop 

"  and  they  were  sent  to  me  to  make  ex-  of  London,  i.  e.  virtually  sent  by  him  as 

"  ceptions  to  them,  if  I  knew  any,  in  Crown  Minister    to    Abbot    as    Arch- 

"  regard  to  the  ministers  of  London,  bishop,  to  descend  upon  himself  again 

"  whereof  I  was  then  Bishop,  and  by  as  Bishop,  from  that  primate, 
"this  .  .  .  'tis  manifest  that  this  ac- 


LAUD'S   ECCLESIASTICAL   LEGISLATION.  393 

"IV.  That  there  be  a  special  care  taken  by  them  all  that  the 
ordinations  be  solemn,  and  not  of  unworthy  persons. 

"  V.  That  they  take  great  care  concerning  the  Lecturers,  in  these 
special  directions  following  : — [The  wording  of  this  Instruction  in 
Laud's,  or  Harsnet's,  draft  is  much  fiercer  : — "  That  a  special  care  be 
had  over  the  Lecturers  in  every  diocese,  which,  by  reason  of  their  pay, 
are  the  people's  creatures,  and  blow  the  bellows  of  their  sedition  :  for 
the  abating  of  whose  power,  these  ways  may  be  taken : — ] 

"  1.  That  in  all  parishes  the  afternoon  sermons  may  be 
turned  into  catechising  by  questions  and  answers,  when  and 
wheresoever  there  is  no  great  cause  apparent  to  break  this 
ancient  and  profitable  order. 

"  2.  That  every  Bishop  ordain  in  his  diocese  that  every 
lecturer  do  read  Divine  Service,  according  to  the  Liturgy 
printed  by  authority,  in  his  surplice  and  hood,  before  the 
lecture. 

"  3.  That,  where  a  lecture  is  setjip  in  a  market-town,  it  may 
be  read  by  a  company  of  grave  and  orthodox  divines  near 
adjoining,  and  in  the  same  diocese ;  and  that  they  preach  in 
gowns  and  not  in  cloaks,  as  too  many  do  use. 

"  4.  That,  if  a  corporation  maintain  a  single  lecturer,  he  be 
not  suffered  to  preach  till  he  profess  his  willingness  to  take 
upon  him  a  living  with  cure  of  souls  within  that  corporation  ; 
and  that  he  actually  take  such  benefice  or  cure  as  soon  as  it 
shall  be  fairly  procured  for  him. 

"  VI.  That  the  Bishops  do  countenance  and  encourage  the  grave 
and  orthodox  divines  of  their  clergy ;  and  that  they  use  means  by 
some  of  their  clergy  that  they  may  have  knowledge  how  both  lecturers 
and  preachers  behave  themselves  in  their  sermons,  within  their 
diocese,  that  so  they  may  take  order  for  any  abuse  accordingly. 

"  VII.  That  the  Bishops  suffer  none  but  noblemen  and  men  quali 
fied  by  learning  to  have  any  private  chaplain  in  their  houses. 

"  VIII.  That  they  take  special  care  that  divine  service  be  duly 
frequented,  as  well  for  prayers  and  catechisings  as  for  sermons,  and 
take  particular  note  of  all  such  as  absent  themselves  as  recusants  or 
otherwise. 

"IX.  That  every  Bishop  that  by  our  grace,  favour,  and  good 
opinion  of  his  service  shall  be  nominated  by  us  to  another  bishop 
ric,  shall,  from  that  day  of  nomination,  not  presume  to  make  any 
lease  for  three  lives  or  one-and-twenty  years,  or  concurrent  lease,  or 
any  way  make  any  estate,  or  cut  any  woods  or  timber,  but  merely 
receive  the  rents  due,  and  so  quit  the  place  ;  for  we  think  it  a  hate 
ful  thing  that  any  man,  leaving  the  bishopric,  should  almost  undo 
the  successor.  And,  if  any  man  shall  presume  to  break  this  order, 
we  will  refuse  him  our  royal  assent,  and  keep  him  at  the  place  which 
he  hath  so  abused. 

"X.  We  command  you  to  give  us  an  account  every  year,  the 
second  day  of  January,  of  the  performance  of  these  our  commands." 

In  addition  to  these  instructions,  there  are,  in  Laud's  (or 
Harsnet's)  draft,  certain  suggestions  to  the  King  himself,  of 
a  kind  that  could  not  be  transferred  into  the  Instructions. 
Thus :—  * 


394  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

"  That  His  Majesty  may  be  graciously  pleased  that  men  of  courage, 
gravity,  and  experience  in  government,  be  preferred  to  bishoprics. 

"  That  Emanuel  and  Sidney  colleges  in  Cambridge,  which  are  the 
nurseries  of  Puritanism,  may,  from  time  to  time,  be  provided  of  grave 
and  orthodox  men  for  their  governors. 

"  That  His  Majesty's  High  Commission  be  countenanced  by  the 
presence  of  some  of  His  Majesty's  Privy  Council,  so  oft  at  least  as 
any  matter  of  moment  is  to  be  sentenced. 

"  That  some  course  may  be  taken  that  the  judges  may  not  send  so 
many  prohibitions  [i.  e.  orders  interrupting  ecclesiastical  procedure]. 

Observe  not  only  how  Laudian  the  Instructions  are  in 
substance,  bat  also  how  effectual  the  form  in  which  they  are 
issued.  It  is  the  King  in  person  who  issues  the  Instructions  ; 
the  King  delates  them  to  the  two  Archbishops ;  each  Arch 
bishop  is  to  see  to  their  execution  by  the  Bishops  of  his  own 
province ;  and  annually,  on  the  2d  of  January,  each  Arch 
bishop  is  to  give  a  written  report  to  his  Majesty  as  to  the 
degree  in  which  the  Instructions  have  been  obeyed. 

Besides  these  Instructions,  issued  Dec.  30,  1629,  the 
following  seem  to  be  the  most  important  items  of  new  eccle 
siastical  legislation  or  enactment  passed,  by  Laud's  influence, 
from  1629  to  1632  :— 

Proclamation  from  Hampton  Court,  Oct.  11,  1629.  "Having  of 
ft  late  taken  special  notice  of  the  general  decay  and  ruin  of  parish 
"  churches  in  many  places  of  this  kingdom,  and  that  by  law  the  same 
"  ought  to  be  repaired  and  maintained  at  the  proper  charge  of  the 
"  inhabitants  and  others  having  land  in  these  chapelries  and  parishes 
"  respectively,  who  had  wilfully  neglected  to  repair  the  same,  being 
"  consecrated  places  of  God's  worship  and  divine  service :  His 
"  Majesty  doth  therefore  charge  and  command  all  Archbishops  and 
"  Bishops,  that  they  take' special  care  of  the  repairing  and  upholding 
"  the  same  from  time  to  time,  and,  by  themselves  and  their  officers, 
"  to  take  a  view  and  survey  of  them,  and  to  use  the  power  of  the 
"  Ecclesiastical  Court  for  putting  the  same  in  due  execution  :  and 
"  that  the  judges  be  required  not  to  interrupt  this  good  work  by  their 
"  too  easy  granting  of  prohibitions."  ' 

April  10,  1631.  A  commission  under  the  great  seal  was  issued  to 
the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and  York,  the  Bishops  of  London 
and  Winchester,  all  the  Lords  of  the  Council,  &c.  &c.,  empowering 
them  to  take  steps  for  the  repairing  and  ornamentation  of  St.  Paul's 
cathedral,  as  "  the  goodliest  monument  and  most  eminent  church  in 
all  His  Majesty's  dominions,  and  a  principal  ornament  of  the  royal 
city."  Considering  that  so  vast  a  work  was  "not  to  be  effected  out 
of  any  rents  or  revenues"  already  available,  His  Majesty  ordered  : — 
1.  That  money  should  be  raised  by  voluntary  subscription,  the 
Bishop  of  London  to  keep  a  register  for  the  purpose ;  2.  That  the 

1  Eushworth,  II.  23. 


395 

judges  of  the  Prerogative  Courts  in  both  provinces,  the  vicars  general, 
and  the  officials  in  all  the  bishoprics,  should  take  care  to  set  apart 
for  the  object  some  "convenient  proportion"  of  such  moneys  as 
should  fall  into  their  power,  by  intestacy  and  the  like,  for  charitable 
uses  ;  3.  That  letters-patent  should  be  issued  for  a  general  collection 
in  the  churches  throughout  England  and  Wales  ;  and  4.  That  in 
quiries  should  be  instituted  with  the  view  of  finding  out  moneys 
already  legally  applicable  for  the  purpose.1 

June  25,  1631.  An  Order  in  Council  of  this  date  also  referred  to 
St.  Paul's.  Taking  notice  of  a  long-continued  scandal, — to  wit,  the 
use  of  the  cathedral  as  a  thoroughfare,  exchange,  and  place  of  loung 
ing  for  idlers, — the  King  in  Council  published  orders  to  the  following 
effect,  and  charged  the  Dean  and  Chapter  with  their  execution  : — • 
'  1.  That  no  man  of  what  quality  soever  shall  presume  to  walk  in 
'  the  aisles  of  the  quire,  or  in  the  body  or  aisles  of  the  church,  during 
'  the  time  of  divine  service,  or  the  celebration  of  the  blessed  sacra- 
'ment,  or  sermons,  or  any  part  of  them,  neither  do  anything  that 
'  may  disturb  the  service  of  the  church,  or  diminish  the  honour  due 
'  to  so  holy  a  place  ;  2.  That  no  man  presume  to  profane  the  church 
'  by  the  carriage  of  burdens  or  baskets,  or  any  portage  whatsoever  ; 
'  3.  That  all  parents  and  masters  of  families  do  strictly  forbid  their 
'  children  and  servants  to  play  at  any  time  in  the  church,  or  any  way 
'  misdemean  themselves  in  that  place  in  time  of  divine  service  or 
'  otherwise." 2 

These  enactments,  it  will  be  seen,  are  also  characteristic 
of  Laud,  and  characteristic  of  him,  as  most  persons  will 
agree,  on  the  more  venerable  side  of  his  energetic  little 
being.  ' '  All  that  I  laboured  for  in  this  particular,"  he  said 
afterwards,  when  charged  on  his  trial  witli  introducing 
Popish  and  superstitious  ceremonies  into  the  worship  of  the 
Church  of  England,  "  was  that  the  external  worship  of  God 
"in  this  Church  might  be  kept  up  in  uniformity  and 
"  decency,  and  in  some  beauty  of  holiness."  This  phrase, 
Beauty  of  Holiness,  was  a  favourite  one  with  Laud.  It 
occurs  first  in  Scripture  in  David's  song  of  thanksgiving 
sung  on  the  bringing  of  the  ark  to  Zion  and  the  establish 
ment  of  it  there  under  the  care  of  an  endowed  ministry 
(1  Chron.  xvi.  29)  : — "  Give  unto  the  Lord  the  glory  duo 
unto  his  name;  bring  an  offering  and  come  before  him; 
worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness."  It  is  repeated 
twice  in  the  Psalms  with  the  same  exact  context  (Ps.  xxix. 
2,  and  xcvi.  9),  and  once  again  in  the  story  of  Jehoshaphafc 
(2  Chron.  xx.  21).  Picking  out  the  phrase  for  himself,  or 
finding  it  already  selected  for  him,  Laud  seems  to  have 
i  Kushworth,  II.  88-90.  2  ibid.  II.  91. 


396  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

delighted  in  using  it  to  describe  his  ideal  of  the  Church.  If 
there  is  ever  a  touch  of  poetry  in  Laud's  language,  it  is 
when  he  uses  this  phrase  or  one  of  its  equivalents.  One 
seems  to  see  a  peculiar  relish  of  his  lips  in  the  act  of  pro 
nouncing  it.  What  it  meant  in  his  application  is  generally 
(  .known.  It  meant  that,  as  in  all  ages  it .  had  been  deemed 
(advantageous  for  the  maintaining  of  religion  among  men  to 
/represent  it  as  far  as  possible  in  tangible  object  and  institu- 
/  tion,  in  daily  custom,  and  in  periodical  fast  and  festival,  so 
J  there  should  be  an  effort  to  increase  and  perfect  at  that  time 
|  in  England  the  sensuous  and  ceremonious  aids  to  worship. 
It  meant  that  there  should  be  greater  uniformity  in  times 
and  seasons,  in  fish  during  Lent,  and  in  the  observance  01 
saints'  days.  It  meant  that  there  should  be  a  survey  of  the 
decayed  cathedrals  and  churches  throughout  the  land  with 
a  view  to  their  repair  and  comely  maintenance.  It  meant 
that,  more  than  hitherto,  those  edifices  and  all  appertaining 
to  them  should  be  treated  as  holy  objects,  not  to  be  seen  or 
touched  without  obeisance,  and  worthy  of  all  the  seemliness 
that  religious  art  could  bestow  upon  them.  Thus  in  the 
beauty  of  holiness  there  were  included  not  only  the  walls 
and  external  fabrics  of  the  sacred  edifices,  but  also  their 
internal  decorations  and  furniture,  the  paintings,  the  carved 
images,  the  great  organ,  the  crucifixes,  the  candlesticks,  the 
crimson  and  blue  and  yellow  of  the  stained  glass  windows, 
consecrated  vessels  for  the  holy  communion,  with  consecrated 
knives  and  napkins,  and  even  in  the  humblest  parish  churches 
the  sweetest  cleanliness,  the  well-kept  desks  of  oak,  the 
stone  baptismal  font,  the  few  conspicuous  squares  of  white 
and  black  marble,  and  the  decent  rail  separating  the  com 
munion-table  from  the  rest  of  the  interior.  Moreover,  and 
very  specially,  the  priests,  as  being  men  holy  in  their  office 
by  derivation  from  the  Apostles,  were  to  see  to  the  expres 
sion  of  this  in  their  vestments,  and  chiefly  in  the  pure  white 
surplices  enjoined  to  be  worn  on  the  more  solemn  occasions 
of  sacred  service.  Then,  there  was  symbolical  holiness  also 
in  the  appointed  gestures  both  of  the  ministers  and  the 
people,  the  standing  up  at  the  Creed,  the  kneeling  at  the 


397 

Communion,  the  bowing  at  the  names  of  Jesus.  All  this 
and  much  more  was  included  in  that  "  beauty  of  holiness  " 
which  Laud  desired  to  uphold  and  restore  in  England./  The 
prelates  of  the  old  school  had  been  satisfied  with  the  observ 
ance  of  such  of  the  canonical  ceremonies  as  the  general 
custom  of  the  reign  of  James  had  retained  in  opposition  to 
the  anti-ceremonial  tendency  of  the  Puritans ;  but  Laud  was 
for  the  strict  maintenance  of  all  that  were  enjoined  by  the 
letter  of  the  canons,  and  not  only  so,  but  for  "  a  restaura- 
tion"  also  of  such  "ancient  approved  ceremonies"  as  had 
fallen  into  disuse  since  the  Reformation.  Within  his  own 
life,  and  partly  from  his  personal  influence,  there  had  grown 
up  a  body  of  men  agreeing  with  him  in  these  views,  and 
prepared  to  go  along  with  him  in  carrying  them  out.  To 
Laud,  as  their  leader,  every  manifestation  of  the  increase  of 
this  party  in  the  Church,  or  of  a  tendency  anywhere  to  the 
adoption  of  new  sensuous  aids  to  piety  without  passing  over 
to  the  communion  of  Eome  in  order  to  find  them,  was  a  fact 
of  interest.  It  could  only  be  when  this  party  had  attained 
to  a  considerable  numerical  strength  that  he  could  hope  to 
ceremonialise  the  Church  to  the  full  extent  of  his  wishes. 
For  the  present,  his  notions  as  to  the  necessity  of  extending 
the  rite  of  consecration  not  only  to  all  churches,  but  also  to 
chapels,  to  the  communion-plate,  and  to  all  utensils  employed 
in  the  sacred  service,  were  decidedly  beyond  those  enter 
tained  by  the  bulk  of  the  clergy.  Still  farther  was  he  from 
having  all  the  prelates  or  clergy  with  him  in  his  views  as  to 
the  name  and  arrangement  proper  to  the  communion-table. 
The  common  opinion  on  this  subject  was  that  the  commu 
nion-table  was  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  altar  or  called  by 
that  name,  but  was  to  be  "  a  joined  table,"  to  be  laid  up  in 
the  chancel  at  such  times  as  it  was  not  in  use  for  the  holy 
service,  but  in  the  time  of  such  service  to  be  removed  to 
some  part  of  the  body  of  the  church  where  all  could  con 
veniently  see  and  hear,  and  there  placed  "  table- wise  "  with 
the  sides  north  and  south.  Laud,  on  the  other  hand,  held 
that  the  communion-table  was  an  altar,  and  as  such  should 
be  permanently  fixed  t(  altar- wise "  at  the  east  end  of  the 


398  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY  OF    HIS   TIME. 

chancel,  with,  the  ends  north  and  south.  Generally,  too,  he 
was  for  the  use  of  such  names  as  paten,  chalice,  alb, 
paraphront,  and  suffront,  as  designations  of  the  sacred 
utensils  and  parts  of  the  sacred  furniture,  on  the  principle 
that,  as  all  these  were  holy  things,  they  "  should  be  differ 
enced  in  name  from  common  things."  These,  however, 
were,  for  the  present,  the  private  and  personal  developments 
of  Laud's  ecclesiasticism,  regarded  even  by  friendly  prelates 
as  indications  of  a  v7rep/3oA.^  rrjs  ewe/3etaj.  Accordingly, 
though,  in  his  own  view,  an  ultimate  uniformity  even  in  these 
particulars  would  be  necessary  to  complete  his  ideal  of  that 
beauty  of  holiness  which  might  be  set  up  in  England,  he 
was  content  in  the  mean  time  with  doing  what  he  could 
within  his  own  diocesan  jurisdiction  to  exemplify  the  nicer 
parts  of  his  ideal,  directing  his  energies  in  the  legislative  to 
the  accomplishment  of  its  greater  features. 

On  the  last  leaf  of  Laud's  diary,  when  it  was  brought  by 
circumstances  before  the  public,  was  found  written  by  his 
own  hand  a  list  of  twenty-three  things  which  he  had  "  pro 
jected  to  do  "  if  God  blessed  him  in  them.  The  list  bears 
no  date ;  but  there  is  internal  evidence  that  most  of  the 
projects  were  in  his  mind  at  least  as  early  as  1630.  Among 
these,  besides  some  respecting  benefits  to  be  done  at  his 
own  expense  or  by  his  effort  to  his  native  town  of  Reading, 
to  his  old  college  of  St.  John's,  and  to  the  university  and 
town  of  Oxford,  and  also  respecting  the  interests  of  St. 
Paul's  cathedral  and  the  see  of  London,  there  are  others 
indicating  his  future  legislative  intentions  with  regard  to 
the  Church  in  general.  These  may  be  here  quoted : — 

"  3.  To  overthrow  the  feoffment,  dangerous  both  to  Church  and 
State,  going  under  the  specious  pretence  of  buying  in  impropriations. 

"  8.  To  settle  the  statutes  of  all  the  cathedral  churches  of  the  new 
foundations  whose  statutes  are  imperfect  and  not  confirmed. 

"  9.  To  annex  for  ever  some  settled  commendams,  and  those,  if  it 
IK  ay  be,  sine  curd,  to  all  the  small  bishoprics. 

"  10.  To  find  a  way  to  increase  the  stipends  of  poor  vicars." 

The  first  of  these  intentions  was  ominous  enough ;  the  others 
might  appear  good  or  ill,  according  to  the  ideas  entertained 
of  the  methods  by  which  they  were  to  be  carried  out.  An 


LAUD'S   ECCLESIASTICAL   ADMINISTEATION.  399 

intention  which  accompanied  them  of  "  setting  up  a  Greek 
press  in  London  and  Oxford  for  printing  of  the  Library 
manuscripts  "  was  one  which  could  meet  with  nothing  else 
than  approbation  from  all  friends  of  learning. 

But  Laud  was  not  only  the  legislative  chief  of  the  Church, 
the  man  of  schemes  and  projects  affecting  its  constitution ; 
he  was  also  the  dispenser  of  the  royal  patronage.  On  refer 
ring  back  to  the  list  of  the  English  episcopal  body  between 
1628  and  July  1632,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  occurred  seven 
vacancies  by  death  in  the  course  of  those  three  years  and 
four  months,  giving  occasion  for  no  fewer  than  fifteen 
changes  or  preferments.  In  these  changes  and  preferments 
among  the  Bishops,  in  all  of  which  the  King  took  Laud's 
advice,  though  in  one  or  two  cases  there  may  have  been 
reasons  for  appointments  such  as  Laud  would  not  himself 
have  suggested,  there  was  a  powerful  means  of  promoting 
Laud's  principles  and  diffusing  them  through  the  Church. 
One  or  two  of  the  new  bishops,  indeed,  were  not  thorough 
Laudians, — especially  Coke,  who  is  described  by  Fuller  as 
"a,  meek,  grave,  quiet  man,  much  beloved  in  his  jurisdic 
tion."  l  The  general  result  of  the  changes,  however,  was 
an  impulse  in  the  Laudian  direction.  The  appointment  of 
Neile  of  Winchester  to  the  primacy  of  York,  vacant  by 
Harsnet's  death,  ensured  for  Laud,  when  he  should  himself 
come  into  the  reversion  of  that  higher  Primacy  for  which 
he  was  waiting,  a  brother-Archbishop  in  the  northern 
province  with  whom  he  could  hope  to  co-operate  even  more 
cordially,  if  that  were  possible,  than  he  could  have  done 
with  Harsnet ;  and  .the  promotion  of  Curie,  first  to  Bath 
and  Wells  and  then  to  Winchester,  the  promotion  of  White 
first  to  Norwich  and  then  to  Ely,  and  the  bringing  in  of 
such  new  men  as  Pierce,  Bancroft,  and  Lindsell,  were  also 
good  investments  in  the  interest  either  of  Laud's  "Ar- 
minian "  theology  or  of  his  views  of  Church  order.  Nay 

1  Laud,  in  his  account  of  his  trial  Bishop  Hall  to  Exeter,  and  Potter,  the 

(Wharton's    Laud,  369),  reminds   his  "  puritanical     Bishop,"     to     Carlisle, 

accusers  of  this  appointment  of  Coke  These  two  last  appointments,  however, 

to  a  bishopric,  though  not  a  partisan  had  been  in  1627  and  1628-9,  before 

of  his ;  also  of  his  having  nominated  parliaments  were  done  with. 


400  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

more,  one  can  see  that,  whether  from  a  natural,  though 
low-spirited,  regard  for  Laud  as  the  dispenser  of  royal 
patronage,  or  from  a  general  sense  of  his  power  and  the 
impossibility  of  making  head  against  it,  certain  Bishops  who 
had  been  popular  enough  before  in  their  Church  views,  or 
even  props  of  Calvinism,  either  sank  into  quiet  pusillanimity, 
or  began  to  obey  the  suasion  from  the  centre.  Morton, 
translated  to  Durham,  was  not  quite  the  man  he  had  been 
before;  Davenant  of  Salisbury,  Godwin  of  Hereford,  and 
Potter  of  Carlisle,  were  glad  if  they  could  be  at  peace  in 
their  own  dioceses ;  and  Hall  of  Exeter,  between  whom  and 
Laud  in  former  days  there  had  been  a  theological  antipathy, 
was  now  beginning  to  veer  politically.  Only  in  Williams, 
of  all  the  Bishops,  was  there  a  man  of  temper  enough,  of 
sufficient  recollection  of  his  own  past,  to  defy  Laud;  and 
Williams  was  now  a  kind  of  outcast  Bishop,  an  Ishmaelite 
in  his  diocese  of  Lincoln. 

As,  by  the  changes  and  preferments  from  time  to  time 
made,  the  episcopal  body  was  more  strongly  charged  with 
the  Laudian  element,  so,  in  as  far  as  the  patronage  of  the 
crown,  or  of  the  Laudian  prelates,  affected  new  appointments 
i  and  promotions  among  the  inferior  clergy,  the  effect  was 
*  identical.  More  particularly  in  the  appointments  to  deaneries 
and  to  royal  chaplaincies  care  was  taken  to  select  the  right 
sort  of  men,  while  each  prelate,  in  appointing  his  own 
chaplains,  or  presenting  to  the  benefices  of  which  he  was 
patron,  would  naturally  consult  his  own  tastes.  Among  the 
Laudian  preferments  of  these  kinds  may  be  mentioned  that 
of  Dr.  William  Juxon,  Laud's  intimate  friend,  his  successor 
in  the  presidency  of  St.  John's,  Oxford,  and,  since  1627, 
Dean  of  Worcester.  "July  10,  1632,"  says  Laud  in  his 
diary,  "Dr.  Juxon,  then  Dean  of  Worcester,  at  my  suit 
"  sworn  Clerk  of  his  Majesty's  Closet,  that  I  might  have  one 
"that  I  might  trust  near  his  Majesty,  if  I  grow  weak  or 
"  infirm."  Another  appointment  of  some  consequence  was 
that  of  Peter  Heylin,  who,  after  acting  as  one  of  Laud's 
chief  agents  through  his  life,  survived  to  be  his  biographer, 
and  a  busy  writer  of  books.  He  had  been  introduced  to 


LAUD^S    ECCLESIASTICAL   ADMINISTRATION.  401 

Laud  in  1627,  bringing  with  him  from  Oxford  the  reputation 
of  being  ' ' papistically  inclined"  ;  he  became  one  of  Laud's 
chaplains  ;  in  1629,  he  became  chaplain  to  the  King;  and  in 
1631  he  obtained  a  rectory  in  Hunts  and  a  prebend  in 
Westminster,  with  promise  of  more.  Heylin  claims  for 
himself  the  credit  of  having  first  roused  Laud  to  the  danger 
of  the  feoffment  scheme  for  the  purchase  of  impropriations ; 
and  it  is  certain  that  he  preached  on  this  subject  in  1630. 
Besides  Heylin,  Laud  had  a  host  of  other  clients  of  the  same 
stamp,  scattered  through  the  Church.  "  They  that  watched 
the  increase  of  Arminianism,"  says  Hacket,  "  said  confidently 
that  it  was  from  the  year  1628  that  the  tide  of  it  began  to 
come  in,"  and  this  because  it  was  from  that  year  that  "  all 
the  preferments  were  cast  on  one  side."  1  Racket's  state 
ment  is  curiously  corroborated  by  the  clerical  lives  of  this 
period  in  the  pages  of  Wood. 

A  third  and  very  powerful  means  by  which  Laud  acted 
on  the  Church  was  by  making  his  own  great  diocese  of 
London  a  model  of  ecclesiastical  order.  He  had  here  the 
means  of  exemplifying  the  more  peculiar  features  of  his  ideal 
of  the  "  beauty  of  holiness."  He  gave  a  prominence  to  the 
rite  of  consecration  of  churches  which  had  been  unknown  in 
London  since  Eoman  Catholic  times.  On  Sunday,  the  16th 
of  January,  1630-1,  for  example,  there  was  an  unusual  stir 
in  London  about  the  consecration  of  St.  Catharine  Cree 
Church  in  Leadenhall  Street.  The  church  having  been 
recently  rebuilt,  and  having  been  suspended  by  Laud  from 
all  divine  service,  sermons  or  sacraments,  until  it  should  be 
re-consecrated,  the  ceremony  of  re-consecration  was  per 
formed  that  day  by  Laud  and  his  attendant  clergy  in  a 
manner  so  elaborate  and  peculiar  that  the  story  passed 
about  as  a  scandal  at  the  time,  and  afterwards  took  form  as 
one  of  the  most  picturesque  pages  in  the  long  Puritan 
record  of  his  misdeeds.  On  the  following  Sunday  St.  Giles's 
Church  in  the  Fields  was  re-consecrated  by  him  in  the  same 
manner ;  and  in  the  same  or  the  following  year  he  conse 
crated  several  chapels  with  similar  ceremony.  All  the  while, 

1  Life  of  Williams,  Part  II.  p.  42  and  p.  82. 
VOL.  I.  D  D 


402  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

of  course,  there  was  a  rigorous  supervision  of  Puritan*  and 
Nonconformists  in  his  diocese,  with  very  swift  procedure  in 
every  case  of  offence.  Immediately  on  the  receipt  of  the 
royal  instructions  of  December  1629,  which  had  been  framed 
on  his  own  draft,  he  had  forwarded  copies  of  them  to  the 
archdeacons  of  his  diocese,  calling  their  attention  specially 
to  the  third,  respecting  the  observance  of  the  King's  Declara 
tion  against  disputations  on  doctrine,  the  fifth,  respecting 
the  regulation  of  lecturers,  the  seventh,  respecting  private 
chaplains  illegally  maintained,  and  the  eighth,  regarding 
non-attendance  on  public  worship.  He  ordered  them  to 
deliver  copies  of  the  same  to  all  the  clergy  in  their  districts, 
and  to  see  that  the  churchwardens  also  had  copies,  requiring 
them -farther,  within  a  month,  to  send  him  lists  of  all  the 
lecturers,  and  of  all  the  families  illegally  maintaining  private 
chaplains,  within  their  respective  archdeaconries.1  The 
archdeacons  seem  to  have  been  diligent  enough.  "Many 
"lecturers,"  says  Neal,  "were  put  down,  and  such  as  preached 
( '  against  Arminianism  or  the  new  ceremonies  were  suspended 
"  and  silenced ;  among  whom  were  the  reverend;  Mr.  John 
"Rogers  of  Dedham,  Mr.  Daniel  Rogers  of  Wethersfield, 
"  Mr.  Hooker  of  Chelmsford,  Mr.  White  of  Knightsbridge, 
"  Mr.  Archer,  Mr.  William  Martin,  Mr.  Edwards,  Mr.  Jones, 
"  Mr.  Dod,  Mr.  Hildersharn,  Mr.  Ward,  Mr.  Saunders,  Mr. 
"James  Gardiner,  Mr.  Foxley,  and  many  others."  These 
were  all  Puritan  ministers  of  the  Church;  but  there  was 
additional  excitement  for  the  bishop's  police  in  starting  now 
and  then  a  covey  of  Separatists.  Mr.  John  Lathorp's  little 
congregation  of  Independents  had  managed  for  a  long  while 
to  hold  their  meetings  without  discovery;  but  on  the  29th 
of  April  1632,  "from  information  received,"  as  our  modern 
phrase  is,  the  police  were  led  to  the  house  of  Henry  Barnet, 
a  brewer's  clerk  in  Blackfriars,  and  there  found  about  sixty 
persons  nefariously  worshiping  God  in  their  own  way. 
Forty-two  of  these  were  lodged  in  prison. 

Many  things  which  Laud  was  unable  to  do,  even  in  his 
own  diocese,  by  his  mere  episcopal  authority,  or  his  influence 

i  Kushworth,  II.  31-32. 


LAUD^S   ECCLESIASTICAL   ADMINISTRATION.  403 

with  tlie  King,  lie  was  able  to  effect  by  his  position  at  the 
head  of  the  then  anomalous  executive  and  judicial  system  of 
the  country.     What  was  more  important,  he  was  able  by 
this  means  to  pass  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  own  diocese 
altogether,  and   to    take   cognisance,  to    an    extent   which 
otherwise  would  not  have  been  possible,,  of  the  ecclesiastical 
state  of  all  the  dioceses  of  England.     The  Privy  Council  L. 
was  not  only  the  fountain  of  law,  but  also  the  fountain  of 
judgment.     Not  only  was  it  at  the  Council-table   that    all 
new  enactments  were  framed  and  measures  for  raising  money 
adopted;   but  this  same   Council-table,  either  by  itself,  or 
through  the_ Star-chamber,  which  was  but  another  edition  of 
itself,1  saw  to  the  execution  of  its  own  decrees,  and  super 
seded  all  ordinary   courts   of  law  in    the    inquisition  after 
certain  classes  of  offenders.     Whatever,  in  fact,  the  Council 
chose  to  construe  as  coming  under  the  head  of  sedition  or 
contempt  of  authority  was  taken,  with  other  causes,  under 
its  own  immediate  jurisdiction,  the  Council-table  conducting 
the  preliminary  inquiries  and  calling  the  delinquents  before 
them,  and  the  Star-chamber  receiving  the  delinquents  to  be 
formally  tried  and   punished   with  fine,   imprisonment,   or 
worse  penalties.     Even  the  Bishops  were  thus  kept  under 
Laud's  hand.     The  exemplary  but  Calvinistic  Bishop  Dave- 
nant  of  Salisbury,  having  unwittingly  given  offence  by  a 
sermon  at  court,  in  which  he  seemed  to  touch  too  closely  on 
some   of  the  forbidden  points   of  the  Predestinarian   con 
troversy,  was  summoned  before  the  Council  to  answer  for 
it.    Williams  of  Lincoln,  who  was  not  so  easily  to  be  brought 
to  his  knees,  was  the  object  of  still  more  attention  to  the 
Council.      As  early  as  1627  information  had  been  lodged 
against  him  in  the  Council,  at  the  instance  of  Sibthorp  and 
other    agents    of  Laud,   on    account  of  his   lax    discipline 
against  the  Puritans ;  and  he  could  hardly  make  an  appoint 
ment  in  his  diocese,  or  execute  a  lease,  or  give  a  decision  in 
one  of  his  courts,  but  the  matter  was  carried  in  some  way 

1  The   Star-chamber    Court    (estab-       together  with  two  judges  of  the  Courts 
lished    3    Henry    VII.)    consisted    of       of  Common  Law,"  without  jury. 
"  divers  lords,  being  Privy  Councillors, 

D  D  2 


404  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

or  other  by  appeal  to  the  Council-table.  These  charges 
were  all  kept  sealed  up ;  and  it  was  not  till  some  years  after 
Laud  was  archbishop  that  it  was  deemed  prudent  to  bring 
the  valiant  Welshman  to  trial.  Even  then  it  was  a  lion  that 
they  were  taking  in  their  net ;  and  in  the  mean  time,  waiting 
for  their  attack,  he  knew  all  their  doings,  and  even  had 
copies  of  their  secret  papers.  The  awful  Bishop  of  Lincoln 
was  much  in  Laud's  dreams.  "  Sunday,  January  14, 1626-7," 

:-  writes  Laud  in  his  diary,  "  towards  morning  I  dreamed  that 
"  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  came,  I  knew  not  whither,  with  iron 
"  chains,  but,  returning  loosed  from  them,  leaped  on  horse- 
"  back,  and  went  away ;  neither  could  I  overtake  him." 

If  the  Council  and  the  Star-chamber  could  meddle  with 
Bishops,  they  were  not  likely  to  spare  inferior  delinquents. 

'  Accordingly,  from  1628  to  1632,  there  was  a  series  of  Star- 
chamber  prosecutions,  some  of  which  are  still  memorable. 
Most  horrible  of  all  was  the  case  of  the  Scotchman,  Dr. 
Alexander  Leighton,  the  father  of  the  future  Archbishop 
Leighton.1  Arrested  in  Feb.  1629-30  for  a  Presbyterian  or 
Anti- Episcopal  manifesto  of  his  which  he  had  printed 
anonymously  abroad  two  years  before,  and  copies  of  which 
had  for  some  time  been  in  circulation  in  London,  under  the 
title  An  Appeal  to  the  Parliament,  or  Zion's  Plea  against 
Prelacie,  he  was  brought  to  trial  before  the  Star-chamber, 


1  Born  in  Edinburgh,  and  educated  'the  handling  whereoff  the  Lord 
at  the  newly-founded  University  there  '  Bishops  and  their  appurtenances  are 
under  Mr.  Rollock,  Leighton,  after  'manifestly  proved, both  by  divine  and 
having  been  licensed  as  a  preacher,  had  '  humane  lawes,  to  be  intruders  upon 
been  driven  into  exile,  with  other  Scots,  '  the  privileges  of  Christ,  of  the  King, 
for  his  Presbyterian  zeal.  He  had  '  and  of  the  Commonweal :  and  there- 
studied  medicine  at  Leyden  and  taken  '  fore,  upon  good  Evidence  given,  she 
the  degree  of  M.D.  there.  He  had  'hartilie  desireth  a  judgement  and 
then  tried  to  settle  as  a  physician  in  'execution.  Printed  the  year  and 
London,  but  had  been  opposed  and  '  moneth  when  Rochell  was  lost 
prosecuted  by  the  College  of  Physicians  '  (1628)."  There  are  strong  expressions 
as  an  interloper  in  the  profession,  and  in  the  book,  but  on  the  whole  it  is 
so  had  fallen  back  on  preachership  and  fairly  written,  and  one  fancies  one  can 
Presbyterian  propagandism  among  the  trace  in  the  father  something  of  that 
Londoners.  His  book  had  originated  meditative  spirit  which  made  the  sou 
in  the  form  of  an  intended  petition  to  the  idol  of  Gilbert  Burnet  and  such  a 
Charles's  Third  Parliament,  and  he  had  favourite  long  afterwards  with  Cole- 
gone  to  Holland  to  print  it.  Here  is  ridge.  The  unfortunate  Doctor  had 
the  full  title : — "  An  Appeal  to  the  returned  to  London  in  July  1629,  when 
"  Parliament,  or  Zion's  Plea  against  there  was  no  Parliament  to  protect 
"  Prelacie ;  the  sum  whereoff  is  de-  him. 
"  livered  in  a  decade  of  Positions,— in 


CASE    OF    DR.    ALEXANDER   LE1GHTON.  405 

at  a  meeting  at  which  Went  worth  was  present,  as  well  as 
Laud  and  Neile.  After  having  been  sentenced  and  degraded 
from  holy  orders,  he  escaped  from  prison  by  the  connivance 
of  the  warders.     A  hue  and  cry  was  sent  after  him,  describ 
ing  him  as  "  a  man  of  low  stature,  fair  complexion,  a  yellow 
ish  beard,  a  high  forehead,  between  forty  and  fifty  years  of 
age."     Taken  in   Bedfordshire,  he    was   brought    back    to 
London,  and  on  Friday,  November  16,  1630,  "part  of  his 
"sentence  was  executed  upon  him  in  this  manner,  in  the 
"new   Palace    of    Westminster,    in    term   time: — He   was 
"severely  whipt  before  he  was  put  in  the  pillory;  being  set 
"in  the  pillory,  he  had  one  of  his  ears  cut  off;  then  one  side 
"  of  his  nose  slit ;  then  he  was  branded  on  the  cheek  with  a 
"  red-hot  iron,  with  the  letters  S.  S.,  signifying  a  stirrer  up 
"  of  sedition.     He  was  then  carried  back  again  prisoner  to 
"the  Fleet,  to  be  kept  in  close  custody."     Whether  the 
rest  of  his  sentence,  involving  a  second  appearance  in  the 
pillory,  a  second  scourging,  and  the  loss  of  his  other  ear  was 
actually   inflicted   or  was  remitted,   does   not    seem   to   bo 
positively  ascertained ;  but  he  remained  in  prison  for  ten     / 
years.     His  son,  the  future  archbishop,  was  a  lad  of  seven 
teen,  and  a  student  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  at  the 
time  of  his  father's  torture.1     Nothing  half  so  horrible  came 

1  I  have   seen   in  the   State   Paper  "  sent  some  of  the  books  hither,  which 

Office  several  original  letters  of  Leigh-  "  are  like  to  bring  those  that  meddled 

ton  and  his  son,  throwing  light  upon  "  with  them   in   some   danger ;  but   I 

the  circumstances  of  the  family  at  the  "  hope  God  shall  appease  the  matter 

time,  as  well  as  on  the  character  of  "  and  hinder  the  power  of  wicked  men, 

both   son   and    father. — In    1629,  the  "  who,  if   they  could   do  according  to 

father  is  at  Utrecht,  in  Holland ;  the  "  their  desire   against  God's  children, 

son  is  in  Edinburgh ;  and  the  rest  of  "  would   make    havoc  of    them   on   a 

the  family  are  in  London,  living  "  over  "  sudden.     The    Lord   stir  us   up,   to 

against    the    King's    Wardrobe,"    in  "  whom  this  matter  belongs,  to  pray  to 

Blackfriars.       Intercommunication     is  "  God  to  defend  and  keep  his  children 

difficult ;  and   the   son,  in   particular,  "  and  his   cause  ! "     In   a  later  letter, 

who  has  heard  of  the  book  which  his  dated    Edinburgh,  May    7,   1629,  the 

father  has  been   printing  in  Holland  pious  youth  again  writes  to  his  mother, 

for  circulation  in  England,  is  anxious  to  telling  her  that  some  things  she  had 

hear  news  from  him.     On  the  12th  of  sent  to  him  from  London  had  failed  to 

March,  1628-9,  he  writes  from  Edin-  reach  him,  and  adding,  "  I  more  desire 

burgh  to  his  mother,  saying  inter  alia,  "  to   hear  something  of    my  father's 

"  I  received  a  letter  from  my  father,  "  affairs.     I  have  not  so  much  as  seen 

"  which,  although  it  was  brief,  yet  it  "  any  of  the  books  yet,  though  there 

"  perspicuously  made    manifest    unto  "  are  some  of  them  here.     I  pray  with 

"  me  the  danger  that  he  of  likelihood  "  the  first  occasion  write  to  me  what 

"  would   incur  of  the  book  which  he  "  he  hath  done.    As  yet,  my  part  is  in 

"  hath   been  printing.     God  frustrate  "  the  meanwhile  to  recommend  it  to 

"  the  purpose  of    wicked  men !     He  "  God.      Remember  my  duty  to   my 


406  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

from  the  Star-chamber  for  some  years  after  ;  but  some  of 
the  other  proceedings  of  the  Court  about  the  same  time  were 
severe  enough.  A  process  begun  in  1632,  but  not  ended  till 
1633,  was  one  for  uprooting  the  Puritan  Feoffment  scheme. 
Besides  the  Council-table  and  Star-chamber,  Laud  and 
his  colleagues  had  a  powerful  instrument  in  the  Court  of 
High  Commission.  This  celebrated  court,  established  1 
Eliz.,  consisted  of  some  forty  persons,  of  whom  twelve  were 
bishops,  and  it  had  the  same  authority  in  purely  ecclesiastical 
cases  that  the  Star-chamber  had  in  civil,  or  in  ecclesiastical 
bordering  on  civil.  It  was  empowered  (<  to  visit,  reform, 
redress,  order,  correct,  and  amend  all  errors,  heresies, 
schisms,  abuses,  offences,  contempts,  and  enormities  what 
soever,  which  by  any  ecclesiastical  authority  whatsoever 
might  be  lawfully  ordered  or  corrected  "  ;  and  it  was  a  court 
of  last  appeal  from  all  inferior  ecclesiastical  courts,  and 
consequently  from  all  the  bishops  individually.  It  might 
use  in  its  proceedings  not  only  juries,  witnesses,  and  other 
ordinary  means,  but  also  means  not  used  in  other  courts, 
such  as  interrogations  and  imprisonment  of  the  accused, 
spies,  rumour,  &c.  The  working  members  were  the  bishops, 

"  aunt,  my  love  to  my  brother  James  :  the  Parliament  hath  the   thing    [the 

"  remember  me  to  Elizabeth,  Elisha,  book]  ere  this.     [There  is  then  a  refer- 

"  and  my  young  brother  and  sister."  ence  to  some  one  who  had  promised  to 

While  the  future  archbishop  was  writ-  get  "  a  protection  "  for  him  against  his 

ing  these  letters    in    Edinburgh,  his  "  over-coming."]   Howsomever,  I  mean 

father  was  leaving  Utrecht  to  return  to  come  over  upon  Jehovah's  protec- 

home.    Here  is  a  letter  to  his  wife  an-  tion,  under  whose  wings  if  we  walk, 

nouncing  his  intention  :  —  nothing  can  hurt  us.     If  I  come  not 


place  on  the  22d  of  the  said  month,  Your  e£er» 
whereon  also  we  have  the  sacrament. 

The  24th  (being  the  Tuesday  following)  «  Utrecht,  March  14,  1629." 
I  intend  to  set  forth  for  England,  if 

wind  and  passage  permit  ;  for  the  which  It  is  owing,  doubtless,  to  the  fact  that 

I  know  you  pray  earnestly.     I  was  glad  Leighton's  papers  were  seized  at  the  time 

to  heat  by  the  letter  that  God  hath  of  his  arrest  that  the  foregoing  letters 

wrought  your  heart  to  my  entertaining  are  now  in  the  State  Paper  Office.  The 

of  the  call,  which  was  so  freely  and  passage  in  the  son's  letters  referring  to 

publicly  put  upon  me  that  I  could  not  the  father's  book  are  undermarked  (I 

avoid  it.     As  for  the  means,  we  must  think  in  Laud's  hand),  as  if  they  were 

wait  upon  God,  of  whose  bounty  and  adduced  in  evidence  that    the    book 

goodness  we  have  had  many  expres-  (which  was    anonymous)    was    really 

sions:  blessed  be  his  name!    I  hope  Leightou's. 


COURT   OP    HIGH    COMMISSION.  407 

and  three  might  be  a  quorum.  In  the  reign  of  James  the 
censures  were,  generally,  deprivation  from  the  ministry, 
excommunication,  and  the  like ;  but  under  Charles  they  had 
become  much  heavier.  "  The  bishops,"  says  Clarendon, 
"grew  to  have  so  great  a  contempt  of  the  common  law  and 
"  of  the  professors  of  it  that  prohibitions  from  the  supreme 
"  courts  of  law,  which  have  and  must  have  the  superintend- 
"  ency  over  all  inferior  courts,  were  not  only  neglected,  but 
"  the  judges  reprehended  for  granting  them."  It  was 
accounted  a  special  grievance  that  the  High  Commission 
had  converted  itself  into  a  court  of  revenue,  by  punishing 
with  huge  pecuniary  fines.  A  portion  of  the  moneys  so 
raised  was  eventually  set  apart  for  the  use  of  the  trustees 
for  the  repair  of  St.  Paul's,  so  that  it  came  to  be  a  common 
jest  among  the  Londoners  that  Paul's  was  built  with  the 
sins  of  the  people. 

A  productive  source  of  money  was,  of  course,  found  in  the 
ordinary  and  extraordinary  offences  against  the  moral  and 
matrimonial  laws  of  the  Church,  as  when  Sir  Giles  Alington 
was  fined  £12,000  for  marrying  his  niece;  but  the  offences 
of  heresy,  schism,  nonconformity,  &c.,  were  likewise  pro 
ductive.  Mr.  Nathaniel  Barnard,  Lecturer  at  St.  Sepulchre's, 
London,  escaped,  in  January  1629-30,  with  a  humble  sub 
mission  for  having  mentioned  the  Queen's  Majesty  indecor 
ously  in  a  public  prayer ;  but;  having  been  again  articled  by 
Laud,  in  May  1632,  for  a  sermon  against  Popery  and 
Arminianism,  he  was  excommunicated,  suspended  from  the 
ministry,  fined  a  thousand  pounds,  condemned  in  costs  of 
suit,  and  committed  to  prison.1  Mr.  Charles  Chauncy  of 
Ware,  Mr.  Palmer  of  Canterbury,  Mr.  Madye  of  Christ 
Church,  London,  and  many  more,  were  subjected,  for  similar 
reasons,  to  milder  censures.  In  the  north  Wentworth  had 
set  up,  in  terms  of  his  appointment,  a  kind  of  Star-chamber 
and  High  Commission  apparatus  of  his  own.  In  York, 
accordingly,  the  ministers  became  patterns  of  conformity. 

One  other  means  of  influence  which  Laud  possessed  and 
turned  to  account  remains  still  to  be  mentioned.  An  Oxford 

1  Rushworth,  II.  32  and  140,  and  Neal's  Puritans,  II.  201-2. 


408  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

man  by  .training,  and  master  of  an  Oxford  college  before 
his  advancement  to  a  bishopric,  he  retained  a  strong  affection 
for  the  University  and  a  strong  interest  in  its  affairs ;  and 
he  had  not  been  long  in  the  Privy  Council  before  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  then  Chancellor  of  the  University,  devolved 
all  the  important  business  of  that  office  into  his  hands.  On 
the  sudden  death  of  the  popular  earl  in  April  1630  Laud 
was  elected  Chancellor  himself,  and  immediately  began  those 
great  works  of  collecting  and  remodelling  the  statutes,  ,&c., 
which  he  had  already  projected,  and  the  execution  of  which 
has  associated  his  name  with  the  history  of  the  University, 
as  that  of  its  second  legislator.  His  office,  moreover, 
enabled  him  to  keep  a  strict  watch  over  opinion  at  that 
great  nursery  of  ecclesiastics.  So,  in  1631,  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Ford  of  Magdalen,  Mr.  Giles  Thome  of  Balliol 
College,  and  Mr.  Giles  Hodges  of  Exeter  College.  These 
three  gentlemen,  having  been  called  to  account  by  the  Vice- 
chancellor  for  breaking  the  King's  Instructions  and  attack 
ing  the  Arminians  in  their  sermons  by  the  name  of  Pelagians, 
had  appealed  to  the  proctors.  Laud  immediately  interfered 
and  procured  a  trial  of  the  case  before  the  King  in  person  at 
Woodstock.  The  three  culprits  were  expelled  the  Uni 
versity;  the  proctors  were  dismissed  from  their  office  for 
receiving  the  appeal ;  and  two  masters  of  colleges,  the  learned 
Prideaux  of  Exeter  and  another,  were  severely  reprimanded. 
At  Cambridge,  "  England's  other  eye,"  Laud's  influence 
was  for  the  present  less  direct ;  but,  through  his  colleague, 
the  Earl  of  Holland,  Chancellor  of  that  University,  as  well 
as  through  the  Council  itself  and  the  King,  he  was  able  to 
accomplish  something.  Then,  again,  there  were  rising 
Laudian  stars  among  the  masters  and  fellows  at  Cambridge, 
who  looked  to  Laud,  corresponded  with  him,  and  acted  on 
his  instructions.  Among  a  number  of  Latin  letters,  still  to 
be  seen  in  manuscript,  addressed  by  Creighton  as  Public 
Orator,  in  the  name  of  the  Senate,  to  different  members  of 
the  Privy  Council,  soliciting  their  good  offices  for  the  Uni 
versity  in  two  wars  in  which  it  was  engaged  in  1629, — one 
with  the  London  printers,  and  the  other  with  the  chandlers 


CHARACTER  OF   LAUD.  409 

of  Cambridge, — none  is  more  complimentary  or  deferential 
than  the  following  to  Laud  : — "  Honoratissime  et  amplissime 
"  Prcesul,  ceternas  agimus  Deo  gratias  for  your  recovered 
"  health.  It  was  not,  it  was  not  only  your  fate  that  was 
"pending;  that  engine  of  dire  death  which  threatened  you 
"  was  aimed  also  at  our  sides,  our  necks.  0,  how  deplorable 
"  for  us  would  that  change  of  a  benefit  into  an  incomparable 
"  misfortune  have  been,  if  one  and  the  same  year  had  given 
"us  freedom  from  that  rascality  of  the  printers  and  taken 
"you  away  from  us!  We  have  known  your  admirable 
"inclination  towards  us  in  the  typographic  controversy. 
<l  Now  new  ruffians  attack  us, — even  our  own  townsmen, 
"  who,  in  the  bosom  of  Cambridge,  under  the  light  of 
"literature,  within  the  very  odour  of  learning,  dwelling 
"  within  the  same  walls,  under  the  same  sky,  air,  king  and 
"laws,  yet  live  with  us  as  if  nature  had  denied  them  the 
"  least  spark  of  goodness.  What  sort  and  of  what  grain  the 
"  rest  are  is  plainly  shown  by  the  manners  of  those  whom 
"  they  have  chosen  for  their  leaders  and  standard-bearers 
"  against  the  University,  men  of  such  a  stamp  that  they  do 
"  not  fear  to  fabricate  their  cheats  under  the  cloak  of  piety, 
11  under  the  garments  of  Christ,  and,  embracing  the  external 
"bark  of  religion,  do  not  blush  to  take  advantage  of  our 
"  young  tiros,  whom  they  know  to  be  unskilled  in  worldly 
"  affairs,  in  the  matter  of  candles,  spiceries,  and  their  coun- 
"  terfeit  wares."  x 

And  so,  what  with  one  means  of  influence,  what  with  ^ 
others,  Laud,  in  1632,  being  then  in  the  sixtieth  year  of  his 
age,  was  the  dominant  spirit  in  the  English  Church,  and 
one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  English  State.  One  would  fain  think 
and  speak  with  some  respect  of  any  man  who  has  been 
beheaded ;  much  more  of  one  who  was  beheaded  for  a  cause 
to  which  he  had  conscientiously  devoted  his  life,  and  which 
thousands  of  his  countrymen,  two  centuries  after  his  death, 
still  adhere  to,  still  expound,  still  uphold,  though  with  the 
difference,  incalculable  to  themselves,  of  all  that  time  has 

1  Add.  MS.  Brit.  Mus.  5873  (one  of  Cole's). 


410  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

flung  between.  But  it  is  impossible. to  like  or  admire  Laud. 
The  nearer  we  get  to  him,  the  more  all  soft  illusion  falls  off, 
and  the  more  distinctly  we  have  before  us  the  hard  reality, 
as  D'Ewes  and  others  saw  it,  of  a  "little,  low,  red- faced 
man,"  bustling  by  the  side  of  that  king  of  the  narrow  fore 
head  and  the  melancholy  Vandyke  air,  or  pressing  his 
notions  with  a  raspy  voice  at  the  council-board  till  Weston 
became  peevish  and  Cottington  widkedly^solemn,  or  bowing 
his  head  in  churches  not  very  gracefully.  When  we  examine 
what  remains  of  his  mind  in  his  writings,  the  estimate  is  not 
enhanced.  The  texture  of  his  writing  is  hard,  dry,  and 
common ;  sufficiently  clear  as  to  the  meaning,  and  with  no 
insincerity  or  superfluity,  but  without  sap,  radiance,  or  force. 
Occasionally,  when  one  of  his  fundamental  topics  is  touched, 
a  kind  of  dull  heat  rises,  and  one  can  see  that  the  old  man 
.was  in  earnest.  Of  anything  like  depth  or  comprehensive 
ness  of  intellect  there  is  no  evidence,  certainly  not  a  sign  of 
the  quality  called  genius.  There  is  never  a  stroke  of  original 
insight,  never %a  flash  of  intellectual  generality.  In  Williams 
there  is  genius ;  not  in  Laud.  Many  of  his  humble  clerical 
contemporaries,  not  to  speak  of  such  known  men  as  Fuller 
and  Hacket,  must  have  been  greatly  his  superiors  in  talent, 
more  discerning  men,  as  well  as  more  interesting  writers. 
That  very  ecclesiastical  cause  which  Laud  so  conspicuously 
defended  has  had,  since  his  time,  and  has  at  this  day  in 
England,  far  abler  heads  among  its  adherents.  How  was  it, 
then,  that  Laud  became  what  he  did  become,  and  that 
slowly,  by  degrees,  and  against  opposition ;  how  was  it  that 
his  precise  personality  and  no  other  worked  its  way  upwards, 
through  the  clerical  and  academic  element  of  the  time,  to 
the  very  top  of  all,  and  there  fitted  itself  into  the  very 
socket  where  the  joints  of  things  met  ?  Parvo  regitur 
mundus  intellectu.  A  small  intellect,  once  in  the  position  of 
government,  may  suffice  for  the  official  forms  of  it;  and, 
with  Laud's  laboriousness  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  his  power 
of  maintaining  his  place  of  minister  under  such  a  master  as 
Charles  needs  be  no  mystery.  So  long  as  the  proprietor  of 
an  estate  is  satisfied,  the  tenants  must  endure  the  bailiff, 


CHARACTER   OF   LAUD.  411 

whatever  the  amount  of  his  wisdom.  Then,  again,  in  the 
last  stages  of  Laud's  ascent,  he  rose  through  Buckingham 
and  Charles,  to  both  of  whom  surely  his  nature,  without 
being  great,  may  have  recommended  itself  by  adequate 
affinities.  Still,  that  Laud  impressed  those  men  when  he 
did  corne  in  contact  with  them,  and  that,  from  his  original 
position  as  a  poor  student  in  an  Oxford  college,  he  rose  step 
by,  step  to  the  point  where  he  could  come  in  contact  with 
them,  are  facts  not  explicable  by  the  mere  supposition  of  a 
series  of  external  accidents.  Perhaps  it  is  that  a  nature 
does  not  always  or  necessarily  rise  by  greatness,  or  intrinsic 
superiority  to  the  element  about  it,  but  may  rise  by  pecu 
liarity,  or  proper  capillary  relation  to  the  element  about  it. 
When  Lord  Macaulay  speaks  of  Laud  as  intellectually  an 
"  imbecile,"  and  calls  him  "  a  ridiculous  old  bigot,"  he 
seems  to  omit  that  peculiarity  which  gave  Laud's  nature, 
whatever  its  measure  by  a  modern  standard,  so  much  force 
and  pungency  among  his  contemporaries.  To  have  hold  of 
the  surrounding  sensations  of  men,  even  by  pain  and  irrita 
tion,  is  a  kind  of  power;  and  Laud  had  that  kind  of  power 
from  the  first.  He  affected  strongly,  if  irritatingly,  each 
successive  part  of  the  body-politic  in  which  he  was  lodged. 
As  a  fellow  of  a  college,  he  was  more  felt  than  liked ;  as 
master  of  a  college,  he  was  still  felt  but  not  liked ;  when  he 
came  first  about  Court,  he  was  felt  still,  but  still  not  liked. 
And  why  was  he  felt  ?  Why,  in  each  successive  position  to 
which  he  attained,  did  he  affect  surrounding  sensation  so  as 
to  domineer  ?  For  one  thing,  he  was  a  man  whose  views, 
if  few,  were  extraordinarily  definite.  His  nature,  if  not 
great,  was  very  tight.  Early  in  life  he  had  taken  up  certain 
propositions  as  to  the  proper  theology  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  and  had  combined  them  with  certain  others  as  to 
the  divine  right  of  prelacy,  and  the  necessity  and  possibility 
of  uniformity  in  creed  and  worship.  These  few  very  definite 
propositions,  each  answering  to  some  tendency  of  society  or 
of  opinion  at  the  time  in  England,  he  had  tied  and  knotted 
round  him  as  his  sufficient  doctrinal  outfit.  Wherever  he 
went,  he  carried  them  with  him  and  before  him,  acting  upon 


412  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

them  with,  a  brisk  and  incessant  perseverance,  without 
regard  to  circumstances,  or  even  to  established  notions  of 
what  is  fair,  high-minded,  and  generous.  Thus,  seeing  that 
the  propositions  were  of  a  kind  upon  which  some  conclusion 
or  other  was  or  might  be  made  socially  imperative,  he  could 
force  to  his  own  conclusions  all  laxer,  though  larger,  natures 
that  were  tending  lazily  the  same  way,  and,  throwing  a 
continually  increasing  crowd  of  such  and  of  others  behind 
him  as  his  followers,  leave  in  front  of  him  only  those  who 
opposed  to  his  conclusions  as  resolute  contraries.  His  inde 
fatigable  official  activity  contributed  to  the  result.  Beyond 
all  this,  however,  and  adding  secret  force  to  it  all,  there  was 
something  else  about  Laud.  Though  the  system  which  he 
wanted  to  enforce  was  one  of  strict  ceremonial  form,  the 
man's  own  being  rested  on  a  trembling  basis  of  the  fantastic 
and  unearthly.  Herein  lay  one  notable,  and  perhaps  com 
pensating,  difference  between  his  narrow  intellect  and  the 
broad  but  secular  genius  of  Williams.  In  that  strange 
diary  of  Laud,  which  is  one  of  the  curiosities  of  our  literature, 
we  see  him  in  an  aspect  in  which  he  probably  never  wished 
that  the  public  should  know  him.  His  hard  and  active 
public  life  is  represented  there  but  casually,  and  we  see  the 
man  in  the  secrecy  of  his  own  thoughts,  as  he  talked  to 
himself  when  alone.  We  hear  of  certain  sins,  or  at  least 
' '  unfortunatenesses,"  of  his  early  and  past  life,  which  clung 
about  his  memory,  were  kept  there  by  anniversaries  of 
sadness  or  penance,  and  sometimes  intruded  grinning  faces 
through  the  gloom  of  the  chamber  when  all  the  house  was 
asleep.  We  see  that,  after  all,  whether  from  such  causes  or 
from  some  form  of  constitutional  melancholy,  the  old  man, 
who  walked  so  briskly  and  cheerily  about  the  Court,  and  was 
so  sharp  and  unhesitating  in  all  his  notions  of  what  was  to 
be  done,  did  in  secret  carry  in  him  some  sense  of  the  burden 
of  life's  mystery,  and  feel  the  air  and  the  earth  to  some 
depth  around  him  to  be  full  of  sounds  and  agencies  unfeatured 
and  unimaginable.  At  any  moment  they  may  break  through  ! 
The  twitter  of  two  robin  redbreasts  in  his  room,  as  he  is 
writing  a  sermon,  sets  his  heart  beating ;  a  curtain  rustles, — 
what  hand  touched  it  ?  Above  all,  he  had  a  belief  in  re- 


CHARACTER   OF   LAUD.  413 

velation  through  dreams  and  coincidences;  and,  as  the  very 
definiteness  of  his  scheme  of  external  worship  may  have 
been  a  refuge  to  him  from  that  total  mystery  the  skirts  of 
which,  and  only  the  skirts,  were  ever  touching  him,  so  in 
his  dreams  and  small  omens  he  seems  to  have  had,  in  his 
daily  advocacy  of  that  scheme,  some  petty  sense  of  near 
metaphysical  aid.  Out  of  his  many  dreams  we  are  fond  of 
this  one: — "January  5,  Epiphany  Eve  and  Friday,  in  tho 
"  night  I  dreamed  that  my  mother,  long  since  dead,  stood 
"by  my  bed,  and,  drawing  aside  the  clothes  a  little,  looked 
"  pleasantly  upon  me,  and  that  I  was  glad  to  see  her  with 
"  so  merry  an  aspect.  She  then  showed  to  me  a  certain  old 
"  man,  long  since  deceased,  whom,  while  alive,  I  both  knew 
"  and  loved.  He  seemed  to  lie  upon  the  ground,  merry 
"  enough,  but  with  a  wrinkled  countenance.  His  name  was 
' '  Grove.  While  I  prepared  to  salute  him,  I  awoke."  Were 
one  to  adopt  what  seems  to  have  been  Laud's  own  theory, 
might  not  one  suppose  that  this  wrinkled  old  man  of  his 
dream,  squat  on  the  supernatural  ground  so  near  its  confines 
with  the  natural,  was  Laud's  spiritual  genius,  and  so  that 
what  of  the  supernatural  there  was  in  his  policy  consisted 
mainly  of  monitions  from  Grove  of  Reading  ?  The  question 
would  still  remain  at  what  depth  back  among  the  dead 
Grove  was  permitted  to  roam. 

There  is  no  difficulty  now  in  seeing  why  Milton  had 
changed  his  intention  of  entering  the  Church  of  England. 
Yet  there  were  other  fine  and  pure  spirits  of  that  day  who 
were  positively  attracted  into  the  Church  by  that  which 
repelled  Milton  from  her  doors. 

It  was  in  April  1630,  for  example,  and  mainly  through 
the  direct  influence  of  Laud,  that  George  Hgrfeert  became 
an  English  parish  priest.  For  several"  years  he  had  been 
inclining  that  way.  Shortly  after  the  death  of  James  he 
had  given  up  his  hopes  of  Court  employment,  and  retired 
into  the  country.  Here  he  had  "  many  conflicts  with  himself 
"whether  he  should  return  to  the  painted  pleasures  of  a 
"  court  life,  or  betake  himself  to  a  study  of  divinity  and 
"  enter  into  sacred  orders,  to  which  his  dear  mother  had 


414  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

"  often  persuaded  him."  Having  concluded  for  the  holier 
life,  he  had  taken  deacon's  orders,  had  accepted  the  prebend 
of  Layton  Ecclesia  in  Williams's  diocese  of  Lincoln,  and  had 
built  in  that  village,  partly  with  his  own  money,  partly  with 
that  of  friends,  the  loveliest  gem  of  a  parish  church,  "  being 
for  the  workmanship  a  costly  mosaic,  and  for  the  form  an 
exact  cross."  He  had  also  resigned  his  Public  Oratorship 
at  Cambridge,  that  he  might  have  more  time  for  his  sacred 
duties.  Still  he  had  not  taken  priest's  orders  nor  a  cure  of 
souls,  and  it  seemed  as  if,  what  with  his  courtly  accomplish 
ments,  what  with  the  elegant  cast  of  his  sanctity,  the  Court 
might  have  him  back  again.  In  1629,  however,  a  severe 
illness,  which  brought  him  to  death's  door  and  left  in  him 
the  seeds  of  consumption,  weaned  his  last  thoughts  from  all 
worldly  things.  Having  married  a  lady  of  kindred  disposi 
tion,  he  desired  nothing  so  much  as  some  country  parish 
where  he  might  bury  himself  in  well- doing.  When,  however, 
in  the  month  above  mentioned,  his  noble  relative  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  then  new  in  the  earldom  of 
Pembroke  by  his  brother's  death,  presented  him  with  the 
rectory  of  Beinerton  in  Wiltshire  near  Salisbury,  there  arose 
such  questioning  in  Herbert's  mind  as  to  his  fitness  for  the 
sacred  office  that  he  determined  to  decline  it.  He  went  to 
Wilton  to  thank  the  earl  and  to  give  his  reasons.  It  chanced 
that  the  King  and  the  whole  Court  were  then  at  Wilton  or 
near  it;  and  so  "that  night,"  says  Walton,  "the  earl 
"  acquainted  Dr.  Laud,  then  Bishop  of  London,  with  his 
"  kinsman's  irresolution,  and  the  Bishop  did  the  next  day 
"  so  convince  Mr.  Herbert  that  the  refusal  was  a  sin  that  a 
"  tailor  was  sent  for  to  come  speedily  from  Salisbury  to 
"Wilton  to  take  measure  and  make  him  canonical  clothes 
"  against  next  day ;  which  the  tailor  did ;  and  Mr.  Herbert, 
"  being  so  habited,  went  with  his  presentation  to  the  learned 
"  Dr.  Davenant,  who  was  then  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  he 
"  gave  him  institution  immediately."  l  When  thus  led  into 
the  Church,  in  April  1630,  by  the  hand  of  Laud  himself, 

1  So  Walton  ;  but  Mr.  Gardiner  (The       details,  on  the  ground  that  the  Court 
Personal  Government  of  Charles  I.,  vol.       was  then  at  White-hall. 
i.  p.  317)  challenges  the  accuracy  of  the 


GEORGE    HERBERT   AT   BEMERTON.  415 

and  in  the  proper  canonical  garb,  Herbert  was  thirty-six 
years  of  age.  He  lived  but  three  years  longer,  the  model  of 
country  parson,  and  the  idol  of  his  parishioners  ;  nor  during 
those  three  years  was  there  a  parish  in  all  England  in  which, 
by  the  exertions  of  one  man  whose  pious  genius  had  received 
from  nature  the  due  peculiarity,  there  was  a  nearer  approach 
than  in  Bemerton  to  Laud's  ideal  of  the  Beauty  of  Holiness.  I 
The  parish  church,  the  chapel,  the  parsonage-house,  were 
all  beautified  ;  the  church  services  and  ceremonies  were 
punctually  fulfilled  in  every  particular  ;  and  the  people  were 
so  taught  on  Sundays  the  sacred  significance  of  all  the 
forms  and  gestures  prescribed  that  they  loved  them  for 
their  own  sake,  as  well  as  for  their  pastor's.  Over  the  miry 
roads  in  rain  and  mist  on  week-days  walked  the  delicate 
aristocratic  man,  "  contemning  his  birth/'  as  he  said,  '  '  or 
any  title  or  dignity  that  could  be  conferred  upon  him,  com 
pared  with  his  title  of  priest  ;  and  twice  every  day  he  and 
his  family,  with  such  gentlemen  of  the  neighbourhood  as 
could  come,  assembled  in  the  chapel  for  prayers,  —  on  which 
occasions,  as  the  chapel-bell  was  heard  over  the  lands 
around,  the  ploughmen  would  stop  reverently  in  mid-furrow, 
that  the  sound  might  satiate  them  and  do  them  good.  Here 
also  it  was  that  those  sacred  strains  of  The  Temple  were 
written  which,  though  some  of  them  were  but  poetic  inter 
pretations  of  Laud's  prose,  have  come  down  as  the  carols 
of  Anglicanism  in  its  essence,  and  are  dear  to  lovers  of 
sacred  wit  and  quaint  metrical  speech,  whether  of  the 
Anglican  communion  or  not.  At  the  very  time  when 
Milton  was  renouncing  the  Church,  his  senior,  Herbert, 
with  death's  gate  shining  nearer  and  nearer  before  him,  was 
finding  his  delight  in  her  service  and  addressing  her  thus  :  — 


"  I  joy,  dear  Mother,  when  I  view 
Thy  perfect  lineaments  and  hue, 
Both  sweet  and  bright  : 


Beauty  in  thee  takes  up  her  place, 
And  dates  her  letters  from  tny  face 
When  she  doth  write." 

Among  other  instances  of  persons  won  from  secular  life 
to  the  Anglican  Church  by  Laud,  or  saved  to  the  Anglican 


416  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Church  by  Laud's  timely  demonstrations  of  her  sufficiency 
for  all  that  the  Romish  offered,  we  may  note  the  famous 
case  of  Nicholas  Ferrar.  Having  been  a  student  of  Clare 
Hall;  Cambridge,  as  early  as  1605,  and  till  1613  a  fellow 
there,  he  had  spent  some  years  in  travelling  in  Holland, 
Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  and  then,  returning  to 
England  in  1618,  had,  with  an  elder  brother,  concerned 
himself  in  a  public  manner  with  the  Virginia  colonization 
scheme,  and  had,  moreover,  as  a  member  of  James's  last 
Parliament,  taken  a  leading  part  in  colonial  business.  In 
his  travels,  besides  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  modern  lan 
guages  and  other  accomplishments,  he  had  paid  great 
attention  to  the  religion  of  the  Roman  Catholic  nations, 
and  to  "  the  manner  and  the  reasons  of  their  worship/'  so 
that,  though  he  resisted  "many  persuasions  to  come  into 
communion  with  that  Church,"  and  continued  "  eminent  for 
his  obedience  to  his  mother,  the  Church  of  England,"  yet, 
when  he  returned  home,  he  could  not  but  think  that  Eng 
land,  in  the  fury  of  her  Protestantism,  had  parted  unneces 
sarily  with  some  portions  of  the  apparatus  of  a  holy  life 
which  were  still  kept  up  with  good  effect  in  warmer  Catholic 
lands.  In  other  words,  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  ecclesi 
astical  system  of  England  might  well  permit,  for  the  sake  of 
such  pious  souls  as  desired  it,  a  restoration  of  the  means  of 
monastic  seclusion  and  discipline.  There  being  plenty  of 
money  in  the  Ferrar  family,  left  by  their  father,  an  enter 
prising  London  merchant,  who  had  died  in  1620,  and  all  the 
family  having  the  same  singular  meekness  and  passion  for  a 
devout  life  which  distinguished  Nicholas,  he  was  able  with 
ease  to  make  the  experiment.  The  manor  of  Little  Gidding, 
a  desert  spot,  chiefly  of  pasture  land,  on  the  borders  of 
Northamptonshire,  about  eighteen  miles  from  Cambridge, 
had  been  bought  by  his  widowed  mother;  and  here,  in  1626 
and  1627,  Nicholas  carried  his  plans  into  effect.  The  hall 
and  the  chapel  adjoining  it,  which  were  almost  the  only 
buildings  in  the  parish,  were  fitted  up  in  a  proper  manner ; 
and  the  whole  family,  consisting  of  the  mother,  Nicholas 
and  his  elder  brother  John,  a  married  sister  named  Collett, 


THE   FERRAR   FAMILY.  417 

many  young  nephews  and  nieces,  with  some  others  who 
obtained  leave  to  join  them,  to  the  number  of  about  thirty 
in  all,  including  servants,  migrated  to  this  place,  and  estab 
lished  themselves  as  a  monastic  colony.  As  the  establish 
ment  was  under  the  presidency  of  the  widowed  mother,  an 
aged  woman  of  eighty,  and  as  all  the  members  were  bound 
to  celibacy  so  long  as  they  continued  in  it,  the  people 
round  about  named  it  The  Protestant  Nunnery.  The  real 
management  was  in  the  hands  of  Nicholas,  who  had  been 
ordained  deacon  by  Laud  for  that  purpose  by  his  own 
express  desire,  to  the  great  surprise  of  all  his  business 
acquaintances.  The  inmates  were  permitted  to  pursue 
various  occupations,  such  as  reading,  teaching,  binding 
prayer-books,  and  collating  the  Scriptures ;  much  was  given 
in  charity ;  but  the  peculiarity  of  the  place  was  that  day  and 
night  there  was  a  ceaseless  round  of  religious  duties.  Twice 
every  day  Nicholas  himself  read  the  Common  Prayer  to 
them  all  in  the  chapel ;  but  there  were  also,  in  the  chapel  or 
in  an  oratory  within  the  hall,  continual  additional  services 
during  the  day,  and  again  by  relays  of  watches  through  the 
whole  night.  When  one  set  of  watchers  became  weary  with 
reading  or  with  singing  lauds,  a  bell  roused  others  to  relieve 
them,  and  so  on  till  morning  dawned.  Thus  "  in  this  con- 
"  tinued  serving  of  God,"  says  Walton,  "  the  Psalter  or  whole 
"  Book  of  Psalms  was  in  every  four-and- twenty  hours  sung 
"  or  read  over,  from  the  first  to  the  last  verse ;  and  this  was 
"  done  as  constantly  as  the  sun  runs  his  circle  every  day 
"  about  the  world,  and  then  begins  again  the  same  instant 
"  that  it  ended."  In  every  part  of  the  worship  Laud  would 
have  found  his  notions  of  beauty  and  decorum  fulfilled  or 
exceeded.  Thus,  "  within  the  chapel,"  besides  other  furni 
ture  and  decorations,  "were  candles  of  white  and  green 
wax/'  and  at  every  meeting  every  person  present  bowed 
reverently  towards  the  communion-table  before  sitting  down. 
In  short,  at  another  time,  or  with  another  than  Laud  at  the 
centre,  the  establishment  would  have  run  a  risk  of  being 
suppressed  as  Popish.1 

1  Respecting  the  Ferrar  establishment   see   Rushworth    II.    178,    Walton's 
VOL.   I.  E  E 


418  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTOEY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

The  Herberts  and  the  Ferrars  were  the  higher  representa- 
/  tives  of  that  sentiment  of  ceremonial  devoutness  in  the 
English  mind  of  the  time  which  was  conserved  within  the 
Church,  or  even  drawn  into  it,  by  Laud's  rule  and  policy. 
In  them,  indeed,  Laudism  was  seen  in  a  state  of  bloom  and 
fragrance  which  it  never  could  have  attained  in  the  arid 
nature  of  Laud  himself.  Laudians  of  a  more  ordinary  stamp, 
and  more  like  their  master,  were  those  numerous  academics 
who,  simply  following  the  suasion  of  circumstances,  had 
already  professed  themselves  on  the  Laudian  side  in  the 
course  of  their  studies,  and  were  anxious  to  take  livings 
and  prove  their  principles  in  gowns  and  surplices  before 
congregations. 

Was  it  impossible,  then,  to  enter  the  Church  of  England 
or  to  remain  within  her  without  being  a  Laudian  ?  By  no 
means  so.  With  all  Laud's  vigilance  and  that  of  the  prelates 
of  his  party,  and  in  spite  of  ordinances,  inquisitions  of  arch 
deacons,  episcopal  visitations,  circular  letters  to  church 
wardens  encouraging  them  to  report,  &c.,  it  was  still  possible 
/  for  ministers  of  Calvinistic  and  Puritan  sentiments,  unless 
too  fiery  and  fierce  to  contain  themselves,  to  get  livings  and 
to  keep  them  without  concessions  that  could  be  called 
deadly  or  dishonourable.  At  the  utmost,  even  in  times  of 
persecution,  it  is  but  a  tree  here  and  there  that  the  axe  of 
power  has  time  to  fell,  and  in  such  cases,  as  some  one  has 
said,  the  thinning  of  the  big  boughs  may  but  help  the 
growth  of  the  underwood.  At  all  events,  it  is  a  known  fact 
that  under  Laud's  government,  and  even  in  the  dioceses  of 
/  zealous  bishops,  Puritan  ministers  did  contrive  to  avoid 
compliance  with  many  of  the  enjoined  forms  and  ceremonies. 
*7  We  are  informed,  for  example,  that  Milton's  former  tutor, 
Thomas  Young,  contrived,  for  ten  whole  years  of  his  ministry 
at  Stowmarket,  to  avoid  the  use  of  the  surplice,  notwith- 

Life  of  Herbert,  Hacket's  Life  of  "Wil-  Mayor's  volume  collects  all  the  exist- 

liams,  Part    II.    pp.    50-53,    Carlyle's  ing  information  about  Ferrar ;  and  the 

Cromwell,  I.   56-57   (edit.   1857),  anr*  story  of  the  family  may  be  there  read 

Lives  of  Ferrar  edited,  with  illustra-  as  told  by  themselves  and  those  iuti- 

tions,  by  J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  M.A.,  Fellow  mate   with   them   in   contradiction  of 

of  St.  John's,  Cambridge,  1855.     Mr.  false  reports. 


THE    IRISH   CHURCH.  419 

standing  that  during  that  time  there  were  in  the  diocese  of 
Norwich  three  such  disciplinarians  in  succession  as  Dr. 
White,  Dr.  Corbet,  and  Dr.  Matthew  Wren.1  The  more 
celebrated  Edmund  Calamy,  also,  who  was  at  this  time  a 
neighbour  of  Young's  in  Suffolk,  being  minister  at  St. 
Edmundsbuiy,  used  afterwards,  when  the  Puritans  were  in 
the  ascendant,  to  declare  that,  even  in  those  difficult  days, 
he  had  never  bowed  to  or  towards  the  altar,  or  done  any 
thing  of  a  like  nature.2 

Had  Milton  chosen,  therefore,  he  might  have  slipped  into 
the  diocese  of  some  liberal  bishop,  and  managed  his  part  as 
well  as  others  till  the  arrival  of  better  times.  To  enter  the 
Church  in  such  a  fashion,  however,  was  not  in  Milton's  I 
nature.  Young  or  old,  he  was  not  a  man  to  "  slip "  in 
anywhere.  And  so  the  Church  of  England  lost  John  Milton. ' 
Ten  years  hence,  indeed,  he  was  to  throw  his  whole  soul 
into  the  question  of  Church  Reform,  and  was,  more  publicly 
than  most  Englishmen,  to  make  that  question  his  own ;  but 
then  it  was  to  be  as  a  layman  and  not  as  a  churchman.  For 
the  present  he  but  moves  to  the  church-door,  glances  from 
that  station  into  the  interior  as  far  as  he  can,  sees  through 
the  glass  the  back  of  a  little  man  gesticulating  briskly  at 
the  farther  end,  does  not  like  the  look  of  him  or  of  his 
occupation,  and  so  turns  sadly  but  decidedly  away. 

THE    IRISH    CHURCH. 

Ireland,  with  the  great  mass  of  her  people  still  untouched 
Celts,  and  with  only  a  selvage  of  English  and  Scottish 
settlers  011  her  eastern  coasts,  exhibited  a  corresponding 
division  of  religions.  The  native  Irish  were  all  Roman 
Catholics ;  only  the  English  and  Scotch,  amounting  to  not  a 
tenth  of  the  population,  were  Protestants.  Both  religions, 
however,  had  organizations  co- extensive  in  form  with  the 
whole  island.  In  each  of  the  four  provinces  there  was  a 
legal  Protestant  archbishop,  with  bishops  under  him,  as  in 

1  History  of  Stowmarket,  by  the  Rev.  A.  G.  Hollingsworth. 

2  Wood's  Fasti,  I.  511. 

E  E  2 


v 


420  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

England.  The  following  is  a  list  of  the  Protestant  bishoprics 
and  of  the  men  who  held  them  in  the  year  1632  : — 

PROVINCE  OF  ULSTEE.  1.  The  Archbishop  of  Armagh  (styled 
Primate  of  all  Ireland)  :  the  famous  and  learned  James  Usher, 
born  in  Ireland,  and  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin  ;  now  over 
fifty  years  of  age ;  2.  Bishop  of  Clogher :  James  Spotswood,  a  Scot. 
3.  Bishop  of  Meath :  Anthony  Martin,  educated  at  Trinity  College, 
Dublin.  4.  Bishop  of  Kilmore  and  Ardagh:  William  Bedell,  an 
Englishman,  educated  at  Cambridge.  5.  Bishop)  of  Down  and  Connor  : 
Robert  Echlin,  a  Scot.  6.  Bishop  of  Dromore :  Theophilus  Buck- 
worth,  an  Englishman,  educated  at  Cambridge.  V.  Bishop  of  Derry: 
George  Downham,  an  Englishman,  educated  at  Cambridge.  8.  Bishop 
of  Raphoe :  John  Lesley,  a  Scot. 

PROVINCE  OF  MUNSTER.  1.  The  Archbishop  of  Cashel :  Archibald 
Hamilton,  a  Scot.  2.  Bishop  of  Waterford  and  Lismore :  Michael 
Boyle,  educated  at  Oxford.  3.  Bishop  of  Cork,  Cloyne,  and  Ross  : 
Richard  Boyle.  4.  Bishop  of  Limerick:  Francis  Gough,  an  English 
man.  5.  Bishop  of  Ardfert:  William  Steere,  an  Englishman.  6. 
Bishop  of  Killaloe :  Lewis  Jonas,  a  Welshman,  educated  at  Oxford. 
7.  Bishop  of  Kilfenora:  James  Heygate,  a  Scot. 

PROVINCE  OF  LEINSTER.  1.  The  Archbishop  of  Dublin :  Lancelot 
Bulkeley,  an  Englishman.  2.  Bishop  of  Kildare :  William  Pils worth, 
an  Englishman.  3.  Bishop  of  Ossory :  Jonas  Wheeler,  an  English 
man.  4.  Bishop  of  Ferns  and  Leighlin:  Thomas  Ram,  an  English 
man,  educated  at  Cambridge. 

PROVINCE  OF  CONNAUGHT.  1.  The  Archbishop  of  Tiiam:  Ran 
dolph  Barlowe.  2.  Bishop  of  Killala  and  Achonry :  Archibald  Adair, 
a  Scot.  3.  Bishop  of  Elphin :  Edward  King,  educated  at  Oxford  : 
the  uncle  of  Milton's  friend,  Edward  King  of  Christ's  College.  4. 
Bishop  of  Clonfert  and  Kilmacduagh :  Robert  Dawson,  an  English 


man. 


n   1 


Here  was  an  imposing  Church  organization,  only  four 
bishops  fewer  than  for  all  England.  Imagine»the  deaneries, 
the  archdeaconries,  and  lastly  the  parochial  livings,  under 
such  an  extensive  surface  of  bishoprics ;  observe  also  that 
the  bishoprics  were  almost  all  filled  by  Englishmen  or  Scots 
imported  for  the  purpose,  with  but  one  or  two  born  Irishmen 
among  them ;  and  it  will  seem  as  if  Ireland  might  have  been 
a  very  convenient  refuge  in  those  days  for  aggrieved  Puritan 
clergymen  of  the  sister  nation.  For  the  Irish  Church,  though 
episcopal,  was  episcopal  after  a  much  laxer  fashion  than  the 
Church  of  England.  The  first  professors  sent  over  to 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  at  its  foundation  by  Elizabeth  in 
1593,  had  been  eminent  Calvinists  from  Cambridge  ;  in  the 
reign  of  James,  when  obstacles  to  the  colonization  ot  Ireland 

1  The  list  is  drawn  up  from  Cotton's  "  Fasti  Eccles.  Hibern."  1847. 


THE    IRISH    CHURCH.  421 

had  been  removed,  the  persons  who  had  availed  themselves 
of  the  opportunity  had  been  chiefly  enterprising  Scottish 
Presbyterians,  who  carried  their  ministers  with  them,  or  else 
English  Puritans,  who  were  glad  to  go  to  Ireland  for  the 
chance  of  greater  religious  freedom ;  and  thus,  though  the 
organization  of  the  Church  was  externally  prelatic,  the  con 
stituency  of  the  Church,  its  blood  and  substance,  were 
mainly  Presbyterian  or  Puritan.  In  order  to  reconcile  the 
Scottish  Presbyterian  ministers  to  the  episcopal  government, 
the  bishops  had  not  scrupled  to  waive  their  full  episcopal 
rights,  allowing  Presbyters  to  join  with  them  in  the  act  of 
ordaining  other  Presbyters,  and  also  allowing  them  to  dis 
pense  with  the  Liturgy.  In  the  same  spirit,  when  it  was 
deemed  necessary,  at  a  Convocation  of  the  Irish  Protestant 
clergy  in  1616,  to  adopt  a  set  of  Articles  expressing  their 
corporate  creed,  it  was  decided  not  to  borrow  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England,  but  to  frame  a  new 
set  of  a  more  Puritan  and  Calvinistic  grain.  A  draft  of 
such  Articles  was  prepared  by  Usher,  then  Provost  of  Trinity 
College  ;  which,  after  passing  the  Convocation  and  the  Irish 
Parliament,  and  being  approved  by  the  English  Privy 
Council,  was  ratified  by  the  Irish  Lord  Deputy  in  the  King's 
name.  Among  the  Articles  was  one  more  strongly  Sab 
batarian  than  accorded  with  the  prevalent  views  in  England  ; 
in  the  matters  of  ordination  and  of  Lent  and  other  fasts  the 
language  was  left  very  open;  nothing  special  was  said  of 
the  consecration  of  bishops  or  archbishops;  and,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  the  denunciations  of  Popery  were 
thorough-going.  Thus,  both  in  principle  and  in  practice, 
the  Protestant  Church  of  Ireland  presented  a  spectacle  by 
no  means  to  the  taste  of  the  English  Conformists.  It  was  a 
muddle,  they  thought,  of  Presbyterian  practices  and  a  mere 
jure  humane  Episcopacy.  There  were  among  the  Irish 
bishops  men  who  thought  so  too.  Of  this  stamp  was  Echlin, 
Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor  since  1612.  Usher,  on  the 
other  hand,  since  his  appointment  to  the  Primacy  in  1624, 
had  resisted  attempts  to  compel  conformity.  Desiring  only 
that  the  Irish  Church  should  have  a  firm  Calvinistic  creed 


422  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

with  a  moderately  episcopal  organization,  lie  had  sought  to 
direct  her  energies  against  the  surrounding  Popery  of  the 
island.1 

In  such  circumstances,  we  repeat,  the  Irish  Church  might 
have  seemed  a  desirable  enough  refuge  for  aggrieved  English 
Puritans.     There   were,  however,  serious  counterbalancing 
disadvantages.     In  the  first  place,  that  Church,  with  all  its 
imposing  organization  of  archbishops,  bishops,  and  so  on, 
was   a   shell   without   a   kernel.     There  were  not    200,000 
Protestants    in  Ireland  for  the  four  archbishops   and   the 
twenty   bishops   to    share   among   them.     Eome   was    still 
master  of  the  rich  green  island.     Despite   English    laws, 
there  was  still  an  unbroken  body  of  Catholic  parish  clergy, 
with   a   titular   hierarchy   of  bishops,   archbishops,    vicars- 
general,  &c.,  all  complete.     Since  the  accession  of  Charles 
the  Irish  Catholics  had  become  bolder  than  ever.     "  Mon- 
"  asteries,  nunneries,  and  other  superstitious  houses,"  say 
the   English    Commons   in   their   Remonstrance    of    1628, 
speaking  of  Ireland,   "are  newly  erected,  re-edified,  and 
"  replenished  with  men  and  women  of  several  orders,  and  in 
"  a  plentiful  manner  maintained  at  Dublin  and  most  of  the 
"  great   towns,   and   divers  other  places." 2     Nor   was   the 
inferiority  of  the  Protestant  Church  in  Ireland  to  its  Catholic 
rival    merely  one   of  numbers  and   influence.     By  the  lay 
seizures  of  the  Reformation  the  old  legal  revenues  of  the 
Irish  Church,  such  as  they  were,  had  been  wofully  diminished, 
and  the  Protestant  clergy  had  but  a  starving  subsistence. 
To  be  an  Irish  bishop  was  not  much  better,  save  in  dignity, 
than  to  be  an  English  rector;  and  forty  shillings  a-year  was 
the  legal  income  of  some  of  those  who  served  under  the 
bishops  as  parish  ministers.     All  sorts  of  devices  had  been 
tried,  but  still  the  Church  was  in  a  miserable  plight.     "  I 
"have  been  about  my  diocese,"  wrote  Bedell  to  Laud  in 
1630,  when  he  had  just  gone  over  as  Bishop  of  Lismore  and 
Ardagh,  (e  and  can  set  down,  out  of  my  knowledge  and  view, 
"  what  I  shall  relate.   And  shortly,  to  speak  much  ill  matter 

1  Neal's  Puritans,  II.  96-100.  and  Reid's  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  Ireland,  I.  130,  &c.  2  Rushworth,  I.  622. 


THE    SCOTTISH    KIRK.  423 

"in  a  few  words,  it  is  very  miserable  everyway.  The 
"  Cathedral  of  Ardagh  (one  of  the  most  ancient  in  Ireland, 
"and  said  to  be  built  by  St.  Patrick),  together  with  the 
"bishop's  house  there,  are  down  to  the  ground;  the  church 
"here  [Kilrnore]  built,  but  without  bell  or  steeple,  font  or 
"chalice.  The  parish  churches  all  in  a  manner  ruined, 
" unroofed,  and  unrepaired;  the  people,  saving  a  few 
" British  planters  here  and  there,  obstinate  recusants;  a 
"  popish  clergy  more  numerous  by  far  than  we,  and  in  the 
"  full  exercise  of  all  jurisdiction  ecclesiastical."  l  In  such  a 
state  of  things,  a  young  Englishman  fresh  from  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  had  but  little  inducement  to  dedicate  himself  to 
the  Irish  ministry. 

Moreover,  Laud  had  already  his  eye  on  the  Irish  Church. 
Among  his  projects  noted  down  on  paper  in  the  year  1630 
are  these  two  referring  to  Ireland : — First,  "  To  procure 
King  Charles  to  give  all  the  impropriations  yet  remaining 
in  the  crown  within  the  realm  of  Ireland  to  that  poor 
Church ; "  Secondly,  "  A  new  charter  for  the  College  near 
Dublin  to  be  procured  of  his  Majesty ;  and  a  body  of  statutes 
made,  to  rectify  that  government."  He  had  made  some 
progress  towards  these  objects  before  1632.  Men  of  Laudiaii 
principles  had  been  appointed,  by  his  influence,  to  livings 
and  offices  on  the  other  side  of  the  Irish  Channel ;  and  the 
Calvinistic  primate  Usher  was  already  aware  that  the  Ar- 
minian  leaven  was  at  work,  and  that  Laud  meditated  nothing 
less  than  the  repeal  of  the  Irish  Articles,  and  the  subjection 
of  the  Irish  Church  to  English  rule  and  discipline. 

THE    SCOTTISH    KIRK. 

Glancing  northwards  across  the  Tweed,  the  English 
Puritans  could  see,  pent  up  in  that  extremity  of  the  island, 
a  Church  still  more  Presbyterian  and  Calvinistic  than  the 
Irish  one.  True,  it  was  not  now  exactly  the  old  Reformed 
Church  of  John  Knox.  From  the  moment  when  the  Scottish 
King  James  had  crossed  the  Tweed,  to  experience  the 

i  Kushworth,  II.  47. 


42-4  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

delight  of  being  the  successor  of  the  Tudors,  after  having 
for  thirty-six  years  been  king  of  a  little  nation  of  less  than  a 
million,  from  whom  he  received  some  5,OOOZ.  a-year,  with 
occasional  presents  of  poultry  and  silk  hose  and  no  end  of 
pulpit  instruction,  it  had  been  the  passion  of  his  heart  to 
use  his  new  power  so  as  to  break  the  neck  of  that  Scottish 
Presbyterian  system  with  which  he  had  been  contending 

^  since  his  boyhood.  He  had  so  far  succeeded.  In  1606 
Episcopacy  had  been  restored  by  the  Scottish  Parliament, 
to  the  extent  of  the  investiture  of  some  thirteen  parish 
clergymen  with  the  titles  and  the  temporalities  of  bishops ; 
and  in  1610,  after  these  bishops  had  for  four  years  borne 
their  empty  honours  amid  the  scoffs  of  the  people,  a  General 
Assembly  at  Glasgow  had  been  prevailed  upon  to  adopt 
them  ecclesiastically,  by  constituting  them  moderators  or 
presidents  in  synods,  and  bestowing  on  them  some  rights  of 
jurisdiction.  Two  courts  of  high  ecclesiastical  commission 
had  been  appointed,  one  at  St.  Andrews  and  the  other  at 
Glasgow,  each  under  the  presidency  of  an  archbishop. 
Finally,  in  1621,  James  had  gained  another  victory  in  the 
adoption  of  what  were  called  the  'Five  Articles  of  Perth,  by 
which  the  Kirk,  hitherto  obdurate  in  the  matter  of  cere 
monies,  consented  to  allow  kneeling  at  the  sacrament, 
private  communion,  private  baptism,  confirmation  by  the 
bishops,  and  the  observance  of  Christmas,  Good  Friday, 
Easter,  and  Pentecost.  So  far,  the  Kirk  had  ceased  to  be 

>  Presbyterian.  But  Episcopacy  in  Scotland  was  yet  a  long 
way  short  of  English  Episcopacy.  With  her  two  new-made 
Archbishops  of  St.  Andrews  and  Glasgow,  and  her  sub 
ordinate  bishoprics  of  Dunkeld,  Aberdeen,  Moray,  Brechin, 
Dunblane,  Ross,  and  Orkney  in  the  province  of  St.  Andrews, 
and  Galloway,  Argyle,  and  the  Isles  in  the  province  of 
Glasgow,  Scotland  was  yet  toughly,  fervidly,  indomitably 
Presbyterian.  "  Though  these  were  bishops  in  name/'  says 
Clarendon,  "the  whole  jurisdiction  and  they  themselves 
"were  subject  to  an  Assembly  which  was  purely  Presby- 
' '  terian  :  no  form  of  religion  in  practice,  no  liturgy,  nor  the 
tf  least  appearance  of  any  beauty  of  holiness."  The  clergy 


THE    SCOTTISH    KIRK,  425 

were  not  satisfied  even  with  such  episcopacy  as  there  was; 
were  very  disrespectful  to  the  Spotswoods,  the  Leslies,  the 
Lindsays,  and  the  Forbeses  among  them  who  had  consented 
to  be  made  bishops;  would  insist  casuistically  that  those 
bishops  were  presbyters  still,  though  perhaps  primi  inter 
pares.  The  people  were  still  more  restless.  They  regarded 
the  new  ceremonies  with  horror ;  and  the  day  on  which  they 
had  received  their  final  ratification,  Saturday,  Aug.  4,  1621, 
was  spoken  of  as  "  the  black  Saturday."  It  was  one  of  the 
darkest  and  stormiest  days,  say  the  chronicles,  ever  known 
in  Scotland. 

Intensely  Calvinistic  in  creed,  not  burdened  with  cere 
monies,  and  episcopal  in  constitution  only  as  having  a 
superficial  apparatus  of  bishops  screwed  down  upon  it,  the 
Scottish  Kirk  of  1632,  although  it  had  nonconformists  of  its 
own,  braving  the  penalties  of  prison  and  exile,  might  have 
seemed  a  very  tolerable  institution  to  the  less  advanced 
nonconformists  of  England.  What  they  desired  was  an 
episcopacy  without  severe  accompaniments ;  and  here  they 
would  have  had  it.  With  the  exception,  however,  of  one 
or  two  stray  cases,  ministers  ordained  in  England  do  not 
seem  to  have  even  thought  of  connecting  themselves  with 
the  Church  north  of  the  Tweed.  Then,  as  now,  the  tendency  * 
was  rather  of  the  Scots  southwards  than  of  the  English 
northwards ;  and  a  Cambridge  man  or  an  Ox-ford  man 
thrown  by  chance  into  a  Fifeshire  or  a  Perthshire  parish 
would  have  been  stared  at  by  his  parishioners  till  he  lost  his 
wits.  There  was  no  Englishman  at  this  date  among  the 
Scottish  bishops ;  all  were  Scots,  speaking  the  true  Doric. 
And  so  with  the  parish  clergy.  Besides,  even  had  there 
been  precedent  to  suggest  to  an  adventurous  Englishman 
the  idea  of  carrying  himself  and  his  English  speech  into  that 
hyperborean  region,  there  were  beginning  to  be  symptoms 
that  he  might  be  pursued  thither  by  that  from  which  he  had 
fled.  Laud  had  his  eye  on  Scotland ;  and  he  and  Charles/ 
were  bent  on  a  farther  extension  of  Prelacy  among  the  Scots 
than  had  seemed  possible  to  James. 


426  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTOEY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

FOEEIGN    CHAPLAINCIES. 

As  early  as  the  fifteenth,  century  there  had  been  factories 
or  agencies  of  the  English  merchant-adventurers  in  the  chief 
towns  of  northern  Germany  and  the  Netherlands.  The  influx 
of  Protestant,  and  then  of  Puritan,  refugees  from  England 
and  Scotland  had  increased  the  British  ingredient  in  those 
towns,  and  English  and  Scotch  regiments,  sent  over  by 
Elizabeth  and  James  for  continental  service  in  the  war  of 
the  Netherlands  against  Spain,  had  left  their  relics  where 
they  had  been  stationed.  In  not  a  few  continental  towns, 
therefore,  there  were  English  and  Scottish  congregations, 
requiring  the  services  of  English  or  Scottish  pastors. 
Milton's  preceptor,  Young,  had  been  chaplain  to  the  British 
merchants  in  Hamburg;  and  Hamburg  was  but  one  of 
several  German  towns  similarly  provided.  In  Hamburg, 
says  Neal,  "  the  English  church,"  protected  by  the  tolerant 
policy  of  the  city,  "managed  its  affairs  according  to  the 
Geneva  discipline,  by  elders  and  deacons."  But  it  was  in 
the  Low  Countries,  and  more  particularly  in  those  provinces 
which  were  under  the  singularly  free  government  of  the 
States  General,  that  the  British  churches  abroad  attained 
their  fullest  dimensions.  Calvinistic  in  the  main  themselves, 
but  with  other  sects  among  them  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
ensure  a  liberty  of  religious  difference  such  as  existed 
nowhere  else  in  the  world,  the  Dutch  welcomed  the  English 
Puritan  ministers  who  came  among  them,  and  gave  them  all 
the  rights  of  their  own  clergy,  including  state  support.  By 
the  year  1632  there  were  English  or  Scottish  congregations 
in  Amsterdam,  Arnheim,  Bergen-op-Zoom,  Bois-le*Duc, 
Breda,  Brille,  Carnpvere,  Delft,  Dordrecht,  Flushing,  Gorcum, 
Haarlem,  the  Hague,  Leyden,  Middleburg,  Rotterdam,  and 
Utrecht.  Left  entirely  to  themselves,  these  congregations 
had,  in  most  cases,  adopted  the  Presbyterian  forms  in  their 
worship,  and  had  become  more  and  more  alienated  from 
episcopacy.  It  was  in  Holland,  and  especially  in  the  great 
commercial  city  of  Amsterdam,  that  the  Brownists  or  Inde 
pendents  found  shelter,  and  that  those  books  and  tracts 


FOEEIGN    CHAPLAINCIES.  427 

were  printed,  which,  when  sent  over  to  England,  tended  to 
diffuse  the  new  notions  of  Independency  or  Congregation 
alism  through  the  popular  English  Puritanism.  Only  one 
or  two  of  the  congregations,  however,  were  Brownist ;  and 
the  rest  were  so  far  from  advocating  pure  Congregationalism 
that  they  had  formed  themselves,  with  the  consent  of  the 
States,  into  a  regular  Presbyterian  organization,  with  the 
name  of  "  The  Synod  of  the  English  and  Scotch  Clergy  in 
the  United  Provinces."  This  name  occurs  in  Dutch  histories 
of  the  period  as  well  as  in  English  state  documents.  After 
Charles  had  ascended  the  throne,  however,  the  existence  of 
a  body  so  composed,  and  with  such  a  name,  attracted  the 
hostile  attention  of  the  English  Government ;  and  Laud  had 
already  attempted  to  stretch  his  hand  across  the  water  so  as 
to  seize  those  Dutch  rats.  On  the  19th  of  May  1628  a 
letter  was  addressed  in  the  King's  name  to  the  clergy  of  the 
Dutch  Synod,  requiring  them  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  any 
other  liturgy  than  that  of  England,  to  abstain  from  ordaining 
pastors  for  themselves  or  receiving  among  them  any  pastors 
except  such  as  had  been  ordained  in  the  mother  countries, 
to  introduce  no  novelties  in  worship  or  in  doctrine,  to  watch 
over  the  issue  from  the  Dutch  press  of  publications  deroga 
tory  to  the  Church  of  England,  and  in  all  matters  of  doubt  to 
have  recourse  to  the  English  ambassador  for  advice.  The 
Synod,  in  reply,  urged  that,  though  English  subjects,  they 
were  amenable  to  the  laws  of  the  country  which  supported 
them;  defended  themselves  meekly  in  some  points;  but 
stoutly  maintained  their  privilege  of  ordaining  pastors.  After 
this  little  more  is  heard  of  the  matter  till  Laud's  elevation 
to  the  archbishopric,  when  he  returned  to  the  charge  in  a 
bolder  fashion,  requiring  all  chaplains,  whether  English  or 
Scotch,  in  the  Low  Countries,  to  be  "  exactly  conformable 
to  the  Church  of  England."  Fortunately,  the  emigrants 
were  safe  within  the  Dutch  laws ;  and  not  only  till  1632,  but 
through  the  whole  of  Laud's  rule,  the  Low  Countries  were 
the  chief  refuge  of  the  English  Puritans.  Here,  on  the 
quays  of  the  great  Dutch  ports,  by  the  sides  of  docks  of 
green  water,  where  ships  were  unloading  and  merchants 


428  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

and  sailors  going  about  with  pipes  in  their  mouths,  or  in 
more  inland  towns,  by  the  sides  of  lazy  canals  flowing  amid 
quaint  red  and  white  houses,  there  walked  in  those  years 
many  an  exiled  minister,  free  from  all  fear  of  Laud.  Some 
of  these  clergymen  remained  all  their  lives  in  Holland, 
growing  daily  more  Dutch  in  their  figures  and  their 
theology ;  others  made  but  a  visit  of  a  year  or  two,  and  then, 
tired  of  the  red  and  white  houses,  the  canals,  and  the  flat 
Dutch  scenery,  resigned  their  charges  and  returned  home- 
There  are  English  and  Scottish  congregations  at  this  day 
in  some  of  the  Dutch  towns  the  lists  of  whose  pastors  are 
unbroken  from  the  year  161 0.1 

THE   COLONIAL   CHURCH. 

We  give  the  benefit  of  this  modern  name  to  the  early 
Puritan  settlements  in  America.  There,  across  the  roar  of 
the  Atlantic,  was  the  true  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  a  con 
tinent  left  vacant  from  of  old,  to  be  shone  upon  by  the  sun 
and  blown  upon  by  the  winds,  with  but  a  sprinkling  of  Red 
Indians  to  tend  it,  in  order  that,  when  the  fulness  of  time 
was  come,  and  this  side  of  the  earth  had  begun  to  teem  with 
more  than  it  could  or  would  contain,  there  might  be  fresh 
space  and  growing-ground  for  what  it  cast  out.  The  begin 
ning  had  already  been  made.  In  1608,  or  a  century  after 
the  Spaniards  had  been  familiar  with  America,  the  first 
British  colony  was  permanently  established  in  Virginia. 
This  colony,  having  been  planted  in  the  mere  spirit  of  com 
mercial  adventure,  had  no  special  attractions  for  the  English 
Puritans ;  and  it  was  not  till  several  years  later  that  they 
conceived  the  idea  of  planting  colonies  for  themselves  on 
the  more  northern  portion  of  the  American  coast  known  as 
New  England.  The  first  colony  there,  that  of  New  Plymouth, 
was  founded  in  1620  by  a  band  of  between  one  and  two 
;  hundred  persons,  chiefly  from  among  the  British  Independ- 

i  See  Neal,  II.  227-228,  Kushworth,  Kotterdam,"    by    the    Kev.    William 

II.    249-250,  and,    more    particularly,  Steven,  himself  some  time  minister  of 

a   historical    account    of    the   British  that  Church.  (Edinburgh  and  Eotter- 

Churches  in  the  Netherlands,  appended  dam,  1832.) 
to  a  "  History  of  the  Scottish  Church, 


THE    COLONIAL    CHURCH.  429 

ents  of  Holland,  who,  having  raised  funds  and  obtained  the 
necessary  patent  from  James,  set  sail  in  two  detachments, 
one  from  Delfthaven  in  Holland,  the  other  from  London. 
"  If  God  reveal  anything  to  you  by  any  other  instrument  of 
"his,"  was  the  advice  given  to  those  emigrants  by  John 
Robinson  of  Leyden,  the  founder  of  Independency,  as  he 
prayed  with  them  and  took  farewell  of  them  at  Delfthaven, 
"  be  as  ready  to  receive  it  as  ever  you  were  to  receive  any 
"  truth  by  my  ministry ;  for  I  cannot  sufficiently  bewail  the 
"  condition  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  who  are  come  to  a 
"  period  in  religion,  and  will  go  at  present  no  farther  than 
"  the  instruments  of  their  reformation.  The  Lutherans 
"  cannot  be  drawn  to  go  beyond  what  Luther  saw,  and  the 
"  Calvinists,  you  see,  stick  fast  where  they  were  left  by  that 
11  great  man  of  God,  who  yet  saw  not  all  things.  This  is  a 
"  misery  much  to  be  lamented;  for,  though  they  were  burning 
"  and  shining  lights  in  their  times,  yet  they  penetrated  not 
"  into  the  whole  counsel  of  God,  but,  were  they  now  living, 
' '  would  be  as  willing  to  embrace  further  light  as  that  which 
"they  first  received.  I  beseech  you  remember  it  is  an 
"article  of  your  Church-covenant  that  you  be  ready  to 
1 '  receive  whatever  truth  shall  be  made  known  to  you  from 
te  the  written  Word  of  God.  But  I  must  herewithal  exhort 
"  you  to  take  heed  what  you  receive  as  truth ;  examine  it, 
' '  consider  it,  and  compare  it  with  other  Scriptures  of  truth 
"  before  you  receive  it ;  for  it  is  not  possible  the  Christian 
"  world  should  come  so  lately  out  of  such  thick  anti-Christian 
"  darkness,  and  that  perfection  of  knowledge  should  break 
' '  forth  at  once."  x  Here  was  a  principle  which  certainly 
required  new  ground,  almost  new  physical  as  well  as  new 
civil  conditions,  in  which  to  plant  itself;  and,  with  this 
principle  in  their  hearts,  accompanied  by  the  sensible  advice 
from  the  same  lips  that  they  should  "  abandon,  avoid,  and 
"  shake  off  the  name  of  Brownists,  as  a  mere  nickname  and 
"  brand  for  making  them  odious,"  the  stout  little  company 
crossed  the  ocean.  Miserable  was  their  first  winter;  but 
New  Plymouth  survived,  to  receive  year  after  year  accessions 

i  Neal,  II.  120-121. 


430  LIFS   OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

from  the  mother  country.  Hearing  that  the  colony  had 
contrived  to  live,  the  Puritans  at  home  resolved,  at  the  time 
when  Laud's  oppressive  policy  began,  to  found  another  on  a 
larger  scale.  A  charter  having  been  obtained  from  Charles 
in  March  1628-9  by  some  persons  of  substance  in  London, 
forming  them  into  a  corporation  and  body-politic  by  the 
name  of  "  The  Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  in  New  England,"  a  fleet  of  six  vessels,  with  English 
Puritan  families  on  board  to  the  number  of  about  350 
persons,  set  sail  in  May  1629,  and  landed  in  the  following 
month  at  Neumkeak  or  Salem.  They  took  with  them, 
as  their  pastors  or  chaplains,  Mr.  Higginson,  a  silenced 
minister  of  Leicestershire,  and  Mr.  Shelton,  a  silenced 
minister  of  Lincolnshire ;  and,  in  a  covenant  which  they 
drew  up  and  signed  before  sailing,  they  professed  all  lawful 
obedience  to  those  that  were  over  them  "in  Church  or 
Commonwealth,"  at  the  same  time  giving  themselves  "  to 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  to  the  word  of  his  grace  for  the 
teaching,  ruling  and  sanctifying "  them  "  in  matters  of 
worship  and  conversation,"  and  rejecting  "all  canons  and 
constitutions  of  men  in  worship."  Above  a  hundred  of  the 
colonists  died  the  first  winter,  including  Mr.  Higginson ; 
but  the  colony  weathered  through,  and  was  reinforced  the 
next  summer  by  about  two  hundred  more  pilgrims,  with 
several  ministers  among  them.  From  that  time  forward 
New  England  received  an  increasing  succession  of  Puritan 
emigrants,  including  ministers  deprived  or  threatened  by 
Laud. 

"  Religion  stands  a-tiptoe  in  our  land, 
Ready  to  pass  to  the  American  strand," 

Herbert  had  written  in  one  of  his  poems;  and  the  words, 
used  by  Herbert  in  a  sense  of  his  own,  were  taken  up 
and  repeated  by  the  Puritans.  In  the  end,  as  we  shall 
see,  Laud  was  to  exert  himself  in  this  matter  too,  and  to 
try  to  coerce  the  American  Church,  or  at  least  prevent  its 
increase;  but,  on  the  whole,  whoever  about  the  year  1632 
desired  liberty  of  conscience,  in  the  Puritan  interpretation 
of  liberty  of  conscience,  could  have  the  luxury  in  fullest 


THE    COLONIAL   CHURCH.  431 

measure  across  the  Atlantic.  Alas  !  at  what  a  cost !  Where 
now  the  great  American  Republic  receives  the  ships  of  the 
world  into  its  northern  harbours,  those  few  hundreds  of 
outcast  Puritans,  the  first  founders  of  its  strength,  had  to 
raise  their  psalms  of  thanksgiving  on  bleak  and  unknown 
headlands,  amid  cold  and  hunger  and  ague,  the  graves  of 
their  little  ones  who  had  perished  lying  around  them,  Red 
Indians  hovering  near  on  the  one  side,  and,  on  the  other 
side,  the  eternal  sea-line  which  severed  them  from  dear  cruel 
England,  and  the  long  low  plash  of  the  sullen  waves. 


CHAPTER  III. 

SUEVEY    OF    BRITISH    LITERATURE    IN    1632. 

As  in  political  history  we  reckon  by  the  reigns  of  the  Sove 
reigns,  so  in  our  literary  history,  for  the  last  two  hundred 
and  sixty  years,  we  may  reckon  by  the  reigns  of  the  Laureates. 
The  year  1632  was  the  thirteenth  year  of  the  laureateship 
of  Ben  Jonson.  He  had  succeeded  to  the  honorary  post  in 
1619,  on  the  death  of  Samuel  Daniel,  who  is  considered  to 
have  held  it,  or  something  equivalent,  from  Spenser's  death 
in  1599.  In  the  case  of  Ben,  however,  the  office  had  been 
converted  into  something  more  definite  and  substantial  than 
it  had  been  before.  Before  his  appointment,  a  pension  of  a 
hundred  merks  a-year  had  been  conferred  on  him  by  James- 
This  pension  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  his  official  income 
in  the  laureateship,  and,  as  such,  had  been  raised  to  a  hun 
dred  pounds  by  Charles  in  1630.  With  the  office  of  Laureate, 
or  Court  Poet,  thus  enhanced  in  value,  Ben  conjoined  that 
of  Chronologer  to  the  City  of  London,  having  been  appointed 
by  the  Corporation  on  the  death  of  Thomas  Middleton  in 
1628,  at  a  yearly  salary  of  a  hundred  nobles. 

It  is  not  always,  whether  in  the  civil  commonwealth  or  in 
the  republic  of  letters,  that  the  right  by  title  accords  so  well 
as  it  did  in  Ben's  case  with  the  right  by  merit.  It  was  now 
some  six-and- thirty  years  since,  returning  from  his  campaign 
in  Flanders,  a  big-boned  youth  of  two-and-twenty,  he  had 
attached  himself  to  the  cluster  of  dramatists  and  playwrights 
who  then  constituted  the  professional  literary  world  of 
London,  and  had  begun  to  cobble  plays,  like  the  rest  of 
them,  at  from  £5  to  £10  each.  Borrowing,  as  most  of  them 
had  to  do,  a  pound  or  five  shillings  at  a  time  from  Henslowe 
and  other  managers  on  the  faith  of  work  in  progress,  (( the 
bricklayer,"  as  he  was  called,  had  made  his  way  gradually, 


BEN    JONSON.  433 

always  with  a  quarrel  on  his  hands,  till  at  length,  having 
shown  what  he  could  do  in  one  way  by  killing  one  of  Hens- 
lowe's  players  in  a  duel  in  Hoxton  Fields  and  being  "  almost 
at  the  gallows  "  for  it,  and  what  he  could  do  in  another  by 
writing  his  Every  Man  in  Ids  Humour  and  four  standard 
plays  besides,  he  had  fairly,  even  while  Elizabeth  was  yet 
alive,  taken  his  place  as,  next  to  Shakespeare,  the  great 
dramatist  of  the  age.  This  position  he  had  retained  till 
Shakespeare's  death  in  1616,  confirming  it  by  six  or  seven 
more  of  his  plays,  including  Volpone,  The  Alchemist,  and 
Bartholomew  Fair,  and  by  seventeen  or  eighteen  of  his 
masques  at  Court.  During  those  first  thirteen  years  of 
James's  reign,  indeed,  others  of  the  Elizabethan  seniors 
besides  Shakespeare  had  divided  public  attention  with  Ben, 
and  younger  candidates  for  dramatic  applause  had  appeared 
in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Webster,  and  Massinger.  Jon- 
son's  place  among  these  rivals  had  by  no  means  been  un 
questioned.  Some  of  his  plays  had  but  moderate  suc 
cess;  in  all  of  them  there  had  been  a  vein  of  dogmatism,  a 
spirit  of  satire  and  social  invective,  and  a  parade  of  a  new 
and  scholarly  art  of  construction,  which  had  prevented  them 
from  being  thoroughly  popular  on  the  stage  ;  and,  conscious 
of  this,  Ben  had  invariably,  either  in  the  plays  themselves 
or  in  prefaces  to  them  when  they  were  published,  announced 
himself  as  a  man  qf  a  new  school,  taken  the  public  by  the 
throat  as  a  blatant  beast  that  knew  not  the  right  or  the 
wrong  in  poetry  or  in  anything  else,  and  appealed  in  the 
high  odi  profanum  vulgus  strain  from  their  judgment  to 
that  of  the  learned.  Thus,  in  the  opening  of  Every  Man  out 
of  his  Humour  in  1599  : — 

"  O  how  I  hate  the  monstrousness  of  time, 
Where  every  servile  imitating  spirit, 
Plagued  with  an  itching  leprosy  of  wit, 
In  a  mere  halting  fury  strives  to  fling 
His  ulcerous  body  in  the  Thespian  spring, 
And  straight  leaps  up  a  poet,  but  as  lame 
As  Vulcan  or  the  founder  of  Cripplegate." 

Again,  in  the  lines  appended  to  The  Poetaster,  when  that 

VOL.    I.  F  F 


434  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OP    HIS    TIME. 

merciless  attack  on  Decker,  Marston,  and  others,  was  pub 
lished  in  1602  :— 

"  That  these  base  and  beggarly  conceits 
Should  carry  it,  by  the  multitude  of  voices, 
Against  the  most  abstracted  work,  opposed 
To  the  stuffd  nostrils  of  the  drunken  rout  ! 
Oh  !  this  would  make  a  learn'd  and  liberal  soul 
To  rive  his  stained  quill  up  to  the  back, 
And  damn  his  long-watch'd  labours  to  the  fire. 

I,  that  spend  half  my  nights  and  all  my  days 
Here  in  a  cell  to  get  a  dark  pale  face, 
To  come  forth  worth  the  ivy  and  the  bays, 
And  in  this  age  can  hope  no  other  grace  ! 
Leave  me  !     There's  something  come  into  my  thought 
That  must  and  shall  be  sung  high  and  aloof, 
Safe  from  the  wolfs  black  jaw  and  the  dull  ass's  hoof  ! " 

Not  liking  to  be  so  bullied,  the  public  had  persisted  in  their 
instinctive  preference  of  other  plays,  especially  those  of 
Shakespeare  and  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  scholarly  and  academic  critics,  pleased  at  being 
appealed  to,  had  made  the  cause  of  Ben  their  own,  and  had 
championed  him  as  the  poet  of  the  most  learned  art.  Thus 
situated  between  the  public  and  the  learned,  Ben  had  acted 
accordingly.  In  1616,  the  very  year  of  Shakespeare's  death, 
he  had,  as  if  with  the  intention  of  quitting  the  stage  alto 
gether,  collected  and  published  in  a  folio  volume  the  greater 
part  of  his  plays,  masques,  and  other  compositions  up  to  that 
date.  Through  the  nine  remaining  years  of  James's  reign 
lie  had  not  written  a  single  new  play,  but  had  contented 
himself  with  the  composition  of  some  ten  additional  masques, 
and  with  those  translations  from  Aristotle  and  Horace,  those 
occasional  effusions  of  epistolary  or  epigrammatic  verse,  and 
those  more  elaborate  exercises  in  historical  prose,  the  greater 
part  of  which  perished  in  the  fire  which  consumed  his  library. 
This  was  also  the  time  of  his  wife's  death,  of  his  famous 
journey  to  Scotland  on  foot  and  visit  to  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden,  of  his  short  residence  at  Oxford,  of  his  rambles 
as  a  widower  at  large  among  his  friends  in  other  parts  of 
England,  and  of  his  supposed  second  marriage  and  his 
elevation  to  the  laureateship.  In  the  year  of  the  accession 


BEN   JONSON.  435 

of  Charles,  however,  he  had  returned  to  the  stage  in  his 
comedy  of  The  Staple  of  News.  His  reappearance  had  by 
no  means  moved  the  public  to  enthusiasm ;  but  his  necessi 
ties  had  obliged  him  to  be  patient,  and  in  1629  he  had  made 
another  trial  in  his  New  Inn.  This  comedy  having  been 
driven  from  the  stage  on  the  first  night  of  its  performance, 
he  had  risen  in  his  usual  fury  : — 

"  Come,  leave  the  loathed  stage, 

And  the  more  loathsome  age, 
Where  pride  and  impudence,  in  faction  knit, 

Usurp  the  chair  of  wit, 
Indicting  and  arraigning  every  day 

Something  they  call  a  play  ! 

Let  their  fastidious,  vain 

Commission  of  the  brain 

Kun  on  and  rage,  sweat,  censure,  and  condemn  ! 
They  were  not  made  for  thee,  nor  thou  for  them. 

Say  that  thou  pour'st  them  wheat, 

And  they  will  acorns  eat ; 
'Twere  simple  fury  still  thyself  to  waste 

On  such  as  have  no  taste, 
To  offer  them  a  surfeit  of  pure  bread 

Whose  appetites  are  dead. 

No  !  give  them  grains  their  fill, 

Husks,  draff,  to  drink  and  swill  : 
If  they  love  lees  and  leave  the  lusty  wine, 
Envy  them  not ;  their  palate's  with  the  swine." 

Acting  on  this  resolution,  Ben  had  again  made  his  formal 
appeal  to  the  learned  in  a  second  volume  of  his  "  Works," 
published  in  1631 ;  and  Charles,  humouring  him  in  his  hour 
of  ill  luck,  had  good-naturedly  presented  him  with  a  hundred 
pounds  out  of  his  private  purse,  besides  raising  his  salary 
and  adding  the  boon  of  an  annual  tierce  of  Ben's  favourite 
wine. 

Such  was  Ben's  literary  life  as  he  and  others  could  look 
back  upon  it  from  the  year  1632.  He  was  then  in  his  fifty- 
ninth  year,  no  longer  the  lean  thin  youth  that  he  had  been 
six-and-thirty  years  before,  but  a  huge  unwieldy  veteran, 
weighing  twenty  stone  all  but  two  pounds,  with  grey  hair, 
and  a  visage,  never  of  captivating  beauty,  now  scarred  and 
seamed  and  blotched  into  a  sight  among  ten  thousand. 
"  My  mountain  belly  and  my  rocky  face,"  is  his  own  welU 

F  F  2 


436  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

known  description.  Latterly,  too,  this  corpulent  mass  had 
been  sadly  wrecked  by  disease.  Palsy  had  attacked  him  in 
1628,  and,  though  still  able  to  move  about,  "in  a  coat  like 
a  coachman's,  with  slits  under  the  arm-pits,"  he  was  more 
frequently  to  be  seen  in  bed  or  in  his  big  straw  chair  in  his 
house  in  Westminster, — "the  house  under  which  you  pass," 
says  Aubrey,  ' c  as  you  go  out  of  the  churchyard  into  the  old 
palace."  Here,  according  to  all  the  authorities,  his  style  of 
housekeeping  was  none  of  the  most  orderly.  His  children 
by  his  first  marriage  were  dead  or  dispersed ;  he  had  never 
been  of  economic  habits;  and,  now  that  he  was  old,  his 
besetting  sin  of  Canary  had  grown  upon  him.  "His  pension, 
"  so  much  as  came  in,"  says  Izaak  Walton,  "  was  given  to  a 
' '  woman  that  governed  him,  with  whom  he  lived  and  died  ; 
"  and  neither  he  nor  she  took  much  care  for  next  week,  and 
"  would  be  sure  not  to  want  wine,  of  which  he  usually  took 
"  too  much  before  he  went  to  bed,  if  not  oftener  and  sooner."1 
In  and  about  1632  he  seems  to  have  been  in  deeper  distress 
than  usual,  confined  to  his  house  for  some  months,  if  not 
actually  bedridden,  and  in  great  want  of  money.  "  Nov.  10, 
"  1631  :  It  is  ordered  by  this  Court  [the  Court  of  Aldermen] 
"  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  shall  forbear  to  pay  any  more  fee  or 
' '  wages  unto  Benjamin  Jonson,  the  City's  Chronologer,  until 
"  he  shall  have  presented  unto  this  Court  some  fruits  of  his 
" labours  in  that  his  place."2  In  Ben's  poems  and  corre 
spondence  there  are  allusions  to  the  loss  of  this  part  of  his 
income.  "  Yesterday,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  the  Earl  of 
Newcastle,  "  the  barbarous  Court  of  Aldermen  have  with- 
"  drawn  their  chandlerly  pension  for  verjuice  and  mustard, 
"  £33  6s.  8d." ;  and  he  goes  on  to  solicit  the  Earl's  bounty 
against  Christmas.  And  so  in  an  "  Epistle  Mendicant "  to 
the  Lord  Treasurer  Weston : — 

"  Disease,  the  enemy,  and  his  engineers, 
Want,  with  the  rest  of  his  concealed  compeers, 
Have  cast  a  trench  about  me  now  five  years, 

1  Quoted  by  Chalmers  (Life  of  Jon-  2  Mr.  Dyce's  account  of  Middleton 

son :  English  Poets)  from  Zouch's  Life       prefixed  to  edition  of  his  works. 
of  Walton. 


BEN   JONSON.  437 

And  made  those  strong  approaches  by  false  braies, 
Kedoubts,  half -moons,  horn-works,  and  such  close  ways, 
The  Muse  not  peeps  out  one  of  hundred  days  ; 

But  lies  blocked  up  and  straightened,  narrowed  in, 
Fixed  to  the  bed  and  boards,  unlike  to  win 
Health,  or  scarce  breath,  as  she  had  never  been." 

Yefc,  poor,  palsied,  mendicant,  and  gross  with  wine  as  he 
was,  Ben  was  an  actual  and  no  nominal  laureate.  The  very 
men  from  whom  he  borrowed  feared  him  and  felt  his  weight. 
When  he  was  able  to  go  out  and  roll  his  ill- girt  body  down 
Fleet  Street,  heads  were  turned  to  look  at  him  or  raised 
for  the  honour  of  his  recognition ;  and,  with  the  exception 
of  Dryden  at  a  later  time,  and  of  Samuel  Johnson  at  a  still 
later,  no  man  can  be  named  who,  while  he  lived,  exercised 
so  imperiously  the  sovereignty  of  literary  London. 

London,  which  in  the  days  of  Samuel  Johnson  numbered 
700,000  inhabitants,  did  not  number  more  than  a  third  as 
many  in  those  of  his  earlier  namesake.  In  a  town  with  such 
a  population  everybody  of  note  may  know  everybody  else  of 
note.  The  person  of  King  Charles  himself  must  have  been 
very  familiar  to  his  subjects  in  London;  the  Privy  Councillors 
must  have  been  as  well  known  as  the  city  clergy  and  the 
aldermen;  and  one  of  the  dangers  for  such  an  unpopular 
man  as  Bishop  Laud  was  that  he  was  apt  to  be  recognised 
as  he  trudged  along  the  streets.  Born  close  to  Charing 
Cross,  and  a  denizen  of  London  for  the  better  part  of  his 
life,  Ben,  even  had  his  physiognomy  and  figure  been  less 
remarkable,  could  hardly  have  escaped  social  notoriety. 
Like  his  namesake  Samuel,  too,  lie  had  always  been  a  man 
of  most  "  clubbable  "  habits,  seeking  refuge  from  the  horrors 
of  a  constitutional  hypochondria  in  all  kinds  of  company,  and 
domineering  wherever  he  went  by  his  vast  information  and 
his  power  in  table-talk.  In  the  earliest  stage  of  his  career 
he  had  fought  his  way  among  the  Marstons,  and  Deckers, 
and  Chettles,  as  much  by  browbeating  them  in  their  tavern 
suppers  as  by  mauling  them  on  the  stage  witli  his  laborious 
dramas.  Fuller's  picture  of  the  wit-combats  between  him 
and  Shakespeare, — Ben  the  great  Spanish  galleon,  built 
higher  in  learning  but  heavy  and  slow  in  moving,  and 


438  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Shakespeare  the  English  man-of-war  that  could  tack  about 
and  take  advantage  of  all  tides, — represents  him  at  a  later 
stage,  when  his  worth  was  established.  In  one  respect,  his 
conversation  had  a  fault  from  which  that  of  Dr.  Samuel  was 
free.  "  I  was  invited  yesterday,"  says  How  ell  in  one  of  his 
letters,  "to  a  solemn  supper  by  B.  J.:  there  was  good 
(C  company,  excellent  cheer,  choice  wines  and  jovial  welcome ; 
"  but  one  thing  intervened  which  almost  spoiled  the  relish 
"  of  the  rest, — that  B.  began  to  engross  all  the  discourse, 
"  to  vapour  extremely  of  himself,  and  by  vilifying  others  to 
"  magnify  his  own  muse/'  But,  as  no  one  dared  to  resent 
Ben's  egotism,  or  even  to  hint  the  perception  of  it,  to  his 
face,  so  in  the  whole  circle  of  his  contemporaries  it  made 
nothing  against  such  general  weight  of  metal. 

In  those  days,  despite  the  greater  etiquette  which  hedged 
in  rank,  there  was  far  more  of  cordial  and  familiar  intimacy 
between  men  of  rank  and  men  of  the  literary  class  than  at 
present.  Throughout  the  reign  of  James  nothing  is  more 
striking  than  the  habitual  association  of  scholars,  poets,  and 
men  of  letters,  with  the  noblemen  and  officials  who  com 
posed  the  Court.  Shakespeare's  intimacy  with  the  Earls  of 
Southampton  and  Pembroke  is  well  known;  and  Shakespeare 
was,  by  his  position  and  probably  also  by  his  character,  less 
liable  to  such  connexions  than  almost  any  contemporary  poet. 
Scores  of  other  instances  of  close  familiarity  of  relationship 
between  wits  and  men  of  the  highest  rank  might  be  collected 
from  the  literary  history  of  the  time.  But  of  all  the  wits 
and  poets  none  had  nearly  such  an  extensive  acquaintance 
ship  as  Ben  Jonson.  From  the  King  to  the  lowest  official 
he  knew  and  was  known.  In  his  epigrams,  epistles,  &c.,  we 
find  him  addressing  the  dignitaries  of  the  day  all  round. 
He  addresses  King  James  and  then  King  Charles,  Lord 
Chancellor  Ellesmere  and  then  Lord  Chancellor  Bacon,  the 
Earls  of  Pembroke,  Salisbury,  Dorset,  Newcastle,  Suffolk, 
&c.,  and  other  lords,  privy  councillors,  judges,  and  baronets, 
by  the  dozen,  and  all  in  a  style  implying,  even  when  it  is 
most  respectful,  that  he,  the  bricklayer,  was  as  good  as  any 
of  them.  Even  when  he  is  holding  out  his  left  hand  for 


BEN    JONSON.  4-30 

money,  ifc  is  with  a  surly  jocosity,  and  with  the  bludgeon 
visible  in  his  other  hand.  In  the  records  of  his  life  we  have 
indications  to  the  same  effect.  James,  it  is  said,  would  have 
knighted  him  if  he  had  cared  for  it ;  bishops  and  privy 
councillors  were  glad  to  have  the  honour  of  his  company ; 
and  it  was  thought  a  feat  to  get  him  down  for  a  while  to 
Oxford.  ' '  He  never  esteemed  of  a  man  for  the  name  of  a 
lord,"  he  told  Drummond  at  Hawthornden ;  and  other 
evidence  bears  out  the  assertion.  Of  Pembroke,  who  was 
in  the  habit  of  sending  him  every  new-year's-day  a  gift  of 
£20  to  buy  books,  he  spoke  with  the  affection  of  one  who 
saw  him  at  all  hours,  and  knew  him  thoroughly  ;  but  perhaps  / 
of  Bacon  alone  among  contemporary  men  of  rank  does  he! 
speak  in  a  tone  of  conscious  reverence. 

If,  as  the  representative  of  literature  in  general  society, 
Ben  had  the  means  of  forming  to  his  own  standard  the  con 
temporary  critical  judgment  of  lords  and  ladies,  much  more 
did  he  domineer  in  literary  society  itself.  Any  time  for 
twenty  years  he  had  ruled  without  rival  in  the  London 
world  of  authors.  The  quantity  of  verse  addressed  to  him 
by  his  contemporaries  is  prodigious ;  the  allusions  to  him  in 
the  literature  of  the  time  are  innumerable.  Some,  indeed, 
had  been  beaten  into  submission  and  were  still  rebels  at 
heart ;  and  there  were  others  who,  being  veteran  Elizabethans 
like  himself,  could  not  be  expected  to  pay  him  court  except 
on  a  footing  of  ostensible  equality.  But  the  rising  genera 
tion  of  poets  and  wits,  all  the  men  born  since  1590, — there 
was  Ben's  real  kingdom  !  What  matters  dogmatism  to  the 
young,  what  matter  foibles  ?  The  affection  of  the  "  growing 
ones"  in  Britain  for  Ben  in  his  day  was  unbounded.  The 
very  phrase  for  being  admitted  into  the  guild  of  literature 
was  "being  sealed  of  the  tribe  of  Ben."  The  place  of 
sealing,  what  could  it  be  but  the  tavern  ?  As  Dryden  sat 
afterwards  at  Will's,  and  a  pinch  from  his  snuff-box  made 
modest  merit  happy,  so  to  sup  with  Ben  by  his  invitation, 
or  under  the  permission  of  his  presidency,  was  a  thing  to 
live  for.  The  days  of  the  Mermaid  were  over,  for  society 
was  moving  west.  But  there  were  other  taverns  whose 


440  .  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND   HISTOKY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

capabilities  had  been  tested.  There  was  one  in  particular 
where  Ben  held  his  usual  club, — the  famous  Devil  Tavern 
at  Temple  Bar,  kept  by  Simon  Wadloe,  and  deriving  its 
name  from  its  sign  (adopted  in  compliment  to  St.  Dunstan's 
Church  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street)  of  St.  Duns  tan 
pulling  the  devil  by  the  nose.  Here,  in  the  great  room  called 
"  the  Apollo  "  (which  men  used  to  go  to  see  as  late  as  1788), 
Ben  held  his  accustomed  court.  Hither  came  all  his  cronies 
and  companions,  as  well  as  those  who  desired  to  be  sealed 
for  the  first  time, — lawyers  from  the  neighbouring  Temple 
or  other  Inns  of  Court,  fledgling  dramatists  who  had  plays 
in  manuscript,  jolly  young  fellows  of  colleges  or  even  bache 
lors  of  divinity  from  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  up  on  a  holiday 
to  town,  and  bent  on  a  night  at  the  Apollo  as  the  golden 
fact  of  their  visit.  Over  the  door  of  the  great  room  as  you 
entered  were  these  lines  from  Jonson's  pen  : — 

Welcome  all  who  lead  or  follow 

To.  the  Oracle  of  Apollo  ! 

Here  he  speaks  out  of  his  pottle, 

Or  the  tripos,  his  tower-bottle  : 

All  his  answers  are  divine  ; 

Truth  itself  doth  flow  in  wine. 

Hang  up  all  the  poor  hop-drinkers, 

Cries  old  Sim,  the  king  of  skinkers  ; 

He  the  half  of  life  abuses 

That  sits  watering  with  the  muses. 

Those  dull  girls  no  good  can  mean  us  ; 

Wine,  it  is  the  milk  of  Venus, 

And  the  poet's  horse  accounted  : 

Ply  it  and  you  all  are  mounted. 

'Tis  the  true  Phcebaean  liquor 

Cheers  the  brains,  makes  wit  the  quicker, 

Pays  all  debts,  cures  all  diseases, 

And  at  once  three  senses  pleases. 

Welcome  all  who  lead  or  follow 

To  the  Oracle  of  Apollo  ! l 

Then,  in  the  interior  of  the  room,  over  the  chimney,  and 
under  a  bust  of  Apollo,  was  to  be  seen  a  board,  on  which  were 
inscribed  in  gold  letters  the  rules  of  the  club,  drawn  up  by 
Jonson  in  scholarly  Latin.  Among  them  were  such  as 
these : — That  every  one,  not  a  guest,  should  pay  his  own 

1  Cunningham's  Handbook  of  Lon-       Jonson's  Works,  by  Gifford,  edit.  1838, 
don,  Art.  "  Devil  Tavern  " ;  and  Ben       pp.  726,  727. 


BEN   JONSON.  441 

score ;  that  the  waiters  should  be  active  and  silent ;  that 
the  rivalry  should  be  rather  in  talk  than  in  potations ;  that 
the  fiddler  should  make  his  appearance  only  when  sent  for ; 
that  there  should  be  no  noisy  argumentation,  but  wit  and 
song  in  abundance ;  that  no  one  should  read  silly  poems  and 
no  one  be  forced  to  write  verses ;  that  there  should  be  no 
smashing  of  the  glasses  or  breaking  of  the  furniture ;  and 
that  there  should  be  no  reporting  of  what  was  said  or  done 
out  of  doors.  From  the  following  clause  in  the  rules — 
"  Eruditi,  urbani,  Jiilares,  honesti  adsciscuntor  ;  nee  lectce 
foemince  repudiantor" — it  appears  that  members  might  bring 
"ladies"  with  them.  With  this  exception,  and  with  the 
exception  that  the  laureate  was  president,  the  Apollo  must 
have  been  very  much  such  a  place  of  evening  entertainment 
as  Londoners  may  still  find  about  the  same  neighbourhood. 
There  was  Ben  in  the  chair,  or,  in  his  absence,  some  substi 
tute  to  lead  the  mirth  ;  there  were  the  tables,  with  the 
guests  broken  up  into  groups  round  them ;  there  were  the 
waiters  going  about  taking  orders,  with  Wadloe  superin 
tending  and  receiving  the  money ;  and  every  now  and  then 
there  was  the  hush  of  the  entire  party  for  the  speech  or 
recitation,  or  for  the  song  from  some  of  the  sons  of  melody 
present.  If  the  speech  or  recitation,  there  would  be  the 
accompanying  laughter  and  applause,  and  the  wild  clattering 
of  glasses  at  the  close ;  if  the  song,  the  full  chorus  at  every 
verse,  and  a  clattering  of  glasses  still  more  uproarious.  The 
very  style  of  song  is  one  that  we  know  yet.  A  great 
favourite,  of  course,  was  "  Old  Sir  Simon  the  King,"  the 
hero  of  which  was  Wadloe  himself;  there  were  songs  comic, 
songs  sentimental,  songs  of  the  manly  English  type,  and 
songs  melancholy ;  but  ever,  amid  them  all,  there  was  the 
one  song  melancholy  of  all  feasts,  telling  how  the  time  on 
earth  is  short,  and  how  the  bowl  and  good  fellowship  ought 
to  make  it  warm. 

"  Here  let  us  sport, 
Boys,  as  we  sit ; 
Laughter  and  wit 
Flashing  so  free. 


412  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIMS. 

Life  is  but  short  : 
When  we  are  gone, 
Let  them  sing  on 
Round  the  old  tree." 

Ah  !  it  is  the  oldest  of  human  songs,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  newest, — the  song  sung  with  scarce  a  variation  by 
Egyptians,  Hebrews,  Assyrians,  Greeks,  and  Romans  in 
their  turn,  and  by  us  now  till  our  turn  shall  be  over.  The 
time  comes  when  we  too  shall  go,  and  the  lights  will  be  lit 
for  the  next  company.  Lo  !  how  for  one  after  another,  even 
of  the  company  that  is,  there  conies  the  skeleton-messenger 
that  beckons  him  away,  and  how,  though  it  is  known,  as  the 
door  closes  after  him,  that  he  follows  that  messenger  through 
cold  and  darkness  to  the  grave  already  dug,  those  left  behind 
but  gather  the  closer  together  and  resume  their  ditty : — 

"  Then  for  this  reason, 
And  for  a  season, 
Let  us  be  merry 
Before  we  go." 

Though  Ben's  critical  sway  extended  to  all  kinds  of  litera 
ture,  it  was  in  dramatic  poetry  that  he  was  pre-eminent.  "  He 
"  was  paramount,"  says  Fuller,  "  in  the  dramatic  part  of 
"  poetry,  and  taught  the  stage  an  exact  conformity  to  the 
f '  laws  of  comedians."  Fuller  here  expresses  the  contempo 
rary  opinion  of  all  the  learned.  Ben's  plays  were  a  new 
kind  of  moralities.  "  The  doctrine,  which  is  the  principal 
end  of  poesy,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "  to  inform  men  in  the 
best  reason  of  living."  In  other  words,  his  theory  was  that 
the  poet  should  be  superlatively  the  moralist,  and  that  every 
poem  should  be  an  invention  of  facts  and  circumstances  in 
illustration  of  some  specific  moral  or  social  purpose.  Applied 
to  the  drama,  the  theory  issued,  in  his  own  case,  in  that 
peculiar  kind  of  drama  which  may  be  called,  in  language 
suggested  by  himself,  the  Morality  of  Humours.  Finding 
the  word  "humours"  in  everybody's  mouth, — "racked  and 
tortured,"  he  says,  "  by  constant  abuse," — he  had  rescued 
it  and  made  it  his  own.  Thus,  in  the  induction  to  Every 
Man  out  of  his  Humour  in  1599  : — 


BEN    JONSON.  413 

"  In  every  human  body 
The  choler,  melancholy,  phlegm,  and  blood, 
By  reason  that  they  flow  continually 
In  some  one  part  and  are  not  continent, 
Receive  the  name  of  humours.     Now,  thus  far 
It  may,  by  metaphor,  apply  itself 
Unto  the  general  disposition, 
As,  when  some  one  peculiar  quality 
Doth  so  possess  a  man  that  it  doth  draw 
All  his  effects,  his  spirits,  and  his  powers 
In  their  confluctions  all  to  run  one  way, 
This  may  be  truly  said  to  be  a  humour." 

Adhering  to  the  word  as  thus  explained,  he  had  asserted 
that  all  plays,  and  especially  comedies,  ought  to  be,  and  that 
his  own  would  always  be  found  to  be,  well-calculated  exhibi 
tions  of  the  leading  affections  of  the  individual  mind,  or  of 
the  contemporary  body-politic.  That  lie  had  kept  his  promise 
is  distinctly  asserted  by  himself  in  the  induction  to  the  last 
but  one  of  all  his  plays,  the  comedy  of  The  Magnetic  Lady, 
or  Humours  Reconciled,  produced  in  1632  : — "  The  author, 
"  beginning  his  studies  of  this  kind  with  Every  Man  in  his 
"  Humour  and,  after,  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  and  since 
"  continuing  in  all  his  plays,  especially  those  of  the  comic 
"  thread,  whereof  the  New  Inn  was  the  last,  some  recent 
"  humours  still,  or  manners  of  men  that  went  along  with  the 
"  times,  finding  himself  now  near  the  close  or  shutting-up 
"  of  his  circle,  hath  fancied  to  himself  in  idea  this  Magnetic 
"  Mistress, — a  lady,  a  brave  bountiful  housekeeper,  and  a 
"  virtuous  widow,  who  having  a  young  niece  ripe  for  mar- 
"  riage,  he  makes  that  his  centre  attractive  to  draw  thither 
c '  a  diversity  of  guests,  all  persons  of  different  humours,  to 
"  make  up  his  perimeter.  And  this  he  hath  called  Humours 
"Reconciled." 

At  this  distance  of  time  we  have  come  to  a  very  definite 
conclusion  as  to  the  merits  of  Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson 
respectively,  and  also  as  to  the  relative  values  of  their  literary 
methods.  If  we  do  not  actually  pronounce  Ben's  theory  of 
poetry  to  have  been  a  heresy,  we  see  in  it  a  theory  compe 
tent  to  sustain  only  poetry  of  a  certain  mixed  and  inferior 
order.  Interested  in  Ben,  and  discerning  in  him  a  mascu 
line  force  of  intellect,  it  is  still  the  dogmatic  and  historical 


4  it  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

elements  in  his  works,  their  blasts  of  personal  opinion  and 
their  wealth  of  comic  observation,  that  we  admire;  and, 
though  we  do  not  deny  the  fancy,  the  occasional  poetic 
strength,  and  the  frequent  though  somewhat  pedantic  grace, 
yet,  were  we  in  quest  of  poetry  alone,  we  should  certainly 
leave  Ben  in  the  middle  of  the  way,  and  deviate  into  the 
adjoining  thickets  of  Fletcher  and  the  other  dramatists.  It 
is  a  curious  fact,  susceptible  perhaps  of  philosophic  explana 
tion,  that  the  function  of  proclaiming  doctrine  or  morality 
as  the  chief  end  of  poesy  should  belong  so  often  to  men  of 
Ben's  ill-girt  type  in  their  personal  habits. 

These,  however,  are  modern  conclusions,  and  no  fact  in 
the  history  of  British  Literature  is  better  ascertained  than 
that  the  period  from  1616  onwards  through  the  rest  of  Ben's 
own  life  and  beyond  'it  was  a  period  of  extraordinary  defer 
ence  to  his  influence  and  his  maxims.  In  the  year  1632  he 
had  still  five  years  of  his  crippled  life  before  him;  and, 
though  his  last  failure  in  The  New  Inn  had  indicated  his 
declining  strength,  it  had  not  shaken  the  faith  of  his  ad 
mirers.  Thus  Suckling,  the  least  reverent  of  them,  in  his 
Session  of  the  Poets,  where  the  various  writers  of  the  day 
contend  for  the  presidency  : — 

The  first  that  broke  silence  was  good  old  Ben, 

Prepared  before  with  Canary  wine  ; 

And  he  told  them  plainly  he  deserved  the  bays, 

For  his  were  called  Works  where  others  were  but  Plays, 

And  bid  them  remember  how  lie  purged  the  stage 

Of  errors  that  had  lasted  many  an  age  ; 

And  he  hopes  they  did  not  think  the  Silent  Woman, 

The  Fox,  and  the  Alchemist,  out-done  by  no  man. 

Apollo  stopt  him  here  and  bade  him  not  go  on  ; 
'Twas  merit,  he  said,  and  not  presumption 
Must  carry  Jt.     At  which  Ben  turned  about, 
And  in  great  choler  offered  to  go  out. 

But  those  that  were  there  thought  it  not  fit 
To  discontent  so  ancient  a  wit ; 
And  therefore  Apollo  called  him  back  again, 
And  made  him  mine  host  of  his  own  Neiv  Inn. 

Under  the  wide  canopy  of  Ben's  supremacy  there  still 
lingered  a  few  others  of  the  known  dramatic  veterans. 
Fletcher  and  Middleton  were  gone,  with  others  of  their 


DRAMATISTS   ALIVE    IN    1632.  445 

race  ;  but  Chapman  was  alive,  Ben's  senior  by  seventeen 
years,  a  venerable  Elizabethan,  with  silver  whiskers  and 
stately  air,  his  Homeric  fire  not  quite  burnt  out,  and,  though 
with  far  less  of  social  weight  than  Ben,  yet  "  much  resorted 
to  by  young  persons  of  parts  as  a  poetical  chronicle,"  and 
preserving  the  dignity  of  poetry  by  being  "  very  choice  who 
he  admitted  to  him."1  Marston  and  Decker  were  also  alive, 
now  aged  men,  with  no  enmity  to  Ben  remaining :  Marston 
sometimes  in  London,  and  sometimes  in  Coventry,  where  he 
had  property;  and  poor  Decker,  familiar  all  his  life  with 
misfortune  and  the  King's  Bench,  still  a  struggling  play 
wright  and  pamphleteer,  somewhat  of  C{  a  rogue,"  if  Ben's 
character  of  him  is  to  be  taken,  and  yet  the  writer  of  some 
lines  that  live  and  will  live.  Who  does  not  know  these  ? — 

"  The  best  of  men 

That  e'er  wore  earth  about  him  was  a  sufferer, 
A  soft,  meek,  patient,  humble,  tranquil  spirit, 
The  first  true  gentleman  that  ever  breathed." 

Other  survivors  of  the  Elizabethan  cluster  of  dramatists  were 
Anthony  Munday,  long  superannuated,  the  voluminous  Hey- 
wood,  of  whose  220  plays  only  twenty-five  remain,  and  John 
Webster,  only  two  of  whose  plays  had  yet  been  published, — 
the  White  Devil  in  1612  and  again  in  1631,  and  the  Duchess 
of  Mai/ y  in  1623. 

Of  the  Jacoban  dramatists,  as  distinct  from  the  Elizabethan, 
the  greatest  surviving  representative  was  undoubtedly  the 
modest  and  manly  Massinger.  He  was  now  forty- eight 
years  of  age,  or  ten  years  younger  than  Jonson;  and  he 
survived  till  1640.  For  twenty-six  years  after  this  leaving 
Oxford  in  1605  he  had  been  writing  plays  and  getting  them 
acted,  not  without  experience  of  poverty  and  hardship ;  but 
only  towards  the  close  of  James's  reign  had  any  of  his  plays 
been  published  or  his  great  merits  been  fully  recognised. 
His  Duke  of  Milain  had  been  printed  in  1623,  his  Sandman 
in  1624;  his  and  Decker's  Virgin  Martyr,  and  several 
other  tragedies  or  tragi-comedies  wholly  by  himself,  includ 
ing  The  Fatal  Dowry,  were  also  before  the  world;  and  he 

1  Olclys,  MS.  note  to  Langbaiue. 


416  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

had  just  written  his  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  though  it 
was  not  published  till  1633.  Next  to  Massinger  among  the 
still  active  dramatists,  and  ranking  next  to  him  in  the  entire 
list  of  our  old  dramatists,  unless  Webster  should  dispute 
that  place  with  him,  was  John  Ford,  of  the  Middle  Temple, 
barrister. 

"  Deep  in  a  dump  John  Ford  alone  was  got, 
With  folded  arms  and  melancholy  hat." 

And  no  wonder,  since  this  was  his  favourite  sentiment : — 

"  Penthea.  How  weary  I  am  of  a  lingering  life, 

Who  count  the  best  a  misery. 
Calantha.  Indeed 

You  have  no  little  cause  ;  yet  none  so  great 

As  to  distrust  a  remedy. 
Pentliea.  That  remedy 

Must  be  a  winding-sheet,  a  fold  of  lead, 

And  some  untrod-on  corner  of  the  earth." 

Of  other  surviving  dramatists  of  the  same  Jacoban  swarm 
we  need  name  only  William  Rowley  and  Nathaniel  Field. 
Rowley's  muse  was  still  active ;  but  Field,  who  had  been  an 
actor  in  Shakespeare's  plays  in  his  boyhood,  had  now  retired 
from  the  stage.  He  died  in  February  1632-3. 

Of  the  group  of  play-writers  belonging  more  properly  to 
Charles's  own  reign  the  most  important  was  James  Shirley. 
He  was  born  in  London  in  1594,  and  was  educated  at  Mer 
chant  Taylors'  School,  and  at  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  at 
the  time  when  Laud  was  President  of  that  College.  Laud, 
says  Anthony  Wood,  ' '  had  a  great  affection  for  him,  especi- 
' '  ally  for  the  pregnant  parts  that  were  visible  in  him,  but, 
fc  he  then  having  a  broad  or  large  mole  upon  his  left  cheek, 
"  which  some  esteemed  a  deformity,  that  worthy  doctor 
"  would  often  tell  him  that  he  was  an  unfit  person  to  take 
"  the  sacred  function  upon  him,  and  should  never  have  his 
"consent  so  to  do."1  Shirley,  migrating,  however,  to  Cam 
bridge,  did  enter  into  holy  orders,  and  was  for  some  little 
time  a  preacher  at  St.  Albans.  Becoming  unsettled  in  his 
faith  and  inclined  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  of  which 
he  was  afterwards  a  professed  member,  he  had  given  up  his 
i  Ath.  III.  737. 


DRAMATISTS    ALIVE    IN    1632.  447 

charge,  and,  after  supporting  himself  for  some  time  as  a 
schoolmaster  in  St.  Albans,  had  ( '  retired  to  the  metropolis, 
"  where  he  lived  in  Gray's  Inn,  set  up  for  a  playmaker,  and 
"gained  not  only  a  considerable  livelihood,  but  also  very 
Cf  great  respect  and  encouragement  from  persons  of  quality, 
"  especially  from  Henrietta  Maria,  the  queen-consort,  who 
"  made  him  her  servant."  He  had  already  published  four 
comedies,  and  written  several  more.  He  was  in  his  thirty- 
ninth  year,  and  had  a  long  dramatic  life  yet  before  him. 

After  Shirley,  among  the  junior  dramatists,  may  be 
reckoned  Thomas  May.  He  had  been  born  in  1595,  the 
son  of  Sir  Thomas  May  in  Sussex ;  had  been  educated  at 
Sidney  Sussex  College,  Cambridge;  had  held  a  fellowship 
there;  but  had  come  up  to  London  and  become  an  attache 
of  the  Court.  While  James  was  still  king,  he  had  earned 
a  place  in  letters  by  a  comedy  called  The  Heir,  acted  in 
1620,  though  not  published  till  1633,  and  by  a  translation  of 
Virgil's  Georgics.  Remaining  about  the  Court,  he  had 
added  to  his  reputation  by  three  tragedies,  a  translation  of 
Lucan's  Pharsalia,  and  other  works ;  and  now,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-seven,  somewhat  fat,  and  with  an  impediment  in  his 
speech,  he  had  some  established  celebrity  as  a  dramatist 
and  poet,  which  was  to  be  curiously  obscured  afterwards 
when  he  became  better  known  as  the  Parliamentarian 
Secretary  and  authorized  historian  of  the  Long  Parliament. 
With  no  such  twist  in  the  end  of  his  career  as  yet  anticipated, 
he  was  still  loyal  Torn  May,  a  "  chosen  friend  "  of  Ben  Jon- 
son,  and  looking,  it  was  said,  for  the  laureateship  after 
Ben's  death. 

Dick  Brome,  Ben  Jonson's  old  servant,  was  now  begin 
ning  to  apply  lessons  which  he  had  learnt  from  Ben  in  the 
production  of  those  comedies  of  real  life  of  which  he  was  to 
write  some  one-and-twenty  in  all.  But,  though  Brome  was 
Ben's  likeliest  successor  in  one  walk  of  comedy,  his  suc 
cession  to  Ben's  laurel  was  out  of  the  question.  A  some 
what  likelier  man,  as  being  a  gentleman  by  birth,  and  of 
Oxford  training,  was  Shakerly  Mar  mi  on,  who,  after 
squandering  his  property  and  serving  in  the  Low  Countries, 


418  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

had  turned  dramatist  at  the  age  of  nine-and-twenty,  and 
made  at  least  one  hit  at  Salisbury  Court  theatre  in  his 
comedy  of  Holland's  Leaguer.  He  was  to  write  several 
more  plays  before  his  death  in  1639.  Farther  in  at  Court, 
and  altogether  much  better  known,  though  as  yet  but  in 
his  twenty- seventh  year,  was  William  Davenant.  The  son 
of  an  Oxford  inn -keeper,  he  had  been  educated  at  Lincoln 
-College,  had  entered  the  service  of  the  Countess  of  Richmond 
and  then  that  of  Lord  Brooke,  and  was  now  on  terms  of 
intimacy  with  the  Earl  of  Dorset  and  other  courtiers.  He 
had  written  New-Year's-day  odes  and  the  like  to  the  King 
and  the  Queen,  odes  and  verses  to  some  of  the  principal 
persons  of  quality,  and  odes  on  incidents  of  public  note. 
His  dramatic  pieces  already  published  were  a  tragedy  called 
Albovine,  King  of  the  Lombards,  and  two  tragi-comedies, 
entitled  The  Cruel  Brother  and  The  Just  Italian.  Alto 
gether,  with  his  talents  and  his  gentlemanly  manner,  young 
Davenant  was  much  in  favour;  and  none  the  less,  it  seems, 
because  of  a  little  misfortune  that  had  happened  to  him,  and 
was  a  constant  subject  of  jest  to  his  aristocratic  companions. 
Suckling,  anticipating  who  should  be  laureate  after  Ben, 
refers  to  Davenant  thus  : — 

"  Will  Davenant,  ashamed  of  a  foolish  mischance 
That  he  had  got  lately  travelling  in  France. 
Modestly  hoped  the  handsomeness  of  's  muse 
Might  any  deformity  about  him  excuse. 

And  surely  the  company  would  have  been  content, 
If  they  could  have  found  any  precedent ; 
But  in  all  their  records  either  in  verse  or  prose 
There  was  not  one  laureate  without  a  nose." 

There  were  many  minor  practitioners  of  the  drama.  Ala- 
blaster's  Latin  tragedy  of  Eoxana,  acted  at  Cambridge  in 
Elizabeth's  reign,  was  first  published  in  1632,  the  author 
being  then  known  in  his  old  age  as  a  Hebrew  scholar  and 
one  of  the  Arminianizing  and  Popish  divines  of  whom  the 
Puritans  complained.  Among  younger  academic  dramatists 
in  Latin  or  English,  Peter  Hausted  of  Queens',  and  Thomas 
Randolph  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  are  already  known 
to  us ;  and  to  their  names  may  now  be  added  that  of  Dr. 


DRAMATISTS    ALIVE    IN    1632.  449 

John  Hacket,  the  future  Bishop  of  Lichfield  and  Coventry 
a,nd  biographer  of  Williams,  but  now  rector  of  St.  Andrew's, 
Holborn,  in  London,  and  Archdeacon  of  Bedford.  Hacket, 
while  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  had  written  a  comedy 
called  Loyola,  which  had  been  twice  acted  before  King 
James,  and  was  well  known,  though  not  published  till  1648. 
Hausted  and  Hacket  were  but  academic  dramatists;  but 
Randolph  was  recognised  among  the  dramatists  of  London, 
having  already  printed  two  comedies  besides  his  Jealous 
Lovers.  He  seems  to  have  been  often  up  in  town,  and  was 
known  at  the  Apollo  Tavern  as  one  of  Ben  Jonson's  favourite 
"sons"  in  the  muses.  He  died  March  1634-5,  at  the  early 
age  of  nine-and-twenty. 

A  score  or  so  more  of  small  dramatic  names, — Mabbe, 
Markham,  Ludovick  Carlell,  Gomersall,  &c.  &c., — might  be 
collected.  About  the  year  1632,  indeed,  a  factitious  impulse 
was  given  to  the  Drama  in  England  by  one  of  those  very 
causes  which  had  been  leading  to  its  decline. 

From  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  the  Drama,  in  all  its  forms, 
had  been  under  the  ban  of  the  stricter  sort  of  Puritans ;  and 
it  is  to  the  growth  of  Puritan  sentiment  in  London,  rather 
than  to  any  other  cause,  that  the  decay  of  the  theatrical 
interest  under  Charles  is  perhaps  to  be  attributed.  Certain 
it  is  that  the  dislike  which  the  Drama  had  always  manifested 
to  the  Puritans  as  its  natural  enemies,  and  which  had  taken 
the  form  of  satires  against  them  on  the  stage,  was  now 
greatly  increased.  The  Puritans,  on  the  other  hand,  found 
fresh  reasons  for  condemning  the  stage,  independently  of 
its  increased  hostility  to  themselves.  In  the  Michaelmas1^ 
Term  of  1629,  for  example,  London  was  scandalized  by  the 
appearance,  for  the  first  time,  of  female  performers  on  the 
stage,  according  to  a  custom  till  then  confined  to  France 
and  Italy.  The  experiment  was  tried,  on  three  distinct  days, 
in  a  French  play,  acted  by  a  French  company  of  actors  and 
actresses,  first  at  the  Black  friars,  then  at  the  Red  Bull  in 
St.  John's  Street,  and  then  at  the  Fortune  in  Cripplegate. 
On  each  occasion  the  performance  was  unsuccessful.  The 
women,  whether  because  they  were  French  or  because  they 

VOL.    I.  G  G 


450  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

were  women,  were  "kissed,  hooted,  and  pippin-pelted  from 
the  stage  "  by  the  virtuous  audience;  and  Sir  Henry  Herbert, 
the  master  of  the  revels,  was  obliged,  in  charity,  to  return 
part  of  the  fee  that  had  been  paid  him  for  allowing  the 
experiment.1  But,  though  ordinary  popular  feeling  did  the 
work  of  Puritanism  in  this  particular,  Puritanism  was  not 
satisfied ;  and  there  was  in  preparation,  in  the  year  1 632, 
an  assault  on  the  stage  such  as  only  Puritanism  in  its  most 
merciless  mood  could  administer,  and  in  which,  while  the 
recent  scandal  of  public  acting  by  women  was  to  receive  due 
notice,  the  entire  institution,  and  all  its  abettors,  from  the 
throne  downwards,  were  to  bear  the  force  of  the  shock.  It 
was  at  Christmas  in  this  year  (a  little  in  advance,  therefore, 
of  the  time  with  which  we  are  concerned)  that  there  was 
launched  from  the  London  press  a  book  of  a  thousand 
pages  of  quarto  letter-press,  with  the  following  tremendous 
title  :— 

"  HISTBIO-MASTIX  :  The  Player's  Scourge,  or  Actor's  Tragoedie, 
divided  into  two  Parts  :  wherein  it  is  largely  evidenced  by  divers 
Arguments  ;  by  the  concurring  Authorities  and  Resolutions  of  sundry 
Texts  of  Scripture,  of  the  whole  Primitive  Church  both  under  the 
Law  and  the  Gospel,  of  55  Synods  and  Councils,  of  71  Fathers  and 
Christian  writers  before  the  year  of  our  Lord  1200,  of  above  150 
foreign  and  domestic  Protestant  and  Popish  authors  since,  of  40 
heathen  Philosophers,  Historians,  and  Poets,  of  many  heathen,  many 
Christian  Nations,  Republics,  Emperors,  Princes,  Magistrates,  of 
sundry  apostolical,  canonical,  imperial  Constitutions,  and  of  our  own 
English  Statutes,  Magistrates,  Universities,  Writers,  Preachers  : — 
That  Popular  Stage  Plays  (the  very  pomps  of  the  Divell,  which  we 
renounce  in  Baptism,  if  we  believe  the  Fathers)  are  sinful,  heathenish, 
lewd,  ungodly  spectacles,  and  most  pernicious  corruptions,  condemned 
in  all  ages  as  intolerable  mischiefs  to  Churches,  to  Republics,  to  the 
manners,  minds,  and  souls  of  men  ;  and  that  the  profession  of  Play- 
Poets,  or  Stage-Players,  together  with  the  penning,  acting,  and  fre 
quenting  of  stage-plays,  are  unlawful,  infamous,  and  misbeseeming 
Christians.  All  pretences  to  the  contrary  are  here  likewise  fully 
answered,  and  the  unlawfulness  of  acting  or  beholding  academical 
Interludes  briefly  discussed  ;  besides  sundry  other  particulars  con 
cerning  Dancing,  Dicing,  Health-drinking,  &c.,  of  which  the  Table 
will  inform  you.  By  WILLIAM  PKYNNE,  an  Utter  Barrister  of  Lin 
coln's  Inn." 

This  block  of  a  book,  on  which  Prynne  had  been  busy  for 
seven  years,  was  to  have  various  consequences.  Not  only 

i  Collier's  Aunals  of  the  Stage,  II.  22-25. 


NON- DRAMATIC    POETRY.  451 

were  dramatists,  players,  and  all  in  any  way  connected  with 
the  theatrical  interest  to  be  roused  in  its  behalf  for  personal 
reasons,  but—on  the  plea  that  the  Queen  had  been  attacked 
in  the  book  for  her  patronage  of  stage-plays  and  her  per 
formances  personally  in  court-masques — there  was  to  be  a 
sudden  rush  of  other  classes  of  the  community  to  the  defence 
of  the  tottering  institution.  The  courtiers  were  to  get  up  < 
masques  and  plays  out  of  loyalty ;  the  members  of  the  Inns 
of  Court  were  to  do  the  same,  with  all  the  more  alacrity  that 
it  was  one  of  their  number  that  had  struck  the  disloyal  blow  ; 
the  scholars  in  colleges  were  to  catch  the  same  enthusiasm ; 
and  those  who  had  gone  to  the  theatres  for  mere  amusement 
before  were  to  go  twice  as  often  to  spite  Prynne  and  the 
Puritans.  The  new  impulse  thus  given  to  the  drama  in  or 
about  1632  was  to  last,  to  the  advantage  of  Massinger, 
Ford,  Shirley,  Brome,  Davenant,  and  the  other  younger 
playwrights,  till  the  triumph  of  the  Puritans  in  the  Long 
Parliament. 

Passing  from  the  Drama  of  the  time  to  its  Non-dramatic 
Poetry,  we  have  to  note,  first  of  all,  the  absence  of  any  poet 
of  such  magnitude  as  to  fill  the  place  that  had  been  left 
vacant  by  Spenser's  death  in  1599. 

"  Many  a  heavy  look 

Followed  sweet  Spenser,  till  the  thickening  air 
Sight's  farther  passage  stopped  :  a  passionate  tear 
Fell  from  each  nymph  ;  no  shepherd's  cheek  was  dry." 

Moreover,  of  those  who  had  stood  around  when  Spenser 
departed,  and  had  done  their  best,  by  subsequent  efforts,  to 
continue  non-dramatic  poetry  in  England,  most  were  now 
gone.  Warner  had  been  dead  three-and-twenty  years; 
Daniel  and  Sylvester  thirteen;  the  dramatists  who  had 
helped  most  by  their  occasional  excursions  beyond  the 
drama  were  dead  also ;  Donne  and  Fairfax  had  been  dead 
a  year ;  and  old  Michael  Drayton,  one  of  the  most  product 
ive,  and  really  one  of  the  best  of  them,  had  died  still  more 
recently  (Dec.  1631),  after  having,  in  his  old  age,  added  his 
Muse's  Elysium  to  the  ten  myriads  of  lines  of  not  unpleasant 

O  G  2 


452  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

verse  with  which,  beginning  in  1591,  he  had  already  satiated 
England.  Drayton  dead,  the  presidency,  out  of  the  drama, 
might,  with  Ben's  consent,  be  assigned  to  silver-whiskered 
Chapman,  as  the  most  venerable  survivor.  He,  "  the  learned 
shepherd  of  fair  Hitching  Hill/'  was  almost  as  old  as  Spenser 
himself  would  have  bean  if  he  had  lived;  and,  although, 
against  the  natural  bent  of  his  genius,  much  of  his  time  had 
been  given  to  the  drama,  his  voice  had  also  been  heard 
" loud  and  bold"  in  his  Homeric  translations  and  in  other 
strains.  The  Non-dramatic  Poetry  of  England  over  which, 
as  lieutenant  for  Ben,  Chapman  may  be  regarded  as  thus 
presiding  in  his  extreme  old  age,  was  by  no  means  homo 
geneous.  What  with  the  inheritance  from  the  past  of 
different  kinds  of  poetry  along  with  Spenser's,  and  what 
with  new  varieties  of  intellectual  tendency  which  had 
arisen  since  Spenser's  death,  the  verse-writers  of  1632  dis 
tributed  themselves  obviously  enough  into  certain  tribes  or 
schools. 

There  was,  in  the  first  place,  the  school  of  those  who  may 
be  called  distinctively  THE  SPENSEEIANS,  consisting  of  a 
number  of  disciples  of  Spenser,  professedly  or  unconsciously 
such.  In  this  school  may  be  reckoned  all  or  nearly  all  of 
those  who  deserve  to  be  called  the  finer  poets  of  the  time. 

Though  there  may,  in  a  certain  sense,  be  kinds  of  poetry, 
Spenser's  poetry  is  as  nearly  poetry  in  its  pure  and  unmixed 
essence  as  any  that  the  world  has  seen.  In  no  other  English 
poet,  at  all  events,  has  the  poetic  faculty  or  habit  of  intellect 
per  se,  the  faculty  or  habit  of  pure  unperturbed  ideality,  been 
more  signally  exemplified.  All  poets,  however  they  may 
differ  from  Spenser,  must  have  something  of  that  in  them 
which  was  in  Spenser  in  such  luxuriant  excess.  If,  then, 
even  now,  a  verse-writer  in  whom  there  should  be  found 
nothing  generically  Spenserian  would  probably  be  discovered 
to  owe  the  absence  of  the  quality  to  his  not  being  a  poet  at 
all,  much  more,  so  shortly  after  Spenser's  own  time,  was  it 
likely  that  the  truest  English  poets  should  seem  as  if  dipped 
in  his  spirit.  It  was  almost  a  certificate  that  a  verse-writer 
possessed  the  essential  genius  of  a  poet  to  say  that  he  had  a 


THE    SPENSERIAN3   AND   PASTORALISTS.  453 

resemblance  to  Spenser.  In  Chapman  and  Dray  ton  them 
selves  there  is  a  likeness  of  poetic  manner  to  Spenser,  as  of 
younger  brothers  to  an  elder  and  greater;  the  casual  poetry 
of  the  dramatist  Fletcher,  and  of  other  recent  dramatists, 
had  been  distinctly  Spenserian ;  and  in  that  portion  of  Ben 
Jonson's  poetry  where,  as  in  his  masques,  he  is  conceived 
to  be  most  graceful  and  ideal,  it  is  still  of  Spenser  that  we 
are  reminded.  There  were  poets,  however,  who  were  Spen- 
serians  in  a  more  intimate  sense ;  who  were  influenced  by 
Spenser's  recent  genius  in  no  merely  unconscious  manner 
by  the  accident  of  their  proximity  to  him,  but  because  they 
read  and  studied  him  systematically,  devoting  themselves 
to  the  very  forms  of  poetry  which  he  had  made  famous,  the 
eclogue  or  pastoral,  and  the  descriptive  and  narrative  allegory. 
The  most  remarkable  of  these  were  William  Browne  and 
Giles  and  Phineas  Fletcher. 

In  their  very  manner  of  speaking  of  themselves  and  their 
art  the  Spenserians  kept  up  the  fiction  which  Spenser  had 
used  so  fondly,  after  a  fashion  derived  from  Theocritus  and 
Virgil  in  their  eclogues,  and  from  Italian  and  Spanish  poets 
who  had  revived  the  pastoral  in  modern  times.  The  poets, 
according  to  this  fiction,  are  always  shepherds  or  goatherds, 
tuning  their  oaten  pipes  by  the  banks  of  streams,  plaining 
in  solitude  the  cruelty  of  the  shepherdesses,  or  conversing 
with  each  other  on  their  homely  cares.  Such  is  the  guise 
of  the  poet  in  Spenser's  pastoral  descriptions ;  such  is 
Spenser  himself,  in  his  character  of  Colin,  with  Thenot, 
Hobbinol,  Thomalin,  Willie  and  the  rest  around  him,  each 
with  his  Phoebe  or  Rosalind ;  and  such,  in  his  allegoric 
allusions,  were  the  other  poets  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  all 
shepherds  of  an  ideal  Arcadia,  and  all  with  pipes  in  their 
mouths  of  the  least  usual  sort.  The  same  fiction  was  kept 
up  in  much  of  the  masque  poetry  of  Ben  Jonson  and  the 
other  dramatists.  But  none  kept  up  the  fiction  so  faithfully 
as  the  two  non-dramatic  Fletchers  and  Browne.  In  their 
own  verses  they  are  always  shepherds.  Phineas  Fletcher  is 
a  Thyrsilis  piping  on  the  banks  of  the  Camus ;  Giles,  his 
brother,  pipes  response ;  and  Browne  is  a  British  shepherd 


454  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

of  many  names.     In  their  references  to  contemporary  poets 
Britain  is  still  Arcadia  and  Ben  and  the  rest  keep  sheep. 

A  misconception  of  the  nature  of  the  Eclogue  or  Pastoral 
has  been  very  prevalent.     No   criticism   of  poems   of  this 
kind,  from  Virgil's    Bucolics   downwards,  has   been   more 
common  than  that  the  poets  have  failed  in  keeping  to  the 
truth  of  pastoral  character  and  pastoral  life,  and  have  made 
their  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  talk  in  a  language  and 
express   feelings   which   neither  in  Arcadia  nor  elsewhere 
did  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  ever  know.     One  is  sur 
prised  that  so  gross  a  view  of  the  matter  should  so  long 
have  been  current.     There  may,  of  course,  be  a  pastoral  of 
real  life,  where  the  purpose  is  to  exhibit  rural  manners  as 
they  actually  are,  among  the  swains  of  Greece,  Italy,  Spain, 
England,  or  Scotland.     But  the  pastoral  of  real  life  is  one 
thing,  and  the  pastoral  as  it  was  conceived  by  Spenser,  and 
by  many  of  his  contemporaries  in  and  out  of  England,  was 
another.     The  pastoral,  with  them,  was  but  a  device  or  form 
deemed  advantageous  for  securing  in  the  poet's  own  mind 
that  feeling  of  ideality,   that  sense   of    disconnexion  from 
definite  time  or  place,  which  is  almost  essential  to  the  pure 
exercise   of  poetic  phantasy.     If,  as  is  held   by  some,  the 
very  possession  of  the  imaginative  faculty  in  a  high  degree 
is  shown,  especially  in  youth,  by  a  tendency  to  themes  and 
stories  of  purely  fantastic  interest,  and  if  it  is  only  later, 
when  speculation  and  experience  have  braced  the  mind,  and 
bound  its  luxuriance  into  strength,  that  human  and  historic 
themes  have  their  turn,  then  what  device  so  convenient  for 
young  poets  as  that  traditional  fiction  of  an  Arcadia,  all  sylvan 
and  simple,  wherein  life  is  a  thing  of  a  few  conditions,  and 
it  is  not  complex  civic  society  that  is  seen  moving,  but  only 
rare  shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  leisurely  amid  leagues  of 
untouched  vegetation,  out  of  whose  nearer  haunts  are  not 
yet  extirpated  the  satyrs,  the  nymphs,  or  the  green-eyed 
elves  ?     So  the    Spenserians  reasoned,   if  they  needed   to 
reason  at  all  on  the  subject.    What  mattered  it  that  no  such 
Arcadia  had  ever  been,  that  such  shepherds  and  shepherdesses 
never  were  ?     The  Arcadia  was  the  imaginary  world  of  the 


THE    SPENSERIANS.  AND    PASTORALISTS.  455 

poet's  own  phantasy,  and  the  shepherd  was  the  poet  himself 
moving  in  that  world,  and  weaving  out  his  own  persona] 
song,  with  just  as  much  of  the  circumstance  of  the  shep 
herd's  life  thrown  in  as  might  make  the  song  a  story,  Thus 
it  was  with  the  earlier  poetry  of  Spenser  himself.  In 
Spenser's  pastorals,  though  it  is  Colin  and  Hobbinol  that 
speak,  the  matter  is  still  Spenser's  own.  There  are  the 
Spenserian  descriptions  of  nature,  the  Spenserian  sorrows, 
the  Spenserian  ethics,  the  Spenserian  politics,  and  Spenser's 
own  aspirations  after  a  higher  poetic  range.  How  does  he 
announce  himself  in  the  opening  lines  of  his  Faerie  Qiicene  ? 

"  Lo  !  I,  the  man  whose  Muse  wlrilome  did  maske, 
As  time  her  taught,  in  lowly  Shephards  weeds, 
Am  now  enforst,  a  farre  unfitter  taske, 
For  trumpets  sterne  to  chaunge  mine  Oaten  reeds, 
And  sing  of  Knights  and  Ladies  gentle  deeds." 

And  yet,  even  in  that  great  allegoric  and  Arthurian  romance, 
is  it  not  as  if  the  poet  were  still  some  learned  shepherd  of 
Arcady,  telling  forth,  on  its  verge,  to  reverent  audiences 
from  the  courtly  world,  tales  which  it  had  never  been  his  to 
con  had  he  not  been  all  his  life  a  practised  denizen  of  those 
ideal  forests,  by  night  a  watcher  of  the  stars  through  their 
netted  roofs  and  a  listener  to  the  satyr's  laugh  and  the 
whispers  of  the  wood-nymphs,  and  by  day  a  seer  of  the 
happier  visions  of  olden  life  locked  up  in  them  by  enchant 
ment,  whether  the  passing  of  a  solitary  damsel  with  a  flower 
in  her  hand,  or  the  whirl,  through  an  opening  in  the  glade, 
of  a  troop  of  knights  and  ladies,  heralded  by  the  blast  of  a 
horn,  and  closed  by  the  figure  of  the  panting  dwarf? 

The  Pastoral  has  had  its  day,  and  will  return  no  more. 
But  it  did  not  die  with  Spenser ;  and  by  none  of  his  near 
successors,  I  repeat,  was  it  cherished  more  faithfully  than 
by  Browne  and  the  Fletchers. 

Browne  was  the  most  strictly  pastoral  in  the  form  of  his 
poems.  Born  in  Devonshire  in  or  about  1590,  and  educated 
for  a  time  at  Oxford, — which  he  had  left  for  the  Inner 
Temple, — he  had  taken  his  place  as  a  poet  as  early  as  1613, 
by  the  publication  of  the  first  part  of  his  Britannia's 


456  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Pastorals.  An  Elegy  on  Prince  Henry  followed  in  the  same 
year;  in  1614  he  published  The  Shepherd's  Pipe,  in  Seven 
Eclogues;  the  second  part  of  Britannia's  Pastorals  was 
added  in  1616,  with  copies  of  verses  from  Ben  Jonson  and 
others;  and  from  that  time, — save  that  in  1620  he  wrote  a 
masque  for  performance  at  the  Inner  Temple,  and  that  in 
1625  he  republished  the  two  parts  of  his  Britannia's 
Pastorals  together, — he  seems  to  have  taken  his  farewell  of 
poetry.  According  to  Wood,  his  literary  contemporaries 
expected  from  him  a  biographical  work  on  the  English 
poets  ;  and  so  high  was  his  reputation  that,  when  he  returned 
to  Oxford  in  1624  as  tutor  to  Robert  Dormer,  afterwards 
Earl  of  Carnarvon,  the  University  gave  him  the  degree  of 
M.A.  with  unusual  honours.  After  remaining  a  year  or  two 
with  his  noble  pupil,  "  he  became,"  says  Wood,  "  a  retainer 
"  to  the  Pembrokian  family,  was  beloved  by  that  generous 
"  count,  William,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  got  wealth  and 
' '  purchased  an  estate  ;  which  is  all  I  know  of  him  hitherto, 
"  only  that,  as  he  had  a  little  body,  so  a  great  mind."  He 
seems  to  have  lived,  after  the  EarPs  death,  in  his  native 
county  of  Devonshire,  where  one  of  his  name  died  in  1645 ; 
but  in  1632  he  was  in  the  unusual  predicament  of  one  who, 
still  not  much  over  forty,  was  known  entirely  by  works 
published  before  his  twenty- seventh  year. 

His  Britannia's  Pastorals  appear  to  have  been  much  read 
then  by  persons  of  fine  taste ;  nor  could  one  easily  find 
now,  among  the  books  of  that  time,  a  more  pleasant  book 
of  the  kind  for  a  day  or  two  of  peculiar  leisure.  The  plan 
of  the  book  is  that  of  a  story  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses, 
with  allegorical  personages  introduced  into  their  society, 
wandering  in  quest  of  their  loves  and  adventures  through 
scenes  of  English  rural  nature ;  but  the  narrative  is  through 
out  subordinate  to  the  descriptions  for  which  it  gives  occa 
sion.  A  rich  and  sweet,  'yet  very  varied,  sensuousness, 
characterizes  these  descriptions.  There  are  hills  and  woods 
and  grassy  nooks,  with  "  mesh "  stalks  and  wild  flowers ; 
there  is  a  great  plenitude  of  vegetation ;  there  is  a  clear 
healthy  air,  with  sunsets  and  sunrises,  the  songs  of  birds, 


WILLIAM    BROWNE.  457 

the  hum  of  bees,  the  tinkling  of  sheep-bells,  and  the  purling 
of  rills.  The  mood  is  generally  calm  and  quiet,  like  that  of 
a  painter  of  actual  scenery ;  there  is  generally  the  faintest 
possible  breath  of  human  interest;  but  now  and  then  the 
sensuous  takes  the  hue  of  the  ideal,  and  the  strain  rises  in 
vigour.  In  the  course  of  the  poem  Spenser  is  several  times 
acknowledged  as  the  poet  whose  genius  the  author  venerates 
most.  The  influence  of  other  poets  may,  however,  be  traced, 
and  especially  that  of  Du  Bartas.  The  verse  is  the  common 
heroic  rhymed  couplet,  which  had  been  used  by  Sylvester 
in  his  translation  of  Du  Bartas,  and  indeed  systematically 
by  all  English  poets  after  Chaucer,  as  the  fittest  for  ordinary 
description  and  narrative ;  but  Browne  is  a  far  more  cultured 
versifier  than  Sylvester,  and  his  lines  are  linked  together 
with  an  artist's  fondness  for  truth  of  phrase  and  rhyme,  and 
for  natural  ease  of  cadence.  It  is  almost  unjust  to  a  poet 
so  wide  in  his  sensuous  range  to  represent  him  by  short 
specimens ;  but  two  may  be  given.  Here  is  the  break  of 
morning : — 

"  By  this  had  Chanticleer,  the  village  cock, 
Bidden  the  good- wife  for  her  maids  to  knock  ; 
And  the  swart  ploughman  for  his  breakfast  staid, 
That  he  might  till  those  lands  were  fallow  laid. 
The  hills  and  valleys  here  and  there  resound 
With  the  re-echoes  of  the  deep-mouthed  hound. 
Each  shepherd's  daughter  with  her  cleanly  pail 
Was  come  a-field  to  milk  the  morning's  meal ; 
And,  ere  the  sun  had  climbed  the  eastern  hills 
To  gild  the  muttering  bourns  and  pretty  rills, 
Before  the  labouring  bee  had  left  the  hive, 
And  nimble  fishes  which  in  rivers  dive 
Began  to  leap  and  catch  the  drowned  fly, 
I  rose  from  rest,  not  infelicity." 

And  here,  by  way  of  variety,  is  a  bit  of  flower-and-colour 
painting : — 

"  As,  in  the  rainbow's  many-coloured  hue, 
Here  see  we  watchet  deepened  with  a  blue, 
There  a  dark  tawny  with  a  purple  mixt, 
Yellow  and  flame  with  streaks  of  green  betwixt, 
A  bloody  stream  into  a  blushing  run, 
And  end  still  with  the  colour  which  begun, 
Drawing  the  deeper  to  a  lighter  stain, 
Bringing  the  lightest  to  the  deep'st  again, 


458  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

With  such  rare  art  each  mingled  with  his  fellow, 

The  blue  with  watchet,  green  and  red  with  yellow, 

Like  to  the  changes  which  we  daily  see 

About  the  dove's  neck  with  variety, 

Where  none  can  say,  though  he  it  strict  attends, 

Here  one  begins  and  there  the  other  ends  : 

So  did  the  maidens  with  their  various  flowers 

Deck  up  their  windows,  and  make  neat  their  bowers, 

Using  such  cunning  as  they  did  dispose 

The  ruddy  peony  with  the  lighter  rose, 

The  monk's-hood  with  the  bugloss,  and  entwine 

The  white,  the  blue,  the  flesh-like  columbine, 

With  pinks,  sweet-williams,  that  far  off  the  eye 

Could  not  the  manner  of  their  mixtures  spy." 

In  this  easy  and  rich  style  of  verse,  interrupted  occasionally 
by  a  song  or  a  fragment  of  octosyllabic  metre,  the  pastorals 
proceed,  with  a  constant  variety  of  matter,  so  as  to  form,  all 
in  all,  a  poem  of  the  sensuous-ideal  kind  liker  to  the  Endy- 
tnion  of  Keats  than  to  any  other  subsequent  poem  we  can 
name.  The  eclogues  of  The  Shepherd's  Pipe  exhibit  the 
same  merits  on  a  smaller  scale,  but  in  stanzas  and  varied 
lyrical  measures. 

The  Fletchers  were  Spenserians  of  a  more  pensive  and 
elevated  strain  than  Browne,  though  less  charmingly  clear 
and  luxurious  in  their  descriptions  of  nature.  Of  a  poetic 
'race, — for  their  father,  Giles  Fletcher,  a  Doctor  of  Laws 
and  in  diplomatic  employment  under  Elizabeth,  had  himself 
been  a  poet,  and  was  the  brother  of  Bishop  Fletcher,  the 
father  of  the  dramatist, — the  two  brothers,  both  about  the 
same  age  as  Browne,  had  distinguished  themselves  as 
devotees  of  the  Muse  while  they  were  yet  undergraduates 
at  Cambridge.  On  leaving  Cambridge,  they  had  botli 
taken  holy  orders  and  become  English  parish  clergymen, — 
Giles  at  Alderton  in  Suffolk,  and  Phineas  at  Hilgay  in 
Norfolk.  The  chief  remaining  specimen  of  Giles's  poetry  is 
his  poem  entitled  Christ's  Victory  and  Triumph  in  Heaven 
and  Earth,  which  was  published  at  Cambridge  in  1610,  while 
the  author  was  only  Bachelor  of  Arts.  Though  he  afterwards 
applied  himself,  as  a  clergyman,  to  school  divinity,  the  poet, 
according  to  Fuller,  was  still  discernible  in  all  he  did. 
"When  he  preached  at  St.  Mary's  (Cambridge),  his  prayer 
"  before  his  sermon,"  says  Fuller,  "usually  consisted  of  one 


GILES    AND    PHINEAS   FLETCHER.  459 

"  entire  allegory,  not  driven,  but  led  on,  roost  proper  in  all 
"particulars."  Fuller  adds  that,  after  he  was  settled  in 
Suffolk,  "  his  clownish  and  low-parted  parishioners,  having 
"nothing  but  their  shoes  high  about  them,  valued  not  their 
"pastor  according  to  his  worth;  which  disposed  him  to 
"melancholy,  and  hastened  his  dissolution."  His  death 
took  place  in  1623,  when  he  was  little  over  thirty.  His 
elder  brother  Phineas  lived,  however,  ti]l  about  1650.  His 
first  considerable  appearance  in  print  had  been  in  1631, 
when  there  was  published  an  academic  play  entitled  Sicelides, 
a  Piscatory,  which  he  had  written  while  at  Cambridge.  This 
was  followed  by  a  prose  biographical  work,  entitled  De 
Literati's  Antiquce  Britannice,  published  at  Cambridge  in 
1632 ;  and  this  by  a  quarto  volume  of  his  works,  also 
published  at  Cambridge,  and  containing  his  long  poem  in 
twelve  cantos,  called  The  Purple  Island,  his  seven  Piscatory 
Eclogues,  and  other  shorter  pieces,  all  the  produce,  as  he 
says,  of  his  "  unripe  years  and  almost  childhood."  But, 
though  these  works  of  Phineas  were  not  generally  accessible 
till  so  published,  manuscript  copies  of  some  of  them  had 
long  been  in  circulation  ;  and  ever  since  1610  Giles  and 
Phineas  Fletcher  had  been  named  together  by  academic 
men  as  among  the  most  eminent  of  the  Cambridge  poets. 

Both  expressly  avow  their  affection  for  Spenser.  Thus, 
Giles  Fletcher,  in  the  preface  to  his  poem,  after  mentioning 
Sannazaro  and  other  poets  with  praise,  couples  together 
"thrice-honoured  Bartas  and  our  (I  know  no  other  name 
"more  glorious  than  his  own)  Mr.  Edmund  Spenser,  two 
"  blessed  souls."  To  the  same  effect  Phineas,  in  a  verse 
where,  after  declaring  Virgil  and  Spenser  to  be  his  favourites, 
he  concludes : — 

"  Their  steps  not  following  close,  but  far  admiring, 
To  lackey  one  of  these  is  all  my  pride's  aspiring." 

But  the  influence  of  Spenser  is  at  once  visible  in  their 
poetry.  Giles  Fletcher's  Christ's  Victory  and  Triumph  is  a 
poem  of  four  cantos,  in  a  regular  and  stately  eight-line 
stanza,  each  canto  an  allegoric  vision  of  one  of  the  scenes  in 


460  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

Christ's  history :  the  first  of  Mercy  contending  with  Justice 
before  the  throne  in  Heaven,  and  of  Christ's  mission  in  the 
interest  of  Mercy;  the  second  of  the  Temptation  in  the 
Wilderness,  and  of  Christ's  triumph  over  the  Fiend  and  his 
lures ;  the  third  of  the  Passion  in  the  Garden  and  at  Calvary  ; 
and  the  fourth  of  the  Resurrection  and  Reascension  into 
Heaven.  The  descriptions  are  in  a  high  style  of  allegoric 
phantasy,  the  language  of  Spenser  and  even  his  cadence 
being  but  transferred  to  a  sacred  subject ;  the  personifica 
tions,  which  are  numerous,  are  also  singularly  Spenserian ; 
and  altogether  the  impression  left  is  that  of  a  fine,  sensitive, 
and  pious  mind.  Here  is  part  of  the  allegoric  description 
of  Mercy : — 

"  About  her  head  a  cypress  heaven  she  wore, 
Spread  like  a  veil  upheld  with  silver  wire, 
In  which  tlie  stars  so  burnt  in  golden  ore 
As  seemed  the  azure  web  was  all  on  fire." 

The  Piscatory  Eclogues  of  Phineas  Fletcher  differ  from 
Spenserian  pastorals  only  in  this,  that  the  occupations  of 
Thyrsilis,  Thelgon,  Dorus,  Thomalin,  and  the  rest,  are  those 
of  fishermen  rather  than  shepherds.  Otherwise  the  fiction 
is  the  same ;  and,  following  his  simple  fisher-lads  down  the 
Cam,  or  the  Thames,  or  the  Medway,  or  out  at  sea  in  their 
skiffs  along  the  rocky  coasts,  the  poet,  just  as  in  the  other 
case,  but  with  more  of  watery  than  of  sylvan  circumstance, 
expresses  his  own  feelings  and  makes  his  own  plaint.  Thus, 
against  ambition : — 

"  Ah  !  would  thou  knewest  how  much  it  better  were 

To  bide  among  the  simple  fisher-swains. 
No  shrieking  owl,  no  night- crow  lodgeth  here ; 

Nor  is  our  simple  pleasure  mixt  with  pains. 
Our  sports  begin  with  the  beginning  year, 

In  calms  to  pull  the  leaping  fish  to  land, 
In  roughs  to  sing  and  dance  along  the  golden  sand." 

But  The  Purple  Island  is  Phineas  Fletcher's  greatest 
achievement.  That  also  is  set  forth  in  pastoral  form,  as  the 
song  of  the  shepherd  Thyrsil,  for  which  he  is  crowned  with 
bays  and  hyacinths  by  his  rural  companions ;  but  it  is, 
throughout,  a  learned  allegory,  far  longer  than  his  brother's 


GILES    AND   PHINEAS    FLETCHER.  461 

sacred  poem,  and  much  more  elaborate.  The  first  canto, 
which  is  very  poetically  written,  announces  the  subject, 
which  is  no  other  than  the  whole  Anatomy  of  Man,  under 
the  image  of  a  Purple  Island.  Four  cantos  are  then  taken 
up  with  the  details  of  his  corporeal  anatomy.  The  bones, 
the  muscles,  the  blood,  the  heart,  the  liver,  &c.,  and  the 
vital  processes,  up  to  their  sublimation  in  the  five  senses, 
are  all  described  in  ingenious  but  deplorably  unreadable 
poetic  figure,  and  in  the  seven-line  stanza  of  which  the 
whole  poem  consists.  This  part  of  the  poem  either  disgusts 
or  amuses  the  reader,  as  the  case  may  be ;  but,  about  the 
sixth  canto,  the  poet  passes  from  technical  anatomy  and 
physiology  into  what  may  be  called  the  psychology  of  his 
subject,  and  begins  to  enumerate  and  marshal  the  faculties, 
habits,  and  passions  of  man,  each  under  a  separate  personifi 
cation,  with  a  view  to  the  great  battle  of  the  virtuous  powers 
of  the  list,  under  their  leader  Eclecta,  or  Choice,  against  the 
vices.  Then  the  genius  of  the  poet,  already  more  than 
indicated  even  in  the  former  cantos,  takes  wing  into  a  freer 
element,  which  it  fills,  in  the  remaining  six  cantos,  with 
beauty  and  sublimity  in  ill-devised  profusion.  Some  of  the 
personifications  are  not  surpassed  in  Spenser ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  the  poetry,  though  still  wearisome  from  the  unflag 
ging  strain  of  the  abominable  allegory,  is  richer  than  in  his 
brother's  shorter  production,  if  not  so  serenely  solemn. 
Here  is  a  personification  of  Penitence  : — 

"  Behind  him  Penitence  did  sadly  go, 
Whose  cloudy  dropping  eyes  were  ever  raining. 
Her  swelling  tears,  which  even  in  ebbing  flow, 
Furrow  her  cheek,  the  sinful  puddles  draining. 
Much  seemed  she  in  her  pensive  thought  molested, 
And  much  the  mocking  world  her  soul  infested  ; 

More  she  the  hateful  world  and  most  herself  detested. 

She  was  the  object  of  lewd  men's  disgrace, 
The  squint-eyed,  wry-mouthed  scoff  of  carnal  hearts  ; 
Yet  smiling  Heaven  delights  to  kiss  her  face, 
And  with  his  blood  God  bathes  her  painful  smarts  ; 
Affliction's  iron  flail  her  soul  hath  thrashed, 
Sharp  circumcision's  knife  her  heart  had  slashed  ; 
Yet  was  it  Angels'  wine  which  in  her  eyes  was  mashed." 


462  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Not  far  from  Penitence,  in  the  procession  of  the  Virtues, 
comes  Elpinus  or  Hope,  who  is  thus  described  : — 

"  Next  went  Elpinus,  clad  in  sky-like  blue  ; 
And  through  his  arms  few  stars  did  seem  to  peep, 
Which  there  the  workman's  hand  so  finely  drew 
That  rocked  in  clouds  they  softly  seemed  to  sleep. 
His  rugged  shield  was  like  a  rocky  mould 
On  which  an  anchor  bit  with  surest  hold, — 
/  hold  by  being  held  was  written  round  in  gold." 

It  is  uncertain  whether  Fairfax,  the  Translator  of  Tasso, 
was  still  alive  in  1632.  In  all  likelihood  he  was;  and,  in 
any  case,  his  version  of  the  Italian  epic,  published  in  1600, 
was  still  in  the  height  of  its  repute  as  a  specimen  of  style 
and  genius  in  translation.  Fairfax  also  might  be  ranked 
among  the  Spenserians. 

As  Chaucer's  genius  had  migrated,  after  his  death,  into 
the  northern  part  of  the  island,  assisting  there  to  produce  a 
series  of  northern  poets  decidedly  superior,  in  the  interval 
between  Chaucer  and  Spenser,  to  the  series  of  their  southern 
coevals,  so,  though  in  much  weaker  degree,  the  inspiration 
of  Spenser  had  also  travelled  north,  retouching  here  and 
there  a  tuneful  soul  to  poesy,  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
Presbyterian  struggles  which  occupied  the  Scottish  nation. 
In  1586  King  James  himself,  then  in  his  eighteenth  year, 
had  published  his  Essayes  of  a  Prentise  in  the  Divine  Art  of 
Poesie.  These  royal  exercises,  however,  were  in  the  native 
Scottish  style  rather  than  in  the  English;  and  perhaps  the 
first  Scotchman  who  wrote  verses  in  the  genuine  English  of 
Spenser  and  his  contemporaries  was  Sir  Robert  Aytoun. 
Born  in  1570,  in  his  youth  in  the  employment  of  James  at 
his  Scottish  court,  and  finally,  on  James's  removal  to  Eng 
land,  his  companion  thither  and  one  of  the  gentlemen  of  his 
bedchamber  and  private  secretary  to  the  queen,  Aytoun 
lived  till  1638,  and  had  a  reputation  in  London,  not  only  as 
a  courtier,  but  also  as  a  man  of  literary  tastes,  and  himself 
the  author  of  some  graceful  lyrics.  Even  Ben  Jonson  had 
some  pride  in  reporting  that  "Sir  E.  Aytoun  loved  him 
dearly." 

Aytoun's  intimate  friend  and  fellow-Scot  was  Sir  William 


ALEXANDER    OF    MENSTRIE.  463 

Alexander  of  Menstrie,  known  afterwards  as  the  Earl  of 
Stirling.  Like  Aytoun,  he  was  one  of  the  few  men  about 
the  Scottish  court  of  James  VI.  whom  the  southern  muse 
had  visited  on  their  own  side  of  the  Tweed.  Having 
travelled  in  England  and  abroad,  he  had,  on  his  return  to 
Scotland,  astonished  his  private  friends  in  that  part  of  the 
world  by  a  number  of  English  sonnets,  songs,  and  madrigals, 
celebrating,  with  a  quiet  Petrarchian  melancholy,  his  love 
for  a  certain  Scottish  Am^ora;  and,  afterwards,  when  he 
was  the  husband  of  another  lady,  he  had  written  in  a 
moralizing  strain  a  so-called  "monarchic  tragedy"  on  the 
subject  of  Darius.  It  was  published  at  Edinburgh  in  1603. 
Thus  known  to  James  in  Scotland  as  one  of  the  most  accom 
plished  of  his  subjects  there,  Alexander  continued,  after  the 
union  of  the  crowns,  to  put  forth  volume  after  volume,  pro 
fessedly  as  a  British  poet,  using  the  common  literary  tongue, 
and  vying  with  his  English  contemporaries.  Three  new 
"  monarchic  tragedies,"  on  the  subjects  of  Croesus,  Alexander, 
and  Julius  Ceesar,  were  added  to  that  on  Darius ;  the  Sonnets 
to  Aurora,  and  other  short  pieces,  were  published  or  repub- 
lished;  and  at  length,  in  1614,  appeared  his  large  poem,  in 
twelve  cantos  of  eight-line  stanzas,  entitled  Doom's-Day,  or 
tlie  Great  Day  of  tlie  Lord's  Judgment.  About  this  time  he 
had  been  induced  by  James,  who  called  him  "his  philoso 
phical  poet,"  to  enter  into  public  employment.  He  had 
become  gentleman-usher  to  Prince  Charles,  and  successively 
knight  and  baronet,  with  various  posts  of  emolument,  and, 
by  the  king's  grant,  the  nominal  ownership  of  lands  in  Nova 
Scotia,  with  power  to  found  colonies.  After  the  accession  of 
Charles,  his  colonial  property  and  dignities  had  been  in 
creased  ;  and,  while  still  engaged  in  American  colonization 
schemes,  he  had  become,  as  we  have  seen,  Principal  Secretary 
of  State  for  Scotland.  In  recognition  of  his  merits  in  this 
last  office  he  had  been  made  a  Scottish  peer,  with  the  title 
of  Baron  Alexander  of  Menstrie,  in  1630,  on  his  way  to 
the  Earldom  of  Stirling  in  1633.  He  lived  till  1640,  and  in 
1637  rep ubli shed  his  works  collectively. 

Alexander's  poetry  never  can  have  been  read  much,  and 


484  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

is  not  now  read  at  all,  such  merits  as  it  has  being  as  nothing 
against  the  combined  influence  of  such  quantity  and  such 
monotony.  His  Monarchic  Tragedies,  all  illustrating  the 
transitoriness  of  human  grandeur,  were  never  made  for  the 
English  stage,  and  had  choruses  after  the  classic  model ; 
and  his  Doom's-Day  is  a  tide  of  descriptive  and  doctrinal 
common-place  undulating  in  unexceptionable  metre.  He 
must  have  been  one  of  the  most  fluent  of  men ;  and,  if  it 
was  desired  that  the  first  Scottish  writer  who  broke  through 
his  native  dialect  into  literary  English  should  exhibit  a 
facility  in  the  new  element  rather  than  any  other  quality, 
there  could  not  have  been  a  fitter  person  for  the  business 
than  the  knight  of  Menstrie.  That  he  was  very  popular 
personally  is  known.  Drayton,  whom  he  resembles  in 
fluency,  and  his  friendship  with  whom  was  one  reason  why 
he  "  was  not  half  kind  enough "  to  Ben  Jonson,  as  Ben 
himself  thought,  pays  him  this  compliment : — 

"  So  Scotland  sent  us  hither  for  our  own 
That  man  whose  name  I  ever  would  have  known 
To  stand  by  mine,  that  most  ingenious  knight, 
My  Alexander,  to  whom,  in  his  right, 
I  want  extremely.     Yet,  in  speaking  thus, 
I  do  but  show  the  love  that  was  'twixt  us, 
And  not  his  numbers,  which  were  brave  and  high  : 
So  like  his  mind  was  his  clear  poesy." 

In  the  same  passage  Drayton  goes  on  to  mention  another 
Scottish  poet  with  whom  he  was  no  less  proud  to  be 
acquainted : — 

"  And  my  dear  Drummond,  to  whom  much  I  owe 
For  his  much  love ;  and  proud  was  I  to  know 
His  poesy." 

Coupling  the  two  Scots  together,  Drayton  then  adds  the 
affectionate  phrase : — 

"  For  which  two  worthy  men 
I  Menstrie  still  shall  love  and  Hawthornden." 

With  Dray  ton's  good  leave,  however,  Hawthornden  was, 
poetically,  far  better  than  Menstrie.  If  there  was  any  one 
Scotchman  worthy  to  be  named  among  the  truest  English 


DJBUMMOND   OP   HAWTHORNEEN.  465 

poets  of  the  age  between  Spenser  and  Milton,  he  was  William 
Drummond. 

Born  at  Hawthornden,  near  Edinburgh,  in  1585,  the 
eldest  son  of  Sir  John  Drumniond,  usher  to  James  VI., 
Drummond  was  in  his  eighteenth  year  when  the  English 
and  Scottish  crowns  were  united.  Having  graduated  at 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  he  went  abroad  to  study  law 
in  1606,  taking  London  in  his  way.  He  returned  in  1609, 
and,  his  father  having  died  in  1610,  gave  up  the  legal  pro 
fession,  and  fixed  his  residence  on  his  beautiful  paternal 
property.  In  all  Scotland  there  is  not  a  sweeter  or  more 
romantic  spot.  A  favourite  autumn  day's  excursion  even 
now  from  Edinburgh  is  to  the  glen  of  the  Esk,  to  see  the 
richly  wooded  cliffs,  and  climb  the  fairy  paths  along  them, 
between  Drummond' s  old  house  of  Hawthornden  and  the 
still  older  remains  of  Roslin  chapel  and  castle.  The  old 
chapel  and  castle  were  there  in  Drummond' s  days ;  but  the 
present  house  of  Hawthornden  is  one  mainly  built  by  him 
self,  on  the  site  and  with  the  materials  of  that  in  which  he 
had  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life,  and  which  he  had  made 
celebrated  beyond  Scotland.  Inclined  to  poetry  from  his 
earliest  youth,  accomplished  in  Italian  and  other  foreign 
tongues,  and  a  studious  reader  of  all  the  best  literature  of 
his  period,  he  had  appeared  himself  as  an  author  in  1613, 
when  his  Teares  on  the  Death  of  Moeliades  surpassed  perhaps 
all  the  other  obituary  tributes  showered  in  such  numbers  on 
the  grave  of  King  James's  eldest  son  and  heir-apparent,  the 
lamented  Prince  Henry.  In  1616  had  appeared  his  Poems  : 
Amorous,  Funerall,  Divine,  Pastor  all,  telling  in  the  main 
the  story  of  his  passionate  love  for  a  lady  to  whom  he  was 
betrothed,  and  whose  death  in  the  prime  of  her  youth  and 
beauty  had  left  him  disconsolate.  These,  followed  by  his 
Forth  Feasting,  written  in  welcome  to  King  James  I.  on  his 
revisiting  Scotland  in  1617,  had  made  Drummond's  name 
known  to  the  poets  of  South  Britain ;  and,  when  Ben  Jonson 
visited  him  at  Hawthornden  in  1619-20,  he  had  the  pleasure 
of  receiving  from  Ben  not  only  all  the  London  gossip  of 
the  time,  but  also  praises  of  his  own  verses.  Drummond 

VOL.    I.  II  II 


466  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

continued  to  correspond  with  Jonson  and  with  others  of  the 
English  poets  from  his  northern  home,  and  was  recognised 
by  them  as  a  member  of  their  fraternity.  His  religious 
poems  entitled  Flowers  of  Sion,  and  his  singularly  beautiful 
prose-essay  entitled  A  Cypress  Grove,  were  published  together 
in  Edinburgh  in  1623 ;  for  some  years  after  the  death  of 
James  and  the  accession  of  Charles  he  seems  to  have  been 
abroad  on  various  travels ;  but  he  was  back  again  in  Haw- 
thornden  in  1630,  there  to  marry  a  lady  to  whom  he  was 
attracted  by  her  likeness  to  his  first  love,  and  to  live  on 
among  his  books,  almost  a  solitary  representative  of  the 
finer  literature  in  the  northern  kingdom.  He  was  to  write 
more  verse  and  more  prose,  tending,  however,  chiefly  to 
prose,  whether  in  the  form  of  Scottish  History  or  in  that  of 
meditative  and  sarcastic  disquisitions  on  questions  of  current 
Scottish  politics.  He  was  to  endure  the  vexation  of  troubles 
and  revolutions  in  the  British  Islands  which  neither  he  nor 
any  one  else  could  foresee  at  our  present  date,  for  he  did 
not  die  till  1649. 

Drummond's  poetry  is  that  of  a  fine,  cultured,  and  grace 
fully  fastidious  mind,  trained  by  Italian  and  English  influ 
ences,  and  avoiding,  as  far  as  possible,  nearer  influences  that 
might  have  disturbed  those.  That  he  had  native  Scottish 
humour  in  plenty,  and  could  speak  to  his  own  country-folks, 
when  he  chose,  racily  enough  and  roughly  enough  in  their 
own  vernacular,  there  is  no  lack  of  proof;  but  his  proper 
place,  and  that  which  was  dearest  to  himself  in  his  Haw- 
thornden  musings,  was  among  the  English  Arcadians  or 
Spenserians  of  his  generation.  Among  them,  the  minor 
non-dramatic  poets  between  Spenser  and  Milton,  he  deserves 
peculiarly  honourable  recognition.  For  a  combination  of 
poetic  sensuousness,  or  delight  in  the  beauty  of  scenery, 
colours,  forms,  and  sounds,  with  a  tender  and  elevated 
thoughtfulness,  reaching  to  the  keenly  metaphysical  and 
philosophic,  it  would  be  difficult  to  match  him  in  that  British 
group  with  which  we  have  taken  the  liberty  of  more  imme 
diately  connecting  his  name.  The  combination  appears  most 
happily  in  his  sonnets  and  other  lyrical  pieces.  He  was 


DRUMMOND  OF  HAWTHOKNDEN.  467 

called  by  his  contemporaries  "  the  Scottish  Petrarch,"  and 
Southey,  Hallam,  and  other  modern  critics,  have  spoken  of 
Drumtnond's  sonnets,  in  particular,  as  among  the  best  in 
the  English  language  after  the  very  best.  This,  to  his  Lute, 
may  pass  as  a  specimen  : — 

"  My  lute,  be  as  thou  wast  when  thou  didst  grow 
With  thy  green  mother  in  some  shady  grove, 
When  immelodious  winds  but  made  thee  move, 
And  birds  on  thee  their  ramage  did  bestow. 
Sith  that  dear  voice  which  did  thy  sounds  approve, 
Which  used  in  such  harmonious  strains  to  flow, 
Is  reft  from  earth  to  tune  those  spheres  above, 
What  art  thou  but  a  harbinger  of  woe1? 
Thy  pleasing  notes  be  pleasing  notes  no  more, 
But  orphan  wailings  to  the  fainting  ear  ; 
Each  stop  a  sigh,  each  sound  draws  forth  a  tear. 
Be  therefore  silent  as  in  woods  before  ; 
Or,  if  that  any  hand  to  touch  thee  deign, 
Like  widowed  turtle  still  her  loss  complain." 

Among  the  lighter  lyrics  is  this : — 

"  Now,  Flora,  deck  thyself  in  fairest  guise  ; 
If  that  ye,  winds,  would  hear 
A  voice  surpassing  far  Amphion's  lyre, 
Your  stormy  chiding  stay  ; 
Let  Zephyr  only  breathe, 
And  with  her  tresses  play, 
Kissing  sometimes  these  purple  ports  of  death. 
The  winds  all  silent  are  ; 
And  Phoebus  in  his  chair, 
Ensaffroning  sea  and  air, 
Makes  vanish  every  star  ; 
Night  like  a  drunkard  reels 
Beyond  the  hills  to  shun  his  flaming  wheels ; 
The  fields  with  flowers  are  decked  in  every  hue  ; 
The  clouds  bespangle  with  bright  gold  their  blue  ; 
Here  is  the  pleasant  place, 
And  everything  save  her  who  all  should  grace." 

In  the  more  strictly  narrative  descriptive  poems  of  Drurn- 
mond,  his  Teares  on  the  Death  of  Moeliades  and  his  Fortli 
Feasting,  we  are  struck  by  his  special  resemblance  on  the 
whole  to  Browne  in  his  Britannia's  Pastorals,  the  rather 
because,  though  the  two  were  precisely  contemporary  and 
had  begun  public  authorship  exactly  in  the  same  year,  there 
is  no  evidence  of  their  acquaintance  with  each  other.  In 
the  two  pieces  mentioned  Drummond  manages  the  heroic 

H  H   2 


468  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

couplet  very  much  in  Browne's  way,  less  variously  and 
lusciously  perhaps  in  respect  of  matter,  but  with  more 
elegant  cutting  and  finish.  Thus,  in  the  list  of  inducements 
addressed  by  the  personified  Forth  to  King  James  in  1617 
persuading  him  to  remain  in  his  native  Scotland  : — 

"  The  wanton  wood-nymphs  of  the  verdant  spring 
Blue,  golden,  purple  flowers  shall  to  thee  bring  ; 
Pomona's  fruits  the  panisks  ;  Thetis'  girls 
Thy  Thule's  amber  with  the  ocean  pearls  ; 
The  Tritons,  herdsmen  of  the  glassy  field, 
Shall  give  thee  what  far-distant  shores  can  yield, 
The  Serian  fleeces,  Erythraean  gems, 
Vast  Plata's  silver,  gold  of  Peru  streams, 
Antarctic  parrots,  Ethiopian  plumes, 
Sabaean  odours,  myrrh,  and  sweet  perfumes"; 
And  I  myself,  wrapt  in  a  watchet  gown, 
Of  reeds  and  lilies  on  my  head  a  crown, 
Shall  incense  to  thee  burn,  green  altars  raise, 
And  yearly  sing  due  paeans  to  thy  praise." 

If,  as  a  poet  of  sensuous  circumstance,  Drummond  has  any 
pre-eminent  excellence  among  those  we  have  called  the 
English  Spenserians,  it  is  in  his  fondness  for  the  clear 
nocturnal  sky  and  the  effects  of  quiet  moonlight  on  streams 
and  fields.  Thus  : — 

"  To  western  worlds  when  wearied  day  goes  down, 
And  from  Heaven's  windows  each  star  shows  her  head, 
Earth's  silent  daughter,  Night,  is  fair,  though  brown ; 
Fair  is  the  moon,  though  in  love's  livery  clad." 


Again, 


"  How  Night's  pale  Queen 
With  borrowed  beams  looks  on  this  hanging  round ! 


The  frequency  of  such  nocturnal  images  in  the  poems  of 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  has  a  constitutional  significance. 
We  see  that  over  the  lovely  glen  where  he  had  his  home 
there  must  have  rolled  occasional  nights  as  softly  sapphire 
as  any  in  Italy,  and  that  then  the  pensive  poet  would  be 
habitually  out  of  doors,  pacing  some  leafy  walk,  and  watch 
ing,  with  the  sound  of  the  Esk  in  his  ear,  Cynthia  showering 
her  light  on  the  solitude.,  and  the  stars  all  tremulous  in  their 
fainter  fires. 


SATIRISTS   AND    SOCIAL   POETS.  469 

At  the  opposite  pole  from  the  SPENSERIANS  or  ARCADIANS  < 
were  the  SATIRISTS  or  SOCIAL  POETS.  The  opposition  is  a 
permanent  one  in  Jiterature.  If  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
genius  of  pure  imagination  to  shun  the  contemporary  facts 
of  the  social  world,  and  to  wander  away  into  regions  of  the 
ideal,  where  it  may  make  its  own  themes  and  invent  its  own 
histories,  dashing  these,  it  may  be,  with  personal  pains  and 
observations  which  it  will  not  express  save  in  that  indirect 
fashion,  there  are  yet  always  men,  included  in  the  poetical 
class  by  reason  of  the  form  of  their  writings,  who  proceed 
in  the  opposite  manner,  take  their  matter  from  the  very 
thick  of  social  life,  attack  abuses  and  wrongs  just  as  they 
see  them,  and  make  verse  the  vehicle  for  passing  social 
censure.  If  Virgil  was  the  type  of  the  one  class  of  poets 
among  the  Eomans,  Juvenal  was  the  type  of  the  other;  and 
Satire  was  perhaps  the  form  of  poetry  most  natural  to  the 
Roman  genius.  In  strict  theory  it  might  be  questioned 
whether  the  satire  ought  to  be  accounted  poetry  at  all. 
Where  indignatio  facit  versus,  the  result  can  be  but  metrical 
invective ;  which  may  be  a  more  choice  and  durable  literary 
substance  than  ordinary  poetry,  but  cannot,  in  itself,  be 
called  poetry.  Nothing  is  poetry  that  is  not  the  produce  of 
a  mind  wholly  swung  into  phantasy.  As  all  know,  however, 
the  universal  custom  of  languages  has  included  satirists 
among  the  poets.  Custom,  indeed,  has  included  among  the 
poets  all  who  have  produced  excellent  literary  effects,  of 
whatever  kind,  by  fine  or  powerful  metre.  There  are  several 
reasons  reconciling  custom  in  this  respect  with  the  theory 
which  it  seems  to  violate.  Verse  is  so  exquisite  a  form  of 
speech  that,  in  reading  masterly  specimens  of  it,  whatever 
the  matter  contained,  we  feel  the  pleasure  which  the  sense 
of  art  communicates.  Further,  many  of  those  who  do  write 
metrical  satires  are  poets  who  have  proved  themselves  such 
independently;  and  these  necessarily  carry  the  poet  with 
them  into  whatever  they  write.  Horace  and  Dry  den  are 
examples.  In  the  third  place,  verse  itself  is  a  stimulus  to 
imagination.  The  very  act  of  writing  metrically  compels, 
to  some  extent,  to  thinking  poetically.  A  metrical  satirist, 


470  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

though  he  may  have  given  no  independent  proofs  of  being 
a  poet,  can  hardly  but  feel  the  rhythm  heating  the  roots  of 
his  wings  and  persuading  him  to  a  little  flight. 

The  father  of  English  Satire,  in  the  modern  form  in  which 
it  has  been  practised  by  Dryden,  Pope,  and  their  successors, 
as  distinct  from  the  older  form  exemplified  in  Langland, 
Skelton,  and  others,  was  still  alive  in  1632,  at  the  age  of 
fifty-eight,  but  with  four-and-twenty  years  of  his  eventful 
life  yet  before  him.  This  was  Joseph  Hall,  already  known 
to  us  as  Bishop  of  Exeter  since  1627.  It  was  now  about 
thirty-five  years  since  Hall,  as  a  youth  of  three-and- twenty 
fresh  from  Cambridge,  had  published  in  two  portions  (1597 
and  1598)  his  six  books  of  satires,  the  first  three  entitled 
Toothless  Satires,  and  the  last  three  Siting  Satires.  In  the 
opening  lines  of  the  first  book  he  had  distinctly  announced 
himself  as  the  beginner  of  a  new  form  of  literature  : — 

"  I  first  adventure,  with  foolhardy  might, 
To  tread  the  steps  of  perilous  despite  ; 
I  first  adventure,  follow  me  who  list 
And  be  the  second  English  Satirist." 

On  inquiry  it  is  found  that  Donne  might  have  the  better 
claim  to  absolute  priority,  Jiis  satires  having  been  written 
about  1594.  But  Hall's  were  first  published;  they  were 
written  without  knowledge  of  Donne's ;  and  they  were  after 
a  more  orderly  typo  of  satire.  The  first  book  of  the  Tooth 
less  Satires  was  directed  against  the  faults,  literary  and 
other,  of  the  poets  of  the  age ;  the  second  treated  of 
academical  abuses;  the  third  anticipated  the  Siting  Satires 
by  treating  of  public  manners  and  morality.  The  author's 
acknowledged  models  are  Juvenal  and  Persius;  and  he 
professes  that  it  was  to  their  nervous  and  crabbed  style  of 
poetry,  rather  than  to  the  imitation  of  Virgil  and  Spenser, 
that  his  genius  inclined  him  : — 

"  Rather  had  I,  albe  in  careless  rhymes, 
Check  the  misordered  world  and  lawless  times." 

What  Hall's  satires  did  towards  "checking  the  misordered 
world"  may  not  have  been  much;  but,  as  compositions  of 


HALL'S  SATIRES.  471 

the  satirical  order,  they  have  kept  a  place  in  our  literature. 
Interesting  still  on  historical  grounds  for  their  references  to 
contemporary  manners,  they  are  admired  for  their  direct 
energy  of  expression,  their  robust  though  somewhat  harsh 
tone  of  feeling,  and  the  wonderfully  modern  appearance  of 
their  metrical  structure.  Thus,  on  modern  luxury  : — 

"  Time  was,  and  that  was  termed  the  time  of  gold, 
When  world  and  time  were  young  that  now  are  old, 
When  quiet  Saturn  swayed  the  mace  of  lead, 
And  pride  was  yet  unborn  and  yet  unbred  ; 
Time  was  that,  while  the  autumn  fall  did  last, 
Our  hungry  sires  gaped  for  the  falling  mast ; — 
Could  no  unhusked  acorn  leave  the  tree 
But  there  was  challenge  made  whose  it  might  be.  ... 
They  naked  went,  or  clad  in  ruder  hide, 
Or  home-spun  russet,  void  of  foreign  pride  ; 
But  thou  canst  mask  in  garish  gaudery, 
To  suit  a  fool's  far-fetched  livery, — 
A  French  head  joined  to  neck  Italian, 
Thy  thighs  from  Germany  and  breast  from  Spain  ; 
An  Englishman  in  none,  a  fool  in  all, 
Many  in  one,  and  one  in  several. 
Then  men  were  men  ;  but  now  the  greater  part 
Beasts  are  in  life  and  women  are  in  heart." 

Thus  had  Hall  written  when  Spenser  was  alive  and  Shake 
speare  and  his  coevals  were  in  the  height  of  their  dramatic 
fame ;  and  in  virtue  of  such  verses  he  had  been  named  by 
Meres,  in  his  list  of  the  English  literary  celebrities  of  1598, 
as  a  promising  English  Persius.  In  the  long  intervening 
period  of  his  life,  however,  though  retaining  something  of 
the  hard  style  of  intellect  shown  in  his  satires,  he  had 
advanced  into  other  occupations,  rising  step  by  step  in  the 
Church  to  the  prelacy,  and  writing  those  numerous  and 
various  prose  works  under  which  the  recollection  of  his 
satires  had  been  all  but  buried,  so  that  his  name  was  no 
longer  the  English  Persius,  but  the  English  Seneca. 

Marston  the  dramatist  had  first  appeared  as  an  author  in 
three  books  of  satires,  entitled  The  Scourge  of  Villainy, 
published  in  1598.  The  fashion,  having  been  set  by  Hall, 
Donne,  and  Marston,  became  prevalent  enough  during  the 
next  thirty  years ;  and  there  were  few  of  the  poets  of  James's 
reign,  dramatic  or  other,  who  did  not  throw  off  occasional 


472  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

pieces  in  tlie  established  couplet  that  were  either  satires 
in  form  or,  under  the  name  of  epistles  or  epigrams,  belonged 
essentially  to  the  same  class.  In  Ben  Jonson's  works,  for 
example,  are  many  pieces  of  this  kind ;  and,  on  the  whole, 
as  Ben  excelled  his  contemporaries  in  most  things,  so  he 
excelled  them  in  this  poetry  of  social  criticism.  The  quasi- 
Horatian  epistles  of  Ben,  the  Beaumonts,  and  others,  might 
be  distinguished,  however,  from  the  proper  Juvenalian  satire 
which  Hall  had  introduced. 

From  among  the  host  of  writers  using  verse  for  social 
purposes  one  stands  out  very  conspicuously  as  the  popular 
satirist  of  the  day.  This  was  George  Wither,  whose  poetry 
had  been  all  but  forgotten  when  Anderson  and  Chalmers 
edited  their  general  collections  of  our  old  poets,  and  to 
whom,  accordingly,  recent  critics  and  historians  have  been 
the  more  anxious  to  do  justice. 

Born  in  Hampshire,  in  1588,  of  a  family  of  some  wealth, 
Wither  had  gone  from  school  to  Magdalen  College,  Oxford. 
Here,  says  Wood,  he  "  made  some  proficiency  with  much 
"  ado  in  academical  learning,  but,  his  geny  being  addicted 
"  to  things  more  trivial,  was  taken  home  after  he  had  spent 
"about  three  years  in  the  said  house,  and  thence  sent  to 
"  one  of  the  Inns  of  Chancery,  and  afterwards  to  Lincoln's 
"Inn,  to  obtain  knowledge  in  municipal  law.  But,  his 
"  geny  still  hanging  after  things  more  smooth  and  delight 
ful,  he  did  at  length  make  himself  known  to  the  world 
t(  (after  he  had  taken  several  rambles  therein)  by  certain 
t(  specimens  of  poetry."1  Among  these  were  Elegies  on  the 
Death  of  Prince  Henry,  published  in  1612,  and  Epithalamia, 
or  Nuptial  Poems,  on  the  marriage  of  Frederick,  Count 
Palatine,  with  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  published  in  1613. 
In  the  same  year  with  the  last,  the  author  being  then 
twenty-five  years  of  age,  was  published  a  volume  of  satirical 
verse  entitled  Abuses  Stript  and  Whipt.  The  volume 
(printed,  it  may  be  worth  remarking,  by  Humphrey  Lownes) 
became  immediately  popular.  This  was  owing  partly  to  its 
adaptation  to  the  popular  taste,  but  partly  also  to  the  fact 

i  Athene,  III.  761. 


GEORGE    WITHER.  473 

that  the  Privy  Council,  in  consequence  of  some  passages  in 
the  book  deemed  insulting  to  persons  in  authority,  thought 
it  worth  while  to  imprison  the  author.  From  the  Marshalsea 
prison  he  addressed  A  Satire  to  the  King,  fearless  but  loyal, 
which  is  supposed  to  have  led  to  his  release;  and  in  1615  he 
published  The  Shepherd's  Hunting,  being  certain  Eclogues 
made  during  the  Author's  Imprisonment.  These,  as  well  as 
their  predecessors,  had  an  immense  sale,  passing  through 
edition  after  edition  with  a  rapidity  of  which  there  is  hardly 
any  other  example  at  that  time;  and  the  same  popularity 
attended  many  subsequent  publications  of  the  author.  In 
1618  appeared  Wither' s  Motto,  an  odd  metrical  exposition  of 
his  own  character,  of  which  30,000  copies  were  sold  in  a  few 
months;  in  1619  his  Preparation  to  the  Psalter,  written  in 
prose,  with  religious  poems  attached;  in  the  same  year  Fidelia, 
a  Poem,  and  Exercises  on  the  First  Psalm,  both  in  Prose  and 
Terse;  in  1621,  Songs  of  Moses  and  Hymns  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment;  in  1622,  Juvenilia,  or  early  poems,  a  pastoral  entitled 
The  Mistress  of  Philarete,  and  a  larger  collection  of  Hymns 
and  Songs  of  the  Church,  with  music  by  Orlando  Gibbons  ;  in 
1628,  a  thick  volume  of  verse  (printed,  as  he  says,  entirely 
by  his  own  hand,  because  he  "  could  not  get  allowance  to 
do  it  publicly  ")  with  the  title,  Britain's  Remembrancer,  con- 
'taming  a  Narrative  of  the  Plague  lately  past,  a  Declaration 
of  Mischiefs  Present,  and  a  Prediction  of  Judgments  to  come* 
The  author  had  again  been  in  prison,  but  had  apparently  at 
last  convinced  the  King  and  the  Council  that  there  was  no 
great  harm  in  his  popularity.  On  the  publication  of  his 
Hymns  and  Songs,  at  all  events,  a  royal  letter  had  been 
addressed  to  all  printers  and  booksellers,  stating  the  king's 
pleasure  that,  whereas  his  "well-beloved  subject,  George 
Withers,  gentleman,  by  his  great  industry  and  diligent 
study,  had  gathered  and  composed  "  the  said  book,  "  being 
esteemed  worthy  and  profitable  to  be  inserted  in  convenient 
manner  and  due  place  into  every  English  psalm-book  in 
metre,"  the  sole  liberty  of  printing  it  should  be  reserved  to 
him,  his  executors  and  assigns,  for  the  period  of  fifty- one 
years.  This  privilege  was  the  cause  of  a  quarrel  between 


474  LIFS    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

Wither  and  the  London  booksellers.  They  would  not  sell 
his  hymns  bound  up  with  the  Psalrn-book,  and  even  used 
the  power  of  the  trade  against  his  other  publications.  From 
this  ill-usage  he  appealed  to  the  public  in  a  bulky  prose 
pamphlet,  entitled  The  Scholar's  Purgatory  discovered  in  the 
Stationers9  Commonwealth,  addressed  primarily  to  the  Arch 
bishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishops  and  Clergy  in  Convo 
cation  assembled.  With  the  reading  world,  however,  he 
continued  in  extraordinary  favour.  He  was  "  so  generally 
" known,"  says  Wood,  "that  thousands, especially  such  youths 
"as  were  puritanically  educated,  were  desirous  to  peruse 
"  his  future  writings/'  and  would  have  them  in  spite  of  the 
booksellers.  In  1632,  being  then  in  his  forty-fifth  year, 
and  having  been  already  for  nearly  twenty  years  the  pet  of 
the  public,  he  was  engaged  in  bringing  out  a  complete  new 
translation  of  the  Psalms,  which  he  hoped  would  be  bound 
up  with  the  Bible,  and  supersede  all  previous  versions  for 
Church  use.  This  work  was  being  printed  in  the  Netherlands. 
Wither,  it  will  have  been  seen,  was  a  lyric  poet  and  a 
pastoral  poet,  as  well  as  a  satirist  or  social  poet.  By  right 
of  one  or  two  of  his  earlier  pieces, — more  particularly  his 
Mistress  of  Philarete,  and  his  Shepherd's  Hunting,  written 
during  his  first  imprisonment, — he  might  have  been  men 
tioned  among  the  Spenserians  or  Arcadians.  He  was 
personally  intimate  with  Browne,  Drayton,  and  other  poets ; 
he  had  a  hand  in  at  least  one  of  the  eclogues  of  Browne's 
Shepherd's  Pipe;  and  in  his  own  poems  just  mentioned 
there  is  something  of  the  sweet  sensuousness  and  graceful 
fancy  found  in  Browne's  poetry.  By  his  contemporaries, 
indeed,  these  poems  were  thought  to  show  more  of  true 
poetic  fancy  than  any  of  his  other  writings;  and  recent 
critics,  in  their  anxiety  to  resuscitate  Wither,  have  relied 
chiefly  on  these  and  on  a  few  of  his  select  lyrics.  The 
favourite  quotation  from  him  is  from  the  fourth  eclogue  of 
his  Shepherd's  Hunting,  in  which  he  celebrates  the  power  of 
poesy  to  console  even  the  tenant  of  a  prison. 

"  In  my  former  days  of  bliss, 
Her  divine  skill  tciught  me  this, — 


GEOEGE   WITHER.  475 

That  from  everything  I  saw 
I  could  some  invention  draw, 
And  raise  pleasure  to  her  height 
Through  the  meanest  object's  sight. 
,    By  the  murmur  of  a  spring 
Or  the  least  bough's  rustebng, 
By  a  daisy  whose  leaves  spread 
Shut  when  Titan  goes  to  bed, 
Or  a  shady  bush  or  tree, 
She  could  more  infuse  in  me 
Than  all  Nature's  beauties  can 
In  some  other  wiser  man. 
By  her  help  I  also  now 
Make  this  churlish  place  allow 
Some  things  that  may  sweeten  gladness 
In  the  very  gall  of  sadness. 
The  dull  loneness,  the  black  shade, 
That  these  hanging  vaults  have  made  ; 
The  strange  music  of  the  waves 
Beating  in  these  hollow  caves  ; 
This  black  den  which  rocks  emboss, 
Overgrown  with  eldest  moss  ; 
The  rude  portals  that  give  sight 
More  to  terror  than  delight ; 
This  my  chamber  of  neglect, 
Walled  about  with  disrespect : 
From  all  these  and  this  dull  air, 
A  fit  object  for  despair, 
She  hath  taught  me  by  her  might 
To  draw  comfort  and  delight." 

But,  although  there  are  many  other  passages  in  Wither 
reminding  one  either  of  Browne  or  of  Drayton,  yet,  by  the 
great  bulk  of  his  writings,  he  ranks  rather  among  the 
Satirists  than  among  the  Arcadians.  Despite  the  efforts  of 
his  admirers  to  revive  a  regard  for  his  poetry,  it  is  less  as 
a  poet  than  as  a  character  of  the  period  that  he  is  now 
interesting. 

At  the  basis  of  his  constitution  was  a  prodigious  self- 
satisfaction.  To  aid  in  expressing  this,  he  had  received 
from  nature  an  irresistible  fluency.  ' ( He  could  make  verses 
as  fast  as  he  could  write  them/'  says  Aubrey,  who  informs 
us,  moreover,  that  his  wife,  an  Elizabeth  Emerson  of  Lam 
beth,  was  "  a  great  wit,"  and  could  write  verses  too.  "  His 
' '  unaffected  diction  even  now,"  says  Mr.  Craik,  "  has  scarce 
"  a  stain  of  age  upon  it,  but  flows  on,  ever  fresh  and  trans- 
"  parent,  like  a  pebbled  rill."  Nor  were  there  wanting  some 
excellent  qualities  to  render  his  fluency  effective.  With  his 


476  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

self-satisfaction  lie  conjoined  some  real  strength  of  brain,  a 
certain  elevation  of  aim,  and  a  perfect  dauntlessness  of  spirit. 
In  his  very  first  writings  he  had  come  forward  as  a  plain 
man  who  was  to  speak  truth  and  care  for  nobody.  "  Do 
"  not  look/'  he  says,  in  his  garrulous  preface  to  his  Abuses 
Stript  and  Whipt,  "  for  Spenser's  or  Daniel's  well-composed 
"  numbers,  or  the  deep  conceits  of  now-flourishing  Jonson. 
"  No  !  say  ( 'Tis  honest  plain  matter/  and  there's  as  much 
"  as  I  expect."  And  so  in  the  text  of  the  book,  speaking 
of  his  occupations  when  he  first  wandered  about  London  as 
a  law-student : — 

"  Casting  preferment's  too  much  care  aside, 
And  leaving  that  to  God  that  can  provide, 
The  actions  of  the  present  time  I  eyed, 
And  all  her  secret  villainies  descried  ; 
I  stript  Abuse  from  all  her  colours  quite, 
And  laid  her  ugly  face  to  open  sight." 

Even  in  prison  they  could  not  break  his  spirit.  Thus,  in  his 
Satire  to  the  King,  respecting  the  courtiers : — 

"  I'd  have  my  pen  so  paint  that,  where  it  traces, 
Each  accent  should  draw  blood  into  their  faces. 
I'd  learn  my  muse  so  brave  a  course  to  fly, 
Men  should  admire  the  power  of  poesy, 
And  those  that  dared  her  greatness  to  resist 
Quake  even  at  naming  of  a  satirist." 

And  so,  through  the  world,  from  that  time  forward,  he 
continues  to  go  self- labelled  as  (C  Wither,  the  man  that 
would  not  flatter."  His  Motto,  published  in  1618,  was,  as 
we  have  said,  an  exhibition  of  his  character  to  the  public  in 
this  light.  He  had  had  his  portrait  painted ;  under  it  he 
had  written  the  motto,  Nee  liabeo,  nee  careo,  nee  euro  :  "Nor 
have  I,  nor  want  I,  nor  care  I " ;  this  motto  he  had  adopted 
as  his  impress ;  and  the  poem  is  an  illustration  of  it  in  three 
parts,  corresponding  respectively  to  the  three  clauses, — the 
first  explaining  what  Wither  is  not,  the  second  what  he  is, 
and  the  third  what  he  cares  not  to  have  or  to  be.  The  tone 
throughout  is  that  of  egotistic  independence. 

"  My  mind's  my  kingdom,  and  I  will  permit 
No  other's  will  to  have  the  rule  of  it ; 


GEORGE    WITHER.  477 

For  I  am  free,  and  no  man's  power,  I  know, 
Did  make  me  this,  or  shall  unmake  me  now." 

While  expounding  his  own  character  in  the  poem,  he  launches 
into  satires  of  all  who  are  not  of  the  same  spirit  with  himself. 
The  lash,  though  never  personal  in  its  application,  excori 
ates  where  it  strikes.  Thus,  of  the  poets  and  wits  of  the 
time : — 

"  I  am  not  of  a  temper  like  to  those 
That  can  provide  an  hour's  sad  talk  in  prose 
For  any  funeral,  and  then  go  dine, 
And  choke  my  grief  with  sugar-plums  and  wine. 
I  cannot  at  the  claret  sit  and  laugh, 
And  then,  half  tipsy,  write  an  epitaph. 
I  cannot  for  reward  adorn  the  hearse 
Of  some  old  rotten  miser  with  my  verse  ; 
Nor,  like  the  poetasters  of  the  time, 
Go  howl  a  doleful  elegy  in  rhyme 
For  every  lord  or  ladyship  that  dies, 
And  then  perplex  their  heirs  to  patronise 
My  muddy  poesy." 

Wither  had  found  patrons,  however,  in  the  general  public ; 
and  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  at  all  indifferent  to  their 
favour,  or  to  the  pecuniary  results  of  it.  Having  once  been 
accepted  as  a  writer  of  a  peculiarly  honest  and  virtuous  vein, 
he  was  ready  "  to  express  and  publish  his  conceptions "  in 
any  innocent  form  that  would  recommend  them  to  the  popu 
lar  taste.  He  would  write  songs  and  pastorals,  like  others, 
only  taking  care  that  they  were  ethically  of  the  right  sort ; 
he  would  reach  the  popular  heart  through  Scriptural  hymns 
and  a  new  version  of  the  Psalms  ;  he  would  not  disdain  even 
symbolical  title-pages,  illustrative  wood-cuts,  and  arrange 
ments  of  letter-press  and  binding  by  which  his  books  could 
be  converted  into  "  lotteries."  To  write  so  as  to  "  suit  the 
vulgar  capacity  "  was  the  rule  he  had  prescribed  for  himself; 
and  whether  the  result  should  be  called  poetry  or  prose  by 
the  critics  he  professed  not  to  care.  Moreover,  the  idea 
seems  to  have  grown  upon  him  that,  as  he  was  a  leader  of 
the  popular  opinion,  so  he  was  bound  to  form  guesses  as  to 
the  issues  of  events  and  announce  his  conclusions  in  the 
shape  of  warnings  and  vaticinations.  In  this  character  he 
first  distinctly  appears  in  his  Britain's  Remembrancer,  written 


478  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

while  the  recollections  of  the  Plague  of  1625  were  fresh. 
Addressing  Britain  there,  he  says  : — 

"  For  I  will  tell  thy  fortune,  which,  when  they 
Who  are  unborn  shall  read  another  day, 
They  will  believe  then  that  God  did  infuse 
Into  thy  poet  a  prophetic  muse, 
Moreover  know  that  He  did  him  prefer 
To  be  to  this  Isle  his  Remembrancer." 

Accordingly,  after  the  publication  of  this  book,  the  reputation 
of  Wither  was  as  much  that  of  a  political  fanatic  as  of  a  poet. 
When  we  examine  in  what  his  title  to  the  prophetic  character 
consisted,  we  find  that  it  was  chiefly  in  an  unusually  strong 
degree  of  the  conviction,  pretty  sure  to  be  right  at  any  time, 
that  the  cup  of  social  iniquity  jvas  full. 

"  Upon  thy  fleets,  thy  havens,  and  thy  ports, 
Upon  thine  armies  and  thy  strong-walled  forts, 
Upon  thy  pleasures  and  commodities, 
Upon  thy  handicrafts  and  merchandise, 
Upon  the  fruits  and  cattle  in  thy  fields, 
On  what  the  air,  the  earth,  or  water  yields, 
On  prince  and  people,  on  both  weak  and  strong, 
On  priest  and  prophet,  on  both  old  and  young, 
Yea  on  each  person,  place,  and  everything, 
His  just  deserved  judgments  God  will  bring." 

If  it  is  essential  to  social  health  that  some  souls  should  have 
this  feeling,  even  to  overcharge,  in  every  time,  a  man  who 
was  possessed  by  it  in  the  age  of  Charles  I.  will  hardly  seem 
to  have  been  far  in  error.  Wither  not  only  had  it,  but  had 
it  in  the  exact  form  and  proportion  which  fitted  him  to  be 
the  monitor, — we  had  almost  said  the  journalist, — of  the 
,  time  then  passing.  He  was  a  lay-preacher  of  the  very 
notions  which  formed  the  political  creed  of  the  middle-class 
English  Puritans ;  he  gave  back  to  the  citizens  of  London, 
in  easy  metre  and  rhyme,  and  with,  his  name  attached,  the 
platitudes  they  were  in  the  habit  of  expressing  in  their 
nouses  and  shops.  Thus  of  ambition  : — 

"  And,  though  I'm  loth  to  speak  it,  I  protest 
I  think  it  reigns  not  in  the  clergy  least ; 
For  you  at  first  great  humbleness  shall  see, 
Whilst  their  estates  and  fortunes  meaner  be. 


GEORGE   WITHER.  479 

They  are  industrious  and  take  pains  to  teach, 

And  twice  a  week  shall  be  the  least  they  preach  ; 

Or,  in  their  poverty,  they  will  not  stick 

For  catechizing,  visiting  the  sick, 

With  such-like  duteous  works  of  piety 

As  do  belong  to  their  society. 

But,  if  they  once  but  reach  a  vicarage, 

Or  be  inducted  to  some  parsonage, 

Men  must  content  themselves  and  think  it  well 

If  once  a  month  they  hear  the  sermon-bell. 

But,  if  to  any  higher  place  they  reach, 

Once  in  a  twelvemonth  is  enough  to  preach." 

If  this  was  not  poetry,  it  was  just  such  straightforward 
metrical  politics  as  the  middle-class  Puritans  of  the  day 
were  willing  to  buy  and  read ;  and,  by  "keeping  to  this  vein, 
Wither  had  become,  some  years  before  1632,  a  recognised 
literary  power  in  England.  He  had  written  for  the  people, 
and  the  people  swore  by  George  Wither. 

Wither  and  his  popularity  seem  to  have  been  a  great 
matter  of  jest  to  the  fraternity  at  the  Apollo  Club.  "  Is 
Wither  a  poet  ?  "  was  a  question  of  the  day  with  the  critics 
there.  There  were  arguments  for  as  well  as  against ;  and 
there  was  some  danger  in  speaking  ill  of  a  man  of  such 
popularity  and  such  fluency  in  invective,  with  such  a  follow 
ing  at  his  back.  King  Ben  took  the  responsibility  on  him 
self.  In  his  masque  of  Time  Vindicated,  presented  at  Court 
on  Twelfth  Night,  1623,  a  character  called  Chronomastix 
(i.  e.  the  Satirist  of  the  Time)  is  introduced  as  a  candidate 
for  the  honours  of  fame.  The  goddess  Fame  is  seated,  with 
her  attendants,  Eyes,  Ears,  and  Nose,  when  Chronomastix 
enters. 

"  Chron.  The  Time  !  Lo,  I,  the  man  that  hate  the  time  ; 
That  is,  that  love  it  not ;  arid  (though  in  rhyme 
I  here  do  speak  it)  with  this  whip  you  see 
Do  lash  the  Time,  and  am  myself  lash-free. 
Fame.  Who's  this  1 

Ears.  Tis  Chronomastix,  the  brave  Satyr. 
Nose.  The  gentlemanlike  Satyr — cares  for  nobody — 

His  forehead  tipt  with  bays  !    Do  you  not  know  him  ? " 

Chronomastix  advances  to  salute  Fame,  saying, — 

"  It  is  for  you  I  revel  so  in  rhyme, 
Dear  mistress,  not  for  hope  I  have  the  Time 


480  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Will  grow  the  better  by  it.     To  serve  Fame 
Is  all  my  end,  and  get  myself  a  name." 

Whereupon  Fame  bursts  forth, — 

"  Away  !  I  know  thee  not  !    Wretched  impostor, 
Creature  of  glory,  mountebank  of  wit, 
Self -loving  braggart,  Fame  doth  sound  no  trumpet 
To  such  vain  empty  fools  !    'Tis  Infamy 
Thou  serv'st  and  follow'st,  scorn  of  all  the  Muses  ! 
Go  revel  with  thine  ignorant  admirers ; 
Let  worthy  names  alone." 

Chronomastix,  astonished  at  this  reception,  can  hardly  believe 
that  he  hears  aright,  and  recounts  his  triumphs  as  a  popular 
author. 

"  Ears.  Rare  !  how  he  talks  in  verse  just  as  he  writes ! 

Chron.  When  have  I  walked  the  streets  but  happy  he 
That  had  the  finger  first  to  point  at  me, 
Prentice  or  journeyman  1    The  shop  doth  know  it, 
The  unlettered  clerk,  major  and  minor  poet. 
The  sempster  hath  sat  still  as  I  passed  by, 
And  dropf  her  needle.     Fishwives  stayed  their  cry. 
The  boy  with  buttons,  and  the  basket-wench, 
To  vent  their  wares  into  my  works  do  trench. 
A  pudding-wife  that  would  despise  the  times 
Hath  uttered  frequent  penn'orths  through  my  rhymes, 
And  with  them  dived  unto  the  chambermaid  ; 
And  she  unto  her  lady  hath  conveyed 
The  seasoned  morsels,  who  hath  sent  me  pensions 
To  cherish  and  to  heighten  my  inventions. 
Well,  Fame  shall  know  it  yet :  I  have  my  faction 
And  friends  about  me,  though  it  please  detraction 
To  do  me  this  affront." 

He  then  calls  in  some  of  his  faction  to  stand  by  him.  They- 
appear,  dance  round  him  adoringly,  and  carry  him  forth  from 
Fame's  presence.  Eyes,  Ears,  and  Nose  assure  Fame  that 
she  has  made  a  mistake  in  disowning  him,  and  that  his 
faction  will  deify  him  in  despite.  "  'Twill  prove  but  deifying 
of  a  pompion,"  says  the  tetchy  lady. 

Chronomastix  was,  perhaps,  here  meant  by  Jonson  to  stand 
for  a  type  of  popular  satirists  in  general ;  but  that  he  had 
Wither  in  view  as  the  least  sufferable  living  specimen  of  the 
genus  is  undeniable.  In  some  editions  of  Withers  first 
satires  there  had  been  a  wood- cut  representing  him,  precisely 
as  he  is  introduced  in  the  masque,  as  a  satyr  with  a  whip  in 


GEORGE    WITHER.  481 

his  hand.  There  is  a  distinct  allusion,  also,  to  the  engraved 
frontispiece  prefixed  to  his  Motto,  in  which  Wither  is  repre 
sented  as  a  laurelled  poet,  leaning  his  back  against  a  pillar, 
and  gazing  straight  at  heaven.  Moreover,  Chronomastix  is 
identified  with  Wither  by  special  references  to  Wither' s 
clandestine  dealings  with  printers,  and  to  his  acquaintances 
in  London.  Among  those  who  rush  in  at  his  call  are  two 
mutes,  who  are  thus  described  : — 

"  You'  d  think  them  rogues,  but  they  are  friends ; 
One  is  his  printer  in  disguise,  and  keeps 
His  press  in  a  hollow  tree,  where,  to  conceal  him, 
He  works  by  glow-worm  light, — the  moon's  too  open. 
The  other  zealous  rag  is  the  compositor, 
Who  in  an  angle  where  the  ants  inhabit 
(The  emblems  of  his  labours)  will  sit  curled 
Whole  days  and  nights  and  work  his  eyes  out  for  him." 


What  follows  is  more  interesting  to  us  :*— 

"  There  is  a  schoolmaster 
Is  turning  all  his  works,  too,  into  Latin, — 
To  pure  satyric  Latin  ;  makes  his  boys 
To  learn  him ;  calls  him  the  time's  Juvenal ; 
Hangs  all  his  school  with  his  sharp  sentences  ; 
And  o'er  the  execution-place  hath  painted 
Time  whipt,  for  terror  to  the  infantry."  . 

The  schoolmaster  here  spoken  of  is  our  friend,  the  elder 
Alexander  Gill,  head-master  of  St.  Paul's  School,  in  whose 
Logonomia  Anglica,  published  in  1619,  Wither,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  been  cited  expressly  under  the  name  of  the 
English  Juvenal.  The  compliment  had  been  retained  in  the 
second  edition  of  the  Logonomia  in  1621,  and  probably  Gill 
had  shown  his  admiration  for  Wither  in  other  ways.  There 
was,  as  we  shall  find,  a  standing  feud  between  Ben  Jonson 
and  the  Gill  family ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  the 
feud  had  begun  while  Milton  was  a  pupil  at  St.  Paul's 
School,  and  therefore  one  of  the  "  infantry  "  referred  to  by 
Ben. 

Wither  was  not  a  man  to  let  even  Ben  pass  without  an 

VOL.   I.  II 


482  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND  HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

answer.  In  his  Britain's  Remembrancer  of  1628  lie  takes 
occasion  to  retaliate  on  Ben  and  all  his  tribe : — 

"  With  words  ironical  they  do  revile  me  ; 
The  Valiant  Poet  they  in  scorn  do  style  me, 
The  Chronomastix." 

And,  in  a  long  continuation  in  the  same  style,  Wither  de 
scribes  them  sitting  in  drunken  conclave  at  the  Apollo,  and 
settling  the  claims  of  all  the  poets  of  the  day,  himself  in 
cluded.  If  any  one  were  there  to  defend  him,  they  would 
not  dare,  he  hints,  to  deny  that  he  had  merits.  And  this 
was  about  the  right  conclusion.  Wither  has  left,  together 
with  some  real  poetry,  a  sea  of  the  flattest  verse  known  in 
our  language ;  but  his  influence  was  as  healthy  as  his  style 
was  plain  and  apprehensible.  He  was  a  brave  bull-necked 
Englishman,  slightly  crazed  in  the  organs  of  combativeness 
and  self-esteem,  the  same  man  substantially  in  1632  that  he 
was  to  be  long  afterwards  as  a  partisan  and  agent  of  the 
Commonwealth  and  of  Cromwell. 

Still  lower  in  the  literary  scale  than  Wither,  and  named 
among  the  poets  of  the  day  only  by  way  of  good-humoured 
jest,  was  Taylor  the  Water- Poet.  Honest  John,  a  Gloucester 
man  by  birth,  and  now  over  fifty  years  of  age,  had  been 
known  in  his  double  capacity  of  poet  and  waterman  for  at 
least  twenty  years.  In  his  youth  he  had  served  in  the  navy, 
and  had  been  in  Holland,  Germany,  and  other  parts  of  the 
Continent ;  more  recently,  and  since  setting  up  as  a  Thames 
waterman,  he  had  made  wherry  voyages  along  the  English 
coasts,  and  up  rivers  never  penetrated  by  a  London  boat 
before ;  and  he  had  also  made  a  journey  to  Scotland  on  foot 
at  the  time  when  Ben  was  there.  No  man  knew  the  town 
better  than  he  ;  and  there  was  not  a  person  of  any  mark  in 
town  or  near  it,  from  the  King  and  the  Privy  Councillors 
down  to  the  Gloucester  carrier  or  the  landlord  of  the  inn  on 
Highgate  Hill,  but  had  a  word  for  "  The  Sculler."  With  a 
fund  of  rough  natural  humour,  and  an  acquired  knack  of 
writing,  he  had  won  his  name  of  "  the  water-poet,"  and  at 
the  same  time  increased  his  custom  as  a  boatman,  by  a  series 


THE   WATER-POET.  483 

of  printed  effusions,  none  of  them  above  a  sheet  or  two  in 
length,  and  consisting  either  solely  of  verse,  or  of  verse  and 
prose  intermixed,  under  such  titles  as  "The  Travels  of 
Twelvepence,"  "The  Praise  of  Beggary  and  Begging," 
"  Taylor's  Pennyless  Pilgrimage,  or  Journey  without  Money, 
from  London  to  Edinburgh  in  Scotland,  and  back  to  London," 
"  A  very  merry  Wherry  Voyage  from  London  to  York  with 
a  Pair  of  Oars,"  ' '  A  Kecksy-winsy,  or  a  Lery-cum-Twang, 
wherein  John  Taylor  hath  satirically  suited  750  of  his  bad 
debtors,  that  will  not  pay  him  for  his  Journey  to  Scotland/' 
"  Elegies  and  Religious  Narrations,"  "  The  World  runs  011 
Wheels,"  "  The  Praise  of  Hempseed,"  "  The  Praise  of  a  Jail, 
and  the  excellent  Mystery  and  Necessary  Use  of  all  sorts  of 
Hanging."  His  plan  for  disposing  of  these  productions 
seems  to  have  been  to  hawk  them  about  personally  among 
his  patrons  and  acquaintances,  or  to  sell  them  in  parcels  to 
those  who  retailed  ballads  and  other  cheap  popular  literature. 
In  more  than  one  instance,  however,  he  had  dedicated  to 
the  King,  or  come  forward  in  some  public  way  as  a  wit  and 
pamphleteer.  Thus,  in  1613,  he  had  led  "  a  suit  against  the 
players,"  the  object  of  which  was  to  prevent  the  increase  of 
play-houses  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  it  being  manifestly 
to  the  advantage  of  the  Thames  watermen  that  the  theatres 
should  be  kept  on  the  south  side.  More  recently  he  had 
been  writing  furiously  against  the  nuisance  of  hackney 
coaches,  and  in  favour  of  the  old  modes  of  locomotion  by 
foot  or  on  water.  One  way  or  another,  his  broad-sheets 
had  a  circulation  which  more  than  paid  their  expenses.  They 
were  good  reading  for  the  Gloucester  carrier  on  the  road, 
and  they  were  laughed  over  at  Court.  King  James,  accord- 
ing  to  Ben,  had  been  in  the  habit  of  saying  jocularly  that  he 
knew  no  verses  equal  to  the  Sculler's.  Confident  in  his 
popularity,  the  Sculler  had  had  the  audacity  to  print,  or  bind 
together  for  sale,  in  1630,  a  folio  edition  of  his  collected 
f '  Works,"  including  all  that  he  had  written  in  prose  or  in 
verse  up  to  that  date.  He  was  to  live  four-and-twenty  years 
after  the  publication,  and,  besides  distinguishing  himself  by 
his  sturdy  loyalty  during  the  Civil  Wars,  was  to  pen  a  farther 

I  I  2 


48  i  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS  TIME. 

quantity  of  prose  and  verse,  enough  to  make  a  second  folio, 
had  all  been  collected. 


Distinct  from  both  the  SPENSERIANS  and  the  SOCIAL  POETS 
was  a  group  of  metrical  writers  whom  it  is  easier  to  enumer 
ate  than  to  describe  by  a  common  name.  The  peculiarity 
by  which  they  are  associated  is  that  they  seemed  to  regard 
verse  less  as  a  vehicle  for  pure  matter  of  imagination,  or  for 
social  allusion  and  invective,  than  as  a  means  of  doctrinal 
exposition  or  abstruse  and  quaint  discourse  on  any  topic 
whatsoever.  According  to  the  nature  of  the  topics  on  which 
they  wrote,  they  might  be  distributed  into  sub-varieties. 
Collectively  they  may  be  described  as  THE  POETS  OF  METRICAL 
EXPOSITION  AND  METRICAL  INTELLECTION.  The  double  form  of 
the  name  is  useful.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  exposition  in 
metre, — i.  e.  Yerse,  on  account  of  its  own  charms,  or  be 
cause  it  impresses  matter  on  the  memory  more  surely  than 
prose,  may  be  used  as  a  vehicle  for  ideas  already  thought 
out  or  acquired  by  the  writer  in  any  department  of  science 
or  speculation.  Different  from  this,  though  likely  to  run 
into  it,  is  intellection  in  metre, — i.  e.  the  use  of  the  stimulus 
of  verse,  its  nimble  and  subtle  action  upon  the  thought,  to 
generate  ideas  or  supplementary  ideas  that  were  not  in  the 
mind  before,  lead  to  ingenious  trains  of  thinking,  and  sug 
gest  odd  analogies  and  combinations.  It  was  mainly  for 
poets  practising  this  process  of  metrical  intellection,  though 
with  some  inclusion  also  of  poets  of  metrical  exposition,  that 
Dr.  Johnson  invented,  or  adopted  from  Dryden,  the  designa 
tion  METAPHYSICAL  POETS.  That,  however,  was  a  singularly 
unhappy  choice  of  a  name,  vitiating  as  it  did  the  true  and 
specific  meaning  of  the  word  ' '  metaphysical/'  and  pandering 
to  the  vulgar  Georgian  use  of  the  word,  which  made  it  an 
adjective  for  anything  whatever  that  seemed  hard,  abstract, 
or  bewildering. 

A  good  deal  of  the  English  Poetry  of  the  Elizabethan  age 
consisted  of  what  might  be  called,  properly  enough,  metrical 
exposition.  The  poetico-political  Treatises  of  Fulke  Greville, 
Lord  Brooke  (1554 — 1628),  are  one  example;  and  the  cele- 


Dft.    DONNE.  485 

brated  Nosce  Teipsum,  or  Poem  on  the  Soul  of  Man,  of  Sir 
John  Davies  (1570 — 1628)  is  another.  The  latter  is,  in  fact, 
a  treatise  on  Psychology  in  the  interest  of  the  Intuitional  or 
Transcendental  Philosophy  as  opposed  to  the  Empirical,  and 
there  is  not  a  finer  metrical  treatise  of  the  sort  in  the  lan 
guage,  or  one  in  which  metrical  exposition  comes  closer  to  the 
borders  of  real  poetry.  But  metrical  intellection  was  also 
common  enough  among  the  Elizabethans,  perhaps  more 
common  among  them  than  it  has  ever  been  in  our  Islands 
since.  That  fondness  for  "  conceits,"  or  the  pursuit  of  quaint 
analogies  and  jingling  word-play,  with  which  the  Elizabethan 
poets  have  been  charged,  Shakespeare  himself  not  excepted, 
was  one  of  the  results  of  the  wide  diffusion  among  them  of 
the  habit  of  using  verse  merely  to  quicken  wit  and  dialectic.  I 
In  one  Elizabethan  the  habit  attained  proportions  that  were 
enormous.  If  there  has  been  any  single  poet  in  the  world 
who  may  stand  to  all  time  as  an  example  of  the  genius  of 
metrical  intellection  at  its  utmost,  he  is  John  Donne.  No 
wonder  that  Dr.  Johnson  selected  Donne  as  the  father  of  all 
his  so-called  English  Metaphysical  Poets.  In  him  were 
gathered  into  one,  as  it  were,  all  the  tips  and  clippings  of 
intellectual  super-subtlety  among  the  Elizabethans. 

In  1632  they  were  still  writing  elegies  on  Donne's  death, 
which  had  occurred  in  the  March  of  the  preceding  year.  For 
the  last  portion  of  his  life  he  had  been  known  as  Dr.  Donne, 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  a  most  pious  and  popular  preacher, 
though  not  Calvinistic,  and  a  man  of  great  learning,  venerated 
at  Court  and  in  society  generally.  There  were  those  alive, 
however,  who  could  remember  him  as  he  had  been  in  his 
youth,  ere  yet  he  had  thought  of  the  sacred  calling, — a 
gallant  lay  wit  and  student  about  town,  of  Roman  Catholic 
family  and  connexions,  secretary  to  Lord  Chancellor  Elles- 
niere,  a  member  of  Raleigh's  club  at  the  Mermaid,  and  a 
writer  of  satires,  epigrams,  and  miscellaneous  poems  not 
specially  clerical  in  their  style  or  their  subjects.  Some  of 
those  poems  had  been  in  circulation  in  manuscript  as  early 
as  1593,  when  Spenser  was  yet  alive  and  Donne  was  only  in 
his  twenty-first  year;  the  best  of  them,  as  Ben  Jonson 


486  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

thought,  had  been  written  before  1598,  when,  he  first  became 
acquainted  with  Donne.  Only  specimens  of  them  had  been 
printed,  and  Donne,  after  he  became  a  Church  of  England 
clergyman  and  Doctor  of  Divinity,  would  fain  have  recalled 
all  that  were  in  print,  as  well  as  those  that  were  in  circulation 
in  manuscript  copies.  They  were  too  firmly  lodged  in  the 
literature  of  the  time  to  be  recovered;  and  now,  after  his 
death,  there  was  in  preparation,  under  his  son's  care,  what 
passes  as  the  first  collective  edition  of  his  Poems,  giving  to 
the  world  those  earlier  productions  of  his  pen  in  one  medley 
with  the  more  sacred  metrical  effusions  of  his  later  years. 
Without  much  regard  to  the  chronology  of  the  pieces, 
readers  look  at  them  all  now  indiscriminately  as  Donne's 
poetical  remains.  Nor  are  they  wrong.  The  pious  Dean 
Donne,  whom  Herbert  admired  and  Izaak  Walton  all  but 
worshiped,  was  essentially  the  same  man  who  had  gone 
about  with  bricklayer  Ben  in  his  early  dramatic  days ;  and 
in  all  his  poetical  remains — his  Satires  of  1593-4,  his 
Metempsychosis  or  Progress  of  the  Soul,  written  in  1601,  his 
Elegies,  Epithalamia,  Epigrams,  Epistles,  and  Lyrics,  of  the 
same  or  later  dates,  including  the  Divine  Poems  which  may 
represent  him  clerically  and  theologically — there  is  the  same 
intellectual  manner.1  What  a  reputation  he  had  gained  by 
this  manner  among  his  contemporaries  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  on  Jonson's  visit  to  Hawthornden  in  1619-20 
there  was  no  poet  besides  himself  of  whom  he  talked  so 
much  as  of  Donne.  "  He  esteemeth  John  Donne  the  first 
"  poet  in  the  world  in  some  things/'  is  Drummond's  report ; 
who  adds,  however,  some  severe  criticisms  of  Ben  on 
Donne's  style,  as  that  "  for  not  keeping  accent  he  deserved 
ec hanging,"  and  that  "for  not  being  understood  he  would 
"perish."  To  the  same  effect  in  Ben's  verses  prefixed  to 
Donne's  Poems : — 

"  Donne,  the  delight  of  Phoebus  and  each  Muse, 
Who  to  thy  one  all  other  brains  refuse  ; 

1  The    most    complete    edition    of  chronology,  bibliography,  and  classinca- 

Donne's  Poetical  Works  is   now  that  tion  of  the  Poems  are  discussed  in  those 

of  Dr   Grosart,  in  two  volumes  quarto,  volumes.     They  also   contain  striking 

1872-3,  for  his  Fuller  Worthies  Librsry  ;  portraits  of  Donne, 
and  various  perplexing  points  in  the 


DR.    DONNE.  487 

Whose  every  work  of  thy  most  early  wit 
Came  forth  example  and  remains  so  yet, 
Longer  a-knowing  than  most  wits  do  live  ! " 

With  much  of  the  true  poet  in  him,,  Donne  was,  most 
essentially,  a  wit,  a  subtle  thinker  and  dialectician,  using 
verse  to  assist  him  in  his  favourite  mental  exercise, — the 
stanza,  let  us  say,  as  a  wheel  by  which  to  spin  out  his 
thoughts  into  ingenious  threads,  the  couplet  as  a  shuttle  by 
which  to  lay  the  threads  together.  His  very  notion  of  verse 
seems  to  be  revealed  in  these  lines  in  one  of  his  love 
poems : — 

"  Then,  as  th'  Earth's  inward,  narrow,  crooked  lanes 
Do  purge  sea-water's  fretful  salt  away, 
I  thought,  if  I  could  draw  my  pains 
Through  rhyme's  vexation,  I  should  them  allay. 
Grief,  brought  to  number,  cannot  be  so  fierce  ; 
For  he  tames  it  that  fetters  it  in  verse." 

Unfortunately,  ifc  was  not  only  his  love  pains  that  he  drew 
through  "  rhyme's  vexation,"  but  his  feelings  and  thoughts 
on  all  subjects  whatsoever.  Thus  it  is,  that,  notwithstanding 
his  great  celebrity  in  his  life,  posterity  in  general  has  become 
utterly  impatient  of  his  poetry.  Yet,  in  reading  him,  one  can 
see  on  what  it  was  the  vast  admiration  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  also  of  such  recent  critics  as  Coleridge  and  De  Quincey, 
was  founded.  His  poetry  serves  as  an  intellectual  gymnastic, 
even  where,  as  poetry,  it  can  give  but  little  pleasure.  Here 
is  a  characteristic  passage  from  his  Elegy  entitled  "  Of  the 
progress  of  the  Soul :  wherein,  by  occasion  of  the  religious 
death  of  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Drury,  the  incommodities  of  the 
Soul  in  this  life  and  her-  exaltation  in  the  next  are  contem 
plated."  The  elegy,  having  been  published  in  1625,  repre 
sents  Donne's  later  style  and  tone. 

"  She,  she  is  gone  :  she  is  gone  :  when  thou  knowest  this, 
What  fragmentary  rubbidge  this  world  is 
Thou  knowest,  and  that  it  is  not  worth  a  thought : 
He  honours  it  too  much  that  thinks  it  nought. 
Think,  then,  my  soul,  that  death  is  but  a  groom, 
Which  brings  a  taper  to  the  outward  room 
Whence  thou  spiest  first  a  little  glimmering  light, 
And  after  brings  it  nearer  to  thy  sight ; 


488  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOKY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

For  such  approaches  does  heaven  make  in  death. 

Think  thyself  labouring  now  with  broken  breath, 

And  think  those  broken  and  soft  notes  to  be 

Division  and  thy  happiest  harmony  : 

Think  thee  laid  on  thy  death-bed,  loose  and  slack ; 

And  think  that  but  unbinding  of  a  pack, 

To  take  one  precious  thing,  thy  soul,  from  thence. 

But  think  that  Death  hath  now  enfranchised  thee ; 

Thou  hast  thy  expansion  now  and  liberty. 

Think  that  a  rusty  piece  discharged  is  flown 

In  pieces,  and  the  bullet  is  his  own, 

And  freely  flies.     This  to  thy  soul  allow  : 

Think  thy  shell  broke  ;  think  thy  soul  hatched  but  now  ; 

And  think  this  slow-paced  soul,  which  late  did  cleave 

To  a  body,  and  went  but  by  the  body's  leave, 

Twenty,  perchance,  or  thirty  miles  a  day, 

Dispatches  in  a  minute  all  the  way 

'Twixt  heaven  and  earth.    She  stays  not  in  the  air 

To  look  what  meteors  there  themselves  prepare. 

She  carries  no  desire  to  know,  nor  sense, 

Whether  th'  air's  middle  region  be  intense  ; 

For  th'  element  of  fire,  she  doth  not  know 

Whether  she  passed  by  such  a  place  or  no ; 

She  baits  not  at  the  moon,  nor  cares  to  try 

Whether  in  that  new  world  men  live  and  die  ; 

Venus  retards  her  not,  to  enquire  how  she 

Can,  being  one  star,  Hesper  and  Vesper  be  ; 

He  that  charmed  Argus'  eyes,  sweet  Mercury, 

Works  not  on  her,  who  now  is  grown  all  eye  ; 

Who,  if  she  meet  the  body  of  the  Sun, 

Goes  through,  not  staying  till  his  course  be  run  ; 

Who  finds  in  Mars  his  camp  no  corps  of  guard, 

Nor  is  by  Jove,  nor  by  his  father,  barred, 

But,  ere  she  can  consider  how  she  went, 

At  once  is  at  and  through  the  firmament. 

And,  as  those  stars  were  but  so  many  beads 

Strung  on  one  string,  speed  undistinguished  leads 

Her  through  those  spheres,  as  through  those  beads  a  string, 

Whose  quick  succession  makes  it  still  one  thing. 

As  doth  the  pith  which,  lest  our  bodies  slack, 

Strings  fast  the  little  bones  of  neck  and  back, 

So  by  the  soul  doth  Death  string  Heaven  and  Earth." 

This  is  Donne  at  about  his  best.  Throughout  the  rest  of 
his  poetry,  with  not  a  few  passages  of  the  same  order,  and 
with  frequent  feats  of  intellectual  agility  that  make  the 
reader  start,  the  most  tolerant  modern  taste  is  apt  to  be 
offended  by  the  grossly  physical  cast  of  the  images.  Love 
in  Donne's  poetry  is  a  physiological  fact,  susceptible  of  all 
kinds  of  metaphysical  interpretations ;  his  love  verses  are 
abstruse  alternations  between  the  fact  and  its  metaphysical 


DR.    DONNE   AND    HIS    FOLLOWERS.  489 

renderings;  and  that  element  in  which  most  love  poets 
dwell,  the  exquisite  intermediate  psychology,  is  all  but 
wholly  omitted.  One  of  his  short  poems  is  entitled  The  Flea, 
and  is  an  argument  to  his  mistress  in  favour  of  their  speedy 
marriage,  deduced  from  the  fact  that,  as  the  insect  has 
skipped  from  the  one  to  the  other,  and  exercised  its  functions 
on  both,  their  beings  are  already  one  within  its  jetty  cover. 
In  other  poems  facts  of  the  most  putrid  order  are  jumbled 
together  with  others  of  the  most  sacred  associations,  as  equally 
holy  to  the  eye  of  practiced  intellect,  and  equally  rich  in 
symbolisms  and  analogies.  In  short,  though  we  must  regard 
Donne  personally  as  an  interesting  study,  and  though  we 
may  admit  also  that  in  his  hands  the  art  of  metrical  cogitation 
with  a  view  to  novel  combinations  of  ideas  was  exercised  so 
superbly  as  almost  to  become  the  legitimate  principle  of  a 
new  variety  of  literature,  we  cannot  but  be  glad  that  the 
avatar  of  Donne,  as  an  intermediate  power  in  English  Poetry 
between  Spenser  and  Milton,  was  so  brief  and  partial. 

The  English  poet  whom  Dr.  Johnson  thought  fit  to  treat 
as  the  true  heir  of  Donne's  manner  and  the  second  of  the 
notable  " metaphysical  poets"  was  Abraham  Cowley,  who 
was  but  a  boy  of  thirteen  when  Donne  died.  Boy  as  he  was, 
he  was  already  a  versifier.  At  the  age  of  ten,  when  just 
admitted  as  a  scholar  at  Westminster  School,  he  had  written 
his  little  poem  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and  presented  it  to 
the  head-master,  Mr.  Lambert  Osbaldiston,  with  the  modest 
words — 

"  My  childish  muse  is  in  her  spring,  and  yet 
Can  only  show  some  budding  of  her  wit. 
One  frown  upon  her  work,  learn'd  Sir,  from  you, 
Like  some  unkinder  storm  shot  from  your  brow, 
Would  turn  her  spring  to  withering  autumn's  time, 
And  make  her  blossoms  perish  ere  their  prime." 

A  tinge  of  Donne's  manner  was  especially  visible  among 
those  who  may  be  called  the  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
poets  of  the  day.  The  terms  "  theological  and  ecclesiastical  " 
are  here  used  by  way  of  distinction  from  the  more  general 
term  "  religious."  Giles  and  Phineas  Fletcher,  and  others 


490  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

that  have  been  named,  were  religious  poets,  inasmuch  as 
they  chose  themes  of  religious  interest  and  wrote  in  a 
religious  spirit.  The  theology  of  these  poets,  indeed,  is 
obvious  enough,  but  it  is  not  so  handled  as  to  make  any 
sensible  interruption  between  their  poetry  and  the  varied 
intelligence  of  the  world.  In  the  seventeenth  century, 
however,  the  English  nation  lived  and  moved  in  a  theology 
which  had  its  particularities  as  well  as  its  generalities ;  and 
hence  there  might  well  be  poets  who,  in  giving  poetical 
form  even  to  the  particularities,  were  powerfully  at  one 
with  contemporary  feeling,  and  addressed  known  constitu 
encies.  Such  metrical  expositors  of  theology  distributed 
themselves  naturally  into  two  classes,  corresponding  with 
the  two  prevalent  varieties  of  English  theology  at  that  time, 
— the  popular  Calvinism  and  the  encroaching  Laudism  or 
Arminianism. 

Among  the  poets  of  the  popular  Calvinism  might  be 
reckoned  Wither,  whose  Hymns  of  the  Church  and  other 
devotional  lyrics  have  recently  been  reproduced  for  admira 
tion  as  specimens  of  pure  and  simple  English.  So  far  as 
Wither  is  theological,  he  is  Calvinistic.  As  a  theological 
poet,  however,  he  was  not  so  popular,  it  would  seem,  as 
Francis  Quarles ;  in  whom,  notwithstanding  that  his  subse 
quent  political  connexions  were  with  the  Royalists,  we  also 
recognise  a  mode  of  thought  essentially  puritanical.  In 
1632  Quarles  was  forty  years  of  age.  An  Essex  man  by 
birth,  and  educated  at  Cambridge  and  at  Milton's  own 
college  there,  he  had  studied  law  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  had  been 
in  the  service  of  the  Queen  of  Bohemia  abroad,  and  had 
also  been  some  time  in  Ireland  as  private  secretary  to  Arch 
bishop  Usher.  In  1620  he  had  published  his  first  poem, 
The  History  of  Jonah,  or  a  Feast  for  Worms  ;  and  this  had 
been  followed  by  other  publications  of  a  similar  character, — 
e.  g.  The  History  of  Queen  Esther  in  1621,  Job  Militant  in 
1624,  8 ion9 s  Elegies  wept  by  Jeremie  the  Prophet  in  1624> 
Sion's  Sonnets  sung  by  Solomon  the  King  in  1625,  and  a 
general  collection  of  Divine  Poems  in  1630.  The  popularity 
of  Quarles  was  to  be  immensely  increased  by  subsequent 


.PKAKCIS    QUAELES.  491 

publications,  more  especially  by  his  well-known  Emblems, 
Divine  and  Moral,  the  first  edition  of  which  appeared  in 
1635  ;  bat  already  he  was  near  being  what  his  "  Emblems  " 
made  him  through  the  rest  of  that  century  and  beyond, 
"the  darling  of  our  plebeian  judgments."  Personally,  he 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  sufficiently  shrewd  and  com 
fortable  habits.  He  was  a  man  of  business,  held  in  succes 
sion  several  snug  situations,  and,  when  he  died  at  the  age 
of  fifty-two,  left  eighteen  children.  But  in  his  poems  all  is 
gloomy  and  miserable.  In  one  of  his  emblems,  illustrating 
the  text,  "  0  wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  "  the  design  is  that  of  a  man 
literally  enclosed  within  the  ribs  of  a  skeleton,  through  which 
he  gazes  woefully,  as  through  imprisoning  bars.  This  is  a  type 
of  most  of  his  poetry.  His  most  frequent  meditation  is  :  — 

"  Why,  what  are  men  but  quickened  lumps  of  earth, 
A  feast  for  worms,  a  bubble  full  of  breath, 
A  looking-glass  for  grief,  a  flash,  a  minute, 
A  painted  tomb  with  putrefaction  in  it, 
A  map  of  death,  a  burthen  of  a  song, 
A  winter's  dust,  a  worm  of  five  feet  long, 
Begot  in  sin,  in  darkness  nourished,  born 
In  sorrow,  naked,  shiftless,  and  forlorn] 

Again, 

li  O  what  a  crocodilian  world  is  this, 
Composed  of  treacheries  and  ensnaring  smiles  ! " 

Without  positively  rejecting  Quarles,  the  softer  and  more 
ceremonious  minds  in  the  Church  of  England  must  have 
found  a  spirit  more  congenial  to  their  own  in  the  poets  of 
the  Anglo- Catholic  school.  Donne  himself,  anti-Calvinistic 
in  his  views  from  the  first  and  Roman  Catholic  to  begin 
with,  had  written  sacred  .poems  of  which  Laud  might  have 
approved,  though  their  art  might  have  perplexed  him.  He 
had  left  Holy  Sonnets,  Hymns  to  God  the  Father,  to  the 
Virgin  Mary  and  to  the  Saints,  and  Poems  on  the  Annunci 
ation,  Good  Friday,  &c.,  all  subtilizing  English  Theology 
into  Catholicism  or  Semi- Catholicism.  Thus  : — 

"  For  that  fair  blessed  Mother-Maid 
Whose  flesh  redeemed  us  (that  she-cherubim 


492  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Which  unlocked  Paradise,  and  made 
The  claim  for  innocence,  and  disseized  sin  ; 

Whose  womb  was  a  strange  Heaven,  for  there 

God  clothed  himself  and  grew), 
Our  zealous  thanks  we  pour.    As  her  deeds  were 
Our  helps,  so  are  her  prayers ;  nor  can  she  sue 
In  vain,  who  hath  such  titles,  unto  You." 

Inheriting  Donne's  death-bed  blessing,  and  inheriting  also 
much  of  his  spirit  and  of  his  literary  manner,  but  a  man 
altogether  of  gentler  and  more  tuneful  heart,  George  Herbert, 
during  the  two  years  in  which  he  survived  Donne,  wrote 
such  verses  on  the  themes  in  which  Donne  had  preceded 
him  that,  when  the  two  volumes  were  edited  together  in 
1633,  Herbert's  under  the  care  of  Nicholas  Ferrar,  there 
was  no  question  which  would  be  most  read.  What  Quarles's 
poetry  was  to  plebeian  Christians  and  to  those  fond  of 
"strong  meat"  in  theology,  the  same  was  and  has  been 
Herbert's  Temple  to  Christians  of  more  aristocratic  breeding 
or  of  milder  theological  tastes.  The  annual  sale  of  the  book, 
for  about  thirty  years,  averaged  a  thousand  copies.  While 
it  owed  part  of  this  popularity  to  the  spirit  of  general 
Christian  sanctity  which  it  breathes,  it  owed  part  also  to  its 
purely  intellectual  affinities  with  the  Anglican  ceremonialism 
with  which  the  Puritans  were  at  feud.  The  book  is,  indeed, 
a  poetical  enunciation  of  the  Laudian  Beauty  of  Holiness, 
with  a  detection  of  that  idea  in  all  the  parts  of  the  Anglican 
worship,  and  in  the  architectural  and  other  details  of  a  well- 
ordered  parish  church.  Thus  the  verses  on  the  church- 
floor  : — 

"  Mark  you  the  floor  1    That  square  and  speckled  stone, 
Which  looks  so  firm  and  strong, 

Is  Patience : 

And  the  other,  black  and  grave,  wherewith  each  one 
Is  chequered  all  along, 

Humility. 

The  gentle  rising,  which  on  either  hand 
Leads  to  the  quire  above, 

Is  Confidence  : 

But  the  sweet  cement,  which  in  one  sure  band 
Ties  the  whole  frame,  is  Love 
And  Charity. 

Hither  sometimes  Sin  steals,  and_  stains 
The  marble's  neat  and  curious  veins  ; 


GEORGE   HERBERT.  493 

But  all  is  cleansed  when  the  marble  weeps. 

Sometimes  Death,  puffing  at  the  door, 

Blows  all  the.dust  about  the  floor  ; 
But,  while  he  thinks  to  spoil  the  room,  he  sweeps . 

Blest  be  the  Architect  whose  art 
Could  build  so  strong  in  a  weak  heart." 

Besides  Herbert,  there  were  others  who  wrote  devotional 
poetry  in  the  same  spirit,  and  in  a  style  in  which  Donne's 
literary  influence  was  equally  perceptible.  Among  the 
literary  exercises  which  Ferrar  permitted  to  himself,  as  not 
incompatible  with  the  life  of  monastic  seclusion  which  he 
had  chosen,  was  the  composition  of  devotional  hymns  to  be 
sung  in  his  holy  household.  Izaak  Walton,  though  he  was 
not  to  be  publicly  known  as  a  prose  author  till  1640,  was 
already  a  writer  of  occasional  religious  verses,  or  at  least  of 
verses  complimentary  to  Donne  and  other  masters  in  divinity. 
But  the  good  Izaak  had  not  found  it  necessary  for  his  piety 
to  take  such  stringent  measures  as  Ferrar  against  all  secular 
pursuits.  He  was  now  in  his  fortieth  year ;  he  had  either 
married,  or  was  just  about  to  marry ;  he  was  carrying  on  a 
good  business  as  a  clothier  near  the  Fleet-street  end  of 
Chancery-lane,  in  the  parish  of  which  Donne  had  been  vicar  ; 
and  he  had  on  his  book- shelves,  beside  his  fishing-tackle, 
not  only  books  of  sound  divinity  recommended  to  him  by 
Donne,  but  also  a  tolerable  collection  of  Elizabethan  poetry. 
He  must  have  had  an  affection,  in  particular,  for  Spenser 
and  the  Arcadians. 

By  a  slight  anticipation  we  may  here  name,  as  having  had 
some  qualities  in  common  with  Donne  and  Herbert,  another 
poet  who  has  kept  his  place  in  our  collections, — William 
Habington,  the  author  of  Castara.  Habington  was  the  son 
of  a  Roman  Catholic  gentleman  of  Worcestershire,  who  had 
been  imprisoned  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  for  his  supposed 
connexion  with  Babington's  conspiracy,  and  bad  been  con 
demned  to  death  as  one  implicated  in  the  Gunpowder  Plot. 
He  had  owed  his  life  on  the  latter  occasion  to  the  interest 
of  his  relative,  Lord  Monteagle;  and  it  has  even  been 
supposed  that  his  wife,  the  poet's  mother,  was  the  writer  of 


494  LIFE    OF    MILTOX   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

the  famous  anonymous  letter  to  Lord  Monteagle  which  led 
to  the  discovery  of  the  plot.  If  so,  the  poet  himself  may 
have  unconsciously  contributed  to  the  important  step  taken 
by  the  lady  in  her  trepidation ;  for  he  was  born  on  the  5th 
of  November,  1605,  the  very  day  on  which  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons  were  to  have  been  blown  up.1  As  became 
such  a  nativity,  the  poet  was  educated  at  Jesuit  schools  and 
colleges  abroad,  with  the  intention  that  he  should  be  a 
Catholic  priest.  Declining  this  destiny,  but  remaining  firm 
to  the  Catholic  faith,  he  had  returned  to  England,  to  live  on 
the  family  estate  in  Worcestershire,  which  became  his  by 
his  father's  death.  The  chief  event  of  his  life  before  1632 
had  been,  it  seems,  his  courtship  of  Lucy,  the  daughter  of 
William  Herbert,  first  Lord  Powis.  To  her,  under  the 
name  of  Castara,  he  had  addressed  a  great  many  sonnets 
and  short  poems  in  different  metres,  celebrating  her  charms 
corporeal  and  mental,  first  as  her  hopeful  lover,  and  then  as 
her  happy  and  admiring  husband.  These  poems,  together 
with  others  of  a  pious  or  meditative  character  on  texts  taken 
from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  were  in  circulation  among  his 
friends  in  1632,  but  do  not  seem  to  have  been  published 
complete  till  1635,  when  they  appeared,  under  the  title  of 
Castara,  in  three  parts.  The  first  part  contains  the  verses  to 
Castara  before  marriage ;  the  second  contains  those  to  Castara 
as  his  wife;  and  the  third  consists  of  miscellaneous  poems 
of  piety. 

Habington  proclaims  it  to  be  his  purpose  to  teach  the 
world  a  new  strain  in  poetry.  Speaking  in  his  preface  of 
most  love  poets  as  "heathens  who  can  give  no  nobler 
"  testimony  of  twenty  years'  employment  than  some  loose 
' ( copies  of  lust  happily  expressed/'  he  hopes  that,  "  if  the 
"  innocency  of  a  chaste  muse  shall  be  more  acceptable  and 
"  weigh  heavier  in  the  balance  of  esteem,"  he  mav  drive 
those  rivals  out  of  the  field.  The  poems,  accordingly,  are 

i  Life  of  Habington,  by  Chalmers,  in  November  "  is  made  the  day  of  Habing- 

« English    Poets,"    Vol.    VI.    p.  440.  ton's  birth.    Guy  Fawkes  was  caught 

Chalmers,  however,  cites  a  foot-note  in  the  cellar  at  one  o'clock  on  the 

from  Dod's  Catholic  Church  History,  morning  of  the  5th. 
in  which  "  either  the  4th  or  the  5th  of 


WILLIAM    HABINGTON,  495 

poems  of  virtuous  aristocratic  wooing,  and  then  of  satisfied 
conjugal  affection ;  and  occasion  is  taken  throughout  to 
expound  the  author's  idea  of  the  character  and  behaviour 
proper  in  woman,  and  of  her  just  relations  to  the  other  sex. 
A  kind  of  sweet,  modest  punctiliosity  is  the  virtue  he  strives 
to  paint  and  inculcate  in  his  ideal  woman.  Thus,  in  his 
prose  character  of  "  A  Mistress/'  prefixed  to  the  first  portion 
of  his  poems :  "  She  is  deaf  to  the  whispers  of  love,  and 
' '  even  in  the  marriage-hour  can  break  off  without  the  least 
"  suspicion  of  scandal  to  the  former  liberty  of  her  carriage. 
"  She  avoids  a  too  near  conversation  with  man,  and,  like 
"  the  Parthian,  overcomes  by  flight.  .  .  .  She  never  arrived 
"to  so  much  familiarity  with  a  man  as  to  know  the  diminu- 
( '  tive  of  his  name  and  call  him  by  it,  and  she  can  show  a 
"  competent  favour  without  yielding  her  hand  to  his  gripe." 
And  so  in  the  description  of  his  Castara,  as  the  centre  of 
all  those  virtues  : — 

"  Like  the  violet,  which  alone 
Prospers  in  some  happy  shade, 
My  Castara  lives  alone, 
To  no  looser  eye  betrayed ; 

For  she's  to  herself  untrue 

Who  delights  in  public  view. 

Such  is  her  beauty  as  no  arts 
Have  enriched  with  borrowed  grace  ; 
Her  high,  birth,  no  pride  imparts, 
For  she  blushes  in  her  place. 

Folly  boasts  a  glorious  blood  ; 

She  is  noblest  being  good. 

Cautious,  she  knew  never  yet 

What  a  wanton  courtship  meant ; 

Nor  speaks  loud  to  show  her  wit, 

In  her  silence  eloquent. 

Of  herself  survey  she  takes, 

But  'tween  men  no  difference  makes." 

This  is  pretty ;  but  the  poet  makes  it  quite  clear  that  his 
own  virtue  did  not  proceed  from  the  ignorance  which  he 
commends  in  Castara.  Poets  who  "adorn  the  wrinkled 
face  of  lust "  are  lectured  by  him  thus  : — 

"  When  we  speak  love,  nor  art  nor  wit 
We  gloss  upon  : 


496  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Our  souls  engender  and  beget 
Ideas  which  you  counterfeit 
In  your  dull  propagation. 

While  Time  seven  ages  shall  disperse, 

We'll  talk  of  love  : 

And,  when  our  tongues  hold  no  commerce, 
Our  thoughts  shall  mutually  converse, 
And  yet  the  blood  no  rebel  prove. 

And,  though  we  be  of  several  kind, 

Fit  for  offence, 
Yet  are  we  so  by  love  refined 
From  impure  dross  we  are  all  mind  ; 
Death  could  not  more  have  conquered  sense." 

In  his  poems  descriptive  of  the  wifely  virtues  the  same 
strain  is  continued,  with  the  due  variation.  Modest  obedience 
to  the  husband  is  the  chief  of  these  virtues.  "  She  is 
"inquisitive  only  of  new  ways  to  please  him,  and  her  wit 
' '  sails  by  no  other  compass  than  that  of  his  direction.  She 
"  looks  upon  him  as  conjurers  upon  the  circle,  beyond  which 
"there  is  nothing  but  death  and  hell;  and  in  him  she 
"believes  paradise  circumscribed.  His  virtues  are  her 
"  wonder  and  imitation,  and  his  errors  her  credulity  thinks 
"no  more  frailty  than  makes  him  descend  to  the  title  of 
"  man/'  And  so  in  his  appended  set  of  meditative  or 
religious  poems,  in  which  he  describes  the  feelings  of  a  good 
man  in  matters  higher  than  the  matrimonial.  "  Catholic 
"faith/'  he  says,  "is  the  foundation  on  which  he  erects 
"  religion,  knowing  it  a  ruinous  madness  to  build  in  the  air 
"  of  a  private  spirit  or  on  the  sands  of  any  new  schism.  His 
"  impiety  is  not  so  bold  to  bring  Divinity  down  to  the 
"  mistake  of  Reason,  or  to  deny  those  mysteries  his  appre- 
"  hension  reacheth  not.  His  obedience  moves  still  by  the 
' :  direction  of  the  magistrate ;  and,  should  conscience  inform 
"him  that  the  demand  is  unjust,  he  judgeth  it  nevertheless 
"  high  treason  by  rebellion  to  make  good  his  tenets/' 
From  these  sentences  it  will  be  seen  that  Habington,  in  this 
particular  portion  of  his  poems,  takes  a  place  among  the 
religious  poets  of  the  time  beside  Donne  and  Herbert,  with 
about  as  much  difference  as  might  be  supposed  to  arise 
from  the  mode  of  thought  of  a  loyal  English  Roman  Catholic 


WILLIAM    HABINGTON.  495 

as  compared  with  that  of  two  Anglican  churchmen.  In  these 
poems  he  rises  above  his  pedantry  and  frigidity,  and  even 
seems  to  leave  poor  Castara  behind,  as,  though  still  perfect 
enough  in  her  way,  only  an  impediment  to  the  higher 
ecstasies  of  his  private  contemplations.  Thus,  in  his  poem 
Cogitabo  pro  Peccato  Meo}  after  passing  in  review  all  the 
stages  of  his  past  life,  his  love  and  his  literature  included, 
as  but  time  trifled  away,  he  concludes, — 

"  But  now,  my  soul,  prepare 
To  ponder  what  and  where  we  are  : 
How  frail  is  life,  how  vain  a  breath 
Opinion,  how  uncertain  death  ; 
How  only  a  poor  stone  shall  bear 
Witness  that  once  we  were ; 
How  a  shrill  trumpet  shall 
Us  to  the  bar  as  traitors  call. 
Then  shall  we  see  too  late  that  pride 
Hath  hope  with  flattery  belied, 
And  that  the  mighty  in  command 
Pale  cowards  there  must  stand." 

In  Habington's  poetry,  more  easily  than  in  any  other 
poetry  of  the  period  of  the  same  virtuous  aim  and  tendency, 
there  may  be  detected  a  characteristic  which  nevertheless 
exists  in  almost  all  the  poets  with  whom  we  have  associated 
him.  It  may  be  described  as  an  inordinately  particular 
recognition  of  the  fact  of  sex.  These  words  are  used  to 
distinguish  between  what  they  are  here  meant  to  signify 
and  that  apparently  identical,  but  really  different,  perception 
which  pervades  the  poetry  of  all  ages,  and  without  which 
history  would  be  full  of  fallacy  and  philosophy  itself  imper 
fect, — the  perception  of  love  as  an  influence  in  all  human 
affairs.  Quite  different  was  the  mental  habit  of  which  we 
speak.  It  was  rather  a  fascination  of  the  mind  round  the 
radical  fact  of  sex,  a  limitation  of  the  mental  activity  within 
the  range  of  the  immediate  suggestions  of  that  fact,  a 
diffusion  of  it  and  of  deductions  from  it  through  all  kinds  of 
considerations.  There  may  be  noted,  for  example,  in  most 
of  the  writers  under  view,  a  strained  attention  to  the  fact, 
as  if  all  morality  depended  on  continual  reference  to  it,  a 
vigilance  of  it  as  of  the  only  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil  within  the  whole  circle  of  the  garden  wherein  men 
VOL.  i.  K  K 


498  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

now  walk.  The  word  sin  in  their  language  almost  invariably 
means  but  one  class  of  those  actions  which  are  included  in 
a  larger  and  manlier  definition.  Hence,  in  some  of  them,  a 
view  of  human  duty  negative  and  special  rather  than  positive 
or  broad.  Even  the  saintly  Herbert  is  not  free  from  this 
narrowness,  and  Ferrar's  very  notion  of  the  best  m'eans 
towards  a  blessed  life  may  be  referred  to  some  such  cause. 
But  it  is  worse  when,  as  is  the  case  with  some  of  them, 
they  will  not,  with  all  their  alarm  over  the  fact,  take  the 
obvious  precaution  of  getting  out  of  its  way.  With  some 
of  them  it  is  as  if,  in  walking  round  and  round  this  one 
charmed  tree,  and  avoiding  every  other  part  of  the  garden, 
they  divided  their  business  between  warnings  not  to  eat  of 
the  fruit  and  praises  of  its  deliciousness  when  licit. 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  same  fact  by  which,  in  its 
primary  aspect,  some  were  alternately  repelled  and  attracted, 
was  transformed  and  allegorized  and  sublimated  in  the 
minds  of  others,  till  it  passed  into  a  permanent  mode  of 
their  thought  and  affected  all  their  rhetoric.  In  Donne, 
indeed,  whose  grasp  of  the  fact  was  bold  to  audacity,  and  in 
whose  earlier  poems  there  is  an  absolute  contempt  of  all 
distinction  between  licit  and  illicit,  it  is  as  a  text  susceptible 
of  endless  metaphysical  interpretations,  in  addition  to  the 
literal  one,  that  the  fact  continually  figures.  In  others, 
however,  the  fact,  in  proportion  as  it  is  shunned  by  the  hard 
intellect,  seems  to  take  out  its  influence  in  a  certain  enerva 
tion  and  languor  of  sentiment,  a  kind  of  introversion  of  the 
sensual  into  the  spiritual.  In  some  of  the  devotional  poets 
under  notice  it  is  as  if  the  allegory  of  Solomon's  Song  had 
taken  exclusive  possession  of  their  imagination,  and  had 
there  melted  and  inhered  till  all  their  language  was  tinged 
by  the  deliquescence.  Let  one  example  suffice.  In  a  de 
votional  poem,  written  in  a  prayer-book  sent  by  the  poet  to 
a  lady,  feminine  piety  is  thus  described : — 

"  Amorous  languishments,  luminous  trances  ; 

Sights  which  are  not  seen  with  eyes  ; 
Spiritual  and  soul-piercing  glances, 
Whose  pure  and  subtle  lightning  flies 


RICHARD    CRASHAW.  499 

Home  to  the  heart  and  sets  the  house  on  fire, 
And  melts  it  down  in  sweet  desire, 

Yet  doth  not  stay 

To  ask  the  windows'  leave  to  pass  that  way  : 
Delicious  deaths,  soft  exhalations 
Of  soul ;  dear  and  divine  annihilations  ; 

A  thousand  unknown  rites 

Of  joys  and  rarified  delights  : 
An  hundred  thousand  loves  and  graces, 

And  many  a  mystic  thing 

Which  the  divine  embraces 
Of  the  dear  spouse  of  spirits  with  them  will  bring  ; 

For  which  it  is  no  shame 
That  dull  mortality  must  not  know  a  name. 

O  fair  !  O  fortunate  !  O  rich  !  O  dear  ! 

O  happy  and  thrice  happy  she, 

Dear  silver-breasted  dove, 

Whoe'er  she  be, 

Whose  early  love 

With  winged  vows 

Makes  haste  to  meet  her  morning  spouse, 
And  close  with  his  immortal  kisses  ! 

Happy  soul  who  never  misses 

To  improve  that  precious  hour, 

And  every  day 

Seize  her  sweet  prey, 

All  fresh  and  fragrant  as  he  rises, 

Dropping  with  a  balmy  shower, 

A  delicious  dew  of  spices  ! 
Oh,  let  that  happy  soul  hold  fast 
Her  heavenly  armful." 

This  is  not  from  Donne  or  IIerbert,.or  any  of  the  other  poets 
that  have  been  mentioned,  but  from  a  poet  usually  included 
in  the  same  group, — Richard  Crashaw.  In  1632  Crashaw, 
the  son  of  an  eminent  London  preacher,  was  but  a  young 
scholar,  newly  admitted  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  and 
known  there  only  as  the  author  of  some  pieces  of  verse  on 
general  topics,  in  virtue  of  which  lie  might  have  been  ranked 
rather  among  the  young  Spenserians  than  among  the  re 
ligious  poets.  Had  Milton,  before  leaving  Christ's  College, 
become  acquainted  with  the  younger  versifier  of  Pembroke, 
and  read  his  Music's  Dael,  his  Elegies  on  the  Death  of  Mr, 
Herry8t  and  such  other  pieces  of  verse,  original  or  translated, 
as  he  then  had  to  show,  he  would  have  found  in  them  a 
sensuous  beauty  of  style  and  sweetness  of  rhythm  quite  to 
his  taste.  It  was  only  in  the  course  of  the  next  ten  years 

K  K  2 


500  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

or  so  that  Crashaw,  still  residing  at  Cambridge,  latterly  as 
fellow  of  Peterhouse,  was  to  leave  lighter  Spenserian  themes 
for  the  "  scriptures,  divine  graces,  martyrs,  and  angels/' 
which  are  the  subjects  of  the  greater  part  of  his  remaining 
poems.  It  was  then  also  that  he  exhibited  that  tendency  to 
a  mystical  or  seraphic  piety  which  led  him  at  last  to  forsake 
the  Church  of  England  for  the  communion  of  Rome.  Herbert's 
Temple  became  the  model  of  his  religious  poetry ;  and  it  is 
from  his  collection  of  pieces  named  Steps  to  the  Temple, 
written  at  Cambridge  as  a  kind  of  sequel  to  Herbert's 
poems,  though  not  published  till  1646,  that  the  foregoing 
extract  is  taken.  On  the  whole,  there  was  a  richer  vein  of 
poetical  genius  in  Crashaw  than  in  Herbert ;  but  the  spiritual 
ized  voluptuousness  which  appears  in  the  above  extract,  and 
which  characterizes  many  of  Crashaw's  religious  poems,  is 
foreign  to  the  clear  Anglican  muse  of  Herbert.  It  is 
chargeable  rather  to  Crashaw's  idiosyncrasy  as  it  had  been 
affected  by  contemplations  in  a  particular  order  of  doctrines, 
to  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  always  attributed 
a  peculiar  religious  efficacy, — the  doctrines  of  celibacy,  the 
immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin,  and  the  like.  And  yet 
in  Crashaw's  poetry,  in  this  respect,  we  see  but  the  undis 
guised  excess  of  a  mode  of  thought  perceptible  not  only 
among  the  poets  with  whom  he  is  usually  associated,  but 
also  among  cognate  religious  prose-writers.  Apart  from  the 
modified  intellectual  assent  expressly  accorded  by  Donne, 
by  Ferrar,  and  by  others,  to  some  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
doctrines  which  Crashaw  seems  to  have  made  his  spiritual 
diet,  we  trace  a  more  occult  effect  of  the  same  influence  in  a 
rhetorical  peculiarity  common  to  many  of  the  writers  of  this 
theological  school.  We  cannot  define  the  peculiarity  better 
than  by  saying  that  it  consists  in  a  certain  flowing  effeminacy 
of  expression,  a  certain  languid  sensualism  of  fancy,  an 
almost  cloying  use  of  the  words,  "  sweet/'  "  dear/'  and  the 
like,  with  reference  to  all  kinds  of  objects.  In  Izaak 
Walton's  prose,  and  in  much  of  the  richest  English  prose 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  this  peculiarity  is  discernible. 
There  is  an  oriental  fragrance  in  the  air,  an  odour  as  of 


BISHOP   COEBET.  501 

concealed  apples,  in  which  one  breathes  rather  faintly,  and 
with  eyes  half- shut. 

There  remain  to  be  named  a  few  WITS  AND  LIGHT  LYRISTS 
who,  though  all  known  as  skirmishers  in  the  literary  field 
before  1632,  had  not,  up  to  that  time,  taken  a  definite  rank 
among  their  contemporaries  by  regular  publication.  The 
list,  to  be  complete,  would  have  to  include  some  scores  of 
courtiers,  lawyers,  clergymen,  &c. ;  but  only  the  more 
important  can  be  glanced  at. 

The  jolly  Bishop  Corbet  of  Norwich,  j  ust  removed  to  that 

see  from  Oxford,  was  now  fifty  years  of  age,  of  a  sufficiently 

grave   and  episcopal   aspect,  and  of  Laudian  or  Arminian 

principles,  but  with  a  reputation  like  that  of  Friar  Tuck  in 

the  old  ballads,  or  of  Chaucer's  monk  in  the  Canterbury 

Pilgrimage.       His   reputation   for    facetiousness    and    good 

fellowship  had  begun  while  he  was  yet  a  student  of  Christ 

Church,    Oxford,    and    had    accompanied   him  through   his 

clerical  career.     It  was  said  that,  after  he  was  Doctor  of 

Divinity,  he  had,  in  a  freak,  put  on  a  ballad-singer's  jacket 

and  sold  off  his  stock  of  ballads  for  him  at  the  market-cross 

of  Abingdon.     Biding  once  in  a  coach,  in  a  very  dirty  lane, 

in  wet  weather,  with  a  Dr.  Stubbins,  who  was  "one  of  his 

cronies  and  a  jolly  fat  doctor/'  he  had  a  break-down,  the 

results  of  which  he  described  by  saying  that,  on  recovering 

his  senses,  he  found  Stubbins  up  to  the  elbows  in  mud,  and 

himself  up  to  the  elbows  in  Stubbins.     "  One  time,  as  he 

"  was  confirming,  the  country  people  pressing  in  to  see  the 

"  ceremony,  said  he,  '  Bear  off  there,  or  I'll  confirm  ye  with 

"  '  my  staff.'     Another  time,  being  to  lay  his  hand  on  the 

"  head  of  a  man  very  bald,  he  turns  to  his  chaplain  and  said, 

" '  Some    dust,   Lushington/   i.  e.   to  keep  his    hand   from 

"slipping.      This    chaplain,    Dr.    Lushington,    was    a   very 

"  learned,  ingenious  man,  and  they  loved  one  another.     The 

"  bishop  would  sometimes  take  the  key  of  the  wine-cellar  ^ 

"  and  he  and  his  chaplain  would  go  and  lock  themselves  in, 

"  and  be  merry.     Then  first  he  lays  down  his  hood,  '  There 

"  '  lies  the  doctor  ' ;  then  he  puts  off  his  gown,  '  There  lie^ 


502  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  '  the  bishop  ':  then  'twas,  '  Here's  to  thee,  Corbet ' ;  '  Here's 
"fto  thee,  Lushington.'  " l  These  stories,  whether  true  of 
the  bishop  or  only  fathered  upon  him,  are  in  the  exact  spirit 
of  the  specimens  of  his  verse  that  remain,  written  some  of 
them  as  early  as  1610,  but  others  after  he  was  bishop.  His 
ballad  entitled  The  Fairies'  Farewell  has  some  fancy  as  well 
as  liveliness  in  it. 

tl  At  morning  and  at  evening  both. 

You  merry  were  and  glad  ; 
So  little  care  of  sleep  or  sloth 

These  pretty  ladies  had. 
When  Tom  came  home  from  labour, 

Or  Ciss  to  milking  rose, 
Then  merrily,  merrily  went  their  tabour, 

And  nimbly  went  their  toes. 

Witness  those  rings  and  roundelays 

Of  theirs  which  yet  remain, 
Were  footed  in  Queen  Mary's  days 

On  many  a  grassy  plain  : 
But  since,  of  late,  Elizabeth, 

And,  later,  James  came  in, 
They  never  danced  on  any  heath, 

As  when  the  time  hath  bin. 

By  which  we  note  the  fairies 

Were  of  the  old  profession  ; 
Their  songs  were  Ave-Maries, 

Their  dances  were  procession. 
.But  now,  alas  !  they  all  are  dead, 

Or  gone  beyond  the  seas, 
Or  farther  for  Religion  fled, 

Or  else  they  take  their  ease." 

More  of  a  poet  than  Corbet,  and  accounted  the  prince  of 
the  amorous  versifiers  of  his  day,  was  Thomas  Carew,  of  the 
Carews  of  Gloucestershire,  born  about  1589,  and  now,  in  his 
forty-fourth  year,  Gentleman  of  the  Privy  Chamber  and 
Sewer  in  Ordinary  to  King  Charles,  who  "always  esteemed 
him/'  says  Wood,  "  one  of  the  most  celebrated  wits  in  his 
court."  He  was  "  much  respected,  if  not  adored,  by  the 
poets  of  his  time,  especially  Ben  Jonson";  and,  according 
to  Qldys,  his  verses  were  more  in  request  in  aristocratic 
society  between  1630  and  1640  than  those  of  any  other  poet. 
It  is  easy  yet,  in  reading  them,  to  see  the  reason  of  this 

1  Aubrpy's  Lives. 


CAREW    AND    SUCKLING.  503 

popularity.  There  is  alight  French  spirit  in  his  love  poems, 
a  grace  and  even  a  tenderness  of  sentiment,  and  a  lucid 
softness  of  style,  that  make  them  peculiarly  pleasing,  and 
that,  even  when  he  becomes  indecent,  help  to  save  him. 
He  has  an  elegy  on  Donne's  death  showing  his  extraordinary 
veneration  for  that  poet.  He  has  also  verses  of  strong 
compliment  to  Ben  Jonson  and  his  style.  But,  though  there 
is  evident  sincerity  in  his  praises  of  these  poets,  and  in 
several  of  his  pieces  he  writes  in  their  strain,  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare  seem  to  have  been  his  favourites  for  private 
reading,  and  he  seems  to  have  formed  his  style  partly  from 
them  and  partly  from  the  light  artificial  French  poets  with 
whom  he  had  become  acquainted  in  his  travels.  This  is  in 
Carew's  characteristic  vein  : — 

"  He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek, 

Or  a  coral  lip  admires, 
Or  from  star-like  eyes  doth  seek 

Fuel  to  maintain  his  fires, — 
As  old  Time  makes  those  decay, 
So  his  flames  must  waste  away. 

But  a  smooth  and  stedfast  mind, 
Gentle  thoughts  and  calm  desires, 

Hearts  with  equal  love  combined, 
Kindle  never-dying  fires. 

Where  these  are  not,  I  despise 

Lovely  cheeks  or  lips  or  eyes." 

These  and  some  hundred  pieces,  chiefly  of  the  same  gracefully 
artificial  cast  of  lyric,  were  published  collectively  as  Carew's 
Poems  in  1640.  The  author  had  died  in  the  preceding  year, 
regretting,  according  to  Clarendon,  that  his  life  had  not  been 
better  spent. 

For  one  who  now  reads  anything  of  Carew  there  are 
twenty  who  know  by  heart  some  verses  of  his  friend  and 
brother- courtier,  Sir  John  Suckling.  His  ballad  upon  a 
wedding,  with  the  necessary  omission  of  a  verse  or  two,  is 
in  all  our  books  of  poetical  extracts.  Hardly  less  familiar  is 
his  song  on  the  bashful  lover : — 

"  Why  so  pale  and  wan,  fond  lover  1 
Pr'ythee,  why  so  pale  1 


504  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Will,  when  looking  well  can't  move  her, 
Looking  ill  prevail  1 
Pr'ythee,  why  so  pale  ? 

Why  so  dull  and  mute,  young  sinner  ? 

Pr'ythee,  why  so  mute  ? 
Will,  when  speaking  well  can't  win  her, 

Saying  nothing  do't  1 

Pr'ythee,  why  so  mute  1 

Quit,  quit,  for  shame  !    This  will  not  move, 

This  cannot  take  her  ; 
If  of  herself  she  will  not  love, 

Nothing  can  make  her. 

The  Devil  take  her  ! " 

Born  in  1609,  the  son  of  a  knight  who  was  Comptroller  of 
the  Royal  Household  under  James  and  Charles,  Suckling 
had  spent  much  of  his  youth  abroad,  where  he  had  "  taken 
on  a  little  too  much  of  the  French  air" ;  and  in  1630  he  had 
served  in  a  campaign  in  the  Low  Countries,  and  been  pre 
sent  at  several  battles  and  sieges.     Returning  to  England 
in  or  about  his  twenty-second  year,  he  was  known  thence 
forward   as   perhaps    the    sprightliest,   airiest    spark    about 
court,  till  his  premature  death  just  before  the  beginning  of 
the  Civil  Wars.     Aubrey  obtained  a  minute  description  of 
him  from  his  intimate  friend  Davenant.     "  He  was  incom- 
"  parably  ready  at  reparteeing,  and  his  wit  most  sparkling 
(<  when  most  set  upon  and  provoked.     He  was  the  greatest 
"gallant  of  his  time,  the  greatest  gamester  both  for  bowling 
"  and  cards ;  so  that  no  shopkeeper  would    trust   him  for 
"  sixpence, — as  to-day,  for  instance,  he  might,  by  winning, 
"  be  worth  2001.,  and  the  next  day  he  might  not  be  worth 
"  half  so    much,  or   perhaps   be    sometimes    minus    nihilo. 
"He  was  of  middle  stature  and  slight  strength,  brisk  round 
"  eye,  reddish-faced  and  red-nosed  (ill  liver),  his  head  not 
"  very   big,   his   hair   a   kind    of  sand  colour.     His  beard 
"  turned  up  naturally,  so  that  he  had  a  brisk  and  graceful 
"  look."     Having  once  had  to  run  away  from  a  man  whom 
he  had  waylaid  with  the  intention  of  beating  him,  he  was  a 
good  deal  rallied  on  the  subject  of  his  personal  courage; 
nor  did  he  ever  quite  come  up,  in  this  respect,  to  what 
might  have  been  expected  from  one  who  had  served  as  a 


EDMUND    WALLER.  505 

soldier.  His  works,  including  four  plays,  besides  his  humor 
ous  lyrics,  were  first  collected  in  1646,  when  the  author  had 
been  dead  five  years. 

How  much  a  long  life  and  a  cool  taste  may  contribute  to 
permanent  literary  celebrity  !  We  see  this  in  the  case  of 
Edmund  Waller,  who,  though  he  was  Suckling's  senior  by 
four  years,  was  to  live  for  forty-six  years  after  Suckling  was 
in  the  grave,  and  into  the  midst  of  a  generation  to  whom 
Suckling,  Carew,  and  the  Court  of  Charles  I.  were  but 
matters  of  distant  recollection.  The  cousin  of  John  Hamp- 
den  and  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  Waller  had  been  left,  when  but 
a  child,  the  possessor,  by  his  father's  death,  of  estates  in 
Bucks  and  Herts  worth  3,500L  a-year.  Thus  qualified  for 
a  public  life,  he  had,  after  an  education  at  Eton,  and  a  brief 
stay  at  King's  College,  Cambridge,  entered  King  James's 
Parliament  of  1621-22  as  member  for  Aguiondesham  in 
Bucks.  "His  political  and  poetical  life,"  says  Dr.  Johnson, 
"  began  nearly  together.  In  his  eighteenth  year  he  wrote 
<f  the  poem  that  now  appears  in  his  works  on  '  The  Prince's 
"  Escape  at  St.  Andero/  a  piece  which  justifies  the  observa- 
"  tion  made  by  one  of  his  editors,  that  he  attained,  by  a 
"  felicity  like  instinct,  a  style  which  will,  perhaps,  never  be 
"obsolete,  and  that,  were  we  to  judge  only  by  the  wording, 
"  we  could  not  know  what  was  written  by  him  at  twenty 
"  and  what  at  fourscore."  Here  are  a  few  lines  from  the 
poem : — 

"  Our  hero  set 

In  a  small  shallop,  fortune  in  his  debt, 
So  near  a  hope  of  crowns  and  sceptres  more 
Than  even  Priam,  when  he  flourished,  wore, 
His  loins  yet  full  of  ungot  princes,  all 
His  glory  in  the  bud,  lets  nothing  fall 
That  argues  fear.     If  any  thought  annoys 
The  gallant  youth,  'tis  love's  untasted  joys, 
And  dear  remembrance  of  that  fatal  glance 
For  which  he  lately  pawned  his  heart  in  France, 
Where  he  had  seen  a  brighter  nymph  than  she 
That  sprung  out  of  his  present  foe,  the  sea. 
That  noble  ardour,  more  than  mortal  fire, 
The  conquered  ocean  could  not  make  expire  ; 
Nor  angry  Thetis  raise  her  waves  above 
Th'  heroic  Prince's  courage  or  his  love. 
'Twos  indignation  and  not  fear  he  felt 
The  shrine  should  perish  where  that  image  dwelt." 


506  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

These  lines  were  probably  not  written  in  1623,  wlien  the 
incident  occurred,  but  inserted  into  the  poem  in  compliment 
to  Henrietta  Maria  after  she  had  become  queen.  With  the 
same  metrical  care,  and  chiefly  in  the  same  style  of  personal 
panegyric,  Waller  had  written  several  other  poetical  trifles 
before  1632,  and  among  them  one  on  "His  Majesty's 
receiving  the  news  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham's  death." 
Meantime  he  had  sat  in  Charles's  first  Parliament  in  1625 
and  in  his  third  of  1628-9,  taking  little  part  in  affairs,  but 
only  feeling  his  way.  He  had  married  a  very  rich  heiress, 
and  so  increased  his  fortune.  By  this  lady's  death,  he  was 
now,  at  the  age  of  seven-and-twenty,  a  widower  with  one 
daughter,  free  to  celebrate  the  praises  of  any  Sacharissa  or 
Amoret  to  whom  he  might  choose  to  dedicate  his  fancy. 
He  resided  chiefly  on  his  estate  in  Bucks,  not  writing  much, 
nor  mingling  much  with  general  society,  but  cultivating  his 
talent  by  study.  Carew  and  Suckling  were  probably 
acquainted  with  him,  but  he  seems  to  have  had  no  personal 
acquaintance  with  Ben  Jonson.  According  to  Aubrey,  he 
was  of  tallish  and  rather  slim,  make,  his  head  small,  his  eye 
full  and  brown,  and  his  bearing  somewhat  magisterial. 

Another  incipient  poet  of  the  day,  not  absolutely  unknown 
in  London,  though  not  so  well  known  as  the  courtiers  Carew 
and  Suckling,  or  as  the  rich  and  gentlemanly  Waller,  was 
Kobert  Herrick,  then  vicar  of  the  parish  of  Dean  Prior,  in 
Devonshire.  He  had  been  appointed  to  this  living  by  the 
King  in  1629,  when  he  was  in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  his 
age,  the  previous  portion  of  his  life,  after  he  had  left  Cam 
bridge,  having  been  spent  in  or  about  London,  where  he 
had  been  born  in  1591.  Before  removing  into  Devonshire, 
he  had  been  "  sealed  of  the  tribe  of  Ben  "  ;  and  the  proba 
bility  is  that  his  acquaintance  with  Ben,  and  with  the  con 
vivial  pleasures  of  the  Apollo  and  other  metropolitan  taverns 
which  Ben  honoured  with  his  presence,  had  rather  spoiled 
him  for  his  clerical  duties  among  his  Devonshire  parishioners. 
They  were  a  rude  set,  he  says, 

"  A  people  currish,  churlish  as  the  seas, 
And  rude  almost  as  rudest  salvages." 


HEERTCK.  507 

Nor  was  Herri ck  a  Herbert  to  cliime  religion  over  their 
hamlets  by  the  sound  of  his  chapel  bell.  He  was  an 
Anacreon  in  holy  orders,  whiling  away,  at  the  ripe  age  of 
forty,  the  dulness  of  his  Devonshire  parsonage  in  such 
ditties  as  these  : — 

"  Much,  I  know,  of  time  is  spent ; 
Tell  I  can't  what's  resident. 
Howsoever,  cares,  adieu ! 
I'll  have  nought  to  say  to  you  ; 
But  111  spend  my  coming  hours 
Drinking  wine  and  crowned  with  flowers." 

"  While  the  milder  fates  consent, 
Let's  enjoy  our  merriment, 
Drink  and  dance  and  pipe  and  play, 
Kiss  our  dollies  night  and  day." 

And  so,  in  every  other  poem,  he  sings  or  sips  his  wine,  with 
his  arm  round  an  imaginary  Julia.  Like  Anacreon,  he  is 
sweet  in  light  sensuous  descriptions  of  physical  nature. 
"  That  which  chiefly  pleases  in  his  poems,"  says  Phillips  in 
his  Theatrum  Poetarum,  "  is  now  and  then  a  pretty,  flowery, 
"  and  pastoral  gale  of  fancy,  a  vernal  prospect  of  some  hill, 
"  cave,  rock,  or  fountain."  There  was,  moreover,  a  tinge  of 
amiable  melancholy  in  his  genius,  the  melancholy  on  which 
the  Epicurean  philosophy  itself  rests.  His  little  poem  "  To 
the  Daffodils  "  has  tears  in  its  very  cadence  : — 

"  Fair  daffodils,  we  weep  to  see 
You  haste  away  so  soon ; 
As  yet  the  early-rising  sun 
Has  not  attained  his  noon  : 

Stay,  stay, 
Until  the  hastening  day 

Has  run 

Up  to  the  even-song  ; 
And,  having  prayed  together,  we 
Will  go  with  you  along. 

We  have  short  time  to  stay  as  you  ; 
We  have  as  short  a  spring, 
As  quick  a  growth  to  meet  decay 
As  you  or  any  thing. 
We  die 

As  your  hours  do,  and  dry 
Away, 

Like  to  the  summer's  rain, 
Or  as  the  pearls  of  morning  dew, 

Ne'er  to  be  found  again." 


508  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AXD    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

For  twenty  years  Herrick  was  to  go  on  writing,  in  his 
Devonshire  parsonage,  such  little  bits  of  song  or  epigram, 
mixed  with  religious  lyrics,  till,  when  turned  adrift  from  his 
parochial  charge  in  the  course  of  the  Civil  Wars,  he  had  a 
very  large  collection  of  them.  They  were  published  in  one 
thick  volume  in  1648;  but  there  are  allusions  which  show 
that  some  of  them  were  in  circulation  as  early  as  1632,  and 
that  Herrick  then  regarded  himself  as  one  of  the  fraternity 
of  English  poets.  Among  persons  to  whom  he  writes,  be 
sides  Jonson,  are  Selden  and  Bishop  Hall.  The  latter  was 
his  diocesan. 

Among  the  versifiers  of  the  same  school  as  Carew,  Herrick, 
and  Suckling,  were  the  two  young  Cantabs,  Thomas  Randolph 
of  Trinity  and  Cleveland  of  Christ's.  Randolph's  reputation 
as  one  of  Ben's  fivourite  "  sons  "  was  gained  as  much  by 
his  light  occasional  verses  as  by  his  plays.  Of  these,  and 
of  his  goings  to  and  fro  between  London  and  Cambridge, 
there  was  soon  to  be  an  end  by  his  death  in  1634.  His 
friend  Cleveland  had  a  longer  life  before  him.  Already  a 
pet  at  Cambridge,  he  was  to  be  better  known  beyond  Cam 
bridge  after  his  appointment  to  a  fellowship  in  St.  John's 
College  in  1634;  in  which  College  he  became  one  of  the 
tutors,  and,  being  excused  from  going  into  holy  orders, 
"became  the  rhetoric  reader,  and  was  usually  employed  by 
"  the  society  in  composing  their  speeches  and  epistles,  being 
"in  high  repute  for  the  purity  and  terseness  of  his  Latin 
"  style."  By  that  time  Oxford  had  a  young  poet  more  famous 
than  either  Cleveland  or  Randolph, — William  Cartwright  of 
Christ  Church,  the  son  of  a  Gloucestershire  innkeeper.  In. 
1632  Cartwright  had  just  taken  his  first  degree.  It  was  not 
till  after  1635,  when  he  took  orders,  that  his  great  fame 
began.  From  that  date  to  his  death  in  1643,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-two,  no  terms  were  to  be  too  strong  to  express  the 
admiration  of  him.  He  was  <e  the  most  florid  and  seraphical 
preacher  in  the  University  "  and  "  the  most  noted  poet, 
orator,  and  philosopher  of  his  time."  There  is  nothing  in  his 
remaining  writings  to  account  for  these  hyperbolic  praises. 
"  My  son  Cartwright,"  said  Ben  Jon  son,  "  writes  like  a 


LATIN    VERSI1IERS.  509 

man";  and  the  compliment  implies  an  acquaintance  be 
tween  him  and  Ben,  begun  as  early  as  1632,  or  not  much 
later. 

Corbet,  Carew,  Suckling,  Herrick,  Randolph,  Cleveland, 
and  Cartwright  were  all  anti-Puritans,  constitutionally  and 
by  profession.  The  Puritans,  however,  had  at  least  one 
song- writer  of  their  own,  if  they  chose  to  prove  their  claim 
to  him.  Wither,  in  addition  to  his  satires,  his  pastoral 
narratives,  and  his  devotional  hymns,  had  written,  chiefly  as 
interspersed  lyrics  in  his  earlier  poems,  some  really  good 
secular  songs.  One  of  these  is  still  to  be  heard  occasionally ; 
and  a  very  good  song  it  is  : — 

"  Shall  I,  wasting  in  despair, 
Die  because  a  woman's  fair  ? 
Or  make  pale  my  cheeks  with  care 
'Cause  another's  rosy  are  1 
Be  she  fairer  than  the  day, 
Or  the  flowery  meads  in  May, 
If  she  be  riot  so  to  me, 
What  care  I  how  fair  she  be  ? " 

To  make  our  survey  of  the  Poetical  Literature  of  Great 
Britain  in  1632  nominally  complete,  we  must  advert  to'the 
LATIN  VERSIFICATION  of  that  day  by  English  and  Scottish 
scholars. 

The  Latin  Dramatists  of  the  English  Universities,  with 
Alablaster  at  their  head,  have  already  been  mentioned. 
There  were  scores  of  English  scholars,  however,  who,  without 
venturing  on  Latin  plays,  were  in  the  habit  of  exercising 
themselves  in  Latin  epigrams,  elegies,  and  the  like.  A 
catalogue  of  their  names  might  be  drawn  up  from  the 
volumes  of  congratulatory  and  elegiac  verses  issued  on 
occasions  of  public  interest  by  the  Musce  Cantabrigienses 
and  the  Musce  Oxonienses. — Among  the  Cambridge  Latinists 
on  these  occasions  James  Duport  of  Trinity  College,  after 
wards  Dean  of  Peterborough,  deserves  especial  notice.  Not 
a  few  pieces  of  Duport,  besides  those  contributed  by  him  to 
the  collections  referred  to,  were  in  circulation  to  his  credit 
among  academic  readers  before  1632  ;  among  which  we  note 
several  to  or  concerning  James  I.  and  Charles  I.,  one  "In 


510  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

Benjaminium  Jonsonum,  Poetam,  Laureatum,  et  Dramaticorum 
sui  seculi  facile  Principem,"  and  two,  which,  from  the  coin 
cidence  of  the  titles,  we  judge  to  have  been  prepared  for 
distribution  in  St.  Mary's,  at  one  of  the  Divinity  Acts  of 
the  Commencement  of  1632,  when  Milton  took  his  Master's 
degree.1 — Not,  perhaps,  quite  so  eminent  a  representative 
of  the  Oxford  Latinists  as  Duport  was  of  those  of  Cambridge, 
but  of  some  considerable  note  among  them,  was  Alexander 
Gill  the  younger.  When  we  last  saw  this  unfortunate 
Bachelor  of  Divinity,  in  the  end  of  1628,  he  was  a  disgraced 
and  degraded  man,  in  prison,  by  sentence  of  the  Star- 
chamber,  for  his  wild  words  about  the  King  and  the  assas 
sination  of  Buckingham,  though  the  parts  of  his  sentence 
which  doomed  him  to  the  pillory  and  the  loss  of  his  ears 
had  been  remitted.  His  punishment  had  brought  him  to 
his  senses ;  and  Laud,  thinking  him  punished  enough,  and 
having  a  kindness  for  his  father,  had  obtained  from  the  King 
his  full  pardon  in  November  1630,  with  that  of  his  fellow- 
culprit,  William  Grinkin.  Once  more  at  large,  and  restored 
apparently  to  his  clerical  rights  and  degree,  Gill  sought  to 
rehabilitate  himself  in  his  literary  character  by  publishing 
iti  1632  a  little  volume  of  lldpepya,  slue  Poetici  Gonatus}  con 
taining  his  collected  pieces  of  Latin  verse,  with  several 
additions.  The  volume  is  dedicated  in  Latin  "  To  our  most 
serene  Lord,  Charles,  the  best  of  kings,  the  pattern  of 
princes,  the  illustrious  patron  of  Letters  and  the  Arts,"  &c., 
in  token  of  "  the  eternal  gratitude  "  of  the  author, — some 
what  a  change  of  strain  from  the  "Fitter  to  stand  in  a 
Cheapside  shop"  of  1628 ;  and  one  of  the  pieces  is  a  Latin 
poem  of  equally  profound  respect  to  Laud,  dated  January  1, 
1631-2.  For  the  rest,  one  sees  in  the  volume  the  same 
unruly  and  discontented  Gill  that  he  had  always  been.  "  If," 
he  says  in  the  preface,  "  tbe  future  portion  of  my  life,  what- 
(<  ever  remains  to  me,  is  to  be  no  different  from  what  is  past, 

1  See  Duport's  "  Mus®  Sulseciva,  sc^t  "  Nudits  asscnsus  divinitus  revelatis  non 

Poetica  Stromata,  Cantab.  1676."     One  estjjdes  justijicans"    As  these  are  the 

of  the  pieces  iii  this  volume  is  entitled  themes  of  the   Diviuity  Acts  at  the 

"  In  optimis  renatorum  operibus   datur  Commencement  of  1632  (see  ante,  p. 

culjjabilis    defectus,"    and    the    other,  257),  my  surmise  is  probably  correct. 


LATIN   VERSIFIERS.  511 

"  there  is  little  reason  for  me  to  promise  myself  much  good- 
"  will  on  the  part  of  the  public,  who  have  hitherto  led  a  life, 
"  I  know  not  by  what  unkindness  of  the  stars,  of  incessant 
"  struggle  with  the  wrongs  of  men  and  of  fortune."1 — A 
Latinist  of  higher  power  than  either  Gill  or  Duport  was 
Thomas  May,  among  whose  very  various  works  was  to  be, 
in  due  time,  a  supplement  to  Lncan  in  seven  books,  carrying 
on  the  narrative  to  the  death  of  Caesar. 

Scotland,  poor  in  almost  every  other  form  of  literature, 
was  exceptionally  rich  in  Latin  verse.  Neither  the  Musce 
Cantabrigiemes  nor  the  Muscv  Oxonienses  will  bear  comparison 
with  the  Delitice  Poetarum  Scotomm.  Under  this  title  there 
was  to  be  published  at  Amsterdam  in  1637,  at  the  expense 
of  a  patriotic  Scot,  who  wished  to  show  to  the  learned  world 
that  the  countrymen  of  Buchanan  could  still  vie  with  any 
nation  in  Latinity,  a  collection,  in  two  small  densely-packed 
volumes,  of  choice  Latin  poems,  by  thirty-seven  Scottish 
authors,  styled  "hujus  ccvi  ilhistiium,"  and  these  but  a 
selection,  the  preface  informs  us,  out  of  a  much  larger 
number  of  poets  ("  innumerabilis  poetarum  velidi  exercitus  ") 
who,  since  Buchanan's  death,  had  maintained  the  fame  which 
he  had  won  for  his  diminutive  country  (ft Qxtremum  Jinnc 
terrarum  angulum  pene  sub  ipso  mundi  cardine  jacentem"). 
Most  of  the  illustrious  thirty-seven,  in  fact,  belonged  to  the 
preceding  generation,  and  had  been  long  in  their  graves ; 
but  ten  or  a. dozen  of  them  were  alive  in  1632.  Of  these 
the  chief  were  Andrew  Ramsay,  one  of  the  ministers  of 
Edinburgh,  David  Wedderburn,  schoolmaster  of  Aberdeen, 
the  eccentric  John  Scot  of  Scotstarvet,  brother-in-law  of 
the  poet  Drummond,  and  the  projector  and  paymaster  of 
the  patriotic  literary  demonstration,  and  Arthur  Johnston, 
the  editor.  The  last  deserves  a  word  by  himself. — Born  at 
Caskieben,  near  Aberdeen,  in  1587,  Johnston  had  been 
educated  at  Marischal  College  in  Aberdeen,  then  just 
founded ;  he  had  studied  medicine  at  Padua,  and  taken  his 
Doctor's  degree  there  in  1610 ;  he  had  travelled  in  Germany, 

1  Calendar  of  English  State-Papers       Pardon  of  Gill  under  the  King's  sign- 
under  date  Nov. 30, 1630  (warrant  for  the       manual) ;  and  Gill's  Foetid  Conatus. 


512  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  Netherlands,  and  Denmark,  and  had  lived  for  many 
years  in  Paris,  with  extraordinary  credit  both  as  a  physician 
and  a  scholar ;  and,  some  time  about  1628,  he  had  returned 
finally  to  Britain  and  become  Medicus  Regius,  or  King's 
Physician.  He  resided  generally  in  London  or  near  the 
Court;  but  he  was  often  in  Aberdeen  for  a  good  while  to 
gether.  Thus,  though  his  first  publication  with  his  name, 
an  Eleyia  in  obit-urn  Jacobi  I.,  appeared  in  London  in  1625, 
his  next  three  publications,  containing  the  bulk  of  the  poems 
afterwards  reprinted  in  the  Delitice,  were  printed  at  Aberdeen 
— Elegice  Duce  in  1628,  Parerga  Arturi  Johnstoni,  &c.,  in  1632, 
and  Epigrammata  Arturi  Johnstoni  in  the  same  year.  In 
these  poems  there  are  references  to  local  matters  and 
persons  which  imply  that  the  author  was  in  the  rnidst  of 
them.  One  is  addressed  to  George  Jamesone  the  portrait- 
painter;  there  are  others  to  the  Bishop  of  Aberdeen,  the 
Provost  of  Aberdeen,  the  Aberdonian  Town  Council,  and 
the  like.  There  are  also  short  poems  to  Drummond,  to 
Alexander,  and  to  other  persons  of  note  in  Scotland  or  in 
connexion  with  it.  He  may  have  been  out  of  Aberdeen 
before  1633,  when  his  Gantici  Salomonis  Paraphrases  Poetica 
was  published  in  London.  His  Musce  Aulicce  were  also 
published  there  in  1635;  but  again,  in  1637,  it  was  from 
the  Aberdonian  press  that  there  issued  his  most  celebrated 
work, — that  Latin  version  of  the  Psalms  which  was  to  confirm 
him  in  the  reputation  of  having  been  the  finest  of  Scottish 
Latinists  after  Buchanan.  Aberdeen,  indeed,  had  a  peculiar 
celebrity  in  Scotland  at  that  time  as  a  seat  of  letters. 

After  this  survey  of  British  Poetry  in  or  about  the  year 
1632  there  are  several  reasons  why  our  account  of  the  con 
temporary  PEOSE-WEITERS  may  be  much  more  summary. 

One  is  that  far  more  of  the  prose  of  any  period  than  of  its 
poetry  consists  of  intellect  expended  on  those  social  ques 
tions  the  record  of  which  belongs  to  the  general  historian. 
It  may  be  incumbent  on  the  historian  of  literature  to 
mention  some  versifier  whose  intrinsic  faculty  may  have 
been  of  the  smallest,  while  the  bishops,  the  statesmen,  the 


PROSE    LITERATUEE.  513 

men  who  made  society  quiet  or  tumultuous  round  that 
versifier,  who  did  more  in  a  week  than  he  did  in  a  year, 
may  have  no  recognition  whatever.  Laud  is  a  less  figure  in 
our  ordinary  literary  histories  than  Herrick,  who  would  have 
licked  his  shoe ;  and  Williams,  almost  every  recorded  saying 
of  whom  is  worth  a  sonnet  or  an  epigram,  is  hardly  named 
among  our  national  writers.  It  is  necessary  that  this 
should  be  borne  in  mind.  As  Hallam  remarked,  many  of  ( 
those  poets  whom  it  has  been  our  duty  to  mention  fare  all 
the  better  now  because  they  lived  long  ago,  and  because 
they  are  presented  to  us  through  selected  extracts,  in  which 
what  is  tolerable  alone  remains,  while  the  trash  is  left  out  of 
account.  Moreover,  an  antiquarian  interest  attaches  to 
them,  and  a  thought,  a  phrase,  a  fancy  which  we  should 
pass  with  little  notice  in  a  modern  writer  surprises  us  in 
them  into  something  like  glee.  "Were  it  possible  to  disinter 
some  of  the  minor  English  poets  of  1632,  so  as  to  see  them 
as  they  actually  were,  weak  vain  creatures,  it  would  be  felt 
that  it  is  only  conventional  deference  to  the  metrical  form 
of  writing  that  has  given  them  a  title  to  be  enumerated  in 
the  same  chronological  list  with  the  Shakespeares,  the 
Jonsons,  and  the  Donnes,  while  other  far  superior  men  who 
also  laboured  with  the  pen,  but  laboured  only  in  business 
like  prose,  are  excluded  from  the  dignity  of  such  a  fellow 
ship.  Not  but  that  this  difference  of  treatment  is  founded 
on  reason.  It  is  not  merely  valuable  intellectual  matter, 
but  intellectual  matter  of  a  certain  range  of  kinds,  elaborated 
into  one  or  other  of  a  certain  range  of  forms,  that  constitutes 
literature,  in  the  sense  in  which  literature  can  be  made 
the  subject  of  specific  and  continuous  history.  Thera 
may  thus,  in  any  period,  be  hundreds  of  men  of  wide 
scholarship,  of  quick  wit,  or  of  energetic  elocution,  who, 
though  they  leave  writings  behind  them,  are  passed  over 
afterwards  by  the  literary  historian,  simply  because  their 
writings  lack  the  prescribed  characteristics.  The  duty  of 
compensation  lies  with  the  historian  of  the  body-politic,  or 
with  the  antiquarians  in  special  departments. 

Contributing  to  the  same  result,  however,  is  another  con- 
VOL.  i.  L  L 


511'  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

sideration.  English  Prose  had  by  no  means  at  our  present 
date  taken  a  development  that  could  entitle  it  to  co-ordinate 
rank  with  English  Verse.  This  may  have  been  partly  owing 
to  that  general  law  according  to  which,  in  all  nations, 
metrical  literature  has  preceded  literature  in  oratio  soluta. 
But  it  must  have  been  owing  in  a  greater  degree  to  the  fact 
that  Prose  among  us  had  emancipated  itself  much  later  than 
Verse  among  us  from  the  trammels  of  a  dead  tongue. 
Almost  from  the  first  hour  when  Englishmen  expressed  their 
feelings  in  song,  or  sought  play  for  their  imagination  in 
tales,  they  chose  their  vernacular  for  the  purpose;  but  in 
those  departments  of  literary  exercise  which  the  world 
recognised  as  the  proper  dominion  of  prose  the  preference 
had  all  along  been  for  Latin  over  English.  An  English  prose 
was,  indeed,  nobly  disentangling  itself.  As  was  natural,  it 
had  disentangled  itself  first  in  the  form  and  for  the  purposes 
of  popular  eloquence.  If  we  discount  the  precedents  of  a 
WyclifFe,  Chaucer  in  some  of  his  works,  a  Sir  Thomas  More, 
and  the  like,  the  first  English  prose-style  was  that  of  the 
pulpit  after  the  Reformation.  Then,  in  the  Elizabethan  age, 
among  a  host  of  chroniclers,  pamphleteers,  and  polemical 
theologians,  there  had  appeared  a  Sidney,  a  Hooker,  a 
Raleigh,  and  a  Bacon.  After  such  men  had  appeared,  and 
there  had  been  exhibited  in  their  writings  the  union  of 
wealth  and  depth  of  matter  with  beauty  and  even  gorgeous- 
ness  of  form,  there  could  no  longer  be  a  definition  of 
literature  in  which  English  Prose  should  not  be  co-ordinate 
with  English  Verse.  And  yet,  so  much  had  still  to  be  done 
before  genius  of  all  kinds  could  sufficiently  master  the  new 
element  and  make  it  plastic  for  all  purposes  that,  in  the 
schemes  of  our  ablest  literary  historians,  it  is  common  to 
count  but  one  period  of  English  Prose  prior  to  Dryden  and 
the  Restoration. 

For  these  reasons,  and  also  because  some  who  were  prose- 
writers  of  the  period  were  also  verse-writers  and  have  been 
named  as  such,  it  will  be  enough  if,  by  way  of  appended 
survey  of  the  prose  literature  of  the  period,  we  name  only 
those  who,  from  some  peculiarity  in  the  form  of  their  writ- 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    BISHOP   ANDREWES.  515 

ings,  rose  out  of  the  crowd  of  the  scholars  and  academic 
men,  or  who,  without  this  distinction,  were  men  of  extra 
ordinary  mark.  We  may  still  allow  Ben  Jon  son  to  occupy 
the  chair;  for  Ben  was  a  good  prose- writer  himself,  and  it 
was  not  only  the  verse-writers,  but  all  the  wits  and  intellectual 
men  of  his  day,  that  he  regarded  as  his  subjects. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  prose  literature  of  the 
period  consisted  of  sermons,  devotional  treatises,  and  other 
works  of  popular  or  practical  theology.  There  were  few 
Church  dignitaries  or  clergymen  of  note,  whether  on  the 
Laudian  side  or  on  the  Calvinistic,  who  had  not  published 
sermons, — funeral  sermons,  discourses  before  the  king,  &c. 
— in  which  the  aim  was  rather  the  exposition  of  the  general 
principles  of  Christianity  than  the  inculcation  of  their  pecu 
liar  views  as  Laudians  or  as  Calvinists.  Among  the  devo 
tional  writings  most  in  request  were  those  of  the  recently 
deceased  Bishop  Andrewes.  The  "most  eminent  divine " 
in  the  English  Church  while  he  lived,  and  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  first  to  introduce  that  Patristic  theology  which  Laud 
afterwards  sought  to  enforce  as  the  only  Anglican  orthodoxy, 
Andrewes  had  been  particularly  distinguished  as  a  pulpit 
orator.  "  He  was  an  unimitable  preacher  in  his  way,"  says 
Fuller,  "and  such  plagiaries  who  have  stolen  his  sermons 
"  could  never  steal  his  preaching,  and  could  make  nothing 
"  of  that  whereof  he  made  all  things  as  he  desired."  Besides 
what  Andrewes  had  published  in  his  life,  a  folio  volume  of 
his  sermons  had  been  published  after  his  death  by  the  com 
mand  of  the  king;  and  these  were  still  serving  as  theological 
reading  for  persons  of  superior  culture.  "  Both  the  learning 
"  and  the  ability  of  Andrewes,"  says  Mr.  Crajk,  "  are  con- 
"  spicuous  in  everything  he  has  written;  but  his  eloquence, 
"  nevertheless,  is  to  a  modern  taste  grotesque  enough.  In  / 
"his  more  ambitious  passages,  he  is  the  very  prince  of 
"  verbal  posture-masters, — if  not  the  first  in  date^  the  first  in 
"  extravagance,  of  the  artificial,  quibbling,  syllable-torment- 
"  ing  school  of  our  English  pulpit  rhetoricians ;  and  he 
"undoubtedly  contributed  more  to  spread  the  disease  of 
"  that  manner  of  writing  than  any  other  individual."  Sorne- 

L  L   2 


516  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

thing  of  the  same  manner,  with  the  variations  to  be  expected 
from  a  man  of  so  subtle  and  abstruse  a  talent,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  sermons  of  Donne.  Some  of  these,  preached  at 
Whitehall  or  before  public  bodies,  had  been  accessible  in 
print  long  before  Donne's  death,  though  it  was  not  till  a 
later  period  that  the  whole  were  edited. 

The  Calvinists  were  not  without  authors  more  exactly 
agreeable  to  their  tastes  than  either  Andrewes  or  Donne. 
Among  the  eminent  Puritan  preachers  who  had  outlived 
Preston  there  was  none  more  celebrated  than  the  "  humble 
and  heavenly- minded  "  Dr.  Kichard  Sibbes.  Between  1618 
and  1625  he  had  been  preacher  to  the  Society  of  Gray's 
Inn ;  and,  after  his  appointment  to  the  Mastership  of 
Catherine  Hall,  Cambridge,  he  had  continued  to  preach, 
with  Laud's  eyes  upon  him,  at  Cambridge  and  elsewhere. 
A  set  of  sermons  which  he  had  put  forth  separately,  and 
then  collected  in  1629  into  a  folio  volume,  under  the  title  of 
The  Saint's  Cordial,  were  eagerly  bought  and  read  by  the 
Puritan  part  of  the  community.  To  these  were  added,  in 
1632,  his  Soul's  Conflict  with  Itself,  being  the  substance  of 
several  sermons, — a  treatise  which,  with  The  Bruised  Reed, 
similarly  composed,  and  other  sermons  published  before  his 
death  in  1635,  or  shortly  afterwards,  has  not  yet  ceased  to 
be  in  demand.  From  the  year  1630,  onwards  for  twenty 
years  or  so,  no  writings  in  practical  theology  seem  to  have 
been  so  much  read  among  the  pious  English  middle  classes 
as  those  of  Sibbes. 

Of  higher  literary  pretensions  than  the  works  of  Sibbes, 
and  also  soundly  Calvinistic,  if  not  obtrusively  so,  were  the 
prose  writings  of  Bishop  Hall.  It  has  already  been  men 
tioned  that  since  the  publication  of  his  Satires  in  1597  Hall 
had  confined  himself  almost  exclusively  to  prose  authorship. 
Among  his  publications  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  clerical 
life,  while  he  was  yet  but  a  parish  clergyman  in  Suffolk,  or 
Archdeacon  of  Nottingham,  had  been  his  Meditations  (1605), 
his  Epistles  (1608-11),  and  various  controversial  tracts, 
under  such  titles  as  No  Peace  ivith  Rome,  The  Apology  of  the 
Church  of  England  against  the  Brownists,  &c.  While  Dean 


PROSE    LITERATURE:    BISHOP   HALL.  517 

of  Worcester,  he  had  published  (1617),  in  a  large  folio,  a 
"Recollection"  of  such  treatises,  dedicated  to  King  James. 
Since  then  he  had  put  forth  a  good  many  additional  tracts 
and  sermons,  of  which  he  was  just  about  to  make  another 
folio.  The  writings  of  his  first  folio  seem,  however,  to  have 
been  still  in  most  general  request,  particularly  his  Medita 
tions,  his  Characters  of  Virtues  and  Vices,  and  his  Contempla 
tions  upon  the  Principal  Passages  of  the  Hob/  Story.  In 
addition  to  their  own  merits,  these,  and  indeed  most  of 
Hall's  prose  writings,  had  a  merit  which  might  have  been 
expected  from  the  author  of  the  Satires,  and  which  distin 
guished  them  from  the  mass  of  the  theological  writings  of 
their  day,  the  merit  of  careful  literary  execution.  "  He  was 
"  commonly  called  our  English  Seneca,"  says  Fuller,  "  for 
"  the  pureness,  plainness,  and  fulness  of  his  style/'  Hall, 
accordingly,  has  still  a  place  in  the  history  of  English 
theological  prose  between  Hooker  and  Jeremy  Taylor ;  and 
there  are  modern  critics  who,  comparing  Hall  and  Taylor, 
and  pointing  out  their  differences  in  the  midst  of  some 
obvious  similarities,  seem  to  waver  in  their  choice  between 
them.1  With  much  of  Taylor's  rich  fancy  and  rhetorical 
copiousness,  however,  there  is  more  in  Hall  of  a  certain 
mechanical  hardness  of  purpose,  more  of  astringency  and  of 
mean  temper.  Even  in  his  Meditations  there  is  less  of  a 
genuine  meditative  disposition  than  of  a  cultured  habit  of 
ethical  sententiousness. 

The  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  the  great  < 
age  of  learning  over  Europe.  A  "prodigious  reach  of 
learning"  distinguished,  in  particular,  the  theologians  of 
those  fifty  years,  and  perhaps  more  the  theologians  of  the 
Protestant  Churches  than  their  Catholic  contemporaries. 
The  British  clergy  were  not  behind  those  of  any  nation  in 
this  respect.  "  All  confess,"  said  Selden,  "  there  never  was 
"  a  more  learned  clergy ;  no  man  taxes  them  with  ignorance.'* 
The  erudition  thus  general  among  churchmen  was  partly  of 
the  strict  philological  kind ;  but  it  was  more  of  that  general 

1  See  Hallaui,  III.  126,  and,  for  a  still       ing's  "  History  of  English  Literature  " 
closer   appreciation,   Professor    Spald-       (1853),  pp.  221-226. 


518  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

historical  kind  which  concerned  itself  with  all  those  facts  of 
the  past,  and  all  those  portions   of  the  literature  of  the 
past,  that  bore  or  could  be  made  to  bear  on  the  paramount 
theological   and    ecclesiastical    controversies.1     Out  of   the 
necessities  of  the  original  controversy  with  the  Church  of 
Rome    there   had   been   already   bred   among    the   British 
clergy,  as  well  as  among  the  Protestant  clergy  of  the  Con 
tinent,  a  vast  erudition  pertaining  to  that  controversy,  an 
erudition  composed  of  Biblical  exegesis,  research  into  the 
early  history  of   the  Church,  and  an  exact  knowledge  of 
the   history   of  the    Papacy    and    of   the    opinions    of   the 
Popish  theologians.     Such  was  the  erudition  of  the  English 
divines  of  the   days  of   Elizabeth  and  of   the  earlier  part 
of  the  reign  of  James,  while  Protestant  theology  was  still 
tolerably  homogeneous  over  Europe,  and  Calvinists,  Luther 
ans,  Zwinglians,  and  Anglicans  acted  as  one  phalanx  against 
their  common  foe.     On  the  rise  of  the  new  Patristic  the 
ology,   however,    as   a   system    intermediate   between   the 
strictly  Biblical   theology   which  all  Protestants  had   pro 
fessed  and  the  Romish  theology  from  which  they  had  all 
dissented,  this  erudition  had  become  hardly  sufficient.     In 
addition  to  the  controversy  between  the  Papacy  and  Pro 
testantism,  there  was  now  the  controversy  between  those 
who  were  called  the  semi-Papists  or  Arminians  and  the  more 
resolute  Calvinistic  Protestants.     This  controversy,  though 
not  special  to   England,  had  there  its  main  footing.     As 
Andrew es,  Laud,  and  others,  in  their  desire  to   place  the 
hierarchical  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England  and  the 
peculiar    ceremoniousness    of  its   ritual    under   a    stronger 
theoretical    safeguard    than    Hooker's   mere    argument   of 
expediency  and  wise  political  order,   had  formulized  their 
views  in  the  principle  that,  in  matters  both  of  rule  and  of 
doctrine,  the  authority  of  the  Fathers  of  the  first  six  centuries 
i  is  to  be  regarded  as  supplementary  to  that  of  Scripture, 
so  those  who  rejected  this  principle  had  to  follow  them  in 
their  Patristic  lore,  in  order  to  show  what  sort  of  men  those 
Fathers  were.     Hence,  before  the  reign  of  Charles,  an  ex- 

i  See  Hallam's  Literature  of  Europe,  III.  2. 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    USHER. 


519 


tension  of  English  theological  scholarship, — the  Patristic 
divines  gradually  diminishing  their  antipathy  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  some  even  receding  into  that  Church, 
in  the  course  of  their  battle  with  those  who,  the  more  they 
read  the  Fathers,  maintained  the  more  vigorously  the  sole 
authority  of  the  Bible. 

Thus,  about  the  year  1632,  there  were  in  Britain  a  number 
of  men  who,  with  various  degrees  of  judgment,  were  prodigies 
of  acquisition  and  memory.  Laud's  acknowledged  specialty 
was  Patristic  learning.  Lightfoot  was  weighty  in  Rabbinical 
antiquities.  Meade  was  at  the  head  of  the  Apocalyptic  com 
mentators.  Bishop  Goodman  was  great  in  English  ecclesias 
tical  history.  Archdeacon  Hakewill  had  a  wide  knowledge  of 
ancient  and  modern  literature.  Confessedly,  however,  the 
man  of  most  colossal  erudition  among  the  clergy  of  the 
British  Islands  was  one  who  did  not  belong  to  the  English 
Church,  and  whose  learning  had  not  been  acquired  either 
at  Oxford  or  at  Cambridge.  This  was  Archbishop  Jla^er, 
the  Primate  of  Ireland. 

In  Usher's  early  youth,  while  he  was  a  student  at  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  his  preference  had  been  for  the  lighter 
forms  of  literature.  He  knew  Spenser,  and  did  not  think 
it  impossible  that  he  might  himself  be  a  poet.  As  he  grew 
older,  Nature  corrected  the  mistake.  Struck  one  day  by 
Cicero's  saying,  c '  Nesdre  quid  antea  quam  natus  sis  acciderit, 
id  est  semper  esse  puerurti "  ("  Not  to  know  what  happened 
before  you  were  born  is  to  be  always  a  child"),  he  found 
his  genius  revealed  to  him  in  the  fascination  of  a  phrase,  and 
from  that  day  devoted  himself  to  History.  Before  he  had 
reached  his  thirtieth  year  he  was  profound  in  universal 
chronology,  and  known  to  Camden  and  other  English 
scholars  as  the  most  learned  of  Irishmen.  His  visits  to 
England  were  always  for  the  purpose  of  buying  books,  for 
himself  or  for  the  University  of  Dublin,  where  he  was 
Divinity  Professor  from  1607  to  1620.  Naturally,  in  such  a 
position,  his  learning,  or  at  least  his  use  of  it,  became  theo 
logical  and  ecclesiastical.  At  first,  like  a  true  historian, 
he  had  held  his  mind  in  suspense  till  he  had  determined 


520  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

"by  independent  research  whether  the  Romish  tenets  or 
those  of  Protestantism  were  the  more  ancient ;  and,  having 
concluded  in  favour  of  Protestantism,  he  had  ever  after  been 
mighty  in  that  controversy.  Though  his  own  mother  had 
relapsed  into  the  Catholic  communion,  he  always  strenu 
ously  opposed  a  toleration  of  the  Irish  Catholics.  Another 
of  his  conclusions,  however,  was  that  the  Calvinistic  system 
of  Protestantism  was  the  soundest  and  most  Scriptural. 
He  was  a  zealous  Predestinarian ;  and  he  had  helped,  at  the 
celebrated  Convocation  in  1615,  to  settle  the  Articles  of  the 
Irish  Church  on  a  Calvinistic  basis.  Moreover,  though 
friendly  to  Episcopacy  as  a  system  of  Church  government, 
he  believed,  with  the  Presbyterians,  that  there  was  no 
Apostolic  order  of  bishops  in  the  primitive  ages  of  the 
Church.  Though  himself  an  archbishop,  he  was  therefore 
ready  for  all  liberal  co-operation  with  the  non-episcopal 
Churches  or  with  true  Protestants  of  any  denomination. 
When  the  Arminian  controversy  arose,  and,  with  it,  the 
high  Anglican  theory  of  Episcopacy,  he  did  not  conceal  his 
dissatisfaction;  and,  when  it  became  evident  that  Laud  con 
templated  a  reorganization  of  the  Irish  Church  according  to 
his  principles  of  theological  orthodoxy,  the  independence  of 
that  Church  became  Usher's  chief  thought.  It  was  the 
pride  of  the  English  Calvinists  about  the  year  1632,  when 
the  learning  of  Laud  and  other  prelates  of  his  school  was 
mentioned,  to  point  across  the  Channel  to  the  great  Calvin 
istic  Primate  as  a  scholar  who  outweighed  them  all.  His 
main  works  up  to  that  time  had  been  his  treatise  "De 
Ecclesiarum  Christian.arum  successions  et  statu"  (1612), 
tracing  the  history  of  doctrine  from  the  seventh  century 
downwards,  and  his  "  Goteschalci  et  Predestinariance  Contro 
versies  ab  eo  motce  Historia,"  or  History  of  the  Predestina 
rian  Controversy  (1631) ;  and  he  had  just  published,  or  was 
about  to  publish,  bis  "  Veterwni  Epistolarum  Hibernicanim 
Sylloge,"  a  collection  of  letters  of  old  Irish  ecclesiastics. 

The  British  clergy  had  not  all  the  learning  of  the  country 
to  themselves.  The  English  lawyers  had  a  very  fair  share 
of  it,  with  this  difference,  that  the  learning  of  the  lawyers 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    SELDEN.  521 

did  not  flow  so  exclusively  in  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
channels,  but  applied  itself  with  greater  freedom  to  secular 
needs  and  uses.  The  only  man  in  the  British  Islands  who 
was  allowed  to  be  more  than  a  match  for  Usher  in  miscel 
laneous  erudition  was  his  friend  and  correspondent,  the  Eng 
lish  lawyer  Selden.  No  man  in  that  age  is  more  worthy  of 
note  than  this  superb  scholar.  His  life,  though  simple  in 
its  tenor,  had  already  been  full  of  important  incidents. 
Born  in  1584  in  an  obscure  Sussex  village,  of  a  parentage 
as  mean  as  could  well  be,  he  had,  by  one  of  those  arrange 
ments  by  which  poor  lads  were  then  sometimes  helped  on 
in  life,  been  sent  from  Chichester  School  to  Hart  Hall, 
Oxford.  After  three  or  four  years  at  Oxford,  he  removed 
to  London  to  study  law  at  Clifford's  Inn ;  which  society  he 
left  in  1604  for  that  of  the  Inner  Temple.  Though  called 
to  the  bar,  he  never  sought  general  practice,  but  "gave 
chamber  counsel,  and  was  a  good  conveyancer."  From  his 
first  coming  to  London  he  was  acquainted  with  Ben  Jonson, 
Donne,  and  almost  every  other  man  of  intellectual  note. 
He  would  now  and  then  attempt  a  copy  of  Greek  or  Latin, 
or  even  of  English,  verses.  His  fame  among  his  associates, 
however,  had  always  been  for  his  extraordinary  acumen  and 
his  boundless  information.  "  He  did,  by  the  help  of  a 
"strong  body  and  a  vast  memory,"  says  Wood,  "not  only 
"  run  through  the  whole  body  of  the  law,  but  became  a 
"prodigy  in  most  parts  of  learning,  especially  in  those 
"  which  were  not  common,  or  little  frequented  and  regarded 
"by  the  generality  of  students  of  his  time.  He  had  great 
"  skill  in  the  divine  and  humane  laws ;  he  was  a  great 
"  philologist,  antiquary,  herald,  linguist,  statesman,  and 
"  what  not."  After  some  minor  exhibitions  of  his  learning 
in  legal  tracts  and  in  notes  to  a  portion  of  Drayton's  Poly- 
olbion,  he  had  published  in  1614,  when  in  his  thirtieth  year, 
his  Titles  of  Honour,  still  one  of  our  great  authorities  in  all 
matters  of  heraldry.  Between  1614  and  1617  he  published 
some  additional  tracts,  and  in  1617  his  treatise  "  De  Diis 
Syria"  ("  Of  the  Syrian  Gods"),  a  specimen  of  his  learning 
of  which  the  clergy  could  not  speak  too  highly.  They  had 


022  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

hardly  had  time  to  praise  it,  however,  when  his  History  of 
Tithes  (1618)  changed  their  humour.  In  this  work  not  only 
was  a  view  propounded  as  to  the  origin  and  obligation  of 
tithes  alarming  to  the  whole  clerical  body,  but  there  was  an 
onslaught  on  the  profession  generally  for  laziness  and  other 
ill  deserts.  Answers  were  published  to  the  book ;  and 
Selden  was  summoned  before  Abbot,  Andrewes,  and  others 
in  the  High  Commission  Court,  and  obliged  to  apologise 
and  recant.  He  seems  to  have  submitted  with  grim  facility, 
but  it  was  thought  afterwards  that  the  clergy  might  have 
done  well  to  let  such  a  man  alone.  "  The  usage  sunk  so 
"  deep  into  his  stomach,"  say  Wood  and  Heylin,  "  that  he 
"  did  never  after  affect  the  bishops  and  clergy,  or  cordially 
"  approve  their  calling,  though  many  ways  were  tried  to 
"  gain  him  to  the  Church's  interest."  From  that  time,  at 
all  events,  Selden  was  a  leader  among  the  English  liberals, 
as  well  in  ecclesiastical  as  in  secular  politics.  He  served 
in  James's  Parliament  of  1621,  and  had  the  honour  of 
being  imprisoned  for  his  conduct  in  it  along  with  Pym 
and  others.  In  the  first  Parliament  of  Charles  I.  he  was 
member  for  a  Wiltshire  borough.  In  that  Parliament, 
and  also  in  the  third,  he  stood  in  the  front  ranks  of  the 
opposition,  with  Eliot,  Pym,  Sir  Edward  Coke,  and  the 
other  chiefs.  He  had  a  share  in  drawing  up  the  Petition 
of  Eight.  "  With  my  own  hand,"  he  said,  in  reference 
to  the  care  with  which  that  document  was  prepared,  "I 
1 '  have  written  out  all  the  records  from  the  Tower,  the  Ex- 
"  chequer,  and  the  King's  Bench,  and  I  will  engage  my 
"head  Mr.  Attorney  shall  not  find  in  all  these  archives  a 
"  single  precedent  omitted."  l  On  the  dissolution  of  that 
Parliament  (March  1628-9)  he  had  been  arrested,  with 
Eliot,  Denzil  Holies,  and  the  other  "  vipers  "  of  whom  the 
king  complained.  After  a  little  while  the  strictness  of  his 
confinement  had  been  relaxed,  so  as  to  allow  him  to  move 
about  in  town,  and  even  to  go  into  the  country  on  a  visit ; 
and  from  May  1631  he  was  at  full  liberty,  though  under  a 

1  Forstcr's  Life  of  Sir  John  Eliot. 


PEOSE    LITERATURE  :    SELDEN.  523 

kind  of  bail  for  his  good  behaviour.  As  matters  then  were, 
he  consulted  his  ease  in  avoiding  farther  offence.  He  was 
even  willing  to  be  on  moderately  friendly  terms  with  Laud 
and  the  Court.  All  political  activity  being  debarred  him, 
he  had  fallen  back  upon  his  books.  In  1623  he  had  added 
to  his  former  works  his  "  Spicilegium  in  Eadmeri  sex  Libros 
Historiarum";  in  1628  he  had  prepared,  during  the  parlia 
mentary  recess,  his  "  Marmora  Arundeliana,"  or  account  of 
the  Arundel  marbles,  then  exciting  the  attention  of  artists 
and  antiquaries ;  and  in  1631  he  published  his  Latin  treatise 
on  the  laws  of  succession  to  property  among  the  Hebrews, 
lie  had  other  treatises  in  contemplation ;  and  it  was  under 
stood  that  he  had  a  manuscript  by  him  quite  complete, 
which  he  had  written  in  James's  reign,  asserting  the  right 
of  the  English  Crown  to  the  dominion  of  the  seas,  in  reply 
to  a  famous  work  of  Grotius.  Much  of  his  time  was  spent 
at  Wrest,  in  Bedfordshire,  the  seat  of  the  Earl  of  Kent,  to 
whom  he  acted  as  solicitor  and  steward,  and  whose  countess, 
Elizabeth, — the  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  and 
the  sister  of  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Pembroke  and  of  the 
Countess  Arundel, — was  "  a  great  encourager  of  learning/1 
The  countess,  it  may  be  interesting  to  add,  had  then  in  her 
employment,  as  private  secretary  or  amanuensis,  a  youth 
named  Samuel  Butler,  who  was  to  be  known  long  after 
wards  as  the  author  of  Hudibras ;  and  Selden,  when  he  was 
at  Wrest,  where  the  whole  service  of  the  household  was  at 
his  disposal,  "  would  often  employ  him  to  write  letters 
beyond  the  sea,  and  translate  for  him."  l  When  in  town, 
Selden  still  lived  in  his  chambers  in  the  Temple, — "  Paper 
Buildings,  uppermost  story,"  says  Aubrey,  "  where  he  had 
a  little  gallery  to  walk  in  " ;  and  where,  when  any  one  came 
in  to  see  him,  he  would  throw  "  a  slight  stuff  or  silk  kind  of 
false  carpet  over  his  table,"  so  as  not  to  disarrange  his 
papers.  In  his  appearance  there  was  nothing  of  the  book 
worm.  "  Very  tall,"  Aubrey  says  :  "  I  guess  about  six  foot 
"  high,  sharp  oval  face,  head  not  very  big,  long  nose  inclining 

1  Wood,  Athenze,  III.  875  :  aud  Bell's  Memoir  of  Butler,  prefixed  to  his  edition 
of  Butler's  Poetical  Works  (1855). 


524  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  to  one  side,  full  popping  gray  eye."  His  face  in  the 
portraits  is  one  of  the  finest  possible  of  the  clear,  judicial 
type.  Ben  Jonson  admired  him  greatly,  and  eulogised  him 
in  verse ;  and  Clarendon,  who  knew  him  intimately,  testifies 
in  the  strongest  terms  to  his  courtesy  and  readiness  to  com 
municate  his  knowledge. 

A  memorable  singularity  about  Selden  is  that,  while  per 
haps  the  greatest  scholar  of  his  day  in  England,  he  was  yet 
one  of  its  most  conspicuously  sceptical  thinkers.  With  a 
memory  full  of  all  that  had  happened  on  the  earth,  he 
reasoned  on  current  questions  as  if,  the  pressure  of  his 
recollections  on  all  sides  being  equal,  the  result,  for  his 
judgment,  was  equilibrium.  "His  style  in  all  his  writings," 
says  Clarendon,  "  seems  harsh  and  sometimes  obscure ; 
' ( but  in  his  conversation  he  was  the  most  clear  discourser, 
"  and  had  the  best  faculty  in  making  hard  things  easy,  and 
"  presenting  them  to  the  understanding,  of  any  man  that 
"  hath  been  known/'  It  was  early  noted  of  him  also  that, 
whether  in  his  writings  or  in  his  talk,  his  method  was  rather 
to  accumulate  the  facts  on  both  sides  till  the  balance  turned 
of  itself  than  to  advance  a  distinct  opinion.  From  the 
specimens  of  his  table-talk  that  remain  we  can  judge  of 
these  characteristics  for  ourselves.  Here  are  one  or  two  of 
his  sayings  : — 

"  Every  man  loves  to  know  his  commander.  I  wear  these  gloves  ; 
but  perhaps,  if  an  alderman  should  command  me,  I  should  think 
much  to  do  it.  What  has  lie  to  do  with  me  1  Or,  if  he  has,  perad- 
venture  I  do  not  know  it." 

"  A  King  is  a  thing  men  have  made  for  their  own  sakes,  just  as  in 
a  family  one  man  is  appointed  to  buy  the  meat." 

"  Bishops  are  now  unfit  to  govern,  because  of  their  learning.  They 
are  bred  up  in  another  Law  :  they  run  to  the  Text  for  something  done 
among  the  Jews  that  concerns  not  England.  'Tis  just  as  if  a  man 
would  have  a  kettle,  and  he  would  not  go  to  our  braziers  to  have  it 
made  as  they  make  kettles,  but  he  would  have  it  made  as  Hiram  made 
his  brass-work,  who  wrought  in  Solomon's  Temple." 

"  'Twill  be  a  great  discouragement  to  scholars  that  bishops  should 
be  put  down  ;  for  now  the  father  can  say  to  his  son,  and  the  tutor  to 
his  pupil,  '  Study  hard  and  you  shall  have  vocem  et  sedem  in  Parlia- 
mento ' :  then  it  must  be  '  Study  hard  and  you  shall  have  a  hundred 
a  year  if  you  please  your  parish.1 " 

"  The  Puritans,  who  will  allow  no  free  will  at  all,  but  God  does  all, 
yet  will  allow  the  subject  his  liberty  to  do  or  not  to  do,  notwithstand- 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    SELDEN   AND   OTHERS.  525 

ing  the  King,  the  god  upon  earth.  The  Arminians,  who  hold  we  have 
free  will,  yet  say,  when  we  come  to  the  King,  there  must  be  all  obedi- 
once  and  no  liberty  to  be  looked  for." 

"  Marriage  is  nothing  but  a  civil  contract.  Tis  true  'tis  an  ordin 
ance  of  God  :  so  is  every  other  contract.  God  commands  me  to  keep 
it  when  I  have  made  it.' ' 

"  'Tis  vain  to  talk  of  an  heretic,  for  a  man  for  his  heart  can  think 
no  otherwise  than  he  does  think.  In  the  primitive  times  there  were 
many  opinions  ;  nothing  scarce  but  some  or  other  held.  One  of  these 
opinions  being  embraced  by  some  prince  and  received  into  his  king 
dom,  the  rest  were  condemned  as  heresies ;  and  his  religion,  which 
was  but  one  of  the  several  opinions,  first  is  said  to  be  orthodox,  and 
so  to  have  continued  ever  since  the  Apostles." 

"  No  man  is  wiser  for  his  learning.  It  may  administer  matter  to 
work  in,  or  objects  to  work  upon  ;  but  wit  and  wisdom  are  born  with 
a  man.'3 

One  can  see,  from  such  sayings,  that  Selden  was  the  incarna- 
tion  of  the  anti-clerical  spirit  of  his  time.  The  only  thing 
about  which  he  seems  to  have  had  no  doubt  was  the  liberty 
to  doubt ;  and,  in  as  far  as  he  was  a  partisan  of  the  Puritanism 
of  our  present  date,  it  was,  perhaps,  in  that  interest  and  in 
that  alone.  Ileot  TTCLVTOS  rj]v  tXevOtpiav  ("  Above  everything, 
Liberty,")  was  the  motto  he  had  adopted ;  and,  as  it  was  a 
part  of  his  practical  interpretation  that  everything  should 
be  done  to  break  down  the  distinction  between  the  clergy 
and  the  laity,  lie  had  no  objection  in  the  mean  time  to 
go  along  with  those  who  were  doing  this  on  a  different 
account. 

Among  friends  of  Selden  recently  dead  were  Speed  the 
historian,  and  the  great  antiquary  and  collector  of  MSS.,  Sir 
Robert  Cotton.  Speed  had  died  in  1629,  and  Cotton  in 
1631.  The  more  aged  antiquary  and  Saxon  scholar,  Sir 
Henry  Spelman,  was  still  alive.  Among  younger  adven 
turers  in  the  department  of  History,  or  at  least  of  historical 
and  miscellaneous  compilation,  was  Laud's  client,  Peter 
Heylin,  whose  bulky  geographical  manual,  Hicrocosmus, 
originally  published  in  1622,  had  already  been  reprinted 
and  enlarged  several  times,  and  who  had  just  published  his 
Historie  of  that  famous  Saint  and  Souldier  of  Christ  Jesus, 
St.  George  of  Cappadocwu.  The  far  more  admirable  Fuller 
had  not  yet  found  out  that  his  true  vocation  was  History. 
In  his  twenty-fifth  year,  a  Fellow  of  Sidney  College,  and 


52 0  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Prebendary  of  Salisbury,  he  had  jusfc  made  his  first  appear 
ance  as  an  author,  in  1631,  in  a  sacred  poem,  David's  hainous 
Sin,  heartie  Repentance,  heavie  Punishment,  which  his  sub 
sequent  works  were  to  throw  into  oblivion. 

Before  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  Leicestershire  had  produced, 
and  Brasenose  College  in  Oxford  had  educated,  two 
brothers,  both  now  celebrated  as  scholars  and  writers.  The 
elder  of  the  two,  William  Burton,  was,  by  profession,  a 
barrister  of  the  Inner  Temple,  but  was  better  known  as  the 
author  of  a  valuable  History  of  Leicestershire,  published  in 
1622.  While  his  place  was  among  the  antiquarians  and 
genealogists,  that  of  his  brother,  Robert  Barton,  vicar  of 
the  parish  of  St.  Thomas  in  Oxford,  and  rector  of  Segrave 
in  Leicestershire,  was  much  more  peculiar.  It  was  eleven 
years  since  he  had  published,  under  the  name  of  Deinocritus 
Junior,  his  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  Of  this  famous  book 
there  had  already  been  four  editions,  the  fourth  in  1632. 
Everybody  was  reading  it ;  and,  as  Wood  says,  "  gentlemen 
who  had  lost  their  time  and  were  put  to  a  push  for  inven 
tion  "  were  using  it  to  furnish  themselves  with  e '  matter  of 
discourse  "  and  with  Latin  quotations  to  last  them  all  their 
lives.  The  book  was,  in  truth,  no  mere  literary  feat,  but 
the  genuine  counterpart,  in  a  strange  literary  form,  of  a 
mind  as  unusual.  Burton's  place  is  in  that  extraordinary 
class  of  humourists,  of  which,  in  modern  times,  Rabelais, 
Swift,  and  Jean  Paul  are,  though  with  obvious  mutual  dif 
ferences,  the  other  best  known  examples.  He  led  the  life 
of  a  student  in  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  devouring  all  the 
books  in  the  Bodleian,  and  surrounded  in  his  own  chambers 
with  a  collection  of  "  all  the  historical,  political,  and  poetical 
tracts  of  his  time,"  including  a  large  assortment  of  "  medical 
books,  and  of  accounts  of  murders,  monsters,  and  accidents." 
By  those  who  knew  him  intimately  he  was  esteemed  "a 
person  of  great  honesty,  plain  dealing,  and  charity  " ;  and, 
in  his  talk,  what  was  most  noticed  was  his  eternal  facetious- 
ness  and  his  readiness  in  anecdote  and  quotation.  It  was 
known  about  Oxford,  however,  that  he  was  the  victim  of  an 
incurable  hypochondria.  Ostensibly  to  relieve  himself  from 


PROSE    LITERATURE:    BURTON.  527 

the  disease,  he  had  written  his  book.  Offered  under  the 
guiso  of  a  medico-psychological  dissertation  on  hypochondria 
in  all  its  forms,  the  book  is  an  endless  medley  of  learned 
quotations,  floating,  and  only  just  floating,  in  a  text  of 
Rabelaisian  humour.  From  numberless  passages  in  the 
treatise  itself,  and  still  more  from  the  prefixed  "  Satirical 
Epistle  to  the  Reader,"  it  is  evident  the  author  had  a  real 
title  to  his  assumed  name  of  Democritus,  and  that,  though 
living  as  a  recluse  parson  in  Oxford,  with  nothing  more 
laughable  at  hand  than  the  ribaldry  of  the  Oxford  bargemen, 
to  which,  it  is  said,  he  used  to  listen  with  never-ending 
delight,  he  had  gone  the  old  philosophic  round  in  his  private 
meditations,  and  come  to  the  conclusion,  with  some  slight 
abatement  through  his  theology,  that  life,  if  ghastly  in  the 
particular,  is  a  huge  farce  in  the  sum.  Burton  died  in 
January  1639-40,  at  the  age  of  sixty-four. 

The  transition  is  natural,  through  Burton,  from  the  heavy 
scholars  of  the  age,  to  its  lighter  essay-writers.  The  example 
of  Bacon  and  the  popularity  of  Montaigne  had  begotten  a 
taste  for  short  compositions  of  a  witty  or  semi-philosophical 
nature.  A  form  of  such  compositions  much  in  repute  was 
that  which  went  by  the  name  of  "  Characters," — i.  e.  graphic 
sketches  or  satirical  representations  of  individual  types  of 
social  life,  such  as  the  Merchant,  the  Farmer,  the  Sluggard, 
the  Busy-body.  Bishop  Hall  had  given  good  specimens,  in 
his  miscellanies,  of  this  style  of  writing;  there  were  good 
specimens  also  among  the  remains  of  the  unfortunate  Sir 
Thomas  Overbury;  and  the  style  was  to  continue  in  use 
throughout  the  century.  Among  the  practitioners  of  it  in 
or  about  1632  the  most  popular  was  John  Earle,  afterwards 
chaplain  to  Charles  II.  in  his  exile,  and  made  a  bishop  at  the 
Restoration,  but  now  a  young  man,  chaplain  to  Philip,  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  and  the  rector  of  a  parish  in  Wilts.  Though 
his  Microcosmography ,  or  a  Piece  of  the  World  characterised  in 
Essays  and  Characters ,  had  been  published  only  in  1628,  and 
then  under  another  name,  it  was  already  in  the  fifth  edition. 
Hardly  less  popular,  though  not  of  the  same  kind,  were  the 
Resolves  of  Owen  Feltham,  the  first  edition  of  which  had 


528  LIFE    OF    MILTON  AND  HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

appeared  in  1628,  and  a  second  in  1631,  arid  of  which  there 
were  to  be  five  or  six  additional  reprints,  greatly  increased 
in  bulk,  in  the  course  of  the  next  fifty  years.  Both  Earle 
and  Feltham  have  still  their  admirers ;  but  a  man  of  far 
greater  social  mark,  who  may  also  be  included  among  the 
essay- writers,  was  Sir  Henry  Wotton. 

Wotton  was  now  in  his  sixty-fifth  year,  looking  back  upon 
a  life  of  unusual  activity,  which  extended  into  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth.     Born  in  1568,  of  the  important  family  of  the 
Wot  tons  of  Bocton  Hall,  Kent,  he  had  been  educated  at 
Oxford,  and,  after  some  years  spent  in  foreign  travel,  had 
become  secretary  to  the  famous  Earl  of  Essex.     He  was  at 
that   time   intimate  with   Donne,  and  with   other   men   of 
eminence  in  politics  or  letters,  including  Bacon,  who  was 
his  kinsman.     On  the  fall  of  Essex,  he  escaped  sharing  his 
fate  by  a  timely  flight  from  England ;  and  during  the  rest 
of  Elizabeth's  reign  he  lived  in  exile  in  Florence,  excluded 
from  all  chance  of  employment  in  her  service.     A  secret 
mission  on  which  he  was  sent  by  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany 
to  James  VI.  of  Scotland  led  to  important  consequences. 
When  James  came  to  the  English  throne,  Wotton  was  re 
called,  knighted,  and  employed  in  diplomatic  service.     He 
was  "  thrice  ambassador  to  the  Republic  of  Venice,  once  to 
"the   States   of  the   United   Provinces,  twice   to   Charles 
' '  Emanuel,  Duke  of  Savoy,  once  to  the  United  Provinces 
"  of  Upper  Germany  in  the  Convention  of  Heilbrunn,  also 
(t  to  the  Archduke  Leopold,  to  the  Duke  of  Wiirternberg,  to 
"  the  imperial  cities  of  Strasburg  and  Ulm,  as  also  to  the 
"Emperor   Ferdinand    II."1     The   embassies  to  Germany 
and  the  Low  Countries  were  but  incidental  missions  towards 
the  end  of  his  long  diplomatic  life ;  and  for  the  better  part 
of  twenty  years  his  station  had  been  Venice.     It  was  the 
time  of  the  famous  contest  of  the  Venetians  with  the  Papacy, 
in  the  issue  of  which  European  Protestantism  was  so  much 
concerned ;  and,  as  representative  of  Great  Britain,  Wotton 
had  been  in  all  the  secret  counsels  of  the  Venetian  statesmen, 

1  Wood,  Athense,  II.  644,  and  Walton's  Lives. 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    SIR   HENRY   WOTTON.  529 

and  a  party  to  all  the  most  important  negotiations  of  the 
Italian  princes.  No  Englishman  knew  the  Italians  so  well/ 
or  had  been  more  popular  or  more  useful  in  Italy.  When 
he  had  done  his  work  there,  it  was  expected  that  he  would 
be  rewarded  with  some  office  at  home  proportionate  to  his 
services.  About  1619  there  had  been  a  prospect  of  his 
being  made  Secretary  of  State.  Disappointed  of  this  or  of 
any  equivalent  office,  and  willing,  as  it  would  seem,  to  retire 
in  the  evening  of  his  days  into  any  honourable  place  at  home 
which  would  afford  him  leisure  along  with  a  sufficient  main 
tenance,  he  had  accepted,  in  1624,  the  Provostship  of  Eton 
College,— a  place  which  Bacon  had  solicited  a  year  or  two 
before,  when  he  was  degraded  from  the  Chancellorship. 
"  Animas  fieri  aapientiores  quiescendo"  was  one  of  his  favourite 
apophthegms;  and  he  thanked  God  and  the  King  that  now, 
after  a  life  of  so  much  bustle,  he  was  able,  like  Charles  the 
Fifth,  to  enjoy  the  quiet  of  a  cloister.  Not  that,  as  Provost 
of  Eton,  he  was  by  any  means  idle.  "  He  was  a  constant 
"  cherisher,"  says  Walton,  "  of  all  those  youths  in  that  school 
r*in  whom  he  found  either  a  constant  diligence  or  a  genius 
"that  prompted  them  to  learning";  he  adorned  the  school 
with  pictures  and  busts  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  poets  and 
historians ;  he  encouraged  the  youths  to  cultivate  rhetoric ; 
and  he  would  never  leave  the  school  or  come  up  to  a  group 
of  the  boys  without  dropping  some  pleasant  or  weighty 
sentence  which  was  manna  to  their  young  minds.  Moreover, 
in  the  afternoons  he  had  always  a  hospitable  table,  at  which 
there  was  a  perpetual  succession  of  guests  to  keep  up 
pleasant  philosophic  talk;  and  on  these  occasions  two  or 
three  of  the  most  hopeful  pupils  of  the  College  were  always 
present.  His  wit  and  his  great  store  of  reminiscences  made 
his  own  conversation  delightful.  He  had  seen  or  known 
intimately  not  only  Essex,  Raleigh,  and  the  other  Elizabethan 
statesmen,  but  also  most  of  the  great  foreigners  of  the  age, — 
Beza,Casaubon,Guarini,  Sarpi,  Arrninius,  Kepler,  and  princes 
and  artists  without  number.  Bacon  had  not  disdained  to  pick 
up  anecdotes  from  his  cousin  Wotton,  and  even  to  register 
his  apophthegms;  and  among  Wotton's  most  interesting 
VOL.  i.  MM 


530  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

letters  is  one  to  Bacon,  thanking  him  for  a  gift  of  three 
copies  of  his  Qrganum,  and  promising  to  send  one  of  them 
to  Kepler.  "When  any  one  within  the  circle  of  his  acquaint 
ance  was  going  abroad,  nothing  pleased  him  better  than  to 
furnish  the  necessary  advices  and  letters  of  introduction. 
One  of  his  amusements  in  summer  was  angling ;  and  Walton 
speaks  of  his  delight  when  the  month  of  May  came  and  he 
could  go  out  with  his  rod.  *  Of  his  pleasures  within-doors, 
besides  books,  conversation,  and  smoking, — in  which  last, 
says  Walton,  he  was  "somewhat  immoderate,  as  many 
thoughtful  men  are," — the  chief  was  in  the  pictures,  gems, 
engravings,  and  coloured  botanical  charts,  which  he  had 
brought  with  him  from  Italy.  He  had  a  Titian,  one  or  two 
Bassanos,  portraits  of  several  Doges,  and  the  like ;  and  in 
all  matters  of  art  he  was  an  acknowledged  authority.  Amid 
so  many  desultory  occupations  and  pleasures,  he  had  not 
time  to  accomplish  all  that  was  expected  of  him  in  the  way 
of  original  authorship.  On  accepting  the  Provostship  of 
Eton,  he  had  indulged  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  write  a 
Life  of  Luther,  which  he  had  long  had  in  view,  and  in  which 
he  meant  to  involve  a  history  of  the  German  Reformation  ; 
but  King  Charles  had  persuaded  him  to  abandon  this  design 
and  think  rather  of  a  history  of  England.  All  that  he  had 
done  towards  this  work  consisted  of  but  a  few  fragments ; 
and  his  literary  reputation  depended,  therefore,  on  two  con 
troversial  letters  or  pamphlets  published  by  him  when  he 
was  ambassador  at  Venice,  on  a  little  treatise  entitled  The 
Elements  of  Architecture  which  he  had  published  in  1624,  on 
a  few  short  poems  of  a  moral  or  meditative  character  which 
had  got  about  separately  and  were  known  to  be  his,  and  on 
several  brief  essays,  also  unpublished,  but  known  to  his 
friends.  The  poems,  the  essays,  and  a  selection  of  his 
private  letters  were  published  after  his  death  as  the  Reliquiae 
Wottoniance.  The  poems  are  in  a  graceful,  thoughtful  spirit, 
with  a  trace  in  them  of  the  style  of  his  friend  Donne.  The 
essays  are  mostly  on  historical  or  political  topics, — a  Pane 
gyric  on  Charles  I.,  a  Character  of  William  the  Conqueror, 
a  Parallel  between  the  Character  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  and 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    THE    LATITUDINARIANS,  531 

that  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  &c.;  but  one  of  them  is  a 
brief  tract  On  Education,  or  Moral  Architecture,  containing 
hints  derived  from  his  experience  as  Provost  of  Eton  School. 
The  Panegyric  on  Charles  is  in  a  strain  of  the  most  reverent 
loyalty,  and  he  particularly  applauds  Charles's  policy  for  the 
suppression  of  controversies  in  the  Church.  "  Disputandi 
pruritus  est  Ecclesiarum  scabies  "  ("  The  itch  of  disputing  is 
the  leprosy  of  Churches  ")  was  one  of  his  favourite  aphorisms. 
He  was  himself  a  man  of  liberal  views,  keeping  a  middle 
way  between  Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  though  deferring 
to  the  policy  of  Laud  as  that  of  the  established  power  of  the 
State.  All  in  all,  he  deserved  his  reputation  as  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  and  benevolent  old  gentlemen  of  .his  time ; 
and  it  is  pleasant  yet  to  look  at  his  portrait,  representing 
him,  seated  in  his  furred  and  embroidered  gown,  as  Provost 
of  Eton,  leaning  against  a  table,  his  head  resting  on  his  left 
hand,  and  his  wise  kind  face  looking  straight  towards  you, 
as  if  listening  so  courteously. 

Passing  from  the  scholars  and  essay-writers  to  those  who, 
by  reason  of  a  certain  speculative  direction  of  their  studies, 
may  be  spoken  of  more  properly  as  the  thinkers  of  the  time, 
we  come  upon  a  very  interesting  group,  whom  we  cannot 
describe  better  than  by  calling  them  the  Latitudinarians. 
Selden,  as  we  have  seen,  was  so  critical  and  two-edged  in 
his  theological  talk  that  the  name  Latitudinarian  might 
have  been  applied  to  him.  If  Selden  was  a  latitudinarian  or 
rationalist,  however,  he  was  one  who  went  with  the  Puritans 
in  his  political  sympathies,  differing  in  this  respect  from 
those  whom  we  are  about  to  name,  and  whose  peculiarity  was 
that,  being  most  of  them  young  men,  detached  altogether 
from  the  Puritans,  and  rather  favourable  to  Laud  than 
otherwise,  they  were  working  through  Laudism  to  a  new  set 
of  tenets.  Of  this  group  of  persons  mention  is  made  by 
Clarendon  in  his  Life,  as  being  those  with  whom,  in  his  own 
youth,  he  kept  most  frequent  company ;  and  it  may  be  well, 
therefore,  before  naming  them,  to  introduce  Clarendon 
himself. 

Edward  Hyde,  afterwards  Earl  of  Clarendon,  the  son  of 
M  M  2 


532  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Henry  Hyde,  Esq.,  of  Pirton,  in  Wilts,  and  the  nephew  of 
Sir  Nicholas  Hyde,  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench, 
had  been  born  in  1608,  the  same  year  as  Milton,  and  was 
now  a  young  barrister  of  the  Middle  Temple.  Though  but 
four-and-twenty  years  of  age,  he  was  a  husband  for  the 
second  time.  His  first  wife,  whom  he  had  married  in  1628, 
had  died  within  a  few  months  of  their  marriage ;  and  his 
second  marriage  was  in  1632.  Daring  the  period  of  his 
widowhood  he  had  by  no  means  allowed  his  profession  to 
occupy  all  his  thoughts,  but,  being  in  110  want  of  money, 
had  "  stood  at  gaze  and  irresolute  what  course  of  life  to  take." 
At  this  time  "  his  chief  acquaintance  were  Ben  Jonson,  John 
"  Selden,  Charles  Cotton,  John  Vaughan,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby, 
"Thomas  May,  and  Thomas  Carew."  After  his  second 
marriage,  however,  he  "  laid  aside  all  thoughts  but  of  his 
profession";  and,  though  he  did  not  discontinue  his  ac 
quaintance  with  the  persons  just  named,  yet,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Selden,  whom  he  "looked  upon  with  so  much 
affection  and  reverence  that  he  always  thought  himself  best 
when  he  was  with  him,"  he  spent  less  time  in  their  society. 
Ben,  he  hints,  resented  this  a  little ;  for,  after  having  had 
"an  extraordinary  kindness  for  Mr.  Hyde,"  he  abated  it 
when  he  found  he  had  betaken  himself  to  business,  "  which 
he  believed  ought  never  to  be  preferred  before  his  company." 
Besides  Mr.  Hyde's  natural  disinclination,  as  a  married  man 
and  a  rising  young  lawyer,  to  dangle  any  longer  about  such 
an  exacting  old  Bacchus,  there  was  another  cause,  he  says, 
which  about  the  same  time  tended  to  loosen  that  connexion. 
"  He  had  then,"  he  says,  "  another  conjunction  and  cornmu- 
"nication  that  he  took  so  much  delight  in  that  he  embraced 
"it  in  the  time  of  his  greatest  business  and  practice,  and 
"  would  suffer  no  other  pretence  or  obligation  to  withdraw 
"  him  from  that  familiarity  and  friendship."  The  new 
friends  whose  society  was  thus  potent  are  enumerated  by 
him  individually.  They  were  Sir  Lucius  Carey,  eldest  son 
of  the  Lord  Viscount  Falkland,  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland ; 
Sir  Francis  Wenman,  of  Oxfordshire;  Sidney  Orodolphin, 
of  Godolphin  in  Cornwall ;  Edmund  Waller,  of  Beaconsfield  ; 


PEOSE    LITERATUEE  :    THE    LAT1TUDINARIANS.  533 

Dr.  Gilbert  Sheldon;  Dr.  George  Morley;  Dr.  John  Earle ; 
Mr.  John  Hales,  of  Eton ;  and  Mr.  William  Chillingworth. 

In  the  centre  of  the  group  is  young  Sir   Lucius  Carey. 
This  young  nobleman,  whom  his  father's  death  was  to  raise 
to  the  title  of  Lord  Falkland,  had  already  been  several  years 
out  on  the  world  on  Ms  own  account.     Carefully  educated 
in  Ireland,  both  under  private  masters  and  at  the  University 
of  Dublin,  he  had  returned  to  England  in  1628,  at  the  age 
of  eighteen,  and  had  almost  immediately  come  into  inde 
pendent  possession  of  large  estates  which  had  been  settled 
on    him  by  his  maternal    grandfather,   Lord    Chief  Baron 
Tanfield.     Ben  Jonson,  Selden,  and  Hyde  were  among  the 
first  to  find  out  his  merits ;  and  through  them  all  the  world 
heard  that,  if  there  was  a  bud  of  pre-eminent  promise  among 
the  young  English  aristocracy,  it  was   Sir   Lucius   Carey. 
Unfortunately,  just    as  this  opinion  was  beginning  to  be 
formed,  he  was  lost  for  a  time  to  his  friends  in  London.    He 
married,  without  his  father's  consent,  a  young  lady  "  with 
out  any  considerable  portion";  and,  as  no  submission  could 
conciliate  the  Viscount,  Sir  Lucius  took  his  displeasure  so 
much  to  heart  that,  after  trying  in  vain  to  find  some  military 
employment   in    Holland,   he  retired   with   his  wife  to  his 
estates  in  England,  there  to  give  himself  up  to  Greek  and 
other  studies,  and  with  the  resolve  not  to  see  London  again 
for  many  years,  though  it  was  "  the  place  he  loved  of  all  the 
world."     His  father's  death  so  much  sooner  than  had  been 
anticipated  was  to  bring  him  back  into  society.     From  the 
year  1633,  when,  at  the  age  of  three-and-twenty,  he  suc 
ceeded  to  his  peerage,  onwards  till  the  commencement  of 
the  civil  wars,  the  mansion  of  young  Lord  Falkland  at  Tew 
in   Oxfordshire,  about   twelve  miles  distant  from  the  Uni 
versity,  was   to  be  more  noted  as  a  centre  of  intellectual 
resort  and  activity  than  any  other  nobleman's  mansion  in 
England.     Being  so  near  Oxford,  it  "  looked  like  the  Uni 
versity  itself,"  by  reason  of  the  numbers  of  eminent  doctors 
and  scholars  from  the  University  that  made  it  their  rendez 
vous.     These,  as  well  as  the  visitors  from  London,   "  all 
"  found  their  lodgings  there  as  ready  as  in  the  colleges ;  nor 


531  LIFE   OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

(( did  the  lord  of  the  house  know  of  their  coming  or  going, 
1  e  nor  who  were  in  his  house,  till  he  came  to  dinner  or  supper, 
"  where  all  still  met ;  otherwise,  there  was  no  troublesome 
' '  ceremony  or  constraint  to  forbid  men  to  come  to  his  house, 
"or  to  make  them  weary  of  staying  there,  so  that  many 
"  came  thither  to  study  in  a  better  air,  finding  all  the  books 
"  they  could  desire  in  his  library,  and  all  the  persons  together 
"  whose  company  they  could  wish  and  not  find  in  any  other 
et  society."  *  Besides  Hyde  himself,  the  eight  persons  named 
above  appear  to  have  been  among  the  most  constant  and 
most  welcome  of  Falkland's  guests,  and  to  have  formed  the 
nucleus  of  what  might  have  been  called  the  Falkland  set. 
It  is  not  till  after  1633  that  we  are  to  fancy  them  gathered 
in  so  intimate  a  manner  round  the  young  Viscount's  table 
at  Tew.  Till  then  we  are  to  fancy  them,  scattered,  some 
about  London  and  some  about  Oxford,  the  friends  of  Sir 
Lucius  Carey,  the  Viscount  expectant. 

Two  of  them,  Waller  and  Earle,  are  already  known  to  us. 
Four  of  the  others,  Wenman,  Godolphiri,  Sheldon,  and 
Morley,  may  be  dismissed  briefly.  Wen  man  was  a  country 
gentleman,  with  property  in  Oxfordshire  close  to  Falkland's, 
highly  esteemed  at  Court,  Clarendon  tells  us,  and  of  great 
weight  in  his  part  of  the  country,  but  affected,  through  ill 
health,  with  "a  kind  of  laziness  of  mind,"  unfitting  him  for 
public  employment.  He  was  a  fair  scholar,  but  "  his  ratio 
cination  was  above  his  learning."  He  died  just  before  the 
Civil  Troubles.  Sidney  Godolphin,  who  lived  to  take  a  brief 
part  in  these  troubles,  was  now  a  youth  of  Falkland's  own 
age,  recently  from  Oxford  and  from  foreign  travel,  com 
petently  wealthy,  and  much  loved  by  his  friends  for  his 
"excellent  disposition"  and  his  "great  understanding  and 
large  fancy,"  lodged  in  one  of  the  smallest  and  most  fragile 
bodies  ever  seen.  Sturdier  men  than  either  Wenman  or 
Godolphin,  and  with  much  longer  lives  before  them,  were 
the  two  clergymen,  Sheldon  and  Morley.  Sheldon,  who 
was  to  die  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1677,  after  many 
previous  experiences  and  preferments,  was  at  this  time,  in 

1  Clarendon's  Life,  p.  22. 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    JOHN   HALES.  535 

his  thirty-fifth  year,  domestic  chaplain  to  Lord  Keeper 
Coventry.  According  to  Burnetts  character  of  him  in  later 
life,  he  was  a  subtle,  plausible  man  of  business,  generous 
and  charitable,  but  supposed  "  not  to  have  a  deep  sense  of 
religion,"  and  "  speaking  of  it  most  commonly  as  an  engine 
of  government."  In  this  earlier  time  of  his  life  he  was,  if 
anything,  an  Arminian  or  Laudian  in  his  theology.  He  ' 
"  was  the  first,"  it  was  afterwards  said,  "  who  publicly 
denied  the  Pope  to  be  Antichrist  at  Oxon."  If  Sheldon 
was  thus  bold  on  one  side,  Morley,  notwithstanding  that  he 
and  Sheldon  were  so  much  together,  was  as  bold  on  the 
other.  Already,  while  but  chaplain  to  Lord  Carnarvon,  he 
had,  in  consequence  of  his  free  talk  at  his  College  of  Christ 
Church,  Oxford,  "  fallen  under  the  reproach,"  says  Claren 
don,  "  of  holding  some  opinions  which  were  not  grateful  to 
"  those  churchmen  who  had  the  greatest  power  in  ecclesias- 
"  tical  promotions/'  One  jest  of  his  had  hit  very  hard.  A 
grave  country  gentleman,  who  wished  to  be  clear  as  to  the 
nature  of  Arminianism,  having  asked  him  "what  the 
Arminians  held,"  Morley's  reply  was,  "  They  hold  all  the 
J»est  bishoprics  and  deaneries  in  the  Church  of  England." 
Morley's  definition  of  Arminianism  had  reached  Laud's  ears, 
and  had  created  a  prejudice  against  him.  He  lived,  however, 
to  toil  for  the  King  as  hard  as  Laud  himself  would  have 
done,  and  to  hold  two  bishoprics  after  the  Restoration. 

From  this  description  of  four  out  of  the  group  celebrated 
by  Clarendon,  it  will  be  seen  that  those  whom  we  have 
described  as  the  Falkland  set  consisted  of  men  almost  all 
under  forty,  and  some  of  them  little  over  twenty  years  of 
age,  who  had  the  character  of  being  "  clear  reasoners "  in 
religion.  If  the  name  Latitudinarians  should  be  too  strong 
for  some  of  them,  it  was  not  too  strong  for  their  three  chiefs, 
Hales,  Chillingworth,  and  Falkland  himself. 

John  Hales  was  the  veteran  of  the  party,  being  about 
forty-eight  years  of  age.  Born  at  Bath  in  1584,  he  had 
been  educated  at  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford,  and  had  afterwards 
been  fellow  of  Merton  College  there.  "  There  was  never 
"  any  one  in  the  then  memory  of  man,"  as  Wood  heard 


536  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

afterwards,  "that  went  beyond  him  at  the  University  for 
"  subtle  disputations  in   philosophy,  for  his    eloquent    de- 
"  clamations  and  orations,  as  also  for  his  exact  knowledge 
"in  the  Greek  tongue."     He  held  the   Greek  lectureship 
not  only  in  his  college,  but  also  in  the  University ;  and  he 
was  one  of  those  who  assisted  Sir  Henry  Savile,  then  warden 
of  MertpBj  in  his  edition  of  St.  Chrysostom.     In  1618  he 
went  to  Holland  as  chaplain  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  then 
ambassador  in  that  quarter.     He  was  present  at  the  Synod 
of  Dort,  and  detailed  accounts  of  the  proceedings  of  that 
synod  are  given  in  a  series  of  letters  written  by  him  at  the 
time.     After  his  return,  "  though  he  might  have  promised 
"  himself  any  preferment  in  the  Church,  he  withdrew  himself 
' '  from  all  pursuits  of  that  kind  into  a  private  fellowship  in 
"  the  College  of  Eton,  where  his  friend  Sir  Harry  Savile  was 
"provost,   where   he   lived   amongst   his   books."      Under 
Savile' s     successors   in    the   provostship — Thomas    Murray 
(1621-2—1623)  and   Sir  Henry  Wotton— Hales  continued 
in  the  same  modest  retirement,  from  which  nothing  could 
draw  him.     He  had  fifty  pounds  a-year,  he   used  to   say, 
more  than  he   could  spend;  "and  yet,"   adds  Clarendon, 
"  besides  being  very  charitable  to  all  poor  people,  even  to 
"liberality,  he  had  made  a  greater  and  better  collection  of 
"books  than  were  to  be  found  in  any  other  private  library 
"that  I  have   seen."     His  great  learning  and   "profound 
judgment "   were   combined  with  the  most  punctilious  in 
tegrity  and  the  utmost  modesty  of  demeanour,  so  that  there 
was  no  man  of  the  day  of  whom  more  people  spoke  well. 
He  was  of  very  small  stature, — "  a  pretty  little  man,"  says 
Aubrey,  "  sanguine,  and  of  cheerful  countenance."    Wotton 
used  to  call  him  his   "  walking  library " ;  and  one  of  the 
!  attractions  of  Wot  ton's  table  was  that  Hales  was  to  be  seen 
there.     "  When  the  court  was  at  Windsor,"  says  Aubrey, 
"the  learned  courtiers  much  delighted   in  his  company." 
Occasionally  he  visited  London,  and  he  also  made  periodical 
visits  to   Oxford.     "  He   had,"   says   Clarendon,    "  whether 
"  from  his  natural  temper  and  constitution,  or  from  his  long 
"  retirement  from  all  crowds,  or  from  his  discerning  spirit, 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    CHILLING  WORTH.  537 

"  contracted  some  opinions  which  were  not  received,  nor  by 
"him  published,  except  in  private  discourses,  and  then 
"rather  upon  occasion  of  dispute  than  of  positive  opinion." 
As  to  the  nature  of  those  opinions  Aubrey  is  more  outspoken. 
"  I  have  heard  his  nephew,  Mr.  Sloper,  say  that  he  much 
"  loved  to  read  Stephanus,  who  was  a  Familist,  I  think,  that 
"  first  wrote  of  that  sect  of  the  Family  of  Love :  he  was 
"  mightily  taken  with  it,  and  was  wont  to  say  that  some  time 
"  or  other  these  fine  notions  would  take  in  the  world." 
Again,  according  to  Aubrey,  "he  was  one  of  the  first 
Socinians  in  England, — I  think,  the  first."  His  cardinal"^ 
tenet,  however,  was  the  duty  and  expediency  of  religious 
toleration.  "Nothing  troubled  him  more,"  says  Clarendon, 
"  than  the  brawls  which  were  grown  from  religion ;  and  he 
"therefore  exceedingly  detested  the  tyranny  of  the  Church 
"  of  Eome, — more  for  their  imposing  uncharitably  upon  the 
"  consciences  of  other  men  than  for  the  errors  in  their  own 
"  opinions  ;  and  would  often  say  that  he  would  renounce  the 
"religion  of  the  Church  of  England  to-morrow  if  it  obliged 
"  him  to  believe  that  any  other  Christians  should  be  damned, 
"  and  that  nobody  would  conclude  another  man  to  be  damned 
"  who  did  not  wish  him  so."  Something  of  this  philosophical 
Latitudinarianism  had  appeared  in  his  "  Dissertatio  de  Pace 
et  Concordid  Ecdesice"  published  in  1628,  and  in  letters  011 
metaphysical  and  other  topics  to  his  friends;  and  later 
writings  were  to  express  his  views  on  Church  polity  more 
fully.1 

Chillingworth,  of  whom  we  have  had  a  glimpse  already,  in 
curious  circumstances,  at  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  in  1628, 
was  now  in  his  thirty-first  year.  He  had  just  returned  to 
England  and  been  welcomed  back  to  Protestantism  by  his 
godfather  Laud,  after  his  brief  aberration  among  the  Jesuits, 
who  were  pursuing  him  with  hootings  for  his  inconstancy. 
His  aberration,  however,  had  been  but  a  natural  incident  in 
the  history  of  a  mind  made  for  arguing ;  nor  would  he  ever 

1  Clarendon's  Life ;  Aubrey's  Lives ;       Mr.   John   Hales   of  Eton,   now   first    \ 
Wood's    Athense,    III.    409-416 ;    and       collected" :  3  vols.,  Glasgow,  1765. 
"The  Works  of  the  ever-memorable 


538  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    H1STOEY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

allow  that  it  was  in  the  least  to  be  blamed  or  regretted. 
Imbued  with  the  Patristic  theology  of  Laud,  he  had  gone 
over  to  the  Catholic  Church,  because  logical  consistency 
with  Laudian  premises  seemed  to  lead  him  thither.  He  had 
scarcely  been  in  that  Church  when  his  reason  set  to  work  to 
bring  him  back  again,  not  as  a  Protestant  of  the  common 
school,  but  as  one  who  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
"  exemption  from  error  was  neither  inherent  in  nor  necessary 
to  any  Church."  He  had  scruples  about  some  of  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles,  and  the  report  at  Oxford  was  that  he  had 
become  a  Socinian.  He  had  "  such  a  habit  of  doubting," 
says  Clarendon,  "that  by  degrees  he  grew  confident  of 
"  nothing,  and  a  sceptic  at  least  in  the  greatest  mysteries  of 
"  faith."  It  was  not  till  some  years  later  that,  in  reply  to 
the  attacks  of  the  Jesuits,  he  was  to  write  his  famous 
defence  of  Protestantism,  The  Religion  of  Protestants  a  safe 
way  to  Salvation;  but  he  was  broaching  his  arguments  in 
private  talk,  hitting  the  Papists  hard  enough,  and  yet,  as 
Hobbes  said  of  him  when  his  book  came  out,  "like  some 
"lusty  fighters  that  will  give  a  damnable  back-blow  now 
"and  then  to  their  own  party."  All  in  all,  he  went  with 
Hales,  Falkland,  and  the  rest,  as  a  member  of  that  Protestant 
Latitudinarian  party  which  was  growing  up  under  Laud's 
government,  and  was  to  survive  it.  "  He  and  Lord  Falk- 
"  land,"  says  Aubrey,  "  had  such  extraordinary  clear  reasons 
"  that  they  were  wont  to  say  at  Oxon  that,  if  the  Great  Turk 
"  were  to  be  converted  by  natural  reasons,  these  two  were 
"  the  persons  to  convert  him."  Like  Hales  and  Godolphin, 
Chillingworth  was  a  little  man, — "  blackish  hair,  and  of  a 
"  saturnine  countenance,"  adds  Aubrey. 

It  was  an  age  in  which  small  men  were  unusually  promi 
nent.  Falkland  himself  was  of  the  number.  He  used  to 
say  that  one  of  the  reasons  of  his  friendship  for  Godolphin 
was  that  in  Godolphin's  presence  he  could  feel  himself  "  the 
properer  man."  But  small  stature  was  not  his  only  disad 
vantage.  "  His  person  and  presence,"  says  Clarendon, 
"  were  in  no  degree  attractive  or  promising  ;  his  motion  not 
"  graceful,  and  his  aspect  so  far  from  inviting  that  it  had 


PROSE   LITERATURE  :    SIR   LUCIUS    CAREY.  539 

"  something  in  it  of  simplicity ;  and  his  voice  the  worst  of 
"  the  three,  and  so  untuned  that,  instead  of  reconciling,  it 
"  offended  the  ear  so  that  nobody  would  have  expected 
"  music  from  that  tongue.  Sure  no  man  was  less  beholden 
"  to  nature  for  his  recommendation  into  the  world.  But 
"  then,"  adds  Clarendon,  in  a  panegyric  the  most  glowing 
and  affectionate  that  has  come  from  his  pen,  ee  no  man 
"  sooner  or  more  disappointed  this  general  and  customary 
"  prejudice.  That  little  person  and  small  stature  was 
"  quickly  found  to  contain  a  great  heart,  a  courage  so  keen 
"and  a  nature  so  fearless  that  no  composition  of  the 
"  strongest  limbs  and  most  harmonious  and  proportioned 
"  presence  and  strength  ever  more  disposed  any  man  to  the 
"  greatest  enterprises,  it  being  his  greatest  weakness  to  be 
"  too  solicitous  for  such  adventures ;  and  that  untuned 
"  tongue  and  voice  easily  discovered  itself  to  be  supplied 
"  and  governed  by  a  mind  and  understanding  so  excellent 
"  that  the  wit  and  weight  of  all  he  said  carried  another  kind 
<(  of  lustre  and  admiration  in  it,  and  even  another  kind 
"  of  acceptation  from  the  persons  present,  than  any  orna- 
"  ment  of  delivery  could  reasonably  promise  itself  or  is 
"  usually  attended  with ;  and  his  disposition  and  nature  was 
"  so  gentle  and  obliging,  and  so  much  delighted  in  courtesy, 
"  kindness,  and  generosity,  that  all  mankind  could  not  but 
"admire  and  love  him."  This  is  a  character  from  the 
recollection  of  his  whole  life;  but  already  in  1632  it  was 
beginning  to  be  deserved.  His  generosity  was  such  that 
"  he  seemed  to  have  his  estate  in  trust  for  all  worthy  persons 
"  who  stood  in  want  of  supplies  and  encouragement,  as  Ben 
"  Jonson  and  many  others  of  that  time,  whose  fortunes 
"  required  and  whose  spirits  made  them  superior  to  ordinary 
te  obligations,  which  yet  they  were  content  to  receive  from 
"him."  In  reading,  as  Clarendon  thought,  he  at  length 
came  up  to  Hales.  Besides  the  classics,  he  had  betaken 
himself  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers,  and  to  all  the  best 
ecclesiastical  writers,  on  the  principle  that  a  man  could  not 
inquire  too  diligently  or  curiously  into  the  real  opinions  of 
those  who  were  cited  so  confidently  by  men  who  differed 


540  LIFE    OE    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TJME. 

the  farthest  among  themselves.  He  had  thus  been  led  to 
some  conclusions  f(  on  which  he  was  in  his  own  judgment 
"  most  clear/'  though  he  would  "  never  think  the  worse  or  in 
"  any  degree  decline  the  familiarity  of  those  who  were  of 
' f  another  mind."  Aubrey  is  not  positively  sure  whether  he 
or  Hales  was  the  first  Socinian  in  England,  but  knows  that 
he  was  one  of  the  first  to  import  the  books  of  Socinus. 
t  There  were  Englishmen  alive  whose  speculations  were 
going  beyond  those  of  the  Latitudinarians,  and,  indeed, 
penetrating  into  tracks  lying  wholly  out  of  the  region  of 
current  clerical  controversy.  Bacon,  it  is  true,  had  had  no 
proper  successor;  and,  to  an  extent  which  seems  surprising 
after  the  appearance  of  such  a  man,  the  national  mind  had 
again  retracted  itself  into  the  defined  channels  of  theological 
debate.  But  Bacon's  notions  were  permeating  educated 
society,  tending  in  some  quarters  to  develop  quietly  a  new 
interest  in  physical  science,  and  in  others  provoking  theo 
logians  themselves  into  exercises  of  secular  speculation. 
There  were  also  some  minds  that  were  disporting  them 
selves,  each  in  its  own  way,  in  regions  of  the  teibile  not 
included  in  recognised  English  theology. — Whether  among 
those  who  were  doing  so  with  any  discernible  effect  upon 
their  contemporaries  we  ought  to  reckon  the  Paracelsian 
and  Eosicrucian  theosophist  Robert  Fludd  (1574-1637)  may 
admit  of  question.  Fludd  was  then  well  known  as  a  physi 
cian  in  Fenchurch-street,  London;  but,  with  the  exception 
of  Selden,  who  is  said  to  have  held  him  in  high  esteem,  and 
perhaps  of  one  or  two  other  omnivorous  readers,  English 
men  seem  to  have  let  his  works  alone,  as  not  knowing  what 
to  make  of  them. — Much  better  known  in  the  world  than 
Fludd,  and  a  thinker  of  a  less  uncouth  school,  was  the 
eccentric  Lord  Herbert  of^herbury  (1581-1648),  the  eldest 
brother  of  the  poet  Herbert.  In  1624  he  had  published  at 
Paris,  where  he  was  then  English  ambassador,  his  cele 
brated  treatise  De  Veritate,  prout  distinguitur  a  Eevelatione, 
a  Verisimili,  a  Possibili,  et  a  Falso, — a  book,  as  he  says  him 
self  in  his  autobiography,  "  so  different  from  anything  which 
had  been  written  before  "  that  ho  had  not  dared  to  publish 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    HOBBES.  511 

it  till,  in  answer  to  his  prayers,  he  had  received  a   super 
natural  sign  from  heaven.     He  had  circulated  copies  among 
the  continental  thinkers,  "  without  suffering  it  to  be  divulged 
to  others";  but,  satisfied  with  the  result,  he  was  now  pre 
paring  a  second  edition,  to  be  published  in  London.     When 
this  edition  appeared  in  1633,  it   bore  the  imprimatur  of 
Laud's  domestic   chaplain,  stating  that  nothing  had  been 
found  in  it  "  contrary  to  good  morals  or  the  truth  of  the 
faith."     It  is  the  custom  now,  however,  to  regard  the  book 
as  the  first  English  Deistical  treatise,  and  the  author  as  the 
first  English  Deist. — It  may  be  doubted  whether  this  judg 
ment  is  correct.     It  may  even  be  doubted  whether,  if  the 
conspicuous  heads  of  that  day  were  carefully  counted,  there 
might  not  be  found  among  them  one  or  two  whose  specula 
tions  passed  the  bounds  of  any  form  of  Theism  whatever. 
Had  Thomas  Hobbes  of  Malmesbury,  for  example,  attempted 
about  this  time  to  publish  works  such  as  were  afterwards  to 
make  him  famous,  the  probability  is  that  they  would  have 
been  stopped.     But,  though  Hobbes  was  now  in  his  forty- 
fifth  year,  he  seemed  to  be  conscious  that  he  was  to  live  to 
the  age  of  ninety-one,  and  need  be  in  no  hurry  to  trouble 
people  with    his    speculations.     On    leaving    Oxford  in    or 
about  1610,  he  had  gone  into  the  service  of  William  Caven 
dish,  Earl  of  Devonshire ;  he  had  travelled  in  France  and 
Italy    as    companion   to    the    Earl's    son;     on    his   return, 
continuing  in  the  Earl's  service  as  his   secretary,  he  had 
begun  a  new  course  of  study  on  his  own  account,  furbish 
ing  up   his  forgotten   Greek  and  Latin,   betaking  himself 
again  to  logic  and  philosophy,  visiting  stationers'  shops  to 
"  lie  gaping  on  maps,"  and  cultivating  acquaintance  with 
Bacon,  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and  Selden.     After  the 
Earl's  death  in  1628,  he  had  gone  abroad  again  as  tutor  in 
another  family;  but  he  had  returned  in  1631,  to   become 
tutor  to  the  eldest  son  of  the  new  Earl,  his  former  pupil. 
In    1629  he  had  published  his  first  work,   a  folio  volume 
entitled  Eiyht  Books  of  the  Peloponnesian  Warre,  written  by 
Thucydules,  the  sonne  of  Olorus  ;  interpreted  with  faith  and 
diligence  immediately  out  of  the  Greeke,  by  Thomas  Hobbes, 


042  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Secretary  to  the  late  Earl  of  Devonshire.  Just  about  the 
time  when  it  appeared,  he  had  betaken  himself  with  extra 
ordinary  avidity  to  geometry;  and,  had  one  predicted  the 
tenor  of  his  future  life,  one  would  have  'anticipated  nothing 
more  formidable  from  him  than  some  additional  translations 
from  the  Greek  historians  and  some  treatises  in  mathematics. 
Those  who  knew  him  intimately,  however,  were  aware  that 
there  was  dangerous  matter  in  him.1 

Of  what  we  should  now  call  Newspaper  and  Pamphlet 
Literature  there  was  not  much  show  in  Britain  about  the 
year  1632.  Improving  on  stray  previous  attempts  at  gazettes, 
Nathaniel  Butter,  a  London  bookseller,  had  established  a 
weekly  news-sheet  in  1622.  The  demand  for  his  corantos, 
as  they  were  called,  had  greatly  increased  in  consequence  of 
the  desire  for  continental  news  in  England  during  the 
Thirty  Years'  War.  Butter's  corantos,  however,  were 
innocent  enough  productions,  comment  or  discussion  being 
avoided,  and  the  news  being  for  the  most  part  foreign.  The 
more  dangerous  part  of  a  journalist's  work  fell  to  be  per 
formed,  so  far  as  it  was  performed  at  all,  by  writers  of  tracts 
and  pamphlets.  Of  the  number  of  these  was  poor  Dr. 
Leighton,  in  prison  since  1630.  Leighton's  Plea  against 
Prelacy,  as  we  saw,  had  been  printed  in  Holland  ;  and  it  was 
thence,  and  more  particularly  from  Amsterdam,  that  there 
still  came  most  of  the  very  vehement  tracts  against  prelacy, 
the  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  policy  of 
Charles.  But,  ever  since  the  Elizabethan  days  of  the  Marpre- 
late  Tracts,  "the  press  in  the  hollow  tree"  had  been  one  of 
the  domestic  institutions  of  England  ;  and  not  only  was  there 
much  clandestine  printing  in  Charles's  reign,  but  there  were 
booksellers,  who,  on  principle  or  for  gain,  made  the  sale  of 
pamphlets  and  treatises  that  might  have  been  considered 
libellous  against  individuals  or  the  state  a  special  part  of 
their  business.  Marked  men  as  writers  of  Puritan  tracts 
were  Henry  Burton  and  John  Bastwick.  Burton  was 
rector  of  Little  St.  Matthew's,  in  Friday-street,  London, 

i  Aubrey's  Life  of  Hobbes,  and  Wood's  Athene,  III.  1206. 


PROSE    LITERATURE  :    PRYNNE.  543 

and  in  some  esteem  among  the  Puritans  as  the  author  of  A 
Censure  of  Simony,  published  in  1624,  an  anti-popish  tract 
entitled  The  Baiting  of  the  Popes  Bull,  published  in  1.627, 
and  a  subsequent  volume  of  a  devotional  kind.  Bastwick, 
a  younger  man  than  Burton,  was  of  the  medical  profession, 
and  settled  at  Colchester.  In  1624  he  had  published  at 
Leyden  a  small  treatise  entitled  "  Elenclius  Religionis  Papis- 
ticce,  in  quo  probatur  neque  Apostolicam,  neque  Catholicam, 
immo  neque  Romanam,  esse" ;  and  he  had  other  tracts  in  pre 
paration.  But  the  most  terrible  phenomenon  as  a  Puritan 
pamphleteer  was  the  lawyer  William  Prynne.  Born  near 
Bath  in  1600,  and  educated  at  Oriel  College,  Oxford,  after 
wards  admitted  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  there  noted  as  a  dis 
ciple  and  admirer  of  Dr.  Preston,  Prynne,  though  still  a 
young  man,  was  a  veteran  pamphleteer.  Here  are  the  titles 
of  three  of  eight  pamphlets  of  his  which  had  preceded  his 
Histriomastix : — 

"  Health's  Sickness  ;  or  a  Compendious  and  Brief  Discourse,  prov 
ing  the  Drinking  and  Pledging  of  Healths  to  be  sinful  and  utterly 
unlawful  unto  Christians,"  &c.  1628.  pp.  86. 

"  The  Unloveliness  of  Love-locks  ;  or  a  Summary  Discourse  prov 
ing  the  wearing  and  nourishing  of  a  Lock  or  Love-lock  to  be  altogether 
unseemly  and  unlawful  unto  Christians  :  In  which  there  are  likewise 
some  passages  collected  out  of  the  Fathers,  Councils,  and  sundry 
Authors  and  Historians,  against  Face-painting,  the  Wearing  of  sup 
posititious,  powdered,  frizzled,  or  extraordinary  long  hair,  the  in 
ordinate  affectation  of  corporal  beauty,  and  Women's  mannish, 
unnatural,  impudent,  and  unchristian  cutting  of  their  hair,  the 
epidemical  vanities  and  vices  of  our  age."  1628.  pp.  63. 

"  The  Church  of  England's  Old  Antithesis  to  New  Arminianism  : 
wherein  the  7  Anti-Arminian  orthodox  tenets  are  evidently  proved, 
their  7  opposite  Arminian  (once  Popish  and  Pelagian)  errors  are 
manifestly  disproved,  to  be  the  ancient,  established,  and  undoubted 
doctrine  of  the  Church  of  England,"  &c.  1629.  pp.  280. 

Aubrey's  portrait  of  Prynne  refers  to  a  somewhat  later 
period,  but  will  not  be  amiss  here.  "  He  was  always  tem- 
"  perate/'  says  Aubrey,  "  and  a  very  hard  student,  and 
"  he  had  a  prodigious  memory.  His  manner  of  study  was 
"  this  : — He  wore  a  long  quilt  cap,  which  came  two  or  three 
"inches  at  least  over  his  eyes,  which  served  him  as  an  um- 
' '  brella  to  defend  his  eyes  from  the  light.  About  every 
"  three  hours  his  man  was  to  bring  him  a  roll  and  a  pot  of 


544  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  ale,  to  refocillate  his  wasted  spirits  :  so  he  studied  and 
"  drank  and  munched  some  bread  ;  and  this  maintained  him 
"till  night,  and  then  he  made  a  good  supper.  He  was  of  a 
"  strange  saturnine  complexion  :  Sir  C.  W.  [Sir  Christopher 
"  Wren  ?]  said  once  that  he  had  the  countenance  of  a  witch." 
Of  Prynne,  as  well  as  of  Burton  and  Bastwick,  we  shall  hear 
again. 

It  may  help  to  throw  light  on  some  points  which  our 
survey  of  British  literature  about  the  year  1632  may  have 
left  still  obscure  if  we  append  some  information  as  to  the 
forms  and  statistics  of  the  British  book-trade  at  that  time. 

From  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  printing  in  Eng 
land,  but  more  especially  after  the  Reformation,  there  had 
teen  interferences  of  the  Government  with  the  book- trade. 
The  first  proper  attempt  to  consolidate  the  trade,  however, 
had  been  the  incorporation  of  the  Stationers'  Company  of 
London  in  the  reign  of  Philip  and  Mary.  By  an  Act  of 
1557,  conferring  the  exclusive  privilege  of  printing  and 
publishing  books  in  the  English  dominions  on  ninety-seven 
London  stationers,  and  on  their  successors  by  regular  ap 
prenticeship,  literature  had  been  centralised  in  one  spot, 
where  it  could  be  under  the  immediate  inspection  of  Govern 
ment.  No  one  could  legally  print  books,  unless  by  special 
licence,  who  was  not  a  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company  ; 
and  the  Company  might  lawfully  search  for  and  seize  any 
books  printed  against  their  privilege.  Illegal  printing  was 
to  be  punishable  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  These  restric 
tions  had  been  continued  under  Elizabeth;  but,  that  the 
determination  of  what  should  be  published  might  not  be  left 
wholly  to  the  discretion  of  the  Company  incorporated  by  her 
Popish  sister,  it  had  been  decreed,  by  the  fifty-first  of  the 
Injunctions  concerning  Religion  promulgated  in  1559,  that 
no  book  in  any  language,  school-books  and  established 
classics  excepted,  should  thenceforward  be  printed  without 
previous  licence  from  the  Queen,  or  by  six  of  her  Privy 
Council,  or  by  the  Chancellors  of  the  two  Universities,  or 
by  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and  York,  or  by  the 


THE    ENGLISH    BOOK-TRADE    IN    1632.  545 

Bishop  of  London,  or  by  the  Bishop  Ordinary  and  the  Arch 
deacon  of  the  place  of  publication.  This  regulation,  ratified 
by  a  decree  in  Star-chamber  in  1566,  had  continued  in  force 
till  1586,  when  it  was  somewhat  modified.  The  privilege 
which  the  two  Universities  had  always  naturally  claimed  as 
seats  of  learning,  and  the  occasional  exercise  of  which  had 
caused  disputes  between  them  and  the  London  printers,  was 
then  confirmed  or  recognised ;  and  it  was  settled  by  a  new 
decree  in  Star-chamber  that,  in  addition  to  the  printing- 
presses  under  the  control  of  the  London  Company,  there 
might  be  one  press  at  Oxford  and  another  at  Cambridge, — the 
owners  of  these  presses,  however,  to  have  only  one  apprentice 
at  a  time,  and  to  employ  London  journeymen  when  they 
required  extra  service.1  At  the  same  time  the  right  of 
licensing  books  to  be  printed  was  transferred  to  the  Arch 
bishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  both  or 
either ;  except  in  the  case  of  documents  officially  entrusted 
to  the  Queen's  printer,  and  also  in  the  case  of  law-books, 
the  right  of  licensing  which  was  to  belong  to  the  Chief 
Justices  and  the  Chief  Baron.  This  arrangement,  modified 
and  relaxed  a  little  to  suit  convenience,  had  served  through 
the  rest  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  the  whole  of  the  reign 
of  James.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop 
of  London  were  still  the  censors-general  of  literature  for  all 
England ;  and  it  was  part  of  the  duty  of  their  chaplains  to 
examine  works  intended  for  the  press,  so  that  they  might 
be  legally  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  as  allowed  by  authority, 
and  might  then  appear  with  the  words  ( '  cum  privilegio,"  or 
some  equivalent  legend,  prefixed  to  them. 

To  no  part  of  his  supposed  duty  was  Laud  more  attentive 
than  to  the  regulation  of  the  press.  It  would  appear,  indeed, 
that  from  1627  onwards  he  had  all  but  relieved  Archbishop 
Abbot  of  this,  as  of  so  many  others  of  his  functions.  By 
1632,  however,  though  still  acting  as  censor-in-chief,  he 
had  consented  to  a  division  of  labour.  We  find,  at  all  events, 
that  the  Vice- Chancellors  of  the  two  Universities  then  ex 
ercised  the  right  of  licensing  books  to  be  printed  at  the 

1  Cooper's  Annals  of  Cambridge,  II.  424. 
VOL.  I.  X  N 


546  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

University-presses,  and  that,  even  as  regarded  the  London 
book-trade  itself,  Laud's  chaplains  were  not  the  only  licensers. 
Sermons,  theological  and  philosophical  treatises,  and  perhaps 
the  majority  of  all  works  whatever,  were  licensed  by  them, 
with  the  occasional  admission  of  an  imprimatur,  by  way  of 
variety,  from  one  of  Abbot's  more  puritanical  chaplains. 
But,  in  some  departments,  licenses  seem  to  have  come  also 
from  the  Judges  and  from  the  Secretary  of  State's  office ; 
and,  in  the  department  of  plays  and  poetry,  there  is  docu 
mentary  proof  that  Sir  Henry  Herbert  exercised  the  privilege. 
As  Master  of  the  Revels,  and  licenser  of  plays  to  be  acted, 
Sir  Henry  was,  indeed,  the  fittest  official  person  to  license 
all  analogous  publications. 

By  whomsoever  the  license  was  given,  the  formality  at 
tending  legal  publication  was  the  same.  The  manuscript, 
bearing  the  licenser's  certificate  and  thus  made  vendible,  was 
committed  to  the  press  by  the  author  or  by  the  bookseller 
who  had  acquired  it  from  him ;  and,  some  time  before  the 
publication,  the  bookseller  had  it  registered  as  his  copy,  for 
a  fee  of  sixpence,  in  the  books  of  the  Stationers'  Company. 
Simple  registration  in  this  manner  was  all  that  the  law 
required ; 1  but  books  continued  to  appear  with  the  legend 
".  cum  privilegio  "  prefixed  to  them,  and  sometimes  with  an 
exact  copy  of  the  licenser's  certificate,  according  to  a  form 
then  recently  invented  or  adopted  from  abroad.  Thus,  in 
the  first  English  edition  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury's 
treatise : — 


"  Perlegi  liunc  Tractatum,  cui  titulo  est  '  De  Veritaie,  prout  dis- 
tinguitur  a  Revelatione,  a  Verisimili,  a  Possibili,  et  a  Falso]  qui 
quidem  liber  continet  paginas  jam  impressas  227,  manuscriptas  autem 
circa  17 ;  in  quibus  nihil  reperio  bonis  moribus  aut  veritati  Fidei 
contrarium  quominus  cum  utilitate  publica  imprimatur : — Gulielmus 
Haywood,  Episc.  Londin.  capell.  domest :  Dec.  31,  1632." 

If  it  be  true  that  Usher's  Goteschalci  et  Predestinariance 
Controversies  ab  eo  motce  Historia,  published  in  1631,  was  the 

1  The  regulations  of  the  Stationers'  tracts  of  the  time, — Prynne's  "  Unlove- 
Company  were  not  always  attended  to.  liness  of  Love-Locks  "  and  others  of  his 
There  were  certainly  publications  of  earlier  pieces  included, — the  title-page 
the  day, printed  and  sold  in  London,  of  bears  no  printer's  or  publisher's  name, 
which  no  trace  is  to  be  found  in  the  but  only  the  words  "  Printed  at  Lou- 
Registers  of  the  Hall.  In  not  a  few  don,"  or  the  like. 


THE  ENGLISH  BOOK-TRADE  IN  1632.          5  17 

first  Latin  work  printed  in  Ireland,  the  entire  contribution 
of  the  Irish  press  to  the  current  literature  of  the  three  king 
doms  in  1632  may  be  assumed  to  have  been  very  small.1 
The  contribution  from  Scotland  had  been  much  larger.  As 
early  as  1551  it  had  been  "de visit,  statute,  and  ordanit  "  by 
an  Act  of  the  Scottish  Parliament  "  that  na  prentir  presume, 
"  attempt,  or  tak  upone  hand  to  prent  ony  bukis,  ballatis, 
11  sangis,  blasphematiounis,  rymes  or  tragedies,  outher  in 
"  Latine  or  Inglis  tongue  "  until  the  same  had  been  "  sene, 
"  vewit,and  examit  be  sum  wyse  and  discreit  persounis  depute 
"thairto  be  the  ordinaris  quhatsumever,  and  thairafter  ane 
"  license  had  and  obtenit,"  under  pain  of  "  confiscatioun  of 
"  all  the  prentair's  gudes  and  banissing  him  of  the  realrae 
"  for  ever/' 2  From  such  an  act  one  would  infer,  even  were 
there  not  independent  proof  of  the  fact,  that  there  was  some 
literary  activity  in  Scotland  before  James  succeeded  to  the 
throne.  To  what  extent  it  had  been  kept  up  in  the  interval 
we  have  already  had  the  means  of  judging.  In  and  about 
1632  books  were  occasionally  published  in  Edinburgh  and 
at  Aberdeen;  though  even  then  we  find  one  or  two  Scottish 
parsons,  as  if  unwilling  to  be  hid  under  a  bushel,  negotiating 
with  London  printers,  and  pushing  their  sermons  into  the 
London  market.  For  such  works  as  were  printed  in  Scot 
land  the  licensers  were  the  academic  or  ecclesiastical 
authorities. 

In  1632,  just  as  now,  people  complained  of  a  plethora  of 
books.  "  Good  God  !  "  says  Wither  in  his  Scholar's  Purga 
tory,  "  how  many  dungboats  full  of  fruitless  volumes  do  they 
"  yearly  foist  upon  his  Majesty's  subjects  ;  how  many  hun- 
"  dred  reams  of  foolish,  profane,  and  senseless  ballads  do 
"  they  quarterly  disperse  abroad !  "  To  the  same  effect 
Burton  in  the  preface  to  his  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  "In 
"  this  scribbling  age,"  he  says,  "  the  number  of  books  is 
( '  without  number.  What  a  company  of  poets  hath  this  year 

1  Most  of  Usher's  publications,  prior  at  Dublin,  "  Ex  officin&  typographica 

to  1632,  were  printed  in  London.     His  Societatis  Bibliopolorum." 
"  Veterum  Epistolarum  Sylloge,"  how-  2  Acts  of  the  Parliament  of  Scotland, 

ever,  published  in  that  year,  was  issued  II.  488-9. 

N  N  2 


548  LIFE    OE    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  brought  out !  as  Pliny  complaims  to  Sosius  Senecio.  What 
"  a  catalogue  of  new  books  all  this  year,  all  this  age,  I  say, 
"have  our  Frankfort  marts,  our  domestic  marts,  brought 
"  out !  Quis  tarn  avidus  librorum  helluo  ?  Who  can  read 
' '  them  ?  We  are  oppressed  with  them ;  our  eyes  ache  with 
"  reading,  our  fingers  with  turning."  Of  divinity  especially 
there  was  a  glut.  "  There  be  so  many  books  in  that  kind," 
says  Purton,  "  so  many  commentaries,  treatises,  pamphlets, 
"  exposiL*"^ns,  sermons,  that  whole  teams  of  oxen  cannot 
"  draw  them ;  and,  had  I  been  as  forward  and  ambitious  as 
"  some  others,  I  might  have  haply  printed  a  sermon  at  Paul's 
"  Cross,  a  sermon  in  St.  Mary's,  Oxon,  a  sermon  in  Christ 
"  Church,  or  a  sermon  before  the  Right  Honourable,  Right 
"  Reverend,  a  sermon  before  the  Right  Worshipful,  a  sermon 
"in  Latin,  in  English,  a  sermon  with  a  name,  a  sermon 
"without,  a  sermon,  a  sermon,  a  sermon."  With  such 
complaints  in  our  ears,  it  is  somewhat  amusing  to  compare 
the  actual  statistics  of  the  British  book-trade  of  1632  with 
the  statistics  of  the  same  trade  now. 

The  entire  number  of  books  and  pamphlets  of  all  kinds, 
including  new  editions  and  reprints,  now  annually  published 
in  the  United  Kingdom,  exceeds  5,000.  This  is  at  the  rate 
of  nearly  fourteen  publications  every  day.  The  registers  of 
Stationers'  Hall  for  1632  and  the  adjacent  years  tell  a  very 
different  story.  The  entire  number  of  entries  of  new  copies 
and  of  transfers  of  old  copies  there  registered  as  having 
taken  place  in  the  London  book-trade  during  the  year  1630 
is  150,  or  not  quite  three  a-week.  The  corresponding  num 
ber  for  the  year  1631  is  138;  for  1632,  only  109;  in  1633 
it  rises  to  154;  and  in  1634  it  again  declines  to  126.  With 
all  allowance  for  publications  out  of  London,  and  for  pub 
lications  in  London  not  registered,  it  seems  from  these 
statistics  as  if,  big  and  little  taken  together,  it  ivas  possible 
for  a  diligent  reader  to  become  acquainted  in  some  measure 
with  every  book  that  was  published.  As  it  may  be  interest 
ing  to  have  the  most  exact  and  authentic  information  possible 
respecting  the  nature  and  the  quantity  of  literary  matter 
thus  supplied  to  the  English  reading  public  by  the  legitimate 


TEE    ENGLISH    BOOK-TRADE    IN    1G32.  549 

book-trade  of  London  during  a  given  consecutive  period,  one 
may  here  present,  from  the  registers  of  the  Stationers'  Com 
pany,  a  list  of  all  the  entries  of  new  copies  and  of  transfers 
of  copy  during  the  complete  half-year  from  the  1st  of  July 
to  the  31st  of  December  1632  :— 

July  5.     Quatemio,  seu  via  quadruplet  ad  vitam  rectam,  by  Tho. 
Nash. 

,,     „     Cures  without  care,  by  M.  S." 

,,16.  Hall  dues  paid  on  Butter's  coranto.  for  the  preceding  half- 
year. 

„  „  Three  Ballads  entitled  1.  Man's  Felicity  and  Misery;  2. 
Knavery  in  all  Trades ;  3.  Monday's  Work. 

„    „     Ornithologia,  or  the  History  of-^irds  and  Foivles. 

„  19.  The  Swedish  Intelligencer,  uie  Second  Part ;  being  a  con 
tinuation  of  the  former  story,  from  the  victory  of  Lwpsick 
unto  the  Conquest  of  Bavaria.  This  is  a  publication  of 
Butter's. 

„  25.  A  Treatise  of  Types  and  Figures  of  Christ,  by  Tho.  Taylor, 
D.D. 

„  27.     Three  of  Butter's  corantos  registered. 

„    „     A  Ballad  entitled    When  the  Fox  begins    to  preach  beware 


your 

Aug.  3.    A  Historic  of  the  War  res  of  Ireland,  with  mappes  ;  written 
by  Sir  George  Carey,  Earl  of  Totnes,  sometime  President 
there. 

„    „     A  Ballad  called  News  from  the  King  of  Sweden. 

„  „  An  Exposition  of  the  I2th  Chapter  of  the  Revelation  of  St. 
John,  by  Tho.  Taylor,  D.D. 

,,  14.  Quadrivium  Sionis :  or  the  Four  Waies  to  Sion :  by  John 
Monies,  B.D. 

,,21.  A  Commentary  or  Exposition  upon  the  2d  Epistle  of  St. 
Peter,  by  Tho.  Adams. 

„  26.  Transferred  to  Mr.  Joyce  Norton  and  Mr.  Whittaker  the 
copyright  or  part-copyright  of  98  books,  the  property  of 
a  deceased  bookseller.  The  list  includes,  besides  many 
books  now  forgotten,  Gerard 's  Herbal,  Keckermanrt  s 
Logic,  the  Basilicon  Doron,  Willett's  Hexapla  in  Genesin, 
Camden's  Britannia,  Beza's  Latin  Testament,  Selden's 
Titles  of  Honor,  Bacon's  Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  Calvin's 
Institutes,  and  Fairfax's  Tasso. 

Sept.  3.    A  Ballad  entitled  Love's  Solace,  or  Sweet  is  the  lass  that  loves 
me. 

„  4.  Transfer  of  copyright  in  two  Sermons,  entitled  Repentance 
and  Of  the  Lord's  Supper,  both  by  Mr.  John  Bradford, 
and  in  A  Catechism  containing  the  sum  of  the  Gospels,  by 
Edm.  Littleton. 

„  9.  The  Church's  Rest,  with  the  use  made  of  it,  in  9  sermons, 
with  8  other  Select  Sermons,  by  Dr.  Jo.  Burgess. 

,,13.  A  Book  of  Verses  and  Poems  by  Dr.  Donne,  entered  as 
the  copy  of  John  Marriott,  with  the  exception  of  "The 
Five  Satires,  and  the  1st,  2d,  10th,  llth,  and  13th  Elegies  " : 
these  to  be  Marriott's  "when  he  brings  lawful  authority." 


550  LIFE    OP    MILTON  AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Sept.  21.  Analysis  or  Resolution  of  Merchants'  Accompts,  by  Ralph 

Sanderson,  Accomptant. 
„     „     A   Treatise  of  Justification,  setting  down  the  true  doctrine  of 

Justification,  by  Bishop  Downham. 
„     „      An  Exposition  upon  the  Lords  Prayer,  delivered  at  Leith  in 

Scotland  in  22  Sermons,  by  Mr.  William  Wishart,  parson 

of  Restolrigg. 

„  22.  The  Serpentine  Lines  of  Proportion,  with  the  Instruments  'be 
longing  thereunto,  by  Tho.  Browne,  a  lover  of  the  mathe 
matical  practice.  (Can  this  be  an  early  publication  of 

Browne  of  Norwich  1 ) 

„  27.    Rowley's  Tragedy  of  All's  Lost  by  Lust. 
Oct.  10.    The   Returning  Backslider,   or  Ephraim's  Repentance,  by 

R.  Sibbs,  D.D. :  being  sermons  delivered  in  Gray's  Inn. 
„     „      Sibbes's  Cantica  Canticorum,  or  a  Discourse  of  the  Union 

and  Communion  betwixt  Christ  and  the  Church)  delivered 

in  divers  sermons  in  Gray's  Inn. 
„  20.     Ovid's  Tristia  in  English  verse,  translated  by  Wye  Salton- 

stall. 
„  23.     Viginti  Propositions  Catholicce,  by  the  Right  Rev.  Father 

in  God,  Joseph,  Bishop  of  Exon,  i.  e.  Bishop  Hall. 
„  24.     A    Book    called   Poeticall   Blossomes,  and    containing   the 

Tragical  Stories  of  Constantia  and  Philetus,  and  Pyramus 

and  Thisbe  in  verse,  by  Abra.  Cowley. 
„     „     Certain  Paradoxes  and  Problems  in  prose,  written  by  J. 

Donne. 
„  27.     A  Table  called  A  yearly  Continuation  of  the  Lord  Mayor 

and  Sheriffs  of  London. 
„  31.     John  Marriott  enters  the  Five  Satires  written  by  Dr.  J. 

Dun  (Donne)  excepted  in  his  last  entry. 
Nov.  2.     A  Comedy  called  The  Costly  Whore. 

„     8.     Gerardi  Mercatoris  Atlas,  in  Latin  and  in  English. 
Dec.  19.    A    Visitation  Sermon  preached    before  the  Archbishop  of 

Canterbury,  by  Fra.  Rogers,  D.D. 
„     „     A  Funeral  Sermon,  by  the  same. 
„  22.     The  Schoolmaster  or   Theatre  of   Table   Philosophic,  and 

Ptolemie's  Astronomic. 

„     „     Nine  Sermons,  by  the  late  Dr.  Preston. 
„  24.     A   comfortable    Treatise    concerning    Temptations,    by  Mr. 

Capell.1 

1  The  list  is  from  the  Books  of  the  "  hands  of  Mr.  Buckner  [the  licenser] 

Stationers'  Company,  as  inspected  by  "  and  both  the  wardens,  a  book  called 

myself ;  but  I  have  given  the  entries  "  Quaternio,  sen  ma  quadruplet  ad  vitam 

in  a  somewhat  abridged  form.     In  the  "rectam:    6d.   [the   registration-fee]." 

original  the  name  of  the  bookseller  or  The  other  entries  are  after  the  same 

firm  entering  the  copy  is  always  given,  formula.    The  names  of  the  booksellers 

and  there  is  also  given  in  most  of  the  collectively  who  made  the  entries  are — 

entries  the  name  of  the  licenser  of  the  Dawson,   Jones,   Butter   and  Browne, 

book,  together  with  a  note  stating  by  Grove,  Coates  and  Legatt  and  Coates, 

what  official  authority  of  the  Company  Daulman,  Milbourne,  Blackmore.  Mat- 

the  entry  is  allowed— whether  that  of  thews,  Bloome,  Norton  andWhittaker, 

both  the  wardens  of  the  year,  or  of  Henry  and  Moses  Bell,  Marriott,  Har- 

ouly  one,  or  cf  a  court-meeting.     The  per,   Edwards,  Serle,  Green,   Sheares, 

first  of  the  above-quoted   entries,  for  Sparkes,Adderton,Gosson,  and  Badger, 

example,   stands   as    follows :  —  "  5th  The  names  of  the  licensers  are — Mr. 

"July:  Mr.  John  Dawson  [the  book-  Buckner,  Mr.  Topsail,  Mr.  Wecherlyn, 

"  seller]  entered  for  his  copy,  under  the  Mr.  Austen,  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  and 


THE    ENGLISH   BOOK-TRADE    IN   1632.  551 

This  list  ought  to  be  more  edifying  than  it  looks.  It  is  a 
conspectus  of  the  new  publications  and  of  the  books  in  vogue 
in  London  through  the  latter  half  of  the  year  1632,  and 
corresponds  to  the  book-advertisement  columns  of  any  of 
our  leading  literary  journals  at  present  through  a  period  of 
twenty- six  weeks.  Half -a-y ear  of  the  published  matter  of 
England  in  those  days,  it  will  be  &?en,  was  a  much  more 
manageable  thing,  the  single  embryc  newspaper  included, 
than  any  half-year  of  the  published  matter  of  Great  Britain 
now,  our  numberless  newspapers  left  wholly  out  of  the 
calculation. 

Mr.   Haywood.     Sir    Henry    Herbert  of  Ovid.     The  other  licensers  were,  I 

licenses  almost  all  the  poetry — Donne's  think,  with  the  exception  of  "VVecher- 

Poems,&c.,Cowley's  Poetical  Blossoms,  lyn,  Abbot's  or  Laud's  chaplains. 
Rowley's  Tragedy,  and  the  translation 


CHAPTER  IV. 

AT    HORTON,    BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 
1632—1638. 

"  AT  my  father's  country-residence,  whither  he  had  retired 
"to  pass  his  old  age,  I,  with  every  advantage  of  leisure, 
"  spent  a  complete  holiday  in  reading  over  the  Greek  and 
"  Latin  writers :  not  but  that  sometimes  I  exchanged  the 
"country  for  the  town,  either  for  the  purpose  of  buying 
' '  books,  or  for  that  of  learning  anything  new  in  Mathematics 
"or  in  Music,  in  which  sciences  I  then  delighted.  I  had 
"  passed  five  years  in  this  manner  when,  after  my  mother's 
"  death,  being  desirous  of  seeing  foreign  lands,  and  especi- 
"  ally  Italy,  I  went  abroad  with  one  servant,  having  entreated 
"  and  obtained  my  father's  consent." 1  It  is  the  purpose  of 
the  present  chapter  to  fill  up  the  five  years,  or,  more  exactly, 
the  five  years  and  nine  months,  of  Milton's  life  thus  sketched 
by  himself  in  outline. 

The  ee  paternal  country-residence  "  (paternum  rus)  men 
tioned  by  Milton  was  at  Horton,  near  Colnbrook,  in  that 
part  of  Buckinghamshire  which  borders  on  Middlesex, 
Berkshire,  and  Surrey. 

Colnbrook  is  about  seventeen  miles  due  west  from  London, 
and  may  be  reached  now  from  London  either  by  the  Langley 
Station  of  the  Great  Western  Railway  or  by  the  Wraysbury 
Station  of  the  London,  Richmond,  and  Windsor  line.  Lying 
as  it  does  midway  between  the  two  railways,  and  about  two 
miles  from  either,  the  town  is  one  of  those  which  have 
declined  in  importance  since  the  rise  of  our  railway  system. 
Till  then,  though  never  of  more  than  a  thousand  inhabitants, 

1  Defensio  Secunda;  Works,  VI.  287. 


HORTON   AND    ITS    NEIGHBOURHOOD.  553 

and  consisting  but  of  one  narrow  street  of  houses  and  a  few 
offshoots,  Colnbrook,  as  being  a  stage  on  one  of  the  great 
highways  between  London  and  the  West  of  England,  was  a 
place  of  considerable  bustle.  In  the  best  of  the  old  coach 
ing  days  as  many  as  a  hundred  coaches  are  said  to  have 
passed  through  it  daily ;  and  in  still  ^der  times  carriers  and 
travellers  on  horseback,  setting  out  fro.n  London  by  Hyde 
Park  Corner,  and  passing  through  Kensington,  Hammer 
smith,  Turnham  Green,  Brentford,  and  Hounslow,  would 
stop  to  bait  at  Colnbrook,  on  their  way  to  Maidenhead, 
Beading,  or  places  still  farther  west,  or,  coming  from  those 
places  Londonwards,  would  rest  at  Colnbrook  before  attack 
ing  the  residue  of  road  between  them  and  the  metropolis. 
Hence,  in  old  times,  Colnbrook  was  noted  for  its  inns. 

Part  of  the  town  of  Colnbrook  is  in  the  parish  of  Horton, 
which  extends  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  vicinity  of 
Windsor.  The  village  of  Horton,  which  gives  its  name  to 
the  parish,  is  about  a  mile  from  Colnbrook,  intermediate 
between  it  and  the  Wraysbury  station  on  the  London  and 
South  Western  line.  Sauntering,  any  sunny  afternoon, 
from  Colnbrook,  either  towards  Wraysbury,  or  towards 
Datchet,  which  is  the  next  station  Windsorwards  on  the 
same  line,  the  chance  pedestrian,  with  no  purpose  in  view 
except  a  leisurely  walk  to  the  train,  might  come  to  a  point 
near  the  meeting  of  some  quiet  cross-roads,  where,  by 
lingering  a  little,  he  would  discover  symptoms  of  a  village. 
There  is  no  appearance  of  a  continuous  street ;  but  a  great 
tree  in  the  centre  of  the  space  where  three  roads  meet  sug 
gests  that  there  may  be  more  habitations  about  the  spot 
than  are  at  first  visible ;  and,  on  looking  down  one  of  the 
roads,  the  suggestion  is  confirmed  by  the  sight  of  a  church- 
tower,  a  few  paces  to  the  left,  all  but  hidden  by  intervening 
foliage. — On  making  towards  this  church,  one  finds  it  a 
small  but  very  ancient  edifice,  as  old  probably  as  the  twelfth 
or  thirteenth  century.  It  stands  back  from  the  road  in  a 
cemetery,  in  front  of  which,  and  close  to  the  road,  are  two 
extremely  old  yew  trees.  The  tower,  which  is  square,  is 
picturesquely  covered  with  ivy ;  the  walls  are  strong  and 


551  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

chequered  with  flints  and  brickwork ;  and  the  entrance  from 
the  cemetery  is  by  a  low  porch.  Should  the  door  be  open, 
the  neat  and  venerable  aspect  of  the  church  externally 
might  induce  the  stranger  to  stroll  up  the  cemetery-walk 
to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  interior.  He  would  see  no  old 
inscriptions  or  tombstones  in  the  cemetery,  nothing  old  in 
it  but  the  yew  trees ;  but  within  the  church  he  would  find 
both  stone  and  wood-work  of  sufficient  antiquity.  There  is 
an  old  Norman  arch  within  the  main  porch ;  there  is  a  nave 
with  two  aisles  and  a  chancel ;  between  the  nave  and  the 
aisles  are  short  circular  columns  supporting  arches;  the 
pulpit  and  the  pews  look  as  if  they  had  served  already  for  a 
century  or  two  of  rural  English  Sundays ;  and  tnere  is  a 
stone  baptismal  font,  evidently  coeval  with  the  church.  All 
this  the  visitor  might  mark'  with  the  ordinary  interest  with 
which  whatever  is  ecclesiastical  and  old  is  noted  in  a  country 
walk ;  and  only  on  inquiry  might  he  learn  that  the  church 
was  Horton  Church,  and  that  in  one  of  the  pews  before  him, 
or  the  spot  occupied  by  one  of  them,  Milton  had  worshipped 
regularly,  with  others  of  his  family,  while  resident  in  the 
village,  from  the  twenty-fourth  to  the  thirtieth  year  of  his 
age.  This  information  obtained,  and  confirmed  by  an  evi 
dence  which  the  visitor  may  behold  in  the  church  with  his 
own  eyes,  the  fabric  would  be  examined  with  new  interest. 
There  would  be  another  glance  round  among  the  pews 
within ;  outside,  there  would  be  another  look  at  the  tower 
and  at  the  yew  trees  in  the  cemetery ;  nor  would  a  few 
minutes  more  be  judged  ill-spent  in  scanning  the  village 
come  upon  so  unexpectedly.  A  few  minutes  would  suffice  ; 
and,  after  extricating  himself  from  the  little  group  of  houses 
scattered  irregularly  round  the  church  in  separate  grounds 
and  gardens,  the  pedestrian  would  'continue  his  walk  to 
Wraysbury  or  to  Datchet.1 — In  and  about  the  neighbour 
hood  through  which  he  has  passed  so  cursorily  it  will  be 
for  us  to  linger  for  a  longer  while,  throwing  it  back,  as  far 
as  fancy  will  permit,  to  that  time  when  its  Miltonic  celebrity 

1  The  description  of  Horton  church  is       have,  I  understand,  been  some  changes 
kept  as  it  was  in  the  first  edition.  There       and  repairs  lately. 


HORTON  AND  ITS  NEIGHBOURHOOD.          555 

was  earned,  and  when,  though  Wraysbury  and  Datchet 
existed  close  by,  as  now,  no  trains  whistled  through  them, 
and  Colnbrook  commanded  the  circumjacent  traffic. 

With  the  exception  of  the  church,  Horton  as  it  was  known 
to  Milton  is  to  be  found  rather  in  the  roads,  the  paths,  and 
the  general  aspect  of  the  fields  al^  vegetation  than  in  the 
actual  houses  now  remaining.  Around  the  village,  and  indeed 
over  the  whole  parish  and  the  adjacent  parts  of  this  angle 
of  Bucks,  the  land  is  of  a  kind  characteristic  of  England. 
It  is  a  rich,  teeming,  verdurous  flat,  charming  by  its  appear 
ance  of  plenty,  and  by  the  goodly  show  of  wood  along  the 
fields  and  pastures,  in  the  nooks  where  the  houses  nestle, 
and  everywhere  in  all  directions  to  the  sky-bound  verge  of 
the  landscape.     The  beech,  which  is  nowhere  finer  than  in 
some  parts  of  Buckinghamshire,  is  not  so  common  in  this 
part ;  one  sees  a  good  many  ugly  pollards  along  the  streams  ; 
but  there  are  elms,  alders,  poplars,  and  cedars ;  there  is  no 
lack  of  shrubbery  and  hedging ;  and  in  spring  the  orchards 
are  abloom  with  white  and   pink  for  miles  round.     What 
strikes  one  most  in  walking  about  the  neighbourhood,  after 
its  extraordinary  flatness,  is  the  canal-like  abundance  and 
distribution  of  water.     There  are  rivulets  brimming  through 
the  meadows  among  rushes  and  water-plants ;  and,  by  the 
very  sides  of  the  ways,  in  lieu  of  ditches,  there  are  slow 
runnels,   in   which    one    can    see    the  minnows   swimming. 
Most  of  these  streamlets  and  runnels  are  connected  with  the 
Colne ;  which,  having  separated  itself  into  several  channels 
in  a  higher  part  of  its  course  near  Uxbridge,  continues  for  a 
good  many  miles  to  divide  Bucks  from  Middlesex  by  one  or 
other  of  these  channels  on  their  way  to  the  Thames.     The 
chief  branch  of  the  river,  after  flowing  through  Colnbrook, 
to  which  it  gives  its  name,  passes  close  by  Horton.     It  is  a 
darkish  stream,  frequently,  like  its  sister-branches,  flooding 
the  lands  along  its  course ;  which  are,  accordingly,  kept  in 
pasture.     Close  to  Horton  the  Colne  drives  several  mills. 
There  are  excellent  wheatfields  and  beanfields  in  the  neigh 
bourhood;  but  the  greater  proportion  of  the  land  is  in  grass. 
In  Milton's  time  the  proportion  of  meadow  to  land  under 


556  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

plough  must  have  been  much  greater.  On  the  whole,  with 
out  taking  into  account  the  vicinity  of  other  scenes  of 
beauty  and  interest,  including  nothing  less  than  royal 
Windsor  itself,  the  towers  and  battlements  of  which  govern 
the  whole  landscape,  Horton  was,  and  might  still  be,  a 
pleasant  place  of  retirement  either  after  London  or  after 
Cambridge.  One  could  lie  under  elm-trees  on  a  lawn,  or 
saunter  in  meadows  by  the  side  of  a  stream,  or  watch  a 
mill-wheel  from  a  rustic  bridge,  or  walk  along  quiet  roads 
well  hedged,  or  deviate  into  paths  leading  by  farm-yards 
and  orchards,  and  through  pastures  for  horses,  cows  and 
sheep.  The  occupations  of  the  place  were  wholly  agricul 
tural.  There  was  nothing  of  the  nature  of  manufacture  at 
that  time  in  the  whole  county  of  Buckingham. 

About  twenty  years  ago  there  were  but  seven  families  in 
Horton  and  its  neighbourhood  in  a  grade  of  life  superior  to 
that  of  tradesmen  and  husbandmen.  Of  the  seven  houses 
which  those  families  inhabited  only  five  had  special  names. 
These  were  Horton  Manor  House,  The  Rectory,  Berkin 
Manor  House,  Horton  Cottage,  and  Horton  Cedars.1  Two 
hundred  and  thirty  years  earlier,  the  economy  of  the  place 
must  have  been  much  the  same.  Out  of  a  total  population 
of  some  three  or  four  hundred  in  the  parish,  only  four  or  five 
families  can  have  been  considered  as  of  the  rank  of  gentry, 
and  these  must  have  had  their  residences  grouped  in  or  close 
by  the  village,  on  spots  corresponding  to  those  similarly 
occupied  now. 

The  most  important  house  in  the  neighbourhood  in  1632 
was  the  Manor  House,  situated  on  an  open  tract  of  ground 
behind  the  church.  The  occupants  of  this  house  and  the 
lords  of  the  manor  of  Horton  were  the  well-known  Buck 
inghamshire  family  of  the  Bulstrodes,  of  the  ancient  Bul- 
strodes  of  Bulstrode  in  Hedgerly  parish,  about  nine  miles 
distant,  and  of  Upton,  about  four  miles  distant,  both  in  the 
same  hundred  of  Bucks  as  that  to  which  Horton  belongs. 
Known  from  of  old  as  the  Bulstrodes  of  Hedgerly-Bulstrode 

1  Kelly's  Post-office  Directory  for  Bucks,  1854. 


HOETON    IN    1632.  557 

and  of  Upton,  the  family  had  had  connexions  with  Horton 

since  the  reign  of  Henry   VI.1 ;  and  from  1571,  at  which 

date  the  registers  of  Horton  commence,  I  find  the  births, 

marriages,  and  deaths  of  Bulstrodes  incessant  in  the  parish.2 

It  seems,  however,  to  have  been  after  the  death  of  Edward 

Bulstrode  of  Hedgerly-Bulstrode  and    Upton  that    Horton 

became   the    favourite   residence    of  the   main   line  of  the 

Bulstrodes.     This   Edward,  dying   in    1595   at  the  age  of 

forty-eight,  left  a  young  family  of  sons  and  daughters  by 

his  wife  Cecil  or  Cicely,  daughter  of  Sir  John   Croke,  of 

Chilton,  Bucks.    One  of  the  daughters,  Elizabeth  Bulstrode, 

having    married,    in    1602,    James,    afterwards    Sir   James, 

Whitlocke,  judge  of  the  King's  Bench,  became  the  mother 

of  the   celebrated   Bulstrode   Whitlocke;    a   younger   son, 

Edward,  born  in  1586,  entered  the  Inner  Temple,  and  rose 

to  distinction  as  a  lawyer,  under  the  patronage  of   Judge 

Whitlocke ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  family  property  came  to  the 

eldest  son,  Henry  Bulstrode,  born  at  Upton  in  1578.     This 

Henry,  though   still  styled  of  Hedgerly-Bulstrode  and    of 

Upton,  as  his  ancestors  had  been,  seems  to  have  resided 

commonly,  if  not  habitually,  at  Horton.     He  seems  to  have 

done  so,  at  all  events,  after  his  marriage,  in  or  about  1602, 

with  Mary,  daughter  of  Thomas  Read,  of  Barton,  Berks. 

Of  seven  children  borne  to  him  by  that  wife  before  her  death 

in  1614, — Thomas,  Henry,  Edward,  Elizabeth,  Mary,  Cicely, 

and  Dorothy, — I  find  the  baptisms^of  four,  and  the  burials 

of  two  who  died  young,  recorded  in  the  Horton  register. 

The  births  of  the  others,  including  Thomas,  the  eldest  son 

and  heir,  took  place  probably  at  Upton ;  where  also,  in  the 

family  vault  of  the  Bulstrodes,  was  buried  the  mother,  though 

her  death  occurred  at   Horton.     A  few  months  after  her 

death  (July  1615)  Henry  Bulstrode  married,  for  his  second 

wife,  Bridget,  widow  of  John  Allen,  citizen  of  London ;  and 

with  her  he  continued  to  reside  at  Horton  as  before,  increas- 

1  Liber  Famelicus  of  Sir  James  Whit-  are  the   baptism-entries  of  "  Edward 
locke,    edited    by    John    Bruce,    Esq.  Bowlstrode,  the  sonne  of  John  Bowl- 
(1858),  p.  28.  strode,"   in     1576,    and     "Margaret," 

2  The  earliest  entries  of  the  name  daughter  of  the  game  John,  in  1578. 


558  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

ing  his  property  in  the  neighbourhood  by  new  purchases. 
As  he  had  no  family  by  this  second  wife,  it  is  his  children 
by  the  first  that  furnish  thenceforward  the  family  incidents 
to  the  parish  registers.  They  furnish  a  fair  proportion. 
The  marriage,  indeed,  of  the  eldest  son,  Thomas  Bulstrode, 
with  Coluberry,  daughter  of  Simon  Mayne,  of  Dinton,  took 
place  elsewhere ;  but  the  young  couple  had  not  been  long 
married  when  they  came  to  reside  at  Horton,  where  their 
eldest  son,  Samuel,  was  baptized,  Nov.  5,  1629,  and  their 
second,  Simon,  April  7,  1631,  and  where  all  their  subsequent 
children  were  born.  Moreover,  at  Horton  took  place  the 
marriages  of  three  others  of  the  children  of  Henry  Bui- 
strode  :  that  of  Mary  to  Thomas  Knight,  of  Beading,  Aug. 
1630;  that  of  Cicely  to  Philip  Smith,  Feb.  14,  1632-3;  and 
that  of  Edward,  the  only  other  surviving  son,  to  Mildred, 
daughter  of  George  Brown,  of  Ashford,  Kent,  Sept.  24, 
1633.  This  last  couple,  as  well  as  Thomas  and  his  wife, 
settled  at  Horton  and  contributed  baptisms  to  the  register. 
Connected  with  Horton,  therefore,  during  the  first  year  or 
eighteen  months  of  Milton's  stay  there,  there  were  three 
Bulstrodes,  heads  of  families.  There  was  the  elderly  squire 
and  grandfather,  Henry  Bulstrode,  Esq.,  now  again  a 
widower  by  his  second  wife's  death  in  Oct.  1631 ;  there  was 
his  eldest  son,  Thomas,  the  heir-apparent ;  and  there  was 
the  younger  son,  Edward.  To  this  resident  colony  of 
Bulstrodes  one  must  imagine  the  occasional  visits  of  uncle 
Edward  Bulstrode,  the  lawyer  (advanced  to  be  Lent-Reader 
of  his  Inn,  in  Nov.  1632),  and  of  cousin  Bulstrode  Whitlocke, 
•  the  younger  but  more  distinguished  lawyer  of  the  Middle 
Temple,  now  in  his  twenty-eighth  year,  and  by  his  father's 
recent  death  (June  22,  1632)  proprietor  of  Fawley,  in  the 
same  county  of  Bucks,  but  on  the  Oxfordshire  border. 
Horton  Manor  House,  accordingly,  must  have  been  a  some 
what  bustling  mansion  when  Milton  first  knew  it.  You 
could  not  take  a  walk  through  the  village  without  tumbling 
over  a  little  Bulstrode  with  a  hoop  or  meeting  a  little  Bul 
strode  in  long  clothes.  The  elderly  squire  survived  at  the 
head  of  the  colony  till  1643,  a  man  of  note  in  the  county, 


HORTON    IN    1632.  559 

and  with  service  on  the  Parliamentary  side  in  the  Civil 
Wars  reserved  for  his  last  years.1 

Such  of  the  Horton  Bulstrodes  as  the  Manor  House  could 
not  contain  were  probably  accommodated  in  Place  House, 
which  stood  in  the  manorial  grounds,  but  close  to  the  church 
on  the  tower  side,  and  with  but  a  wall  separating  its  garden 
from  the  churchyard.  Of  this  mansion,  which  had  been 
built  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  an  old  engraving  still  exists, 
from  which  we  can  judge  it  to  have  been  a  comfortable 
residence  in  the  taste  of  that  day. 

A  third  house  of  some  consequence  near  the  village  was 
The  Rectory,  inhabited,  when  Milton  took  up  his  abode  in 
Horton,  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Goodal,  rector  of  the  parish. 
He  had  been  presented  in  1631  by  Henry  Bulstrode,  Esq., 
on  the  vacation  of  the  living  by  the  previous  rector,  Francis 
Boswell.2  He  had  formerly  been  assistant  to  the  celebrated 
Puritan  minister,  Thomas  Gataker,  of  Rotherhithe ;  in  which 
situation,  it  may  be  remembered,  Milton's  tutor,  Young,  is 
believed  to  have  officiated  for  a  time.  "  Among  the  persons 
"of  note  that  had  been  his  (Gataker's)  assistants,"  says 
Simeon  Ashe  in  his  memoir  of  Gataker  appended  to  his 


1  The  foregoing  particulars  relative  and  matter  of  information  for  his  de- 
to  the  Bulstrode  family  have  been  scents  as  upon  so  short  a  time  he  could 
digested  from  pedigrees  in  the  Heralds'  find "  ;  (2)  An  angry  reply  of  the 
Visitations  for  Bucks  in  1634  (Harl.  officials,  dated  "—  July,  1634,"  to  the 
MSS.  1102  and  1391),  from  Wood's  effect  that,  the  «  scocheon  "  he  had  sent 
Athenae,  III.  471-2,  from  Lipscombe's  by  his  servant  having  "  more  coats 
Buckinghamshire  (IV.  pp.  503,  572-5,  quartered  than  in  the  former  visita- 
&c.,  where,  however,  there  are  several  tion,"  and  having  been  returned  to 
errors),  and  from  my  own  examination  him  in  consequence,  with  a  demand  for 
of  the  Horton  parish  registers.  Some  "  further  proof,"  and  also  for  the 
particulars  have  been  supplied  by  Sir  Herald's  fees,  and  he  having  not  only 
James  Whitlocke's  Liber  Famelicus,  neglected  the  demand,  but  made  a  talk 
edited  by  Mr.  Bruce  (1858).  I  have  of  the  affair  among  the  gentry  of  the 
seen,  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  a  cor-  county,  and  "  dissuaded  others  to  in- 
respondence,  dated  1634.  between  conformity,"  he  is  in  consequence  sum- 
Henry  Bulstrode  and  the  two  officials  moned  to  appear,  on  the  llth  of  Octo- 
of  the  College  of  Arms  (J.  Philpot,  ber  next,  before  the  Earl  of  Arundel, 
Somerset  Herald,  and  W.  Kyley,  Blue-  as  Earl  Marshal,  to  answer  for  his  con- 
mantle)  who  were  engaged  in  that  tempt,  under  a  penalty  of  £10,  and 
year  in  the  Heralds'  Visitation  of  "  the  farther  peril  and  trouble  that  may 
Bucks.  The  correspondence  consists  ensue." 

of — (1)  A  letter  from  Henry  Bulstrode,  2  Lipscombe's  Buckinghamshire,  un 
dated  "  Horton,  14th  July,  1634,"  ad-  der  "  Horton."  The  name  of  Goodal's 
dressed  to  the  two  officials,  excusing  predecessor  is  there  given  as  William 
himself  for  not  meeting  them  next  day,  Boswell ;  but  in  the  parish-registers  I 
according  to  summons,  but  stating  that  find  it  written  "  Francis." 
he  has  sent  by  his  servant  "  such  arms 


560 


LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTOIIY   OF   HIS   TIME. 


funeral  sermon  in  1655,  was  "  Mr.  Goodal,  minister  at  Horton, 
"by  Colnbrook."  There  is  no  trace,  however,  of  any  such 
notability  attained  by  Mr.  Goodal  as  was  attained  by  Young. 
All  we  know  of  him  is  that  he  did  the  duties  of  his  parish 
from  1631  to  1652  for  an  income  of  about  £100  a-year,  lived 
with  his  wife  Sarah  in  the  Rectory,  and  wrote  with  his  own 
hand,  among  the  other  entries  of  those  twenty  years  in  the 
parish  books,  the  records  of  the  baptisms  and  the  deaths  of 
some  of  his  own  little  ones. 

All  these  houses  have  disappeared,1  nor  does  that  fourth 
and  still  more  interesting  house  in  Horton  remain  in  which 
Milton  lived  with  his  father.  Todd,  on  making  inquiry  of 
the  Rector  of  Horton  in  1808,  was  informed  that  the  house 
had  been  pulled  down  about  ten  years  before  that  date,  i.  e. 
about  1798.  This  information  was  accompanied  by  no 
description  of  the  site  or  the  appearance  of  the  house 
which  had  been  so  pulled  down ;  and,  though  Todd's 
informant,  who  must  have^  seen  the  house  himself,  lived  to 
1850,  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  farther  questioned  on 
the  subject.  While  he  was  still  alive,  however,  there  was  a 
tradition  at  Horton,  which  has  found  its  way  into  books, 


1  It  may  not  be  uninteresting  here 
to  trace,  as  far  as  possible,  the  subse 
quent  history  of  the  three  houses 
named  in  the  text : — 

1.  The  Manor   House. — The    house, 
with  the  manor,  came  into  possession 
of  a  new  family,  the  Scawens,  about 
1658,  who  were  lords  of  the  manor  till 
1782,  when  one  of  them  sold  it.    After 
a  Mr.  Cook  of  Beacousfield,and  a  Mrs. 
Hickford,  as  intermediate  proprietors, 
Thomas  Williams,  Esq.,  M.P.,  purchased 
the  manor  in  1794 ;  aud  it  is  now,  I  be 
lieve,  in  the  possession  of  his  descend 
ants.     The  old  manor-house  in  which, 
according  to  Lysons,  in  his  MS.  Collec 
tions  for  Buckinghamshire  (Add.  MS. 
Brit.  Mus.  9439),  "  many  arms  of  Bui- 
strode  "  were  still  to  be  seen  when  he 
wrote,  was  pulled  down,  except  a  small 
part,  a  few  years  before  the  publication 
of  his  printed  account  of  Bucks  in  1813. 

2.  Place  House.— See  Gent.  Mag.  for 
Aug.  1791,  where  an  account  is  given  of 
the  history  of  the  house.    Early  in  last 
century  it  was  occupied,  under    the 
Scawens,  by  the  family  of  the  Brere- 


woods.  When  they  left  it,  it  was 
rented  for  a  long  time  by  one  Mayhew, 
a  gardener  ;  being  much  out  of  repair, 
it  was  demolished  in  or  about  1775, — a 
view  of  it  having  been  taken  two  years 
before  by  F.  Brerewood  ;  and,  for  some 
time  thereafter,  the  grounds  attached 
to  the  house  were  let  to  a  Mr.  Cox  for 
£22  lO.s.  a  year. — A  fragment  of  an  old 
brick-wall  and  arch  still  marked  the 
site  of  Place  House  in  the  ground  by 
the  church  when  I  first  knew  Horton. 

3.  The  Rectory. — The  present  rectory 
does  not  seem  to  be  the  old  one,  being 
a  comparatively  modern-looking  house, 
but  with  parts  of  it  oldish,  on  the  turn 
of  the  road  from  the  village  towards 
Colubrook.  and  with  a  fine  view  of 
Windsor  Castle  and  the  intermediate 
country.  I  remember  with  gratitude 
its  late  occupant,  the  Eev.  E.  Gr.  Foot, 
B.A.,  Kector  of  Horton,  for  his  great 
kindness  in  answering  my  queries  re 
specting  Horton,  and  in  permitting  me 
to  examine  the  parish  registers  at  full 
leisure,  and  to  make  extracts  from 
them. 


THE    MILTON    HOUSEHOLD   AT    HORTON. 


561 


that  Milton's  house  was  one  which  stood  on  the  site  of  the 
new  mansion  called  "Jerkin  Manor  House,  near  the  church, 
but  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road,  with  streams  of  water 
running  through  and  along  the  grounds.  In  the  garden  of 
this  house  there  was  shown,  within  living  memory,  the 
remnant  of  an  apple-tree,  under  which,  according  to  the 
innocent  style  of  local  legend  about  such  things,  Milton 
used  to  sit  and  write. 

In  some  house  near  the  old  church  of  Horton,  and  with  the 
tower  of  the  church  close  in  view,  Milton's  father  had  chosen 
to  spend  his  declining  years,  "  retired  from  the  cares  and 
fatigues  of  the  world/' l  His  age  at  the  time  was  about 
sixty-nine;  that  of  his  wife  was  probably  nine  years  less. 
Besides  themselves  and  their  servants,  the  only  other  con 
stant  inmate  of  the  house  was  their  son  John.  Their  daugh 
ter,  Mrs.  Phillips,  now  the  mother  of  two  surviving  children, 


1  Three  questions  occur  here,  to 
which  I  cannot  give  satisfactory  an 
swers,  but  to  which  answers  may  yet 
turn  up.  1.  At  what  time  did  Milton's 
father  retire  to  Horton  ?  Milton,  in 
the  first  of  his  Latin  elegies,  written  to 
Diodati,  during  the  supposed  period  of 
his  rustication  from  Cambridge,  in  1626, 
speaks  of  a  delicious  residence  some 
where  out  of ,  town, — "  suburbani  nobilis 
umbra  loci" — as  then  one  of  his  plea 
sures,  alternately  with  the  theatricals 
and  other  gaieties  of  London.  Can  the 
"  locus  suburbanus "  mentioned  thus 
early  be  the  house  at  Horton  ?  The 
term  "suburbanus"  would  seem  inap 
propriate  to  a  place  distant  eighteen 
miles  from  London ;  but  in  a  subse 
quent  letter  of  Dec.  14,  1634,  Milton 
uses  the  same  term,  when  it  is  most 
natural  to  suppose  that  he  was  writing 
from  Horton.  He  dates  the  letter  "  E 
suburbano  nostro"  Again,  in  the  seventh 
of  the  Academic  Prolusions  (delivered, 
probably,  in  Milton's  last  college  session 
of  1631-2),  he  speaks  of  the  "  groves, 
and  rivers,  and  beloved  village  elms," 
amid  which,  in  the  preceding  summer, 
he  had  spent  a  delightful  vacation,  and 
the  recollection  of  which  was  still  with 
him ;  and  this  may  refer  to  Horton. 
On  the  whole,  my  impression  is  that, 
though  the  house  at  Horton  may  have 
been  taken  by  the  elder  Milton  some 

VOL.  I.  O  O 


little  time  before  1632,  it  cannot  have 
been  long  before  ;  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  the  "locus  suburbanus"  of 
1626  was  some  other  place  which  the 
old  scrivener  may  have  had  nearer 
London.  The  manner  in  which  Milton 
speaks  of  his  retiring  to  Horton,  on 
leaving  Cambridge,  seems  to  indicate 
that  the  place  was  rather  new  to  him. 
If  we  suppose  that  the  vacation  of  1631 
was  the  first  he  had  spent  there,  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  allusions  in  the  Pro- 
lusio  would  be  accounted  for.  2.  Had 
the  elder  Milton  purchased  a  house  and 
land  at  Horton  ;  or  did  he  only  hold  a 
house  and  grounds  by  rent  on  lease? 
The  second  supposition  is  the  more 
probable,  as  there  is  no  mention  of 
Miltons  among  the  landed  gentry  of 
Bucks  in  the  Visitation  of  1634,  and  no 
mention  of  any  subsequent  possession 
or  sale  of  lands  there  by  the  family. 
3.  If  the  house  and  grounds  were  held 
by  tenancy,  from  whom  were  they 
held  ?  Warton,  in  a  note  on  Milton's 
Epitaphium  Damonis  (quoted  by  Todd, 
VII.  381),  says,  "  His  father's  house 
and  lands  at  Horton,  near  Colnbrook, 
were  held  under  the  Earl  of  Bridge- 
water."  No  authority  is  given  for  this 
statement,  nor  have  I  been  able  to  fird 
any.  The  Bulstrodes  were  the  chief 
proprietors  of  land  about  Horton. 


562  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

both  of  them  sons,  was  living  with  her  husband  in  London ; 
and  Christopher  also  can  have  been  but  an  occasional  visitor 
at  this  time  at  the  house  in  Horton.  "  Christopher  Milton, 
' '  second  son  of  John  Milton  of  London,  gentleman,  admitted 
"  of  the  Inner  Temple,  22d  September,  1632,"  is  a  record 
in  the  Inner  Temple  books;  from  which  it  appears  that 
Milton's  younger  brother,  having  left  Christ's  College, 
Cambridge,  at  the  same  time  as  himself,  after  having  been 
there  only  two  years,  and  consequently  without  taking  a 
degree,  began,  at  the  age  of  sixteen  years  and  nine  months, 
the  professional  study  of  law  in  London.  The  Inn  at  which 
he  was  entered  was  that  to  which  Edward  Bulstrode,  and 
also  Selden,  belonged. 

The  materials  relating  to  Milton's  life  at  Horton  are  con 
siderably  more  rich  for  the  first  two  years  and  five  months 
of  the  entire  period  than  for  what  remains.  We  may, 
therefore,  take  this  first  portion'of  his  Horton  life  as  a  little 
whole  by  itself,  while  dating,  as  far  as  possible,  the  in 
dividual  incidents. 

Now  was  the  time  for  the  youth  to  take  in  those  "  images 
of  rural  nature  ",  in  so  far  as  such  were  still  wanting,  which 
poets  are  supposed  pre-eminently  to  require.  There  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  he  missed  his  opportunities.  One  can 
look  back  and  see  him  through  those  years  of  his  first 
acquaintance  with  Horton.  Now,  under  the  elms  on  his 
father's  lawn,  he  listens  to  the  rural  hum,  and  marks  the 
branches  as  they  wave  and  the  birds  as  they  fly;  now,  in 
the  garden,  he  notes  the  annual  series  of  the  plants  and  the 
daily  blooming  of  the  roses.  In  his  walks  in  the  neighbour 
hood,  also,  he  observes  not  only  the  wayside  vegetation, 
but  the  whole  wide  face  of  the  landscape,  rich  in  wood  and 
meadow,  to  the  royal  towers  of  Windsor  and  the  bounding 
line  of  the  low  Surrey  hills.  Over  this  landscape,  changing 
its  livery  from  day  to  day,  fall  the  varying  seasons.  Light 
green  spring  comes,  with  its  showers  and  its  days  of  keener 
blue,  when  nature  is  warm  at  the  root,  and  all  things  gain 
in  liveliness ;  spring  changes  into  summer,  when  all  is  one 


HOETON    SCENEEY   AND   SOCIETY.  563 

wealth  of  leafage,  and  the  gorgeous  bloom  of  the  orchards 
passes  into  the  forming  fruit ;  summer  deepens  into  autumn, 
gathering  the  tanned  haycocks  and  tumbling  the  golden 
grain ;  and,  at  last,  when  the  brown  and  yellow  leaves  have 
fallen,  and  the  winds  have  blown  them  and  the  rains  rotted 
them,  comes  winter  with  his  biting  breath,  and  the  fields 
are  either  all  white,  so  that  the  most  familiar  eye  hardly 
knows  them,  or  they  lie  in  mire,  and  in  the  dull  brumous 
air  the  stripped  stems  and  netted  twig-work  of  the  trees 
are  like  a  painting,  in  China  ink.  And  the  seasons  have 
each  their  occupations.  Now  the  plough  is  afield ;  now  the 
sower  casts  the  seed ;  now  the  sheep  are  shorn ;  now  the 
mower  whets  his  scythe.  There  is,  moreover,  the  quicker 
continual  alternation  of  night  and  day,  dipping  the  land 
scape  in  darkness  or  in  lunar  tints,  and  bringing  it  back 
again  in  all  the  colours  of  the  morn.  In  summer  the  twi 
light  steals  slowly  over  the  lawn,  and,  seated  at  the  open 
window,  the  poet,  who  has  heard  the  lark's  carol  abroad  by 
day,  will  listen,  in  the  stillness,  for  the  first  song  of  the 
nightingale ;  and,  when  the  night  is  farther  advanced,  may 
there  not  be  a  walk  on  the  lawn,  to  observe  the  trembling 
tops  of  the  poplars,  and  to  drink,  before  the  soul  is  done 
with  that  day  more,  the  glory  of  the  tranquil  stars  ?  Look 
on,  thou  glorious  youth,  at  stars  and  trees,  at  the  beauties 
of  day  and  the  beauties  of  night,  at  the  changing  aspects 
of  the  seasons,  and  at  all  that  the  seasons  bring  !  No 
future  years  of  thy  life,  perchance,  are  to  be  so  happy  and 
calm  as  these ;  and  a  time  is  to  come,  at  all  events,  when 
what  thine  eye  may  have  already  gathered  of  nature's  facts 
and  appearances  must  suffice  thee  for  ever,  and  when,  judg 
ing  thy  chambers  of  imagery  sufficiently  furnished,  God  will 
shut  thee  in. 

Not  the  scenery  only  about  Horton,  but  the  little  society 
of  the  village  itself,  becomes  gradually  known  to  the 
scrivener's  thoughtful  son.  As  he  saunters  along  the  road, 
handsome  and  fair-haired,  the  field-labourers  and  servants 
touch  their  hats,  and  think  hinTa  little  haughty.  He  comes 
to  know  the  Hawkinses,  the  Spensers,  the  Bowdens,  the 

002 


564  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS  TIME. 

Mich  ells,  and  the  other  denizens  of  the  place  of  sufficient 
standing  to  take  their  turn  as  churchwardens.  He  visits 
the  Bulstrodes  at  the  Manor  House  or  at  Place  House,  and 
Mr.  Goodal  at  the  Rectory,  or  he  meets  these  and  others 
sometimes  under  his  father's  roof.  Every  Sunday,  in  any 
case,  he  is  one  of  the  little  congregation  in  Horton  Church, 
when  all  Horton  is  gathered  under  his  eye ;  and,  as  he  sits 
in  the  pew  with  his  father  and  mother,  and  listens  to  Mr. 
Goodal's  sermon,  the  presence  of  the  young  scholar  and 
critic  from  Cambridge  moves  Mr.  Goodal  to  a  more  ingeni 
ous  strain  than  need  be,  and  secures  for  the  parish  their 
Rector's  very  best. 

Walks  in  the  environs  of  Horton  there  must,  of  course, 
have  been.  The  most  frequent  would  be  to  Comb  rook ; 
along  the  narrow  street  of  which,  to  the  bridge  over  the 
Colne,  Milton  must  have  often  strolled,  passing  those  old 
gabled  houses  some  of  which  still  stand,  and  loitering  by 
the  gateways  of  the  quaint  old  inns.  Not  seldom,  however, 
the  walk  would  be  along  the  banks  of  the  Colne,  the  other 
way  from  Horton,  towards  Wraysbury  and  the  Thames,  and 
on  to  within  view  of  Magna  Charta  Island  and  the  famous 
field  of  Runnymede.  Nor  would  walks  be  unfrequent  in 
still  another  direction.  He  could  walk  from  Horton  to  the 
neighbouring  village  of  Datchet,  with  Windsor  Castle  fixing 
the  eye  all  along  the  road,  and  thence  either  to  Windsor 
itself,  past  Datchet  mead,  where  fat  Sir  John  was  tumbled 
into  the  Thames  out  of  the  buck-basket,  and  through  the 
park  where  he  was  pinched  and  scorched  by  the  fairies,  or 
aside  to  academic  Eton,  where  Sir  Henry  Wotton  ruled  the 
College  as  provost,  and  one  of  the  fellows  was  the  learned 
Hales. 

By  far  the  most  frequent  journeys,  however,  as  Milton 
himself  informs  us,  were  to  London,  the  distance  to  which 
was  but  two  hours  of  good  riding,  or  five  of  steady  walking, 
with  Brentford  to  break  the  journey  in  the  middle,  and 
where  there  were  Christopher's  rooms  or  Mrs.  Phillips's 
house  to  receive  him,  if  the  old  house  in  Bread- Street  was 
no  longer  available.  Whatever  new  acquaintances  Milton 


THE    YOUNGER   GILL   AND    BEN   JONSON.  565 

made  in  those  occasional  visits  to  London, — sometimes, 
perhaps,  for  a  week  together, — he  kept  up  closely  his  ac 
quaintance  with  the  Gills.  It  was  not  young  Gill's  fault  if 
either  he  or  his  father  were  long  out  of  the  public  mouth  ; 
and  in  1632  he  is  found  in  another  of  his  scrapes.  There 
was,  it  may  be  remembered,  a  standing  feud  between  Ben 
Jonson  and  the  Gill  family,  Ben  having  attacked  old  Mr. 
Gill  as  early  as  1623  for  his  patronage  of  Wither' s  satires.1 
This  had  rankled  in  young  Gill's  mind,  and  in  the  winter  of 
1632  he  had  an  opportunity  for  revenge.  "Ben  Jonson, 
"who  I  thought  dead,"  writes  Mr.  Pory  to  Sir  Thomas 
Puckering,  September  20,  1632,  "has  written  a  play 
"  against  next  term,  called  The  Magnetic  Lady." 2  This, 
the  last  but  one  of  all  Bert's  regular  plays,  was,  it  seems,  a 
greater  failure  on  the  stage  than  even  its  predecessor,  The 
New  Inn.  It  was  expected  that,  as  usual,  Ben  would  print 
it  to  show  the  public  that  they  were  fools ;  and,  in  anticipa 
tion  of  this,  Gill  wrote  and  circulated  the  following  squib : — 

"  UPON  BEN  JONSON'S  MAGNETICK  LADY. 
'  Parturiunt  monies,  nascetur,'  <fec. 

"  Is  this  your  loadstone,  Ben,  that  must  attract 
Applause  and  laughter  at  each  scene  and  act  ? 
Is  this  the  child  of  your  bed-ridden  wit, 
And  none  but  the  Blackfriars  foster  it  ?  ... 
O,  how  thy  friend  Nat  Butter  'gan  to  melt 
When  as  the  poorness  of  thy  plot  he  smelt, 
And  Inigo  with  laughter  there  grew  fat 
That  there  was  nothing  worth  the  laughing  at ! 
And  yet  thou  crazy  art  and  confident, 
Belching  out  full-mouthed  oaths  with  foul  intent, 
Calling  us  fools  and  rogues,  unlettered  men, 
Poor  narrow  souls  that  cannot  judge  of  Ben. 
Yet  (which  is  worse),  after  three  shameful  foils, 
The  printers  must  be.  put  to  farther  toils  ; 
Whereas,  indeed,  to  vindicate  thy  fame, 
Thou  hadst  better  given  thy  pamphlet  to  the  flame. 
O  what  a  strange  prodigious  year  't  will  be 
If  this  thy  play  come  forth  in  Thirty-Three  ! 
Let  doomsday  rather  come  on  New  Year's  Eve  !  .  .  . 
But,  to  advise  thee,  Ben  :  in  this  strict  age 
A  brick-bill's  fitter  for  thee  than  a  stage  ; 

1  See  ante,  p.  481.  also  Collier's  Annals  of  the  Stage,  II. 

2  Harl.  MS.  quoted  by  Gifford.    See       43,44. 


566  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

Thou  better  know'st  a  grounsel  how  to  lay 
Than  lay  the  plot  or  groundwork  of  a  play  ; 
And  better  canst  direct  to  cap  a  chimney 
Than  to  converse  with  Clio  and  Polyhymny. 
Fall  then  to  work  in  thy  old  age  again  : 
Take  up  your  trug  and  trowel,  gentle  Ben  ! " 1 

This  attack  naturally  provoked  Ben's  admirers ;  and  one  of 
them,  Zouch  Townley,  replied  to  it.  But  Ben  liked  to  settle 
his  own  quarrels;  and  the  following  is  a  fragment  of  an 
answer  he  wrote  : — 

"  Shall  the  prosperity  of  a  pardon  still 
Secure  thy  railing  rhymes,  infamous  Gill, 
At  libelling  ?     Shall  no  Star- chamber  peers, 
Pillory,  nor  whip,  nor  want  of  ears, 
All  which  thou  hast  incurred  deservedly, 
No  degradation  from  the  ministry 
To  be  the  Denis  of  thy  father's  school, 
Keep  in  thy  bawling  wit,  thou  bawling  fool] 
Thinking  to  stir  me,  thou  hast  lost  thy  end. 
I'll  laugh  at  thee,  poor  wretched  tyke.    Go  send 
Thy  blatant  muse  abroad,  and  teach  it  rather 
A  tune  to  drown  the  ballads  of  thy  father  ; 
For  thou  hast  nought  in  thee  to  cure  his  fame 
But  tune  and  noise,  the  echo  of  his  shame, 
A  rogue  by  statute,  censured  to  be  whipt, 
Cropt,  branded,  slit,  neck-stocked.    Go,  you  are  stript ! " 

Interested,  doubtless,  in  such  matters  relating  to  his  friends, 
Milton  visited  London,  he  tells  us,  for  certain  special  objects. 
He  bought  books  to  carry  back  with  him  to  Horton,  and  he 
took  lessons  in  mathematics  and  in  music.  Among  the 
mathematical  teachers  of  that  day  in  London  it  would  be 
difficult  to  name  any  that  were  so  well  known  as  John 
Greaves,  professor  of  geometry,  and  Henry  Gellibrand,  pro 
fessor  of  astronomy,  in  Gresham  College ;  nor  does  there 
seem  to  have  been  any  very  high  mathematical  teaching  in 
London  except  in  connexion  with  that  institution.  In  music, 
besides  some  survivors  of  the  older  English  school,  there 
were  now  younger  celebrities.  Among  these  were  the  two 
brothers,  William  and  Henry  Lawes. 

Sons  of  Thomas  Lawes,  vicar- choral  of  Salisbury  Cathedral, 

1  Quoted  (more  fully)  from  the  MS.  the  author  was  Gill  the  elder ;    but 

in  the  Ashmolean  by  Bliss  in  his  edition  Bliss  corrects  the  mistake  in  a  note  to 

of  Wood's   Athense,   II.  598-9.    It  is  the  subsequent  article  on  the  younger 

there  quoted  under  the  impression  that  Gill,  in  vol.  III.  p.  42. 


HENEY   LAWES.  567 

the  brothers  had  been  trained  from  their  childhood  for  the 
profession  of  music.  They  had  both  been  taken  into  the 
service  of  Charles  I.,  as  gentlemen  of  the  Chapel  Royal, 
servants  of  "  the  private  Musick,"  and  what  not.  William 
was  considerably  the  elder;  Henry  had  been  born  in  1600. 
The  reputation  of  both  as  composers  was  already  well  estab 
lished  ;  their  airs,  fantasias,  catches,  &c.,  were  in  circulation 
in  manuscript ;  and  their  services  were  beginning  to  be  much 
in  request  for  the  music  to  new  masques.  From  the  manner 
in  which  they  are  always  spoken  of,  they  seem  both  to  have 
been  men  of  upright  and  amiable  character;  and  the  face  of 
Henry,  in  an  extant  portrait  of  him  by  Faithorne,  has  a 
certain  fine  seriousness  which  is  highly  pleasing.  He  was 
destined  to  a  wider  and  longer  celebrity  than  his  brother. 
About  the  year  1632,  with  something  of  that  fame  still  to 
make,  he  was  much  employed  as  a  teacher  of  music  in  noble 
and  wealthy  families.  He  had  a  special  appointment  of  this 
kind  in  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  the  young 
members  of  which,  and  particularly  the  young  ladies,  were 
among  his  most  hopeful  pupils.  Through  this  connexion, 
and  his  connexion  with  the  Court,  he  had  a  wide  circle  of 
acquaintances,  including  Carew,  Herrick,  Davenant,  Waller, 
and  other  wits  and  poets:  Bulstrode  Whitlocke,  who  had 
no  small  name  among  his  lawyer  friends  as  an  amateur  in 
music,  knew  Lawes  well ;  and  I  have  found  the  shade  of  a 
possibility  that  he  had  given  lessons  to  some  of  the  Bulstrodes 
of  Horton.  That  Milton,  a  passionate  lover  of  music,  and 
now  cultivating  that  art  by  regular  study,  should  have  come 
to  know  Lawes  on  his  own  account  about  this  time  would 
have  been  a  matter  of  course,  even  if  the  acquaintance  had 
not  been  already  formed  through  his  father,  at  whose  house 
in  Bread  Street,  we  are  to  remember,  all  that  was  musical 
in  London,  in  that  generation  as  in  the  preceding,  must  have 
been  familiar  independently,  on  account  of  the  musical  reput 
ation  and  tastes  of  the  Scrivener  himself. 

After  all,  Milton's  visits  to  London,  whether  for  mathe 
matics  or  for  music,  can  have  been  but  occasional.  His 
time,  he  tells  us,  was  spent  chiefly  at  Horton,  in  quiet  and 


568  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

leisurely  study.  "There  I  spent  a  complete  holiday  in 
"  perusing  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers  "  are  his  words  ;  and 
they  imply  a  good  collection  of  books,  and  a  steady  and 
systematic  course  of  reading.  From  various  circumstances 
we  should  judge  that  about  this  time  he  read  more  assidu 
ously  in  the  Greek  writers  than  he  had  formerly  done.  The 
existence  of  a  copy  of  Aratus,  which  he  had  bought  in  1631, 
and  which  is  annotated  here  and  there  by  his  hand,  has  been 
already  mentioned.  There  are  also  extant  copies  of  two 
other  Greek  authors,  bearing  his  name  on  their  fly-leaves 
and  annotations  in  his  hand  on  the  margin  throughout.  One 
is  a  copy  of  Paul  Stephens's  edition  of  Euripides,  in  two 
volumes  quarto,  published  in  1602;  the  other  is  a  copy  of 
Lycophron.  Both  were  purchased  by  him  in  1634,  the 
Euripides  for  12.9.  6d.  and  the  Lycophron  for  3s.1  It  was 
probably  about  this  time,  too,  that  Milton' s  "  ceaseless  round 
of  study  and  reading  "  led  him  from  "  the  laureate  fraternity 
of  poets/'  and  from  those  "  orators  and  historians  "  who  had 
been  chiefly  associated  with  the  poets  in  the  classic  studies 
of  the  University,  on  "  to  the  shady  spaces  of  philosophy  " 
in  Xenophon  and  Plato.  Of  Milton's  early  reverence  for 
Plato  there  have  been  already  abundant  indications ;  but  no 
reader  of  his  works  can  doubt  that  there  musfe  have  been 
some  period  of  his  life  in  particular  when  he  drank  long 
and  deeply  of  the  Platonic  philosophy. 

If  Milton's  readings  in  the  Classics  and  in  Italian  writers 
were  assiduous  through  the  first  two  years  and  a  half  of  his 
residence  at  Horton,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  neg 
lected  at  the  same  time  the  literature  of  his  own  country. 

1  The  Euripides  was  in  the  possession  it  for  his  edition  of  Euripides ;  and 

of  Francis  Hare,  Bishop  of  Chichester ;  Eichard  Paul  Jodrell,  in  his  Illustra- 

on  whose  death,  in  1740,  it  became  the  tions  of  Euripides,  in  1781,  adopts  one 

property  of  John  "VVhiston,  a  bookseller.  or  two  of  the  MS.  readings,  and  accuses 

From  him  it  was  bought  by  Dr.  Birch,  Barnes  of  having  availed  himself  of  the 

in  1754;  after  whose  death  it  became  rest  without  acknowledgment.    By  Mr. 

the  property  of  Joseph  Cradock,  Esq.,  Cradock  the  book  was  bequeathed   to 

of    Gumly,  in    Leicestershire.    When  the  late  Sir  Henry  Halford;  and  be- 

Dr.  Johnson  wrote  his  Life  of  Milton,  yond  this  point  I  have  not  traced  it. 

in  1779,  the  book,  by  "  Mr.  Cradock's  The  copy  of  Lycophron,  according  to 

kindness,"   was  in   his   hands.      "  The  Todd,  was,  in  1809,  in  the  possession  of 

margin,'' he  says,  "is  sometimes  noted,  Lord  Charlemont,  and  had  been  used 

but  I  have  found  nothing  remarkable/'  by  Mr.  Meen,  with  a  view  to  a  new 

Barnes,  however,  had  previously  used  edition  of  the  poet. 


L1  ALLEGRO  AND  IL  PENSEEOSO.  569 

Not  to  mention  the  older  English  classics,  there  were  the 
contemporary  issues  of  the  English  press  from  which  he 
might  cull  books  that  suited  him.  Of  the  books  registered 
for  publication  in  London  through  the  first  half-year  of  the 
period  under  notice  a  list  has  already  been  given.  The 
registers  for  the  year  1633  exhibit  154  new  publications 
or  transfers  of  copyright,  including  new  plays  by  Shirley, 
Ford,  Shakerly  Marmion,  Heywood,  Gervase  Markham,  and 
Decker,  and  also  poems  and  translations  by  May,  and  ser 
mons  and  theological  tracts  by  Bishop  Hall  and  Sibbes.  For 
the  year  1634  one  finds  126  publications  or  transfers  regis 
tered,  including  a  tragedy  by  Ford,  Wither's  Emblems,  a 
Treatise  on  Decimals  by  W.  Barton,  Habington's  Castara, 
Quarles's  Emblems,  a  play  by  Massinger,  a  play  by  Shirley, 
and  various  theological  works. 

Meanwhile  Milton's  own  muse  was  not  idle.  It  is  a  matter 
not  to  be  forgotten  in  the  history  of  Buckinghamshire  that 
as  many  as  ten  of  the  English  poems  of  Milton,  including 
four  of  the  most  important  of  all,  may  claim  to  have  been 
written  at  Horton,  and  all  save  one  of  these  during  those 
first  two  years  and  a  half  of  his  residence  at  Horton  with 
which  we  are  now  concerned.  The  evidence  is  certain  as 
regards  some,  and  more  or  less  probable  as  regards  the 
others. 

L' ALLEGED  AND  IL  PENSEEOSO. 

The  probability  is  that  these  two  celebrated  pieces  were 
written  at  Horton  in  the  autumn  or  latter  part  of  1632,  and 
were  the  first  exercises  of  Milton's  muse  in  his  rustic  retire 
ment  there.1  It  is  possible  that  the  notion  of  such  a  pair  of 

1  The  pieces  first  appeared  in  Milton's  posed  was  first  used  by  Milton  for  draft 

edition  of  his   Minor  Poems  in  1645 ;  purposes,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  in 

and,  as  they  are  not   dated  there,  as  the  year  1633 ;  and,  as  it  contains  the 

others   of  the   pieces   are,  by   Milton  drafts  of  all  his  English  Poems  known 

himself,  their  date  is  matter  of  infer-  to  have  been  written  between  that  year 

ence.    That  they  were  composed  before  and  1645,  the  omission  of  L'Alleyro  and 

1633  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  they  II  Penseroso  seems  to  certify  that  he 

are  not  among  those  poems  of  Milton  had  these  already  by  him  in  1633   in 

of  which  we  have  the  preserved  drafts  another  manuscript.     They  can  hardly, 

in  his  own  hand  in  the  famous  volume  however,  have   been   among  the  com- 

of  Milton  MSS.  at  Cambridge.     The  set  positions  of  his  University  period  ;  at 

of  sheets  of  which  that  volume  is  com-  least,  we  hear  of  nothing  such  among 


570  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

short  compositions,  collecting  and  weaving  together  the 
circumstances  in  nature  and  life  suggestive  to  the  recluse 
of  cheerfulness  on  the  one  hand  and  of  pensiveness  or 
melancholy  on  the  other,  may  have  occurred  to  Milton  in 
the  course  of  his  readings ;  and  his  commentators  have 
referred,  with  some  plausibility,  to  certain  passages  in 
Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  and  to  a  song  in  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  Nice  Valour,  as  having  helped  him  not  only 
to  the  notion,  but  also  to  some  of  the  fancies  and  phrases  in 
which  he  has  given  it  expression.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Milton 
certainly  did  what  no  English  poet  had  done  before  when 
he  provided  our  language  with  two  companion  poems  dedi 
cated  to  the  two  conditions  of  mind.  The  exquisite  feeling 
with  which  circumstances  were  chosen  or  invented  in  true 
poetic  relation  to  the  two  moods,  and  the  imaginative  sub 
tlety  q""^  Trmajfifl.1  ftrf._rn__gy|jrfiaqjni7  with  which  they  were 
woven  together,  made  the  success  of  the  attempt  complete ; 
and,  while  our  language  lasts,  these  two  beautiful  com 
positions  will  rank  by  themselves,  safe  from  the  possibility 
of  being  ever  superseded. 

In  L'ALLEGEO  the  poet  bids  Melancholy  begone,  and 
invokes  Mirth  or  Euphrosyne,  the  daughter  of  Bacchus  and 
Venus,  or  rather  of  Zephyr  and  Aurora.  Let  her  come 
attended  by  Jest  and  Jollity,  Sport  and  Laughter ;  let  her 
come  dancing  and  leading  forth  with  her  the  mountain 
nymph  Liberty.  The  time  is  early  morning,  for  the  pleasures 
in  joining  her  train  are,  first  of  all,  these  : — 

To  hear  the  lark  begin  his  flight, 
And,  singing,  startle  the  dull  night, 
From  his  watch-tower  in  the  skies, 
Till  the  dappled  dawn  doth  rise  ; 
Then  to  come,  in  spite  of  sorrow, 
And  at  my  window  bid  good -morrow 
Through  the  sweet-briar  or  the  vine, 
Or  the  twisted  eglantine  ;  \ 

his  compositions  of  those  seven  years.  internal  evidence,  their  spirit  of  rural 
They  seem  thus  to  be  referred  by  mere  leisure  after  academic  occupation, 
external  probability  precisely  to  the  favours  the  same  conjecture.  The  in- 
time  where  we  have  ventured  to  place  ference,  however,  does  not  amount  to 
them,  the  latter  half  of  16,32  ;  and  the  positive  certainty. 


L*  ALLEGRO  AND  IL  PENSEROSO.  571 

While  the  cock  with  lively  din 

Scatters  the  rear  of  darkness  thin, 

And  to  the  stack  or  the  barn-door, 

Stoutly  struts  his  dames  before  : 

Oft  listening  how  the  hounds  and  horn 

Cheerly  rouse  the  slumbering  morn, 

From  the  side  of  some  hoar  hill, 

Through  the  high  wood  echoing  shrill ; 

Sometime  walking,  not  unseen, 

By  hedge-row  elms,  on  hillocks  green, 

Right  against  the  eastern  gate 

Where  the  great  sun  begins  his  state, 

Robed  in  flames  and  amber  light, 

The  clouds  in  thousand  liveries  dight ; 

While  the  ploughman  near  at  hand 

Whistles  o'er  the  furrowed  land, 

And  the  milkmaid  singeth  blythe, 

And  the  mower  whets  his  scythe, 

And  every  shepherd  tells  his  tale 

Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale.  X 

Straight  mine  eye  hath  caught  new  pleasures, 

Whilst  the  landskip  round  it  measures  : 

Russet  lawns  and  fallows  grey, 

Where  the  nibbling  flocks  do  stray  ; 

Mountains  on  whose  barren  breast 

The  labouring  clouds  do  often  rest ; 

Meadows  trim,  with  daisies  pied ; 

Shallow  brooks  and  rivers  wide  ; 

Towers  and  battlements  it  sees, 

Bosomed  high  in  tufted  trees, 

Where  perhaps  some  beauty  lies, 

The  cynosure  of  neighbouring  eyes. 

Then,  as  day  advances,  according  to  the  season,  it  will  be 
the  reapers  at  their  work  or  at  their  dinner  among  the 
sheaves,  or  the  haymakers  in  the  meadow,  that  will  be  the 
objects  of  sight;  or,  should  it  chance  to  be  holiday-time 
and  the  waning  day  be  fine,  it  may  be  the  dance  of  the 
youths  and  maidens  from  the  hamlets  under  some  chequered 
shade  to  the  sound  of  the  rebeck,  while  the  merry  bells  are 
ringing  and  the  older  folks  look  on.  When  the  daylight 
fails,  then  come  other  amusements,  the  nut-brown  ale  011 
the  cottage-bench,  and  the  stories  of  fairies  and  goblins  and 
of  the  nightly  pranks  of  .Robin  Goodfellow.  After  a  round 
of  such  stories  tlie  rustics  go  to  their  early  rest ;  and  at  this 


572  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OP   HIS   TIME. 

point  the  poet,  still  in  the  cheerful  mood,  but  catering  for 
himself,  would  change  the  scene  : — 

Towered  cities  please  ns  then, 
And  the  busy  hum  of  men. 

The  meaning  is  not  necessarily  that  then  the  poet  conceives 
himself  personally  taken  from  the  country  to  the  city,  but 
that,  still  in  the  country,  he  may,  after  the  rustics  have 
retired  to  rest,  farther  protract  his  more  educated  day  by 
imaginations  of  the  city  over  delightful  books.  Reading  the 
lighter  old  romances  or  reading  modern  masques,  he  would 
be  present  at  splendid  city-pageants  of  knights  and  ladies. 
There  might  be  literary  pleasure  still  more  real  in  the  pages 
of  the  dramatic  poets,  taking  one  anon  to  the  well-trod  stage  ; 
where, 

If  Jonson's  learned  sock  be  on, 

Or  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 

Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild, 

what  truer  gaiety  could  heart  desire  ?  But,  even  after  Jonson 
and  Shakespeare  in  their  finest  comedies,  let  the  closing 
rapture  still  be  in  music.  Let  soft  Lydian  airs,  married  to 
immortal  verse,  pierce  the  soul  in  notes  of  linked  sweetness, 
such  as  Orpheus  would  raise  his  head  to  listen  to  from  his 
bed  of  heaped-up  flowers  in  Elysium,  or  as,  had  Pluto  him 
self  heard  them,  would  have  moved  him  to  set  free  his  half- 
regained  Eurydice. 

IL  PENSEROSO  is  constructed  on  the  principle  of  contrast 
to  the  preceding,  part  for  part.  Bidding  Mirth  begone,  the 
poet  invokes  the  divine  maid  Melancholy,  the  daughter  of 
Saturn  and  Vesta.  Let  her  come  robed  in  pensive  black, 
with  rapt  and  heaven- directed  eyes,  attended  by  Peace,  Fast, 
Leisure,  and,  above  all,  the  cherub  Contemplation.  And  the 
time  of  her  coming  will,  of  course,  be  the  evening,  when,  if 
there  is  aught  to  break  the  silence,  it  will  be  the  song  of  the 
nightingale  : — 

Sweet  bird,  that  shunn'st  the  noise  of  folly, 
Most  musical,  most  melancholy ! 
Thee,  chauntress,  oft  the  woods  among 
I  woo,  to  hear  thy  even-song ; 


L> ALLEGRO  AND  IL  PENSEROSO.  573 

And,  missing  thee,  I  walk  unseen 
On  the  dry  smooth-shaven  green, 
To  behold  the  wandering  moon 
Riding  near  her  highest  noon, 
Like  one  that  had  been  led  astray 
Through  the  heaven's  wide  pathless  way, 
And  oft,  as  if  her  head  she  bowed, 
Stooping  through  a  fleecy  cloud. 
Oft,  on  a  plat  of  rising  ground, 
I  hear  the  far-off  curfew  sound, 
Over  some  wide-watered  shore, 
Swinging  slow  with  sullen  roar. 

These,  the  nocturnal  sights  and  sounds,  befit  the  mood  of 
melancholy.  Or,  should  the  air  without  not  permit,  then 
let  the  place  be  some  room  where  the  glowing  embers  but 
make  the  gloom  more  solemn,  and  where  nothing  is  heard 
but  the  cricket  on  the  hearth  or  the  drowsy  voice  of  the 
passing  bellman.  Later,  towards  midnight,  the  lamp  will 
be  lit  in  some  high  tower- chamber,  within  which,  as  its 
solitary  light  is  seen  from  afar,  the  pale  student  will  outwatcli 
the  Bear  while  communing  with  mystical  Hermes,  or  will 
unsphere  the  soul  of  Plato  from  his  writings,  to  learn  the 
deeper  secrets  of  philosophy  and  magic.  Or,  should  the 
books  not  be  those  of  philosophy  but  of  poesy,  then  the 
poesy  must  be  that  of  fate  and  tragedy,  such  as  the  severe 
Greek  muse  gave  to  the  ancient  world,  or  whatever  in  a 
similar  strain  the  efforts  of  modern  genius  may  more  rarely 
have  bodied  forth.  0  that  the  song  of  Musseus  or  of  Orpheus 
could  be  revived  !  One  might  go  back,  at  least,  to  parts  of 
old  Chaucer, 

Him  that  left  half-told 

The  story  of  Cambuscan  bold, 

Of  Camball,  and  of  Algarsife, 

And  who  had  Canace  to  wife, 

That  owned  the  virtuous  ring  and  glass, 

And  of  the  wondrous  horse  of  brass 

On  which  the  Tartar  king  did  ride. 

Or  there  might  be  readings  in  Spender  or  other  great  bards 
who 

In  sage  and  solemn  tunes  have  sung 

Of  turneys  and  of  trophies  hung, 


574  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Of  forests,  and  enchantments  drear, 
Where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the  ear. 

In  such  studies  and  weirdly  phantasies  let  the  night  pass ; 
and  let  the  morning  slowly  break  on  the  watcher,  not  clear 
and  gay,  but  sombre  and  cloudy,  the  winds  rocking  the  trees, 
land  the  big  rain-drops  that  the  night  has  gathered  falling 
/  audibly  one  by  one.  Then,  when  the  sun  is  abroad  and  his 
'  beams  have  dried  up  the  showers,  let  the  watcher,  his  pillow 
yet  untouched,  sally  forth,  only  to  lose  himself  in  the  depths 
of  some  forest  of  monumental  oaks  or  pines,  where,  recum 
bent  in  some  close  covert  by  a  brook,  he  may  be  hushed  to 
sleep  by  the  hum  of  bees  or  the  gush  of  a  waterfall.  Let 
mysterious  dreams  come  in  his  sleep,  and,  when  he  awakes, 
let  it  be  as  if  surrounded  by  spiritual  music.  His  heart  full 
of  such  music,  whither  can  his  returning  footsteps  take  him, 
ere  the  new  day  has  fully  begun,  but  to  the  studious  cloisters 
of  the  cathedral  near  ?  There  let  his  due  feet  never  fail. 
Let  him  love 

The  high-embowed  roof, 

With  antique  pillars  massy  proof, 

And  storied  windows  richly  dight, 

Casting  a  dim  religious  light. 

There  let  the  pealing  organ  blow, 

To  the  full-voiced  quire  below, 

In  service  high  and  anthems  clear. 

And  so,  thoughtfully,  day  after  day,  let  his  time  pass,  till 
old  age  shall  find  him  a  holy  hermit,  whose  wisdom  from  the 
past  may  have  something  in  it  of  a  prophetic  strain. 

These  pleasures,  Melancholy,  give  ; 
And  I  with  thee  will  choose  to  live. 

In  L' ALLEGRO  and  IL  PENSEROSO  we  have  poetry  in  its 

v    rnn^j-.  r^iifff,  i*Tit.p]1ppffii7n.1   ftsjjafl-pftftj  neither  elevated  into  song 

by  the  lyric  passion,  nor  recommended  to  non-poetic  tastes 

by  the  interfusion  of  doctrine.     They  belong,  on  the  whole, 

\   tO    the    idyllic     Or     ReHPrKniS-Hpq1     r»1aqq     nf    r^mpr^if.irmSj     in 

which  we  see  the  poet  relaxing  himself  for  his  own  pleasure 
in  the  ^eltP PgJLJH) flfii ^ Q^gggrgi so_of  jns_j)gcnliar  intellectual 
habit.  In  few  poems  in  our  language  may  the  nature  of  the 


L' ALLEGRO  AND   IL   PENSEROSO.  575 

purely  poetic  or  imaginative  state  of  mind  be  better  studied ; 
and  in  the  fact  that  two  such  poems  of  pure  and  unperturbed 
phantasy  were  written  by  Milton  at  this  particular  period  of 
his  life  we  seem  to  have  an  indication  that,  in  his  retirement 
at  Horton,  he  was  laying  to  sleep  for  the  time  certain  dog 
matic  elements  in  his  temper  which  had  necessarily  appeared 
in  his  conduct  and  in  some  of  his  writings  amid  the  bustle 
of  the  University.     It  is  but  the  same  remark  in  another 
form  to  say  that  these  two  poems  afford  fresh  evidence  of 
the    fact   that,  while  Milton's  readings  in  preceding  and 
contemporary  English  poetry  were  very  extensive,  his  chief 
favourites  among  immediately  preceding  poets  were  those 
whom  we  have  called  the  Spenserians.     To  this  succession 
of  the  Spenserians,  if  to  any  literary  succession  at  all,  Milton 
for  the  present  belonged.     "Milton,"  says  Dryden,  "was 
"  the  poetical  son  of  Spenser,  for  we  [poets]  have  our  lineal 
te  descents  and  clans  as  well  as  other  families."     Nor  was 
this  merely  Dryden's   opinion;  for  he  adds,   "Milton  has 
"acknowledged  to  me  that  Spenser  was  his  original."1     It 
is  in  such  preceding  poetry,  accordingly,  as  that  of  Browne,  * 
Giles__and  Phineas  Fletcher,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden, 
Ben  Jonson  in  his  masques,  and  Fletcher  and  other  drama 
tists  in  corresponding  parts  of  their  works,  that  we  see  the 
nearest  resemblances,  both  in  matter  and  in  form,  to  the 
Ode  on  the  Death  of  a  Fair  Infant,  the  Hymn  on  the  Nativity, 
and  the  Allegro  and  Penseroso.     If,  however,  in  virtue  of  the 
matter  and  form  of  those  poems,  Milton,  at  this  period  of 
his  life,  may  be  linked  with  the  Spenserian  succession,  he 
was  already,  on  the  same  evidence,  a  Spenserian  with  im 
portant  differences.    As  in  all  that  he  had  yet  written  a  critic, 
even  while  fondly  tracing  his  relations  to  the  Spenserian 
school,  could  have  had  little  difficulty  in  recognising  a  certain 
assemblage  of  qualities  peculiarly  Miltonic,  so  these  would 
have  been  discernible  again  in  the  Allegro  and  Penseroso. 
Most  remarkable  perhaps  was  a  certain  solemnity  of 
nm'nglmg'  with  the  sensuous  beauty_fiyftTi  wh^rQ_jtLwa.g 
and  most  graceful.     There  were  evidences  also  of  a  mind  of 

i  Dryden  in  his  Preface  to  his  «  Fables,"  1699. 


576  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

the  fines  tclassic^ulktre^  and^trained  and  disciplinecLto 
'"classicaFaccuracy  in  the_jige_Q_f_spaech.  Word  follows  word 
ancTclausefits  into  clause  in  Milton's  verse  with  a  precision 
and  neatness  not  usual  in  Spenser  himself  or  in  the  most 
careful  of  his  followers,  and  proving  a  higher  severity  of 
artistic  taste  and  rule.  All  in  all,  it  might  have  been  pre 
dicted  that,  if  any  one  of  the  general  Spenserian  succession 
should  break  that  succession  and  become  himself  a  new  point 
of  departure  in  the  history  of  English  Poetry,  it  would  be 
the  young  poet  of  Horton. 

So  far  as  the  scenery  in  L' Allegro  and  II  Penseroso  was 
suggested  from  any  one  place,  it  was  probably  from  Horton 
and  its  neighbourhood.  In  the  morning  scene  in  L' Allegro 
nearly  all  the  details  of  landscape  are  such  as  Horton  would 
furnish  to  this  day ;  and,  though  other  localities  in  southern 
England  would  furnish  most  of  them  quite  as  well,  one  or 
two  might  be  claimed  by  Horton  as  not  so  common.  The 
towers  and  battlements  "  bosomed  high  in  tufted  trees " 
are  almost  evidently  Windsor  Castle ;  and  a  characteristic 
morning  sound  at  Horton  to  this  day  is  that  of  "  the  hounds 
and  horn"  from  Windsor  Park  when  the  royal  huntsmen 
are  out.  It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  however,  and  a  most 
prosaic  misconception  of.  Milton's  intention,  to  suppose 
fidelity  in  the  poem  to  the  scenery  of  any  one  place,  even 
the  place  where  it  was  written.  The  poem  was  not  intended 
as  the  description  of  any  actual  rural  neighbourhood,  but  as 
the  generalized  visual  illustration  of  a  mood  of  mind.  The 
scenery,  therefore,  might  be  visionary  or  eclectic,  made  up 
of  idealized  recollections  from  various  spots.  The  lines, 

Mountains,  on  whose  barren  breast 
The  labouring  clouds  do  often  rest, 

import  at  least  one  feature  for  which  the  flat  scenery  of 
Horton  offers  no  original.  And  so  in  the  Penseroso.  The 
sound  of  the  distant  roar  of  the  sea  so  effectively  introduced 
into  that  poem  is  an  utter  impossibility  for  any  part  of 
Buckinghamshire.  The  Gothic  cathedral,  also,  in  whoso 
cloisters  the  pensive  youth  walks  in  the  morning,  is  an 


MAY  MORNING  AND    TO   TEE  NIGHTINGALE.         577 

addition  weftiotwhence, — whether  from  Old  St.  Paul's, 
London,  or  from  any  one  of  twenty  other  Gothic  churches 
or  chapels  Milton  may  have  had  in  remembrance,  what 
need  to  inquire  ?  With  these  exceptions,  and  perhaps  that 
of  the  curfew-bell,  the  landscape  of  the  Penseroso  may  be 
that  of  the  Allegro  made  melancholy  by  moonlight. 

SONG  ON  MAY  MORNING  AND  SONNET  TO  THE  NIGHTINGALE. 

It  was  at  Horton,  on  the  first  of  May  1633,  if  we  may 
give  so  exact  a  date  on  conjecture  to  what  has  come  down 
to  us  undated,  that  Milton  wrote  this  dainty  little  thing : — 

Now  the  bright  morning-star,  Day's  harbinger, 
Comes  dancing  from  the  east,  and  leads  with  her 
The  flowery  May,  who  from  her  green  lap  throws 
The  yellow  cowslip  and  the  pale  primrose. 

Hail,  bounteous  May,  that  dost  inspire 

Mirth,  and  youth,  and  warm  desire  ! 

Woods  and  groves  are  of  thy  dressing  ; 

Hill  and  dale  doth  boast  thy  blessing. 
Thus  we  salute  thee  with  our  early  song, 
And  welcome  thee,  and  wish  thee  long. 

Within  the  same  month,  if  we  guess  aright,  he  wrote  his 
kindred  piece  to  the  Nightingale.  Only  once  before,  in  his 
Sonnet  on  having  arrived  at  the  age  of  three-and-twenty, 
had  he  tried  his  hand  in  that  "  Petrarchian  Stanza  "  which 
his  readings  in  the  Italian  poets  had  made  so  familiar  to  his 
ear.  He  now  ventures  on  a  second  attempt : — 

O  Nightingale  that  on  yon  bloomy  spray 

Warblest  at  eve,  when  all  the  woods  are  still, 
Thou  with  fresh  hope  the  lover's  heart  dost  fill. 
While  the  jolly  hours  lead  on  propitious  May, 

Thy  liquid  notes  that  close  the  eye  of  day, 

First  heard  before  the  shallow  cuckoo's  bill, 
Portend  success  in  love.     O,  if  Jove's  will 
Have  linked  that  amorous  power  to  thy  soft  lay, 

Now  timely  sing,  ere  the  rude  bird  of  hate 

Foretell  my  hopeless  doom,  in  some  grove  nigh  ; 
As  thou  from  year  to  year  hast  sung  too  late 

For  my  relief,  yet  hadst  no  reason  why. 

Whether  the  Muse  or  Love  call  thee  his  mate, 
Both  them  I  serve,  and  of  their  train  am  I. 
VOL.  I.  p  p 


578  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF   HIS   TIME. 

Some  early  May  evening,  it  would  seem,  in  that  quickening 
season  when  the  fancies  of  youth  turn  lightly  to  thoughts 
of  love,  Milton  at  Horton  remembered  the  old  superstition 
that  he  who  in  that  month  hears  the  nightingale  before 
the  cuckoo  will  wed  or  woo  fortunately  before  the  year  is 
over,  while  he  who  hears  the  cuckoo  first  need  expect  no 
such  luck.  With  this  fancy  in  his  mind,  he  listens  that 
evening  for  the  omen  of  his  fate.  Surely  in  past  years  the 
cuckoo  must  have  been  heard  first,  for  is  he  not  now  in  the 
prime  of  youth  and  yet  neither  wedded  nor  a  wooer  ? 
Whether  the  song  of  the  nightingale  bodes  success  in 
poetry  or  success  in  love,  he  hopes  the  nightingale  may  be 
first  this  year.1 

ARCADES. 

This  little  piece  is  far  more  important  biographically  than 
its  bulk  might  indicate.  It  exhibits  Milton  breaking  forth, 
if  we  may  so  say,  into  an  enlarged  circle  of  connexions  with 
contemporary  society  and  the  literature  then  in  fashion.  It 
connects  him,  more  especially,  with  one  rather  remarkable 
family  among  the  English  nobility  of  that  day,  and  through 
them  with  the  Acted  Drama,  and  the  passion  for  one  form 
of  dramatic  amusement  in  particular,  in  and  round  the  Court 
of  Charles  I.  To  understand  the  little  piece,  in  fact,  in  its 
proper  biographical  setting,  we  must  come  to  it  after  a  con 
siderable  circuit  of  preliminary  researches  and  explanations. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  through 
the  reign  of  James  I.,  _the  Masque  had  been  the  favourite 

1  The  dating  of  these  two  pieces  in  pushed  back  into  the  University  period, 

1633  rests  on  the  same  reasons  that  breathing  so  fondly  as  they  do  of  "  the 

have  made  us  refer  IS  Allegro  and  II  rural  green,"  and  the  rather  because 

Penseroso  to   the  latter  half  of   1632  the  sentiment  of  the  sonnet  suits  the 

(see  footnote  ante  pp.  569,  570).    They  twenty-fifth  year  of  Milton's  age  better 

appeared  without   dates  in   the   1645  than  an  earlier.    Even  if  1632  or  1631, 

edition  of  Mil  ton's  Poems;  and  they  can  however,  were  voted  to   be  the  year, 

hardly  have  been  written  after   1633,  Horton  need  not  lose  the  credit.  Though 

inasmuch  as  they  are  not  among  the  it  was   after  July   1632  that  Milton 

pieces  in  those    preserved    sheets   of  retired  thither  for  good,  his  father  may 

Milton's    MSS.    at   Cambridge   which  have  possessed  his  little  place  there, 

appear  to  contain  all  that  he  wrote  in  and  Milton    may  have  known  it  by 

English  Verse  between  1633  and  1645.  visits  from  Cambridge,  a  year  or  two 

On  the  other  hand,  they  can  hardly  be  before  that  date. 


AECADES  :    MASQUES   GENERALLY   ABOUT    1633.  579 

form  of  private  theatricals.  If  the  sovereign  visited  a  sub 
ject,  or  if  one  distinguished  subject  visited  another  cere 
moniously,  it  was  frequent  enough  for  part  of  the  ceremonial  ^ 
to  consist  of  an  acted  pageant,  with  speeches,  &c.,  by  per 
sons  allegorically  dressed,  stationed  at  the  park  gate,  thence 
to  accompany  the  visitor  to  the  great  hall  of  the  mansion, 
where  the  allegory  might  end  in  more  elaborate  scenic  effects  • 
and  more  pertinent  compliments  and  gratulations.  The 
preparation  of  such  pageants,  on  commission  from  those 
who  required  them,  had  become  part  of  the  dramatic  pro 
fession  ;  and  in  the  hands  of  such  men  as  Chapman,  Fletcher, 
and,  above  all,  Ben  Jonson,  the  literary  capabilities  of  the 
Masque  had  been  extended  and  perfected.  In  the  matters 
of  music,  machinery,  and  decoration,  there  had  been  a  cor 
responding  improvement  under  the  superintendence  of  such 
artists  as  Inigo  Jones.  On  the  part  of  the  poet,  the  busi 
ness  was  to  seize  the  meaning  of  the  occasion  in  celebration 
of  which  the  masque  was  held,  and  then  to  invent  some 
allegory,  or  adapt  some  scrap  of  Grecian  mythology  or  •> 
mediaeval  and  chivalrous  legend,  in  the  action  of  which  the 
meaning  could  somehow  be  symbolised,  while  at  the  same 
time  room  was  left  for  dances,  comicalities,  and  the  ex 
pected  songs  and  duets.  The  machinist,  on  his  part, 
receiving  the  story  from  the  poet,  or  concocting  it  with  him, 
had  to  devise  the  scenic  and  other  visual  effects  and  sur 
prises  required  for  its  proper  presentation.  The  aid  of  the 
musical  composer  was  essential  for  any  important  masque 
trusting  much  to  song  and  recitative.  Finally,  much 
depended  on  the  skill  of  the  masquers  in  their  parts,  and 
their  willingness  to  spend  money  beforehand  in  rich  cos 
tumes. 

About  the  year  1633,  as  we  already  know,  a  factitious 
impulse  for  the  time  was  given  to  dramatic  entertainments 
generally  in  London  by  the  indignant  reaction  against 
Prynne's  Histriomastix.  While  punishment  on  account  of 
the  book  was  in  preparation  for  the  author,  all  the  loyal  were 
on  the  alert  to  show  how  they  resented  the  insult  to  Majesty 
conveyed  in  certain  phrases  which  seemed  to  reflect  gener- 

p  p  2 


530  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

ally  on  the  royal  patronage  of  the  Drama,  and  on  Queen 
Henrietta  Maria  in  particular  for  her  recent  performances 
in  a  pastoral  at  Somerset  House.  Above  all,  as  Prynne  was 
a  barrister  and  had  dedicated  his  book  to  the  Benchers  of 
Lincoln's  Inn,  this  feeling  rose  to  enthusiasm  among  the 
lawyers.  "About  Allhallowtide  [Nov.  1633] ,"  Bulstrode 
Whitlocke  informs  us  in  his  Memorials,  "  several  of  the 
"  principal  members  of  the  Society  of  the  four  Inns  of  Court, 
"  amongst  whom  some  were  servants  to  the  King,  had  a 
"  design  that  the  Inns  of  Court  should  present  their  service 
"  to  the  King  and  Queen  and  testify  their  affections'  to  them 
"  by  the  outward  and  splendid  visible  testimony  of  a  royal 
"  masque  of  all  the  four  societies  joining  together,  to  be 
"  by  them  brought  to  the  Court  as  an  expression  of  their 
"love  and  duty  to  their  majesties.  This  was  hinted  at  in 
"  the  Court,  and  by  them  intimated  to  the  chief  of  these 
"  societies  that  it  would  be  well  taken  from  them."  In 
short,  it  was  settled  that  there  should  be  such  a  masque  at 
the  expense  of  the  four  Inns  as  had  never  before  been  pre 
sented  in  England,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  make 
all  the  arrangements. 

The  Committee  consisted  of  two  members  from  each 
society.  From  the  Middle  Temple  there  were  Mr.  Hyde 
and  Whitlocke  himself;  from  the  Inner  Temple,  Selden  and 
Sir  Edward  Herbert;  from  Lincoln's  Inn,  Mr.  Attorney- 
General  Noy  and  Mr.  Gerling ;  and  from  Gray's  Inn,  Mr. 
John  Finch  and  another.  This  committee  appointed  several 
sub-committees  for  the  different  parts  of  the  business. 
' ' To  me  in  particular/'  says  Whitlocke,  "was  committed 
"  the  whole  care  and  charge  of  all  the  music  for  this  great 
"  masque  "  ;  and  he  informs  us  that  he  selected  Mr.  Simon 
Ivy  and  Mr.  Henry  Lawes  to  compose  the  airs,  lessons, 
songs,  &c.,  and  to  be  masters  of  all  the  music  under  him, 
besides  securing  the  services  of  four  Frenchmen,  who  were 
musicians  of  the  Queen's  Chapel,  and  of  all  such  Italians, 
Germans,  or  natives  as  were  noted  for  their  musical  talent 
in  London.  Meanwhile  Shirley  had  been  appointed  to 
write  the  poetry ;  Inigo  Jones  had  undertaken  the  ma- 


GREAT   MASQUE    OF   THE    INNS   OF   COURT.  581 

chinery;  Selden's  antiquarian  knowledge  was  in  request 
for  costumes ;  Noy,  Hyde,  and  the  others  were  doing  their 
parts ;  and  a  selection  had  been  made  of  four  of  the  hand 
somest  young  barristers  from  each  Inn,  sixteen  splendid 
fellows  in  all,  to  be  the  chief  masquers  and  do  the  dancing. 
The  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall  was  suitably  prepared; 
and,  at  last,  on  Candlemas  Night  (Feb.  3,  1633-4),  after 
many  rehearsals,  infinite  pains,  and  some  disputes  about 
precedency,  the  great  affair  came  off. 

On  that  day,  in  the  afternoon,  all  the  masquers,  musicians, 
actors,  &c.,  met  at  Ely  House,  Holborn ;  and,  in  the  evening, 
everything  being  ready,  the  procession  set  out,  moving  down 
Chancery-lane  towards  Whitehall.  First  went  twenty  foot 
men  in  scarlet  liveries  and  silver  lace,  as  marshal-men  to 
clear  the  way;  then  Mr.  Barrel  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  "an 
extraordinary  handsome  proper  gentleman,"  as  marshal-in- 
chief,  gorgeously  mounted,  and  with  lackeys  carrying  torches 
before  him ;  then  one  hundred  gentlemen  of  the  Inns, 
twenty-five  from  each,  selected  for  their  handsomeness, 
each  mounted  on  a  fine  horse  and  splendidly  apparelled, 
with  lackeys  carrying  torches  and  pages  carrying  cloaks. 
"  The  richness  of  their  apparel  and  furniture/'  says  Whit- 
locke,  "  glittering  by  the  light  of  the  multitude  of  torches 
"attending  on  them,  with  the  motion  and  stirring  of  their 
"  mettled  horses  and  the  many  and  various  gay  liveries  of 
"their  servants,  but  especially  the  personal  beauty  and 
"  gallantry  of  the  handsome  young  gentlemen,  made  the 
"  most  glorious  and  splendid  show  that  ever  was  beheld  in 
"  England."  So  much  for  the  first  part  of  the  procession, 
which  was  attended  by  its  proper  music.  Next  came  the 
antimasquers,  with  their  comic  and  satirical  part.  Of  these 
first  came  an  antimasque  of  cripples  and  beggars  mounted 
on  pitiful  horses,  "  the  poorest,  leanest  jades  that  could  be 
anywhere  gotten,"  with  a  music  of  keys  and  tongs,  and  with 
habits  and  properties  on  the  grotesqueness  of  which  Noy 
and  Selden  had  lavished  all  their  ingenuity.  Then,  preceded 
by  "  men  on  horseback  playing  upon  pipes,  whistles,  and 
"  instruments  sounding  notes  like  those  of  birds  of  all  sorts 


582  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  and  in  excellent  concert,"  came  an  antimasque  of  birds, — 
to  wit,  "  an  owl  in  an  ivy-bush,  with  many  several  sorts  of 
f  v  other  birds  in  a  cluster  round  about  the  owl,  gazing  as  it 
"  were  upon  her," — all  these  birds  being  nothing  else  than 
little  boys  popped  into  covers  of  the  shapes  of  birds,  and 
very  ingeniously  fitted,  all  sitting  on  small  horses,  with 
footmen  going  by  them  with  torches.  Next,  preceded  by 
musicians  on  horseback,  with  bagpipes,  hornpipes,  and  all 
kinds  of  squeaking  northern  instruments,  came  an  antimasque 
of  greedy  Scotchmen  and  other  Northerners ;  which  anti- 
masque  was  intended  as  a  satire  on  the  monopolies  then  so 
much  complained  of.  Conspicuous  in  this  antimasque  were 
two  figures.  One  was  "  a  big  fellow,  on  a  little  horse  with 
f '  a  great  bit  in  his  mouth,  begging  a  patent  that  none  in 
"  the  kingdom  might  ride  their  horses  but  with  bits  bought 
' '  of  him  " ;  the  other  was  "  a  fellow  with  a  bunch  of  carrots 
"  on  his  head  and  a  capon  upon  his  fist,"  describing  a  pro 
jector  begging  a  privilege  for  fourteen  years  for  his  discovery 
of  the  art  of  feeding  capons  on  carrots.  When  there  had 
been  enough  of  such  ribaldry,  there  followed  the  finest  part 
of  the  procession.  First  came  all  the  musicians  of  the 
masque,  in  chariots  purposely  devised  for  the  occasion, 
playing  most  beautiful  music.  They  were  followed  by  the 
sixteen  grand  masquers  in  their  superb  habits,  drawn,  four 
and  four,  in  four  chariots  like  Roman  triumphal  cars.  First 
came  the  chariot  of  the  four  Gray's  Inn  masquers,  the  colours 
of  which  were  silver  and  crimson,  with  footmen  walking  by 
the  side  with  flambeaux.  Separated  from  it  by  a  band  of 
musicians,  came  next  the  chariot  of  the  four  masquers  of  the 
Middle  Temple,  the  colours  of  which  were  silver  and  blue. 
Musicians  again  followed ;  and  then,  in  order,  the  chariot  of 
the  Inner  Temple  masquers,  and  that  of  the  Lincoln's  Inn 
masquers,  differently  coloured.  "The  torches  and  flaming 
"  huge  flambeaux,"  says  Whitlocke,  "  borne  by  the  side  of 
"  each  chariot,  made  it  seem  lightsome  as  at  noonday,  but 
"  more  glittering,  and  gave  a  full  and  clear  light  to  all  the 
"  streets  and  windows  as  they  passed  by."  The  whole  pro 
cession  moved  slowly,  and  all  London  was  crowded  along 


GKEAT  MASQUE  OP  THE  INNS  OF  COURT.        583 

the  line  of  march.     Holborn,  Chancery-lane,  and  the  Strand 
had  never  seen  such  a  sight. 

Meantime  the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall  was  crowded 
with  ladies,  lords,  and  gentlemen  of  quality,  jewelled  and 
apparelled  in  their  best,  waiting  for  the  arrival  of  the 
masquers.  The  King  and  Queen  could  hardly  get  in,  so 
great  was  the  assembly.  Their  Majesties  watched  the  ap 
proaching  procession  from  a  window  looking  straight  into 
the  street,  and  were  so  pleased  that  they  sent  to  desire  it  to 
fetch  a  turn  round  the  tilt-yard  that  they  might  see  it  all 
again.  Then,  the  masquers  having  entered,  and  all  being 
seated,  the  Masque  began.  Whitlocke,  whose  heart  was 
with  the  music,  explodes  at  this  point  in  a  general  rapture 
at  the  wonderful  success  of  everything ;  and  we  have  to  turn 
to  Shirley's  pages  for  a  more  particular  account  of  the 
masque  itself.1 

The  Masque  was  The  Triumph  of  Peace.  A  beautiful  and 
appropriate  proscenium  had  been  prepared ;  and,  ' '  a  curtain 
"being  suddenly  drawn  up,  the  scene  was  discovered, 
"  representing  a  large  street,  with  sumptuous  palaces,  lodges, 
"porticos,  and  other  noble  pieces  of  architecture,  with 
"  pleasant  trees  and  grounds.  This,  going  far  from  the  eye, 
"opens  into  a  spacious  place,  adorned  with  public  and 
"  private  buildings  seen  afar  off,  representing  the  forum  or 
"  piazza  of  Peace.  Over  all  was  a  clear  sky,  with  transparent 
"clouds,  which  enlightened  all  the  scene."  When  the 
spectators  had  sufficiently  entertained  themselves  with  this 
scene,  two  allegorical  personages,  Opinion  and  Confidence, 
enter  and  talk.  They  are  joined  by  Novelty,  Admiration,' 
Fancy,  Jollity,  and  Laughter ;  and  the  seven  together  have 
a  chat  about  the  coming  entertainment.  Then  the  same 
personages  perform  a  dance  in  their  respective  natures,  as 
composing  the  first  antimasque ;  after  which  they  continue 
their  talk,  the  scene  changing  into  "  a  tavern,  with  a  flaming 
"  red  lattice,  several  drinking-rooms,  and  a  back-door,  but 
"  especially  a  conceited  sign  and  an  eminent  bush."  Five 
of  the  colloquists  then  depart,  leaving  Opinion  and  Fancy  as 

1  Shirley's  Works,  by  Dyce,  vol.  VI.  pp.  257-261. 


584  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

commentators  on  what  is  to  follow.  This  consists  of  a 
comic  allegory  of  the  social  results  of  peace,  in  three  parts, — 
first  an  antimasque  of  the  master  of  the  tavern,  wenches, 
servants,  gamesters,  and  the  beggars  and  cripples  of  the 
procession,  all  dancing  and  expressing  their  natures;  then 
an  antimasque  of  six  projectors,  including  the  inventor  of 
the  new  bit  and  the  discoverer  of  the  nutritiousness  of 
carrots,  dancing  first  singly  and  then  together ;  and  then 
(the  tavern  scene  having  changed  to  a  woody  landscape)  the 
antimasque  of  the  owl  and  the  other  birds,  with  fantastic 
variations  of  a  merchant  among  thieves,  nymphs  chased  by 
satyrs,  huntsmen,  a  knight  and  his  squire  attacking  wind 
mills,  men  playing  at  bowls,  &c.  Opinion  and  Fancy, 
whose  interspersed  comments  can  but  faintly  have  indicated 
the  allegoric  meaning  of  those  sights,  are  then  rejoined  by 
their  five  companions ;  and,  after  a  brief  dialogue,  they  all 
go  off,  scared  by  the  sound  of  aerial  music  heralding  some 
new  vision.  These  gone,  "there  appears  in  the  highest 
"and  foremost  part  of  the  heaven,  by  little  and  little,  to 
"  break  forth  a  whitish  cloud,  bearing  a  chariot,  feigned  of 
"goldsmith's  work;  and  in  it  sat  Irene  or  Peace,  in  a 
"  flowery  vesture  like  the  Spring,  a  garland  of  olives  on  her 
"head,  a  branch  of  palm  in  her  hand,  buskins  of  green 
"  taffeta,  great  puffs  about  her  neck  and  shoulders."  De 
scending  from  her  chariot,  Peace  sings  two  short  songs, 
each  ending  in  a  chorus ;  after  which  "  out  of  the  highest 
".part  of  the  opposite  side  came  softly  descending  another 
"  cloud,  of  an  orient  colour,  bearing  a  silver  chariot  curiously 
"  wrought,  and  differing  in  all  things  from  the  first,  in  which 
"  sat  Eunomia  or  Law,  in  a  purple  satin  robe,  adorned  with 
"  golden  stars,  a  mantle  of  carnation  laced  and  fringed  with 
"  gold,  a  coronet  of  light  upon  her  head,  buskins  of  purple 
"  drawn  out  with  yellow/'  She  also  sings  a  song,  ending  in 
a  chorus.  Then  "  a  third  cloud,  of  various  colour  from  the 
"  other  two,  begins  to  descend  towards  the  middle  of  the 
"  scene  with  somewhat  a  more  swifter  motion ;  and  in  it  sat 
"  a  person,  representing  Dike  or  Justice,  in  the  midst,  in  a 
"  white  robe  and  mantle  of  satin,  fair  long  hair  circled  with 


GREAT    MASQUE    OP  THE    INNS    OF    COURT.  585 

"  a  coronet  of  silver  pikes,  white  wings  and  buskins,  a  crown 
"  imperial  in  her  hand."    She  also  sings,  Irene  and  Eunomia 
joining  with  her  in  chorus;    and  then  the  whole  train  of 
musicians,  advancing  to  the  King  and  Queen,- sing  an  ode 
felicitating  them,  and  praying  that  their  reign  may  exhibit 
the  joint  influences  of  Irene,  Eunomia,  and  Dike.     There 
upon  the  scene  was  again  changed,  and  the  sixteen  grand 
masquers  appeared  sitting  on  a  kind  of  hill,  shaped  in  terraces, 
under  an  arbour  beautifully  contrived,  so  that  the  sky  beyond 
could  be  seen  through  the  branches.     The  masquers,  repre 
senting  the  sons  of  Peace,  Law,  and  Justice,  wore  habits 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  "  their  bodies  carn- 
"  ation,  the  shoulders  trimmed  with  knots  of  pure  silver  and 
"  scallops  of  white  and  carnation/'  and  "  about  their  hats 
"  wreaths  of  olive  and  plumes  of  white  feathers  ;  underneath 
"  whom    sat    Genius,    an    angelical   person    with   wings    of 
"  several-coloured   feathers,    a   carnation   robe   tucked   up, 
"  yellow  long  hair  bound  with  a  silver  coronet,  a  small  white 
"rod  in  his  hand,  and  white  buskins."     Genius  descends 
to  the  stage  and  speaks  a  speech ;  after  which  the  masquers 
dance  and  retire.     A  song  is  then  sung  by  the  Hours  and 
Chorus,  complimentary  to  the  King  and  Queen;  the  musicians 
re-enter;  and  the   masquers  dance  their  main   dance  and 
retire.     Then,  to  a  confused  noise  of  "  Come  in"  "  Knock  'em 
down"  and  the  like,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  machinery 
seems  to  crack  and  give  way,  there  bursts  in  a  rabble  of 
carpenters,  painters,  tailors,  and  their  wives,  determined,  in 
spite  of  guards  and  halberds,  to  see  the  show.    They  gratify 
their  curiosity,  have  a  dance,  and  bundle  out  again.     There 
is  then  another  song,  encouraging  the  masquers  to  their 
revels  with  the  ladies;  and  the  masquers  choose  partners 
among  the  ladies  and  dance.     By  this  time  the  night  is  far 
gone,  or  is   supposed  to  be;  and  so,  after  the  revels,  the 
scene  changes  into  "  a  plain  champaign  country,  and  above 
"  a  darkish  sky  with  dusky  clouds,  through  which  appears 
"  the  new  moon,  but  with  a  faint  light  by  the  approach  of 
' '  morning."    Gradually  a  vapour  rises,  and  out  of  this  comes 
a  cloud  of  strange  shape  and  colour,  in  which  sits  a  young 


586  LIFE   OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OP   HIS   TIME. 

maid,  with  a  dim  torch  in  her  hand,  her  face,  arms,  and 
breast  of  an  olive  colour,  a  string  of  great  pearls  about  her 
neck,  "  her  garment  transparent,  the  ground  dark  blue  and 
"  sprinkled  with  silver  spangles,  her  buskins  white  trimmed 
"  with  gold."  This  is  Amphiluke  or  Dawn.  She  sings  a  song 
and  begins  to  ascend ;  and,  as  she  ascends,  the  masquers  are 
called  from  their  revels  by  a  final  song  of  other  voices.  By 
the  time  it  is  done,  Amphiluke  is  hidden  in  the  heavens,  the 
masquers  desist,  and  the  scene  closes. 

"Thus/'  says  Whitlocke,  "was  this  earthly  pomp  and 
"  glory,  if  not  vanity,  soon  past,  over  and  gone,  as  if  it  had 
"never  been."  But  the  success  had  been  complete,  every 
part  of  the  masque  having  been  simply  as  good  as  it  could 
be,  save  (if  we  may  venture,  on  our  own  account  now,  on  the 
impertinent  criticism)  the  single  matter  of  the  poetry.  That 
is  very  wretched  stuff,  even  from  Shirley.  The  cost  of  the 
masque  to  the  Four  Inns  and  to  the  masquers  in  private 
expenses  amounted  in  all  to  £21,000;  of  which,  says 
Whitlocke,  about  £1,000  went  for  the  music.  Ivy  and 
Lawes  had  £100  apiece ;  and,  as  it  was  thought  well  to  be 
particularly  courteous  to  the  four  French  musical  gentlemen 
in  the  Queen's  service,  Whitlocke  invited  them  to  a  collation 
in  the  great  room  of  the  Apollo  in  the  Devil  Tavern, 
and  caused  to  be  served  up  to  each  of  them  for  the  first 
dish  a  covered  plate  containing  forty  pieces  of  gold  in 
French  coin. 

The  success  of  the  great  Masque  of  the  Inns  of  Court 
caused  a  furor  for  the  time  in  courtly  circles  for  this  species 
of  entertainment.  Indeed,  only  a  fortnight  after  that  per 
formance, — to  wit,  on  Shrove-Tuesday  night,  Feb.  18, 
1633-4, — there  was  presented  in  the  same  place  the  scarcely 
less  famous  Masque  of  Gcelum  BrUannicum,  the  literary  part 
by  Carew,  the  music  by  Henry  Lawes,  and  the  scenery  and 
appurtenances  by  Inigo  Jones.  As  the  entertainment  was 
a  royal  one,  and  the  masquers  were  the  King  himself  and 
fourteen  of  the  chief  nobles,  with  ten  "young  lords  and 
noblemen's  sons  "  for  the  juvenile  parts,  there  were  in  this 
masque  special  features  of  attraction.  In  structure  it  was 


CAREW'S   MASQUE   AND    OTHERS.  587 

an  absurd  allegoric  medley  of  speeches  in  prose  and  verse 
by  Mercury,  Mornus,  &c.,  with  songs  celebrating  the  advance 
of  the  British  Islands  from  Druidic  times  to  the  starry  reign 
of  Charles ;  but  in  literary  execution  it  was  much  superior 
to  that  of  Shirley.  Sir  Henry  Herbert  enters  it  in  his 
books  as  "  the  noblest  mask  of  my  time  to  this  day."  In 
general  celebrity,  however,  Shirley 's  carried  the  hour ;  and 
he  and  the  gentlemen  of  the  Inns  of  Court  had  the  satisfac 
tion  of  assisting  at  a  second  performance  of  it,  arranged 
within  a  week  after  the  first,  to  gratify  the  Queen's  expressed 
wish.  This  second  performance  took  place  in  the  Merchants' 
Hall  in  the  City,  at  the  expense  of  the  Lord  Mayor. — Besides 
the  three  entertainments  thus  occurring  so  close  together, 
there  were  others  of  minor  note  about  the  same  period. 
Altogether  the  closing  months  of  1633  and  the  early  months 
of  1634  were  a  busy  time  in  the  theatrical  world,  and  Prynue , 
must  have  groaned  in  spirit.1 

Among  the  "  young  lords  and  noblemen's  sons  "  who  acted 
the  juvenile  parts  in  Carew's  masque  of  Ccelum  Britannicum, 
while  his  Majesty  and  some  lords  of  full  age  acted  the  senior 
parts,  one  notes  Viscount  Brackley  and  his  brother  Mr. 
Thomas  Egerton,  the  two  sons  of  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater. 
They  may  have  been  selected,  as  promising  pupils  of  Henry 
Lawes,  to  sing  in  some  of  the  musical  parts.  All  that  we 
know  of  the  Bridgewater  family,  however,  tends  to  show 
that  there  was  an  unusual  aptitude  among  its  members 
generally  for  amusements  of  this  kind. 

John  Egerton,  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  Privy  Councillor,  &c., 
was  born  about  1579,  and  was  consequently  now  about  fifty- 
four  years  of  age.  He  was  the  son  of  the  famous  Lord  Chan 
cellor  Ellesmere  by  his  first  marriage,  and  the  only  surviving 
male  heir  of  that  statesman's  name.  His  elevation  to  the 
earldom  of  Bridgewater  in  May  1617  had  been  a  mark  of 
respect  for  his  father's  memory, — the  Chancellor  himself,  for 

1  Mr.  Collier  enumerates  thirteen  re-  masques  and  several  new  plays  in  the 

gular  plays  acted  before  the  king  and  succeeding  month.     Among  the  plays 

queen  between  Nov.  16,  1633,  and  Jan.  was  Fletcher's  pastoral  of  The  Faithful 

30,   1633-4,  in  addition   to   the  three  Shepherdess. 


588  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

whom  the  honour  had  been  intended,  having  just  then  died 
(March  15,  1616-17)  in  the  inferior  dignity  of  Viscount 
Brackley,  to  which  he  had  been  raised  by  James  only  five 
months  before  (Nov.  7,  1616),  after  having  been  known  for 
thirteen  years  as  Baron  Ellesmere.  While  both  father  and 
son  were  alive,  they  had  been  additionally  connected  by  a 
double  marriage.  In  1600  the  Chancellor,  not  yet  Baron 
Ellesmere,  but  only  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  Keeper  of  the 
Great  Seal,  had  married  for  his  third  wife  Alice,  the  daughter 
of  Sir  John  Spencer  of  Althorpe,  Northamptonshire,  and 
then  Countess-Dowager  of  Derby  by  the  death,  six  years 
previously,  of  her  first  husband,  Ferdinando  Stanley,  fifth 
Earl  of  Derby ;  and  about  the  same  time  his  son,  then  Mr. 
Egerfcon,  had  married  that  lady's  second  daughter  by  her 
former  marriage.  After  the  Chancellor's  decease,  his  widow, 
who  had  all  along  retained  her  title  of  Countess-Dowager  of 
Derby,  and  who  may  have  been  about  her  fifty- sixth  year  at 
the  beginning  of  her  second  widowhood,  had  continued  to 
reside  chiefly  at  Harefield  in  Middlesex,  about  four  miles 
from  Uxbridge,  and  on  the  borders  of  Bucks ;  which  estate 
she  had  purchased,  jointly  with  the  Chancellor,  in  1601,  and 
which  had  been  his  and  her  favourite  country  residence 
during  his  life.1  The  chief  seat  of  her  step-son  and  her 
daughter,  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Bridgewater,  was  at 
Ashridge,  in  the  parish  of  Little  Gaddesden,  Hertfordshire, 
about  sixteen  miles  distant  from  Harefield,  and  also  on  the 
borders  of  Bucks.2  Here  or  in  London  had  been  born  most 
of  the  members  of  a  numerous  family.  There  had  been  in  all 
four  sons  and  eleven  daughters,  of  whom,  however,  there  had 
died  two  sons  and  three  daughters,  leaving  alive,  in  1634,  ten 
children.  In  order  of  age  they  were  as  follows : — the  Lady 
Frances  Egerton,  Lady  Arabella,  Lady  Elizabeth,  Lady 
Mary,  Lady  Penelope,-  Lady  Catherine,  Lady  Magdalen, 
Lady  Alice,  Viscount  Brackley,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Egerton. 
The  two  youngest  were  the  juvenile  performers  in  Carew's 
masque.  They  were  then  mere  boys,  —  John,  Viscount 

1   Lysons's   Middlesex,  under  Hare-  2  Clutterbuck's  History  of  the  County 

field.  of  Herts,  vol.  I.,  under  Little  Gaddesden. 


THE  EGERTON  FAMILY.  589 

Brackley,  in  his  twelfth  or  thirteenth  year,  and  Mr.  Thomas 
Egerton  about  a  year  younger.  The  Lady  Alice,  the  sister 
next  above  them  in  age,  was  in  her  fourteenth  or  fifteenth 
year.  Of  the  elder  sisters  several  were  already  married. 
The  eldest,  Frances,  about  thirty  years  of  age,  was  the  wife 
of  Sir  John  Hobart  of  Blickling,  Norfolk  ;  and  the  next, 
Arabella,  was  the  wife  of  Oliver,  Lord  St.  John  of  Bletso, 
son  and  heir  of  the  Earl  of  Bolingbroke. 

Altogether  the  family  of  the  Egertons  was  one  of  the 
most  accomplished  among  the  English  aristocracy.  Respect 
ing  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  himself  we  have  the  testimony 
of  his  tombstone,  so  far  as  that  may  serve,  that  he  was 
"  endowed  with  incomparable  parts,  both  natural  and  ac 
quired,"  that  he  "  seldom  spake  but  he  did  either  instruct 
or  delight  those  that  heard  him/'  and  that  he  was  ' e  a  pro 
found  scholar,  an  able  statesman,  and  a  good  Christian."  l 
This  character  is  confirmed,  in  part,  by  what  is  known  of 
his  previous  history ;  and  there  is  evidence  in  his  own  hand 
writing  on  books,  and  in  dedications  of  books  to  him,  that 
he  had  some  reputation  as  a  patron  of  literature.2  His 
countess,  according  to  her  epitaph,  was  "  unparalleled  in  the 
"  gifts  of  nature  and  grace,  being  strong  of  constitution, 
"  admirable  for  beauty,  generous  in  carriage,  of  a  sweet  and 
"  noble  disposition,  wise  in  her  affairs,  cheerful  in  discourse, 
"  liberal  to  the  poor,  pious  towards  God,  good  to  all."3  The 
children  were  worthy  of  their  parentage.  Lord  Brackley 
and  his  brother  were  two  pleasing  black-haired  boys,  and 
there  are  portraits  of  the  Lady  Alice  and  of  some  of  her 
elder  sisters  which  represent  them  as  very  handsome.  To 
the  musical  accomplishments  of  the  Lady  Alice  and  the  Lady 
Mary  at  this  precise  time  we  have  Lawes's  distinct  testimony 

1  Inscription    in    Little    Gaddesden  1837.     In  the  last  is  a  fac-simile  of  his 
Church,     Herts,    from     Clutterbuck's  autograph,  from  a  volume  of  religious 
Hertfordshire.      The    Earl    died    Dec.  poetry,    presented    to    him    by    John 
1649,  aged  70.  Vicars  in  1625.     In  the  Library  of  the 

2  Eyerton  Papers  of  Camden  Society  ;  University  of  Edinburgh  I  came  acci- 
records  of  the   Earl's   attendances   at  dentally   on  a  book  certified    by    his 
Privy  Council  meetings,  his  appoint-  autograph  as  having  belonged  to  him. 
ments  on  commissions,  &c.,  in  Bymer  3  Inscription    in    Little    Gaddesden 
and  Eushworth  ;  also  references  to  him  Church.     She  died  but  two  years  after 
in   the    Catalogue  of   the   Bridgeioater  our  present  date, — to  wit,   in   March 
Library,  published  by  Mr.  Collier    in  1635-6,  aged  52. 


590  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

many  years  afterwards  (1653),  when,  in  dedicating  his  Ay  res 
and  Dialogues  to  them  in  their  then  married  condition,  he 
says,  "  No  sooner  I  thought  of  making  them  public  than  of 
"inscribing  them  to  your  ladyships,  most  of  them  being 
"  composed  when  I  was  employed  by  your  ever-honoured 
"parents  to  attend  your  ladyships'  education  in  music  ;  who 
"  (as  in  other  accomplishments  fit  for  persons  of  your  quality) 
"excelled  most  ladies  especially  in  vocal  music,  wherein 
' '  you  were  so  absolute  that  you  gave  life  and  honour  to  all 
"I  set  and  taught  you,  and  that  with  more  understanding 
"  than  a  new  generation,  pretending  to  skill,  are  capable  of." 
Notwithstanding  some  family  differences  while  the  old 
Chancellor  had  been  alive,  there  seems  to  have  been  very 
cordial  intercourse  now  between  the  Bridgewater  family  of 
Ashridge  and  their  venerable  relative,  the  Countess-Dowager 
of  Derby,  at  Harefield.  As  standing  to  her  in  the  double 
relation  of  grandchildren  and  step-grandchildren,  the  eight 
young  Egerton  ladies  and  their  two  brothers  had  naturally 
their  full  share  in  her  affection.  They  and  their  parents, 
however,  were  not  her  only  near  relatives.  Two  other 
daughters  of  hers  by  her  first  husband,  the  Earl  of  Derby, 
had  likewise  married  and  had  also  had  children.  The 
youngest,  Lady  Elizabeth  Stanley,  had  married  in  June 
1603,  at  a  very  early  age,  Henry,  Lord  Hastings,  who,  in 
December  1605,  succeeded  his  grandfather  in  the  earldom 
of  Huntingdon,  with  its  estates  of  Ashby-de-la-Zouch  in 
Leicestershire,  &c.  After  a  married  life  of  thirty  years,  she 
died  in  London,  a  month  before  Carew's  masque  was  per 
formed,  and  was  buried  at  Ashby-de-la-Zouch,  leaving  four 
grown-up  sons  and  daughters,  viz.  —  Ferdinando,  Lord 
Hastings,  born  1608,  heir-apparent  to  the  earldom;  his 
brother  Henry,  afterwards  Lord  Loughborough ;  Alice,  born 
1606,  and  now  married  to  Sir  Gervase  Clifton;  and  another 
daughter,  named  Elizabeth.1  The  fate  of  Lady  Anne  Stanley, 
the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Countess  of  Derby,  had  been 

1  Collins's  Peerage  and  Nichols's  published  in  1635,  with  a  sonnet  to  her 
Leicestershire.  There  is  a  funeral  ser-  memory  by  Lord  Falkland.  Doune 
mon  on  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  also  has  poems  to  her. 


THE    COUNTESS-DOWAGEE   OP   DERBY.'  591 

more  varied  and  unhappy.  By  her  first  marriage  with  the 
munificent  Grey  Bridges,  fifth  Lord  Chandos,  who  had  died 
in  early  manhood  in  1621,  she  had  four  surviving  children — 
George  Bridges,  now  Lord  Chandos,  about  fifteen  years  of 
age ;  William,  somewhat  younger ;  and  two  daughters.  She 
had  contracted  a  second  marriage,  however,  in  1624,  with 
Mervin,  Lord  Audley,  Earl  of  Castlehaven,  then  a  widower 
with  six  children, — a  union  of  unexampled  wretchedness, 
which  had  been  dissolved  by  the  execution  of  the  Earl  in 
1631 ;  since  which  time  she  had  lived  in  retirement  under 
her  former  name  of  Lady  Chandos.1  Her  son,  Lord 
Chandos,  had  acted  as  page  in  Carew's  masque,  along  with 
his  cousins,  Yiscount  Brackley  and  Mr.  Thomas  Egerton. 

Thus,  in  1633,  the  Countess-Dowager  of  Derby  had  at 
least  twenty  relatives  alive  in  direct  descent  from  her.  There 
were  her  two  surviving  daughters,  the  widowed  Lady 
Chandos  and  the  Countess  of  Bridgewater ;  and  there  were 
eighteen  grandchildren,  of  whom  four  were  sons  and  daugh 
ters  of  Lady  Chandos  by  her  first  husband,  ten  were  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Bridgewater,  and 
four  were  sons  and  daughters  of  the  deceased  Countess  of 
Huntingdon.  As  some  of  the  young  Egertons  and  Hast- 
ingses  were  married,  the  descent  was  already  sprouting  into 
the  fourth  generation,  and  the  venerable  Countess  may  have 
had  great-grandchildren.  All  this  without  taking  into 
account  her  numerous  collateral  relations,  whether  of  the 
line  of  the  male  Spencers  of  Althorpe,  or  descended  from 
her  sisters,  of  whom  one  had  married  George  Carey,  second 
Lord  Hunsdon,  and  another  successively  William  Stanley, 
Lord  Monteagle,  Henry  Compton,  first  Lord  Compton,  and 
Eobert  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset.  The  mansion  and  estate 
of  Harefield  were  to  descend,  after  the  Countess-Dowager's 
death,  to  her  eldest  daughter,  Lady  Chandos,  and  that 
widowed  lady  and  her  two  young  sons  and  one  of  her  young 
daughters  were  already,  in  fact,  domiciled  at  Harefield  with 
the  Countess.  Expectations  of  inheritance  apart,  there  was 
every  reason  why  all  the  relatives  of  the  aged  lady  should 

1  Memoirs  of  the  Peers  of  James  I.,  by  Sir  Egerton  Bridges,  1802,  pp.  392-393. 


592  LIFE   OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OP    HIS   TIME. 

be  punctiliously  respectful  to  her  while  she  lived.  She 
was  the  relic  of  times  already  romantic  in  the  haze  of  the 
past,  and  there  was,  perhaps,  no  aged  gentlewoman  then 
living  that  carried  in  her  memory,  or  could  suggest  by 
her  mere  presence  to  others,  a  nobler  series  of  poetic 
recollections. 

In  her  maidenhood,  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  she  and  her  sisters  at  Althorpe  had  been  the 
occasional  companions  of  their  relative,  the  poet  Spenser, 
then  young  as  themselves  and  unknown  to  the  world.  Later, 
when  he  ivas  known,  it  had  been  his  pleasure  to  speak  of 
himself  as  their  humble  and  admiring  kinsman,  and  to 
associate  their  names  with  his  poetry.  His  Muiopotmos  was 
dedicated  to  one  of  the  sisters,  Elizabeth,  then  Lady  Carey, 
afterwards  Lady  Hunsdon ;  and  his  Mother  Hubbard's  Tale 
was  dedicated,  in  1591,  to  her  sister  Anne,  Lady  Compton 
and  Monteagle.  To  our  countess,  Alice,  the  youngest  of 
the  sisters,  he  dedicated  in  the  same  year  his  Teares  of  the 
Muses, — a  poem  of  much  interest  now,  as  describing  the 
state  of  English  poetry  at  that  time,  and  as  containing 
Spenser's  supposed  reference  to  Shakespeare  as  "  our  pleasant 
Willy."  The  Countess  was  then  known  as  Lady  Strange, 
as  her  husband,  Ferdinando,  Lord  Strange,  did  not  attain 
the  Earldom  of  Derby  till  the  death  of  his  father,  Henry, 
the  fourth  earl,  Sept.  25,  1593.  If  the  lady  was  deemed 
worthy  of  regard  on  her  own  account,  the  reputation  of  the 
nobleman  to  whom  she  was  married  was  such  as  to  invest 
her  with  additional  claims  to  honour.  No  nobleman  was  of 
greater  note  in  the  contemporary  world  of  letters.  He  was 
himself  a  poet ;  among  the  dramatic  companies  of  the  time 
was  one  retained  by  him  and  called  Lord  Strangers  Players; 
and  Nash,  Greene,  an.d  the  other  dramatists  whom  we  re 
member  as  Shakespeare's  seniors,  were  his  clients  and 
panegyrists.  Nash,  in  particular,  is  glowing  in  his  praises 
of  "  thrice  noble  Arnyntas,"  as  he  calls  Lord  Strange,  "  the 
matchless  image  of  honour  and  magnificent  rewarder  of 
virtue."  Moreover,  he  was  of  a  family  distinguished  from 
the  rest  of  the  English  aristocracy  as  being  related,  by  no 


THE    COUNTESS-DOWAGER   OP   DERBY.  593 

remote  connexion,  to  the  blood-royal.1  All  this  is  recog 
nised  by  Spenser  in  the  dedication  in  question.  It  is  as 
follows : — 

"  Most  brave  and  noble  Ladie  :  The  things  that  make  ye  so  much 
honored  of  the  world  as  ye  bee  are  such  as  (without  my  simple  lines 
testimonie)  are  throughlie  knowen  to  all  men  ;  namely,  your  excellent 
beautie,  your  vertuous  behavior,  and  your  noble  match  with  that  most 
honourable  Lord,  the  very  Paterne  of  right  Nobilitie.  But  the  causes 
for  which  ye  have  thus  deserved  of  me  to  be  honoured  (if  honour  it 
be  at  all)  are  both  your  particular  bounties  and  also  some  private 
bands  of  affinitie  which  it  hath  pleased  your  Ladiship  to  acknowledge. 
Of  which  whenas  I  found  myselfe  in  no  part  worthie,  I  devised  this 
last  slender  meanes,  both  to  intimate  my  humble  affection  to  your 
Ladiship,  and  also  to  make  the  same  universallie  knowen  to  the 
world,  that  by  honouring  you  they  might  know  me,  and  by  knowing 
me  they  might  honor  you.  Vouchsafe,  noble  Lady,  to  accept  this 
simple  remembrance,  thogh  not  worthy  of  yourself,  yet  such  as  per 
haps,  by  good  acceptance  thereof,  ye  may  hereafter  cull  out  a  more 
meet  and  memorable  evidence  of  your  own  excellent  deserts.  So, 
recommending  the  same  to  your  Ladiship's  good  liking,  I  humbly 
take  leave.  Your  La  :  humbly  ever.  ED.  SP." 

This  dedication  was  but  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  poetic 
honours  which  had  been  paid  to  the  Countess  of  Derby.  As 
the  critics  interpret  the  allusions  in  Spenser's  pastoral  of 
Colin  Clouts  Come  Home  Againe,  she  is  the  "  Amaryllis  "  of 
that  poem,  and  "  Amyntas,"  the  noble  poet  whose  decease 
is  there  lamented,  is  her  husband,  the  Earl  of  Derby,  then 
just  dead,  in  the  thirty-sixth  year  of  his  age,  and  the  first 
of  his  new  title  (April  16,  1594)  :— 

"  Amyntas  quite  has  gone  and  lies  full  low, 
Having  his  Amaryllis  left  to  mone. 
Helpe,  O  ye  shepheards,  helpe  ye  all  in  this, 
Helpe  Amaryllis  this  her  losse  to  mourne  : 
Her  losse  is  yours,  your  losse  Amyntas  is, 
Amyntas,  floure  of  shepheards  pride  forlorne  : 
He  whilest  he  lived  was  the  noblest  swaine 
That  ever  piped  in  an  oaten  quill ; 
Both  did  he  other  which  could  pipe  maintaine, 
And  eke  could  pipe  himselfe  with  passing  skill."  2 

1  For  an  account  of  Ferdinando,  relating  to  his  connexions  with  Eliza- 
Lord  Strange,  fifth  Earl  of  Derby,  see  bethau  literature  in  the  Stanley  Papers 
Walpole's  "  Royal  and  Noble  Authors,"  of  the  Chetham  Society  (1853),— espe- 
enlarged  by  Park  (1806),  II.  45-51 ;  cially  vol.  I.  of  these  papers,  entitled 
where  is  quoted  a  pastoral  ballad  by  "  The  Earls  of  Derby  and  the  Verse- 
the  earl,  the  only  known  specimen  of  writers  and  Poets  of  the  16th  and  17th 
his  muse.  See  also  a  characteristic  centuries,  by  Thomas  Hey  wood,  F.S.A." 
letter  of  his  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  of  date  (pp.  30-37). 

Jan.  17.  1593-4,  in  Lodge's  "Illustra-  2  For  an  account  of  the  peculiar  cir- 

tions,"  and  many  interesting  particulars  cumstances   of    the   Earl    of    Derby's 

VOL.    I.  Q  Q 


594  LIFE    OP    MILTOK   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Again,  farther  on  in  the  same  poem,  where,  passing  from 
the  shepherds,  the  poet  enumerates  the  nymphs  of  the 
British  Isle,  he  introduces,  after  others,  Amaryllis  again  and 
her  two  sisters  : — 

"  Ne  lesse  praisworthie  are  the  sisters  three, 
The  honor  of  the  noble  familie 
Of  which  I  meanest  boast  myselfe  to  be, 
And  most  that  unto  them  I  am  so  nie, 
Phyllis,  Carillis,  and  sweet  Amaryllis. 
Phyllis  the  faire  is  eldest  of  the  three  ; 
The  next  to  her  is  bountifull  Carillis  ; 
But  th'  youngest  is  the  highest  in  degree." 

Each  of  the  three  is  then  celebrated  separately,  the  lines 
respecting  Amaryllis  containing  another  allusion  to  her 
widowhood : — 

"  But  Amaryllis  whether  fortunate 
Or  else  unfortunate  may  I  aread. 
That  freed  is  from  Cupids  yoke  by  fate, 
Since  which  she  doth  new  bands  adventure  dread  ? 
Shepheard,  whatever  thou  hast  heard  to  be 
In  this  or  that  praysd  diversly  apart, 
In  her  thou  maist  them  all  assembled  see, 
And  seald  up  in  the  threasure  of  her  hart." 

Five  years  after  those  lines  were  written,  and  when  the 
poet  who  had  written  them  was  in  his  grave  (1600),  Amaryllis 
had  braved  "  new  bands'  adventure  "  in  marrying  the  Lord 
Keeper  Egerton.1  This  marriage  was  not  a  remove  out  of 
the  world  of  poetry  and  poets,  but  rather  into  the  very  midst 
of  it.  If  the  Lord  Keeper  did  not  "  pipe  himself  with  pass 
ing  skill,"  as  Amyntas  had  done,  he  was  officially  in  the 
very  centre  of  those  who  could  do  nothing  else  than  pipe. 
His  duties,  first  as  Lord  Keeper  to  Elizabeth,  and  then  as 
Lord  Chancellor  to  James  till  the  year  1616,  brought  him 
into  continual  relations,  more  especially,  with  the  dramatic 

death  see  "Walpole's  "  Koyal  and  Noble  curing  him  sufficiently  in  verse  during 

Authors,"  ut  supra,  and  Lodge's  "  Illus-  his  life,  takes  the  opportunity  to  write 

trations."    The    story    was    that    the  the  obituary  tribute  in  the  text. 
Jesuits  had  tampered  with  him,  to  make  l  Egerton  had  been  connected  with 

him  "  assume  the  title  of  king  in  right  the  Derby  family,  as  their  legal  adviser, 

of   his   grandmother,"    and    that,    for  and  also  as  "  Master  of  the  Game  in 

revealing  their  treason,  he  was  secretly  Bidston  Park,  Cheshire,"  as  early  as 

poisoned.    His  clients  among  the  poets  1589,  and  must  thus  have   been  well 

lamented  his  premature  death  as  the  acquainted  with  the  noble  "  Amaryllis  " 

greatest  loss  to  English  letters  since  while  as  yet  there  was  no  hope  that 

the  death  of  Sidney  ;  and  Spenser,  who  ever  she  would  be  his.     (See  Stanley 

had  been  blamed  by  Nash  for  not  hon-  Papers,  vol.  II.) 


THE    COUNTESS-DOWAGER    OF   DERBY.  595 

poets  of  that  dramatic  age.  His  name,  consequently,  is 
studded  all  over  the  poetry  of  the  period,  in  epistles,  dedica 
tions,  &c.  The  Countess  of  Derby,  both  as  his  wife  and 
on  her  own  account,  shared  in  these  poetic  laudations. 
The  following  associations  with  her  name  are  worthy  of 
notice : — 

1602.  Queen  Elizabeth  paid  a  visit  of  four  days  (July  31 — Aug.  3) 
to  the  Lord  Keeper  and  the  Countess  of  Derby  at  their  house  at 
Harefield,   and    was    entertained    with    extraordinary    pomp    and 
pageantry.     On  her  first  arrival  at  the  Harefield  estate  she 'was  re 
ceived,  at  a  place  called  Dew's  Farm,  with  a  kind  of  masque  of 
speeches  delivered  to  her  by  allegorical  personages  (a  farmer,  a  dairy 
maid,  &c.).     As  it  chanced  to  rain  at  the  time,  she  heard  these 
speeches,  on  horseback,  under  a  great  tree,  and  was  then  attended  by 
the  allegorical  persons  to  "a  long  avenue  of  elms  leading  to  the 
house,"  and  which  ever  afterwards,  in  honour  of  her  having  passed 
through  it,  was  called  the  Queen's  Walk.     At  the  Queen's  departure, 
there  was  again  a  kind  of  masque  along  the  avenue,  with  speeches  of 
farewell.1 

1603.  A  set  of  verses  on  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  e'ntitled  The  Death 
of  Delia,  with  Teares  of  her  Funeral,  was  inscribed  to  the  Countess  of 
Derby.2 

1605.  A  "  Countess  of  Derby"  is  one  of  the  noble  ladies  who  assist 
Queen  Anne  in  Ben  Jonson's  Masque  of  Slackness,  "  personated  at 
the  Court  at  Whitehall  on  Twelfth  night."  It  is  not  certain  whether 
this  was  our  Countess-Dowager  or  her  younger  contemporary,  the 
wife  of  her  late  husband's  successor,  William,  sixth  Earl  of  Derby. 

1607.  A  Masque,  prepared  by  the  poet  Marston,  was  presented 
before  the  Countess,  in  the  month  of  August  this  year,  in  honour  of 
a  visit  which  she  paid  to  her  son-in-law  and  daughter,  the  Earl  and 
Countess  of  Huntingdon,  at  their  seat  at  Ashby-de-la-Zouch.  The 
MS  .of  the  masque,  which  is  still  preserved,  is  entitled  "  The  Lorde  and 
Lady  of  Huntingdon1  s  Entertainment  of  their  right  noble  Mother,  Alice, 
Countess- Dowager  of  Derby,  thefirste  nighte  of  her  Honour's  arrivall  at 
the  House  of  Ashby"  The  Earl  had  come  to  his  title  about  eighteen 
months  before, — Dec.  31,  1605  ;  and  this,  the  first  visit  of  "  their  right 
noble  mother "  to  the  hereditary  seat  of  the  earldom,  was  thought 
worthy  of  poetic  commemoration.  Accordingly,  "  when  her  ladyship 
approached  the  park  corner,"  she  was  received  with  a  burst  of 
trumpets,  &c.  ;  then,  on  entering  the  park,  she  found  herself  before 
"  an  antique  gate,"  near  which  was  stationed  "  an  old  enchantress 
attired  in  crimson  velvet,  with  pale  face  and  dark  hair,"  who  saluted 
her  with  a  speech  of  a  forbidding  nature.  Saturn,  hearing  the  speech, 
and  perceiving  who  the  visitor  is,  exclaims  "  Peace,  stay  ;  it  is,  it  is, 
it  is  even  she  ! "  and  corrects  the  preceding  speech  by  one  of  ardent 
welcome.  The  enchantress  is  awed,  and  the  Countess,  with  the 
whole  attending  troop,  passes  on  to  the  house.  Then  there  is  more 
allegory  and  speechmaking  on  "  the  stairs  leading  to  the  great  cham- 

1  For  detailed  accounts  of  this  visit,       Middlesex,  and  Nichols's  Progresses  of 
see  the  "  Egerton  Papers  "  of  the  Cam-       Queen  Elizabeth,  vol.  III. 
den  Society,  pp.  340-347  ;  also  Lysons's  2  Nichols's  Progresses,  vol.  III. 

Q  Q  2 


596  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

ber  "  ;  after  which,  in  the  great  chamber  itself,  comes  the  regular 
masque,  "  presented  by  four  knights  and  four  gentlemen,"  with 
Cynthia  descending  in  a  cloud  "  in  a  habit  of  blue  satin  finely  em 
broidered  with  stars  and  clouds,"  Ariadne  rising  to  meet  her,  &c., 
and  speeches  and  songs  in  compliment  to  the  Countess.  From  a 
separate  sheet  in  the  MS.  it  appears  that  there  were  introduced 
into  the  masque  thirteen  stanzas  of  compliment,  each  prepared  by 
the  poet  to  be  spoken  by  a  separate  lady  of  the  company  then  at 
Ashby,  and  an  additional  stanza  of  thanks  to  be  spoken  by  the 
Countess  herself.  The  names  of  the  thirteen  ladies  are  given. 
Among  them  are  Lady  Huntingdon,  Lady  Hunsdon  (the  Countess 
of  Derby's  sister,  and  Spenser's  Phyllis},  Lady  Berkeley  (Lady 
Hunsdon's  daughter),  Lady  Compton  (the  Countess's  other  sister, 
and  Spenser's  Carillis),  and  Mrs.  Egerton.  The  poetry  of  the  masque 
throughout  is  poor  stuff.  The  MS.  bears  a  dedication  to  the  Countess 
of  Derby  in  Marston's  own  hand,  as  follows  :  — 

"  If  my  slight  muse  may  suit  yor.  noble  merit, 
My  hopes  are  crownd,  and  I  shall  cheere  my  sperit  ; 
But,  if  my  weake  quill  droopes  or  seems  unfitt, 
'Tis  not  yor.  want  of  worth,  but  mine  of  witt. 
The  servant  of  yor.  honor'd  Virtues, 

JOHN 


1608.  A  Countess  of  Derby  (this  or  the  other)  assisted  in  Ben 
Jonson'  s  Masque  of  Beauty,  performed  by  the  Queen  and  her  Ladies. 

1609-10,  Feb.  2.  She  assisted  in  Ben  Jonson's  Masque  of  Queens, 
performed  by  the  Queen  and  her  Ladies,  another  of  the  performers 
being  her  daughter,  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon. 

1611.  Da  vies  of  Hereford,  in  his  Scourge  of  Folly,  has  a  copy  of 
verses  to  the  Countess,  as  his  "  good  lady  and  mistress."  He  had 
previously  (1609)  dedicated  another  of  his  writings,  Holy  Roode, 
or  Christ's  Crosse,  to  the  Countess  and  her  three  daughters,  in  the 
following  terms:  —  "To  the  Right  Honourable  well-accomplished 
"  Lady  Alice,  Countess  of  Derby,  my  good  lady  and  mistress,  and  to 
"  her  three  right  noble  daughters,  by  birth,  nature,  and  education,  the 
"  Lady  Elizabeth,  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  the  Lady  Frances  Egerton, 
"  and  the  Lady  Ann,  wife  to  the  truly  noble  Lord  Gray  Chandois 
"  that  now  is,  be  all  comfort  whensoever  crost"  Davies  was  celebrated 
for  his  caligraphy,  and  his  dedications  in  the  original  manuscript 
derive  significance  from  the  picturesque  ingenuities  of  the  penman 
ship."2 

1616.  The  Historic  of  Trebizonde  (a  set  of  tales'),  by  Thomas  Gains- 
forde,  is  dedicated  to  the  Countess  in  a  strain  of  "  the  most  exalted 
panegyriek."3 

These  few  notes  of  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  Countess 
on  to  the  date  of  her  second  widowhood  (1616-17)  give  some 
significance  to  Warton's  phrase,  "  The  peerage-book  of  this 

1  An   abstract  of   this   masque  was  2   Warton's  notes  to   Arcades;    also 

first  given  from  the  MS.  by  Todd  in  Stanley  Papers.  I.  pp.  37-47,  where  Mr. 

the  notes  to  the  A  rcades,  in  his  edition  Hey  wood    has   given    a    very  careful 

of  Milton  ;  but  the  "masque  is  now  in-  account  of  most  of  these  poetic  tributes 

eluded  in   Mr.   Halliwell's   edition    of  to  Lady  Derby. 

Marston's  works,  1856.  a  Wartou's  notes  to  Arcades. 


ARCADES.  597 

countess  is  the  poetry  of  her  times."  But  her  greatest 
poetic  honour  was  to  come.  Eighteen  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  last  incident  noted  in  the  list,  and  seven-and-twenty 
since  she  was  the  heroine  of  Marston's  masque  at  Ashby-de- 
la-Zouch,  and  she  had  been  spending  the  declining  years  of 
her  second  widowhood  in  her  retirement  at  Harefield,  en 
dowing  almshouses  there  for  poor  widows  and  doing  other 
deeds  of  charity,  not  unvisited  all  the  while  by  the  joys 
of  new  happy  incidents  in  the  three  families  most  nearly 
related  to  her,  nor,  alas  !  by  the  bitterest  and  most  unname- 
able  sorrows  from  one  of  them.1  And  now,  ere  her  silver 
hairs  descended  into  the  grave,  she  was  to  cull  that  one 
"more  meet  and  memorable  evidence  of  her  excellent 
deserts"  which  Spenser,  in  words  more  prophetic  than  he 
himself  knew,  had  predicted  for  her  when  he  presented  her 
in  her  blooming  youth  with  his  Teares  of  the  Muses. 

11  ARCADES  :  PART  OP  AN  ENTERTAINMENT  PRESENTED  TO  THE 
COUNTESS  DOWAGER  OF  DERBY  AT  HAREFIELD  BY  SOME  NOBLE 
PERSONS  OF  HER  FAMILY;  WHO  APPEAR  ON  THE  SCENE  IN  PAS 
TORAL  HABIT,  MOVING  TOWARDS  THE  SEAT  OF  STATE,  WITH  THIS 

1  In  the  parish  register  of  Harefield  Chandos,  and  her  grandchild  Audley, 
is  this  entry : — "  Married  the  Earl  of  are  left  destitute,  —  "  destitute  of  all 
Castlehaven  and  Anne,  Lady  Chaudos,  "  other  means  to  maintain  either  of 
July  22, 1624."  Seven  years  after  this  "  them,  but  that  myself,  out  of  my 
ceremony  at  Harefield  there  was  the  "  poor  estate,  am  willing  both  to  relieve 
execution  of  the  Earl  on  Tower  Hill  "  them  and  all  the  children  of  my 
(April  25,  1631).  I  have  seen  in  the  "  daughter  besides  " ;  that  already  she 
State  Paper  Office  several  letters  of  the  has  three  of  these  other  children  (young 
aged  countess,  written  in  1631  to  Vis-  Lord  Cbandos,  his  brother,  and  one  of 
count  Dorchester,  as  Secretary  of  State,  the  sisters)  residing  under  her  roof  at 
with  reference  to  the  disposal  of  her  Harefield ;  and  that  she  is  willing  to 
daughter,  Lady  Chandos  or  Castle-  receive  their  mother  under  the  same 
haven,  and  her  young  grandchild,  Lady  roof,  and  also  the  other  young  sister, 
Audley,  then  in  the  depths  of  ruin,  in  should  the  King  so  command, — though, 
consequence  of  the  exposures  made  at  as  regards  the  latter,  she  would  rather 
the  earl's  trial.  The  letters  are  full  of  decline  the  responsibility  that  would 
a  stately  and  venerable  grief,  and  at  ensue, "  her  old  age  and  other  infirm- 
the  same  time  of  wise  benevolence.  "  ities  that  accompany  it  not  giving  her 
The  writer  speaks  of  herself  (May  21,  "  leave  to  govern  youth  as  formerly 
1631)  as  one  "  whose  heart  is  almost  "  she  had  done."  An  arrangement, 
"  wounded  to  death  already  with  think-  such  as  the  countess  desired,  was  made 
"  ing  of  so  foul  a  business,"  and  implores  with  his  Majesty's  consent ;  and  accord- 
Dorchester's  good  offices  with  the  King,  ingly,  as  we  have  assumed  in  the  text, 
that  the  best  arrangements  may  be  the  establishment  at  Harefield  included, 
made  for  the  two  survivors  most  in  1634,  not  only  the  aged  countess,  but 
wretchedly  implicated.  She  signifies,  her  twice- widowed  daughter,  Lady 
in  that  and  in  a  subsequent  letter  Chandos,  and  at  least  three  of  Lady 
(Aug.  6, 1631),  that  her  daughter,  Lady  Chandos's  children. 


598 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 


SONG."  These  are  the  words  with  which  Milton,  in  his  own 
editions  of  his  Poems,  introduces  the  little  piece  we  have 
now  to  look  at. 

Some  time  in  1633,  as  we  conjecture,  the  "noble  persons 
of  her  family,"  including,  we  may  suppose,  not  only  young 
Lord  Chandos  and  his  brother,  residing  at  Harefield,  but 
also  young  Lord  Brackley,  Mr.  Thomas  Bgerton,  Lady  Alice 
Egerton,  Lady  Mary,  and  the  rest  of  the  musical  sisters  of 
the  Ashridge  household,  have  resolved  to  present  the  aged 
Countess  with  a  Masque.  They  have  fixed  the  day, — the 
Countess's  birthday,  let  us  say,  or  some  other  day  when  a 
gathering  of  the  relatives  at  Harefield  might  be  equally 
fitting.  Lawes  is  in  their  counsels,  and  has  undertaken  the 
musical  part  of  the  entertainment  and  planned  the  rest.  The 
entertainment  is  to  consist  of  various  portions  duly  con 
nected  ;  but  one  portion  is  to  be  a  little  open-air  pastoral  of 
songs  and  speeches.  By  some  means  or  other,  young  Mr. 
Milton  has  been  requested  to  furnish  the  poetry.1  He  has 

ants  of  the  Egertons  which  Warton  and 
Todd  had  raised.  He  adopts  what  is 
really  at  present  the  most  natural  sup 
position,  that  it  was  Milton's  connexion 
with  Lawes  that  led  to  his  writing  Ar 
cades  and  afterwards  Comus.  He  is  un 
necessarily  vehement,  however,  against 
the  other  supposition, — on  such  grounds 
as  that  Milton  was  then  "  unknown," 
was  of  "  too  noble  and  independent  a 
spirit,"  &c.,  and  that  the  intercourse 
between  the  nobility  and  persons  of 
inferior  rank  was  theu  too  distant  and 
stately  to  make  his  supposed  acquaint 
ance  with  the  Egerton  family  possible. 
On  this  last  point  Mr.  Keightley  is 
historically  wrong  Such  an  acquaint 
ance  between  Milton  and  the  Egerton 
family  as  is  supposed  was  possible 
enough  ;  we  only  lack  evidence  of  it. 
Could  Warton's  statement  respecting 
the  Horton  property  be  verified,  that 
would  be  something.  On  the  whole, 


1  A  subject  of  some  controversy  has 
been  the  possibility  of  an  acquaintance 
between  Milton  and  the  Egerton  family 
independently  of  Lawes.  There  is  no 
fact  to  prove  any  such  acquaintance. 
There  was  no  necessary  connexion  from 
proximity  of  residence,  for  Ashridge  is 
about  five-and-twenty  miles  distant 
from  Horton,  and  Harefield  itself, 
though  on  the  banks  of  the  Colne,  is 
about  ten  miles  higher  up  the  river 
than  Horton,  Warton's  statement  that 
"  the  house  and  lands  of  Milton's  father 
at  Horton  were  held  under  the  Earl  of 
Brulgewater,"  is,  as  I  have  already 
stated,  unauthorized.  Todd,  accepting 
the  statement  from  Warton,  and  not 
consulting  the  map,  fortifies  the  as 
sumed  connexion  in  his  own  mind  by 
the  mistake  of  making  Horfcon  "  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Ashridge."  Then, 
out  of  all  this  have  grown  still  more 
extended  suppositions,  —  as  that  the 
Countess  of  Derby,  hearing  of  the 
young  poet  of  Horton,  and  taking  an 
interest  in  poetry  and  poets,  appre 
ciated  his  genius  and  had  him  often  at 
Harefield.  Mr.  Keightley,  naturally 
resenting  so  ready  a  substitution  of 
fancy  for  fact,  has  a  note  on  Milton  and 
the  Eyerton  family  (pp.  119-122),  the 
object  of  which  is  to  show  "the  utter 
instability  of  the  structure  of  adulation 
aud  sycophancy  "  towards  the  desceud- 


I  should  not  wonder  if  it  were  yet 
discovered  that  Milton's  connexion 
with  the  Bridgewater  family,  if  it  had 
any  origin  apart  from  Lawes,  was 
through  some  relative  attached  in 
some  capacity  to  the  Derby  service  or 
that  of  the  Egertons.  We  are  apt  to 
forget  that  every  life  has  many  minute 
ramifications  in  addition  to  the  few 
which  biography  can  trace. 


ARCADES. 


599 


done  so,  and  placed  in  Lawes's  hands  a  little  MS.  entitled 
"ARCADES,"  or  "THE  ARCADIANS."     Lawes  has   composed 
the  songs  ;  there  have  been  one  or  two  rehearsals  ;  and  on  / 
the  appointed  day,  whether  in  1633  or  early  in  1634,  the  ' 
entertainment  comes  off.1 

The  time  is  apparently  evening.  Harefield  House  is  lit 
up  ;  and,  not  far  from  it,  on  a  throne  of  state  so  arranged 
as  to  glitter  in  the  light,  the  aged  Countess  is  seated,  sur- 


1  I  have  been  much  exercised  by  the 
question  of  the  date  of  the  Arcades. 
In  the  first  edition  of  the  present 
volume  I  gave  1634  as  the  most  prob 
able  date,  with  a  reserve  in  favour  of 
1633  as  the  next  likeliest.  Some  ob 
servations  in  Mr.  Leigh  Sotheby's 
Rambling  s  in  the  elucidation  of  the 
Autograph  of  Milton  (1861)  led  me 
afterwards  to  modify  that  opinion  ; 
and  in  the  Cambridge  Edition  of 
Milton's  Poems,  published  in  1874,  I 
assigned  1631  as  perhaps  the  latest  date 
at  which  the  Arcades  could  have  been 
written,  and  gave  my  reasons.  On 
farther  study,  I  am  now  disposed  to 
revert  to  my  first  opinion.  The  argu 
ment  adduced  by  Mr.  Leigh  Sctheby 
for  an  earlier  date  than  1633  or  1634 
was  that  the  preserved  draft  of  the 
Arcades  in  Milton's  own  hand  is  the 
first  of  the  pieces  in  the  bound  volume 
of  his  MS.  remains  now  in  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  preceding  there  the 
two  drafts  of  that  Letter  to  a  Friend, 
excusing  his  shrinking  from  the  church 
and  his  hesitations  about  a  profession, 
in  which  he  had  incorporated  his  Son 
net  on  the  completion  of  his  twenty- 
third  year.  Arcades  occupying  pp.  1-3 
of  the  MS.  and  the  drafts  of  the  Letter 
pp.  6,  7,  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
pages  being  such  as  to  make  it  difficult 
to  suppose  that  Milton  had  gone  back 
to  p.  1  after  having  written  pp.  6,  7,  the 
conclusion  suggested  by  Mr.  Sotheby 
was  that  Arcades  was  in  Milton's  pos 
session,  fully  drafted,  before  he  wrote 
the  Letter  to  his  Friend.  This  conclu 
sion,  I  believe,  still  holds  good  ;  but  it 
was  too  hasty  to  fancy  that  it  necessi 
tated  so  early  a  date  as  1631  for  the 
Arcades.  Granted  that  the  date  must 
be  before  that  of  the  Letter,  what  was 
the  date  of  the  Letter?  The  Letter 
incorporates,  to  be  sure,  a  Sonnet  the 
date  of  which  is  fixed  positively  by  its 
subject  to  have  been  in  December 
1631  ;  but  this  by  no  means  determines 
the  date  of  the  Letter  itself.  The 
Sonnet,  as  incorporated  in  the  Letter, 


is  a  clean  transcript,  without  correction 
or  erasure,  from  an  earlier  original, 
and  is  introduced  in  the  letter  as  con 
taining  some  of  Milton's  "  uightward 
thoughts  some  while  since,  because  they 
come  in  not  altogether  unfitly."  These 
words  certainly  imply  no  long  interval 
between  the  Sonnet  and  the  Letter ; 
but  they  are  quite  congruous  with  the 
notion  that  the  Letter  was  not  written 
till  1633.  Milton,  having  a  birth-day 
Sonnet  by  him  which  he  had  written  in 
December  1631,  and  finding  it  closely 
relevant  to  a  letter  he  was  writing  iu 
1633,  might  very  naturally  enclose  a 
copy.  All  in  all,  we  are  induced  to  the 
belief,  which  I  have  adopted,  that  the 
volume  of  Milton  MSS.  at  Cambridge 
contains  the  drafts  of  his  things  in  Eng 
lish  from  some  time  in  1633  onwards, 
and  that  the  original  drafts  of  all  his 
earlier  things  have  been  lost.  But  no 
question  ought  to  be  closed  while  there 
is  the  least  reason  for  keeping  it  open  ; 
and  I  offer  only  what  seems  the  likeliest 
and  safest  judgment  at  present.  The 
question  is  not  wholly  without  prac 
tical  interest.  If  Arcades  was  written 
before  1633,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  excitement  over  Prynne's  Histrio- 
mastix ;  but,  if  it  was  written  in  that 
year  or  in  1634,  it  is,  no  less  than 
Comus,  a  proof  that  Milton  had  so 
little  sympathy  with  Prynne's  attack 
on  the  Drama  as  deliberately  to  throw 
his  weight  on  the  other  side  by  aiding 
in  private  theatricals  while  that  attack 
was  fresh.  Should  1634  be  thought 
not  too  late  a  date  for  the  performance 
of  the  Arcades  at  Harefield,  one  might 
find  no  bad  occasion  for  it  in  this  extract 
from  Lysons  : — "  On  the  10th  of  April, 
"  1634,  Mr.  Hugh  Calverley,  afterwards 
"  Sir  Hugh,  was  married  at  Harefield 
"  to  the  Lady  Elizabeth  Hastings,  one 
"of  the  daughters  of  the  Earl  and 
"  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  and  grand- 
"  daughter  of  the  Countess  of  Derby." 
But  all  the  evidence,  I  think,  points 
preferably  to  1633. 


600  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

rounded  by  the  seniors  of  the  assembled  party.1  Suddenly 
torches  are  seen  nickering  amid  the  trees  of  the  park ;  and 
up  the  long  avenue  of  elms,  as  we  fancy, — the  identical 
avenue  which  had  borne  the  name  of  "  The  Queen's  Walk  " 
ever  since  Elizabeth  had  passed  through  it  two-and-thirty 
years  before, — there  advance  the  torch-bearers,  and  with 
them  a  band  of  nymphs  and  shepherds,  clad  as  Arcadians. 
When  they  have  approached  near  enough,  they  pause,  and 
one  voice  breaks  out  from  the  rest  in  this  song : — • 

Look,  Nymphs  and  Shepherds,  look  ! 
What  sudden  blaze  of  majesty 
Is  that  which  we  from  hence  descry, 
Too  divine  to  be  mistook  ? 

This,  this  is  she 

To  whom  our  vows  and  wishes  bend  : 
Here  our  solemn  search  hath  end. 

Fame,  that,  her  high  worth  to  raise, 
Seemed  erst  so  lavish  and  profuse, 
We  may  justly  now  accuse 
Of  detraction  from  her  praise  : 

Less  than  half  we  find  expressed ; 

Envy  bid  conceal  the  rest. 

Mark  what  radiant  state  she  spreads, 
In  circle  round  her  shining  throne 
Shooting  her  beams  like  silver  threads  : 
This,  this  is  she  alone, 

Sitting  like  a  goddess  bright 

In  the  centre  of  her  light. 

Might  she  the  wise  Latona  be, 
Or  the  towered  Cybele, 
Mother  of  a  hundred  gods  ? 
Juno  dares  not  give  her  odds  : 

Who  had  thought  this  clime  had  held 

A  deity  so  unparalleled  1 

The  Song  ends ;  and,  "  as  they  come  forward,  THE  GENIUS 

1  The  site  of  the  house  is  still  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  roar*  going  from  TJx- 

identified  by  two  low  mounds,  an  old  bridge  to  Kickmansworth.   The  scenery 

garden,  and  a  large  old  cedar  of  Leba-  is  charming,  the   Colne   flowing  here 

non, on  a  fine  grassy  slope,  crowned  with  through  ground  more  hilly  than  that 

trees,  close  behind  Harefield  Church,  about  Horton,  and  as  richly  wooded. 


ARCADES.  601 

OP  THE  WOOD  appears,  and,  turning  towards  them,  speaks." 
He  begins  thus  : — 

Stay,  gentle  Swains ;  for,  though  in  this  disguise, 
I  see  bright  honour  sparkle  through  your  eyes  : 
Of  famous  Arcady  ye  are. 

This  means  that,  addressing  the  male  masquers,  he  first  tells 
them  that  he  recognises  their  rank  under  their  pastoral 
disguise,  and  knows  them  to  be  noble  Arcadians.  And  so 
to  the  nymphs  : — 

And  ye,  the  breathing  roses  of  the  wood, 

Fair  silver-buskined  Nymphs,  as  great  and  good. 

And  then  to  both  : — 

I  know  this  quest  of  yours  and  free  intent 

Was  all  in  honour  and  devotion  meant 

To  the  great  mistress  of  yon  princely  shrine. 

The  Sylvan  Genius  (perhaps  Lawes  l)  then  goes  on  to  say 
that  he  also  adores  the  same  goddess,  and  will  do  his  best 
to  further  the  ceremony  in  progress.  In  his  character  as 
the  genius  of  Harefield  wood  and  parks,  he  describes  his 
daily  occupations.  He  nurses  the  saplings,  curls  the  grove, 
saves  the  plants  and  boughs  from  the  harms  of  winds, 
nightly  blasts,  worm,  and  mildew ;  and,  each  morn,  ere  the 
horn  of  the  huntsmen  shakes  the  thicket,  he  is  abroad  to 
visit  his  care  and  number  their  woody  ranks.  Amid  these 
occupations  he  has  had  opportunities  of  beholding,  nearer 
than  most,  the  goddess  of  the  place,  and  has  often  sat  alone 
amid  the  shades  to  wonder  at  and  gaze  upon  her.  But, 
though  his  occupations  are  sylvan,  he  is  not  the  less  a  lover 
of  music  :  2 — 

But  else,  in  deep  of  night,  when  drowsiness 
Hath  locked  up  mortal  sense,  then  listen  I 

1  Lawes  acts  a  similar  part  in  Comus;  2  But  for  the  superior  probability  in 
and  the  speech  itself  indicates  that  the  favour  of  Lawes  one  might  really  sup- 
person  is  not  one  of  the  noble  persons  pose  that  the  part  was  performed  by 
of  the  family,  but  one  of  inferior  rank  some  steward  of  the  estate  to  the 
connected  with  them  (see  lines  77-79  countess,  who  was  actually  "  the  power 
and  82,  83).  He  is  also  a  musician  of  this  fair  wood,"  and  did  tend  it  in 
(lines  61-63  and  77-80),  and  perhaps  the  the  manner  described,  but  was  withal 
manager  of  the  entertainment  (lines  38,  musical. 
39). 


602  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

To  the  celestial  Sirens'  harmony, 

That  sit  upon  the  nine  infolded  spheres, 

And  sing  to  those  that  hold  the  vital  shears, 

And  turn  the  adamantine  spindle  round 

On  which  the  fate  of  gods  and  men  is  wound. 

After  a  few  lines  more  of  this  thoroughly  Miltonic  eulogy 
on  the  powers  of  music,  the  Genius,  protesting  that  the 
highest  skill  in  song  would  alone  be  fit  for  the  occasion, 
offers  whatever  his  inferior  art  with  hands  and  voice  can  do 
in  leading  them  up  to  the  lady's  presence.  There  such  of 
them  as  are  ' '  of  noble  stem  "  may  kiss  the  hem  of  her  sacred 
vesture,  and  he,  not  so  privileged,  will  have  done  his  duty. 
And  so,  with  lute  or  other  instrument  in  hand,  he  advances 
before  them,  singing 

O'er  the  smooth  enamelled  green, 
Where  no  print  of  step  hath  been, 

Follow  me,  as  I  sing 

And  touch  the  warbled  string  ; 
Under  the  shady  roof 
Of  branching  elm  star-proof 

Follow  me. 

I  will  bring  you  where  she  sits, 
Clad  in  splendour  as  befits 

Her  deity. 
Such  a  rural  Queen 
All  Arcadia  hath  not  seen. 

The  Nymphs  and  Shepherds  follow  the  Sylvan  Genius  and 
do  their  homage  to  the  lady ;  after  which  there  is  another 
Song,  ending  with  the  same  couplet  as  the  last.  This  part 
of  the  entertainment  was  then  over.  Had  Milton  gone  over 
from  Horton  to  see  its  success  ?  If  so,  the  aged  eyes  that 
had  rested  on  Spenser  may  nave  rested,  not  unbenignantly, 
on  the  youth  who  had  come  in  his  place.1 

1  The  Countess  died  Jan.  26, 1636-7,  the  arms  of  Stanley  with  its  quarterings 

and  was  buried  at  Harefield  on  the  28th.  impaling  the  arms  and  quarterings  of 

In  the  chancel  of  Harefield  Church  is  Spencer    of    Althorpe,    without    any 

her  monument  of  marble  richly  sculp-  heraldic  recognition  of  the  Countess's 

tured,  exhibiting  her  effigy,  in  a  crim-  second  marriage ;  also  the  arms  of  her 

son  robe  and  with  a  gilt  coronet,  re-  three  daughters,  —  Hastings  impaling 

cumbent  under  a  canopy  of  pale  green  Stanley.  Egertpn  impaling  Stanley,  and 

and  stars,  and  the  effigies  of  her  three  Brydges  impaling  Stanley.     The  Coun- 

daughters  in   relief  on   the  side,  and  tess  is  represented  in  the  effigy  as  in 

also  tainted.    The  monument  exhibits  youth,  very  beautiful,  with  long  fair 


AT   A    SOLEMN    MUSIC.       ETC. 


603 


THREE  METRICAL  EXPERIMENTS. 

We  give  this  name  to  the  three  pieces  which  appear  among 
Milton's  Minor  Poems  under  the  titles  AT  A  SOLEMN  Music, 
ON  TIME,  and  UPON  THE  CIRCUMCISION.  The  first  of  these 
may  be  assigned  to  1633,  and  the  other  two  to  the  close  of 
that  year  or  the  beginning  of  1634.  They  agree  in  being 
efforts  in  a  more  complex  kind  of  rhymed  verse  than  Milton 
had  before  attempted,  anticipating  in  some  respects  the 
so-called  English  Pindarics  of  a  later  time.  AT  A  SOLEMN 
Music,  which  may  be  translated  AT  A  CONCERT  OF  SACRED 
Music,  is  a  burst  of  twenty-eight  lines  of  studied  sonorous 
combination  of  Iambic  lines,  varying  in  length  from  lines  of 
three  Iambi  only  to  Alexandrines,  in  honour  of  the  power 
and  the  religious  significance  of  music  of  the  nobler  sorts. 
ON  TIME  is  a.  burst  of  twenty-two  lines  of  the  same  irregular 
kind  of  combination,  opening  with  words  which  suggest  that 
the  little  piece  was  motived  by  observation  of  the  pendulum 
of  a  clock.  That  this  was  the  fact  is  proved  by  the  title  of 
the  piece  in  the  preserved  draft  of  it  in  Milton's  own  hand : 


hair  ;  and  there  is  the  same  cast  of  fea 
tures  in  the  representations  of  her 
three  daughters,  and  the  same  long  fair 
hair.  —  On  the  Countess's  death  the 
mansion  and  estate  of  Harefield  came 
to  Lady  Chandos,  then  her  only  surviv 
ing  daughter ;  after  whose  death,  in 
1647,  it  descended  to  her  son,  Lord 
Chandos.  On  his  death  in  1655,  he 
bequeathed  it  to  his  wife,  Jane,  Lady 
Chandos,  who  married  as  her  second 
husband  Sir  William  Sedley,  Bart.,  and 
again,  after  his  death,  George  Pitt, 
Esq.  of  Strathfieldsaye  in  Hampshire. 
About  the  year  1660  the  mansion  was 
burnt  down  by  the  carelessness,  it  is 
said,  of  the  witty  Sir  Charles  Sedley, 
who  was  on  a  visit  there  at  the  time, 
and  was  amusing  himself  with  reading 
in  bed.  By  a  deed  dated  1673,  Lady 
Chandos  vested  all  her  estates  in  Mr. 
Pitt  and  his  heirs ;  and  in  1675,  she  being 
still  alive,  Mr.  Pitt  sold  Harefield  to  Sir 
Richard  Newdegate,  Bart.,  of  Arbury, 
Warwickshire.  By  this  sale  the  estate 
was  only  conveyed  back  to  the  family 
who  had  been  its  original  proprietors  ; 
for,  when  Lord  Keeper  Egerton  and 
Lady  Derby  acquired  the  estate  in 
1601,  it  had  been  by  purchase  from  Sir 


Edmund  Anderson,  Lord  Chief  Justice 
of  the  Common  Pleas,  who  had  ac 
quired  it  in  1585  from  John  Newdegate, 
Esq. ;  and,  before  1585,  it  had  been 
in  the  possession  of  the  Newdegate 
family,  or  of  their  antecedent  kin,  the 
Swanlands  and  Bacheworths,  from  time 
immemorial.  Recovered  by  the  New- 
degates  in  1675,  the  estate  has  con 
tinued  in  the  possession  of  that  family 
since;  and  the  chief  monuments  in 
Harefield  Church,  besides  that  of  the 
Countess  of  Derby,  are  of  the  Newde- 
gates.  Attached  to  the  church  is  a 
private  chapel,  containing  tombs  of 
another  old  family,  claiming  to  be  of 
the  race  of  Breakspear,  the  only  Eng 
lishman  who  ever  became  Pope ;  and 
near  Harefield  is  a  property  still  called 
Breakspears.  Altogether,  what  with 
old  Newdegate  and  other  monuments 
and  relics  which  Milton  may  have  seen 
more  than  once  with  interest,  what 
with  the  tomb  of  the  countess  whom 
he  helped  to  make  famous,  and  who 
was  then  living  in  the  mansion  which 
occupied  the  vacant  space  close  by, 
Harefield  Church  is  worth  a  visit  from 
any  reader  of  the  Arcades  who  chances 
to  be  in  the  neighbourhood. 


60  Jj  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  ON  TIME. — TO  BE  SET  ON  A  CLOCK-CASE."  The  piece  UPON 
THE  CIRCUMCISION  consists  of  two  stanzas,  each  of  fourteen 
Iambic  lines  of  varying  lengths,  irregularly  rhyming ;  and, 
as  the  Feast  of  the  Circumcision  is  on  Jan.  1,  that  day  of 
the  year  1633-4  may  claim  it.  Of  the  three  pieces  AT  A 
SOLEMN  Music  is  the  most  interesting,  and  the  interest  is 
increased  by  knowing  that  no  piece  of  English  verse  written 
by  Milton  can  have  cost  him  more  trouble.  It  arrived  at 
its  present  state  in  our  printed  copies  through  no  fewer  than 
three  previous  drafts  in  Milton's  hand,  exhibiting  his  dis 
satisfaction  with  his  first  wording  of  the  thing,  and  his  fas 
tidiousness  in  altering,  correcting,  and  enlarging.  No  piece 
of  his  manuscript  is  more  instructive  as  to  his  habits  in  this 
respect.1 

COMUS. 

Milton's  ARCADES  is  but  a  slight  composition  compared 
with  another  which  he  furnished  to  the  same  noble  family 
in  the  course  of  the  year  1634.  All  that  we  now  know  about 
that  family  has  to  be  remembered  in  elucidation  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  much  more  important  poem  to  which 
we  now  proceed.  Some  additional  particulars,  however, 
have  to  be  premised. 

On  the  26th  of  June,  1631,  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  had 
been  nominated  by  the  King  to  the  high  office  of  Lord 
President  of  the  Council  in  the  Principality  of  "Wales  and 
the  Marches  of  the  same.  This  office,  involving  jurisdiction 
and  military  command  not  only  over  the  properly  Welsh 
counties  of  Monmouth,  Glamorgan,  Carmarthen,  Pem 
broke,  Cardigan,  Flint,  Caernarvon,  Anglesea,  Merioneth, 
Eadnor,  Brecknock,  Montgomery,  and  Denbigh,  but  also 

1  The  three  pieces  here  grouped  to-  which  we  have  drafts  in  Milton's  own 

gether  have  been  usually  assigned  to  hand  in   that    Cambridge    volume   of 

the  University  period  of  Milton's  life,  MSS.  which  seems,  as  we  have  already 

and  connected  there  especially  with  the  seen  (ante,  footnotes  569, 578, 599),  not 

Ode  on  the  Nativity  and  the  fragment  to  commence  till  1633.     The  order  of 

on  The  Passion;  which  last,  indeed,  they  the  first  pieces  in  that  volume  is  as 

immediately   follow   in   Milton's    own  follows: — Arcades,  At  a  Solemn  Music 

edition  of  his  Poems  in  1645.    I  have  (various  drafts),  The  Letter  to  a  Friend, 

favoured  that  dating  hitherto,  but  see  On  Time,  Upon  the  Circumcision.   I  have 

ground  now  for  the  later  dating.    All  arranged  accordingly, 
the  three  pieces  are   among  those  of 


LUDLOW   TOWN   AND   CASTLE.  605 

over  the  four  English  counties  of  Gloucester,  Worcester, 
Hereford,  and  Shropshire,  had  been  originally  instituted  iu 
the  reign  of  Edward  IV.,  for  the  government  of  Wales  and 
for  the  preservation  of  orderly  relations  between  the  Welsh 
and  the  English.  There  had  been  eminent  men  in  the  office. 
From  1559  to  1586  it  had  been  held  most  efficiently  by  Sir 
Henry  Sidney,  father  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney ;  he  had  been 
succeeded  by  Henry,  second  Earl  of  Pembroke,  who  held  it 
till  1601 ;  after  whom  it  had  been  held  in  succession  by 
Lord  Zouch,  Lord  Eure,  Lord  Gerard,  and  William,  Lord 
Compton,  Earl  of  Northampton.  Since  Charles  had  discon 
tinued  his  Parliaments,  the  importance  of  having  right  men 
for  the  office,  and  for  the  corresponding  viceroyalties  of  the 
North  and  Ireland,  had  naturally  increased ;  and,  the  Vice- 
royalty  of  the  North  having  been  deemed  a  post  worthy  of 
the  energies  of  a  Wentworth,  there  was  some  compliment  to 
the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  in  selecting  him  for  the  Viceroyalty 
of  the  West. 

The  official  seat  of  the  Lords  President  of  Wales  was 
Ludlow  in  Shropshire.  This  town,  which  is  about  seven 
and  twenty  miles  south  from  Shrewsbury  and  about  four 
and  twenty  north  from  Hereford,  is  beautifully  situated  in 
one  of  those  tracts  of  rich  green  scenery,  lovely  in  hill  and 
valley,  which  admonish  one  that  there  England  is  beginning 
to  pass  into  Wales.  The  town  itself  is  mainly  on  the  top 
and  slopes  of  an  eminence  near  the  junction  of  two  streams, 
the  Teme  and  the  Corve,  whose  united  waters  meet  the 
Severn  in  Worcestershire.  All  round  is  a  wide  circle  of 
hills,  distanced  in  some  directions  by  intervening  plains,  but 
on  one  side  coming  close  to  the  town,  so  as  to  form  a  steep 
valley  between  it  and  some  immediately  opposite  heights^ 
Through  this  valley  flows  the  river,  not  without  the  noise  of 
one  or  two  artificial  falls  in  its  course.  Occupying  the 
highest  ground  in  the  town,  and  conspicuous  from  afar  over 
the  neighbouring  country,  is  Ludlow  Church,  an  edifice  of 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  almost  disproportion 
ately  large  for  the  town,  but  considered  the  finest  ecclesi 
astical  building  in  the  county  of  Salop.  Historically  more 


606  LIFE    OE    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

important  than  the  church  was  Ludlow  Castle,  now  a 
romantic  ruin,  but  once  the  residence  of  the  Lords  President. 
It  formed,  and  still,  in  its  ruined  state,  forms  the  termina 
tion  of  the  town  at  that  angle  where  the  height  overhangs 
the  river  most  steeply.  The  whole  town  was  walled ;  but 
the  castle,  where  not  defended  by  the  natural  rock  on  which 
it  was  built,  was  walled  in  separately  from  the  town,  and 
was  approached  by  a  gateway  from  a  considerable  open 
space  left  at  the  top  of  the  main  street.  Entering,  by  this 
gateway,  the  outer  court  or  exercising  ground,  and  crossing 
it,  one  came  to  a  moat,  spanned  at  one  point  by  a  draw 
bridge,  which  admitted  to  the  castle  itself,  with  its  keep,  its 
inner  court,  and  its  various  masses  of  building. 

A  castle  in  massive  ruins,  situated  on  a  rocky  height 
which  commands  a  beautiful  and  extensive  prospect,  and 
thus  topping  a  town  of  clean  and  somewhat  quaint  streets 
descending  the  gentler  slopes  of  the  hill  or  winding  at  its 
base,  with  a  large  and  lofty  parish-church  conspicuous  near 
the  castle  :  such  is  Ludlow  now,  and  such  was  Ludlow  in 
the  year  1634-,  save  that  then  the  castle  was  not  in  ruins, 
that  there  were  barracks  for  soldiers  in  the  court-yard,  and 
that  the  town  exhibited  the  bustle  attendant  on  the  head 
quarters  of  the  Presidency  of  Wales. 

The  town  and  castle  had  their  historical  associations.  The 
castle,  or  rather  the  keep  and  the  older  parts  attached,  had 
been  built,  it  was  believed,  by  the  Conqueror's  kinsman, 
Koger  de  Montgomery,  lord  of  nearly  all  Shropshire,  who 
died  in  1094;  and  the  rudiments  of  the  town, — originally 
called  Denham  or  Dinan,  but  afterwards  Ludlow,  from  the 
Saxon  name  of  the  hill, — had  grown  up  under  the  wing  of 
the  castle.  From  the  Montgomery  family  the  castle  had 
passed,  in  1121,  into  the  possession  of  a  famous  knight,  Joce 
or  Gotso,  thence  called  Joce  de  Dinan,  who  made  great 
additions,  and  built  in  the  inner  court  a  beautiful  round 
chapel  with  Norman  arch  and  windows.  There  were  romantic 
legends  of  the  history  of  the  castle  during  its  long  posses 
sion,  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  I.,  Stephen,  and  Henry  II.,  by 
this  Joce  de  Dinan.  It  was  told  how  he  had  taken  prisoner 


LUDLOW    TOWN   AND    CASTLE.  607 

his  enemy,  Hugh  de  Mortimer,  Lord  of  Wigmore,  and  con 
fined  him  in  a  tower  of  the  castle,  thence  called  ft  Mortimer's 
Tower";  how  he  had  similarly  captured  and  confined  another 
enemy,  De  Lacy ;  and  how  De  Lacy  had  escaped,  and  there 
had  been  wild  warfare  between  them,  in  which  the  Welsh 
were  involved,  and  which  ended  in  the  possession  of  Ludlow 
for  a  time  by  the  Lacies.  From  the  Lacies  it  had  passed 
indirectly  to  the  Mortimers ;  and  so,  through  various  feuds 
and  vicissitudes,  it  came,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  to  be 
the  chief  stronghold  of  Richard  Plantagenet,  Duke  of  York, 
in  whom  were  vested  all  the  claims  to  the  crown  hostile  to 
those  of  the  reigning  house.  In  the  Wars  of  Lancaster  and 
York  Ludlow  and  its  neighbourhood  were  frequent  head 
quarters  of  the  Yorkists,  whence  they  rallied  the  Welsh  to 
their  assistance,  and  marched  eastward  at  their  pleasure; 
and  in  1459  the  town  was  taken  and  plundered  in  revenge 
by  the  Lancastrians.  The  decisive  battle  by  which  young 
Edward,  Earl  of  March,  the  son  of  the  Duke,  avenged  his 
father's  death,  retrieved  the  fortunes  of  the  Yorkists,  and 
became  himself  king  of  England  with  the  title  of  Edward 
IV.,  was  fought,  in  1461,  at  Mortimer's  Cross,  not  far  from 
Ludlow.  While  on  the  throne,  he  specially  favoured  his 
hereditary  town.  In  1472,  when  he  created  his  infant  son, 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  he  sent  him  and  his  younger 
brother  to  reside,  under  guardians,  in  Ludlow  Castle.  The 
purpose  was  that,  by  the  presence  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 
there,  and  of  a  council  acting  in  his  name,  the  Welsh  might 
be  the  better  kept  in  order.  The  two  princes  remained  at 
Ludlow  during  their  father's  life;  and,  when  they  left  it, 
after  his  death  in  1483,  it  was  on  the  fatal  journey  which 
ended  in  the  Tower.  The  elder  prince,  it  was  said,  had 
been  proclaimed  as  Edward  V.  before  leaving  the  castle. 
When,  after  the  brief  reign  of  Eichard  III.,  Henry  VII. 
succeeded  to  the  throne,  he  followed  the  example  of  Edward 
IV.  by  sending  his  infant  son,  Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  to 
reside,  with  a  court  and  under  guardianship,  in  the  Castle 
of  Ludlow  ;  and,  till  the  death  of  the  Prince  in  1502,  Henry 
frequently  visited  Ludlow  himself.  On  the  Prince's  death, 


608  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  government  of  Wales  and  the  Marches  was  settled  in  a 
Presidency  and  Council,  as  it  afterwards  continued.  Under 
the  successive  Presidents  appointed  by  Henry  VII.  and 
Henry  VIII.  Ludlow  grew  in  importance ;  and  final  addi 
tions  had  been  made  to  the  castle  by  Sir  Henry  Sidney 
during  his  term  of  office.  Before  the  time  of  our  history, 
Wales  had  been  so  efficiently  annexed  to  England  that  the 
office  had  lost  its  warlike  character.  There  were  no  longer 
fears  of  Welsh  insurrections;  the  numerous  castles  with 
which  Shropshire  was  studded  were  useless  for  their  original 
purpose  of  defending  the  Marches ;  and  Ludlow  Castle,  the 
chief  of  them,  was  kept  in  repair  merely  as  a  palatial  resid 
ence,  in  which  the  Lords  President  might  conveniently  hold 
court,  and  various  portions  of  which  were  already  regarded 
with  antiquarian  interest,  under  such  names  as  the  Keep,  the 
Tilt- Yard,  Mortimer's  Tower,  the  Princes'  Apartments,  and 
Prince  Arthur's  Room.1 

Although  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater  had  been  nominated  to 
the  Presidency  in  June  1631,  he  did  not  go  to  Ludlow  to 
install  himself  in  office  till  more  than  two  years  after.  Of 
the  state  of  Ludlow  at  this  exact  time,  when  the  business  of 
the  Presidency  was  managed  by  the  local  councillors  and 
justices  acting  for  the  earl,  we  have  a  glimpse  in  an  unex 
pected  quarter,  the  Autobiography  of  Richard  Baxter.  In 
1631,  Baxter,  a  native  of  Shropshire,  and  then  a  lad  of  about 
sixteen,  ready  to  leave  Wroxeter  school,  had  been  recom 
mended,  he  says,  not  to  go  immediately  to  College,  but  to 
become  private  attendant  for  a  while  to  Mr.  Thomas  Wick- 
stead,  chaplain  to  the  Council  of  Wales,  under  whom,  he  was 
told,  he  would  have  every  advantage.  The  circumstances  of 
his  parents  making  the  offer  eligible,  he  had  accepted  it,  and 
for  a  year  and  a  half  he  lived  in  Ludlow  Castle.  The  situ 
ation  was  not  to  his  taste.  Mr.  Wickstead  had  nothing  to 
teach  him,  unless  it  were  to  sneer  at  Puritans ;  and  there 
was  much  tippling  and  other  profanity  in  the  castle  and  the 
town,  crowded  as  they  were  with  officials  and  their  servants. 

1  The   History  of    Ludlow  by    the       book  to  Ludlow  by  the  late  Mr.  Thomas 
Hon.  K.  H.  Olive,  1841;   and  Hand-       Wright. 


THE    BRIDGEWATER   FAMILY   AT    LUDLOW.  609 

All  Shropshire  was  then,  he  had  found,  in  a  grievous  con 
dition  spiritually ;  and,  had  he  remained  in  Ludlow,  the  bad 
influences  of  the  place  might  have  obliterated  the  serious 
impressions  he  had  received  from  his  good  father's  teaching 
and  the  perusal  of  Sibbes's  Bruised  Eeed.  One  youth,  who 
was  his  intimate  friend,  and  most  zealously  pious  when  he 
first  knew  him,  did  fall  a  victim,  and  became  a  confirmed 
drunkard  and  scoffer.1  Had  Baxter  remained  a  little  longer, 
he  might  have  been  present  at  the  curiosity  of  a  stage-play 
in  the  castle  in  rebuke  of  riot. 

In  the  course  of  1633  it  was  resolved  that  the  Earl  should 
go  to  his  post.  On  the  12th  of  May  in  that  year  a  Royal 
Letter  of  Instructions  was  issued,  defining  his  powers  afresh, 
and  regulating  the  arrangements  of  the  Council,  both  judicial 
and  executive.2  It  was  to  consist  of  above  eighty  persons 
named,  many  of  them  bishops  and  great  state-officers  of 
England,  while  others  were  knights  and  gentlemen  of 
Shropshire  and  other  parts  of  the  Welsh  border.  But,  of 
these  eighty,  four  were  nominated  as  salaried  officers,  bound 
to  residence  and  the  regular  duties  of  circuit  judges, — to 
wit,  Sir  John  Bridgernan,  Chief  Justice  of  Chester,  Sir 
Marmaduke  Lloyd,  Second  Justice  of  the  same,  Sir  Nicholas 
Overbury,  and  Edward  Waties,  Esq.  In  all  proceedings  of 
the  Council  three  were  to  be  a  quorum  ;  of  which  three, 
however,  the  President,  the  Yice-President,  or  the  Chief 
Justice  of  Chester,  was  always  to  be  one.  These  instructions 
the  earl  forwarded  to  Ludlow  in  October  1633,  to  be  read 
and  registered  against  his  arrival ;  and  he  appears  to  have 
speedily  followed  them  himself.  Some  members  of  his  family, 
including  the  two  boys  and  their  elder  sister,  the  Lady  Alice, 
appear  to  have  been  left  behind  for  a  time  at  Ashridge  or  at 
Harefield  ;  but  in  the  autumn  of  1634  there  was  a  gathering 
of  the  whole  family  at  Ludlow. 

The  new  Lord  President  entered  upon  his  official  resid 
ence  in  Ludlow  Castle  with  unusual  solemnity.     "  He  was 

1  Reliquiae  Baxtiriana :    1696.      See       pages,  is  given  in  Rymer,  vol.  XIX.  pp. 
also  Huuter's  Notes  on  Milton.  449—465. 

3  The  letter,  extending  over  16  folio 

VOL.  I.  R  R 


610  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    PUS    TIME. 

attended/'  says  Oldys,  "by  a  large  concourse  of  tlie  neigh- 
bouring  nobility  and  gentry."1  At  whatever  time  the 
hospitalities  of  his  inauguration  commenced,  they  were 
continued  over  the  greater  part  of  the  year  1634.  To  the 
younger  members  of  the  family  it  seemed  that  the  hospital 
ities  would  not  be  complete  unless  they  included  some 
poetical  and  musical  entertainments,  calculated  to  give 
Ludlow  and  its  neighbourhood  an  idea  of  true  taste  in  such 
matters.  Accordingly,  it  was  arranged  that  there  should  be 
a  masque  in  Ludlow  Castle,  not  a  slight  thing  of  a  speech 
and  a  song  or  two,  like  the  Arcades,  but  a  real  masque  of 
full  dramatic  dimensions.  The  earl,  who  had  had  experience 
in  masques  himself,  had  no  objection  to  the  expense ;  Lawes, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  undertook  the  music  and  the  general 
management ;  Milton,  on  being  applied  to,  promised  to 
furnish  the  poetry;  and  the  entertainment  was  fixed  for 
Michael  mas- night.  The  manuscript  of  the  poem  which  we 
now  call  COMUS,  but  to  which  Milton  himself  affixed  no 
such  title,2  was  ready  by  the  time  appointed;  and,  the 
speeches  and  songs  having  been  sufficiently  rehearsed,  and 
all  other  preparations  made,  the  performance  took  place. 

The  place  of  performance  was  the  great  hall  or  council- 
chamber  of  Ludlow  Castle,  a  noble  apartment,  sixty  feet 
long,  thirty  wide,  and  proportionately  lofty,  in  which,  as 
tradition  bore,  the  elder  of  the  two  murdered  princes  had 
been  proclaimed  as  King  Edward  V.  before  his  fatal  journey 
to  London,  and  the  form  of  which,  now  roofless  and  floorless, 
is  still  traceable  among  the  ruins.3  The  time  is  Michaelmas- 
night,  the  29th  of  September,  1634.  The  company  are 
„  assembled,  comprising  the  Earl  himself  and  Lady  Bridge- 
water,  the  chief  resident  councillors  and  their  ladies,  and  as 
many  more  of  the  rank  and  fashion  of  Ludlow  and  the  vicinity 

1  MS.  quoted  by  Warton.  3  They  call  it  now  «  Oomus  Hall  "  at 

2  In  Lawes's  edition  of  1637,  in  the  Ludlow.     As  late  as  1768  the  flooring 
first  edition  of  Milton's  Poems  in  1645,  was  pretty  entire,  and  an  inscription  on 
and  in  the  second  in  1673,  the  poem  is  the  wall  from  1  Samuel  xii.  13,  testify- 
simply  entitled  "  A  Masque  presented  ing  to  the  usual  purposes  of  the  hall  as 
at  Ludlow  Castle,"  &c.,  the  word  Comus  a   Court   of   Justice,  was  still  legible, 
forming  no  part  of  the  title.  See  Todd's  notes  to  Comus. 


COMUS.  611 

as  the  hall  will  hold.     One  end  of  the  hall  is  fitted  up  as  a    , 
stage,  with   curtains  and  other    furniture ;    all    is    brilliant 
within    the   hall;    and,   without,   not  only  the  rest   of  the 
castle,  but  all  Ludlow,  is  in  commotion.     Here  is  the  pro 
gramme  of  the  Masque  : — 

THE  PERSONS. 

The  Attendant  Spirit,  afterwards  in  the  habit  of  Thyrsis. 

Comus,  with  his  crew. 

The  Lady. 

1st  Brother. 

2d  brother. 

Sdbrina,  the  Nymph. 

To  fill  these  six  speaking  or  singing  parts  there  are  six 
separate  persons,  in  addition  to  those  who  do  not  speak  or 
sing,  but  only  act  as  the  crew  to  Comus.  Who  acted  the 
parts  of  Comus  and  the  nymph  Sabrina  we  are  not  informed. 
The  part  of  the  Attendant  Spirit,  who  transmutes  himself 
into  the  shepherd  Thyrsis,  was  acted  by  Lawes ;  the  part  of 
The  Lady  was  performed  by  Lady  Alice  Egerton ;  and  the 
parts  of  the  two  Brothers  were  performed  by  Lord  Brackley 
and  Mr.  Thomas  Egerton.  Lady  Alice,  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered,  was  not  over  fifteen  years  of  age;  and  her  two  brothers 
were  young  boys. 

The  Masque  begins.  "  The  first  scene  discovers  a  yjild 
wood"  and  "  The  Attendant  Spirit  descends  or  enters )} — ?'.  e. 
makes  his  appearance  either  way,  as  the  machinery  will 
allow.1  It  is  Lawes,  appropriately  dressed;  and  the  stage 

1  It  is  proper  to  mention  here  that  the  hand  of  the  second  Earl  of  Bridge- 
there  are  th  ree  ext  ant  version  s  of  Com  us .  water,  who,  as  Lord  Brackley,  performed 
There  is  that  of  the  usual  printed  copies,  the  part  of  the  1st  Brother.  This  latter 
which  follow  the  editions  by  Lawes  in  copy  appears  to  be  in  Lawes's  hand- 
1637  and  Milton  himself  in  1645  and  writing,  and  may  have  been  the  present- 
1673  (these  editions  agreeing  in  all  ation-copy  to  the  Bridgewater  family, 
except  a  very  few  various  readings  in  if  not  the  stage-copy  from  which  the 
those  by  Milton  as  compared  with  that  actors  learned  their  parts.  The  two 
by  Lawes) ;  and  there  are  two  versions  MS.  copies  exhibit  variations  from  each 
in  manuscript.  One  of  the  manuscript  other  ;  and  both  differ  from  our  present 
versions  is  the  original  MS.  draft  in  printed  version  in  numerous  small  par- 
Milton's  own  hand,  preserved  among  ticulars.  Our  printed  version  is,  in 
the  Milton  MSS.  in  Trinity  College,  fact,  the  Comus  of  1634  as  revised  and 
Cambridge ;  the  other  is  a  manuscript  corrected  by  Milton  for  publication  in 
copy  preserved  in  the  Bridgewater  1637  and  1645;  aud  there  is  ccnsc- 
Library,  with  the  words  '•''Author  Jo.  quently  some  interest  in  comparing  it 
Milton"  written  on  the  title-page  in  with  the  two  MS.  versions, — with  that 

R  R  2 


612  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME.  ] 

has  been  darkened,  to  signify  that  it  is  night.  He  announces 
himself  and  his  nature,  as  follows  :  1  — 

Before  the  starry  threshold  of  Jove's  court 

My  mansion  is,  where  those  immortal  shapes 

Of  bright  aerial  spirits  live  insphered 

In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 

Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot 

Which  men  call  Earth,  and,  with  low-tho  lighted  care, 

Confined  and  pestered  in  this  pin-fold  here, 

Strive  to  keep  up  a  frail  and  feverish  being, 

Unmindful  of  the  crown  that  Virtue  gives, 

After  this  mortal  change,  to  her  true  servants 

Amongst  the  enthroned  gods  on  sainted  seats. 

Even  on  earth,  however,  there  are  some  that  aspire  to  lay 
their  just  hands  on  the  golden  key  ;  and  to  aid  such  even  a 
heavenly  spirit  may  descend,  and  soil  his  ambrosial  weeds  in 
the  vapours  of  the  sin-worn  world.  Of  this  kind  is  the 
speaker's  errand  now  :  — 

Neptune,  besides  the  sway 
Of  every  salt  flood  and  each  ebbing  stream, 
Took  in,  by  lot  'twixt  high  and  nether  Jove, 
Imperial  rule  of  all  the  sea-girt  isles 
That,  like  to  rich  and  various  gems,  inlay 
The  unadorned  bosom  of  the  deep  ; 
Which  he,  to  grace  his  tributary  gods, 
By  course  commits  to  several  government, 
And  gives  them  leave  to  wear  their  sapphire  crowns 
And  wield  their  little  tridents.     But  this  Isle, 

of  the  Cambridge  MS.,  as  the  author's  1  Iu  the  Cambridge  MS.,  as  in  the 

original   copy,  and  with  that  of  the  printed  copies,  the  Spirit  begins  with 

Bridgewater  MS.,  as  the  stage-copy.  the  speech  "Before  the  starry  thres- 

Todd  printed  the    Bridgewater   copy  hold,"   &c.  ;    but  in   the   Bridgewater 

entire  at  the  end  of  his  separate  edition  MS.  he  begins  with  a  song  before  the 

of  Comus  in  1798  ;  and  he  has  given  speech,  —  the  song  consisting  of  twenty 

lists  of  the  various  readings  from  both  lines  taken  from  the  epilogue  of  the 

the  MS.  copies  in  his  notes  appended  masque  as  it   stands   in    the   printed 

to  Comus  in  his  collective  edition  of  copies,  and  altered  for  use  thus  :  — 


s  T  hy't  , 

been  spoken.     In  describing  the  action  This  (which  is  the  greatest  difference 

of  the    masque,  however,  I   have    at-  between  the  Bridgewater  copy  and  the 

tended  to  the  stage-directions  of  the  others)  was  probably  an  alteration  by 

Bridgewater  copy,  as  well  as  to  those  of  Lawes  for  stage  purposes,  —  i.  e.  in  order 

the  printed  copies,  —  the  former,  as  is  to  have  a  song  near  the  beginning  of 

natural  in  a  stage-copy,  being  slightly  the  masque.     Poetically  the  alteration 

the  more  full.  was  bad. 


COMUS.  61 3 

The  greatest  and  the  best  of  all  the  main, 

He  quarters  to  his  blue-haired  deities  ; 

And  all  this  tract  that  fronts  the  falling  sun 

A  noble  Peer  of  mickle  trust  and  power 

Has  in  his  charge,  with  tempered  awe  to  guide 

An  old  and  haughty  nation,  proud  in  arms  : 

Where  his  fair  offspring,  nursed  in  princely  lore, 

Are  coming  to  attend  their  father's  state 

And  new-entrusted  sceptre.     But  their  way 

Lies  through  the  perplexed  paths  of  this  drear  wood, 

The  nodding  horror  of  whose  shady  brows 

Threats  the  forlorn  and  wandering  passenger  ; 

And  here  their  tender  age  might  suffer  peril, 

But  that,  by  quick  command  from  sovran  Jove, 

I  was  despatched  for  their  defence  and  guard  : 

And  listen  why  ;  for  I  will  tell  you  now 

What  never  yet  was  heard  in  tale  or  song, 

From  old  or  modern  bard,  in  hall  or  bower. 

The  reason  is  that  the  wood  is  inhabited  by  Conms  and 
his  crew.  Comus,  the  god  of  riot  and  sensual  delirium, 
the  son  of  Bacchus  and  Circe,  having  long  ago  betaken 
himself  to  these  gloomy  haunts,  fills  them  now  with  his 
nightly  revels,  and  waylays  travellers,  that  he  may  induce 
them  to  drink  an  enchanted  liquor  from  his  crystal  glass,  and 
so  may  change  their  countenances  into  the  faces  of  beasts. 
It  is  to  save  the  young  travellers  of  that  night  from  the 
danger  that  the  speaker  has  been  sent  down. 

But  first  I  must  put  off 
These  my  sky-robes,  spun  out  of  Iris'  woof, 
And  take  the  weeds  and  likeness  of  a  swain 
That  to  the  service  of  this  house  belongs, 
Who,  with  his  soft  pipe  and  smooth  -dittied  song, 
Well  knows  to  still  the  wild  woods  when  they  roar, 
And  hush  the  waving  woods  ;  nor  of  less  faith, 
And  in  this  office  of  his  mountain-watch 
Likeliest,  and  nearest  to  the  present  aid 
Of  this  occasion. ' 

At  this  point  the  Attendant  Spirit,  hearing  approaching 
footsteps,  makes  himself  invisible,  and  "  Comus  enters,  with 
a  charming-rod  in  one  hand,  his  glass  in  the  other  ;  with  him 

1  Note  here  Milton's  compliment  to  of  his  musical  talent,  but  also  of  his 
Lawes  personally,  not  only  in  respect  integrity. 


611  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

a  rout  of  monsters,  headed  like  sundry  sorts  of  wild  beasts, 
but  otherwise  like  men  and  women,  their  apparel  glistering. 
They  come  in,  making  a  riotous  and  unruly  noise,  with  torches 
in  their  hands."  Comus  then  recites  an  ode,  calling  upon 
his  companions  to  perform,  while  the  night  lasts,  their  usual 
revels, 

Ere  the  blabbing  eastern  scout, 

The  nice  Morn  on  the  Indian  steep, 

From  her  cabined  loop-hole  peep, 

And  to  the  tell-tale  sun  descry 

Our  concealed  solemnity. 

Obedient  to  Comus,  the  crew  knit  hands  and  dance.  While 
they  are  so  engaged,  Comus,  hearing  a  light  footstep,  bids 
them  break  off  and  conceal  themselves  among  the  trees.  By 
his  art  he  knows  that  the  approaching  step  is  that  of  some 
benighted  virgin ;  and,  hurling  his  magic  dust  into  the  air, 
in  order  to  cheat  her  vision  ("  dazzling  spells  "  is  the  phrase, 
implying  perhaps  a  blaze  of  blue  light  as  the  actor  made 
the  gesture  of  throwing),  he  remains  alone  to  meet  her. 
He  does  not  present  himself  at  once,  however,  but  steps 
aside. 

"  The  Lady  enters," — the  Lady  Alice  Egerton,  a  little 
timid,  doubtless,  but  wonderfully  welcomed  by  the  audience. 
She  speaks  a  speech  explaining  how  she  has  come  thither. 
She  had  been  walking  through  the  wood  with  her  two 
brothers ;  and,  as  she  had  grown  weary  with  the  long  way, 
they  had  resolved  to  rest  for  the  night  under  some  pine- 
trees.  Her  brothers  had  gone  into  the  neighbouring  thicket 
to  bring  her  berries  or  such  cooling  fruit. 

They  left  me  then  when  the  grey-hooded  Even, 

Like  a  sad  votarist  in  palmer's  weed, 

Rose  from  the  hindmost  wheels  of  Phoebus'  wain. 

It  is  now  midnight,  and  they  have  not  returned.  Wandering 
in  search  of  them,  she  has  been  attracted  to  this  particular 
spot  in  the  wood  by  the  sounds  of  wassail  and  merriment. 
She  supposes  it  to  be  a  company  of  "  loose  unlettered  hinds  " 
dancing  to  Pan  in  honour  of  harvest,  and  so  "  thanking  the 
gods  amiss";  and,  though  loth  to  meet  such  revellers,  she 


COM  us.  615 

has  no  choice  left.  And  now,  having  come  to  the  spot 
whence  she  heard  the  revelry,  it  is  all  dark  and  silent. 
What  can  it  mean  ?  A  thousand  fancies  of  shapes,  and 
beckoning  shadows,  and  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's 
names,  crowd  on  her  bewildered  sense.  These  may  well 
startle,  but  they  cannot  astound  a  virtuous  mind. 

0  welcome,  pure-eyed  Faith,  white-handed  Hope, 
Thou  hovering  Angel,  girt  with  golden  wings  ; 
And  thou,  unblemished  form  of  Chastity ! 

1  see  ye  visibly,  and  now  believe 

That  He,  the  Supreme  Good,  to  whom  all  things  ill 
Are  but  as  slavish  officers  of  vengeance, 
Would  send  a  glistering  guardian,  if  need  were, 
To  keep  my  life  and  honour  unassailed .... 
Was  I  deceived,  or  did  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night  I 
I  did  not  err  :  there  does  a  sable  cloud 
Turn  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night, 
And  casts  a  gleam  over  this  tufted  grove. 

Cheered  by  the  gleam,  and  thinking  her  brothers  may  be 
near,  she  will  gain  their  ear  by  a  song.  Here,  therefore,  in 
the  masque,  is  the  song  beginning  "  Sweet  Echo."  l 

The  song  ended,  Comus,  who  has  been  listening  in  ad 
miration,  steps  forth  disguised  as  a  shepherd,  and  hails  her 
as  a  foreign  wonder,  or  the  goddess  of  the  wood,  saving  it 
from  harm  by  the  spell  of  her  voice.  Declining  the  praise, 
she  explains  why  she  had  sung.  Comus  says  he  has  seen 
her  brothers,  and  offers  to  conduct  her  in  the  direction  in 
which  they  had  gone,  and  either  find  them  or  lodge  her 
safely  in  a  lowly  cottage  where  she  may  be  safe  till  morn 
ing.  She  accepts  the  offer,  and  Comus  and  she  quit  the 
scene. 

They  are  hardly  gone  when  the  Two  Brothers  enter.  Be 
wildered  in  the  thick  darkness  themselves,  they  are  most 
concerned  for  their  sister.  The  Younger  Brother  expresses 

1  In  the   printed  copies  this   song,  of  Lawes's  original  music  to  five  of  the 

beginning  "Sweet   Echo,"  is  ihe  first  songs   of    Comus,    in    this   order:—!, 

song  in  the  masque ;  but  in  the  per-  "  From  the  heavens,"  &c. ;  2.  "  Sweet 

formauce  at  Ludlow  it  was  the  second.  Echo,"  &c. ;  3.  "  Sabrina  fair,"  &c. ;  4. 

(See  previous  note,  p.  612.)      I   may  "  Back,    Shepherds,"    &c. ;     5.   "  Now 

mention  that  there  is  in  the  British  my  task,"  &c. 
Museum  (Add.  MS.  11,518)  an  old  copy  - 


616  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

fear  for  her  fate,  and  the  Elder  Brother  comforts  him.  If 
there  is  no  other  danger  than  the  darkness,  what  is  there  to 
dread  in  that  ? 

He  that  lias  light  within  his  own  clear  breast 
May  sit  i'  the  centre  and  enjoy  bright  day  ; 
But  he  that  hides  a  dark  soul  and  foul  thoughts 
Benighted  walks  under  the  mid- day  sun  ; 
Himself  is  his  own  dungeon. 

Without  denying  this,  the  Younger  Brother  replies  that  in 
the  case  of  a  young  maiden  wandering  alone  there  are  special 
dangers.  The  elder,  not  professing  that  he  is  quite  free  from 
all  fear  on  his  sister's  account,  maintains  that  against  even 
these  she  is  armed  and  safe.  His  reasons  he  expounds  in  a 
speech  011  the  miraculous  power  of  Chastity,  so  eloquent  in 
its  force  as  to  win  from  the  other  the  exclamation, 

How  charming  is  divine  philosophy  ! 

Not  harsh  and  crabbed,  as  dull  fools  suppose, 

But  musical  as  is  Apollo's  lute. 

They  hear  a  far-off  halloa  in  the  wood,  and  surmise  it  to  be 
some  benighted  traveller  like  themselves,  or  some  late  wood 
man,  but,  lest  it  should  be  a  robber,  stand  on  their  defence 
as  they  return  the  cry.1 

There  is  no  need  of  their  swords.  The  voice  they  have 
heard  is  that  of  Thyrsis,  their  father's  faithful  shepherd ;  who 
now  appears,  or  rather  the  Attendant  Spirit  in  the  guise  of  ' 
Thyrsis.  He  alarms  both  the  brothers  more  than  before  by 
telling  them  of  the  true  dangers  of  the  wood.  But  lately,  he 
says,  musing  on  a  bank  by  himself,  he  had  heard  the  bar 
barous  roar  of  Comus  and  his  crew,  out  on  their  monstrous 
revels.  Suddenly  the  roar  had  ceased,  and  all  was  silence  as 
he  listened. 

At  last  a  soft  and  solemn-breathing  sound 
Kose  like  a  steam  of  rich  distilled  perfumes, 
And  stole  upon  the  air,  that  even  Silence 
Was  took  ere  she  was  ware,  and  wished  she  might 

1  The  speakers  who  have  talked  so  then  common,  and  Lord  Brackley  and 

nobly,  be  it  remembered,  and  who  now  Mr.  Thomas  Egerton  were,  doubtless, 

draw  their  swords  so  manfully,  are  two  forward  in  their  parts, 
young  boys.     But  juvenile  acting  was 


COMUS.  617 

Deny  her  nature,  and  be  never  more, 
Still  to  be  so  displaced.     I  was  all  ear, 
And  took  in  strains  that  might  create  a  soul 
Under  the  ribs  of  Death. 

It  was  the  song  of  the  young  lady,  and  he  had  recognised 
her  voice.  Alive  to  her  peril  so  near  the  enchanter  and  his 
crew,  he  had  run  to  the  spot ;  but,  ere  he  had  reached  it, 
the  enchanter  had  been  there  and  had  lured  the  lady  away. 
Such  being  the  report,  the  younger  brother  loses  the  con 
fidence  the  elder  one  had  given  him,  and  tells  him  so.  The 
elder  re-asserts  his  faith  : — 

Not  a  period 

Shall  be  unsaid  for  me.    Against  the  threats 
Of  malice  or  of  sorcery,  or  that  power 
Which  erring  men  call  Chance,  this  I  hold  firm  : — 
Virtue  may  be  assailed,  but  never  hurt, 
Surprised  by  unjust  force,  but  not  enthralled  ; 
Yea,  even  that  which  Mischief  meant  most  harm 
Shall  in  the  happy  trial  prove  most  glory. 
But  evil  on  itself  shall  back  recoil, 
And  mix  no  more  with  goodness,  when  at  last, 
Gathered  like  scum,  and  settled  to  itself, 
It  shall  be  in  eternal  restless  change 
Self-fed  and  self-consumed.     If  this  fail, 
The  pillared  firmament  is  rottenness, 
And  earth's  base  built  on  stubble. 

He  is  for  rushing  at  once  to  the  haunt  of  the  magician  and 
dragging  him  to  death.  The  seeming  Thyrsis  interposes ; 
warns  him  that  the  sorcerer,  by  his  craft,  is  safe  against 
ordinary  weapons,  and  can  reduce  to  sudden  weakness  the 
boldest  assailant ;  and  then,  being  questioned  how  in  that 
case  he  durst  himself  approach  him,  explains  : — 

Care  and  utmost  shifts 
How  to  secure  the  lady  from  surprisal 
Brought  to  my  mind  a  certain  shepherd-lad, 
Of  small  regard  to  see  to,  yet  well  skilled 
In  every  virtuous  plant  and  healing  herb 
That  spreads  her  verdant  leaf  to  the  morning  ray. 
He  loved  me  well,  and  oft  would  beg  me  sing  ; 
Which  when  I  did,  he  on  the  tender  grass 
Would  sit,  and  hearken  even  to  ecstasy, 
And  in  requital  ope  his  leathern  scrip, 


618  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    O?    HIS    TIME. 

And  show  me  simples  of  a  thousand  names, 
Telling  their  strange  and  vigorous  faculties. 

Of  one  precious  plant,  called  Hcemony,  the  learned  lad  had 
given  him  a  portion,  instructing  him  in  its  power  to  ward 
off  enchantments.  By  the  power  of  the  plant  he  had  ven 
tured  near  the  sorcerer  with  impunity ;  and  he  now  proposes 
that,  with  the  same  help,  all  three  should  confront  him  in 
his  hall  of  necromancy,,  break  his  glass,  spill  his  magic 
liquor,  and  seize  his  wand.  The  brothers  agree  and  follow 
Thyrsis. 

At  this  point,  according  to  the  stage-directions,  "  the  scene 
changes  to  a  stately  palace,  set  out  with  all  manner  of  delicious- 
ness  :  soft  music,  tables  spread  with  all  dainties.  COMUS 
appears  with  his  rabble,  and  THE  LADY  set  in  an  enchanted 
chair;  to  ivhom  he  offers  his  glass;  which  she  puts  by  and 
goes  about  to  rise."  The  sorcerer  reminds  her  that  she  is 
chained  as  a  statue  of  alabaster,  and  presses  her  to  refresh 
herself  from  the  glass,  the  liquor  in  which  is  more  lively 
than  nectar.  She  refuses  in  disdain,  and  upbraids  the 
sorcerer  with  his  falsehood.  Then  ensues  the  matchless 
dialogue  between  him  and  her,  the  Miltonic  argument  of 
sensuality  against  abstinence  in  the  person  of  Comus,  and  of 
temperance  in  return  against  sensuality  in  the  person  of  the 
Lady.  Her  pleading  ends  in  the  rebuke  : — 

Thou  hast  nor  ear,  nor  soul,  to  apprehend 

The  sublime  notion  and  high  mystery 

That  must  be  uttered  to  unfold  the  sage 

And  serious  doctrine  of  Virginity  ; 

And  thou  art  worthy  that  thou  shouldst  not  know 

More  happiness  than  this  thy  present  lot. 

The  sorcerer,  awed,  but  not  baffled,  dissembles  his  craft 
more  strongly,  and  prays  her  but  to  taste.  He  has  lifted 
the  glass  towards  her  mouth  when  "  THE  BROTHERS  rush  in 
with  swords  drawn,  ivrest  his  glass  out  of  his  hand,  and  break 
it  against  the  ground.  His  rout  make  sign  of  resistance,  but 
are  driven  in.  The  Attendant  Spirit  comes  in"  The  brothers 
have  neglected  to  seize  the  wizard's  wand  ;  and,  the  wizard 
having  escaped,  the  Lady  is  still  marble-bound  to  the  chair, 


COMUS.  619 

whence  tlie  compelled  motion  of  his  wand  would  have 
released  her.  But  Thyrsis  has  a  device  in  reserve.  This 
is  to  invoke  the  aid  of  Sabrina,  the  goddess  of  the  neigh 
bouring  river,  the  far-famed  Severn.  Did  not  British 
legends  tell  how  the  virgin  Sabrina,  daughter  of  Locrine, 
the  son  of  Brutus,  fleeing  from  her  enraged  step-dame 
Guendolen,  flung  herself,  to  preserve  her  honour,  into  the 
stream  which  now  bore  her  name  ?  Now  that  she  was  god 
dess  of  the  river,  who  so  ready  to  succour  maidenhood  ? 
Only  let  her  presence  be  adjured  by  some  suitable  song. 
Such  a  song  Thyrsis  himself  sings  : — 

Sabrina  fair, 

Listen  where  tkou  art  sitting, 
Under  the  glassy,  cool,  translucent  wave, 

In  twisted  braids  of  lilies  knitting 
The  loose  train  of  thy  amber-dropping  hair  : 

Listen,  for  dear  honour's  sake, 

Goddess  of  the  silver  lake  ; 
Listen  and  save ! 

The  lyric  prolongs  itself  in  an  ode  continuing  the  adjuration  ; 
at  the  close  of  which  "Sabrina  rises  (i.e.  from  under  the 
stage),  attended  by  Water-Nymphs,  and  sings," 

By  the  rushy-fringed  bank, 

Where  grows  the  willow  and  the  osier  dank, 

My  sliding  chariot  stays, 
Thick-set  with  agate,  and  the  azurn  sheen 
Of  turkis  blue,  and  emerald  green, 

That  in  the  channel  strays  ; 
Whilst  from  off  the  waters  fleet 
Thus  I  set  my  printless  feet 
O'er  the  cowslip's  velvet  head, 

That  bends  not  as  I  tread. 
Gentle  swain,  at  thy  request 
I  am  here  ! 

Thyrsis  tells  why  Sabrina  has  been  summoned  ;  and  she  per 
forms  the  expected  office  by  sp'rinkling  drops  of  pure  water 
on  the  Lady,  touching  thrice  her  finger's  tip  and  her  lips, 
and  placing  her  hands  on  the  chair.  Then  "  SABRINA  descends, 
cwtZ.THE  LADY  rises  out  of  her  seat."  Thyrsis  then,  relapsing 
in  manner  into  the  Attendant  Spirit,  pronounces  an  ode 


620  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

of  blessing  on  the  Severn  river  for  this  service  done  by 
the  goddess,  and  offers  to  conduct  the  party  to  safer 
ground. 

I  shall  be  your  f aitliful  guide 

Through  this  gloomy  covert  wide  ; 

And  not  many  furlongs  thence 

Is  your  Father's  residence, 

Where  this  night  are  met  in  state 

Many  a  friend  to  gratulate 

His  wished  presence,  and  beside 

All  the  swains  that  there  abide. 

With  jigs  and  rural  dance  resort. 

We  shall  catch  them  at  their  sport, 

And  our  sudden  coming  there 

Will  double  all  their  mirth  and  cheer. 

Come,  let  us  haste  ;  the  stars  grow  high. 

But  Night  sits  monarch  yet  in  the  mid  sky. 

Here  they  go  off,  and  "  The  scene  changes, presenting  Ludlow 
Town  and  the  President's  Castle.  Then  come  in  Country 
Dancers :  after  them  THE  ATTENDANT  SPIRIT,  with  the  Two 
BROTHERS  and  THE  LADY."  The  Attendant  Spirit  sings  a 
short  song,  bidding  the  shepherds  cease  their  dancing; 
advances  with  the  lady  and  her  brothers ;  and  then  "  This 
second  song  presents  them  to  their  Father  and  Mother :  " — 

Noble  Lord  and  Lady  bright, 
I  have  brought  ye  new  delight. 
Here  behold  so  goodly  grown 
Three  fair  branches  of  your  own. 
Heaven  hath  timely  tried  their  youth, 
Their  faith,  their  patience,  and  their  truth, 
And  sent  them  here  through  hard  assays 
With  a  crown  of  deathless  praise, 
To  triumph  in  victorious  dance 
O'er  sensual  folly  and  intemperance. 

There  is  then  more  dancing ;  and,  "  the  dances  being  ended , 
the  Spirit  epiloguizes,"  slowly  ascending  and  swaying  to  and 
fro  as  he  sings  the  final  song : — 

But  now  my  task  is  smoothly  done  : 

I  can  fly,  or  I  can  run 

Quickly  to  the  green  earth's  end, 

Where  the  bowed  welkin  slow  doth  bend, 


COMUS.  621 

And  from  thence  can  soar  as  soon 
To  the  corners  of  the  moon. 
Mortals  that  would  follow  me, 
Love  Virtue  ;  she  alone  is  free. 
She  can  teach  ye  how  to  climb 
Higher  than  the  sphery  chime  ; 
Or,  if  Virtue  feeble  were, 
Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her. 

With  these  sounds  left  on  the  ear,  and  a  final  glow  of  angelic 
light  on  the  eye,  the  performance  ends,  and  the  audience 
rises  and  disperses  through  the  castle.  The  castle  is  now  a 
crumbling  ruin,  along  the  ivy-clad  walls  and  through  the 
dark  passages  of  which  the  visitor  clambers  or  gropes  his 
way,  disturbing  the  crows  and  the  martlets  in  their  recesses ; 
but  one  can  stand  yet  in  the  doorway  through  which  the 
parting  guests  of  that  night  descended  into  the  inner  court ; 
and  one  can  see  where  the  stage  was,  on  which  the  sister  was 
losfc  by  her  brothers,  and  Comus  revelled  with  his  crew,  and 
the  lady  was  fixed  as  marble  by  enchantment,  and  Sabrina 
arose  with  her  water-nymphs,  and  the  swains  danced  in 
welcome  of  the  earl,  and  the  Spirit  ascended  gloriously  to 
his  native  heaven.  More  mystic  it  is  to  leave  the  ruins,  and, 
descending  one  Jpf  Jbhe  winding  streets  that  lead  from  the 
castle  into  the  valley  of  the  Teme,  to  look  upwards  to  castle 
and  town  seen  as  one  picture,  and,  marking  more  expressly 
the  three  long  pointed  windows  that  gracefully  slit  the  chief 
face  of  the  wall  towards  the  north,  to  realize  that  it  was  from 
that  ruin  and  from  those  windows  in  the  ruin  that  the  verse 
of  Comus  was  first  shaken  into  the  air  of  England. 

Much  as  Milton  wrote  afterwards,  he  never  wrote  anything 
more  beautiful  or  more  perfect  than  Comus.  Let  it  be  com 
pared  with  Shirley's  masque  or  Carew's  masque  of  the  pre 
ceding  year,  or  even  with  any  of  Ben  Jonson's  masques, — 
the  last  of  which  was  one  acted  before  the  King  and  Queen 
at  the  Earl  of  Newcastle's  seat  of  Bolsover,  July  30,  1634, 
while  Comus  may  have  been  in  rehearsal, — and  it  will  be 
seen  that,  if  Milton  did  not  intend  to  prove  by  this  one 
example,  against  all  preceding  or  contemporary  masque- 


G22  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

writers,  what  the  pure  poetry  and  the  pure  morality  of  a 
masque  might  be,  he  had  accomplished  the  feat  without 
intending  it.  Critics  have  pointed  out  that,  in  writing 
Comus, lie  must  have  had  analogous  pieces  by  some  previous 
writers  before  him.  They  specify  more  particularly  The  Old 
Wives'  Tale  of  the  dramatist  Peele  (1595),  Fletcher's  pastoral 
of  the  Faithful  Shepherdess,  which  had  been  revived  in 
1633-4,  Ben  Jonson's  masque  of  Pleasure  reconciled  to 
Virtue  (1619),  in  which  Comus  or  the  God  of  Good  Cheer 
is  one  of  the  characters,  and  a  Latin  extravaganza  in  prose 
and  verse,  entitled  CWiw,9,bythe  Dutchman  Erycius  Puteanus, 
alias  Hendrik  van  der  Putten,  originally  published  at  Louvain 
in  1608,  and  republished  at  Oxford  in  1634.  Coincidences 
are  undoubtedly  discernible  between  Comus  and  these  com 
positions,  especially  the  Latin  extravaganza  of  the  Dutch 
author.  Infinitely  too  much  has  been  made,  however,  of 
such  coincidences.  After  any  or  all  of  the  pieces  named,  or 
any  others  that  can  be  named^the  feeling  in  reading  Milton's 
masque  is  that  it  is  all  his  own,  and  his  own  only,  a  thing  abso 
lutely  and  essentially  Miltonic,  without  precedent  or  approach 
to  precedent  in  English  or  in  any  other  language.  The 
peculiarity  consists  no  less  in  the  power  and  purity  of  the 
doctrine  than  in  the  exquisite  mythological  invention  and 
the  perfection  of  the  literary  finish.  Doctrine  and  poetry 
together,  this  one  performance  ought  to  have  been  sufficient, 
as  Hallam  remarked,  "  to  convince  any  one  of  taste  and 
"  feeling  that  a  great  poet  had  arisen  in  England,  and  one 
"  partly  formed  in  a  different  school  from  his  contempo- 
"raries."  The  words  are  as  just  as  they  are  carefully 
weighed. 

There  may  have  been  good  judges  of  poetry  present  at 
the  performance,  and  we  know  that  rumours  of  its  excellence 
did  gradually  travel  from  Ludlow  to  other  parts,  raising 
curiosity  as  to  the  name  and  the  circumstances  of  the  author. 
Originally,  however,  the  masque  was  anonymous;  and,  ex 
cept  to  Lawes,  and  perhaps  to  the  Bridgewater  family  and 
a  few  others,  the  author  remained  for  the  present  unknown. 
This  is  not  unimportant  in  connexion  with  a  question  which 


LETTER  TO  ALEXANDER  GILL.  623 

may  have  occurred  to  the  reader.  Was  Milton  present  at 
the  performance  of  his  own  masque  ?  Wherever  he  wrote 
it,  he  had  certainly  conceived  with  sufficient  clearness  the 
exact  occasion  for  which  it  was  intended,  and  had  not  failed 
in  the  introduction  of  appropriate  local  circumstances,  such 
as  the  proximity  of  Wales  to  Ludlow  and  the  love  of  the 
people  of  Shropshire  and  other  western  counties  for  their 
river  Severn.  But  did  he  take  the  journey  of  150  miles  to 
be  present  at  the  festivity  of  the  Viceroy  ?  If  so,  we  should 
have,  as  a  fact  in  Milton's  life,  a  journey  into  Shropshire  in 
the  autumn  of  1634,  with  visits,  of  course,  to  places  around 
Ludlow.  We  should  have  to  imagine  a  visit  to  Shrewsbury, 
whence  the  .Phillipses  had  come,  an  excursion  perhaps  to 
Cheshire  and  the  banks  of  the  Dee,  where  his  friend  Diodati 
had  lived  for  some  time,  or  even  perhaps  a  ramble  in  Lanca 
shire  and  in  parts  of  Wales.  This  is  a  region  of  England, 
at  all  events,  with  which  the  total  life  of  Milton  contains 
numerous  associations. 

If  Milton  did  make  a  journey  to  the  north-west  of  England 
at  the  time  of  the  performance  of  his  masque  at  Ludlow,  he 
was  back  again  at  Hortoii  before  the  4th  of  December,  1634, 
for  on  that  day  we  find  him  writing  thence  the  following- 
Latin  letter  to  the  younger  Gill.  It  is  in  acknowledgment 
of  a  copy  of  some  new  poetical  composition  just  received  from 
that  gentleman : — 

To  ALEXANDER  GILL. 

"  If  you  had  presented  to  me  a  gift  of  gold,  or  of  preciously  em 
bossed  vases,  or  whatever  of  that  sort  mortals  admire,  it  were  cer 
tainly  to  my  shame  not  to  have  some  time  or  other  made  yon  a 
remuneration  in  return,  as  far  as  my  faculties  might  serve.  Your  gift 
of  the  day  before  yesterday,  however,  having  been  such  a  sprightly 
and  elegant  set  of  Hendecasyllabics,  you  have,  just  in  proportion  to 
the  superiority  of  that  gift  to  anything  in  the  form  of  gold,  made  us  the 
more  anxious  to  find  some  dainty  means  by  which  to  repay  the  kind 
ness  of  so  pleasant  a  favour.  We  had,  indeed,  at  hand  some  things 
of  our  own  of  this  same  kind,  but  such  as  I  could  nowise  deem  fit  to 
be  sent  in  contest  of  equality  of  gift  with  yours.  I  send,  therefore, 
what  is  not  exactly  mine,  but  belongs  also  to  the  truly  divine  poet, 


624  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

this  ode  of  whom,  only  last  week,  with  no  deliberate  intention  cer 
tainly,  but  from  I  know  not  what  sudden  impulse  before  daybreak,  I 
adapted,  almost  in  bed,  to  the  rule  of  Greek  heroic  verse  :  with  the 
effect,  it  seems,  that,  relying  on  this  coadjutor,  who  surpasses  you  no 
less  in  his  subject  than  you  surpass  me  in  art,  I  should  have  some- 
thing  that  might  have  a  resemblance  of  approach  to  a  balancing  of 
accounts.  Should  anything  meet  you  in  it  not  coming  up  to  your 
usual  opinion  of  our  productions,  understand  that,  since  I  left  your 
school,  this  is  the  first  and  only  thing  I  have  composed  in  Greek, — 
employing  myself,  as  you  know,  more  willingly  in  Latin  and  English 
matters  ;  inasmuch  as  whoever  spends  study  and  pains  in  this  age  on 
Greek  composition  runs  a  risk  of  singing  mostly  to  the  deaf.  Fare 
well,  and  expect  me  on  Monday  (if  God  will)  in  London  among  the 
booksellers.  Meanwhile,  if  with  such  influence  of  friendship  as  you 
have  with  that  Doctor,  the  annual  President  of  the  College,  you  can 
anything  promote  our  business,  take  the  trouble,  I  pray,  to  go  to  him 
as  soon  as  possible  in  my  behalf.  Again  farewell. 

From  our  suburban  residence  (E  nostro  suburbano}),  Decemb.  4, 
1634." 

The  composition  which  accompanied  this  letter  was  a  trans 
lation  into  Greek  hexameters  of  the  114th  Psalm,  the  very 
psalm  the    translation   of   which  into  English  is  the    first 
known  composition  of  Milton's  boyhood.     The  verdict  pro- 
-'Mmced  on  the  translation  by  competent  critics  is  that  it  is 
rior  to  the  Greek  version  of  the  same  psalm  by  James 
)rt,  Milton's  contemporary  and  Professor  of  Greek  at 
bridge,  "has   more  vigour/'   but   "is  not  wholly  free 
Irom  inaccuracies."  2     The  general  conclusion  from  this,  as 
from  one  or  two  other  short  Greek  compositions  of  Milton, 
is  that,  however  familiar  he  was  with  Greek  as  a  reader  of 
the   Greek  classics,  his  Greek   scholarship  was  much   less 
exact  and  thorough   than  his  Latin.     This,  however,  was 
almost  universally  the  case  in  Milton's  time. 

THE  YEAR  1635:  MILTON  MTAT.  27. 

The  only  known  incident  in  Milton's  life  during  this  year 
is  his  incorporation  in  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  at 
Oxford.  It  was  then  the  custom,  as  we  have  seen,  for  men 
who  had  been  educated  at  either  of  the  English  Universities, 

1  See  previous  note,  p.  561.  by  Dr.  Charles  Barney  (1757 — 1827), 

2  Criticism  on  Milton's  Greek  verses       quoted  by  Todd. 


MILTON'S  INCORPORATION  AT  OXFORD.  625 

and  who  were  so  situated  as  to  desire  to  keep  up  their 
academic  connexions,  to  apply,  after  some  little  lapse  of 
time,  for  admission  into  the  other  University  in  the  same 
degree  as  that  which  they  had  previously  attained  in  their 
Alma  Mater.  Every  year  Cambridge  "incorporated"  in 
this  manner  some  thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  Oxford  men,  and 
every  year  Oxford  returned  the  compliment  by  "  incorporat 
ing  "  about  as  many  Cambridge  men, — both  Universities  at 
the  same  time  usually  "incorporating"  also  a  few  stray 
Scots  from  St.  Andrews,  Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  or  Aberdeen, 
or  foreigners  from  continental  Universities.  As  Milton,  at 
Horton,  was  within  thirty-six  miles  of  Oxford,  while  he  was 
more  than  sixty  miles  distant  from  his  own  University  of 
Cambridge,  there  may  have  been  peculiar  conveniences  in 
an  Oxford  incorporation  in  his  case.  At  all  events,  the 
necessary  steps  were  taken,  and  his  incorporation  took  place 
duly.  It  is  interesting  to  record  that  among  those  who 
were  incorporated  along  with  him  was  Jeremy  Taylor  of 
Caius.  Taylor,  who  had  graduated  M.A.  at  Cambridge  the 
year  after  Milton,  was  now  attracting  notice  as  an  eloquent 
young  preacher,  and  was  about  to  be  more  intimately  con 
nected  with  Oxford  by  his  nomination  in  1636,  by  Laud's 
influence,  to  a  fellowship  in  All  Souls'  College.1 

Milton's  incorporation  in  the  M.A.  degree  at  Oxford  in 
1635  may  have  afforded  him  an  opportunity  of  forming  some 
acquaintance  for  himself,  if  such  acquaintance  still  remained 
to  be  formed,  with  Oxford  and  its  neighbourhood.  In  the 
University  there  were  men  whom  it  must  have  pleased  him 
to  see  or  to  meet.  Among  the  twenty-five  heads  of  Colleges 
the  most  distinguished  perhaps  were  Dr.  John  Prideaux, 
Rector  of  Exeter  College,  anti-Laudian  in  his  views,  and 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Worcester,  Accepted  Frewen,  D.D., 
President  of  Magdalen,  and  afterwards  Bishop  of  Lichfield 
and  Archbishop  of  York,  and  Dr.  Brian  Duppa,  Dean  of 

1  The  fact  of  Milton's  incorporation  that   and  adjacent    years),  but    from 

at  Oxford  in  1635  is  not  learnt  from  Wood's  Fasti.    Wood's  informant,  he 

the  University  books  (in  which,  from  tells   us,  had  the   fact  from   Milton's 

the   carelessness  of    the  person   then  "own  mouth."     Taylor's  incorporation 

acting  as  .Registrar,  the  incorporations  in  that  year  is  certain, 
from  Cambridge   are   not  entered   for 

VOL.    I.                                                S  S 


626  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

Christ  Church,  afterwards  tutor  to  Prince  Charles,  and 
Bishop  of  two  sees.  There  were,  however,  many  other 
eminent  scholars  in  Oxford  of  whom  Milton  had  heard  and 
in  whom  he  may  have  been  interested.  Some  of  these  may 
have  been  of  Trinity  College,  the  college  of  his  friend  Gill 
and  also  of  Charles  Diodati.  In  all  probability,  however, 
the  most  agreeable  and  useful  acquaintance  that  Milton  at 
this  time  formed  at  Oxford  was  with  John  Rous,  M<A., 
fellow  of  Oriel  College,  and  chief  librarian  of  the  Bodleian. 
That  Milton  knew  Rous  familiarly  afterwards  is  certain. 

Besides  the  incorporation  at  Oxford,  there  was  another 
event  of  the  year  1635  of  some  collateral  interest  to  Milton. 
On  the  1  7th  of  November  in  that  year  old  Mr.  Gill  died,  in 
his  house  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  in  the  seventy-first  year 
of  his  age,  having  survived  but  by  a  month  or  two  the  publica 
tion  of  his  folio  volume  called  "  Sacred  Philosophie  of  Holy 
Scripture,  or  Commentary  on  the  Creed."1  He  was  buried 
in  the  Mercers'  Chapel  ;  and  his  son  was  appointed  by  the 
Mercers'  Company  to  succeed  him  as  Head-  Master  of  St. 
Paul's  School.  This  promotion  was  a  considerable  rise  in 
the  world  for  Gill  ;  and  in  the  following  year  he  was 
admitted  D.D.  at  Oxford.2 

THE  YEAR  1636  :  MILTON  ^TAT.  28. 


Through  nearly  the  whole  of  this  year  England  was  under 
alarm  on  account  of  a  return  of  the  Plague.  As  early  as 
April  there  was  a  royal  proclamation  renewing  former 
sanitary  regulations  over  the  kingdom  ;  and  during  the  rest 
of  the  year  there  were  additional  proclamations,  adjourning 
the  law-courts  in  Westminster,  prohibiting  fairs  in  London 
and  elsewhere,  appointing  days  of  general  fast,  and  the  like. 
The  Plague  did  not  at  once  spread  to  the  extent  that  had 
been  anticipated.  We  hear  of  it  as  in  London  from  the 
month  of  July  onwards,  and  as  still  persisting  there  and  in 
the  neighbourhood  to  the  end  of  the  year  ;  but  Cambridge 
and  other  towns  and  districts  which  had  suffered  so  much 

i  The  work  is  registered  in  the  books  of  the  Stationers'  Company  under  date 
May  29,  1635.  2  Wood,  Athense,  III.  42. 


LAWSUIT   AGAINST   MILTON'S    FATHER.  627 

from  the  preceding  visit  of  1630  remained  quite  free  for 
the  present,  or  escaped  with  a  few  stray  cases.  As  Coin- 
brook  and  Horton  were  similarly  exempt  through  the  whole 
of  1636,  the  Milton  family  must  have  been  much  safer  at 
Horton  that  year  than  they  would  have  been  in  London.1 

A  very  disagreeable  communication  from  London,  hardly 
less  perturbing  than  a  case  of  the  Plague  would  have  been, 
did  reach  the  retired  scrivener  at  Horton  that  year  and  vex 
him  and  his  household.  It  came  in  the  form  of  an  action  at 
law.  The  records  of  this  action,  which  may  be  entitled 
Cotton  versus  Milton  and  Bower,  still  exist  in  the  Public 
Record  Office  and  the  British  Museum,  dispersed  among 
books  and  papers  that  belonged  to  the  old  Court  of  Requests 
at  Westminster;  and  the  story,  as  gathered  from  these 
records,  begins  thus  : — In  May  1636  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  of 
Sawtrey  in  the  County  of  Huntingdon,  baronet,  nephew  of 
John  Cotton,  Esq.,  deceased,  and  executor  of  the  will  of  the 
said  deceased,  brought  a  bill  of  complaint  in  the  Court  of 
Requests  against  John  Milton  and  Thomas  Bower,  on  account 
of  certain  alleged  malpractices  of  theirs  in  their  dealings  as 
scriveners  with  the  said  deceased  in  his  life-time.  The  said 
deceased  John  Cotton,  (t  being  an  old  decrepit  weak  man  of 
the  age  of  fourscore  years  and  upwards,"  had,  "  about  five 
years  sithence,"  i.  e.  about  the  year  1631,  said  the  Bill,  put 
into  the  hands  of  John  Milton,  or  of  Thomas  Bower, 
' '  servant "  to  the  said  Milton,  "  divers  great  sums  of  money, 
in  trust  to  be  let  out  at  interest  after  the  rate  of  eight  in 
the  hundred."  The  moneys  so  delivered  to  them  in  trust, 
the  Bill  proceeded,  had  actually  been  lent  out  by  them,  "  by 
several  specialities,"  at  eight  per  cent,  interest,  to  a  number 
of  different  persons.  Lord  Strange,  for  example,  had 
borrowed  £300 ;  Mr.  Welby  and  Sir  William  Sandys  £200 
each  ;  Mr.  Lea,  Mr.  Sherfield,  Sir  William  Norris,  Sir  Robert 
Heath,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  Sir  George  Horsey,  Mr.  Bold, 
Mr.  Banister,  Sir  Richard  Molineux,  and  others,  -£100  each, 

i  Proclamations  in  Rushworth  of  the       Garrard's    Letters    in    the    Straffbrd 
years  1636  and  1637  ;  Cooper's  Annals       Papers. 
of  Cambridge  for  the  same  years  ;  and 

S  S    2 


628  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

or  other  sums  :  "  all  which  sums  together  of  principal  debt 

amount  to  £3,600."     For  some  time,  continued  the  Bill,  all 

had    gone    right.      "  The   said    John   Milton   and   Thomas 

"  Bower,"  says  the  complainant,  "  did  bring  the  said  John 

"  Cotton,  your  subject's  said  uncle,  half-yearly  interest  after 

(( the  rate  of  eight  per  cent^for  some  years,  and  did  often 

' '  renew,  call  in,  and  put  out  the  said  sums,  as  they  thought 

"  best  themselves,  ever  pretending  to  the  said  John  Cotton 

"  that  the  parties  to  whom  the  money  was  put  out  were  very 

"  sufficient  and  able  men,  and   as  in  truth  most  of  them 

"were,  as  your  subject   hath  sithence   learnt."     Latterly, 

however,  there  had   been  a  change  in  their  proceedings. 

"  Shortly  after,"  says  the  Bill,  "  the  said  John  Milton  and 

"Thomas   Bower,    by   the   privity   and    directions   of   one 

"  Thomas  Holchar,  an  attorney-at-law,  did  forbear  to  bring 

"  in  either  the  principal  or  most  part  of  the  interest  of  the 

"  said  sums,  pretending  that  the  parties  to  whom  the  said 

"sums  were  let  out  were  not  sufficient;  by  which  practice 

"  of  detaining  the  said  interest  money  they  did  cause  the  said 

"  Cotton  to  believe  that  both  principal  and  interest  were 

"  desperate,  and  that  the  debtors  were  persons  non-solvent ; 

"  and,  having  so  far  wrought  upon  his  conceit,  then  they, 

"together  with  the  said  Thomas  Holchar,  persuaded  the 

"  said  John  Cotton  that  it  would  be  more  for  his  profit  and 

"  ease  if  he  took  a  competent  sum  of  money  and  delivered 

"  up  the  bonds."     The  matter  was  finally  managed,  the  Bill 

proceeds,  by  the  intervention  of  one  Thomas  Colwell,  with 

whom  Cotton  was  then  living,  and  who,  for  a  bribe  of  £200, 

joined  Milton,  Bower,  and  Holchar,  in  working  upon  the 

mind  of  the  decrepit  old    gentleman,   informing  him   and 

often  alleging  to  him  ' e  that  the  debts  were  desperate,  that 

"  the  parties  were  dead  or  insolvent,  or  were  resident  in  the 

"county  palatine   of  Chester  and   Lancaster,  where  writs 

"could  not  easily  be  served."     The  conclusion,  according 

to  the  Bill,  had  been  that  Cotton  had  accepted  £2000  for 

his  original  £3,600,  delivering  up  the  bonds,  and  that  Milton 

and  Bower  had  thus  got  the  £3,600  into  their  own  hands, 

pocketing  a  surplus  of  £1600,  minus  what  they  had  given 


629 

to  Colwell  and  Holchar.  Old  Cotton  having  at  last  died,  the 
present  complainant,  his  nephew  and  executor,  had  applied, 
"in  a  friendly  manner,"  to  Milton  and  Bower,  requesting 
them  to  accept  back  their  £2000  and  reinstate  him  in  the 
possession  of  the  original  £3,600,  reimbursing  whatever 
they  had  meanwhile  received  on  that  account,  and  handing 
over  the  new  securities.  This  had  been  refused,  and  hence 
the  present  action. 

Not  a  pleasant  matter  of  family- conversation  this,  we 
may  be  sure,  for  the  little  household  at  Horton  through  the 
summer  months  of  1636.  The  least  discomposed  person  in 
the  household  over  the  affair  may  have  been  the  old  scrivener 
himself,  familiar  as  he  was  with  lawsuits,  and  with  the  ex 
aggerations  natural  to  all  such  initial  ex-parte  statements  as 
Sir  Thomas  Cotton's  Bill  of  Complaint.  His  chief  trouble, 
indeed,  may  have  been  that  the  business  could  not  be  settled 
at  once,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  but  had  to  lie  over.  The 
Midsummer  and  Michaelmas  terms,  at  either  of  which  he 
might  have  put  in  his  defence  in  the  Westminster  Court  of 
Bequests,  having  been  adjourned  on  account  of  the  Plague, 
the  case  of  Cotton  versus  Milton  and  Sower,  though  begun 
in  1636,  had,  in  fact,  to  wait  till  the  following  year. 

THE  YEAR  1637,  WITH  PART  OP  1638  :  MILTON  JETAT.  29  AND  30. 

In  January  1636-7,  though  the  Plague  was  by  no  means 
extinct  in  London  and  Westminster,  the  Court  of  Requests, 
with  other  Courts  of  Law,  did  meet  for  the  short  Hilary 
term.  On  the  27fch  of  that  month,  accordingly,  the  records 
of  the  Court  bear  that  William  Witherington,  of  the  City  of 
Westminster,  "  served  John  Milton  the  elder  with  his 
"Majesty's  process  of  Privy  Seal,  issuing  forth  of  this 
<(  honourable  Court  at  the  suit  of  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  baronet, 
"by  leaving  the  same  at  his  dwelling-house."  From  the 
sequel  one  infers  that  this  was  not  the  house  at  Horton,  but 
the  old  Spread-Eagle  premises  in  Bread- Street,  which  were 
still  in  a  manner  Milfcon's,  though  his  partner  Bower  occupied 
them.  A  similar  process  had  already  been  served  on  Bower 
himself. 


630  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOItY   OP    HIS   TIME. 

On  the  18th  of  February  1636-7  the  Court  took  up  the 
case  rather  effectively : — The  serving  of  the  process  on 
Milton  three  weeks  before  having  been  duly  proved,  and 
Milton  not  having  [appeared  nor  sent  in  his  answer,  he 
was  treated,  according  to  the  usual  form  in  such  cases,  as 
"  standing  out  in  contempt,"  and  it  was  ordered,  on  the 
motion  of  Mr.  Bernard,  counsel  for  the  complainant,  that  an 
attachment,  i.  e.  a  writ  for  seizing  certain  of  his  goods  in 
gage,  should  be  forthwith  awarded  against  him,  and  also 
that  he  should  forfeit  a  sum  of  20s.  to  the  complainant 
by  way  of  costs  for  the  delay.  The  procedure  the  same  day 
against  Bower  was  more  severe.  An  attachment  having 
already  been  awarded  against  him  for  his  contempt,  or  non- 
appearance  to  answer,  and  he  having  subsequently  appeared 
personally,  but  having  since  "in  further  contempt  of  this 
Court  departed  away^without  the  leave  of  this  Court  and 
without  putting  in  answer,"  the  order  now  was  that  he 
should  be  taken  into  custody  and  committed  to  the  Fleet 
prison,  "  there  to  remain  until  upon  his  submission  further 
order  shall  be  taken  in  this  Court  for  his  enlargement," 
forfeiting,  moreover,  a  sum  of  money  for  additional  costs  of 
delay. — Yery  soon,  it  appears,  the  Court  came  to  be  of 
opinion  that,  whatever  justice  there  might  be  in  their 
severity  with  Bower,  they  had  been  too  hasty  with  Milton. 
On  the  22nd  of  March  1636-7,  it  having  been  represented 
to  the  Court  "  that  the  said  defendant  is  an  old  man,  about 
fourscore  years  of  age,  and  is  infirm  and  unfit  for  travel, 
and  that  he  sent  up  his  attorney  to  appear  in  due  time," 
and  evidence  having  been  given  by  one  of  the  attorneys  of 
the  Court  that  he  had  been,  "  about  the  beginning  of  the 
last  term,"  duly  retained  to  appear  for  the  defendant,  and 
had,  on  affidavit  that  the  defendant  was  aged  and  too  infirm 
to  come  to  town,  applied  for  a  dedimus  potestatcm  for  taking 
his  answer  in  the  country,  the  Court  suspended  the  attach 
ment  and  the  20s.  of  costs  formerly  ordered,  and  directed 
the  dedimus  potestatem  to  issue  forth  as  desired. — In  con* 
nexion  with  this  stage  of  the  affair  one  reads  with  especial 
interest  this  entry  in  the  books  of  the  Court  ten  days  later, 


631 

i.  e.  April  1,  1637: — "Whereas  JOHN  MILTON,  gent.,  hath 
"  been  served  with  his  Majesty's  process '  of  Privy  Seal, 
"  issuing  forth  of  this  honourable  Court,  to  answer  a  Bill  of 
"  Complaint  against  him  exhibited  by  Sir  Thomas  Cotton, 
"baronet,  plaintiff,  CHRISTOPHER  MILTON,  son  of  the  said 
"defendant,  maketh  oath  that  his  said  father,  being  aged 
"about  74  years,  is  not,  by  reason  of  his  said  age  and 
"infirmity,  able  to  travel  to  the  City  of  Westminster,  to 
"make  his  perfect  answer  to  the  said  Bill,  without  much 
"  prejudice  to  his  health,  he  living  at  Horton  in  the  County 
"  of  Bucks,  about  17  miles  distant  from  the  City  of  West- 
"  minster."  It  would  seem  that  this  additional  affidavit  had 
been  required  before  the  issuing  of  the  dedimus  potestatem, 
enabling  the  scrivener's  answer  to  be  taken  at  Horton. 
Christopher  Milton  was  then  twenty-one  years  of  age,  still 
a  student  of  law  at  the  Inner  Temple.  His  affidavit,  it  will 
be  observed,  corrects  somewhat  the  more  vague  representa 
tion  of  his  father's  age  that  had  been  already  made  to  the 
Court,  substituting  "  aged  about  74  years  "  for  the  "  about 
fourscore  years  of  age''  of  that  previous  representation. 
Though  not  quite  so  old  as  had  been  represented,  he  was, 
however,  too  infirm  to  come  to  London  from  his  Horton 
retirement,  if  the  journey  could  possibly  be  avoided. 

Alas !  the  scrivener  was  not  the  only  one  of  the  Horton 
househould  that  was  then  infirm.  All  through  the  trouble 
of  those  proceedings  in  and  with  the  Court  of  Requests 
between  January  and  April,  the  scrivener's  wife,  Milton's 
mother,  nine  years  younger  than  her  husband  perhaps,  but 
a  frailer  personage,  had  been  either  seriously  ill  from  some 
definite  malady,  or  sinking  gradually  from  completed  age. 
Her  state  of  health,  as  well  as  the  scrivener's  own,  may 
have  been  among  the  impediments  detaining  him  at  Horton 
amid  the  distractions  and  vexations  of  the  pending  lawsuit. 
Strange  to  know,  at  all  events,  that  on  the  3rd  of  April 
1637,  or  exactly  two  days  after  Christopher  Milton  had 
made  the  affidavit  at  Westminster  which  has  just  been 
quoted,  and  while  the  dedimus  potestatem  was  out  that  was 


632  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

to  enable  the  scrivener  to  give  his  answer  at  Horton  to  the 
charges  against  him,  the  memorable  wife  and  mother  was 
lying  dead  in  the  house  at  Horton,  with  the  old  man  and  his 
two  sons,  and  such  others  of  the  family  as  had  been  gathered 
to  be  present  at  her  last  hours,  moving  silently  round  her 
corpse.  All  the  petty  worry  of  the  lawsuit  and  the  dedimus 
potestatem  left  behind  her,  if  indeed  the  details  had  not  been 
withheld  from  her  at  the  last,  this  one  memorable  English 
life  had  ended,  and  the  poor  that  lingered  at  her  gate  knew 
that  they  had  lost  a  friend.  For  three  days  more  there  was 
death  in  the  still  house,  the  widower  bowed  down  with  the 
blow,  but  striving  to  say,  as  his  sons  and  his  daughter  attend 
him,  "  Let  the  will  of  the  Lord  be  done  !  "  Pitying  the  old 
man,  his  elder  son  meditates  the  same  thought  in  his  own 
manner,  and  with  variations  that  he  does  not  speak.  The 
three  days  pass;  on  the  third  there  is  the  long  last  look 
at  the  face  that  is  no  more  to  be  seen;  and  then,  forth 
from  the  house,  and  out  at  the  gate,  walk  the  mourners, 
on  their  short  way  to  the  church  across  the  road.  Past 
the  old  yews  at  the  entrance  to  the  churchyard,  where 
groups  from  the  village  are  gathered  to  see,  moves  the  sad 
procession.  They  enter  the  little  church,  up  the  narrow 
middle  aisle  of  which  the  coffin  is  slowly  carried ;  and  there, 
round  the  deep-dug  grave,  they  stand  while  the  last  service 
is  being  read.  The  coffin  is  committed  to  the  grave,  with 
the  one  unutterable  look  after  it  as  it  descends,  and  the 
dead  and  the  living  are  parted  for  ever.  Where  Milton 
then  stood,  and  where  the  aged  widower  stood,  and  others 
with  him,  the  visitor  to  Horton  Church  may  now  stand  also, 
and  may  read,  on  a  plain  blue  stone  laid  flat  in  the  floor  of 
.the  chancel,  this  simple  memento  of  that  old  funeral : — 
"Here  lyeth  the  body  of  Sara  Milton,  the  wife  of  John 
Milton,  who  died  the  3rd  of  April  1637." 

Neither  the  death  nor  the  burial  could  interrupt  the  pro 
ceedings  in  the  lawsuit : — On  the  very  day  of  the  death, 
April  3,  we  find  a  certain  Henry  Perry,  who  was  the  law- 
agent  for  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  writing  a  letter  to  his  princi- 


633 

pal,  informing  him  of  all  that  had  been  done  in  the  suit  to 
that  date,  and  of  the  exact  position  in  which  it  then  stood. 
The  Warden  of  the  Fleet  prison,  he  informs  Sir  Thomas, 
had  in  his  hands  the  order  of  the  Court  for  the  arrest  of 
Bower,  and  desired  to  assure  Sir  Thomas  that  he  would 
soon  have  Bower  in  his  custody,  "  with  the  costs  and  answer, 
and  what  else  is  requisite."  The  recent  order  of  the  Court 
suspending  the  attachment  and  costs  upon  the  other  de 
fendant,  Milton,  and  granting  him  a  dedimus  potestatem  to 
make  his  answer  at  Horton,  had  somewhat  altered  the  state 
of  affairs  as  regarded  him ;  but  Mr.  Perry  had  looked  after 
that  matter  too.  ' '  As  soon  as  ever  I  heard  of  it,  I  sent  the 
"  name  of  a  gent,  that  lives  thereabouts,  to  be  put  into  the 
"  dedimus  for  you ;  who,  I  hope,  will  be  present  when  the 
"  answer  is  taken,  at  the  beginning  of  next  term."  Finally, 
Sir  Thomas  may  rely  on  the  writer's  continued  diligence  in 
the  suit  against  both  defendants. — Mr.  Perry  was  diligent 
enough;  for,  on  the  8th  of  April,  or  two  days  after  the 
funeral  at  Horton,  the  defendant  Bower,  whether  from  arrest 
or  of  his  own  accord,  was  before  the  Court  at  Westminster, 
making  his  statement  on  oath.  Substantially,  it  was  an 
excuse  for  his  past  delay  and  apparent  contempt.  He  had, 
nearly  a  year  ago  (in  May  1636  ?),  taken  out  a  copy  of  the 
bill  of  Sir  Thomas  Cotton  against  himself  and  Mr.  Milton, 
and  carried  the  same  at  once  to  counsel ;  but,  shortly  after 
wards,  the  said  counsel  had  gone  into  the  country, — whence, 
in  consequence  of  the  prevalence  of  the  Plague  in  London, 
and  the  adjournment  on  that  account  of  the  Midsummer  and 
Michaelmas  terms  of  the  law-courts,  he  had  not  returned, 
.so  far  as  the  deponent  could  learn,  till  last  January.  He 
had  then  lost  the  copy  of  the  bill,  so  that  deponent  had  been 
obliged  to  take  out  a  new  copy,  "  about  Candlemas  last " 
(Feb.  2,  1636-7);  "whereunto  this  deponent,  by  reason  of 
sickness  and  his  extraordinary  occasions  in  his  other  busi 
ness,  could  not  till  of  late  make  answer." — An  abstract  of 
Bower's  answer,  as  thus  before  the  Court  at  the  time  of  his 
personal  appearance  there,  has  survived.  He  admitted  that, 
while  he  had  been  servant  to  Mr.  Milton,  there  had  been 


6o4  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

such  transactions  by  the  office  for  the  late  Mr.  John  Cotton 
as  those  described  in  the  Bill  of  Complaint, — not,  however, 
as  the  bill  represented,  all  at  once  and  so  late  as  five  years 
ago,  but  extending  over  a  considerable  course  of  previous 
years,  during  which  Mr.  Milton  had  managed  affairs  for  Mr. 
Cotton.  The  sums  so  lent  out,  at  different  times  and  to 
different  persons,  had  been  lent  out  with  Mr.  Cotton's  own 
consent,  and  amounted  in  all  to  £3,600.  At  length,  from 
the  decline  of  the  estates  of  many  of  the  borrowers,  and 
from  the  fact  that  nearly  half  of  them  resided  in  the  county 
palatine  of  Lancaster  and  Chester,  where  they  could  -  not 
easily  be  sued,  there  had  been  a  stoppage  of  the  interest 
"for  two  or  three  years  together."  Mr.  Cotton  had  then 
become  alarmed,  and  had  voluntarily,  "in  Easter  term 
1630,"  offered  "to  sell  and  assign  all  the  said  debts  unto 
the  said  John  Milton  for  £1500."  This  offer  had  been 
refused  by  Mr.  Milton ;  and  it  had  been  after  that  refusal 
that  Mr.  Cotton,  and  his  nephew,  the  present  complainant, 
Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  had  negotiated  separately  with  the 
present  deponent.  The  complainant,  Sir  Thomas,  having 
meanwhile,  in  his  uncle's  behalf,  made  inquiry  after  the 
debtors  and  the  chances  of  their  solvency,  Mr.  Cotton,  with 
the  complainant's  consent,  had  made  the  present  deponent  a 
word-of-mouth  offer,  in  Michaelmas  term  1 630,  of  the  whole 
debt  of  £3,600,  with  the  interest  due  thereon,  for  £2000  in 
ready  money.  The  deponent  had  accepted  the  offer,  and, 
having  borrowed  £2000  for  the  purpose,  had  paid  that  sum 
there  and  then  to  old  Mr.  Cotton,  receiving  the  bonds  for 
the  £3,600,  with  powers  to  sue  and  recover.  Of  the  £2000 
thus  paid  by  Bower  one  half  had  been  at  once  given  by  Mr. 
Cotton  to  his  nephew,  the  present  complainant.  The 
deponent  would  certainly  not  have  disbursed  the  £2000 
unless  he  had  hoped  to  gain  by  the  transaction ;  and  he 
acknowledged  that  it  had  not  turned  out  unprofitable.  He 
had,  though  "with  much  travayle,"  got  in  the  whole  of  the 
£3,600,  with  the  exception  of  several  sums,  to  the  amount 
of  about  £500  in  all,  not  yet  recovered.  But  the  transaction, 
and  all  the  circumstances  of  it,  had  been  perfectly  legitimate. 


635 

There  had  been  no  pressure  on  Mr.  Cotton,  no  representa 
tion  that  the  debts  were  desperate,  no  such  combining  with 
Colwell  as  the  complaint  alleged;  the  offer  had  come  freely 
from  Mr.  Cotton's  side;  and,  in  fact,  the  deponent  had 
given  old  Mr.  Cotton  £500  more  than  he  would  have  ob 
tained  from  any  one  else  for  his  dubious  £3,600  of  debt,  it 
having  been  ff  offered  to  many."  The  present  complainant, 
at  all  events,  had  no  ground  of  action,  inasmuch  as  he  had 
"  allured  "  the  deponent  into  the  agreement  with  his  uncle, 
and  had  never  questioned  the  transaction  during  the  five 
years  of  his  uncle's  subsequent  life-time. — From  this  answer 
of  Bower  to  Sir  Thomas  Cotton's  Bill  of  Complaint  we  have 
to  turn  to  that  which  old  Mr.  Milton  roused  himself  to  draw 
up  at  Horton,  in  the  first  sadness  of  his  widowerhood,  in 
conformity  with  the  Court's  dedimus  potestatem  for  taking  it 
at  that  distance.  It  is  dated  the  13th  of  April  1637,  ten 
days  after  his  wife's  death  and  seven  after  her  funeral.  The 
original  parchment,  a  good  deal  worn  and  defaced,  is  still  to 
be  seen  in  the  Record  Office.  It  states  that  the  defendant, 
John  Milton,  was  well  acquainted  with  the  John  Cotton 
mentioned  in  the  Bill  of  Complaint.  The  said  John  Cotton 
was  "  a  man  of  good  years,  but  certainly  what  age  he  was 
of  this  defendant  knoweth  not."  He  was,  however,  of 
tf  good  understanding  and  memory  at  the  time  of  the  said 
"  defendant's  knowledge  of  him,  and  able  to  walk  abroad, 
"  and  did  so  oftentimes  to  this  defendant's  shop  in  London, 
"and  was  then  no-ways  decrepit  in  body  or  defective  in 
"mind,  to  his  the  said  defendant's  knowledge."  Milton 
then  goes  on,  as  Bower  had  done,  to  rectify  the  date  of  the 
transactions  that  had  been  called  in  question.  He  denies 
that  "  about  five  years  sithence  the  said  John  Cotton  did  put 
"  into  his  hands,  or,  to  this  defendant's  knowledge,  into  the 
' '  hands  of  the  said  Thomas  Bower,  then  his  the  said  defend- 
*'  ant's  partner,  and  not  his  servant,  as  in  the  Bill  is  alleged, 
"any  such  sum  or  sums  as  in  the  Bill  is  pretended,  in  trust 
"  to  be  let  out  at  interest."  What  he  owns  is  that,  "  before 
this  defendant  became  partner  with  the  other  defendant, 
Thomas  Bower,  and  after  their  co-partnership,"  the  said  John 


636  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

Cotton  "did  dispose  of  and  lend  at  the  shop  of  this 
defendant,  situate  in  Bread  Street  in  London,"  and  which 
had  been  his  "  near  forty  years  ",  divers  sums,  to  the  value 
of  about  £3,300.  He  does  not  now  remember  all  the  par 
ticulars,  "  his  employment  being  great  that  way,"  and  some 
of  the  matters  being  since  he  "  gave  over  his  trade  " ;  but 
he  thinks  the  particulars  stated  in  Sir  Thomas  Cotton's  Bill 
of  Complaint,  as  to  the  sums  lent  out  and  the  persons  to 
whom  they  were  severally  lent,  may  be  true  enough.  That 
they  had  not  been  put  into  his  hands,  however,  or  into  the 
hands  of  Thomas  Bower,  "  five  years  sithence,"  as  the  Bill 
alleged,  was  manifest  from  the  statements  in  the  Bill  itself, 
whence  it  appeared  that  the  bonds  for  the  lent  moneys  had 
been  given  to  Cotton  before  that  date,  and  divers  of  them 
as  long  as  fifteen  years  since,  i.  e.  as  far  back  as  1621. 
The  interest  in  the  moneys,  so  far  as  the  defendant  had  to 
look  after  it,  had  been  "  paid  always  by  him  or  his  appoint- 
s '  ment  to  the  said  John  Cotton,  sometimes  at  the  said  shop 
"  of  this  defendant,  and  sometimes  it  was  sent  home  to  the 
"said  John  Cotton."  He  had  represented  to  Cotton  that 
the  borrowing  parties  were  of  sufficient  means,  "  as  indeed 
they  were  at  the  time  "  ;  he  had  never  represented  the  debts 
as  desperate  or  advised  Cotton  to  give  up  the  bonds  for  a 
competent  sum ;  he  had  never  bribed  Colwell  to  assist  in  such 
an  arrangement,  nor  otherwise  plotted  to  influence  Cotton. 
"  But  this  defendant  confesseth  that  the  said  John  Cotton, 
"  in  his  lifetime,  out  of  what  reason  this  defendant  knoweth 
"  not,  but  conceiveth  it  to  be  out  of  timorousness  and  fear 
"  that  he  might  lose  some  of  his  said  debts,  did  voluntarily 
"  make  an  offer  to  this  defendant  of  £2000  in  lieu  of  all 
"such  moneys  as  were  lent  or  managed  for  him  at  this 
"  defendant's  shop,  being,  as  this  defendant  conceiveth, 
"  £3,300  or  thereabouts,  and  urged  this  defendant  to  agree 
"  with  him  to  that  purpose ;  which  this  defendant  did  utterly 
"  refuse,  and  was  much  grieved  at  the  same,  and  took  it  very 
"  ill  of  the  said  John  Cotton  that  he  should  make  such  an 
"  offer,  as  well  in  regard  that  he  would  not  that  the  said 
"  John  Cotton  should  sustain  any  loss  at  all  by  non-payment 


637 

"  of  the  moneys  by  him  so  lent,  as  also  that  it  was  a  great 
"  disparagement  to  this  defendant  and  his  said  trade  and 
"  shop.  And  this  defendant  thought  himself  much  injured 
<e  thereby,  and  told  the  said  John  Cotton  that  he  did  very 
"  much  wrong  him,  this  defendant,  and  himself  thereby,  for 
f '  that  the  obligators  and  debtors  were  very  sufficient  men  in 
"  estate  and  there  was  no  cause  why  he  should  do  so."  The 
said  Cotton,  the  answer  goes  on  to  say,  had  then  departed 
from  this  defendant;  and  what  he  did  afterwards  this 
defendant  knows  not.  He  thinks,  however,  that  he  must 
have  "persisted  in  his  fear  and  doubts  of  loss";  for  "this 
"  defendant  hath  heard,  but  doth  not  know  the  same  of  his 
' '  own  knowledge,  that,  after  this  defendant  refused  the  said 
"  offer  of  the  said  John  Cotton,  he  dealt  with  the  other 
"  defendant,  Thomas  Bower,  without  the  privity  or  consent 
"  of  this  defendant ;  but  the  particulars  of  what  they  did 
"agree  upon  this  defendant^  certainly  knoweth  not."  He 
knows  not,  in  fact,  whether  there  was  any  transaction  be 
tween  Cotton  or  Bower,  save  by  report  from  others,  but  he 
had  heard  that  there  was  some  transaction,  in  which  "  one 
Holker,  an  attorney  in  the  Common  Pleas  ",  had  co-operated 
with  Bower.  Whatever  the  transaction  was,  if  there  was 
any,  the  present  defendant  had  been  no  party  to  it.  "  All 
"  which,"  the  document  concludes,  "  this  defendant  is  ready 
"  to  aver  and  prove  as  the  honourable  Court  shall  award, 
(e  and  humbly  prayeth  to  be  [dismissed  from  forth  the 
"  same,  with  his  reasonable  costs  and  charges  in  this 
"behalf  wrongfully  sustained/7  To  the  document  is  sub 
scribed  the  date,  "the  13th  day  of  April,"  with  the  names  of 
THO.  AGAE  and  JOHN  AGAR,  as  the  two  witnesses  attesting 
the  oath  of  the  defendant  at  Horton  to  the  contents. 

The  name  THOMAS  AGAR  admits  us  to  a  glimpse  of  the 
family  history  hitherto  wanting.  The  poet's  only  sister, 
Anne,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  left  a  widow,  with  two 
infant  boys,  by  the  death  of  her^husband,  Edward  Phillips, 
of  the  Crown  office  in  Chancery,  in  the  autumn  of  1631,  after 
they  had  been  seven  years  married.  That  she  married  a 
second  time,  and  that  her  second  husband  was  a  Thomas 


638  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Agar,  also  of  the  Chancery  office,  who  had  been  the  "  inti 
mate  friend })  of  her  first  husband,  and  who  succeeded  him 
in  the  post  of  Deputy  Clerk  in  the  office,  or  chief  clerk  under 
the  Clerk  of  the  Crown,  is  known  independently ;  but  the 
date  of  this  second  marriage  has  not  yet  been  ascertained. 
Does  not  the  attestation  "Tno.  AGAR"  to  the  document  of 
April  1637  make  it  likely  that  he  had  by  that  time  become 
the  scrivener's  son-in-law,  and  was  therefore  naturally,  with 
his  wife,  now  Mrs.  Agar,  one  of  the  family  gathered  round 
the  old  man  at  Horton  in  his  time  of  distress  and  mourning  ? 
He  had  had  a  previous  wife,  Mary  Rugeley,  who  was  alive 
in  1633,  and  who  had  borne  him  one  daughter;  but  in  the 
interval  between  that  year  and  1637  he  may  have  contracted 
his  second  marriage,  and  the  first  of  the  children  by  that 
marriage  may  have  been  born. 

The  Plague,  which  had  been  rather  dormant  in  London 
through  the  winter  of  1636-7,  had  broken  out  afresh  in  the 
spring,  gradually  spreading  to  Chelsea,  Hampton  Court, 
Brentford,  "  everywhere  westward,  more  or  less."  Garrard, 
who  reports  this  in  March,  saying  that  in  the  beginning  of 
that  month  there  had  been  100  deaths  by  the  Plague  in 
London,  adds,  on  the  28th  of  April,  "  We  have  had  here  a 
"  very  dry  spring,  cold  easterly  winds,  but  for  the  most  part 
t(  very  fair  weather  :  though  seldom  rain,  yet  wetting  mists 
"  every  morning.  The  Plague  rises  and  falls  according  to 
' '  the  change  of  the  moon." l  On  the  very  day  when  Garrard 
was  writing  so  in  London,  or  two-and-twenty  days  after  the 
funeral  of  Milton's  mother  in  Horton  Church,  the  Plague 
was  at  last  in  Colnbrook  and  the  whole  Horton  neighbour 
hood.  It  continued  in  Horton  parish  through  May,  June, 
July,  and  August  1637,  with  the  effect  of  doubling  in  that 
year  the  usual  annual  mortality  of  the  parish.  Here,  by 
way  of  the  history  of  the  mortality  in  an  old  English  parish 
in  a  Plague  year,  is  a  record  of  the  burials  at  Horton  through 
the  entire  year  1637,  dated  from  March  25  to  the  24th  of 
the  March  following,  as  extracted  by  me  from  the  Parish 

1  Garrard's  Letters  from  London  in  the  Strafford  Papers. 


THE    PLAGUE   IN   HORTON    PARISH  :    1637.  639 

Register.     The  entry  which  stands  third  in  the  list  will  be 
noted  on  its  own  account : — 

1.  The  wife  of  Thomas  Porter,  buried  March  26th- 

2.  Susan,  ye  Daughter  of  Morris  &  Martha  Fisher,  buried  April  1st- 

3.  Sara,  uxor  Johnis  Milton,  generosi  [Sara,  wife  of  John  Milton, 
gentleman],  Aprilis  6to :  obiit  3°  [Buried  the  6th  of  April :  died  the 
3rd]. 

4.  An  infant  sonne  of  John  &  Susan  Hawkins,  buryed  Aprill 
ye  9th- 

5.  Johnes  inf.  Johnis  et  Susannse  Hawkins  films  [John,  infant 
son  of  John  and  Susan  Hawkins]  Aprilis  24°- 

6.  Catherine,  wife  of  John  Ballynour,  buryed  April  ye  28  :  of  ye 
Plague  :  Colebrook  (1). 

7.  Richard  Vicar,  gent.  &  inkeep.,  buryed  May  ye  15,  out  of  ye 
Talbot,  of  ye  Plague,  (2). 

8.  Fraunces,  daughter  of  Richard  Vicar,  gent.,  buried  May  15th,  of 
ye  Plague  (3). 

9.  John,  sonne  of  Thomas  Paine,  tapster,  May  ye  15,  out  of  ye 
Talbot,  of  ye  Plague  (4). 

10.  John,  sonne  of  John  Cooke,  gentleman,  buried  June  13th,  out  of 
ye  Talbot,  of  ye  Plague  (5). 

11.  John  Withers,  sadler,  buryed  June  ye  26  ;  d.  of  ye  Plague  ;  of 
Colebrook  (6). 

12.  Mary,  ye  daughter  of  Henry  Heydon,  glover,  buryed  June  ye 
26  ;  also  of  Colebrook. 

Alice,  wife  of  Gilbert  Brandon,  vintr  of  London,  June  ye  28, 
out  of  ye  Talbot,  of  ye  Plague  (7). 

14.  Susanna,  wife  of  Robt  Taylor,  coblar,   July  ye    27,   of   ye 
Plague  ;  of  Colebrook  (8). 

Alice,  ye  wife  of  John  Withers,  lately  deceased,  July  ye  9th,  of 
ye  Plague  ;  of  Colebrook  (9). 

16.  Jonathan,  sonne  of  Robert  Taylor,  coblar,  July  ye  7th,  of  ye 
Plague  ;  of  Colebrook  (10). 

Stephen,  sonne  of  Robert  Taylor,  coblar,  July  ye  10th,  of  ye 
Plague  ;  of  Colebrook  (11). 

John,  ye  sonne  of  Robert  Taylor,  coblar,  July  ye  11th,  of  ye 
Plague  ;  of  Colebrook  (12). 

Henry  Heydon,  glover,  buryed  July  ye  26  ;  died  of  consump 
tion  ;  of  Colebrooke. 

20.  Thomas  Headmayer,  buryed  July  ye  30th ;  surfeitt  by  drinking ; 
of  Colebrooke. 

Bridgida,  uxor  Thomas  Harris,  Aug.  20th ;  died  of  a  staid  (?) 
pestilentiall  (13). 

22.  William  Snowdon,  servant  to  John  Haines,  husbandman,  Aug. 
ye  29th ;  ex  peste  obiit  [died  of  plague]  (14). 

William  Stanton,  carpenter,  Sept.  ye  29th- 

Martha,  wife  of  Maurice  Fisher,  Septemb.  ye  8th- 

Alice,  wife  of  Thomas  Feild,  November  ye  13th- 
26.  Peter,  sonne  of  Peter  Jenings  ;  an  infant ;  Decemb.  ye  23. 

John,  soniie  of  John  and  Margarett  Browne,  Jan.  ye  4th ;   of 
Colebrooke. 

Richard  Farmer,  gent.,  aged  92,  buryed  Jan.  ye  9th- 

Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Judge  Grayhew  (?),  buryed  Jan.  ye  28th; 
d.  of  a  consumption  ;  of  Colebrooke. 


640  LIFE   OF    MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

30.  Margarett,  ye  wife  of  William  Michell,  buryed  February  ye  4lh; 
of  Colebrooke. 

Margarett,  ye  wife  of  Jolin  Browne,  buryed  March  ye  13th ;  of 
Colebrooke. 

(Signed)  Edward  Goodall,  Eector. 

John  Hawkins     } 

and  >  Churchwardens.1 

Thomas  Bowden  ) 

During  the  months  of  May-,  June,  July,  and  August,  1637, 
plague-months  though  they  were,  Milton  probably  remained, 
for  the  most  part,  with  his  father  at  Horton,  though  with 
visits  now  and  then  to  London  as  usual.  Let  us  imagine 
ourselves  at  once  in  August  1637. 

Nearly  three  years  had  elapsed  since  the  masque  at  Lud- 
low  Castle ;  and  during  these  the  rumour  of  it  had  spread 
so  widely  that  Lawes  had  found  the  manuscript  a  trouble 
some  possession.  He  had  been  applied  to  for  copies  of  it, 
or  of  the  songs  in  it,  so  often  that  he  resolved  to  have  it 
printed.  Accordingly,  having  obtained  the  author's  consent, 
and  such  emendations  of  the  original  copy  as  the  author  saw 
fit  to  make,  he  did,  in  his  own  name,  publish  the  masque,  in 
a  small  quarto  pamphlet  of  thirty-five  pages,  with  this 
title: — "A  Masque  presented  at  Ludlow  Castle,  1634,  on 
Michaelmasse  Night,  before  the  right  honourable  the  Earle  of 
Bridgewater,  Viscount  Bracldy,  Lord  President  of  Wales,  and 
one  of  his  Majesties  most  honourable  privie  Counsell:  London, 
Printed  for  Humphrey  Robinson  ai  the  signe  of  the  Three 
Pidgeons  in  Pauls  Churchyard,  1637."  On  the  title-page, 
between  the  title  itself  and  the  publisher's  name  and  address, 
was  this  motto  from  Virgil's  second  Eclogue, — "  Eheu  !  quid 
volui  misero  mihi  ?  Floribus  austrum  perditus  "  ;  which  may 
be  translated  "  Alas  !  what  have  I  chosen  for  my  miserable 
self?  Undone,  I  have  let  the  south-wind  in  among  my 
flowers!"  It  was  evidently  Milton  himself  that  supplied 

1  The  signatures  of  the  rector  and  of  similar  significance.    Altogether,  it 

churchwardens  appended  to  the  register  appears  that,  of  the  thirty-one  deaths 

of  this  year  signify  that  the  year  was  of  the  year,  fourteen  were  notoriously 

one  of  unusual  note  in  respect  of  mor-  deaths  from  plague,  leaving  seventeen 

tality  in  the  parish.     The  numbers  pre-  deaths  from  other  causes.     In  ordinary 

fixed  to  the  names  by  Goodal,  in  reckon-  years  the  deaths  in  Horton  annually 

ing    up  the    deaths,  as  well    as  the  averaged  from  8  to  13 ;  in  the  previous 

numbers,  in  different  series,  a/fixed  by  Plague  year,  1626,  they  had  been  34. 
him  afterwards  to  the  plague  cases,  are 


PUBLICATION    OP    COM  US   BY   LA  WES.  C41 

this  motto ;  and  it  is  as  if  he  had  said,  "  Alas  !  why  do  I  now 
come  out  of  my  privacy  and  run  the  rough  risks  of  publica 
tion  ?  "  At  the  end  of  the  masque  is  the  following  note  : — 
"  The  principall  persons  in  this  masJce  were  the  Lord  Brady, 
Mr.  Thomas  Egerton,  The  Lady  Alice  Egerton."  But  the  most 
interesting  part  of  the  pamphlet,  next  to  the  text,  is  this 
preliminary  dedication  by  Lawes  to  Lord  Brackley,  now  in 
his  sixteenth  year  : — 

"  To  the  Right  Honourable  John,  Lord  Brady,  son  and  heir-apparent 
to  the  Earl  of  Bridgewater,  &c. 

«  My  Lord, 

"  This  Poem,  which  received  its  first  occasion  of  birth  from  your 
self  and  others  of  your  noble  family,  arid  much  honour  from  your 
own  person  in  the  performance,  now  returns  again  to  make  a  small 
dedication  of  itself  to  you.  Although  not  openly  acknowledged  by 
the  Author,  yet  it  is  a  legitimate  offspring,  so  lovely  and  so  much 
desired  that  the  often  copying  of  it  hath  tired  my  pen  to  give  my 
several  friends  satisfaction,  and  brought  me  to  a  necessity  of  produc 
ing  it  to  the  public  view,  and  now  to  offer  it  up,  in  all  rightful  devotion, 
to  those  fair  hopes  and  rare  endowments  of  your  much-promising 
youth,  which  give  a  full  assurance,  to  all  that  know  you,  of  a  future 
excellence.  Live,  sweet  Lord,  to  be  the  honour  of  your  name ;  and 
receive  this  as  your  own  from  the  hands  of  him  who  hath  by  many 
favours  been  long  obliged  to  your  most  honoured  parents,  and,  as 
in  this  representation  your  attendant  Thy  r sis,  so  now  in  all  real 
expression 

"  Your  faithful  and  most  humble  Servant, 

"  H.  LAWES." 

In  August  1637,  when  the  Plague  was  everywhere  dis 
appearing,  there  occurred  two  deaths,  the  most  remarkable 
perhaps  in  the  British  obituary  of  that  year.  On  the  6th  of 
August  Ben  Jonson  died  in  his  house  in  "Westminster,  at 
the  age  of  sixty- three ;  and  on  the  9th  he  was  buried  under 
the  pavement  in  the  north  aisle  in  Westminster  Abbey.  On 
the  day  after  his  burial  (Aug  10),  and  when  the  news  of  his 
death  can  hardly  have  reached  the  remoter  parts  of  England, 
a  vessel,  which  had  left  what  was  then  called  Chester  Bay, 
i.  e.  the  estuary  of  the  Dee  seawards  from  Chester,  and  was 
coasting  in  calm  weather  along  the  northern  shores  of  the 
Welsh  counties  of  Flint,  Denbigh,  and  Carnarvon,  on  its 
voyage  across  the  Irish  Sea  to  Dublin,  struck  on  a  rock  and 
foundered,  not  far  from  land.  With  the  exception  of  a  few 
who  managed  to  get  into  a  boat,  all  on  board  perished ;  and 

VOL.    I.  T  T 


642  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

among  them  was  Edward  King  of  Christ's  College.  He 
had  left  Cambridge  after  the  close  of  the  session ;  had  visited, 
it  would  appear,  some  of  his  relatives  in  England ;  and  was 
on  his  way  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  vacation  among  his  other 
relatives  and  friends  in  his  native  Ireland.  The  account  that 
reached  his  friends  was  that,  when  the  ship  struck,  and  the 
other  passengers  were  wild  with  alarm,  he  behaved  with  much 
calmness,  and  that,  after  a  vain  attempt  had  been  made  to 
get  him  into  the  boat,  he  was  seen  on  his  knees  in  prayer, 
and  so  went  down.  His  body  was  never  recovered. 

The  news  of  King's  death  must  have  reached  Milton  soon  ; 
but  we  do  not  find  any  mention  of  it  in  either  of  two  Latin 
letters  of  his  written  to  his  friend  Diodati,  one  three  weeks, 
the  other  six  weeks,  after  the  occurrence.  Diodati  was  then 
somewhere  in  the  country,  in  medical  practice,  whether  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Chester,  where  we  found  him  eleven 
years  ago,  or  in  some  other  part  of  the  north  of  England,  does 
not  appear.  We  insert  the  two  letters,  as  usual,  in  literal 
translation,  certain  Greek  phrases  and  quotations  marked 
by  Italics : — 

"To  CHARLES  DIODATI. 

"  Now  at  length  I  see  plainly  that  what  you  are  driving  at  is  to 
vanquish  me  sometimes  in  the  art  of  obstinate  silence  ;  and,  if  it  is  so, 
bravo  !  have  that  little  glory  over  us,  for  behold  !  we  write  first.  All 
the  same,  if  ever  the  question  should  come  into  contention  why 
neither  has  written  to  the  other  for  so  long,  do  not  think  but  that  I 
shall  stand  by  many  degrees  the  more  excused  of  the  two, — manifestly 
so  indeed,  as  being  one  by  nature  slow  and  lazy  to  write,  as  you 
well  know  ;  while  you,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  by  nature  or  by 
habit,  are  wont  without  difficulty  to  be  drawn  into  epistolary  corre 
spondence  of  this  sort.  It  makes  also  for  my  favour  that  I  know 
your  method  of  studying  to  be  so  arranged  that  you  frequently  take 
breath  in  the  middle,  visit  your  friends,  write  much,  sometimes  make 
a  journey,  whereas  my  genius  is  such  that  no  delay,  no  rest,  no  care 
or  thought  almost  of  anything,  holds  me  aside  until  I  reach  the  end  I 
am  making  for,  and  round  off,  as  it  were,  some  great  period  of  my 
studies.  Wholly  hence,  and  not  from  any  other  cause,  believe  me, 
has  it  happened  that  I  am  slower  in  approaching  the  voluntary  dis 
charge  of  good  offices  ;  but  in  replying  to  such,  O  our  Theodotus,  I 
am  not  so  very  dilatory  ;  nor  have  I  ever  been  guilty  of  not  meeting 
any  letter  of  yours  by  one  of  mine  in  due  turn.  How  happens  it  that, 


TWO    LETTERS    TO   CHARLES    DIODATI.  643 

as  I  hear,  you  have  sent  letters  to  the  bookseller,  to  your  brother  too 
not  unfrequently,  either  of  whom  could,  conveniently  enough,  on 
account  of  their  nearness,  have  caused  letters  to  have  been  delivered 
to  me,  if  there  had  been  any?  What  I  complain  of,  however,  is  that, 
whereas  you  promised  that  you  would  take  up  your  quarters  with  us 
for  a  passing  visit  on  your  departure  from  the  city,  you  did  not  keep 
your  promise,  and  that,  if  you  had  but  once  thought  of  this  neglect 
of  your  promise,  there  would  not  have  been  wanting  necessary  occa 
sion  enough  for  writing.  All  this  matter  of  deserved  lecture,  as  I 
imagine,  I  have  been  keeping  against  you.  What  you  will  prepare  in 
answer  see  for  yourself.  But,  meanwhile,  how  is  it  with  you,  pray  ] 
Are  you  all  right  in  health  1  Are  there  in  those  parts  any  smallish 
learned  folks  with  whom  you  can  willingly  associate  and  chat,  as  we 
were  wont  together?  When  do  you  return]  How  long  do  you 
intend  to  remain  among  those  hyperboreans  ?  Please  to  answer  me 
these  questions  one  by  one  :  not  that  you  are  to  make  the  mistake  of 
supposing  that  only  now  have  I  your  affairs  at  heart, — for  understand 
that,  in  the  beginning  of  the  autumn,  I  turned  out  of  my  way  on  a 
journey  to  see  your  brother  for  the  purpose  of  knowing  what  you 
were  doing.  Lately  also,  when  it  had  been  fallaciously  reported  to 
me  in  London  by  some  one  that  you  were  in  town,  straightway  and 
as  if  by  storm  I  dashed  to  your  crib  ;  lout'twas  the  vision  of  a  shadoio  ! 
for  nowhere  did  you  appear.  Wherefore,  if  you  can  without  inconveni 
ence,  fly  hither  all  the  sooner,  and  fix  yourself  in  some  place  so  situated 
that  I  may  have  a  more  pleasant  hope  that  somehow  or  other  we  may 
be  able  at  least  sometimes  to  exchange  visits, — though  I  would  you 
were  as  much  our  neighbour  in  the  country  as  you  are  when  in  town. 
But  this  as  it  pleases  God  f  I  would  say  more  about  myself  and  my 
studies,  but  would  rather  do  so  when  we  meet ;  and  now  to-morrow 
we  are  to  return  to  that  country-residence  of  ours,  and  the  journey  so 
presses  that  I  have  hardly  had  time  to  put  all  this  on  the  paper. 
Farewell. 

"  London  :  Septemb.  2,  1637." 

Diodati  must  have  answered  in  a  bantering  medical  strain, 
for  Milton  again  writes  to  him  on  the  23rd  of  the  same  month, 
dating  again  from  London.  The  letter,  some  parts  of  which 
are  rather  obscure  from  our  not  having  Diodati's  before  us 
to  explain  them,  was  as  follows  : — 

"  To  CHARLES  DIODATI. 

"  While  other  friends  generally  in  their  letters  think  it  enough  to 
express  a  single  wish  for  one's  health,  I  see  now  how  it  is  that  you 
convey  the  same  salutation  so  many  times ;  for  to  those  mere  wishes 
on  the  subject  which  were  all  that  you  yourself  could  in  former  times 

T  T  2 


614  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

offer,  and  which  are  all  that  others  have  to  offer  yet,  you  would  now 
have  me  understand,  I  suppose,  that  there  is  the  gigantic  addition  of 
your  art  and  all  the  force  of  your  medical  practitionership.  You  bid 
me  be  well  six  hundred  times,  well  as  I  wish  to  be,  well  as  I  can  be, 
and  so  forth  even  more  superlatively.  Verily  you  must  have  lately 
been  made  the  very  steward  of  the  larder,  the  clerk  of  the  kitchen,  to 
Health,  such  havoc  you  make  of  the  whole  store  of  salubrity ; 1  or, 
doubtless,  Health  ought  now  to  be  your  parasite,  you  so  act  the  king 
over  her  and  command  her  to  be  obedient.  I  therefore  congratulate 
you,  and  find  it  consequently  necessary  to  return  you  thanks  on  a 
double  account, — your  friendship,  for  one  thing,  and  your  excellence 
in  your  profession  for  another.  I  did  indeed,  since  it  had  been  so 
agreed,  long  expect  letters  from  you ;  but,  having  never  received  any, 
I  did  not,  believe  me,  on  that  account  suffer  my  old  good- will  to  you 
to  cool  in  the  least ;  nay,  that  very  excuse  for  your  delay  which  you 
have  employed  in  the  beginning  of  your  letter  I  had  anticipated  in 
my  own  mind  you  would  offer,  and  that  rightly  and  in  accordance 
with  our  relations  to  each  other.  For  I  would  not  have  true  friend 
ship  turn  on  balances  of  letters  and  salutations,  all  which  may  be 
false,  but  that  it  should  rest  on  both  sides  in  the  deep  roots  of  the 
mind  and  sustain  itself  there,  and  that,  once  begun  on  sincere  and 
sacred  grounds,  it  should,  though  mutual  good  offices  should  cease, 
yet  be  free  from  suspicion  and  blame  all  life  long.  For  fostering 
such  a  friendship  as  this  what  is  wanted  is  not  so  much  written  cor 
respondence  as  a  loving  recollection  of  virtues  on  both  sides.  Nor, 
even  should  you  have  persisted  in  not  writing,  would  there  be  lack 
of  means  with  me  for  supplying  that  good  office.  Your  probity 
writes  for  me  in  your  stead,  and  inscribes  true  letters  on  my  inmost 
consciousness,  your  frank  innocence  of  character  writes  to  me,  and 
your  love  of  the  good ;  your  genius  also,  by  no  means  an  every-day 
one,  writes  to  me  and  commends  you  to  me  more  and  more.  Don't, 
therefore,  now  that  you  have  possessed  yourself  of  that  tyrannic 
citadel  of  Medicine;  wave  those  terrors  before  me,  as  if  you  meant  to 
draw  in  bit  by  bit,  and  to  demand  back  from  me  your  six  hundred 
healths  till  only  one  was  left,  if  by  chance  (which  God  forbid)  I 
should  become  a  traitor  to  friendship.  Remove  that  terrible  battery 
which  you  seem  to  have  planted  right  at  me  in  your  resolution  that 
it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  me  to  get  ill  without  your  good  leave.  For, 
lest  you  should  threaten  too  much,  know  that  it  is  impossible  for  me 
not  to  love  men  like  you.  What  besides  God  has  resolved  concerning 
me  I  know  not,  but  this  at  leastj :  He  has  instilled  into  me,  if  into  any 
one,  a  vehement  love  of  the  beautiful.  Not  with  so  much  labour,  as 
the  fables  have  it,  is  Ceres  said  to  have  sought  her  daughter  Proser 
pina  as  it  is  my  habit  day  and  night  to  seek  for  this  idea  of  ike  beau- 

1  There  is  a  recollection  here  of  a       from  the  classics  may  be  traced  in  Mil- 
phrase  of  Plautus.     Other  such  scraps       ton's  letters. 


TWO    LETTKRS    TO    CHARLES    DIODATI.  645 

tiful,  as  for  a  certain  image  of  supreme  beauty,  through  all  the  forms 
and  faces  of  things  (for  many  are  the  shapes  of  things  divine}  and  to 
follow  it  as  it  leads  me  on  by  some  sure  traces  which  I  seem  to  recog 
nize.  Hence  it  is  that,  when  any  one  scorns  what  the  vulgar  opine  in 
their  depraved  estimation  of  things,  and  dares  to  feel  and  speak  and 
be  that  which  the  highest  wisdom  throughout  all  ages  has  taught  to 
be  best,  to  that  man  I  attach  myself  forthwith  by  a  kind  of  real 
necessity,  wherever  I  find  him.  If,  whether  by  nature  or  by  my  fate, 
I  am  so  circumstanced  that  by  no  effort  and  labour  of  mine  can  I 
myself  rise  to  such  an  honour  and  elevation,  yet  that  I  should  always 
worship  and  look  up  to  those  who  have  attained  that  glory,  or  happily 
aspire  to  it,  neither  gods  nor  men,  I  reckon,  have  bidden  nay. 

"  But  now  I  know  you  wish  to  have  your  curiosity  satisfied.  You 
make  many  anxious  inquiries,  even  as  to  what  I  am  at  present  think 
ing  of.  Hearken,  Theodotus,  but  let  it  be  in  your  private  ear,  lest  I 
blush ;  and  allow  me  for  a  little  to  use  big  language  with  you.  You 
ask  what  I  am  thinking  of  ?  So  may  the  good  Deity  help  me,  of  im 
mortality  !  And  what  am  I  doing  ?  Growing  my  wings  and  medi 
tating  flight ;  but  as  yet  our  Pegasus  raises  himself  on  very  tender 
pinions.  Let  us  be  lowly  wise  ! 

"  I  will  now  tell  you  seriously  what  I  am  thinking  of.  I  am  thinking 
of  migrating  into  some  Inn  of  the  Lawyers  where  I  can  find  a  pleasant 
and  shady  walking-ground,  because  there  I  shall  have  both  a  more 
convenient  habitation  among  a  number  of  companions  if  I  wish  to 
remain  at  home,  and  more  suitable  headquarters  if  I  choose  to  make 
excursions  in  any  direction.  Where  I  am  now,  as  you  know,  I  live 
obscurely  and  in  a  cramped  manner.  You  shall  also  have  information 
respecting  my  studies.  I  have  by  continuous  reading  brought  down 
the  affairs  of  the  Greeks  as  far  as  to  the  time  when  they  ceased  to  be 
Greeks.  I  have  been  long  engaged  in  the  obscure  business  of  the 
state  of  Italians  under  the  Longobards,  the  Franks,  and  the  Germans, 
down  to  the  time  when  liberty  was  granted  them  by  Rodolph,  King 
of  Germany  :  from  that  period  it  will  be  better  to  read  separately 
what  each  City  did  by  its  own  wars.  But  what  are  you  doing  ]  How 
long  will  you  hang  over  domestic  matters  as  &  filius  familias,  forget 
ting  your  town  companionships  ?  Unless  this  step-motherly  war  be 
very  bad  indeed,  worse  than  the  Dacian  or  the  Sarmatian,  you  will 
certainly  have  to  make  haste,  so  as  to  come  to  us  at  least  for  winter- 
quarters.1  Meanwhile,  if  it  can  be  done  without  trouble  to  you,  I  beg 
you  to  send  me  Justiniani,  the  historian  of  the  Venetians.2  I  will, 
on  my  word,  see  that  he  is  well  kept  against  your  arrival,  or,  if  you 

1  The   allusion  seems  to  be  to  the  John,  and  their  sister  Philadelphia, 

fact  that  Diodati's  father,  Dr.  Theodore,  2  "  Justinianm  Bernardus,  Patricius 

now  in  his  sixty-fifth  year,  had  recently  Venetus,  De  origine  urbis  Venetinrum  :" 

taken  to  himself  a  second  wife,  rather  folio,    Venice,    1492.     There    was    an 

alienating  thereby  his  three  children  by  Italian  translation,  published  at  Venice 

the  first  wife,  —  Charles,  his  brother  in  1608. 


646  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

prefer  it,  that  he  is  sent  back  to  you  not  very  long  after  receipt. 
Farewell. 

"  London  :  Septemb.  23,  1637." 

These  letters,  written  in  September  1637,  will  suggest 
that,  since  the  death  of  Milton's  mother  in  the  previous 
April,  there  had  been  a  disturbance  of  the  routine  of  the 
household  at  Horton,  and  that,  though  Horton,  as  we  had 
independently  surmised,  had  continued  to  be  the  abode  of 
Milton's  widowed  father,  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of 
coming  and  going  on  Milton's  own  part  between  Horton 
and  London.  He  had  been  in  London  for  some  time  on  the 
2nd  of  September,  and  was  then  going  back  to  Horton; 
yet  he  is  again  in  London  on  the  23rd  of  September,  and 
he  writes  then  as  if  he  meditated  a  permanent  settlement  in 
London  and  was  looking  out  for  chambers  in  one  of  the 
Inns  of  Court  likely  to  suit  him.  So  far  as  appears,  how 
ever,  the  project  was  never  carried  out.  This  was  probably 
because  a  larger  project  was  forming  itself  in  Milton's  mind, 
to  which  he  hoped  to  obtain  his  father's  consent, — the  pro 
ject,  namely,  of  a  Continental  tour,  including  a  residence  for 
some  time  in  Italy.  With  that  idea  dawning  in  his  mind, 
he  seems  to  have  abandoned  his  notion  of  chambers  in 
London,  and  to  have  spent  the  later  autumn  of  1637  and 
the  winter  of  1637-8  at  Horton  as  before.  Horton,  there 
fore,  may  have  the  credit  of  one  more  of  his  English  poems, 
perhaps  the  finest  of  all  that  we  now  call  his  earlier  or  minor 
poems,  Comus  itself  not  excepted. 

LYCIDAS. 

The  death  of  Ben  Jonson  had  been  the  great  event  of  the 
literary  world  in  the  autumn  just  past,  and  it  was  not  till 
more  than  half  a  year  had  elapsed  that  it  ceased  to  be  matter 
of  town  talk.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  question 
who  should  be  Ben's  successor  in  the  Laureateship.  The 
question  was  settled,  at  last,  by  the  appointment  of  William 
Davenant,  greatly  to  the  chagrin  of  Thomas  May.  Then 
there  was  much  talk  of  a  magnificent  monument  to  be 
erected  to  Ben  in  Westminster  Abbey,  to  which  all  the 


LYCIDAS.  647 

world  would  subscribe.  The  proposal  came  to  nothing; 
and  old  Ben  lay  or  rather  stood  (for  he  was  buried  upright) 
with  nothing  over  him  but  the  flat  pavement  of  the  aisle, 
on  one  of  the  squares  of  which,  when  the  grave  was  covered 
up,  a  clever  Oxfordshire  squire  named  Jack  Young  paid  a 
mason  eighteen  pence  for  cutting  the  famous  provisional 
inscription  "  0  RAKE  BEN  JONSON."  The  poets  and  others 
of  the  tribe  of  Ben,  however,  did  raise  another  monument 
of  a  sort  over  their  patriarch.  In  addition  to  elegies  pub 
lished  by  them  individually,  some  thirty  or  forty  of  them, 
including  Lord  Falkland,  May,  Habington,  Waller,  young 
Cleveland  of  Cambridge,  young  Cartwright  of  Oxford,  Owen 
Feltham,  Shakerley  Marmion,  and  John  Ford,  clubbed  to 
gether  copies  of  obituary  verses,  in  English,  in  Latin,  and  in 
Greek,  to  be  published  conjointly  in  a  special  volume  under 
the  editorship  of  Dr.  Brian  Duppa,  Dean  of  Christ  Church. 
The  volume  appeared  early  in  1638,  with  the  title  of  "  John' 
sonus  Virbius,  or  the  Memorie  of  Ben  Johnson  revived  by  the 
Friends  of  the  Muses."1  The  gist  of  all  the  panegyrics, 
various  as  they  were  in  style,  was  that  English  poetry  had 
died  with  Ben.  The  panegyrics  themselves  went  near  to 
prove  it. 

What  the  wits  and  scholars  of  England  at  large  were  doing 
for  Ben's  memory  a  select  number  of  wits  and  scholars, 
chiefly  connected  with  Cambridge,  had  resolved  to  do  for 
the  memory  of  poor  Edward  King.  For  eleven  years  he 
had  been  one  of  the  ornaments  of  Cambridge,  and  from 
July  1633,  as  full  M.A.  and  fellow  of  Christ's  College,  he 
had  been  fulfilling  the  offices  of  tutor,  prselector,  and  the 
like,  in  his  College,  and  qualifying  himself  for  the  active 
duties  of  a  Church  of  England  clergyman.2  All  that  he 
had  left  in  confirmation  of  the  high  estimate  formed  of  his 
powers  by  those  who  had  known  him  intimately  consisted 
of  but  a  few  scraps  of  Latin  verse,  scattered  through  those 

1  Licensed  for  publication   by  Tho.  2  He  was  prselector  of  his  College  in 

Weeks,  chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Lon-  1634-5,  and  the  admissions  at  Christ's 

don,  Jan.    23,  and   registered  in  the  for  that  year  are  iu  his  handwriting. 
Stationers'  books  Feb.  3,  1637-8. 


648  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

volumes  of  encomiastic  poetry  which  the  University  had 
published  during  his  connexion  with  it.  Here  is  a  com 
plete  list  of  these  trifles,  so  far  as  I  have  traced  them  : — 

1.  Four  copies  of  Latin  verses,  signed  "  Ed.  King,  Coll.  Christi 
Sodu»"  occupying  pp.  36-39  of  the  volume  issued  from  the  University 
Press  on  the  occasion  of  the  birth  of  the  Princess  Mary  (Nov.  4, 1631), 
but  with  retrospective  reference  to  the  birth  of  Prince  Charles,  after 
wards  Charles  II.  (May  29, 1630).  The  volume  is  entitled  "  Genethlia- 
cum  illustrissimorum  principum,  Caroli  et  Maria?,  a  Musis  Cantabri- 
giensibus  celebratum:  Cantab.  1631."  It  contains  verses  by  some 
scores  of  men  from  all  the  colleges,  e.  g.  Comber  of  Trinity,  Fuller  of 
Sidney  College,  Duport  of  Trinity,  Whelock  of  Clare  Hall,  Randolph 
of  Trinity  ;  and,  besides  King,  one  notices  among  contributors  from 
Christ's  Milton's  school-fellow  Pory.  Of  King's  contributions  (he 
was  then  in  his  twentieth  year)  one  is  in  hexameters,  one  in  Horatian 
measure,  and  two  are  in  elegiacs.  The  piece  in  hexameters  opens 
thus  : — 

"  Qualis  ab  Oceano  rerum  qui  semen  et  auctor 
Exsurgit  laxis  rubicunda  Aurora  capillis, 
Exhilaratque  npvo  perfusum  lumine  inundum, 
Infantemque  diem  promit,  coelumque  serenat, 
Nigrantes  faciens  non  sponte  rubescere  nubes, 
Purpureis  victas  radiis,  sic  parvula  nobis 
Princeps,  Lucinse  ac  cceli  dulcissima  cura, 
Reginae  ex  utero  prodit,"  &c. 

The  premature  birth  of  the  princess,  thus  somewhat  bluntly  hinted  at 
in  the  last  line,  forms  the  whole  subject  of  one  of  the  pieces  in 
elegiacs.  We  quote  it  entire  : — 

"  Miraris  quod  te,  illustris  Regina,  levarit 

Tarn  festinanti  conjuga  Juno  maim, 
Et  praematuraB  compulsam  in  lumina  vitse 

Natura  sobolein  sic  properante  paris  ] 
Regius  hie  ortus,  vereque  heroicus  :  ipsis 

Plebeiis  justo  mense  licet  parere. 
Dissecto  Caesar  Romanus  ventre  parentis 

Prodiit,  et  vitam  de  moriente  tulit : 
Tu  viva  eduxti  praerepto  tempore  prolem  : 

Haud  potuit  nasci  nobiliore  modo." 

2.  A  copy  of  Latin  iambics,  pp.  43,  44  of  the  volume  of  Cambridge 
verses  on  the  King's  recovery  from  the  small-pox  in  the  winter  of 
1632,   entitled  " Anthologia  in  Regis  Exanthemata;   sen  gratulatio 
Musarum  Cantab,  de  felicissime  asservatd  Regis  Caroli  valetudine : 
Cantab.  1633."     Besides  nearly  all  the  old  hands  at  such  things,  the 
volume  includes  contributions  from  Collins  and  Pearson  of  King's, 
young  Crashaw  of  Pembroke,  and  young  Henry  More  of  Christ's. 

3.  A  copy  of  Latin  iambics  in  the  volume  of   Cambridge  verses 
congratulating  the  King  on  his  safe  return  from  Scotland  (July  1633), 
and  entitled  "  Rex  Redux,  sive  Musa  C antabrigiensis,  &c.,  de  incolumi- 
tate  et  felici  reditu  Regis  Caroli  post  receptam  coronam  comitiaque 
peracta  in  /Scotia :  Cantab.  1633."     King  appears  again  here  (cetat.  21) 


LTCIDAS.  649 

among  some  scores  of  old  hands,  including  Honeywood  and  Henry 
More  of  Christ's. 

4.  A  copy  of  Latin  iambics  prefixed  to  Hausted's  "  Senile  Odium," 
when  that  play  was  published  at  Cambridge  in  1633  (see  ante,  p.  253). 

5.  A  copy  of  Latin  elegiacs  in  the  volume  of  Cambridge  verses  on 
the"  birth  of  Prince  James,  Duke  of  York  (Oct.  15,  1633),  entitled 
"  Duds  Eboracensis  Fasciae  a  Musis  Cantabrigiensibus  raptim  contextce: 
Cantab.  1633."    All  the  metrical  hands  of  the  University  are  here 
again ;  and  King,  who  now  signs  himself  M.A.  as  well  as  Fellow  of 
Christ's,  reverts  to  his  somewhat  blunt  physiology  in  referring  to  the 
Queen's  fecundity  : — 

"  Mnemosyne  Musas  peperit  foecunda  novenas. 

Haec  in  te  meruit  fabula  ficta  fidem  : 

De  Jovis  exsiluit  Pallas  vix  una  cerebro  ; 

Ex  utero  prodit  multa  Minerva  tuo." 

6.  A  copy  of  Latin  stanzas  in  Horatian  metre  in  the  Cambridge 
volume  of  verses  on  the  birth  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth   (Dec.  28, 
1635),  entitled  "  Carmen  Natalitium  ad  cunas  illustrissimce  principis 
Elizabethce  decantatum,  intra  nativitatis  Domini  solemnia,  per  humiles 
Cantabrigice  musas:  A.D.  1635." 

7.  A  copy  of  Latin  iambics,  in  the  Cambridge  volume  of  verses  on 
the  birth  of  the  Princess  Anne  (March  17,  1636-7),  entitled  "  2ui/w&a, 
sive  Musarum  Cantabrigiensium  concentus  et  congratulatio  ad  serenis- 
simum  Britanniarum  Regem  Carolum  de  quintti  sud  sobole,  clarissimd 
Principe  sibi  nuper  /elicissime  natd  :   A-D.  1637."     This  is  an  un 
usually  rich  collection,  containing  pieces  in  Latin  and  Greek  by 
nearly   140  contributors  from  all  the   colleges.     Among  these  are 
Duport  of  Trinity,  Andrew  Marvell  of  Trinity  (who  contributes  both 
in  Latin  and  in  Greek),  Beaumont  of  Peterhouse,  Crashaw  of  Peter- 
house,  and  Abraham    Cowley.      There  are  ten  contributors  from 
Christ's,  including  Robert  Gell,  B.D.,  and  Henry  More  (who  writes 
almost  always  in  Greek).     King  (cutat.  25)  again  shows  a  singular 
liking  for  the  plain  physiological  view  of  his  subject : — 

"  Ineunte  vere  terra  jam  pandit  sinum, 
Glebasque  molles  solvit ;  et,  solis  novi 
Refecta  radiis  roribusque  gemmeis 
Auraque  Zephyri,  blandiora  semina 
Coinmissa  reddit,  atque,  foecundum  tumens, 
Effundit  herbas,  succulos,  florum  comas. 
Et  tibi,  Maria,  candidi  veris  tepor 
Laxavit  uterum,"  &c. 

On  the  whole,  there  is  nothing  in  any  of  these  perform 
ances  that  would  impress  one  now,  if  one  came  upon  them 
unawares,  with  the  notion  of  superior  genius  in  the  writer. 
There  is  little  poetry  in  the  thought;  and  the  obstetric 
plainness  of  phrase  in  each  of  the  birthday  pieces,  though 
excusable  perhaps  in  verse  made  by  the  dictionary,  is  what 
the  taste  of  a  true  son  of  the  muses  would  certainly  have 


650  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

avoided.  The  verses,  however,  are  not  below  the  average 
of  most  of  those  that  accompany  them,  and  one  can  well 
understand  that  they  do  not  reveal  all  the  author's  ability. 
In  moral  respects,  King  seems  to  have  been  the  model  of 
academic  youth,  strict  and  pious,  while  gentle  and  amiable. 

It  seems  to  have  been  after  the  assembling  of  the  Uni 
versity  for  the  Michaelmas  Term  of  1637  that  the  project  of 
a  little  volume  of  commemorative  verses  was  agreed  upon 
by  King's  friends.  Milton,  as  one  who  had  known  King 
well,  and  who  had  doubtless  corresponded  with  him,  either 
voluntarily  offered  a  contribution,  or  was  invited  to  send 
one.  The  result  was  the  monody  afterwards  entitled  Lycidas, 
but  originally  printed  without  a  title.  The  draft  of  the 
poem  among  the  Milton  MSS.  at  Cambridge  in  Milton's 
own  hand  is  dated  "November  1637";  but  the  general 
collection  of  which  it  formed  a  part  did  not  appear  till  a 
month  or  two  later,  and  by  that  time  Milton  had  made  a 
few  verbal  changes. 

The  collection  consisted  of  two  parts.  The  one  is  a  series 
of  twenty-three  pieces  in  Latin  and  Greek,  entitled  "  Justcu 
Edovardo  King  naufrago  ab  amicis  moerentibus,  amoris  et 
jjivctas  \apiv "  ("  Obsequies  to  Edward  King,  drowned  by 
shipwreck,  in  token  of  love  and  remembrance,  by  his  sorrow 
ing  friends  "),  and  with  this  motto  from  Petronius  Arbiter 
on  the  title-page,  "  Si  recte  calculum  ponas,  iibique  naufra- 
gium  est  "  ("  If  you  rightly  cast  the  reckoning,  there  is 
shipwreck  everywhere").  The  other  is  a  series  of  thirteen 
English  poems,  separately  paged,  and  with  this  separate 
title,  surrounded  by  a  black  border,  on  the  outer  leaf: — 
"  Obsequies  to  the  memorie  of  Mr.  Edward  King,  Anno  Dom. 
1638."  The  two  parts  of  the  collection  were  separately 
paged  and  titled;  but  both  were  printed  at  the  University 
press,  and  both  bear  the  date  1638.  The  existing  copies 
of  them  are  sometimes  separate  and  sometimes  bound 
together.  Milton's  contribution  stands  last  in  the  English 
series,  so  that,  when  the  two  parts  were  bound  together- 
with  the  English  last,  it  closed  the  volume. 

The  Latin  and  Greek  part  consists  of  35  small  quarto 


LYCIDAS.  651 

pages.      It  opens  with  a  Latin  paragraph  in  conspicuous 
type,  narrating  the  incident  which  occasioned  the  volume. 
The  following  is  a  translation,  not  more  clumsy  than  th 
original : — 

"  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 
his  voyage  to  Ireland,  drawn  by  natural  affection  to  visit  his  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.  Caulfie-ld,  Baron  Charlemont,  and  Margaret, 
wife  of  Lord  G.  Loder,  Chief  Justice  of  Ireland  ;  the  venerable  pre 
late  Edward  King,  Bishop  of  Elphin,  his  godfather  ;  and  the  most 
reverend  and  learned  William  Chappell,  Dean  of  Cashel  and  Provost 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  whose  hearer  and  pupil  he  had  been  in 
the  University, — when,  the  ship  in  which  he  was  having  struck  on  a 
rock  not  far  from  the  British  shore  and  been  ruptured  by  the  shock, 
he,  while  the  other  passengers  were  fruitlessly  busy  about  their  mortal 
lives,  having  fallen  forward  upon  his  knees,  and  breathing  a  life  which 
was  immortal,  in  the  act  of  praj^er  going  down  with  the  vessel,  ren 
dered  up  his  soul  to  God,  Aug.  10,  1637,  aged  25." 

Then  follow  the  poems  themselves,  in  different  metres,  by 
the  following  contributors,  all  in  Latin  except  those  other 
wise  marked : — 1.  Anonymous;  2.  "N.  Felton";  3.  "  R. 
Mason,"  of  Jesus;  4.  '<  J.  Fallen";  5.  "Gul.  Iveson," 
B.A.,  of  Christ's  (Greek) ;  6.  "  Jo.  Pearson,"  of  King's;  7. 
"R.  Brown";  8.  "J.  B.  "  ;  9.  "Jo.  Pots,"  of  Christ's 
(Greek);  10.  "Car.  Mason,"  of  King's;  11."— Coke"; 
12.  "  Steph.  Anstie"  ;  13.  "Jo.  Hoper"  ;  14.  "  R.  C.";  15. 
Henry  More,  of  Christ's  (Greek) ;  16.  "Thorn;  Farnabius," 
the  London  schoolmaster,  who  speaks  of  the  deceased  as 
"  formerly  his  most  dear  pupil  "  ;  17.  "  Hen.  King,"  one  of 
the  brothers  of  the  deceased  ;  18.  "  J.  Hayward,"  Chancel 
lor  and  Canon-Residentiary  of  Lichfield  ;  19  and  20.  "M. 
Honeywood,"  of  Christ's;  21.  "Gul.  Brierly,"  fellow  of 
Christ's  ;  22.  "Christopher  Bainbrigge,"  fellow  of  Christ's, 
and  a  relative  of  the  master;  23.  "  R.  Widdrington,"  of 
Christ's. 

The  thirteen  pieces  which  form  the  English  part  of  the 
volume  occupy  in  all  twenty-five  pages.  Three  or  four  of 
them  are  by  contributors  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  part. 


652  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

First  is  a  poem  of  brotherly  affection  by  Henry  King 
(pp.  1-4),  in  which,  among  other  things,  he  says  of  the 
deceased : — 

"  Religion  was  but  the  position 
Of  his  own  judgment :  Truth  to  him  alone 
Stood  nak'd ;  he  strung  the  Arts'  chain  and  knit  the  ends  ; 
And  made  divine  and  humane  learning  friends, — 
Of  which  he  was  the  best  edition, 
Not  stuft  with  doubts,  but  all  decision. 
Conjecture,  wonder,  probabilitie 
Were  terms  of  weakness  :  nothing  bound  his  eye 
With  fold  or  knot  ;  but  th'  Earth's  globe  did  seem 
Full  as  transparent  as  the  air  to  him. 
He  drest  the  Muses  in  the  brav'st  attire 
That  e'er  they  wore,  and  taught  them  a  strain  higher 
And  far  beyond  their  winged  horses'  flight. 
But  oh  !  the  charming  tempest  and  the  might 
Of  eloquence,  able  to  Christianize 
India  or  reconcile  antipathies  ! 

He  : but  his  flight  is  past  my  reach,  and  I 

May  wrong  his  worth  with  too  much  pietie." 

The  next  writer  (pp.  4-8)  is  Joseph  Beaumont,  then  fellow 
of  Peterhouse,  afterwards  more  celebrated.  When  he  heard 
of  King's  death,  he  says,  he  could  not  believe  in  the  extinc 
tion  so  suddenly  of  so  fair  a  life : — 

"  Why  did  perfection  seek  for  parts, 
Why  did  his  nature  grace  the  arts, 
Why  strove  he  both  the  worlds  to  know, 
Yet  always  scorn'd  the  world  below  1 
Why  would  his  brain  the  centre  be 
To  learning's  circularitie, 
Which,  though  the  vastest  arts  did  fill, 
Would,  Jike  a  point,  seem  little  still  ] " 

There  follows  an  anonymous  friend  (pp.  8,  9),  who  says : — > 

"  While  Phcebus  shines  within  our  hemisphere, 
There  are  no  stars,  or  at  least  none  appear : 
Did  not  the  sun  go  hence,  we  should  not  know 
Whether  there  was  a  night  or  stars  or  no. 
Till  thou  liedst  down  upon  thy  western  bed 
Not  one  poetic  star  durst  show  his  head  ; 
Athenian  owls  feared  to  come  forth  in  verse 
Until  thy  fall  darkened  the  universe. 
Thy  death  makes  poets,"  &c. 

The  next  contribution,  and  naturally  a  more  interesting 
one,  is  that  of  Cleveland  (pp.  9,  10).  He  says  : — 


LYCIDAS.  G53 

"  I  am  no  poet  here  :  my  pen's  the  spout 
Where  the  rain-water  of  my  eyes  run  out, 
In  pity  of  that  name  whose  fate  we  see 
Thus  copied  out  in  griefs  Hydrographie. 
The  Muses  are  not  mermaids,  though  upon 
His  death  the  ocean  might  turn  Helicon. 
The  sea's  too  rough  for  verse  :  who  rhymes  upon't 
With  Xerxes  strives  to  fetter  th'  Hellespont. 

The  famous  Stagirite,  who  in  his  life 
Had  Nature  as  familiar  as  his  wife, 
Bequeath'd  his  widow  to  survive  with  thee, 
Queen-dowager  of  all  Philosophic." 

The  next  contributor,  William  More  (pp.  10,  11),  seems  to 
be  a  little  disgusted  with  the  hyperbolic  strain  of  his  fellow- 
contributors.  He  says : — 

"  My  grief  is  great  but  sober,  thought  upon 
Long  since,  and  reason  now,  not  passion. 
Nor  do  I  like  their  piety  who,  to  sound 
His  depth  of  learning,  where  they  feel  no  ground, 
Strain  till  they  lose  their  own  ;  then  think  to  ease 
The  loss  of  both  by  cursing  guiltless  seas. 
I  never  yet  could  so  far  dote  upon 
His  rare  prodigious  life's  perfection 
As  not  to  think  his  best  philosophic 
Was  this, — his  skill  in  knowing  how  to  die." 

No.  6  (pp.  12,  13)  is  "  W.  Hall,"  who,  after  referring  to  the 
manner  of  the  sun's  daily  disappearance,  says  : — 

"  So  did  thy  light,  fair  soul,  itself  withdraw 
To  no  dark  tomb  by  nature's  common  law, 
But  set  in  waves." 

Then  (pp.  14,  15)  comes  Samson  Briggs,  M.A.,  fellow  of 
King's,  and  a  contributor  along  with  King  to  almost  all  the 
Cambridge  collections.  He  writes,  as  one  might  expect 
from  his  name,  in  very  strong  language  :  — 

"  To  drown  this  little  world  !    Could  God  forget 
His  covenant  which  in  the  clouds  he  set  ? 
Where  was  the  bow  1 — But  back,  my  Muse,  from  hence  ; 
'Tis  not  for  thee  to  question  Providence. 
Rather  live  sober  still ;  such  hot  disputes 
Riddle  us  into  Atheism." 

To  Briggs  succeeds  Isaac  Olivier  (pp.  15,  16),  who  has  this 
conceit : — 


654  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  Since  first  the  waters  gave 
A  blessing  to  him  which  the  soul  did  save, 
They  loved  the  holy  body  still  too  much, 
And  would  regain  some  virtue  from  a  touch." 

The  ninth  piece  (pp.  16,  17)  differs  from  those  preceding  it 
in  being  addressed  "  To  the  deceased's  virtuous  sister,  the 
Lady  Margaret  Loder."  The  author  gives  only  his  initials, 
"  J.  H."  ;  but  he  is  undoubtedly  the  J.  Hay  ward,  Chancel 
lor  and  Canon- Residentiary  of  Lichfield  Cathedral,  who 
contributes  also  to  the  Latin  portion  of  the  obsequies.  His 
chief  theme  is  the  lady's  Church  zeal,  and  he  explains  his 
allusions  by  marginal  notes  : — 

"  The  early  matins  which  you  daily  said, 
*  Th,e     And  vespers,  when  you  dwelt  next  door  St.  Chad,* 

churchrfn  And  home  devotion,  when  the  closet  door 

Litchfieid.  Was  shut,  did  me  this  augury  afford  [sic], 

That,  when  such  blustering  storms  as  these  should  start, 

They  should  not  break  the  calmness  of  your  heart. 

With  joy  I  recollect  and  think  upon 

Your  reverent  Church-like  devotion, 

Who  by  your  fair  example  did  excite 

Churchmen  and  clerks  to  do  their  duty  right, 

And,  by  frequenting  that  most  sacred  quire, 

Taught  many  how  to  heaven  they  should  aspire. 

For  our  Cathedrals  to  a  beamless  eye 

Are  quires  of  Angels  in  epitomie, 

Maugre  the  blatant  beast  who  cries  them  down 

As  savouring  of  superstition. 

Misguided  people  !    But  for  your  sweet  self, 

Madame,  you  never  dash'  d  against  that  shelf 

Of  stubbornness  against  the  Church  ;  but  you 

(Paul's  virgin  and  St.  Peter's  matron  too), 

excellent    Though  I  confess  you  did  most  rarely  paint,* 

Limner.     Yet  were  no  hypocrite,  but  a  true  saint." 

The  next  contributor,  "  C.  B./'  perhaps  Christopher  Bain- 
brigge  again,  also  addresses  (pp.  17,  18)  the  sister  of  the 
deceased : — 

"  Who  sees  would  say  you  are  no  other 
But  your  sex-transformed  brother." 

"  E.  Brown  "  follows  with  an  English  piece  in  addition  to 
his  Latin  one  (pp.  18,  19).  He  says  :— 

"  Weep  forth  your  tears,  then  ;  pour  out  all  your  tide  : 
All  waters  are  pernicious  since  King  died." 

After  him  (pp.  19,  20)  comes  T.  Norton,  of  Christ's,  who 


LYCIDAS.  655 

begins  rather  abruptly  and  unintelligibly,  as  if  a  part  of  his 
poem  had  been  lopped  off  by  the  editor  : — 

"  Then  quit  thine  own,  thou  western  moor, 
And  haste  thee  to  the  northern  shore  ; 
I'  th'  Irish  sea  one  jewel  lies 
Which  thy  whole  cabinet  outvies." 

Milton's  poem  follows  Norton's,  beginning  on  the  page  on 
which  that  poem  ends,  and  occupying  the  remaining  pages 
of  the  volume  (pp.  20-25).  It  has  not  his  full  name  ap 
pended  to  it,  but  only  the  initials  "  J.  M."  It  almost  seems 
as  if  it  had  been  placed  where  it  is  that  one  might  have  to 
wade  through  the  varied  rubbish  of  the  preceding  pages 
before  reaching  it.  After  the  poetic  canaille  have  been 
heard,  listen  how  a  true  poet  begins  on  the  same  theme  :  — 

Yet  once  more,  O  ye  laurels,  and  once  more, 
Ye  myrtles  brown,  with  ivy  never  sere, 
I  come  to  pluck  your  berries  harsh  and  crude, 
And  with  forced  fingers  rude 
Shatter  your  leaves  before  the  mellowing  year. 
Bitter  constraint  and  sad  occasion  dear 
Compels  me  to  disturb  your  season  due  ; 
For  Lycidas  is  dead,  dead  ere  his  prime, 
Young  Lycidas,  and  hath  not  left  his  peer. 
Who  would  not  sing  for  Lycidas  ?  he  knew 
Himself  to  sing  and  build  the  lofty  rhyme. 
He  must  not  float  upon  his  watery  bier 
Unwept,  and  welter  to  the  parching  wind, 
Without  the  meed  of  some  melodious  tear. 

The  song  which  opens  thus  is  not,  it  is  to  be  remembered, 
the  song  of  Milton  speaking  in  his  own  person,  but  of  Milton 
transformed  in  his  imagination,  for  the  time,  into  a  poetic 
shepherd,  bewailing  in  the  season  of  autumn  the  untimely 
death  of  his  fellow- shepherd  Lycidas.  Hence  the  whole 
elegy  is  an  allegoric  pastoral.  It  is  a  lyric  of  lamentation 
rendered  more  shadowy  and  impersonal  by  being  distanced 
into  the  form  of  a  narrative  and  descriptive  phantasy.  The 
imaginary  shepherd,  after  invoking  the  Muses  to  aid  his 
sad  office,  tells  of  the  friendship  between  himself  and  the 
dead : — 


G56  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

For  we  were  nursed  upon  the  self -same  hill, 

Fed  the  same  flock,  by  fountain,  shade,  and  rill ; 

Together  both,  ere  the  high  lawns  appeared 

Under  the  opening  eyelids  of  the  morn, 

We  drove  afield,  and  both  together  heard 

What  time  the  grey-fly  winds  her  sultry  horn, 

Battening  our  flocks  with  the  fresh  dews  of  night, 

Oft  till  the  star  that  rose  at  evening  bright 

Towards  heaven's  descent  had  sloped  his  westering  wheel. 

Meanwhile  the  rural  ditties  were  not  mute  ; 

Tempered  to  the  oaten  flute, 

Rough  Satyrs  danced,  and  Fauns  with  cloven  heel 

From  the  glad  sound  would  not  be  absent  long  ; 

And  old  Damaetas  loved  to  hear  our  song. 

The  hill- here  is,  of  course,  Cambridge  ;  the  joint  feeding  of 
the  flocks  is  companionship  in  study ;  the  rural  ditties  on 
the  oaten  flute  are  academic  iambics  and  elegiacs ;  and  old 
Damaetas  is  either  Chappell,  whom  Milton  has  long  forgiven, 
or  some  more  kindly  fellow  of  Christ's.  But  the  lamentation 
is  continued.  Where  were  the  Nymphs,  asks  the  minstrel, 
when  the  deep  closed  over  the  head  of  their  beloved  child  ? 
Not  on  the  Welsh  mountains  surely,  where  the  Druidic 
bards  had  sung ;  not  on  the  shaggy  top  of  Mona  or  Angle- 
sea;  nor  near  the  wizard  stream  of  the  Dee.  Had  they 
been  there,  Lycidas  could  not  have  perished  in  their  so  near 
vicinity  !  And  yet  what  could  they  have  done  ? 

Alas  !  what  boots  it  with  uncessant  care 

To  tend  the  homely,  slighted  shepherd's  trade, 

And  strictly  meditate  the  thankless  Muse  ? 

Were  it  not  better  done,  as  others  use, 

To  sport  with  Amaryllis  in  the  shade, 

Or  with  the  tangles  of  Neaera's  hair  1 

Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise 

(That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind) 

To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days  ; 

But,  the  fair  guerdon  when  we  hope  to  find 

And  think  to  burst  out  into  sudden  blaze, 

Comes  the  blind  Fury  with  the  abhorred  shears, 

And  slits  the  thin-spun  life. 

The  fancy  then  changes.     After  a  strain  of  higher  mood, 
correcting  what   has  just  been   said,  and  telling  how  the 


LYCIDAS.  657 

praise  of  the  good  outlasts  their  life,  there  seems  to  pass 
before  the  shepherd  a  train  of  personages,  each  concerned 
in  the  loss  which  is  lamented.  First  comes  the  Herald  of 
Neptune,  pleading,  in  his  master's  name,  that  he  had  not 
caused  the  death.  Questioned  by  him,  the  winds  that  blow 
off  the  western  promontories  answer,  through  Hippotades, 
as  their  messenger,  that  the  crime  had  not  been  theirs.  It 
was  in  a  calm  that  the  ship  went  down : — 

The  air  was  calm,  and  on  the  level  brine 

Sleek  Panope  with  all  her  sisters  played. 

It  was  that  fatal  and  perfidious  bark, 

Built  in  the  eclipse,  and  rigged  with  curses  dark, 

That  sunk  so  low  that  sacred  head  of  thine. 

Then  comes  Camus,  reverend  sire,  clothed  in  hairy  mantle, 
and  with  bonnet  of  sedge  dimly  embroidered,  mourning  the 
loss  of  his  hopeful  son. 

Last  came  and  last  did  go 

The  Pilot  of  the  Galilsean  lake  : 

Two  massy  keys  lie  bore  of  metals  twain 

(The  golden  opes,  the  iron  shuts  amain). 

Who  is  this  ?  It  is  the  awful  figure  of  that  Apostle  to 
whom  Christ  had  committed  the  guardianship  of  his  Church. 

He  shook  his  mitred  locks  and  stern  bespake  : — 

' '  How  well  could  I  have  spared  for  thee,  young  swain, 

"  Enow  of  such  as,  for  their  bellies'  sake, 

"Creep,  and  intrude,  and  climb  into  the  fold  ! 

"  Of  other  care  they  little  reckoning  make 

"  Than  how  to  scramble  at  the  shearers'  feast 

"  And  shove  away  the  worthy  bidden  guest. 

"  Blind  mouths  !  that  scarce  themselves  know  how  to  hold 

"  A  sheep-hook,  or  have  learnt  aught  else  the  least 

"  That  to  the  faithful  herdman's  art  belongs  ! 

"  What  recks  it  them  J    What  need  they  ?    They  are  sped  ; 

"  And,  when  they  list,  their  lean  and  flashy  songs 

"  Grate  on  their  scrannel  pipes  of  wretched  straw  : 

"  The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed, 

"  But,  swoln  with  wind  and  the  rank  mist  they  draw, 

"  Rot  inwardly  and  foul  contagion  spread  ; 

"  Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 

"  Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said. 

"  But  that  two-handed  engine  at  the  door 

"  Stands  ready  to  smite  once,  and  smite  no  more  !" 

VOL.   I.  U  U 


658  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

As  if  a  strain  so  stern  and  polemical  had  scared  away  the 
ordinary  pastoral  muses,  the  mourning  shepherd  calls  upon 
them  to  come  back,  that  his  song  may  subside  once  more 
into  the  Arcadian  melody  in  which  it  had  begun. 

Return,  Alpheus  ;  the  dread  voice  is  past 

That  shrunk  thy  streams  ;  return,  Sicilian  Muse  ; 

And  call  the  vales,  and  bid  them  hither  cast 

Their  bells  and  flowerets  of  a  thousand  hues. 

Ye  valleys  low,  where  the  mild  whispers  use 

Of  shades,  and  wanton  winds,  and  gushing  brooks, 

On  whose  fresh  lap  the  swart  star  sparely  looks, 

Throw  hither  all  your  quaint  enamelled  eyes, 

That  on  the  green  turf  suck  the  honeyed  showers, 

And  purple  all  the  ground  with  vernal  flowers. 

Bring  the  rathe  primrose  that  forsaken  dies, 

The  tufted  crow-toe,  and  pale  jessamine, 

The  white  pink,  and  the  pansy  freaked  with  jet, 

The  glowing  violet, 

The  musk-rose,  and  the  well-attired  woodbine, 

With  cowslips  wan  that  hang  the  pensive  head, 

And  every  flower  that  sad  embroidery  wears  ; 

Bid  amaranthus  all  his  beauty  shed, 

And  dafFadillies  fill  their  cups  with  tears, 

To  strew  the  laureate  hearse  where  Lycid  lies.1 

Ah!  while  thus  the  affectionate  fancy  has  the  loved  body  near 
for  a  sweet  Arcadian  burial,  that  loved  body  is  unrecovered 

1  It  may  interest  the  reader  to  know  various  readings  to  Lycidas  in  Todd's 
that  there  are  signs  in  the  autograph  Milton).  In  the  interval  between  writ- 
draft  of  Lycidas,  preserved  among  the  ing  it  and  the  publication  of  the  printed 
Milton  MSS.  in  Trinity  College,  text,  Milton  had  evidently  hovered  over 
Cambridge,  that  Milton  composed  this  the  passage  with  fastidious  fondness, 
beautiful  passage  with  much  care.  As  touching  every  colour  and  fitting  every 
originally  written,  the  line  "And  purple  word  till  he  brought  it  to  its  present 
all  the  ground  with  vernal  flowers  "  ran  perfection  of  beauty.  Generally,  I  may 
on  with  the  line  "  To  strew  the  laureate  here  mention,  these  Cambridge  MSS. 
hearse  where  Lycid  lies  " ;  and  the  nine  show  Milton  to  have  been,  at  this  time 
intermediate  lines,  which  gather  the  of  his  life,  if  not  a  slow  writer,  at  least 
separate  flowers  together  by  their  a  most  careful  one.  Passages  are  fre- 
names,  are  an  exquisite  afterthought,  quently  erased  and  re-written, — some- 
progressively  elaborated.  Perceiving,  times  re-written  twice  ;  rarely  are  there 
as  it  would  seem,  the  opportunity  of  many  consecutive  lines  without  some 
some  such  poetic  enumeration  of  flowers  verbal  alteration;  and  invariably  the 
at  this  point  of  the  monody,  Milton  alteration  is  for  the  better.  So  also, 
wrote  on  a  blank  space  on  the  opposite  where  the  printed  copy  of  any  poem 
page  a  passage  beginning "  Bring  the  deviates  from  the  Cambridge  MS., 
rathe  primrose,"  &c.,  marking  where  it  whether  by  omission  or  by  correction, 
was  to  be  inserted  ;  but  even  the  pass-  the  change  is  always,  so  far  as  I  have 
age  so  written  is  not  exactly  what  now  noted,  an  improvement, 
stands  in  the  printed  text  (see  the 


LYCIDAS.  659 

from  the  deep,  and  the  sounding  seas  may  be  hurling  it 
hither  and  thither, — hurling  it  perhaps  northwards  beyond 
the  stormy  Hebrides,  or  perhaps  southwards  to  that  extreme 
point  of  the  Cornish  coast,  where,  according  to  old  fable, 
the  great  vision  of  St.  Michael  sits  on  the  mount  that  bears 
his  name,  looking  towards  far  Namancos  and  the  hold  of 
Spanish  Bayona.  Whithersoever  the  body  may  be  hurled, 
what  does  it  matter?  Lycidas  himself  is  not  dead;  but,  as 
the  day-star  sinks  in  the  ocean  only  to  rise  again,  so  has  he 
sunk  also  ;  and,  through  the  dear  might  of  Him  who  walked 
the  waves,  he  is  now  in  a  region  of  groves  and  streams  other 
and  more  lovely  than  those  of  this  earthly  Arcadia  where 
we  are  fain  to  bury  him.  There  he  hears  the  nuptial  song ; 
there  the  glorified  saints  entertain  him  j  there  the  tears  are 
wiped  for  ever  from  his  eyes. 

So  ends  the  supposed  song  of  the  shepherd,  and  in  the 
concluding  lines  it  is  Milton  in  person  that  speaks  : — 

Thus  sang  the  uncouth  swain  to  the  oaks  and  rills, 
While  the  still  morn  went  out  with  sandals  grey : 
He  touched  the  tender  stops  of  various  quills, 
With  eager  thought  warbling  his  Doric  lay  : 
And  now  the  sun  had  stretched  out  all  the  hills, 
And  now  was  dropt  into  the  western  bay. 
At  last  he  rose,  and  twitched  his  mantle  blue : 
To-morrow  to  fresh  woods,  and  pastures  new. 

This  is  a  voluntary  explanation  of  the  peculiar  construction 
of  the  poem,  and  a  parting  intimation  that  the  imaginary 
shepherd  is  Milton  himself,  and  that  the  poem  is  a  tribute 
to  his  dead  friend  rendered  passingly  in  the  midst  of  other 
occupations. 

The  publication  of  Lycidas  in  the  Cambridge  volume  of 
obituary  tributes  to  Edward  King  brings  us  to  February  or 
March  1637-8.  Ten  months  had  then  elapsed  since  the  old 
ex- scrivener,  in  the  first  days  of  his  widowerhood,  had  sent 
in  his  sworn  answer  to  the  bill  of  complaint  against  him  by 
Sir  Thomas  Cotton  in  the  Westminster  Court  of  Kequests. 
As  the  reader  will  have  guessed  from  the  nature  of  that 

U  U   2 


660  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

answer,  it  had  been  practically  conclusive.  Its  manly  and 
straightforward  story  of  the  transactions  referred  to  in  the 
bill  of  complaint,  corroborated  as  that  story  was  by  the 
statements  of  the  co-defendant  Bower  as  to  his  part  in  the 
transactions,  had  convinced  Sir  Thomas  and  his  lawyers  that 
further  procedure  against  Mr.  Milton  was  useless,  and  that 
the  action  must  be  fought  thenceforth,  if  fought  further  at 
all,  against  Mr.  Bower  singly.  Accordingly,  though  there 
are  signs  of  a  continuation  of  the  case  against  Bovver,  and 
of  an  unflinching  perseverance  of  Bower  in  his  plea  that  the 
acquisition  of  the  £3,600  of  debt  for  £2000  paid  down  had 
been  a  perfectly  legitimate  commercial  speculation  in  the 
circumstances,  to  which  Sir  Thomas  himself  had  been  a 
party,  there  is  no  trace  of  farther  trouble  or  annoyance  in 
the  matter  to  Mr.  Milton  at  Horton  after  his  answer  of  April 
1637.  Still,  the  case  Cotton  v.  Milton  and  Bower  stood  on 
the  books  of  the  Court,  and  security  against  trouble  or 
annoyance  was  not  complete  till  the  name  of  Milton  had 
been  authoritatively  taken  out  of  the  case.  On  the  1st  of 
February  1637-8,  whether  on  the  application  of  the  ex- 
scrivener  or  not,  that  relief  came,  in  the  form  of  the  follow 
ing  order  of  the  Court  itself: — "  Primo  die  Febmarii,  Anno 
"  JR.  Caroli  dccimo  tertio :  Whereas  Sir  Thomas  Cotton, 
"Kt.,  long  since  exhibited  his  bill  of  complaint  unto  the 
"  King's  Majesty  before  his  Highness'  Council  in  his  hon- 
"  ourable  Court  of  Whitehall  at  Westminster  against  John 
"  Milton,  defendant ;  unto  which  bill  the  said  defendant  the 
"same  term  answered;  with  which,  as  it  seemeth,  the  said 
"complainant  resteth  satisfied,  for  that  he  hath,  by  the 
"  space  of  two  whole  terms  last  past  and  upwards,  failed  to 
"  reply  or  otherwise  to  proceed  in  the  said  cause,  whereby 
"  to  bring  the  same  to  hearing,  as  by  the  ordinary  course  of 
"  this  Court  he  ought  to  have  done  : — Therefore  it  is  by  his 
"  Majesty's  said  Council  of  this  Court  Ordered, — That  the 
"same  matter  shall  be  from  henceforth  out  of  this  Court 
"  clearly  and  absolutely  dismissed  for  ever  (for  want  of 
"  prosecution) ;  And  the  said  defendant  as  concerning  the 
"  same  is  discharged  of  any  further  attendance  in  this  behalf 


LYCIDAS. 


661 


"and  licensed  to  depart  at  his  liberty,  sine  die;  And  that 
"  the  said  complainant,  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  shall  presently, 
' '  upon  sight  or  knowledge  hereof,  content  and  pay  unto  the 
"said  defendant  Milton,  or  to  his  assigns  demanding  the 
te  same,  the  full  sum  of  twenty  shillings  of  current  English 
"  money,  for  his  costs  herein  wrongfully  sustained." — Such 
was  the  issue  of  a  rather  remarkable  lawsuit.  May  not  the 
poet  have  had  it  in  mind  when,  sixteen  years  afterwards, 
speaking  of  his  dead  father,  he  selected  the  words  in  which 
he  has  described  his  father's  character  ?  "  Patre  viro  in- 
tegerrimo  "  he  was  then  to  write,  adding  et  matre  probatissimd 
et  eleemosynis  per  viciniam  potissimum  notd."  Was  there 
not  a  reminiscence  here  of  the  lawsuit  of  1636-38  as  the 
single  attempted  scandal  against  his  father's  business-in 
tegrity,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  coincidence  of  his 
mother's  death  with  the  very  crisis  of  that  trouble  ? 1 


1  My  authorities  for  the  story  of  the 
lawsuit  Cotton  v.  Milton  and  Ilower,  as 
narrated  in  portions,  in  the  order  of 
dates,  from  p.  627  to  the  present  page, 
have  here  to  be  mentioned  collectively 
and  in  some  detail : — The  first  printed 
reference  to  the  case  known  to  me 
(though  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  actually 
the  earliest)  was  in  a  contribution  to 
Notes  and  Queries  of  Nov.  3,  I860,- 
signed  "Eaymond  Delacour."  There 
•were,  I  believe,  subsequent  notices  of 
it  here  and  there,  more  or  less  general ; 
but  the  case  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  made  really  public  in  its  main 
features  till  1874,  when  it  was  brought 
freshly  to  light  by  the  examination,  by 
Mr.  It.  F.  Isaacson,  of  old  bundles  of . 
papers  of  the  Court  of  Requests,  pre 
served,  in  a  scattered  state,  in  the 
Record  Office.  The  main  results  so  far 
were  then  given  lucidly  and  succinctly 
in  a  communication  to  the  Standard 
newspaper,  of  date  Nov.  12,  1874,  by 
Mr.  T.  C.  Noble,  an  antiquarian  of  in 
defatigable  zeal,  to  whom  we  are  in 
debted  for  not  a  few  excellent  re 
searches  and  recoveries  of  interesting 
facts,  and  also  in  another  article  by  a 
contributor  to  the  Academy  of  the  21st 
of  the  same  month.  When  I  desifed 
to  explore  the  story  thoroughly  for 
myself,  for  the  purposes  of  the  present 
volume,  by  an  examination  of  the  rela 
tive  documents,  it  was  Mr.  Noble  that 
kindly  furnished  me,  by  letter,  with 


the  necessary  references  to  those  in  the 
Eecord  Office.  With  the  help  of  these 
references,  and  aided  also  by  courteous 
official  assistance  in  the  Reading  Room, 
I  was  able  to  inspect  not  only  the 
parchment  containing  the  answer  of 
the  scrivener  Milton,  of  April  13, 1637, 
to  Sir  Thomas  Cotton's  Complaint,  but 
also  the  Affidavit  Book  of  the  Court  of 
Requests  and  the  Draft  Order  Book  of 
the  same  Court  for  the  time  in  ques 
tion.  These  two  books  (especially  f. 
198,  f.  218,  and  f.  220  of  the  Affidavit 
Book,  and  p.  193  et  seq.  of  the  Order 
Book),  yielded  me  a  clearer  view  of  the 
history  of  the  whole  case,  and  several 
important  particulars,  not,  I  think,  pre 
viously  known, — the  most  important 
being  Christopher  Milton's  affidavit  as 
to  his  father's  age  in  1637,  With  such 
new  information,  and  with  Mr.  Noble's 
article  in  the  Standard  and  the  other 
article  in  the  Acad.emy  before  me,  I  had 
written  out  what  I  thought  the  most 
complete  story  of  the  case  possible  from 
the  preserved  materials,  when,  in  June 
1880, 1  received  another  welcome  com 
munication  from  Mr.  Noble.  It  was  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  just  found, 
among  the  Cottonian  Charters  in  the 
British  Museum,— Cott.  Oiart.  I.  5  (5), 
— a  batch  of  documents  relating  to  the 
case  that  had  evidently  belonged  to  the 
complainant,  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  and 
some  of  which  were  purely  additional 
to  the  preserved  papers  of  the  Court, 


662  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

Just  at  the  time  when  the  last  rag  of  cloud  from  this 
trouble  was  dissipated,  certain  new  domestic  arrangements, 
of  which  we  shall  have  to  take  note  hereafter,  promised  to 
make  the  house  at  Horton  so  comfortable  in  other  respects 
round  the  aged  widower  in  future  that  there  was  no  necessity 
for  detaining  his  elder  son  any  longer  from  the  continental 
tour  on  which  he  had  set  his  heart.  Before  the  end  of 
March  1638,  therefore,  that  tour  had  been  resolved  on,  and 
the  preparations  for  it  had  been  begun.  The  first  copies  of 
the  Cambridge  volume  of  verses  in  memory  of  Edward  King 
were  then,  we  are  to  suppose,  in  circulation,  and  Lycidas, 
without  that  title  as  yet,  but  merely  as  the  last  piece  in  the 
volume,  was  finding  its  first  readers.  In  that  limited  aca 
demic  circle  the  most  rousing  passage  in  the  whole  poem,  as 
it  is  now  the  most  interesting  biographically  and  historically, 
must  have  been  that  in  which  the  poet,  under  the  guise  of 
an  angry  speech  from  St.  Peter,  gave  vent  to  his  feelings 
respecting  the  state  of  the  English  Church  and  Nation  at 
the  time  he  wrote.  The  outburst,  bold  though  it  was,— 
dangerously  bold  for  the  author  "  J.  M."  had  it  been  read 
in  certain  quarters  and  there  had  been  inquiry  as  to  the 
daring  person  that  owned  the  initials, — may  have  passed 
with  the  majority  as  ambiguous  or  merely  imaginative.  On 
republishing  the  poem,  however,  with  his  full  name,  in  1645, 
Milton  left  no  doubt  as  to  his  intention.  "  In  this  Monody," 
he  then  wrote  by  way  of  heading,  "  the  Author  bewails  a 
' '  learned  Friend,  unfortunately  drowned  in  his  passage  from 
"  Chester  on  the  Irish  Seas,  1637;  and,  by  occasion,  foretells 

so  far  as  they  have  been  yet  traced  in  that  Answer  tendered  to  the  Court  on 

the  Kecord  Office.     Transcripts  of  two  the  part  of  Sir  Thomas  Cotton,  and  an 

of  these  documents  accompanied  Mr.  imperfect  abstract  of  Milton's  answer 

Noble's  letter, — viz.  the  letter  of  Henry  that  had  been  made  for  Sir  Thomas. 

Perry,  Sir  Thomas  Cotton's  agent,  of  The  two  former,  especially  the  abstract 

April   3.  1637,  and   the   all-important  of    Bower's   arswer,   have   been   duly 

order  of  the  Court,  of  Feb.  1,  1637-8,  wrought  iuto  my  account  of  the  history 

exonerating  Milton  and  dismissing  him  of  the  case  as  it  stands  in  these  pages  ; 

honourably.     This  last  I  had  the  satis-  and  I  hope  the  account  there  is  now  as 

faction,  with  Mr.  Noble's  leave,  of  pub-  perfect  as  need  be. — My  obligations  to 

lishing  in  the  Athenteuin  of  July  3, 1880.  Mr.  Noble  are  of  no  ordinary  kind,  and 

Since  then  Mr.  Noble  has,  at  my  re-  impress  me  the  more  because  they  have 

quest,  sent  me  copies  of  three  others  been  conferred,  at  no  small  expense  of 

of  the  documents, — viz.  the  abstract  of  time,  and  in  a  spirit  of  pure  literary 

Bower's  answer  to  the  complaint  (about  generosity,  on  one  who  is  a  stranger  to 

April  1637),  a  paper  of  Exceptions  to  him  personally. 


LYCIDAS.  663 

"  the  rum  of  our  corrupted  Clergy,  then  in  their  height." 
Assuming  these  words  as  our  warrant,  and  leaving  Milton  in 
the  mean  time  busy  in  his  preparations  for  his  foreign  journey, 
let  us  take  a  retrospect  of  the  course  of  public  events 
in  the  British  Islands  during  the  period  we  have  traversed 
biographically  in  the  present  chapter,  i.  e.  from  July  1632 
to  April  1638.  Such  a  retrospect  is  essential  for  what  lies 
before  us  in  years  yet  to  come. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  REIGN  OF  THOROUGH  FROM  1632  TO  1638. 

THE  Government  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  from  July 
1632  to  April  1638  was  a  continuation  of  that  system  of  rule, 
by  Charles  himself  and  his  Councillors  and  Ministers,  with 
out  the  aid  of  Parliaments  in  England,  which  had  been 
already  in  force  since  March  1628-9.  This  system  of  rule, 
however,  had  naturally  been  consolidated  by  experience ; 
and,  if  we  want  a  name  for  the  matured  Absolutism  of 
1632-38,  as  distinct  from  the  more  tentative  Absolutism  of 
the  preceding  three  years,  we  cannot  do  better  than  call  it 
THE  REIGN  OF  THOROUGH.  What  this  name  means,  and  how 
it  originated,  will  appear  as  we  proceed.  Enough  to  under 
stand,  at  the  outset,  that,  although  the  governing  body 
continued  nominally  to  be  the  King  and  the  whole  of  the 
Privy  Council,  the  real  power  was  in  the  hands  of  the  King 
and  one  or  two  Ministers  acting  in  close  understanding  with 
him. 

The  time  at  which  we  find  this  system  of  rule  arranged 
definitely  into  the  form  in  which  it  continued  to  be  main 
tained  until  the  country  called  both  King  and  Ministers  to 
a  reckoning  was  after  the  King's  return  from  Scotland  in 
July  1633.  From  that  date  forward  the  government  of  the 
Three  Kingdoms  was  vested,  under  the  King,  in  a  virtual 
Triumvirate,  as  follows  : — 

In  ENGLAND  the'  supreme  minister  was  Laud.  He  had 
been,  in  fact,  the  most  potent  minister  since  1628,  not  only 
ecclesiastically  but  generally ;  and  the  death  of  Archbishop 
Abbot,  Aug.  3,  1633,  completed  what  was  wanting  in  form 
by  enabling  the  King  to  promote  him,  as  had  long  been 
determined,  to  the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury.  ' '  Friday, 
"  July  26,"  writes  Laud  in  his  Diary,  "  I  came  to  my  house  at 


THE    REIGN   OF    THOROUGH.  665 

"  Fulliam  from  Scotland  :  Sunday,  August  4,  news  came  to 
"  Court  of  the  Lord  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  death,  and 
"  the  King  resolved  presently  to  give  it  me,  which  he  did 
"August  6.  That  very  morning  (Aug.  4),  at  Greenwich, 
"  there  came  one  to  me  seriously,  that  vowed  ability  to  per-  7 
"form  it,  and  offered  me  to  be  a  Cardinal :  I  went  presently' 
"  to  the  King,  and  acquainted  him  both  with  the  thing  and 
"  person."  The  offer,  he  tells  us,  was  renewed  within  a 
fortnight.  "  My  answer  again  was  that  somewhat  dwelt 
"  within  me  that  would  not  suffer  that  till  Rome  were  other 
te  than  it  was."  Accordingly,  without  the  Cardinal's  hat, 
and  with  no  more  of  Roman  Catholicism,  in  his  views  than 
there  had  always  been,  Laud  removed  from  London  House 
at  Fulham.  to  Lambeth  Palace.  He  was  then  exactly  sixty 
years  of  age.  To  one  that  wrote  to  congratulate  him,  and 
to  wish  him  many  and  happy  days,  he  replies,  "  Truly,  my 
"  Lord,  I  look  for  neither, — not  for  many,  for  I  am  in  years 
"and  have  had  a  troublesome  life;  not  for  happy,  because 
"  I  have  no  hope  to  do  the  good  I  desire.  Besides,  I  doubt 
"  I  shall  never  be  able  to  hold  my  health  there  [at  Lambeth] 
"  for  one  year  ;  for,  instead  of  all  the  jolting  I  have  had  over 
"  the  stones  between  London  House  and  Whitehall, — which 
"  was  almost  daily, — I  shall  now  have  no  exercise,  but  slide 
"  over  in  a  barge  to  the  Court  and  Star-Chamber." l  The 
difference  between  the  sliding  over  in  a  barge  from  Lambeth 
Palace  to  the  Court  and  Star- Chamber  and  the  jolting  daily 
over  the  longer  journey  from  Fulham  House  to  the  same 
places  was  precisely  the  difference  between  Laud's  power 
now  that  he  was  Archbishop  and  his  power  while  he  had 
been  but  Bishop  of  London.  He  was  nearer  the  official 
centre,  and  he  did  the  same  things  as  he  had  done  before, 
but  more  directly  and  easily.  Weston,  though  raised  to  the 
Earldom  of  Portland,  had  little  power  left  beyond  his  own 
department  of  the  finances  ;  and  any  impatience  in  other 
quarters  of  Laud's  predominance  showed  itself  but  in  little 
outbreaks  which  led  to  nothing.  Even  in  small  matters, 
Laud's  tenacity  made  him  more  than  a  match  not  only  for 

i  Letter  to  Wentworth  in  the  Strafford  Papers,  dated  "  Fulham,  Sept.  9,  1633." 


666  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

such  a  boorish  peer  as  Montgomery,  but  also  for  the  stately 
Arundel.  Only  the  cool  and  Mephistophelic  Cottingtoii 
could  venture  now  and  then  to  nettle  his  Grace  by  a  jibe  at 
his  expense. 

While  Laud  was  thus  supreme  minister  for  England,  and 
also,  ecclesiastically,  chief  Triumvir  for  all  the  three  king 
doms,  the  government  of  IRELAND  had  been  entrusted  to  the 
equally  active  and  far  greater  genius  of  Wentworth.  For 
four  years  his  abilities  and  zeal  had  been  tested  in  the  Pre 
sidency  of  the  Northern  Counties  of  England;  and,  when  it 
was  resolved  to  appoint  a  more  energetic  successor  to  Vis 
count  Falkland  in  the  Viceroyalty  of  Ireland,  he  was  selected 
for  the  post.  Accordingly,  from  1632,  though  still  retaining 
the  Presidency  of  the  North,  he  is  best  known  as  Lord 
Deputy  of  Ireland.  He  did  not  proceed  to  Ireland  till  July 
1633,  when  the  King  was  returning  from  Scotland.  When 
he  went  there  he  was  forty  years  of  age,  ripe  in  all  experi 
ence,  fixed  in  his  opinions  and  notions  of  government,  and 
yet  full  of  fire  and  passion.  It  is  impossible  to  look  at  his 
portrait  now,  amid  the  portraits  of  the  other  ministers  of 
Charles,  without  seeing,  in  its  mingled  fervour  and  stern 
ness,  that  he  was  the  master-mind  among  them.  Charles 
himself  had  a  stronger  perception  of  this  than  he  cared  to 
acknowledge.  From  Wentworth's  first  going  to  Ireland, 
there  are  occasional  private  letters  from  the  King  to  him, 
showing  a  confidence  more  creditable  to  the  King's  discern 
ment  than  to  his  ingenuousness.  Thus,  in  one  letter 
(Oct.  26,  1633),  referring  to  certain  cases  in  which  recom 
mendations  in  the  royal  name  had  been  already  delivered,  or 
would  be  delivered,  to  Wentworth  by  persons  of  great  rank 
about  the  English  Court,  wanting  favours  done  them  in 
Ireland,  "  I  recommend  them  all  to  you/'  says  the  King, 
te  heartily  and  earnestly,  but  so  as  may  agree  with  the  good 
"  of  my  service  and  no  otherwise, — yet  so,  too,  that  I  may 
"  have  thanks  howsoever,  and  that,  if  there  be  anything  to  be 
"  denied,  you  may  do  it  and  not  I ;  commanding  you  to  be 
"  confident,  until  I  deceive  you,  that  I  shall  back  you  in 
"  whatsoever  concerns  the  good  of  my  service  against 


THE    KEIGN    OF    THOROUGH.  667 

"  whomsoever,  whensoever  there  shall  be  need."  So  the 
paction  stood  with  the  King ;  and  between  Laud  and 
Wentworth  there  was  also  a  mutual  understanding.  Went- 
worth  wrote  frequent  letters  to  Laud,  and,  in  all  affairs 
respecting  the  Irish  Church,  was  willing  to  regard  Laud's 
suggestions  as  instructions.  In  Laud's  letters  to  Went 
worth,  on  the  other  hand,  the  tone  is  that  of  a  cheery  sexa 
genarian  writing  to  a  younger  man  whose  energy  he  feels, 
and  whom  he  regards  as  on  the  whole  of  the  right  sort, 
though  too  self-confident,  too  much  of  a  merely  Pagan  or 
Plutarchian  hero  in  his  notions  of  things,  and  requiring  now 
and  then  a  little  pure  ecclesiastical  light,  and  a  little  wise 
ecclesiastical  banter. 

While  England  and  Ireland  were  thus  provided  for,  there 
was  a  separate  Triumvir  in  training  for  SCOTLAND.  This  was 
the  young  Marquis  of  Hamilton,  the  King's  cousin,  and, 
despite  the  rumours  of  his  ambition  after  the  sovereignty  of 
Scotland,  as  much  in  personal  favour  with  the  King  as  ever. 
He  had  returned  from  his  ineffective  continental  expedition 
in  aid  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  only  a  few  weeks  before  the 
death  of  Gustavus  at  the  battle  of  Liitzen  ;  he  had  accom 
panied  the  King  in  his  progress  to  Scotland  ;  and  he  had 
figured  there  as  the  first  nobleman  of  the  land  and  the  King's 
trusted  kinsman,  whom  he  still  always  called  "  James/'  in 
token  of  cousinship  and  liking.  A  direct  interest  which  he 
possessed  by  grant  in  the  Scottish  revenues,  added  to  his 
extensive  patrimonial  connexions,  made  him  the  fit  medium 
of  communication  between  the  Crown  and  the  Scots ;  and, 
accordingly,  though  he  generally  resided  at  Court,  he  was 
employed  once  and  again  in  missions  which  took  him  to  Scot 
land.  On  the  whole,  however,  he  preferred  exercising  his  in 
fluence  as  Triumvir  Extraordinary,  and  left  Scottish  affairs  to 
be  conducted,  in  the  main,  by  the  Scottish  officials,  kept  right 
in  ecclesiastical  concerns  by  instructions  sent  north  by  Laud.1 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  King  himself  was  but  a 
tool  in  the  hands  of  his  ministers.  He  was  a  methodical 

i  Rushworth's  Preface  to  Part  II.  of       Dukes  of  Hamilton,  edit.  1677,  p.  20  ; 
his  Collections ;  Btirnet's  Lives  of  the       and  Clare  idon. 


G(3S  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

rnan  of  business ;  lie  attended  meetings  of  his  Council  and 
had  private  conferences  with  Laud  and  others  ;  he  read 
carefully  the  despatches  received,  and  the  drafts  of  letters 
about  to  be  sent  out  by  ministers,  and  made  marginal  notes 
and  comments  on  them  with  his  own  hand ;  and,  besides 
giving  instructions  to  Secretaries  Coke  and  Windebank  as 
to  messages  to  be  sent  in  his  name  to  officers  at  a  distance, 
he  wrote  frequent  brief  letters  conveying,  in  his  own  royal 

V  words,  his  notions  of  what  was  fit  for  his  service.  There  is 
no  proof  that  "he  ever  really  led  his  ministers  or  furnished 
them  with  ideas  for  their  policy ;  but  whatever  they  resolved 
upon  had  at  least  to  pass  under  his  judgment  for  approval. 
On  one  point  his  resolution  seems  to  have  been  more 
strongly  made  up  than  that  of  any  of  his  ministers,- — the 
necessity  and  possibility  of  governing  England  for  the 
future  without  Parliaments.  "  The  King  hath  so  rattled  my 
' '  Lord  Keeper  Coventry/'  writes  Cottington  to  Wentworth, 
Oct.  29,  1633,  "that  he  is  now  the  most  pliable  man  in 
"  England,  and  all  thoughts  of  Parliaments  are  quite  out  of 
"  his  pate."  On  this  one  point  the  royal  will  did  perhaps 
give  the  law  to  ministers. 

-y  The  word  Thorough,  as  defining  the  policy  of  the  govern 
ment  from  1633  onwards,  appears  first  in  the  correspondence 
between  Laud  and  Wentworth.  "  As  for  the  State/'  says 
Laud,  writing  to  Wentworth,  Sept.  9,  1633,  "indeed,  my 
"  Lord,  I  am  for  Thorough,  but  I  see  that  both  thick  and 
"  thin  stays  somebody  where  I  conceive  it  should  not,  and 
"  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  go  Thorough  alone."  The  word 
having  been  once  introduced,  they  play  upon  it  between 
them  in  future  letters,  writing  it  sometimes  in  cipher,  some 
times  openly.  Thus  Wentworth  to  Laud,  Aug.  23,  1631, 
"  Go  as  it  shall  please  God  with  me,  believe  me,  my  Lord, 
"  I  will  be  Thorough  and  Thoroughout,  one  and  the  same  "  ; 
to  which  Laud  replies,  Oct.  20,  "  As  for  my  marginal  note, 
"  I  see  you  deciphered  it  well,  and  I  see  you  make  use  of  it 
"  too.  Do  so  still :  Thorough  and  Thorough  :  0  that  I  were 
"  where  I  might  go  so  too  !  "  And  so  in  later  letters,  as 
long  as  the  correspondence  lasts. 


ENGLAND    FROM    1C32    TO    1638:    LAUD. 

Mr.  Hallam  was  of  opinion  that  under  the  name  Thorough 
Laud  had  in  view  a  scheme  for  subjugating  the  common 
lawyers,  and  releasing  the  Crown,  or  rather  the  Church, 
from  those  impediments  to  action  which  resulted,  even  in 
that  age  of  compliant  judges  and  lawyers,  from  the  proceed 
ings  of  law  courts.  On  the  whole,  however,  though  this 
may  have  been  a  part  of  Thorough,  it  is  pretty  clear  that 
what  Laud  and  Wentworth  meant  by  the  term  was  a 
general  energy  and  imperiousness  in  all  respects  in  Church 
and  State,  which  should  cut  through  all  checks  and  disdain 
half-measures.  That  the  system  should  be  represented  by 
the  two  correspondents  as  rather  an  ideal  condition  of  things 
than  one  already  attained,  or  even  universally  possible,  is  a 
little  surprising  when  we  form  an  acquaintance  with  the 
policy  actually  pursued,  during  those  years,  in  each  of  the 
three  kingdoms. 

ENGLAND  PROM  1632  TO  1638. 

In  England  the  first  part  of  the  problem  of  government 
without  Parliaments  was  the  question  of  revenue ;  and  no 
portion  of  the  history  of  those  years  has  received  greater 
attention  than  that  which  consisted  in  the  endeavours  made 
to  solve  this  part  of  the  problem.  There  was  the  continua 
tion  of  tonnage  and  poundage,  and  the  raising  of  the  rates 
levied  under  that  name ;  there  was  the  enforced  collection 
of  various  excise  duties  by  the  same  authority ;  there  were 
grants  by  the  Crown,  to  individuals  and  companies,  of  mono 
polies  in  all  kinds  of  trades  and  manufactures, — in  soap- 
making,  in  salt-making,  in  leather-making,  in  pin-making, 
and  even  in  the  gathering  of  rags;  there  were  ingenious 
revivals  of  old  laws,  so  as  to  bring  in  simultaneously  large 
crops  of  fines  or  compositions  for  fines  from  persons  who 
had  infringed  them,  or  whose'ancestors  had  infringed  them, 
— laws  against  encroachments  on  the  royal  forests,  against 
throwing  arable  land  into  pasture,  against  building  below 
high-water  mark,  and  the  like;  there  were  indulgences 
to  Roman  Catholics  to  compound  for  the  penalties  on  the 


G70  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

exercise  of  their  religion ;  there  were  commissions  requiring 
all  persons  possessed  of  a  stated  property  in  military  tenure 
to  compound  by  fines  for  their  neglect  to  comply  with  former 
proclamations  summoning  them  to  be  made  knights  ;  and, 
lastly,  there  was  the  famous  device  of  Ship  Money,  whereby, 
under  pretence  of  a  right  of  the  Crown  to  charge  what 
towns  and  districts  it  chose  with  contributions  of  ships, 
&c.,  towards  the  efficient  support  of  the  navy,  writs  were 
issued,  first  for  the  exaction  of.  ships  or  a  pecuniary  equiva 
lent  from  London  and  certain  other  port-towns,  and  then 
for  the  exaction  of  rates,  to  the  amount  of  £200,000  a-year 
in  all,  from  the  whole  kingdom,  county  by  county,  the 
inland  counties  as  well  as  the  maritime.  The  irritation 
produced  by  these  methods  of  money-raising  reached  all 
classes;  but  Ship  Money  became  the  chief  grievance  among 
those  who  viewed  affairs  politically  as  well  as  personally. 
Among  those  who  refused  to  pay  it  was  the  intrepid 
London  merchant,  Richard  Chambers,  not  a  whit  dis 
couraged  by  his  previous  experience  of  the  Star-chamber. 
At  length,  resistance  having  been  made  by  other  persons, 
the  attention  of  the  country  was  concentrated  on  a  single 
case.  It  was  the  famous  case  of  John  Hampden,  who  had 
refused  to  pay  20s.  for  which  he  had  been  assessed  on  part 
of  his  Buckinghamshire  property,  and  was  resolved  to  fight 
out  the  question  to  the  death,  or  to  the  last  shilling  of  his 
vast  means. 

Till  March  1634-5,  the  minister  chiefly  responsible,  by 
reason  of  his  post,  for  the  illegal  methods  of  revenue,  was 
the  Lord  Treasurer  Weston,  Earl  of  Portland ;  but  under 
him  the  most  important  agent  was  Attorney-General  Noy. 
The  soap-monopoly,  the  most  profitable  and  unpopular  of 
all  the  monopolies,  was  invented  by  Noy,  and  was  carried 
by  him  through  all  opposition ;  his  law-learning  was  tasked 
to  furnish  precedents  for  the  other  measures  of  exaction; 
and  he  had  the  entire  credit  of  the  grand  device  of  Ship 
Money.  Both  Noy  and  Weston,  however,  died  before  the 
capabilities  of  this  last  device  had  been  fully  tested.  Noy 
died  on  the  6th  of  August  1634,  two  months  before  the  first 


ENGLAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638  :  LAUD.         671 

writs  for  ship-money  were  out;  and  Weston  died  in  tlie 
following  March. 

After  Weston's  death  there  was  much  difficulty  and  hesi 
tation  in  the  appointment  of  his  successor.  Wentworth,  to 
whom  opinion  at  Court  pointed  as  indubitably  the  fittest  man, 
wrote  over  from  Ireland  expressing  his  "  inward  and  obsti 
nate  aversion  "  to  the  office,  and  adjuring  his  friends  to 
prevent  the  King  from  nominating  him.  Cottington,  who 
was  more  willing,  was  thought  of,  but  was  set  aside ;  and, 
in  order  that  the  important  business  of  the  exchequer  should 
be  discharged  in  the  mean  time,  it  was  vested  (March  14, 
1634-5)  in  a  number  of  commissioners,  of  whom  Laud  was 
one.  "  I  never  had  so  little  leisure  in  my  life,"  writes  Laud 
to  Wentworth,  "as  I  have  had  since  I  was  a  Commissioner 
of  the  Treasury."  At  length  he  was  able  to  disengage  him 
self  from  this  troublesome  addition  to  his  labours  by  pro 
curing  the  full  Treasurership  for  his  old  friend  Juxon,  who 
had  succeeded  him  in  the  Bishopric  of  London.  He  enters 
the  fact  in  his  Diary  thus: — "March  6,  1635-6,  Sunday: 
"  William  Juxon,  Lord  Bishop  of  London,  made  Lord 
"  High  Treasurer  of  England  :  no  Churchman  had  it  since 
"  Henry  Vllth's  time  :  I  pray  God  bless  him  to  carry  it  so 
"  that  the  Church  may  have  honour,  and  the  King  and  the 
"  State  service  and  contentment,  by  it.  And  now,  if  the 
"  Church  will  not  hold  up  themselves  under  God,  I  can  do 
"  no  more."  The  appointment  of  an  ecclesiastic  to  such  an 
office  did  cause  astonishment.  But,  though  it  was  under 
Juxon's  treasurership  that  the  extension  of  the  writs  for 
ship-money  to  the  whole  kingdom  was  resolved  upon,  and 
some  of  the  other  most  violent  acts  of  the  exchequer  were 
put  in  force,  Juxon's  upright  character  saved  him  from 
much  of  the  personal  unpopularity  attaching  to  those  mea 
sures.  The  credit  of  having  suggested  the  extension  of 
ship-money,  and  generally  of  being  Noy's  successor  as  the 
adviser  of  new  exactions  from  the  subject  and  the  defender 
of  all  new  violations  of  public  liberty,  was  given  to  Sir  John 
Finch,  now  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas. 

Although  so  much  of  the  action  of  government  had  for 


672  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

-.  its  sole  end  the  bringing  in  of  revenue,,  there  were  hundreds 
of  contemporary  acts  which  had  their  origin  in  no  such 
motive,  but  simply  in  the  desire,  natural  to  all  governments 
in  those  days,  to  fix  each  man  passively  in  his  proper  place, 
and  to  maintain  in  each  the  sense  that  he  was  under  the 
paternal  charge  of  persons  who  could  judge  better  than 
himself  what  he  should  eat,  drink,  and  avoid.  In  June 
1632  there  was  a  proclamation  setting  forth  the  inconveni 
ence  of  the  residence  of  so  many  lords,  knights,  clergymen, 
and  gentlemen  in  London,  away  from  their  proper  estates, 
mansions,  and  houses  in  the  country,  and  ordering  all  of 
them,  except  such  as  were  of  the  Privy  Council  or  otherwise 
employed  about  the  Court,  to  return  within  forty  days  to  such 
estates  and  houses,  and  to  remain  there,  doing  the  duties 
and  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  their  several  stations,  under 
severe  penalties.  The  more  easily  to  enforce  this  order 
and  detect  defaulters,  the  taverns,  ordinaries,  bake-shops, 
&c.,  of  London  were  put  under  new  regulations,  January 
1633-4.  All  back-doors  of  taverns  towards  the  Thames 
were  shut  up,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  Bear  Tavern 
by  the  Bridge ;  vintners  were  restricted  in  the  sales  of  wine 
and  tobacco ;  butchers  were  forbidden  to  be  graziers ;  and, 
that  wealthy  persons  might  have  at  least  one  inducement  to 
remain  in  the  country,  no  pheasants,  partridges,  ducks,  or 
game-fowl  of  any  sort  were  to  be  dressed  or  eaten  in  any 
inn  or  ordinary  in  town.  For  a  time,  indeed,  inn-keepers 
and  tavern-keepers  in  London  were  forbidden  to  sell  any 
article  in  addition  to  liquors,  except  bread. 

Though  such  arbitrary  enactments  were  dictated  in  part 
by  the  peculiar  political  spirit  of  the  government,  and  were 
in  many  cases  intended  as  devices  for  wringing  money  from 
the  subject,  they  had  some  justification  in  preceding  Eng 
lish  practice,  and  in  the  notions  then  entertained  of  political 
economy.  More  emphatically  characteristic,  therefore,  of 
the  system  of  Thorough  were  the  prosecutions  directed 
against  individuals  who  had  given  the  government  cause  of 
offence,  and  the  remorseless  use  made  of  the  Star-chamber 
as  a  means  of  depriving  such  offenders  of  the  benefits  of 


ENGLAND    FROM    1632    TO    1G38:    LAUD.  673 

ordinary  law,  and  bringing  them  and  their  acts  and  opinions 
under  the  direct  heel  of  the  executive.  A  few  instances  of 
Star-chamber  severities  between  1632  and  1638,  usually 
selected  now  by  historians  as  most  conspicuous,  serve  but 
as  specimens  of  many  that  are  buried  in  the  contemporary 
records.  In  May  1634  Prynne,  prosecuted  by  Attorney- 
General  Noy  for  the  alleged  libel  on  the  Queen  and  on 
Royalty  in  his  Histriomastix,  was  sentenced  to  pay  a 
fine  of  £5,000,  to  be  expelled  from  his  profession  of  bar 
rister  and  from  the  University  of  Oxford,  to  stand  twice 
in  the  pillory  and  there  have  his  books  burnt  before 
him  and  his  ears  cut  off,  and  to  be  imprisoned  for  life. 
This  sentence, — the  most  cruel  that  had  been  passed  since 
that  on  Leighton  in  1630, — was  executed  in  every  particular ; 
for  the  records  bear  that  Prynne  had  one  of  his  ears  cut  off 
in  Westminster,  and  the  other  in  Cheapside,  and  was  nearly 
suffocated  besides  by  the  burning  of  his  books  "  under  his 
nose."  About  the  same  time  one  Bowyer,  for  slandering 
Laud,  was  pilloried  three  times,  suffered  the  loss  of  his  ears, 
and  was  sentenced  to  a  fine  of  £3,000  and  perpetual  im 
prisonment,  and  Sir  David  Foulis,  a  member  of  the  Council 
of  the  North,  for  words  spoken  in  Yorkshire  against  "Went- 
worth's  conduct  in  that  government,  was  fined  £5,000  to  the 
King  and  £3,000  to  Wentworth,  and  otherwise  punished. 

Necessarily,  however,  it  was  in  the  Church  that  Laud's 
system  was  carried  out  most  rigorously  and  perseveringly. 
Laud  was  the  prime  agent  in  this  department  of  affairs,  but 
the  King  went  eagerly  with  him. 

The  crown-patronage  of  the  Church  was  exercised  with  a 
view  to  the  predominance  everywhere  of  Laud's  men  and 
Laud's  principles.  The  following  list  of  the  changes  in  the 
episcopal  body,  in  sequel  to  our  previous  list  of  the  Bishops 
as  far  as  to  July  1632  (pp.  388—390)  completes  the  history 
of  the  English  sees  for  the  present  volume  : — 

I.    PROVINCE  OF  CANTERBURY. 

THE  ARCHBISHOPRIC.— Promotion  of  Laud  himself,  on  Abbot's 
death,  Aug.  1633. 

Bishopric  of  Bangor. — Edmund  Griffiths,  D.D.,  an  Oxford  man, 
VOL.  i.  xx 


674  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

appointed  on  the  death  of  Dolben  (1633)  ;  and  William  Roberts, 
D.D.,  a  Cambridge  man,  on  the  death  of  Griffiths  (1637).  • 

Bishopric  of  Bath  and  Wells. — William  Pierce,  translated  from 
Peterborough,  on  the  translation  of  Walter  Curie  to  Winchester  (1632). 

Bishopric  of  Bristol. — Dr.  Robert  Skinner,  an  Oxford  man,  and 
chaplain  to  the  King :  distinguished  for  some  years  as  a  Puritan 
preacher  in  London,  but  believed  to  have  been  drawn  off  by  Laud 
and  the  chaplaincy  :  appointed  on  the  translation  of  Coke  to  Here 
ford  (1636). 

Bishopric  of  Chichester. — Dr.  Brian  Duppa,  Dean  of  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  and  tutor  to  the  Prince,  appointed  on  the  translation  of 
Montague  to  Norwich  (May  1638). 

Bishopric  of  St.  Z>aWcPs.— The  notorious  Roger  Mainwaring,  pro 
moted  to  this  see  on  the  translation  of  Dr.  Field  to  Hereford  (Dec. 
1635). 

Bishopric  of  Ely.  —  Dr.  Matthew  W"ren>  translated  hither  from 
Norwich  on  the  death  of  Francis  White  (1638),  having  previously 
been  promoted  from  the  Mastership  of  Peterhouse,  Cambridge,  to  the 
Deanery  of  Windsor,  and  the  Bishoprics  of  Hereford  and  Norwich. 

Bishopric  of  Hereford. — Dr.  William  Juxon  succeeded  the  Church - 
historian  Godwin,  but  held  the  see  only  a  few  months,  when  he  was 
transferred  to  London.  He  was  succeeded,  in  1633,  by  Dr.  Augustine 
Lindsell,  translated  from  Peterborough  ;  and  on  Lindsell's  death  in 
1634  the  see  was  given  to  Matthew  Wren  ;  on  whose  translation  to 
Norwich  (1635)  it  was  given  to  Theophilus  Field ;  on  whose  death 
(1636)  it  was  given  to  Coke. 

Bishopric  of  London. — Juxon,  appointed  on  Laud's  elevation  to  the 
Primacy  (1633). 

Bishopric  of  Norwich. — Wren  succeeded  on  Corbet's  death  (1635) 
and  was  succeeded  (1638)  by  Montague. 

Bishopric  of  Peterborough. — Dr.  Francis  Dee  succeeded  Lindsell 
(1634),  and  was  succeeded  by  Dr.  John  Towers  (1638). 

Bishopric  of  Rochester.— Dr.  John  Warner,  an  Oxford  divine,  ap 
pointed  on  the  death  of  Bowie  (1637). 

Bishopric  of  Winchester. — Dr.  Walter  Curie  succeeded  Nelle  (1632). 

II.    PROVINCE  OF  YORK. 

Bishopric  of  Man.— Dr.  Wm.  Foster  succeeded  Phillips  (1633),  and 
was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Richard  Parr  (1635). 

As  Primate  of  all  England,  Laud  bad  ample  means  of 
developing  his  theory  of  Anglicanism,  and  of  working  even 
the  more  reserved  portions  of  it  into  the  practice  of  the 
Church,  without  the  trouble  and  publicity  of  new  enact 
ments.  There  are  but  three  cases  of  any  importance  in 
which,  during  the  first  five  years  of  his  Archiepiscopate,  he 
had  recourse  to  actual  legislation. 

One  of  these  was  the  Sabbatarian  Controversy.  This 
controversy,  not  originally  connected  with  the  Reformation, 


ENGLAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638  :  LAUD.         675 

but  of  subsequent  origin,  had  been  long  gaining  ground  in 
the  Church;  and  men  had  divided  themselves  upon  it  into 
the  three  parties  whom  Fuller  names  respectively  the  Sab 
batarians,  the  Moderates,  and  the  Anti- Sabbatarians.  By 
the  operation  of  affinities  both  logical  and  historical,  the 
Puritans  as  a  body  had  embraced  the  more  rigorous  views 
of  the  obligation  of  the  Sabbath,  while  Laud  and  his  school 
were  strongly  Anti-Sabbatarian,  and  regarded  the  very 
word  "  Sabbath,"  when  used  instead  of  "  Sunday/'  as  a 
wrong  done  to  the  Church,  and  a  "  secret  magazine  of 
Judaism."  Sabbatarianism,  in  short,  as  a  form  or  sign  of  ' 
Puritanism,  was  worthy,  in  Laud's  view,  of  compulsory 
suppression.  He  found  an  opportunity  for  a  demonstration 
on  the  subject.  In  Somersetshire,  as  in  other  counties, 
there  had  long  been  a  custom  of  revels  and  merry-makings 
in  all  the  parishes  on  Sundays,  under  the  names  of  wakes, 
church-ales,  clerk-ales,  and  the  like;  and,  these  meetings 
having  become  offensive  in  many  cases  not  only  to  Sabba 
tarian  feeling,  but  also  to  public  decency,  Chief  Justice 
Richardson  and  Baron  Denham,  on  their  circuit  through  the 
county  as  judges,  had  been  prevailed  upon  by  the  county 
justices  and  others  to  issue  an  order  for  their  abolition. 
Laud  and  the  Government,  hearing  of  the  prohibition,  not 
only  caused  it  to  be  rescinded,  but  made  it  the  occasion  for 
expressing  his  Majesty's  displeasure  with  "those  humourists, 
puritans,  and  precise  people/'  and  for  republishing  the 
Book  of  Sports  issued  by  King  James  in  1618  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  making  bowling,  archery,  dancing,  and 
other  games,  a  stated  Sunday  institution  in  all  parishes  of 
the  kingdom.  All  ministers  were  required  to  read  from 
their  pulpits  the  King's  Declaration  accompanying  the  re- 
publication,- — an  order  exceedingly  grievous  to  the  Puritans, 
and  which  led  to  the  suspension  of  many  ministers,  and 
also  to  curious  scenes  of  mock-compliance. 

Another  legislative  innovation  of  Laud  consisted  of 
injunctions  issued  by  him  in  1635  in  his  Archiepiscopal 
capacity,  with  ratification  by  the  King,  having  for  their  effect 
the  breaking  up  of  the  Dutch  and  Walloon  congregations  I 

x  x  2 


676  LIFE    OF    MTLTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

throughout  England.  There  were  about  ten  such  congrega 
tions  in  all,  numbering  about  5,000  persons,  and  consisting 
of  Dutch  and  French  manufacturers  and  their  dependents. 
To  such  members  of  the  congregations  as  had  themselves 
been  born  abroad  and  had  only  settled  in  England  Laud 
was  willing  to  continue  the  privilege  of  their  separate  wor 
ship  and  liturgy,  guaranteed  them  by  former  stipulations ; 
but  he  required  that  all  the  English-born  children  or  other 
descendants  of  such  immigrants  should  conform  to  the 
Church  of  England  and  attend  the  ordinary  parish  churches. 
There  were  vehement  reclamations  against  these  orders, 
both  from  the  congregations  and  from  the  localities  where 
they  were  settled  and  which  they  benefited  by  their  wealth 
and  industry ;  but  Laud  was  inflexible.  The  result  was 
that  many  of  the  immigrants  removed  from  England,  and 
that  several  flourishing  manufacturing  colonies  in  Kent, 
Norfolk,  and  other  counties,  were  totally  destroyed.1 

It  was  in  the  Altar  Controversy,  however,  that  Laud  made 
his  greatest  experiment  in  the  possibility  of  forcing,  by 
orders  issuing  from  himself,  a  general  and  simultaneous 
change  in  the  practice  of  the  Church.  Backed  by  a  pre 
liminary  decision  of  the  King  and  Council  in  one  particular 
case,  he  issued  orders,  through  his  Vicar- General,  for  fixing 
the  communion-table  altarwise  at  the  east  end  of  the 
chancel,  with  the  ends  north  and  south,  in  all  the  churches 
and  chapels  of  his  province,  and  for  railing  it  in,  and  other 
wise  distinguishing  it  as  a  true  altar.  The  effect  of  these 
orders  was  a  general  ferment  throughout  the  kingdom. 
Among  the  Bishops  themselves  the  summary  decision  of 
what  had  hitherto  been  an  open  question  in  the  Church 
caused  differences  of  conduct. 

While  pushing  into  the  system  of  the  Church  new  items 
of  discipline  derived  from  his  own  theory  of  Anglicanism, 
Laud  did  not  the  less  avail  himself  of  whatever  means  he 
had  or  could  make  for  enforcing  the  conformity  which  he 
was  rendering  more  difficult. 

1  Rushworth,  II.  272-3 ;  Neal's  Puritans,  III.  257-9 ;  and  documents  in  the 
State  Paper  Office. 


ENGLAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638  I  LAUD.          677 

His  first  care  had  been  to  strengthen  his  hands  and  the 
hands  of  the  other  prelates  by  enlarging  the  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction.  He  had  hardly  assumed  the  primacy  when 
(1634)  he  caused  to  be  addressed  to  himself,  in  the  King's 
name,  a  warrant  for  fresh  zeal,  in  the  shape  of  a  new 
edition  of  the  royal  instructions  of  1629,  containing,  in 
addition  to  the  former  regulations  respecting  the  residence  of 
bishops,  their  vigilance  over  the  lecturers  in  their  dioceses,  &c., 
certain  new  articles,  enjoining  every  bishop  to  give  in  an 
annual  report  of  his  diocese  to  his  metropolitan,  so  that  the 
report  of  the  metropolitan  to  the  King  might  be  more  exact. 
The  effect  of  this  order,  and  of  Laud's  archiepiscopal  visit 
ations  in  stirring  up  the  bishops,  is  visible  in  the  series  of 
his  own  reports  of  his  province  to  the  King  for  the  seven 
years  from  1633  to  1639  inclusively.  In  the  report  for  1633 
he  mentions  having  received  accounts,  and  these  rather 
meagre,  from  but  ten  of  the  twenty-one  dioceses  of  his  pro 
vince  ;  but  in  his  reports  for  the  remaining  years  not  more 
than  three  or  four  bishops  are  mentioned  as  defaulters.  The 
laziest  in  reporting  were  Goodman  of  Gloucester  and  Wright 
of  Lichfield  and  Coventry;  next  in  order  of  reluctance  seem 
to  have  been  Thornborough  of  Worcester  and  the  Calvinistic 
Davenant  of  Salisbury  ;  Williams  always  reports  for  Lincoln, 
but  in  terms  which  Laud  evidently  distrusts  ;  and  the  bishops 
who  co-operate  with  Laud  most  heartily  are  Juxon  of  Lon 
don,  Wren  of  Norwich,  Curie  of  Winchester,  Pierce  of  Bath 
and  Wells,  White  of  Ely,  and  Montague  of  Chichester.1  In 
the  province  of  York  Archbishop  Neile  seems  to  have  been 
more  zealous  in  imitating  Laud  than  any  of  his  bishops.  In 
both  provinces  the  means  by  which  the  more  zealous  bishops 
carried  out  the  instructions  of  their  archbishops  were  some 
what  novel.  Not  only  did  they  hold  courts  in  their  own 
name  for  the  citation,  examination,  and  censure  of  offenders; 
but,  in  order  that  they  might  have  each  parish  individually 
under  control,  they  introduced  what  was  called  Articles  of 
Visitation,  or  lists  of  topics  on  which  they  required  exact 
information,  and  also  Churchwardens'  Oaths,  binding  the 
1  See  the  series  of  Reports  in  Wharton's  Laud. 


678  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

churchwardens,  as  the  official  informers  in  every  parish,  to 
take  these  articles  as  the  directories  of  their  inquiries.  The 
churchwardens'  oath, — a  totally  illegal  imposition,  and  re 
sisted  as  such  by  many  churchwardens, — was  the  same  or 
nearly  so  in  different  dioceses  ;  but  the  several  bishops  drew 
up  their  own  Articles  of  Visitation,  and  some  were  more 
strict  than  others.  The  strictest  of  all  was  Wren  of  Norwich, 
whose  articles  were  139  in  number,  involving  897  distinct 
queries.  To  these  excesses  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  add  the 
exemption  claimed  and  accorded  from  interferences  of  the 
civil  courts ;  also  a  claim  advanced  by  Laud,  and  at  last 
decided  in  his  favour  by  the  King  in  Council  (June  1636),  to 
the  right  of  visitation  of  the  two  Universities  in  his  character 
of  Metropolitan ;  and,  finally,  a  considerable  extension  of  the 
powers  of  the  High  Commission  Court. 

A  list  of  the  prosecutions  and  punishments  by  ecclesiastical 
authority  in  England  from  1632  to  1638  would  be  an  in 
structive  document.  Laud's  annual  reports  and  the  records 
in  Rush  worth  give  a  general  view  of  the  subject. 

Offenders  of  the  most  heinous  class  were  the  Separatists, 
Schismatics,  Brownists,  Anabaptists,  or  Fanatics,  who  had 
actually  broken  loose  from  the  Church  of  England,  thrown 
the  institution  of  an  ordained  ministry  aside,  and  set  up  a 
secret  worship  of  God  in  conventicles.  Besides  the  ineradi 
cable  nests  of  such  Separatists  sheltered  in  the  recesses  of 
London,1  there  were  little  schools  and  colonies  of  them  in 
other  parts.  In  Lincoln  one  Johnson,  a  baker,  was  their 
leader ;  and  at  Ashton,  Maidstone,  and  other  places  in  Laud's 
own  diocese  of  Canterbury,  three  men,  named  Brewer,  Turner, 

1  As  early  as  June  11,  1631,  I  find  "  gether  in  brewhouses,  and  such  other 

(Original  Letter  in  State  Paper  Office)  "  meet  places  of  resort,  every  Sunday. 

Bishop  Hall  of  Exeter  writing,  rather  "  I  do    well    know     your     Lordship's 

officiously,    to    Laud,    then  Bishop  of  "zealous   and   careful   vigilance    over 

London,  thus : — "  Eight  Kev.  and  Hon.,  "  that  populous  world  of  men,  so  as  I 

"  with  best  services, — I  was  bold  the  "  am    assured     your    Lordship    finds 

"  last  week  to  give  your  Lordship  in-  "  enough  to  move  both  your  sorrow  and 

"  formation    of   a    busy    and  ignorant  "  holy  fervency  in  the  cause  of  God's 

"  schismatick  lurking  in  London  ;  since  "  Church  ;  neither  do  I  write  this  as  to 

"  which  time.  I  hear,  to  my  grief,  that  "  inform   your  Lordship   of   what  you 

"  there  are  eleven  several  congregations  "  know  not,  but  to  condole  the  misery 

"  (as   they   call   them)    of  separatists  "  of  the  time."  Hall  then  goes  on  to  a 

"  about  the  city,  furnished  with  their  matter  of  private  concern  to  himself. 
"  idly -pretended  pastors,  who  meet  to- 


ENGLAND    FROM    1632    TO    1638:    LAUD.    '  679 

and  Fenner,  are  heard  of  as  having  "  planted  the  infection. " 
The  plan  of  procedure  in  such  cases  was  to  put  the  leaders 
in  prison  and  keep  them  there,  and  to  excommunicate  and 
otherwise  punish  all  who  were  known  to  attend  the  con 
venticles.  Year  after  year,  however,  Laud  complains  that 
he  cannot  root  them  out.  "  They  are  all  of  the  poorer  sort/' 
he  says,  "  and  very  simple,  so  that  I  am  utterly  to  seek  what 
"  to  do  with  them."  Their  preachers  managed  to  escape 
from  prison,  and  then,  instead  of  leaving  the  country,  merely 
went  about  preaching  as  before  in  their  old  haunts,  till 
they  were  again  caught  and  put  in  prison.  Brewer,  on  being 
recaptured  in  this  manner  and  brought  again  before  the 
High  Commission,  only  "  stood  silent,  but  in  such  a  jeering, 
"  scornful  manner  as  I  scarce  ever  saw  the  like/'  Laud 
having  hinted  to  the  King  that,  as  these  offenders  were  too 
poor  to  fear  fines  and  too  desperate  to  care  for  prison,  it 
might  be  well  to  require  the  civil  judges  to  devise  some  new 
mode  of  dealing  with  them,  the  King  signified  his  approba 
tion  by  this  marginal  note  in  his  own  hand  :  "  Demand  their 
help,  and,  if  they  refuse,  I  shall  make  them  assist  you."  The 
Separatists  or  Sectaries,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  were  the 
extreme  theological  and  ecclesiastical  outcasts  of  that  time, 
almost  as  little  in  favour  with  the  main  body  of  the  respect 
able  English  Puritans  as  they  were  with  Laud  himself. 

The  majority  of  the  prosecutions,  however,  were  against 
the  ordinary  Puritans  or  Nonconformists  themselves.  Some 
were  against  laymen,  and  especially  against  those  refractory 
churchwardens  who  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  faithful  cen 
sorship  imposed  by  the  bishops,  or  resisted  the  removal  and 
railing-in  of  the  communion-table ;  some  were  against 
itinerant  lecturers  and  those  who  harboured  them ;  but  by 
far  the  largest  proportion  were  against  parish  ministers  and 
curates  for  breaches  of  one  or  more  of  the  numerous  articles 
of  Church  order  now  included  in  perfect  conformity.  Many 
of  these  cases  were  disposed  of  in  the  courts  of  the  bishops 
and  archbishops,  where  offenders  were  admonished,  sus 
pended,  or  deprived  and  excommunicated;  but  the  most 
flagrant  cases  were  referred  to  the  High  Commission,  where 


630  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

fine  and  imprisonment  might  be  added  to  the  sentence.  The 
names  of  the  most  conspicuous  Puritan  ministers  thus  sus 
pended,  deprived,  excommunicated,  or  otherwise  censured, 
between  1633  and  ]638,  may  be  gathered,  to  the  number  of 
several  scores,  from  Laud,  Rushvvorth,  and  Neal ;  but  these 
scores  of  conspicuous  names  only  represent  an  unregistered 
mass  of  persecution  or  threatened  persecution  which  racked 
and  irritated  the  whole  Church  of  England.  Numbers 
of  the  persecuted,  both  ministers  and  laymen,  emigrated  to 
Holland  or  to  America.  It  was  not  the  fault  of  Laud  or  of 
,.  Charles  that  even  this  outlet  was  left  open.  In  July  1635 
there  was  a  proclamation  forbidding  all  persons,  not  sailors, 
soldiers,  or  the  like,  to  leave  the  realm  without  licence  from 
the  King,  or  from  six  of  the  Privy  Council,  whereof  one 
should  be  a  Secretary  of  State ;  and  this  was  followed,  in 
1636,  1637,  and  1638,  by  more  stringent  rules  to  the  same 
effect,  framed  expressly  to  arrest  the  emigration  of 
"  humourists  and  Puritans."  By  this  policy  a  band  of  the 
very  men  whom  Charles  and  Laud,  had  they  guessed  what 
was  coming,  might  have  been  glad  to  see  leave  the  island, — 
Viscount  Saye  and  Sele,  Lord  Brooke,  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig, 
Hampden,  and  Cromwell  himself, — are  believed  to  have 
been  baulked  in  a  plan  they  had  formed  for  emigrating  to 
New  England,  and  so  detained  at  home  reluctantly  to  act 
out  their  parts.  In  fact,  one  or  two  of  the  future  leaders  of 
the  Commonwealth  did  emigrate  in  those  persecuting  years, 
to  return  in  due  time  as  Anglo-Americans,  and  all  the 
better  qualified  in  consequence. 

Worse,  in  Laud's  eyes,  than  ordinary  nonconformity  or 
schism  were  public  assaults,  through  the  press  or  otherwise, 
on  the  prelatic  constitution  of  the  Church  or  on  the  English 
hierarchy  and  government.  In  spite  of  the  terrible  punish 
ment  of  Leighton  for  his  Sion's  Plea  against  Prelacy  in  1630, 
and  of  Prynne  for  his  Histriomastix  in  1634,  offences  of  the 
kind  continued  to  be  committed.  Prynne,  in  his  prison, 
with  such  shreds  of  his  ears  as  had  survived  the  hangman's 
clipping  or  had  been  patched  on  again  immediately  after 
that  process,  had  remained  as  much  Prynne  as  before. 


ENGLAND  PROM  1632  TO  1638  I  LAUD.          681 

Having  access  to  pen  and  ink,  he  had  not  only  written  let 
ters  to  Laud  and  others  of  the  Privy  Council,  taxing  them 
with  cruelty  and  injustice  to  himself,  but  had  also  contrived 
to  publish  some  ten  or  twelve  new  treatises  and  pamphlets 
in  his  old  strain, — one  of  them  A  Breviate  of  the  Bishops'  In 
tolerable  Usurpations,  another  a  Looking-glass  for  all  Lordly 
Prelates.  For  these  he  was  again  called  before  the  Star- L 
chamber  in  June  1637;  and  in  his  company  there  were 
called  up  two  similar  offenders,  personally  known  to  him, 
— John  Bastwick,  a  Puritan  physician  of  Colchester,  and 
Henry  Burton,  the  Puritan  minister  of  Friday- street,  Lon 
don.  Like  Prynne,  these  two  persons,  known  as  Anti-Epis 
copal  pamphleteers  since  1624,  had  at  last  come  within  the 
reach  of  the  law,  and  been  thrown  into  prison.  Like  Prynne, 
they  had  used  their  pens  in  prison  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
aggravate  their  previous  crimes.  It  was  thought  fit  that 
the  three  should  be  punished  together,  one  victim  from  each 
of  the  three  learned  professions.  Accordingly,  by  a  sentence 
of  Sfcar-chamber  on  June  14,  1637,  the  three  were,  on  the 
30th  of  that  month,  set  in  three  separate  pillories  in  Palace 
Yard,  Westminster,  and  there  punished  successively  in  the 
presence  of  an  assembled  crowd.  Burton  was  punished  first. 
"  His  ears  were  cut  off  very  close,  so  that,  the  temporal  or 
head  artery  being  cut,  the  blood  in  abundance  streamed 
down  upon  the  scaffold,"  the  poor  man  making  such  wild 
speeches  about  Christ  all  the  while,  and  enduring  the  torture 
so  manfully,  that  some  thought  him  inspired  and  others 
thought  him  crazed.  Bastwick  was  next  punished  in  the 
same  manner,  showing  no  less  courage.  His  wife,  who 
stood  on  the  scaffold,  received  his  ears  in  her  lap,  and  kissed 
them.  Prynne's  turn  came  last.  His  ears,  having  suffered 
the  operation  of  cutting  before,  were  this  time  sawn  rather 
than  cut  off, — in  addition  to  which  he  was  branded  on  both 
cheeks  with  the  letters  S.  L.  for  "  Seditious  Libeller."  He 
bore  all  even  more  stubbornly  than  the  others,  saying  to  the 
executioner,  "  Cut  me,  tear  me  ;  I  fear  thee  not ;  I  fear  the 
fire  of  hell/'  and  uttering  other  speeches  respecting  Bishops 
and  the  Law  of  England,  at  one  of  which  the  people  gave 


682  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

an  ominous  shout.  Indeed,  all  over  England,  even  among 
the  most  loyal  and  moderate,  the  effect  of  these  cruelties 
was  such  as  to  give  the  government  reason  to  repent  of  them. 
This  appeared  after  the  three  victims  had  been  removed  to 
undergo  the  remaining  parts  of  their  sentences  in  perpetual 
and  solitary  imprisonment.  Prynne  was  confined  first  in 
Carnarvon  Castle  in  Wales,  and  then  in  Mount  Orgueil 
Castle  in  Jersey ;  Bastwick  first  in  Lancaster  Castle,  and 
then  in  the  Isle  of  Scilly  ;  and  Burton  first  at  Launceston  in 
Cornwall,  and  then  in  the  Isle  of  Guernsey.  "  We  shall  hear 
more  of  them  hereafter/'  as  Fuller  says,  when  dismissing 
them  to  those  prisons  and  their  meditations  there.1 

A  prosecution  different  from  any  yet  mentioned,  inasmuch 
as  it  was  not  an  ordinary  ecclesiastical  or  civil  prosecution, 
but  rather  an  act  of  personal  vengeance  on  a  great  political 
adversary,  was  that  of  Ex-Keeper  Williams,  Bishop  of  Lin 
coln.  Since  his  removal  from  power  in  1625,  the  Bishop 
had  been  a  terrible  tongue  let  loose  in  the  nation.  Every 
now  and  then,  such  a  saying  of  his  as  that  "  the  Puritans 
would  carry  all  things  at  last,"  that  "  no  one  was  wise  who 
permanently  opposed  himself  to  the  people  of  England," 
that  "  the  people  were  not  to  be  lashed  by  every  man's 
hand,"  had  been  reported  at  Court  as  the  latest  flash  from 
Lincoln.  At  length,  in  1632,  for  some  words  of  his  reported 
as  having  been  spoken  at  his  own  table,  he  had  been  prose 
cuted  in  the  Star-chamber  on  a  charge  of  having  revealed 
the  King's  secrets.  Williams  had  raised  such  a  host  of  pre 
liminary  legal  objections  to  this  charge,  and  had  fought 
them  so  vigorously  against  Noy  and  the  other  Crown-law 
yers,  that  the  charge  had  been  abandoned.  In  1635,  how 
ever,  there  had  been  instituted  a  new  charge,  that  of  sub 
ornation  of  witnesses  in  a  trial  in  which  he  was  interested. 
This  charge,  too,  he  defended  with  all  his  might.  When 
he  saw  it  going  against  him,  he  offered  to  compound  by  a 
voluntary  fine  and  other  concessions  to  the  King  ;  but,  when 
these  offers  were  rejected,  he  stood  at  bay  and  dared  the 
worst.  While  the  trial  was  proceeding,  the  interest  in  it 
1  Fuller's  Church  History  (Edit,  1842),  III.  383-388. 


ENGLAND    FROM    1632    TO.  1638:   LAUD.  683 

was  complicated  by  accusations  brought  against  the  Bishop 
from  various  quarters,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  protected 
the  Puritans  in  his  diocese  and  had  himself  maintained 
Puritan  opinions.  The  result  was  that  in  July  1637  he  was  / 
sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  £10,000,  to  be  imprisoned  during 
the  King's  pleasure,  and  to  be  suspended  by  the  High  Com 
mission  from  his  offices  and  benefices.  That  the  sentence 
was  no  heavier  was  owing  to  the  comparative  moderation  of 
some  of  the  Bishop's  6ld  friends  among  the  great  nobles ; 
for  Laud  and  Windebank  had  pressed  for  his  deprivation 
and  deportation,  and  Finch  had  even  hinted  at  punishment 
by  the  pillory.1  But,  after  the  Bishop  was  in  the  Tower, 
expecting  the  remission  of  at  least  part  of  his  sentence  by 
the  King's  clemency,  there  was  to  be  the  blow  of  a  second 
sentence.  The  Bishop's  residence  having  been  seized,  and 
his  library  ransacked,  there  were  found  two  letters  which 
had  been  written  to  him,  in  Jan.  1633-4,  by  Mr.  Lambert 
Osbaldiston,  head-master  of  Westminster  School,  in  which 
Laud  was  characterized  as  "the  little  vermin,"  "the  urchin," 
"  the  hocus-pocus/'  &c.  For  having  received  these  letters, 
and  for  a  note  in  his  own  handwriting  in  which  there  was  a 
similar  expression,  the  Bishop  was  to  suffer  a  second  fine  of  - 
£8,000,— Osbaldiston  at  the  same  time  to  be  fined  £5,000, 
deprived,  and  sentenced  to  have  his  ears  tacked  to  the  pillory 
in  Dean's  Yard,  in  presence  of  his  scholars.  For  a  man  who 
had  already  some  fourscore  grateful  pupils  in  the  Doctorate 
or  high  in  the  various  professions,  besides  many  younger 
and  rising  pupils,  such  as  Cowley,  this  last  indignity  was  too 
much  ;  and  Osbaldiston  was  to  escape  it  by  a  hurried  flight, 
leaving  a  note  in  his  study  that  he  "had  gone  beyond 
Canterbury."  2  We  are  here  anticipating  a  little,  for  this 
second  blow  at  the  Bishop,  in  connexion  with  Osbaldiston, 
was  not  to  come  till  Feb.  1638-9,  after  he  had  been  eighteen 
months  in  the  Tower.  He  is  to  be  imagined  as  a  state- 
prisoner  there  from 'July  1637,  visited  by  Hacket  and  other 
steady  friends  and  admirers,  and  amusing  himself  by  writing 

1  Racket's  Life  of  Williams,  Part  II.  125,  &c. 

2  Kushworth,  II.  803-817. 


681  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

Latin  verses,  but  fuming  like  a  caged  lion  against  Laud  and 
his  other  enemies,  defying  them  and  retorting  upon  them  on 
every  opportunity,  standing  on  his  privileges  as  a  peer  of  the 
realm,  and  appealing  in  the  last  resource,  for  himself  and 
the  nation,  to  a  coming  Parliament. 

Not  merely  in  a  manifest  return  to  parts  of  the  Romish 
ceremonial  in  worship,  and  to  Romish  tenets  in  doctrine, 
was  there  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  Romanizing  con 
spiracy  in  England.  Not  a  few  persons  were  entertaining 
the  idea  of  a  reconciliation  between  the  Anglican  Church 
and  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  were  working  diplomatically 
towards  that  end.  It  does  not  appear,  indeed,  that  either 
Laud  or  Charles  was  practically  active  in  this  direction ; 
but  they  were  willing  to  permit  activity  in  others.  Bishop 
Montague  of  Chichester,  as  the  head  of  the  Romanizing 
faction  among  the  clergy,  and  Cottington  and  Windebank, 
as  lay  privy-councillors  who  were  Roman  Catholics  or  all 
but  Roman  Catholics  already,  held  communications  on  the 
subject  with  Panzani  and  Con,  who  had  come  to  England  as 
agents  from  the  Papal  Court  on  other  business,  and  had 
been  well  received  by  the  King.  It  was  reported  at  Rome, 
on  Montague's  representations,  that,  were  a  feasible  scheme 
of  union  propounded,  in  which  all  the  concession  should  not 
be  on  the  side  of  the  Anglican  Church,  then  the  two  Arch 
bishops,  the  Bishop  of  London,  several  other  Bishops,  and 
many  of  the  inferior  clergy,  would  be  found  quite  ready. 
Only  three  of  the  English  Bishops,  it  was  said,  viz., 
Davenant  of  Salisbury,  Hall  of  Exeter,  and  Morton  of  Dur 
ham,  were  determined  Anti-Romanists.1 

In  all  likelihood  the  obstacle  to  farther  and  more  open 
attempts  at  a  union  was  more  at  Rome  than  at  Lambeth. 
Any  union  which  Laud  may  have  contemplated  was  one  to  be 
accomplished  as  between  two  bodies  of  co-equal  importance, 

1    The    movement     towards    Rome  letters  not  formerly  accessible.    A  fair 

among  the  English  clergy  and  courtiers  account  is  that  of  Hallam,  Constitnt. 

under  Laud's  primacy,  and  the  extent  Hist.  (4th  edit.)  I.  479-481 ;   but   see 

to  which  Charles  and  Laud  abetted  it,  Mr.  Gardiner's  Personal  Government^/ 

might  be  the  subject  of  a  special  investi-  Charles  I..  II.  233  et  seq. 
gation  by  the  aid  of  state  papers  and 


ENGLAND  FROM  1632  TO  1638:  LAUD.         685 

gravitating  towards  each  other  and  moving  over  equal  dis 
tances  in  order  to  meet ;  and  this  was  not  a  union  which  the 
Papal  statesmen  could  ever  really  intend.  What  with  a 
nucleus  of  many  thousands  of  known  Roman  Catholics  in 
England  to  begin  with,  what  with  the  activity  of  some  hun 
dreds  of  Roman  Catholic  priests  going  about  in  England,  and 
what  with  the  tendency  among  the  Romanizing  English 
clergy  to  Rome  of  their  own  accord,  a  union  of  another 
kind  did  not  seem  ultimately  impossible.  This,  too,  was  the 
union  which  the  Queen  desired,  and  which,  so  far  as  she  had 
power  in  the  state,  she  did  her  best  to  forward.  Her  private 
palace,  Denmark  House  in  the  Strand,  became  the  centre  of 
consultations  and  negotiations  different  from  those  between 
the  Papal  agents  and  Montague  ;  and  it  was  with  her,  as  the 
representative  of  the  true  Roman  Catholic  interest  in  Eng 
land,  that  the  Papal  Court  carried  on  the  closest  corre 
spondence.1 

What  seemed  to  give  probability  to  the  Romish  as  against 
the  Laudian  notion  of  a  union  was  the  growing  frequency  of 
English  "perversions"  to  Rome,  and  especially  of  "perver 
sions  "  in  high  life.  Every  year,  since  the  beginning  of 
Laud's  rule,  there  had  been  such  "  perversions/'  whether 
of  English  ladies  and  gentlemen  mystified  in  the  course  of 
their  foreign  travels  by  those  who  made  it  their  business  to 
capture  the  interesting  heretics  in  their  unprotected  con 
dition,  or  of  others  at  home  who  reasoned  themselves  dia- 
lectically  over  the  verge  of  Laudism.  There  was  Sir  Toby 
Matthews,  son  of  a  former  archbishop  of  York,  an  active 
Catholic  agent  since  1620.  There  was  Walter  Montague,  a 
younger  son  of  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  a  much  more  recent 
convert.  Chillingworth  had  made  his  aberration,  but  had 
returned  ;  and  he  was  now  a  member  of  that  Falkland  set 
of  "  clear  reasoners  "  in  religion  whose  speculations,  finding 
nothing  satisfactory  in  the  retrograde  movement  into 
Romanism,  were  feeling  forward,  through  the  ordinary 
Protestantism  that  surrounded  them,  towards  some  bleaker 
and  more  advanced  standing-ground.  Connected  with  the 
i  Eanke,  Eng.  Transl.  (1850),  II.  290,  291. 


686  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Falkland   group,   however,  were   some  who  had  not  heads 
like  Chillingworth's,  to  go  and  come  again.  Lord  Falkland's 
mother  was   a  Roman   Catholic,  and  was  converting    her 
daughters  and  others  about  her.     Most  notorious  of  all  was 
the  case  of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  whose  associations  with  the 
Falkland  set  had  also  been  intimate.     The  son  of  a  Roman 
Catholic  who  had  been  executed  for  his  share  in  the  Gun 
powder  Plot,  this  tf  Mirandula  of  his   age/'  magnificent  in 
appearance  and  stature,  universally  accomplished,  one-third 
knight-errant,  one- third  philosopher,  and  one-third  charlatan, 
had,  after  a  year  or  two  of  vacillation,  abjured  the  Protest 
ant  faith  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and  returned  to 
his  paternal  religion.     His  "perversion"  had  taken  place 
privately,  in  Paris,  in  1635,  since  which  time  he  had  lived  in 
that  city,  a  conspicuous  figure  among  the  English  residents. 
In  proportion  as  Laud  valued  his  own  peculiar  theory  of 
a  possible  union  of  the  Churches  at  some  time  or  other  by  a 
mutual  gravitation  of  their  masses,  this  shedding  away  of 
atoms   from   the   one   to   the   other,  without   leave   given, 
annoyed  and  vexed  him.     There  is  a  letter  of  his,  of  date 
July  20,  1634,  in  which  he  represents  to  the  King  the  mis 
chief  that  Lord  Falkland's  mother  was  doing  at  Court,  and 
asks  leave  to  bring  "  the  old  lady  "  before  the  High  Com 
mission.1     His   letter   to    Sir   Kenelm    Digby  in  Paris  on 
hearing  of  his  change  in  religion  is  one  of  severe,  though 
friendly,  rebuke.2     He  wrote  more  than  once  to  the  author 
ities  of  Oxford  University,  ordering  them  to  take  proceed 
ings  against  Jesuit  missionaries  who  were  at  work  in  the 
Colleges.     Not  informed  of  these  measures  of  Laud,  or  not 
thinking  them  enough,  or  regarding  his  general  policy  as 
promoting  in  the  main  what  he  was  checking  feebly  in  the 
particular,  the  Puritans  found  in  the  increasing  number  of 
perversions  to  Rome  in  the  years  1636  and  1637  fresh  con 
demnation  of  him  and  his  adherents.     Even  moderate  men 
saw  in  such  perversions  reason  for  alarm.     Milton,  in  his 
Lycidas,  written  in  November  1637,  when  the  public  excite- 

1  Original  in  State  Paper  Office. 

2  Printed  in  Wharton's  Laud. 


IRELAND    FROM    1632    TO    1638  :    WENTWORTH.  687 

ment  on  the  subject  was  at  its  height,  makes  himself  dis 
tinctly  the  spokesman  of  the  general  feeling.  Ill  tended  by 
hireling  and  ignorant  shepherds,  fed  only  with  wind  and 
rank  mist,  the  sheep  of  the  Church  of  England,  he  says, 
were  rotting  inwardly,  and  spreading  contagion  among 
themselves  : 

- 

"  Besides  what  the  grim  wolf  with  privy  paw 
Daily  devours  apace,  and  nothing  said-" 

IRELAND   FROM    1632    TO    1638. 

As  an  exhibition  of  energy  and  genius  in  accomplishing  • 
a  set  task,  Wentworth's  government  of  Ireland  is  hardly 
paralleled  in  the  annals  of  proconsulship.  Such  boldness, 
such  strength  of  will,  such  contempt  of  popularity  in  pursuit 
of  a  purpose,  such  a  combination  of  a  fixed  theory  of  the 
methods  of  rule  with  practical  talent  in  applying  them,  are 
hardly  to  be  met  with  in  any  other  man  in  the  list  of  British 
Viceroys.  It  is  only  when  we  consider  the  higher  question 
of  the  worth  of  the  cause  which  Wentworth  served  so  ably 
that  our  admiration  of  him  sustains  a  check.  From  first  to 
last,  no  grander  purpose  is  avowed  by  him,  or  is  discernible 
in  him,  than  that  of  "  doing  the  King's  service/'  He  would 
perform  that  service,  indeed,  in  his  own  way,  and  would 
differ  from  the  King  himself  in  his  notions  of  the  way;  but 
the  reference  always  was  to  the  exigencies  of  his  "  wise  and 
just  master,"  or,  in  other  words,  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
personal  tyranny  he  had  consented  to  serve.  The  good  of 
Ireland,  it  is  true,  so  far  as  not  incompatible  with  his  main 
business,  did  enter  into  his  calculations.  "  It  has  never  L 
"  been  disputed,"  says  Hallam,  "  that  a  more  uniform  admin-  I 
"  istration  of  justice  in  ordinary  cases,  a  stricter  coercion  of  ; 
"  outrage,  a  more  extensive  commerce,  evidenced  by  the 
"  augmentation  of  customs,  above  all,  the  foundation  of  the 
"  great  linen  manufacture  in  Ulster,  distinguished  the  period 
"  of  his  government."  But  Wentworth  had  gone  to  govern  • 
Ireland  in  an  interest  in  which  the  good  of  Ireland  itself 
was  but  an  incidental  item,  and  in  which  also,  unfortunately 
for  him,  it  has  not  yet  been  shown  that  the  good  of  any 


688  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS   TIME. 

considerable  part  of  humanity  anywhere  out  of  Ireland  was 
in  any  degree  involved.  He  was  the  strongest  man  of  a 
cause  in  which  it  was  utterly  impossible  that  a  man  of  the 
highest  kind  intrinsically  could  be  found,  if  only  because 
such  a  man  will  never  be  found  where  there  remains  only 
the  right  of  devising  methods  and  there  is  lost  the  higher 
habit  of  considering  ends.  Laud,  so  far  inferior  in  many 
respects,  was  less  of  a  mere  instrument  and  more  of  a  man 
of  purpose  than  the  fervid  Wentworth. 

During  the  Deputyship  of  Wentworth's  predecessor,  Lord 
Falkland,  from  1625  to  1632,  there  had  been  going  on,  with 
Irish  variations,  the  same  struggle  between  the  royal  pre 
rogative  and  the  desires  of  the  subject  which  had  come  to 
such  an  abrupt  close  in  England.  In  Ireland  also  the 
demand  of  the  Crown  had  been,  above  all,  for  money,  while 
the  subject  desired,  in  exchange  for  the  money  given,  certain 
"  graces  "  or  remissions  of  grievances.  The  Roman  Catho 
lics  naturally  wished  for  a  repeal  or  a  modification  of  the 
penal  laws  against  the  exercise  of  their  religion ;  the  Pro 
testants,  wishing  for  directly  the  reverse,  insisted  on  eccle 
siastical  petitions  of  their  own ;  there  were  complaints  from 
all  quarters  of  military  exactions,  monopolies,  and  malad 
ministration  of  law ;  and,  above  all,  and  affecting  the  whole 
island,  there  was  the  grievance  of  a  terrible  practice  which 
the  Crown  had  established  of  inquiring  into  the  titles  by 
which  families  held  their  lands,  and,  where  flaws  could  be 
found,  either  resuming  the  lands  or  levying  fines  for  their 
continued  possession.  At  length,  in  1628,  Charles,  then 
ceding  the  Petition  of  Right  to  his  English  subjects,  had 
thought  it  but  consistent  to  come  to  some  similar  arrange 
ment  with  the  Irish.  It  was  agreed  between  him  and  Irish 
agents  in  London  that  the  Irish  should  voluntarily  contri 
bute  £120,000,  to  be  paid  in  three  years  by  quarterly  instal 
ments,  and  that,  in  return  for  these,  the  King  should  yield 
certain  "  graces,"  including  the  security  of  all  property  in 
land  after  sixty  years  of  undisputed  tenure.  It  was  an 
express  part  of  the  understanding  that  these  "  graces " 
should  be  duly  confirmed  by  an  Irish  Parliament,  to  be  called 


IRELAND    FROM    1632    TO    1C38  :    WENTWORTH.  689 

for  the  purpose.  By  the  time,  however,  that  the  first  instal 
ments  of  the  money  had  been  paid,  Charles,  having  made  up 
his  mind  against  Parliaments  in  England,  had  resolved  to  be 
off  from  this  part  of  the  bargain.  Lord  Falkland  had  issued 
writs  summoning  the  promised  parliament,  but  the  writs 
had  been  declared  informal  and  no  parliament  had  been  held. 

When  Wentworth  succeeded  Falkland  the  period  for 
which  the  voluntary  contribution  had  been  granted  was 
drawing  to  a  close.  The  money  was  all  spent ;  there  was  no 
Irish  army;  and  the  nation  felt  that  it  had  been  cheated. 
How,  in  these  circumstances,  was  more  money  to  be  raised  ? 
The  Irish  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord  Ely,  and  the  Irish  Lord 
Treasurer,  the  Earl  of  Cork,  on  whom  the  administration 
devolved  in  the  interval  between  Falkland's  departure  and 
Wentworth's  arrival,  saw  no  other  immediate  means  of  re 
venue  than  the  vigorous  exaction  of  the  statutory  fines  from 
the  Roman  Catholics.  Wentworth  interposed  from  Eng 
land.  The  question  of  religious  conformity  was,  he  wrote, 
"  a  great  business,  having  many  a  root  lying  deep  and  far 
within  ground  " ;  it  was  a  business  to  be  taken  up  in  proper 
time ;  but,  meanwhile,  it  was  not  fit  that  the  payment  of  the 
King's  army  should  depend  on  such  a  matter  as  "  the  casual 
income  of  twelvepence  a  Sunday."  There  would  be  no  real 
difficulty,  he  thought,  in  continuing  the  Irish  contribution  a 
year  longer,  during  which  time  it  would  be  his  fault  if  means 
were  not  found  either  to  make  that  contribution  permanent 
or  to  provide  some  equivalent.  The  King  and  the  English 
Council  having  adopted  his  views,  a  royal  letter  was  sent 
over  to  Ireland,  threatening  that,  if  the  contributions  were 
not  "freely  and  thankfully  continued",  his  Majesty  would 
be  obliged  to  "straiten  his  former  graces"  and  make  use  of 
every  right  he  had.  This  letter  and  Wentworth's  missives 
had  the  intended  effect ;  and,  with  some  faint  hope  of  the 
"graces"  as  ultimately  possible,  the  Irish  consented  to 
farther  payment  for  them.1 

On  arriving  in  Ireland  in  July  1633  Wentworth  set  about 
his  task.  His  conclusion,  after  a  little  while,  was  one  to 

1  Forster's  Life  of  Strafford :  Statesmen  of  the  Commonwealth. 
VOL.    I.  Y  Y 


690  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

which  he  had  before  inclined,  but  which  it  required  courage 
to  propound  to  the  King, — to  wit,  that  it  would  be  best  and 
easiest  after  all  to  proceed  in  Ireland  "  by  way  of  Parlia 
ment."  With  much  hesitation,  the  King  allowed  the  ex 
periment.  In  a  private  letter  to  Wentworth,  dated  April 
12,  1634,  he  wrote  of  the  permitted  Parliament  thus  : — "  As 
"  for  that  hydra,  take  good  heed,  for  you  know  that  I  have 
"found  it  as  well  cunning  as  malicious.  It  is  true  your 
"  grounds  are  well  laid,  and  I  assure  you  that  I  have  a  great 
"  trust  in  your  care  and  judgment ;  yet  my  opinion  is  that  it 
"  will  not  be  the  worse  for  my  service  though  their  obstinacy 
"  make  you  break  with  them,  for  I  fear  that  they  have  some 
"ground  to  demand  more  than  it  is  fit  for  me  to  give." 
Within  three  months  after  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  i.  e.  on 
July  14,  1634,  the  Parliament  met  in  Dublin. 

Wentworth's  plans  were,  indeed,  well  laid.  He  had 
managed  the  elections  so  that  the  Roman  Catholics  and  the 
Protestants  nearly  balanced  each  other ;  he  had  packed  the 
lower  hou,se  with  trustworthy  persons ;  and  he  had  seen  that 
the  proxies  of  absent  lords,  members  of  the  upper  house, 
were  in  safe  hands.  But  his  grand  device  was  the  splitting 
of  the  parliament  into  two  sessions, — the  first  to  be  devoted 
entirely  to  the  supply  of  the  King's  wants,  the  second  to  be 
spent,  conditionally  on  the  success  of  the  first,  in  the  con 
sideration  of  the  grievances  of  the  subject.  This  device  of 
the  double  session  was  first  forced  on  the  Parliament  and 
then  turned  to  the  intended  account.  In  the  first  session 
subsidies  were  obtained  to  the  unprecedented  amount  of 
£300,000,  or  six  subsidies  of  £50,000  each,  whereas  all  that 
had  been  expected  was  three  subsidies  of  £30,000  each. 
Then  came  the  greater  difficulty  of  the  second  session,  which 
began  in  October  1634  and  was  continued  till  April  1635. 
During  those  six  months  Wentworth's  whole  soul  was  bent 
on  frustrating  the  expected  "  graces "  and  terrifying  the 
very  name  of  them  out  of  the  Irish  mind.  As  usual,  he  took 
the  blame  and  responsibility  on  himself.  He  would  not 
even  dare,  he  said,  to  transmit  to  the  King  such  demands  as 
the  Parliament  made.  Infinite  was  the  interest  at  the  Eng- 


IRELAND   EROM    1632    TO    1638  I    WENTWORTH.  691 

lish  Court  in  the  progress  of  the  struggle  between  the  Irish 
Parliament  and  the  resolute  Deputy.  The  King  himself, 
writing  privately  to  Wentworth,  Jan.  22,  1634-5,  and  thank 
ing  him  for  his  extraordinary  services, — to  recognise  which 
fully  in  letters  would  be  to  write  "  panegyrics  rather  than 
despatches/' — yet  hints  that  he  will  be  glad  when  the  Parlia- 
ment  is  fairly  dismissed.  "  My  reasons,"  he  says,  te  are 
"  grounded  upon  my  experience  of  them  [of  Parliaments] 
"  here  :  they  are  of  the  nature  of  cats  ;  they  ever  grow 
"  curst  with  age,  so  that,  if  ye  will  have  good  of  them,  put 
"  them  off  handsomely  when  they  come  to  any  age/'  When 
this  one  was  "put  off"  in  the  following  April,  Wentworth 
could  congratulate  the  King  on  having  got  everything  from 
it  and  given  nothing  in  return.  The  exultation  of  Went 
worth  in  his  success  breaks  out  in  his  letters.  To  the  King 
he  writes,  "  All  the  graces  prejudicial  to  the  crown  are  laid 
"  so  sound  asleep  as  I  am  confident  they  are  never  to  be 
"  awakened  more";  to  Laud  he  writes,  "Now  I  can  say 
"the  King  is  as  absolute  here  as  any  prince  in  the  whole 
"  world  can  be";  and  to  Cottington,  still  more  confidentially, 
he  writes,  "  This  is  the  only  ripe  parliament  that  hath  been 
"  gathered  in  my  time ;  happy  it  were  if  we  might  live  to 
"  see  the  like  in  England."  And  yet,  when  Wentworth,  in 
the  interval  between  the  two  sessions,  had  written  over, 
petitioning  the  King  for  the  honour  of  an  earldom,  as  a  proof 
to  the  Irish  that  he  possessed  the  royal  confidence,  the  reply 
of  Charles  had  been  a  refusal.  "  I  desire  you  not  to  think," 
he  wrote,  "  that  I  am  displeased  with  the  asking,  though  as 
"  yet  I  grant  it  not.  I  acknowledge  that  noble  minds  are 
"  always  accompanied  with  lawful  ambitions."  Wentworth, 
accordingly,  remained  only  Viscount  Wentworth. 

The  appointment  of  Laud  in  September  1633  to  the 
Chancellorship  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  gave  him  a  direct 
means  of  co-operating  with  Wentworth  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Irish  Church.  From  that  time  forward,  accordingly,  we 
find  them  corresponding  about  appointments  in  the  College 
and  to  vacant  Irish  deaneries  and  bishoprics.  Wentworth 
reported  the  condition  of  the  Irish  Church  as  deplorable. 

Y  Y   2 


692  LIFE    OF     MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

"  An  unlearned  clergy,"  he  writes  on  Jan.  31,  1633-4,  "  with 
"  not  so  much  as  the  outward  form  of  churchmen  to  cover 
"  themselves  with  ;  the  churches  unbuilt ;  the  parsonages 
"  and  vicar-houses  utterly  ruined ;  the  people  untaught, 
"  through  the  non-residence  of  the  clergy,  occasioned  by  the 
"  unlimited  shameful  numbers  of  spiritual  promotions  with 
"cure  of  souls  which  they  hold  by  commendams;  the  rites 
1 '  of  the  Church  run  over  without  all  decency  of  habit,  order, 
(t  or  gravity  ;  the  possessions  of  the  Church  to  a  great  pro- 
"  portion  in  lay  hands;  bishops  alienating  their  very 
"principal  houses  and  demesnes/'  These  were  matters  on 
which  it  was  hardly  necessary  to  invoke.  Laud's  sympathy. 
In  the  course  of  1634  he  was  able  to  write  the  word  "  Done13 
in  his  diary  opposite  two  schemes  for  Ireland  which  he  had 
projected  as  far  back  as  1630, — one  for  the  restoration  to 
the  Irish  Church  of  all  the  impropriations  held  by  the 
Crown,  and  the  other  for  a  new  charter  and  a  new  body  of 
statutes  for  Trinity  College.  On  the  faith  of  these  and 
other  changes,  which  promised  to  make  Irish  ecclesiastical 
appointments  better  worth  having  than  they  had  been,  he 
was  able  to  find  English  scholars  willing  to  accept  them. 
Between  1633  and  1638  several  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men 
of  some  eminence  were  sent  over  by  him  to  Ireland,  and 
promoted  there  according  to  their  merits.  Among  these 
was  Milton's  old  Cambridge  college-tutor,  Chappell.  Leav 
ing,  at  Laud's  request,  his  fellowship  in  Christ's,  he  went  to 
Ireland  in  August  1633,  to  be  Dean  of  Cashel ;  from  which 
dignity  he  was  promoted  in  August  1634  to  the  Provostship 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  having  been  designated  by 
Wentworth  himself,  in  a  letter  to  Laud,  as  expressly  "  the 
fittest  man  in  the  kingdom  "  for  that  important  post.  Re 
taining  the  Provostship,  he  was  in  due  time  to  receive  an 
Irish  Bishopric  in  conjunction  with  it, — that  of  Cloyne  and 
Eoss,  in  the  province  of  Munster  (Nov.  1638).  On  Laud's 
trial,  the  case  of  Chappell  was  to  be  specially  mentioned  as 
one  of  his  Arminian  promotions.  All  Chappell's  scholars 
were  Arminians,  said  one  witness.1 

i  Wharton's  Laud,  367. 


IRELAND    FEOM    1632    TO    1638:    WENTWOKTH.  693 

These  measures  were  but  preliminary  to  a  grand  stroke 
upon  which  both  the  Archbishop  and  the  Lord  Deputy  were 
resolved.     This  was  the  abrogation  of  the  Irish  Articles  of  ^ 
1616  as    the    separate  basis  of  the  Irish  Church,  and  the 
substitution  of  the    Thirty-Nine  Articles,    so   as   to   make 
Ireland  and  England  ecclesiastically  one.     It  had  been  no 
secret  that  this   was  Laud's  aim ;  and  for  several  years  the 
only  questions  with  Usher  and  his   Calvinistic  brethren  in 
Ireland  had  been  when  and  in  what  manner  the  revolution 
would  be  attempted.     It  was   attempted  by  Wentworth  in 
December  1634,  and  accomplished  by  him  with  a  swiftness 
and  a  facility  that  must  have  surprised  Laud  himself.     The 
Irish  Clergy  being  then  assembled  in  Convocation  contem 
poraneously   with  the    Irish    Parliament,   Wentworth    had 
referred  the  business  to  them,  and  had  received  some  reluc 
tant  promise  from  Usher  that  it  would  be  conducted  to  his 
satisfaction.     Eelying    on  this  promise,  he  was  attending 
more  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Parliament  than  to  those  of 
the  Convocation,  when  he  was  startled  by  the  news  that,  in 
a  Committee  of  the  Lower  House  of  Convocation,  they  were 
going  over   the    English    Articles    one    by    one,    marking 
' '  Agreed  "  to  some  and  "  Deliberandum  "  opposite  to  others. 
Immediately,  sending  for  the  Dean  of  Limerick,  who  was 
acting  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee,  he  compelled  him  to 
give  up  the  copy  of  the  Articles  so  noted.     "  I  publicly  told 
"  them,"  he  says,  "how  unlike  clergymen  that  owed  canonical 
"  obedience  to  their  superiors  they  had  proceeded  in  Coni- 
"  mittee,  how  unheard-of  a  part  it  was  for  a  few  petty  clerks 
"  to  presume  to  make  Articles  of  Faith  without  the  privity 
"  or  consent  of  State  or  Bishop,  what  a  spirit   of  Brownism 
"  and  contradiction  I  observed  in  their  Deliberandums,"  &C.1 
The  issue  was  as  he  had  calculated.     ' '  There  were  a  few  hot 
"  spirits,   sons  of  thunder,  who    moved  that    they    should 
"  petition  me  for  a  free  synod ;  but  in  fine  they  could  not 
"  agree  amongst  themselves  who   should  put  the  bell  about 
"  the  cat's  neck,  and  so  this  likewise  vanished."     In  short,  a 
canon  was  passed  in  Convocation,  unanimously  by  the  bishops, 
i  Wentworth  to  Laud,  Dec.  16, 1634  :  Stmfford  Letters. 


694  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

vand  with  only  one  dissentient  voice  among  the  inferior 
clergy,  "  approving  and  receiving  "  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles 
entire.  The  Irish  Calvinistic  clergy  flattered  themselves 
that,  in  passing  this  canon,  they  had  still  saved  their  own 
old  Articles  ;  but,  in  effect,  the  vote  abrogated  the  independ 
ence  of  the  Irish  Protestant  Church. 

Having  done  so  much  towards  the  great  design  of  religious 
uniformity  in  Ireland,  Wentworth  was  not  disposed  to  go  so 
fast  as  Laud  in  working  out  this  uniformity  minutely  by 
prosecutions  of  individuals.  "  It  will  be  ever  far  forth  of 
' '  my  heart,"  he  wrote,  "  to  conceive  that  a  conformity  of 
"  religion  is  not  above  all  other  things  principally  to  be 
"  intended ;  for,  undoubtedly,  till  we  be  brought  all  under 
"  one  form  of  divine  service,  the  Crown  is  never  safe  on  this 
"  side."  But,  as  to  the  time  and  the  methods  for  bringing 
about  such  absolute  conformity  in  all  points,  he  had  his  own 
opinions.  The  subsidies  were  being  paid;  why  interrupt 
the  payment  by  fresh  dissensions  ?  People  were  uncon 
sciously  coming  round  to  conformity ;  why  rouse  revolt  by 
keeping  the  "  conceit  of  difference "  in  their  memory  ? 
Lastly,  and  most  emphatically,  "  the  great  work  of  reforma- 
"  tion  ought  not  to  be  fallen  upon  till  all  incidents  be  fully 
"  provided  for, — the  army  rightly  furnished,  the  forts  re- 
"  paired,  money  in  the  coffers,"  &c.  Accordingly,  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  Irish  Parliament  and  Convocation  early  in 
1635,  all  Wentworth's  energies  were  bent  upon  the  accom 
plishment,  by  his  own  power  as  Deputy,  of  the  various 
measures  still  necessary  to  the  perfection  of  Absolutism  in 
Ireland. 

His  method  was  the  same  that  had  helped  him  so  far 
already.  It  consisted  in  resolute  energy  in  his  own  pur 
poses,  backed  by  an  unsparing  use  of  rewards  and  punish 
ments  in  compelling  others  to  execute  them.  The  very 
phrase  "  Rewards  and  Punishments  "  ought  to  be  associated 
with  the  name  of  Wentworth.  It  was  his  darling  formula  of 
the  whole  art  of  government, — a  formula  reached  originally 
by  mere  instinctive  practice,  but  afterwards  played  upon  by 
him  poetically,  and  even  imparted  to  others  as  a  political 


IRELAND    FROM    1632    TO    1638:    WENTWORTH.  695 

secret.     Thus,  to  Cottington,  "  If  once  it  snail  please  God 
"  his  Majesty  begin  to  apply  Prcemium  and  Poena  the  right 
"  way,  lustily  and  roundly,  then/'  &c.     Again,  to  the  King 
himself,  "  I  know  no  other  rule  to  govern  by  but  by  rewards 
"  and  punishments."     Again,  to  Laud,  "  The  lady  Astraea, 
"  the  poet  tells  us,  is  long  since  gone  to  heaven ;  but,  under 
"  favour,  I  can  yet  find  Reward  and  Punishment  on  earth." 
It  was  clearly  Wentworth' s  opinion  that,  with  an  adequate 
power  of  reward  and  punishment,  one  could  walk  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Black  Sea,  and  compel  men  everywhere  to 
do  whatever  was  prescribed  to  them.     He  applied  the  power 
lustily  enough  in  Ireland.     Whatever  man  of  whatever  rank  < 
opposed   him,  or  was  even  known  to  mutter  a  word  dis 
respectful  of  his  policy,  or  of  himself  personally,  that  man 
he  pursued  to  punishment  like  a  sleuth-hound.    To  "  trounce 
a  bishop  or  two  "  for  neglect  of  duty  was  nothing  to  him ; 
and  he  caused  the  Earl  of  Mountnorris,  perhaps  the  chief 
man  in  Ireland  next  to  himself,  to  be  tried  by  a  commission, 
and  sentenced  to  be  shot,  for  no  other  crime  than  a  sneer 
against   his   government    (1635).     The    sentence   was   not 
executed ;  but,  with  his  foot  on  the  neck  of  Mountnorris, 
Wentworth  could  glare  defiance  among  the  proudest  heads 
in  Ireland.     On  the  other  hand,  his  application  of  the  prin 
ciple  of  reward  was  as  faithful.     To  one  Taylor,  a  corre 
spondent  who  was  assisting  him  with  information  in  his 
schemes  for  the  promotion  of  a  commerce  between  Ireland 
and  Spain,  he  promises  his  friendship  and  encouragement, 
t(  and  this  not  for  a  start  and  away,  but  reposedly  and  con- 
"  stantly,"  being  "  one  of  those,"  he  says,  "  that  shall  be 
"the  latest  and  loathest  in  the  world  to  lose  the  respects  I 
"am    enabled   to   do   my    friends    through   mutability  and 
"  change,  a  great  error  of  judgment  I  have  known  very 
"  wise  men  subject  unto."      In  short,  by  a  rigorous  applica 
tion  of  his  principle,  Wentworth  was  able,  by  the  middle  of 
the  year  1636,  to  report  Ireland  well  prepared  for  all  the 
"  incidents  "  of  the  future. 

In  June  1636  he  came  over  on  a  visit  to  England.     He 
was  received  with  applause  at  Court,  related  the  history  of 


696  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

his  government  before  the  King  and  a  very  full  meeting  of 
Council,  and  then  set  out  for  his  Presidency  of  the  North 
on  public  and  private  business.  He  fancied  that  now  the 
honour  of  an  earldom  could  hardly  be  withheld,  and  again 
petitioned  for  it.  The  King  again  refused  it;  and,  in 
November  1636,  Wentworfch  returned  to  Ireland  to  resume 
his  labours.  Ireland  now  being  under  established  rule,  he 
had  leisure,  during  the  next  seventeen  months,  to  look  more 
to  what  was  passing  in  England,  to  transmit  hints  to  Laud 
and  others  as  to  what  might  be  accomplished  there  by  a 
touch  of  the  Irish  system  rightly  applied  to  the  backs  of 
Mr.  Hampden  and  his  abettors,  and  even  to  anticipate  the 
time  when,  in  case  of  insurrection,  Ireland  might  be  a 
magazine  of  military  force  for  the  service  of  the  Three 
Kingdoms.  And  so,  with  his  brow  growing  daily  more 
dark  and  rugged,  his  eye  more  fierce,  his  jaw  more  firmly 
set,  his  brain  stronger,  his  very  rhetoric  more  impetuous 
and  picturesque,  his  whole  being  and  demeanour  so  much 
farther  from  the  common  that  the  rumour  went  about  Court 
that  he  was  becoming  mad,  Went  worth  waited  for  the  day 
when  he  should  be  recognised  as  the  one  man  competent  to 
save  the  Monarchy.  As  Lord-Deputy  he  kept  up  splendid 
state,  and  he  was  particularly  fond  of  great  hunting  and 
hawking  matches;  but  otherwise  he  was  of  simple  habits. 
It  was  most  pleasant  to  see  him  after  supper,  when  he 
would  have  a  few  friends  familiarly  with  him  in  an  inner 
room,  smoking  tobacco  by  the  hour  and  telling  stories.  He 
suffered  terribly  from  attacks  of  gout,  and  sometimes,  in 
those  attacks,  he  would  bewail  "  the  dearth  of  men,"  which 
threw  so  much  work  on  him,  and  wonder  whether  "  a  time 
of  stillness  and  repose  "  would  ever  be  his,  when,  in  retire 
ment  on  his  great  Yorkshire  estates,  and  with  his  children 
about  him,  he  should  plant  trees,  and  "  consider  other  more 
excellent  and  needful  duties  than  these  momentary  trifles 
below."  Such  thoughts,  however,  came  but  seldom  to 
Wentworth. 


SCOTLAND   ECCLESIASTICALLY    IN    1632.  697 


SCOTLAND    FROM    1632    TO    1638. 

The  policy  of  Thorough,  pursued  so  resolutely  in  England 
and  Ireland,  was  pursued  also  in  Scotland,  but  with  remark 
able  variations  both  of  manner  and  of  effect,  and  with  this 
variation  as  the  most  remarkable  of  all,  that  here  first  the 
policy  had  its  edge  blunted  by  impact  against  the  solid 
bone. 

We  have  seen  the  condition  of  Scotland  ecclesiastically  in 
1632.  Over  the  little  nation  of  under  a  million  of  souls, 
four-fifths  of  them  English-speaking  Lowlanders  who  had 
been  Calvinized  and  Presbyterianized,  and  the  remaining 
fifth  wild  Gaelic-speaking  Highlanders  into  whose  fastnesses 
theology  had  hardly  penetrated,  there  had  been  screwed 
down,  by  successive  efforts,  a  superficial  apparatus  of  Epis 
copal  forms.  The  kingdom  was  divided,  ecclesiastically, 
into  nearly  1,000  parishes,  the  ministers  of  which  were 
nominally  governed  by  eleven  bishops  and  two  archbishops, 
as  follows : — 

I.     PROVINCE  OF  ST.  ANDREWS. 

1.  ARCHBISHOP  OF  ST.  ANDREWS  AND  PRIMATE  OF  SCOTLAND.— 

John  Spotswood,  appointed  1615. 

2.  Bishop  of  Dunkeld. — Alexander  Lindsay,  appointed  1607. 
3*.  Bishop  of  Aberdeen. — Patrick  Forbes,  appointed  1618. 

4.  Bishop  of  Moray. — John  Guthrie,  appointed  1623. 

5.  Bishop  of  Brechin. — David  Lindsay,  appointed  1619. 

6.  Bishop  of  Dunblane. — Adam  Bellenden,  appointed  1614. 

7.'  Bishop  of  Ross. — Patrick  Lindsay,  appointed  1613;  transferred  to 
the  Archbishopric  of  Glasgow  in  April  1633,  and  succeeded 
in  the  Bishopric  of  Ross  by  John  Maxwell. 

8.  Bishop  of  Caithness.— 3  v\m  Abernethy,  appointed  1624. 

9.  Bishop  of  Orkney.— John  Graham,  appointed  1615. 

II.     PROVINCE  OF  GLASGOW. 

1.  ARCHBISHOP  OF  GLASGOW. — James  Law,  appointed  1615;  died 

Nov.  1632 ;  succeeded  in  the  Archbishopric  by  Patrick  Lind 
say,  Bishop  of  Ross. 

2.  Bishop  of  Galloway.— Andrew  Lamb,  appointed  1619. 

3.  Bishop  of  Argyle.—Andr&w  Boyd,  appointed  1613. 

4.  Bishop  of  the  Isles.— John  Leslie,  appointed  1628.' 

1  The  list  is  drawn  up  from  Keith's  Catalogue  of  the  Scottish  Bishops: 
Edinburgh,  1755. 


698  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

The  system  of  the  Kirk  under  this  seeming  episcopal 
jurisdiction  was  very  different  from  that  of  Episcopacy  in 
-7  England.  Although,  since  1621,  kneeling  at  the  sacrament 
had  been  introduced,  with  one  or  two  observances  disliked 
by  the  English  Puritans,  the  worship  was  still  mainly  on  the 
plain  Geneva  model;  the  minister  in  each  parish  still  re 
tained  some  remnant  of  that  liberty  of  speech  in  the  pulpit, 
and  popular  influence  out  of  it,  which  had  been  acquired  for 
his  order  at  the  Reformation ;  and  the  clergy  still  retained 
the  power  of  meeting  periodically,  with  select  laymen  among 
them,  in  presbyteries  and  provincial  synods,  where,  though 
bishops  and  archbishops  had  official  pre-eminence,  the 
_,  collective  will  could  make  itself  felt.  Add  a  Calvinistic 
theology  not  yet  disintegrated  to  the  same  extent  as  in 
England  by  Armiuian  tenets  imported  from  abroad,  or  by 
Patristic  investigations  of  native  scholars,  and  a  more  general 
acceptance  also  than  in  England  of  the  Puritan  doctrine  and 
practice  of  the  Sabbath.  Of  these  differences  the  Scottish 
bishops  themselves  were  aware.  Some  of  them  had  caught 
the  Anglican  notions  of  their  office,  and  were  zealous  for  a 
farther  suppression  of  Presbyterianism ;  and  these,  it  was 
generally  remarked,  had  also  passed  over  to  Arminianism 
in  theology.  Others,  however,  remaining  moderately  Cal 
vinistic  and  moderately  Sabbatarian,  were  satisfied  with 
things  as  they  were,  and  were  anxious,  by  a  meek  exercise 
of  their  office,  to  atone  to  their  presbyters  and  their  fellow- 
countrymen  for  the  offence  of  being  bishops. 

Here  was  a  field  for  the  activity  of  Laud.  To  rectify  the 
Church  of  Ireland  was  much;  to  bring  the  foreign  British 
Chaplaincies  under  control  was  much ;  to  take  care  that 
ecclesiastical  authority  should  pursue  the  English  emigrants 
to  America  and  the  West  Indies  was  much ;  but,  out  of 
England,  there  was  not  any  scene  to  which  his  soul  turned 
/  .^so  wistfully  as  to  poor  obstinate  Scotland.  To  extirpate  in 
that  country  what  remained  of  the  spirit  of  Knox  and  Mel 
ville  ;  to  substitute  in  it  a  properly  prelatic  organization  for 
the  wretched  superficial  episcopacy  then  existing,  and  the 
true  Anglican  beauty  of  holiness  for  its  meagre,  uncomely, 


CHARLES'S  SCOTTISH  CORONATION  VISIT  OP  1633. 

beggarly  worship ;  to  let  in  the  light  of  later  Patristic 
theology  upon  its  dark  Calvinistic  beliefs,  and  to  break 
down  its  hard  Sabbatarianism ;  nay,  perhaps,  while  accom 
plishing  these  things,  to  go  a  little  farther,  and  nse  the" 
barbaric  region  thus  reclaimed  as  an  experimental  nursery- 
ground  for  seeds  and  notions  of  a  more  advanced  sacerdotal 
theory  than  could  yet  be  tried  even  in  England :  all  this  was 
in  the  mind  of  Laud  as  often  as  he  looked  northward  on  the 
British  map  beyond  the  province  of  his  brother  of  York. 
He  had  been  occupied  with  the  subject  even  while  James 
was  alive,  and,  in  spite  of  that  king's  resolution  not  to  be 
led  into  farther  experiments  on  the  patience  of  the  Scotch, 
had  persuaded  him  to  meditate  one  more, — a  new  Scottish 
Liturgy.1  Eight  years  had  elapsed  since  then;  and  now, 
under  a  king  far  more  willing  and  in  circumstances  far  more 
favourable,  it  was  proposed  to  attempt  not  only  the  new 
Liturgy,  but  all  that  was  desirable  besides. 

Memorable  in  the  annals  of  Scotland  was  Charles's  Coron 
ation  Visit  of  1633.  On  the  12th  of  June  he  swept  across 
the  Border  with  his  retinue;  on  Saturday,  the  15th,  he 
made  his  splendid  triumphal  entry  into  Edinburgh,  and 
took  up  his  residence  in  the  Palace  of  Holyrood;  on  the 
18th  he  was  crowned  in  Holyrood  Abbey;  on  the  20th  he 
opened  a  Scottish  Parliament,  which  continued  to  sit  till 
the  28th  ;  on  the  1st  of  July  he  left  Edinburgh  on  a  journey 
west  and  north,  in  the  course  of  which  he  visited  Linlithgow, 
Stirling,  Dunfermline,  Falkland,  and  Perth;  on  the  llth  of 
July  he  was  back  in  Edinburgh,  which  he  left  next  day  for 
Dalkeith  on  his  way  southwards;  and  on  the  16th  he  re- 
crossed  the  Border.2  During  those  five  weeks  much  had 
been  done.  New  Scottish  peers  had  been  created  and  old 
peers  had  been  raised  a  step  in  the  peerage ;  new  members, 
including  Laud,  had  been  sworn  of  the  Scotch  Privy  Council ; 
and  about  two  hundred  Acts  had  been  passed  in  the  Scottish 
Parliament,  one  of  them  a  substantial  vote  of  subsidies, 
several  others  of  a  general  nature,  but  most  of  them  private 

1  Rushworth,  II.  386-387. 

2  Rush  worth,  II.   180-184,  and   Mr.  Robert   Chambers's  Domestic  Annals  of 
Scotland,  II.  63-69.  -       , 


700  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

bills  ratifying  the  privileges  of  nobles,  land-owners,  and 
burghs.  The  incidents  in  the  ecclesiastical  department  were 
the  most  important. 

On  the  very  first  occasion  in  which  religious  worship 
mingled  with  the  ceremonial  of  the  visit  care  had  been  taken 
to  give  a  hint  to  all  concerned  that  Presbyterianism  was  to 
receive  no  countenance  from  his  Majesty.  The  arrangements 
or  the  coronation  ceremony  in  Holyrood  Abbey  were  made 
by  Laud,  who,  though  a  stranger,  was  "  high  in  his  carriage/' 
and  took  upon  him  to  show  the  Scottish  bishops  how  such  a 
ceremony  ought  to  be  performed.  "It  was  markit  that 
"  there  was  ane  four-nuikit  table,  in  manner  of  ane  altar, 
' l  having  standing  thereon  twa  books,  called  blind-boohs,  with 
"  twa  chandlers  and  twa  wax-candles,  whilks  were  unlichtit, 
"and  ane  basin,  wherein  there  was  naething.  At  the  back 
"  of  this  altar  was  ane  rich  tapestry,  whereon  the  crucifix 
"  was  curiously  wrought ;  and,  as  thir  bishops  who  was  in 
"  service  passed  by  this  crucifix,  they  were  seen  to  bow  the 
"knee  and  beck, — whilk,  with  their  habit  [embroidered 
(( robes  of  blue  silk,  over  which  were  white  rochets  with 
"  loops  of  gold] ,  was  noted."  x  The  crown  was  put  on  the 
King's  head  by  the  Bishop  of  Brechin  ;  but  it  was  arranged 
that  the  two  Archbishops  should  stand  beside  the  King, — 
St.  Andrews  on  his  right  hand,  and  Glasgow  on  his  left. 
Glasgow,  however,  being  a  moderate  churchman,  had 
neglected,  with  one  or  two  others  of  the  bishops,  to  procure 
the  proper  episcopal  garb ;  and  Laud,  observing  this, 
actually  thrust  him  from  his  place  with  these  words,  "  Are 
you  a  churchman  and  want  the  coat  of  your  order  ?",  sub 
stituting  the  Bishop  of  Ross.  Such  things  might  have 
passed  off  as  attributable  only  to  Laud's  oificiousness  ;  but 
when,  on  the  King's  attending  public  worship  next  Sunday 
in  St.  Giles's  church,  it  was  noticed  that  Mr.  John  Maxwell, 
one  of  the  ministers  of  Edinburgh  and  Bishop  of  Ross  elect, 
came  down  from  the  king's  loft,  and  caused  the  minister 
who  was  reading  in  Scottish  fashion  to  remove  from  his 
place,  and  two  English  chaplains  clad  in  their  surplices  to 

1  Spaldiiig's  Troubles  of  Scotland. 


THE    SCOTTISH    PARLIAMENT   OP    1633.  701 

officiate  for  him  and  read  the  English  service,  and  that 
thereafter  the  Bishop  of  Moray  went  into  the  pulpit  and 
preached  a  sermon  also  in  a  surplice, — "  a  thing  whilk  had 
never  been  seen  in  St.  Giles's  kirk  sin  the  Reformation  ", 
— people  were  really  astounded.  Was  there  to  be  an  "  in- 
bringing  of  Popery  "  through  the  agency  of  the  Scottish 
bishops  themselves  ? 

The  fear  was  confirmed  by  what  occurred  in  the  Parlia 
ment.  The  old  Scottish  Parliament  differed  from  an  English- 
Parliament  in  consisting  but  of  one  House,  in  which  the 
prelates  and  the  temporal  peers,  as  well  as  the  great  officers 
of  state,  sat  together  with  the  commissioners  of  the  so-called 
lesser  barons  or  gentry  of  the  shires  and  the  commissioners 
of  the  burghs.  The  Parliament  which  met  while  Charles 
was  in  Edinburgh  was  naturally  a  very  full  one.  There  sat 
in  it,  ex  officiis,  nine  of  the  chief  state  officers  of  the  kingdom. 
There  sat  in  it  also  the  two  archbishops  and  all  the  bishops, 
except  the  Bishop  of  Aberdeen,  who  was  ill,  and  the  Bishop 
of  Caithness,  who  sent  his  proxy.  There  were  present  in 
person  forty-seven  peers,  who,  with  nineteen  absentees 
represented  by  proxies,  made  up  nearly  the  whole  existing 
Scottish  peerage.  The  forty-seven  personally  present  con 
sisted  of  one  duke  (Lennox),  two  marquises  (Hamilton  and 
Douglas),  nineteen  earls,  three  viscounts,  and  twenty-two 
lords.  The  commissioners  of  the  lesser  barons  or  gentry  of 
the  shires  were  forty-five  in  number,  representing  a  total 
body  of  about  one  thousand  families  belonging  to  the  class  of 
lairds  or  landed  gentry  over  the  whole  kingdom.  The  com 
missioners  from  burghs  were  fifty-one,  of  whom  Edinburgh 
sent  two,  and  other  forty-nine  burghs  one  each.  Thus,  163 
persons  sat  in  the  Parliament,  making,  with  the  proxies  of 
twenty  absentees,  183  votes  in  all. 

By  ancient  custom,  the  real  business  of  a  Scottish  Parlia 
ment  was  vested  in  an  elected  committee  of  the  members, 
called  "  The  Lords  of  the  Articles/'  and  all  that  was 
reserved  for  the  general  body  was  to  hold  a  final  meeting  in 
which  the  acts  and  ordinances,  prepared  by  these  Lords  of 
the  Articles,  were  read  over  seriatim,  and  either  accepted  or 


702  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

rejected.  On  the  present  occasion  the  Lords  of  the  Articles 
were  forty-two  in  number,  as  follows: — The  Earl  of  Kin- 
noull,  presiding  as  High  Chancellor  of  Scotland  ;  eight  other 
state  officers,  members  of  the  Parliament,  nominated  by 
the  King  ;  eight  of  the  Prelates  present  in  the  Parliament, 
elected  by  the  Nobles  present ;  eight  of  the  Nobles  present, 
elected  by  the  Prelates  ;  eight  of  the  Lairds  or  Lesser  Barons 
present,  elected  by  the  Prelates  and  Nobles  conjointly ; 
and  nine  of  the  Commissioners  of  Burghs  present,  elected 
by  the  Prelates,  the  Nobles,  and  the  Lesser  Barons  con 
jointly.  Elected  on  the  first  day  on  which  all  the  Estates 
met  his  Majesty,  these  Lords  of  the  Articles  held  meetings 
daily  for  about  a  week,  framing  the  Acts  which  were  to  be 
submitted  to  Parliament, — pretty  well  framed,  doubtless, 
among  the  chiefs  beforehand.  The  rest  of  the  Parliament 
meanwhile  waited  "  within  the  town  of  Edinburgh/'  under 
penalties  not  to  depart,  even  had  the  festivities  of  the  King's 
visit  been  insufficient  to  detain  them.  On  the  28th  of  June 
they  all  reassembled,  the  King  again  present,  to  vote  and 
conclude  the  Acts  which  their  committee  had  prepared. 
These  Acts  were  ' '  read  over,"  to  the  number  of  about  two 
hundred  in  all, — only  the  more  important,  we  must  suppose, 
being  read  at  large.  Of  the  31  Acts  of  this  kind  there  were 
only  two  on  which  a  difference  arose.  One  was  Act  No.  3, 
entitled  Anent  his  Majesty's  Prerogative  and  the  Apparel  of 
Kirkmen ;  and  the  other  was  Act  No.  4,  entitled  Ratification 
of  Acts  touching  Religion.  By  the  first  not  only  was  the 
King's  prerogative  in  all  causes  asserted  in  general  terms, 
but  there  was  specified,  as  a  part  of  this  prerogative,  his 
right,  in  terms  of  a  former  Act  of  the  year  1609,  to  regulate 
the  apparel  of  all  ecclesiastics  by  a  simple  letter  addressed 
to  the  Clerk  of  the  Register,  which  should  then  have  the 
force  of  an  Act  of  Parliament.  By  the  other  all  former 
Acts  touching  Religion  were  ratified  indiscriminately,  those 
passed  before  the  restoration  of  bishops,  as  well  as  those 
passed  subsequently.  Whether  these  two  Acts  had  passed 
the  Lords  of  the  Articles  themselves  without  comment  may 
be  doubted.  In  the  general  meeting  of  the  Estates,  at  all 


CHARLES    AND   LAUD    IN    SCOTLAND  :    1633.  703 

events,  they  provoked  opposition.  The  leader  of  the  oppo 
sition  was  John  Leslie,  Earl  of  Eothes,  with  whom  went 
twelve  or  thirteen  other  peers,  and  many  lesser  barons  and 
burgesses.  They  wanted  both  the  Acts  explained,  and  put 
it  to  his  Majesty  directly  whether  in  the  first  he  "  intended 
the  surplice."  To  this  question  his  Majesty  would  give  no 
answer;  but  he  took  a  paper  out  of  his  pocket  and  said, 
"  Gentlemen,  I  have  all  your  names  here,  and  I'll  know  who 
"will  do  me  service,  and  who  not,  this  day."  The  dissen 
tients  then  proposed  to  accept  part  of  the  Act  only ;  but,  as 
the  King  would  have  no  distinction  or  debate,  and  insisted 
on  a  direct  Ay  or  No  to  the  Act  as  it  stood,  they  voted  No. 
They  then  proposed  a  division  of  parts  in  respect  to  the 
other  Act ;  but  again,  being  obliged  to  say  Ay  or  No  to  the 
whole,  they  said  No  to  the  whole.  Rothes  and  others 
claimed  that  the  Noes  were  in  the  majority  in  both  cases ; 
but,  as  the  Clerk-Register  decided  otherwise,  and  as  a 
charge  of  false  counting  against  that  functionary  was  too 
dangerous,  they  were  obliged  to  yield,  and  to  see  the  two 
Acts  passed  as  the  Acts  of  the  "  haill  Estates/'  and  ratified 
by  the  King  with  the  touch  of  his  sceptre.1 

The  experience  of  this  Parliament  produced  effects 
through  the  rest  of  the  royal  visit.  The  dissentients,  and 
all  who  abetted  them,  were  kept  under  his  Majesty's  frown. 
At  Stirling  the  provost  was  not  allowed  to  kiss  hands  on 
presenting  the  town's  gift  of  a  piece  of  plate ;  and  in  Fife- 
shire  the  King  went  out  of  his  way,  in  order,  it  was  supposed, 
to  avoid  a  reception  intended  for  him  by  a  number  of  the 
nobility  and  gentry  of  that  Presbyterian  shire.  Laud  also 
was  most  ungracious.  "  July  8,  Monday,"  he  writes  in  his 
diary,  "to  Dunblane  and  Stirling:  my  dangerous  and  cruel 
"journey,  crossing  part  of  the  Highlands  by  coach,  which 
"  was  a  wonder  there."  Equally  astonishing  to  the  natives 
were  some  of  his  sentiments.  "  When  he  was  in  the  kirk 
"  of  Dunblane  he  affirmed  it  was  a  goodly  church.  '  Yes, 

i  See  Rushworth,  II.  183 ;  also  Bal-  «  displeased  the  subjects  that  in  effect 

four's  Annals  of   Scotland,  sub   anno  "they  were  the  very  ground-stones  of 

1633.    "  The  3rd  and  4th  Acts  of  this  «  all  the  mischiefs  that  followed." 
"  Parliament,"  says  Balfour,  "  so  much 


704  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME, 

' ' f  my  Lord,'  said  one  standing  by,  '  this  was  a  brave  kirk 
"'before  the  Reformation.'  '  What,  fellow  ?  '  said  the  Bishop  : 
"  f  Deformation,  not  .Reformation  ! '  "l  In  short,  when  the 
King  and  Laud  returned  to  London,  they  left  an  impression, 
which  soon  became  general  throughout  Scotland,  that  they 
had  gone  back  with  a  fully-formed  design  of  extirpating  the 
last  relics  of  the  national  Presbyterianism. 

The  impression  was  verified  by  some  of  the  first  acts  of 
the  King  after  his  return,  and  of  Laud  after  his  elevation  to 
the  Archbishopric  of  Canterbury.     Thus,  in  the  month  of 
October  1633,  two  official  letters  came  north  on  Scottish 
ecclesiastical  business.     One,  dated  Oct.  8,  was  a  royal  letter, 
addressed  to  Bellenden,  Bishop  of  Dunblane,  in  his  capacity 
as  Dean  of  the  Chapel  Royal  in  Holyrood,  giving  directions 
as  to  the  forms  and  ceremonies  of  worship  to  be  used  there 
in  future.     There  were  to  be  prayers  twice  a-day  in  the 
chapel  according  to  the  English  Liturgy,  until  such  time  as 
a  new  Liturgy  should  be  framed  for  Scotland ;  on  all  Sundays 
and  holidays  the  Dean,  whether  preaching  or  reading  prayers, 
was  to  be  "in  his  whites";  there  was  to  be  sacrament  once 
a  month,  which  was  to  be  administered  to  all  kneeling ;  and 
it   was  to  be   signified,  as  the  King's  command,  that  the 
Lords  of  his  Privy  Council,  the  Lords  of  Session,  the  Writers 
to  the  Signet,  and  all  other  official  persons  in  Edinburgh, 
should  attend  the  communion  in  the  chapel  at  least  once 
a-year,  and  receive  the  sacrament  kneeling,  as  an  example 
to  the  rest  of  the  people.     The  Dean  was  to  make  a  yearly 
report  to  the  King  of  the  names  of  such  as  offended  in  the 
last  particular.2   The  other  letter,  which  followed  at  a  Week's 
interval  (Oct.  15),  was  of  more  general  application.     It  was, 
in   fact,  the  King's  answer  to  those    questions   as  to  the 
apparel  of  kirkmen  which  he  had  refused  to  answer  in  the 
Parliament.     It  contained  the  following  instructions  : — That, 
in  all  public  places,  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops  should 
appear  in  gowns  with  standing  capes,  and  all  the  inferior 
clergy  in   a   dress    of   similar   fashion,  though    of  inferior 

i  Row's  "  History  of  the  Kirk,"  Wodrow  Society,  1842 ;  p.  369.   • 
3  Rushworth,  II.  205. 


LAUD'S  POLICY  FOR  SCOTLAND.  705 

materials,  except  that  only  doctors  were  to  have  the  addition 
of  tippets ;  that  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops  should  always, 
when  attending  divine  service  and  preaching,  "  be  in  whites," 
i.  e.  "  in  a  rochet  and  sleeves,"  such  as  they  had  worn  at  the 
coronation,  and,  moreover,  that  such  of  them  as  were  mem 
bers  of  the  Privy  Council  should  always  sit  there  "  in  their 
whites "  also ;  that  at  the  consecration  of  bishops  there 
should  be  worn  "  a  chymer  "  of  satin  or  taffeta  ' '  over  the 
whites " ;  that  the  inferior  clergy  should  preach  in  their 
black  gowns,  but  should  in  reading  service,  and  at  christen 
ings,  communions,  and  other  such  times,  wear  their  sur 
plices  ;  finally,  that  the  square  cap  of  the  English  Universi 
ties  should  be  the  sole  head-gear  of  the  Scottish  clergy  from 
the  Tweed  to  the  Shetlands.1 

These,  however,  were  but  preliminaries;  and,  in  order  to 
their  success  and  to  the  success  of  more  radical  measures 
which  were  to  follow,  it  had  been  the  King's  care,  before 
leaving  Scotland,  to  make  certain  changes  in  the  local  in 
strumentality  through  which  alone  such  measures  could  be 
carried  into  effect.  A  very  characteristic  act,  and  one 
exactly  in  the  line  of  Laud's  general  policy,  was  the  intro 
duction  into  the  Scottish  Privy  Council  of  no  fewer  than 
nine  of  the  Scottish  prelates.  Hardly  less  important  were 
some  changes  made  in  the  episcopal  body  by  reason  of 
vacancies.  The  Bishopric  of  the  Isles,  vacant  by  the  trans 
lation  of  Leslie  to  an  Irish  see,  was  conferred  on  a  Neil 
Campbell  (1633),  and  that  of  Galloway,  vacant  by  the  death 
of  Lamb,  on  a  Thomas  Sydserf  (1634).  More  important 
still  was  the  creation  of  a  new  bishopric  for  Edinburgh, — 
which  town,  singular  to  say,  had  not  yet  been  the  seat  of  a 
separate  see.  The  diocese  having  been  marked  out,  and 
St.  Giles's  church  having  been  altered  so  as  to  serve  for  a 
cathedral,  the  bishopric  was  conferred  (Jan.  26,  1634) 2  on 

1  This  is  a  correct  abridgment  of  the  Dec.  31  and  March  25,  is  not  requisite, 

order  as  it  is  entered  in  the  Scottish  as  in  English.     From  the  beginning  of 

Statute-book,  under  Act  No.  3,  of  the  the  seventeenth  century  the  Scots  had 

Parliament  of  1633:  Acts  of  the  Scottish  reckoned,  as  we  do  now,  from  the  1st 

Parliaments,  vol.  V.  of  January,  as  New-Year's  day,  though 

-  In  Scottish  history  of  that  time  the  according  to  the  old  style, 
double  form  of  dating  for  days  between 

VOL.  I.  Z  Z 


706  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

William  Forbes,  principal  of  Marischal  College,  Aberdeen. 
Forbes  had  held  the  see  but  a  month  or  two  when  he  died, 
and  his  successor,  appointed  in  September  1634,  was  David 
Lindsay,  transferred  from  Brechin,  and  succeeded  there  by 
a  Walter  Whiteford. 

With  these  and  other  changes,  the  resident  Privy  Council 
of  Scotland  stood,  from  1634  to  1638,  as  follows  : — 

PK  ELATES. 

John  Spotswood,  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews. 

Patrick  Lindsay,  Archbishop  of  Glasgow. 

David  Lindsay,  Bishop  of  Edinburgh. 

John  Guthrie,  Bishop  of  Moray. 

Walter  Whiteford,  Bishop  of  Brechin. 

Adam  Bellenden,  Bishop  of  Dunblane,  but  afterwards  of  Aberdeen  : 
translated  thither  on  the  death  of  Patrick  Forbes  in  1635^ 
and  succeeded  in  Dunblane  by  James  Wedderburn,  a  Scot 
who  had  resided  in  England,  and  had  there  become  acquainted 
with  Laud. 

John  Maxwell,  Bishop  of  Ross. 

Thomas  Sydserf,  Bishop  of  Galloway. 

LAY  COUNCILLORS  WITH  OFFICE. 

George  Hay,  Earl  of  Kinnoull,  High  Chancellor.  He  died  at 
London,  Dec.  16,  1634;  and  the  Chancellorship,  the  first 
office  in  the  kingdom,  was  then  conferred  on  Archbishop 
Spotswood. 

William  Douglas,  Earl  of  Morton,  High  Treasurer;  which  place, 
however,  he  resigned  in  1635. 

John  Stewart,  Earl  of  Traquair,  Treasurer-Depute  till  1635,  and, 
after  that,  High  Treasurer,  in  succession  to  Morton. 

Thomas  Hamilton,  Earl  of  Haddington,  Lord  Privy  Seal  till  his 
death  in  1637. 

Sir  Archibald  Achespn  of  Glencairn,  Resident  Secretary  of  State, 
and  colleague  in  the  general  Secretaryship  of  State  with  the 
poetic  Earl  of  Stirling,  who  was  kept  by  the  King  mainly  in 
London,  to  receive  and  transmit  instructions  to  the  Resident 
Secretary  and  the  whole  Council. 

Sir  John  Hay  of  Lands,  Clerk  of  Register. 

Sir  Thomas  Hope  of  Craighall,  Kings  Advocate. 

Sir  James  Galloway,  Master  of  Requests. 

Sir  William  Elphin  stone,  Justice  General. 

Sir  James  Carmichael  of  that  Ilk,  Justice  Cleric  till  1635,  when  he 
succeeded  Traquair  as  Treasurer-Depute,  and  was  succeeded 
as  Justice-Clerk  by  Sir  John  Hamilton  of  Orbiston. 

LAY  COUNCILLORS  WITHOUT  OFFICE. 

Robert  Ker,  Earl  of  Roxburgh,  born  about  1570.  He  had  led  an 
active  life  hitherto,  and  he  was  made  Privy  Seal  in  1637,  in 
succession  to  the  Earl  of  Haddington. 


SCOTTISH    PRIVY   COUNCIL   FROM    1634   TO    1638.          707 

John  Drummond,  Earl  of  Perth. 

George  Setori,  Earl  of  Winton. 

John  Maitland,  Earl  of  Lauderdale. 

John  Fleming,  Earl  of  Wigton. 

William  Crichton,  Earl  of  Dumfries. 

John  Lyon,  Earl  of  Kinghorn. 

David  Carnegy,  Earl  of  Southesk. 

Archibald  Douglas,  Earl  of  Angus.  He  was  the  eldest  son  of  the 
newly-created  Marquis  of  Douglas,  the  head  of  the  great 
Douglas  family,  and  a  Roman  Catholic. 

Archibald  Campbell,  Lord  Lome,  eldest  son  of  Archibald,  seventh 
Earl  of  Argyle.  He  was  born  in  1598,  and  was  already  the 
representative  of  the  great  Argyle  family,  and  the  holder  of 
its  rights  and  estates,  his  father  having  been  recently  in 
capacitated  as  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  usually  residing  in 
London. 

James  Stewart,  Lord  Doune,  son  and  heir-apparent  of  James,  Earl 
of  Moray. 

William  Alexander,  Lord  Alexander,  eldest  son  of  the  poetic  Earl 
of  Stirling.  He  died  in  March  1638. 

Alexander  Elphinstone,  Lord  Elphinstone. 

James  Ogilvy,  Lord  Deskford. 

Archibald  Napier,  Lord  Napier,  eldest  son  of  John  Napier  of 
Merchiston,  the  inventor  of  Logarithms.  He  had  been  in 
various  official  situations  in  the  reign  of  James,  and  was  in 
high  favour.1 

These  thirty  or  more  persons  formed  the  resident  Scottish 
Privy  Council,  governing  Scotland  for  Charles,  between 
1634  and  1638.  The  attendance  at  the  council-meetings 
varied  from  ten  to  about  three-and- twenty,  and  the  most 
constant  and  active  members  were  the  prelates  and  official 
lay  members.  Of  the  prelates  the  most  zealous  in  their 
loyalty  were  Primate  Spotswood,  Bellenden,  and  Maxwell. 
By  far  the  ablest  man  in  the  Council,  however,  and  in 
reality  the  leading  minister,  was  the  Earl  of  Traquair.  As 
Treasurer-Depute,  he  had  distinguished  himself  by  his 
energy ;  lie  was  one  of  those  whom  Charles  had  selected  for 
the  honour  of  earldom  during  his  Coronation  visit;  and, 
after  his  preferment  to  the  Chief-Treasurership,  he  "guided 
"our  Scots  affairs,"  says  Baillie,  "with  the  most  absolute 
"sovereignty  that  any  subject  among  us  this  forty  years  did 
"  kythe."  His  power  or  his  weakness  consisted  in  a  certain 

1  Compiled  from  notices  of  proceed-  Rushworth,  and  elsewhere, — Douglas's 

ings  of  the  Council,  letters  signed  by  Scottish    Peerage    and    Scot    of    Scot- 

them,  and  the  like,  in  the  Appendix  to  starvetfs8tfi(/f/eriny  State  supplying  some 

£aiUte's  Letters,  in  BaJfour''s  Annals,  in  of  the  particulars. 

Z  Z  2 


708  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HIS1ORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

fury  of  manner.  "  He  carries  all  down  that  is  in  his  way/' 
says  Baillie,  "  with  such  a  violent  spate  (flood),  oft  of  need- 
"less  passion."1  Though  zealous  for  the  King's  service, 
both  in  Church  and  State,  he  had  an  antipathy  to  the 
Bishops  and  resented  their  preponderance  in  the  Council. 
Hence  a  feud  in  the  Council  between  the  Traquair  party 
and  the  party  of  Chancellor  Spotswood. 

While  the  Privy  Council  managed  ordinary  Scotch  busi 
ness  at  their  discretion,  they  received  all  their  more  import 
ant  instructions  direct  from  London,  through  the  medium 
of  the  post.  On  July  31, 1635,  Thomas  Witherings,  Esq.,  his 
Majesty's  Postmaster  in  England,  was  commanded  to  com 
plete  the  line  of  post-houses,  and  the  stabling,  &c.,  at  each, 
so  that  there  might  be  at  least  one  horse-post  running 
regularly  day  and  night  between  London  and  Edinburgh, 
performing  the  double  journey  in  six  days,  and  charging 
sixpence  a  letter  for  the  whole  distance.2  Both  before  this 
order  and  after,  many  a  packet  on  his  Majesty's  service  was 
conveyed  from  Whitehall  to  the  northern  capital  containing 
letters  of  fell  intent.  The  letters  were  sometimes  from  his 
Majesty  himself,  or  from  the  Earl  of  Stirling,  as  the  Scottish 
secretary  of  state  in  London,  to  the  Privy  Council ;  but  not 
unfrequently  there  were  private  letters  from  the  Marquis  of 
Hamilton  or  from  Secretary  Stirling  to  individual  Scottish 
nobles,  or  from  Laud  to  one  or  other  of  the  Scottish  Bishops. 
In  reality  every  important  order  respecting  Scottish  ecclesi 
astical  affairs  emanated  from  Laud.3 

An  important  act  was  the  establishment,  by  a  royal 
>  warrant  dated  "  Hampton  Court,  Oct.  21,  1634,"  of  a  Scottish 
COURT  OF  HIGH  COMMISSION,  on  a  scale  corresponding  to  that 
of  the  similar  Court  in  England,  or  even  more  extensive. 
The  establishment  of  this  Court,  in  lieu  of  the  more  re 
stricted  agency  of  the  same  kind  which  had  existed  before, 

Baillie's  Letters,  edited  by  Laing :  a  specimen  as  can  be  found  of  his  talent 

Letter  of  date  Jan.  29, 1637,  to  William  in  self-defence,  ought  to  read  that  part 

Spang.  of  the  History  of  his  Trials  and  Troubles 

2  Kymer's  Fcedera,  and   Chambers's  (pp.  87 — 143)  where  he  replies  seriatim 
Domestic  Anuals  of  Scotland.  to  the  articles  presented  against  him, 

3  Whoever  wishes  to  study  Laud's  in  1640,  by  the  Scottish  Commissioners 
action  within  a  moderate  compass,  and  appointed  to  impeach  him. 

at  the  same  time  to  have  as  favourable 


OPPOSITION   ELEMENTS    IN    SCOTLAND.  709 

was  intended  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Scottish  Bishops 
against  anticipated  opposition  to  the  two  final  measures 
which  were  to  complete  the  ecclesiastical  revolution,  viz.  the 
promulgation  of  a  BOOK  OF  CANONS,  and  the  introduction  of 
a  NEW  LITURGY.  Before  relating  the  history  of  these  measures, 
let  us  see  in  what  elements  in  Scottish  society  the  opposition 
which  they  did  meet  with  was-already  garnered  up. 

There  were  elements  of  opposition  in  the  Privy  Council 
itself.  Thus,  by  a  curious  anomaly,  felt  to  be  such  at  the 
time,  the  man  who  held  the  important  post  of  King's 
Advocate,  or  Attorney- General  for  Scotland,  Sir  Thomas 
Hope  of  Craighall,  was  an  astute  veteran  whose  whole  heart 
was  Presbyterian,  and  who  had  risen  to  the  top  of  his  pro 
fession  by  his  celebrity  as  "  the  Presbyterian  lawyer."  Nor 
were  there  wanting  others  in  the  Council  who  were  disposed, 
from  one  motive  or  another,  to  thwart  the  new  policy  of 
governing  Scotland  by  instructions  from  Lambeth.  "  That 
"  Churchmen  have  a  competency  is  agreeable  to  the  law  of 
"  God  and  man,"  wrote  Lord  Napier  privately ;  "  but  to 
"invest  them  into  great  estates  and  principal  offices  of  the 
t(  State  is  neither  convenient  for  the  Church,  for  the  King, 
"  nor  for  the  State.''1  It  was  not  the  opinion  of  Napier  only, 
or  of  Napier  and  Hope  and  Traquair,  but  of  almost  all  their 
lay  colleagues. 

One  needed  only  to  glance  over  the  community  at  large 
to  see  that  there  was  likely  to  be  even  a  stronger  muster 
both  of  personal  Scottish  stubbornness  and  of  vehement 
Presbyterian  conviction  than  was  promised  by  appearances 
at  the  centre.  (I.)  Among  the  seventy  or  more  Nobles  who 
formed  the  high  aristocracy  of  Scotland,  and  who  lived  in 
old  castles  or  in  quaint  thick-walled  houses  where  their 
ancestors  had  lived  before  them,  there  was  a  considerable 
sprinkling  of  avowed  dissentients,  some  from  real  Presby 
terian  feeling,  others  from  mere  hereditary  jealousy  of  that 
prelatic  order  by  the  spoils  of  which  their  ancestors  had 
grown  richer  at  the  Reformation,  and  which  was  now  again 
raising  its  head,  looking  after  what  it  had  lost,  and  even 
1  Mr.  Mark  Napier's  Memoirs  of  Montrose,  1856,  p.  104. 


710  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

talking  of  the  recovery  of  Church,  lands  and  the  restoration 
of  Abbacies.  The  most  conspicuous  of  these  were  the 
nobles  who  had  formed  the  Eothes  party  in  the  recent 
Parliament,  or  had  joined  it  immediately  afterwards.  Be 
sides  Rothes  himself,  there  were  John  Kennedy,  Earl  of 
Cassilis,  called  "the  grave  and  solemn  Earl/'  Alexander 
Montgomery,  Earl  of  Eglintoun,  afterwards  called  "  Gray 
Steel,"  William  Ker,  Earl  of  Lothian,  John  Campbell,  Lord 
Loudoun,  Lord  Balmerino  and  his  brother  Lord  Cupar, 
John  Sandilands,  Lord  Torphichen,  John  Hay,  Lord  Tester, 
and  Lords  Lindsay,  Sinclair,  Wemyss,  and  Cranstoun.  Most  of 
these  peers  were  young  men,  the  anti-prelatic  spirit  being 
apparently  strongest  among  the  younger  nobles,  while,  as  if 
by  a  law  of  antagonism,  the  extreme  or  Arminian  or  Laudian 
form  of  prelacy  was  represented  rather  by  the  younger  than 
by  the  older  prelates.  One  young  nobleman  on  whom  the 
Rothes  party  reckoned  as  a  zealous  adherent — John  Gordon, 
Viscount  Kenmure — died  in  1634 ;  but  there  was  a  nobleman 
still  younger  whose  adherence  to  this  party  seemed  as  likely 
as  it  was  desirable.  This  was  James  Graham,  Earl  of  Mont- 
rose,  related  to  the  Napiers  by  marriage,  and  just  returned, 
at  the  age  of  four-and-twenty,  from  a  residence  of  several 
years  abroad.  Coldly  received  at  the  Court  in  London,  he 
had  come  back  to  seek  in  his  native  country  the  excitement 
and  occupation  which  his  young  mind  craved;  and,  though 
he  was  "  very  hard  to  be  guided,"  it  was  to  him  rather  than 
to  any  of  the  yet  undeclared  peers, — to  him,  certainly,  rather 
than  to  his  senior,  the  cautious  Lome, — that  hope  would 
have  assigned  the  future  leadership  of  the  Scottish  popular 
cause.  (II.)  It  does  not  seem  that  among  the  thousand 
Lairds  or  Lesser  Barons  constituting  the  landed  gentry  of 
Scotland,  next  in  rank  to  the  great  Nobles,  there  was  pro 
portionally  so  much  of  the  anti-prelatic  spirit ;  but  in  this 
order  too  there  were  men  of  Presbyterian  grain.  From 
among  scores  of  such  that  could  be  reckoned  up, — Humes, 
Douglases,  Mures,  Agnews,  Barclays,  Ramsay s,  Erasers, — 
one  singles  out,  as  pre-eminent  in  this  order  from  the  first, 
Archibald  Johnstone  of  Warriston.  The  son  of  an  Annan- 


OPPOSITION    ELEMENTS    IN    SCOTLAND.  711 

dale  laird,  and  himself  possessing  a  small  property,  lie  liad 
been  called  to  the  Scottish  bar  in  1633,  and  was  already  in 
some  practice  in  Edinburgh  as  a  lawyer,  and  known  to  his 
intimate  friends  as,  next  to  old  Sir  Thomas  Hope,  the  man 
most  likely  to  serve  the  Kirk  by  his  knowledge  of  Scottish 
law.  Nor  was  knowledge  of  Scottish  law  his  sole  qualifi 
cation.  Whatever  of  courage,  earnestness,  promptitude, 
prudence,  and  skill  was  required  in  the  man  who  was  to  be 
the  leading  Presbyterian  business-agent  in  the  approaching 
struggle,  was  to  be  found,  when  the  crisis  called  for  it,  in 
Johristone  of  Warriston.  (III.)  What  of  the  Scottish 
Clergy,  the  800  or  900  parish  ministers,  who,  with  the  pro 
bationers  and  students  of  divinity,  formed  the  actual  body 
over  which  the  Bishops  presided.  Among  these  the  old 
breed  of  Presbyterians,  the  men  of  the  stamp  of  Knox  and 
Melville,  seemed  to  have  died  out,  or  to  be  represented  only 
in  a  few  survivors,  the  most  refractory  of  whom,  such  as  the 
historian  Calderwood,  had  been  driven  into  exile  or  de 
prived  ;  and  the  majority  appeared  to  acquiesce  in  Episco 
pacy  as  a  settled  institution.  Underneath  this  seeming 
acquiescence,  however,  there  lay  dormant  a  strength  of 
Presbyterianism  greater  than  could  be  estimated.  It  was 
still  a  consolation  with  hundreds  that  Prelacy  "  had  never 
been  allowed  as  a  standing  office  in  the  Church  by  any  law 
ful  assembly  in  Scotland."  In  these  circumstances,  nothing 
but  the  most  cautious  procedure  could  have  saved  Episcopacy 
as  it  was  from  being  re-questioned  on  the  first  convenient 
opportunity.  With  very  cautious  procedure,  there  might 
possibly,  in  time,  have  been  an  organic  adjustment.  Not., 
.however,  as  affairs  were  going.  Presbyterianism  pure  and 
absolute  was  reappearing  among  the  Clergy  from  the  very 
force  of  the  contrary  pressure.  Here  and  there  over  Scotland 
there  were  ministers  watching  the  course  of  events,  as 
unappointed  and  yet  recognised  deputies  for  the  rest,  and 
day  by  day  coming  to  a  firmer  conclusion  as  to  what  must 
be  the  national  duty.  Among  the  Edinburgh  clergy  there 
were  one  or  two  men,  like  Mr.  Andrew  Eamsay  and  Mr. 
Henry  Rollock,  who,  hitherto  obedient  enough  to  the  estab- 


712  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

lished  system,  were  beginning  to  repent  of  their  moderation. 
Calderwood  was  also  in  Edinburgh,  having  returned  from 
exile.  It  was  not  in  the  metropolis,  however,,  but  in  a  few 
remote  country  parishes  and  small  country  towns  over 
Scotland  that  the  leaders  -were  in  training.  Over  in  Fife- 
shire,  and  already  known  as  the  man  of  greatest  weight  and 
intellectual  capacity  among  the  clergy  of  that  energetic 
county,  was  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson,  parish  minister  of 
Leuchars,  now  about  fifty  years  of  age,  and  for  the  last 
sixteen  years  an  opponent,  equally  intrepid  and  skilful,  of 
the  prelatic  policy.  Of  the  same  age  as  Henderson,  and 
celebrated  as  the  most  powerful  preacher  in  the  West  of 
Scotland,  was  Mr.  David  Dickson,  minister  of  Irvine  in 
Ayrshire,  suspended  some  ten  years  before  for  declaring 
against  the  Articles  of  Perth,  but  soon  permitted  to  return, 
and  to  preach  as  before  to  the  crowds  that  nocked  to  hear 
him  on  Sundays  and  market-days.  A  man  considerably 
younger,  of  less  fervid  character,  but  of  strong  sense  and 
judgment,  was  Mr.  Robert  Baillie,  minister  of  Kilwinning, 
near  Glasgow,  of  whom  we  learn  from  his  private  letters 
that  he  would  have  been  willing  at  this  time  to  live  under  a 
moderate  episcopacy,  but  that  the  increase  of  "  Arminianism 
and  Papistry  "  was  causing  him  much  anxiety.1  Farther  to 
the  south,  in  the  remote  parish  of  Anwoth  in  the  Stewartry 
of  Kirkcudbright,  was  Mr.  Samuel  Rutherford,  now  in  the 
thirty-fifth  year  of  his  age,  and  famous  for  the  last  seven 
years  as  a  fair-haired  seraphic  preacher,  of  small  stature  but 
wondrous  force.  He  was  at  present  writing  a  Latin  treatise 
against  Arminianism,  which  was  to  be  published  at  Amster 
dam  in  1636.  Known  to  Rutherford,  as  having  been  chap 
lain  to  his  patron,  Viscount  Kenmure,  on  whose  death  he 
became  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Cassilis,  was  Mr.  George 
Gillespie,  as  yet  a  mere  youth,  but  engaged,  under  the 
Earl's  roof,  on  a  work  against  the  English  ceremonies. 
Lastly,  that  the  far  north  might  not  want  a  Presbyterian 
luminary,  there  was  Mr.  Andrew  Cant,  minister  of  the  parish 
of  Pitsligo  in  Aberdeenshire,  raying  out  in  that  shire  beams 

1  Mr.  Laing's  Memoir  of  Baillie,  prefixed  to  his  "  Letters,"  I.  xxix.  xxx. 


THEOLOGICAL    FEEVOUR   OF   THE    SCOTS.  713 

of  anti-prelatic  light.  (IV.)  There  seems  little  doubt  that,  ; 
in  downright  opposition  to  prelacy,  the  Scottish  people  at 
large  left  the  majority  of  their  clergy  far  behind.  Perhaps, 
with  allowance  for  districts  where  Roman  Catholicism  still 
lingered  and  where  Episcopacy  had  taken  root,  it  would  be\ 
a  fair  calculation  to  say  that  nineteen- twentieths  of  the 
Lowland  Scottish  population  were,  in  as  far  as  crowds  can 
be  conscious  of  a  creed,  Presbyterian  Calvinists.  There 
were  Presbyterian  provosts  and  town  councillors  in  most  of 
the  burghs;  the  citizens  in  most  towns  were  Presbyterian; 
the  rabble  in  most  towns  would  have  liked  nothing  better 
than  to  pelt  a  Bishop  through  the  streets ;  and  the  blue- 
bonneted  and  plaided  peasantry  of  the  western  shires, — no 
man  could  tell  how  Presbyterian  were  they.  Nor  must  it 
be  forgotten  that  in  many  places  and  in  many  families  wives 
were  more  zealous  than  their  husbands,  daughters  than 
their  fathers,  mothers  than  their  sons.  Over  Scotland,  it 
was  to  be  found,  there  were  Presbyterian  heroines  very 
many,  and  Presbyterian  termagants  not  a  few. 

A  ruder  nation  than  England,  with  little  commerce,  far 
more  superstitious  in  the  matter  of  witchcraft,  and  far  more 
given  to  witch-burning  and  other  horrible  practices  of  the 
sort,  torn  by  feuds  of  which  England  would  have  been 
ashamed,  rife  in  crimes  of  violence  which  the  laws  could  not 
punish,  full  at  the  same  time  of  all  kinds  of  laughable 
humours  and  eccentricities,  there  was  among  the  Scotch, 
whether  in  natural  connexion  with  these  differences  or  from 
independent  causes,  a  more  violent  theological  susceptibility 
than  among  the  English.  That  rigorous  and  sombre  view  ^ 
of  life  and  of  religious  practice  which  the  Puritans  were 
inculcating  in  England,  and  which  was  there  resisted  by 
the  Church,  was  the  normal  form  of  religion  in  Scotland, 
taught  by  the  Calvinistic  Kirk,  and  resisted  only,  but 
abundantly  enough,  by  the  natural  carnality  and  the  bound 
less  jocosity  of  the  Kirk's  subjects.  The  doctrine  of  con 
version,  of  the  distinction  between  the  natural  man  and  the 
man  regenerate  by  grace,  known  in  its  milder  form  to  the 
English  Church,  and  preached  in  its  stronger  form  by  the 


714  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

English  Puritans,  was  inherent  in  its  strongest  form  of  all 
in  the  very  substance  of  Scottish  Christianity.  The  clerical 
leaders  of  the  Presbyterian  movement,  or  those  who  were  in 
training  to  be  such,  were  men  whose  very  peculiarity  a,mong 
their  brethren  was  that  they  had  grasped  this  doctrine  with 
the  uttermost  conceivable  tenacity,  and  that,  recognising  in 
themselves  the  subjects  of  this  miraculous  change,  and  able 
in  some  cases  to  tell  the  very  year,  or  the  month,  or  the  day, 
when  the  change  had  been  wrought,  they  viewed  it  as  the 
sole  end  of  their  office  to  effect  the  change  in  others,  and 
convert  souls  to  Christ.  Henderson,  a  man  of  weight  in  all 
respects,  able  and  expert  in  debate,  and  fit  to  cope  with 
statesmen  in  secular  business,  could  tell  how  in  his  younger 
years  he  had  been  personally  careless  of  real  religion,  how 
the  people  of  Leuchars,  when  he  was  appointed  their  pastor 
in  1615,  had  nailed  up  their  church-doors  to  keep  him  out, 
and  he  had  forced  his  entrance  by  the  window,  and  how  it 
was  not  till  several  years  after  that,  touched  by  the  words 
of  a  more  zealous  preacher,  he  felt  the  force  of  "  saving 
truth  "  and  became  a  new  man.  Of  Dickson  we  are  told 
that  "  few  lived  in  his  day  who  were  more  honoured  to  be 
instruments  of  conversion  than  he,"  that  "  his  communion 
services  were  indeed  times  of  refreshing  from  the  Lord," 
and  that  such  was  his  skill  in  "  soul-ceases  "  that  people 
under  Cf  soul-concern  "  crowded  the  lobbies  of  his  house  to 
see  and  speak  with  him.  The  letters  of  Rutherford  are  still 
read  as  the  remains  of  one  in  whom  the  sensuous  genius  of 
a  poet  was  elevated  by  religion  to  the  pitch  of  ecstasy. 
" Woods,  trees,  meadows,  and  hills,"  he  writes,  "are  my 
witnesses  that  I  drew  on  a  fair  match  betwixt  Christ  and 
Anwoth  "  ;  and  to  this  day  in  that  parish  they  show  certain 
stones  in  a  field,  called  "  the  witness-stones  of  Rutherford," 
to  which,  on  one  occasion,  the  inspired  man  pointed  with 
his  finger,  telling  his  trembling  flock  that,  if  they  or  their 
children  should  ever,  after  he  was  dead,  admit  another 
gospel  than  that  which  he  had  taught  them,  then  those  very 
stones  would  witness  against  their  backsliding.  Nor  was 
this  intensity  of  religious  belief  confined  to  the  clergy.  The 


THE  ABERDEEN  DOCTORS.  715 

same  sense  of  supernatural  realities,  the  same  habitual  use 
in  speech  of  the  images  and  terms  of  the  Calvinistic  theology, 
were  found  among  the  Presbyterian  laymen.  Moreover 
the  phenomenon  of  epidemic  religious  ecstasy  was  well 
known  in  Scotland,  while  in  England  there  was  nothing  of 
the  kind,  save  in  some  poor  localities,  the  haunts  of  despised 
Brownist  preachers.  The  famous  communion  at  the  Kirk 
of  Shotts  in  June  1630,  when  a  large  congregation  remained 
two  days  spell-bound  by  the  preaching  of  young  Mr.  Living 
stone  and  five  hundred  were  converted  on  the  second  day 
by  one  sermon,  and  that  still  more  extraordinary  ""  outletting 
of  the  Spirit "  which  began  the  same  year  at  Stewarton  in 
Ayrshire  in  the  preachings  of  Mr.  Dickson,  and  which  over 
flowed  the  adjacent  country  "  like  a  spreading  moor-burn," 
so  that  the  profane  called  it  the  Stewarton  Sickness,  were 
events  fresh  in  the  popular  memory. 

One  remarks  that  these  and  similar  excitements  took 
place  chiefly  in  the  south  or  south-west  of  Scotland,  and 
that  the  portion  of  Scotland  most  exempt  from  such  pheno 
mena,  and  indeed  from  religious  ecstasy  in  any  form,  was 
that  where  there  was  the  largest  cluster  of  confessedly 
learned  clergymen.  The  "Aberdeen  Doctors,"  as  people 
had  begun  to  call  Dr.  John  Forbes,  Dr.  Barren,  Dr.  William 
Guild,  and  some  half-dozen  more  divines  clustered  round 
Bishop  Forbes,  and  then  round  his  successor  Bishop  Bellen- 
den,  at  Aberdeen,  as  occupants  of  the  town-pulpits  or  of  the 
chairs  of  grammar  and  theology  in  the  two  Aberdeen 
colleges,  were  notoriously  the  men  in  the  whole  Scottish  Kirk 
who  were  the  most  moderate  in  their  Calvinism  and  the 
coolest  in  their  zeal  for  Presbytery.  They  formed  a  little 
intellectual  colony,  in  which  religion  was  kept  at  a  moderate 
heat  by  other  tastes  and  interests.  There  was  more  print 
ing  of  Latin  verse  and  the  like  among  them  than  in  any 
other  town  in  Scotland;  they  had  occasional  visits  from 
Arthur  Johnston,  to  print  a  volume  at  their  press  and  to  • 
bring  them  London  literary  news ;  and  they  had  among 
them,  as  a  resident  native  of  the  town,  the  only  Scottish 
artist  then  alive,  Jamesone  the  portrait-painter.  And  so, 


716  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

the  community  among  whom  they  preached,  and  whom  their 
preaching  satisfied,  being  a  large-boned  and  large-headed 
race,  Aberdeen  was  the  city  in  all  Scotland  the  least  fervid 
in  its  Presbyterianism.1  Andrew  Cant,  in  his  parish  of 
Pitsligo,  was  the  only  anti-prelatic  star  of  any  magnitude 
that  twinkled  in  this  northern  darkness. 

Meanwhile,  far  away,  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  sat 
Laud,  as  ignorant  of  Scotland  as  of  Kamtschatka,  but  trying 
to  govern  it  ecclesiastically  through  the  sixpenny  post.  His 
correspondence  with  the  Scottish  bishops  now  was  chiefly 
respecting  the  new  BOOK  OF  CANONS  and  the  new  SERVICE- 
BOOK.  The  arrangement  was  that  the  Scottish  bishops 
should  prepare  both  books,  and  that,  after  they  had  been 
revised  and  amended  by  Laud,  Juxon  of  London,  Wren  of 
Norwich,  and  such  other  English  prelates  as  the  King  might 
appoint,  they  should  be  imposed  on  Scotland  by  royal 
authority. 

The  BOOK  OF  CANONS  was  ready  first.  The  royal  decree 
establishing  it  is  dated  Greenwich,  May  23,  1635.  The 
Book,  printed  at  Aberdeen,  was  received  in  Scotland  with  a 
kind  of  dumb  amazement.  The  Scottish  Bishops,  as  Laud 
afterwards  pleaded,  had  been  strictly  enjoined  to  take  the 
Scottish  Privy  Council  along  with  them  in  framing  the 
Canons,  and  also  to  see  that  none  of  them  were  contrary  to 
the  laws  of  the  Scottish  realm, — an  injunction  more  easily 
given  than  obeyed,  and  which  had  consequently  been  dis 
obeyed.  The  Bishops  seem  to  have  fancied  that  the  Canons, 

1  One  of  the  best  illustrations  that  I  celsus,  et  supra  commnnem  hominnm 

have  seen  of  the  peculiar  Aberdouian  sortem   evectus  es,  rudi  hac  epistola 

feeling   of   the  time   is  a  Latin  letter  niihi  viarn  aditumque  munire  non  eru- 

(now  iu  the  State  Paper  Office)  received  bescam."     The  writer  then  goes  on  at 

by  Laud  July  5,  1634,  and  endorsed  by  great  length  to  compliment  Laud   on, 

him,  "  Dr.  Barren's  letter,  of  Aberdeen,  the  wisdom  of  his  Church  government, 

concerning  ye  pacifying  of  ye  5  articles."  and    to    assure    him    of    the    writer's 

Though  received  only  on  July  5,  the  boundless  admiration  of  his  character, 

letter  is  dated  "  Aberdonise,  20  Aprilis,  and  of  his  published  solutions  of  old 

1634."      It    begins  —  "Amplissime    et  controversies, — all  this,  so  far  as  I  can 

revssjme  Praesul,  non   sum  nescius  mo-  see,  to  no  other  end  than  to  make 

destiam  et  verecundiam  in  me  desiderari  Laud  aware  that  there  was  one  reverend 

posse,  quod,  homo  privatus,  gente  ex-  gentleman  far  north  who  would  be  glad 

traneus,  et  vix  apud  populares  notus.  to  be  remembered  by  his  Grace  when 

ad  Rev**'.™88  tuse  Amplitudinis  amicitiam,  anything  good  was  going, 
qui,  nou  tarn  honoribus  quam  virtutibus 


THE    SCOTTISH    CANONS    AND    SERVICE-BOOK.  717 

when  approved  by  the  King,  were  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Scottish  Clergy ;  for  the  title  prefixed  to  the.  book  in  their 
original  draft  was  "  Canons  agreed  on  to  be  proposed  to  the 
several  Synods  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland," — which  title  Laud 
altered  into  "'  Canons  and  Constitutions  Ecclesiastical  ordained 
to  be  observed  by  the  Clergy.''1  But  the  matter  of  the  book 
was  the  grand  objection.  The  absolute  prerogative  of  the 
King  over  the  Kirk  was  asserted;  there  were  to  be  no 
General  Assemblies  of  the  Kirk  except  by  the  King's 
authority ;  and  private  meetings  of  clergymen  for  the  expo 
sition  of  Scripture  were  prohibited.  Among  the  special 
enactments  were  these : — that  the  forthcoming  Service- 
Book  should  be  used,  in  all  its  parts,  as  the  only  directory 
of  worship  ;  that  there  should  be  no  prayers  except  accord 
ing  to  the  forms  there  prescribed  ;  that  none  should  receive 
the  communion  otherwise  than  kneeling;  that  every  eccle 
siastical  person  should  leave  part  of  his  property  to  the 
Church ;  and  that  no  presbyter  should  reveal  anything  told 
him  in  confession,  except  in  a  case  where  by  concealment 
his  own  life  would  be  forfeited  by  law.  The  total  impression 
made  was  that  the  Canons  imposed  a  system  of  doctrine  and 
discipline  nearer  to  the  Popish  than  that  of  the  existing 
Church  of  England. 

There  was  an  extraordinary  delay  in  the  publication  of 
the  new  SERVICE-BOOK.  The  Canons,  published  in  May 
1635,  enjoined  the  acceptance  of  it ;  and  yet  for  a  year  and 
a  half  the  book  was  not  to  be  seen  or  heard  of  anywhere. 
It  was  still  only  in  progress.  Maxwell,  Bishop  of  Ross,  and 
Wedderburn,  Bishop  of  Dunblane,  who  were  the  Scottish 
bishops  chiefly  entrusted  with  the  work,  were  sending  it, 
piece  by  piece,  to  Laud ;  he  and  the  other  English  prelates 
in  his  confidence  were  making  their  additions  and  marginal 
notes;  on  these  again  there  ensued  correspondence;  and, 
even  after  the  printing  had  been  begun  by  the  King's  printer 
in  Edinburgh,  there  was  such  trouble  in  sending  the  proofs 
backwards  and  forwards,  and  in  making  new  alterations, 
that  the  work  was  often  at  a  stand.2  At  length  all  seemed 

i  Whartoii's  Laud,  101.  .  2  Ibid.,  110,  111,  &c. 


718  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OP   HIS    TIME. 

to  be  ready;  and  in  October  1636  the  Scottish  Privy  Council 
received  a  ' '  missive  letter  "  from  the  King,  announcing  the 
book,  and  ordering  them  to  make  known  his  Majesty's  com 
mand  that  all  his  subjects  in  Scotland  should  "  conform 
<e  themselves  in  the  practice  thereof, — it  being  the  only 
"  form  which  We,  having  taken  the  counsel  of  our  Clergy, 
"  think  fit  to  be  used  in  God's  public  worship  there."1  The 
Privy  Council  obeyed  the  order,  and  made  proclamation  of 
the  new  Service-Book  on  the  20th  of  December,  163o.2 

Still  no  Service-Book  was  to  be  seen.  "  The  proclamation 
"  of  our  Liturgy,"  writes  Baillie  to  a  friend  in  Glasgow,  Jan. 
2,  1637,  "is  the  matter  of  my  greatest  affliction.  I  pray 
"you,  if  you  can  command  any  copy  by  your  money  or 
"  moyen,  let  me  have  one,  an  it  were  but  two  or  three  days, 
"with  this  bearer.  I  am  mindit  to  cast  my  studies  for  dis- 
"  posing  of  my  mind  to  such  a  course  as  I  may  be  answerable 
"  to  God  for  my  carriage."  It  was  not  till  some  months 
had  passed  that  Baillie  and  others  could  obtain  copies  of  the 
book.  The  rumour  ran  that  the  first  edition  had  been 
cancelled,  and  that  sheets  of  it  were  used  in  the  shops  to 
wrap  up  spice  and  tobacco.3  By  the  beginning  of  May 
1637,  however,  there  were  stray  copies  of  the  long-expected 
volume  in  circulation,  and  bales  of  copies  lying  in  Edin 
burgh  warehouses.  It  was  a  folio  in  black  and  red  letters, 
the  black  in  Gothic  type,  and  was  entitled  The  Boole  of 
Common  Prayer  and  Administration  of  the  Sacraments  and 
other  Parts  of  Divine  Service  for  the  Use  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland.  Edinburgh :  Printed  by  Robert  Young.  The 
Bishops  had  issued  letters  ordering  every  parish  minister  to 
purchase,  at  the  charge  of  his  parish,  two  bound  copies  for 
use ;  and,  as  the  printer  wanted  his  money,  all  the  copies 
were  to  be  sold  off  by  the  1st  of  June.4 

Though  there  was  no  alacrity  among  the  ministers  in 
buying  copies,  enough  were  in  circulation  to  enable  the 

i  Letter,  dated  Newark,  Oct.  18,  3  Baillie,  Letter  of  date  Feb.  27, 

1636;  Balfour's  Annals.  1638. 

a  Baillie,  Appendix  to  vol.  I. ;  where  *  Letter  of  Lindsay,  Bishop  of  Edin- 

the  Privy  Council  Order  is  given,  burgh,  of  date  April  28,  1637,  in  Ap-. 

signed  by  eleven  of  the  Council.  pendix  to  Baillie,  vol.  I. 


THE    JENNY    GEDDES    RIOT  :    JULY    1637.  719 

whole  country  to  form  a  judgment  of  the  contents.  The 
book  was  found  by  its  critics  to  be  "  Popish  in  its  frame 
and  forms,"  to  contain  "  many  Popish  errors  and  ceremonies, 
and  the  seeds  of  manifold  and  gross  superstitions  and 
idolatries,"  and  to  be  in  all  respects  much  more  objection 
able  than  the  English  Prayer-Book  would  have  been.1 
"  Those  which  are  averse  from  the  ceremonies/'  writes .' 
Baillie,  "yea,  almost  all  our  nobility  and  gentry,  and  both 
"  sexes,  count  that  book  little  better  than  the  mass." 
Knowing  how  general  was  this  feeling,  the  Privy  Council 
were  obliged  to  be  peremptory.  On  the  13th  of  July  they 
ordered  all  parish  ministers  to  procure  the  two  copies  of  the 
book,  as  previously  commanded,  within  15  days,  under  pain 
of  "  being  put  to  the  horn,"— the  Scottish  formula  for  being 
outlawed  for  disobedience  to  his  Majesty's  will,  and  therefore 
liable  to  summary  process  of  seizure  of  goods  and  other 
penalties.  It  was  also  resolved  that  there  should  be  a  grand 
preliminary  reading  from  the  book  in  the  churches  of  Edin 
burgh  and  the  parts  adjacent  on  Sunday  the  23rd  of  July, 
in  order  that  the  Lords  of  Session  and  other  officials  then 
assembled  in  Edinburgh  in  full  term-time  might  be  able  to 
carry  the  report  of  the  success  of  the  new  Liturgy  into 
the  country  with  them  when  they  dispersed  for  the  autumn 
vacation.2 

What  occurred  in  Edinburgh  on  that  memorable  Sunday, 
the  23rd  of  July,  1637,  is  known,  in  a  general  way,  to  all  < 
the  world.  As  it  was  the  actual  beginning,  however,  of  that 
Revolution  in  the  British  Islands  which  is  to  occupy  us  so 
much  in  these  volumes,  some  account  of  the  facts  may  be 
expected  here.  The  following  may  pass  as  strictly  authen 
tic  : — "  Ten  o'clock  was  to  be  the  hour  for  the  great  inno- 
"  vation ;  at  all  events,  that  was  to  be  the  hour  in  the  High 
"Kirk  of  St.  Giles,  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Edinburgh. 
"  By  that  hour  the  church  was  crowded  with  a  large  con- 
"  gregation,  most  of  the  Council  and  other  officials  being 
"  present,  with  the  Chancellor- Archbishop  himself,  and  the 
"  Bishops  of  Galloway  and  Brechin,  besides  the  Bishop  of 

i  Wharton's  Laud,  110 — 125  ;  where       given  formally  and  in  detail, 
the  Scottish  objections  to  the  book  are  2  Rushworth,  II.  387. 


720  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

"Edinburgh,  and  his  Dean,  Dr.  James  Hannay,  who  were 
"  to  perform  the  service.  The  Bishop  was  in  the  pulpit 
"with  the  service-book,  and  the  Dean  was  in  the  readiug- 
"  desk  with  the  service-book,  and  the  Dean  had  opened  the 
"  book  and  begun  to  read,  when  a  moaning  ran  through  the 
"  church,  which  swelled  into  cries  of  '  Woe,  woe  I  '  '  Sorrow, 
"  Sorrow  !  '  and  at  length  into  a  vast  hubbub  and  uproar, 
"  the  women  especially  conspicuous,  and  rising  from  their 
"  seats,  and  beginning  to  toss  their  arms  to  help  their 
"  voices.  Suddenly,  from  one  woman  wilder  than  the  rest, 
" — JENNY  GEDDES,  she  will  be  called  to  the  end  of  time, 
"  though  some  think  that  was  not  her  real  name, — there 
"  whirled  into  the  air,  for  lack  of  any  other  missile,  her 
"three-legged  stool,  aimed  at  the  pulpit.  On  this  signal 
"  other  stools  flew  in  the  same  direction,  till,  stronger  arms 
"  beginning  to  aid,  it  seemed  as  if  they  would  tear  up  the 
"  pews  and  benches.  Through  the  uproar  the  Bishop,  the 
"  other  Bishops,  the  Archbishop  and  high  officials,  had  been 
"  gesticulating  in  vain,  and  trying  to  be  heard ;  and  many 
"  had  run  out  of  the  church  in  fright.  If  there  were  not  to 
"be  absolute  fighting  and  murder  within  the  sacred  walls, 
"  there  was  no  help  for  it  but  to  stop  the  attempted  reading 
"  and  huddle  through  the  rest  of  the  service  anyhow.  This 
"was  what  was  done;  but  the  tumult  meanwhile  had  com- 
"  municated  itself  to  the  streets,  and  a  mob  was  waiting 
"  outside.  When  the  Bishop  of  Edinburgh  came  out,  he 
"  was  pursued  with  hootings,  and  had  to  take  refuge  in 
"the  nearest  stair  leading  to  a  house;  and,  had  not  the 
"  Dean,  who  was  more  unpopular  than  the  Bishop,  prudently 
"  remained  in  the  church,  it  would  have  fared  worse  with 
"him.  All  that  afternoon  the  riot  continued;  and,  on  a 
"  second  appearance  of  the  Bishop  in  the  High  Street,  he 
"  was  again  chased  with  such  fury  that,  had  not  the  Earl  of 
"  Roxburgh,  who  chanced  to  pass  in  his  coach,  driven 
"  through  the  crowd  to  his  rescue,  and  pulled  him  in,  his 
"life  would 'have  been  in  peril.  As  it  was,  the  Earl  and 
"  the  Bishop  barely  escaped  in  the  shower  of  stones  that 
"  rattled  against  the  coach  at  that  part  of  the  High  Street 


TUMULTS    FN    SCOTLAND.  721 

"  where  they  were  then  building  the  Tron  Church  and  stones 
"  were  conveniently  at  hand."1 

Premeditated  or  not,  the  JENNY  GEDDES  EIOT  in  Edinburgh 
was  understood  by  the  whole  Scottish  nation.  The  magis 
trates  of  Edinburgh  and  the  Privy  Council  did  their  best, 
by  proclamations  and  the  like,  to  restore  order,  and  to  give 
the  new  Service-Book  a  second  Sunday's  chance ;  but  it  was 
found  to  be  impossible.  "  Efter  that  Sunday's  wark,"  says 
Spalding,  "the  haill  kirk-doors  of  Edinburgh  were  lockit, 
and  no  more  preaching  heard," — the  zealous  Presbyterians 
making  up  for  the  want  by  flocking  over  "ilk  Sunday  to 
hear  devotion  in  Fife."  :  Meanwhile  "  the  posts  were  run 
ning  thick  betwixt  the  Court  in  London  and  the  Council/'  3 
The  Bishops  wrote,  blaming  Traquair  and  the  lay  lords ; 
Traquair  wrote,  blaming  the  Bishops  ;  the  magistrates  wrote, 
begging  Laud  to  explain  to  the  King  that  they  were  not  to 
blame ;  and  Laud  wrote  back  sharply  enough  to  all  parties, 
conveying  the  King's  extreme  dissatisfaction  that  they  had 
managed  "  to  carry  the  business  so  weakly,"  but  not  doubting 
that  it  might  still  be  carried  through  in  spite  of  the  "  baser 
multitude." 4  Those  on  the  spot  began  to  know  better. 
Not  only,  at  every  symptom  of  farther  action  in  favour  of 
the  Service-Book,  did  the  "  baser  multitude  "  in  Edinburgh 
resume  their  rioting ;  but,  from  all  other  parts  of  Scotland 
where  the  Service-Book  had  been  tried  or  talked  of  since 
the  23rd  of  July,  there  came  the  same  response.  Of  the 
Bishops  themselves  only  three  made  any  serious  attempt  at 
a  reading  of  the  book  in  their  own  cathedrals, — "  the  Bishop 
of  Ross  in  the  Chaurie,  Brcchin  at  the  kirk  of  Brechin,  and 
Dunblane  at  Dunblane  "  ;  and  even  they  were  put  to  shifts.5 
In  Glasgow,  where  an  attempt  was  made  to  recommend  it 
to  the  clergy  through  a  synod-sermon,  the  preacher,  Mr- 
William  Annan,  was  nearly  murdered  in  the  streets  that 
same  evening  by  the  Jenny  Geddeses  of  the  West. 

1  Dmmmond  of  Hawthornden  :    The  4  Rushworth,  II.  389,  &c. 

Story  of  his  Life  and   Writings  (1873),  5  Bothes's  Relation  of  the  Affairs  of 

pp.  251.  252.     '  the   Kirk,   quoted    by  'Mr.   Chambers, 

2  Spalding's  Troubles,  edit.  1850, 1.  80.  A  nnals,  II.  104. 

3  Baillie. 

VOL.  I.  3  A 


722  LIFE    OP   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

Till  the  month  of  September  1637,  and  while  it  was  sup 
posed  that  the  report  of  the  total  failure  of  the  Service-Book 
would  have  due  effect  at  Court,  the  only  demonstrations  of 
the  Presbyterian  leaders  were  in  the  shape  of  petitions  and 
protests  addressed  to  the  Privy  Council  by  one  or  two 
presbyteries,  and  by  an  individual  minister  here  and  there, 
such  as  Henderson,  Dickson,  and  Andrew  Ramsay.  But, 
when  it  was  known  that  the  injunctions  from  the  Court  to 
the  Privy  Council  were  still  for  going  through  with  the 
business,  the  Nobles,  the  Lesser  Barons,  the  Burghs,  and 
the  whole  body  of  the  Clergy  began  to  bestir  themselves. 
The  harvest  being  nearly  over,  they  poured  into  Edinburgh, 
or  sent  deputies  thither,  in  such  extraordinary  numbers  that 
they  were  surprised  at  their  own  strength.  "  Supplicates," 
as  the  petitions  were  called,  were  simultaneously  presented 
to  the  Council  from  20  nobles,  a  considerable  number  of 
barons,  100  ministers,  14  burghs,  and  168  parishes;  and 
these  were  redacted,  for  grammatical  and  other  reasons, 
into  one  general  "  Supplicate,"  to  be  submitted  to  the  King. 
The  twenty  supplicating  nobles  were  the  Earls  of  Angus, 
Eothes,  Sutherland,  Dalhousie,  Cassilis,  Wemyss,  and 
Lothian,  and  Lords  Sinclair,  Dalkeith,  Lindsay,  Balmerino, 
Burley,  Hume,  Boyd,  Tester,  Cranstoun,  Loudoun,  Mont 
gomery,  Dalzell,  and  Fleming.  Such  an  array  of  nobles, 
backed  by  such  a  constituency  throughout  the  country, 
could  not,  it  was  thought,  but  make  some  impression  at 
Court.  Accordingly,  on  the  20th  of  September,  the  "  sup 
plicants  "  dispersed  from  Edinburgh,  after  a  solemn  meeting 
for  humiliation  and  prayer,  leaving,  however,  one  or  two  of 
their  number  in  Edinburgh,  to  be  upon  the  watch  against 
false  play,  and  to  summon  the  rest  again  if  necessary.1 

It  was  not  expected  that  the  King's  answer  would  arrive 
before  November.  Suddenly,  however,  all  over  Scotland 
south  of  the  Grampians  there  flew  expresses  from  Edinburgh, 
with  information  that  a  trick  was  intended,  and  that  it 
would  be  as  well  if  Edinburgh  were  again  full  of  the  right 

i  Stevenson's  Hist,  of  the  Church  and  State  of  Scotland  (Edinburgh,  1754),  II. 
199  et  seq. 


THE    SCOTTISH    SUPPLICANTS.  ,,  723 

Presbyterian  material  before  the  18th  of  October.  The 
summons  was  obeyed.  Nobles  from  all  parts,  ministers 
from  all  parts,  provosts  and  commissioners  of  burghs  from 
all  parts,  lairds  and  gentry  from  all  parts,  especially  from 
the  hot  Presbyterian  shires  of  the  Lothians,  Fife,  Stirling, 
Lanark,  and  Ayr,  nocked  in  great  excitement  into  Edin 
burgh.  For  a  moment  it  was  supposed  that  the  haste  was 
unnecessary, — that  Archibald  Johnstone  of  Warriston,  who 
had  sent  out  the  expresses,  had  blundered.  But  Johnstone 
never  blundered  in  a  business  of  this  kind.  On  the  18th  of 
October  the  Council  did  meet,  and  the  King's  answer  came 
forth  in  the  shape  of  three  proclamations  at  the  Cross  of 
Edinburgh.  One  of  these  dissolved  the  Council  "  so  far  as 
religion  was  concerned,"  in  order  that  no  more  petitions  on 
that  subject  might  be  entertained,  and  commanded  all 
strangers  to  withdraw  from  Edinburgh  within  twenty-four 
hours  on  pain  of  rebellion ;  a  second  adjourned  the  next 
meeting  of  the  Council  for  ordinary  business  to  Linlithgow 
on  the  1st  of  November;  and  the  third  condemned  young 
Mr.  Gillespie's  recent  treatise  Against  the  English-Popish 
Ceremonies.  The  Supplicants  were  prepared.  They  had 
been  meeting  for  consultation,  each  order  in  a  separate 
house,  when  the  substance  of  the  proclamations  was  an 
nounced  to  them ;  and  immediately,  despite  the  order  to 
disperse,  they  resolve  on  a  bolder  stroke  than  any  yet. 
This  was  a  complaint  against  the  Bishops,  as  the  peccant 
part  of  the  Council  and  the  causes  of  all  the  national  evil, 
with  a  protest  against  their  farther  presence  as  judges  in 
any  court,  and  their  farther  participation  in  any  measures  of 
government,  until  they  and  their  doings  should  be  put  on 
trial  according  to  the  laws  of  the  realm.  All  night  Lords 
Loudoun  and  Balmerino  and  Mr.  David  Dickson  were  busy 
drafting  the  document,  which  immediately  received  the 
signatures  of  "  twenty-four  nobles,  several  hundred  gentle- 
"inen  of  the  shires,  some  hundreds  of  ministers,  and  most 
"of  the  burghs/'  This  complaint  against  the  Bishops, 
which  involved  a  rejection  of  the  Book  of  Canons,  as  well 
as  of  the  New  Liturgy,  was  carried  to  the  Council.  The 

3  A  2 


724  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Councillors  were  obliged  to  listen,  really  if  not  formally ; 
and,  promises  having  been  made  of  farther  communication 
with  London,  the  Supplicants  again  dispersed. 

The  policy  now  was  to  keep  the  Council  in  a  state  of 
permanent  siege.  In  vain  it  adjourned  to  Linlithgow,  to 
Stirling,  and  other  places.  Wherever  it  went,  a  detachment 
of  the  besieging  force  followed  it,  luring  it  into  negotiations, 
or  battering  it  with  petitions.  On  the  14th  of  November, 
when  it  again  met  in  Edinburgh,  the  Supplicants  had 
flocked  thither  in  greater  numbers  than  ever,  and  wifch  the 
important  accession  of  young  Montrose  to  their  list  of  chiefs. 
Traquair,  Lome,  Lauderdale,  and  other  lay  members  of  the 
Council  remonstrated  with  them  amicably  on  the  unnecessary 
danger  to  the  peace  by  such  tumultuous  assemblages,  and 
suggested  that  they  should  entrust  the  farther  conduct  of 
the  business  to  a  few  selected  commissioners.  The  sugges 
tion,  convenient  to  the  Supplicants  themselves,  was  adopted, 
and  four  committees  were  appointed.  There  was  a  Com 
mittee  for  the  Nobles,  consisting  of  a  few  nobles  named  by 
the  rest ;  another  for  the  Lairds  or  Lesser  Barons,  consisting 
of  two  gentlemen  from  each  shire ;  a  third  for  the  Burghs, 
in  which  there  was  a  representative  commissioner  from  each 
burgh;  and  a  fourth  for  the  Clergy,  containing  a  minister 
from  each  presbytery.  These  Committees,  called  The  Tables, 
were  to  meet  in  Edinburgh  on  any  emergency;  but,  still 
farther  to  concentrate  the  business,  there  was  to  be  one 
supreme  or  central  Table,  permanent  in  Edinburgh,  and 
consisting  of  four  Nobles,  three  Lairds,  three  Burgesses, 
and  two  ministers,  acting  under  the  authority  of  written 
commissions  from  the  rest.  Plans  for  swift  correspondence 
were  settled,  and,  for  the  third  time,  the  Supplicants 
dispersed.1 

February  1638  was  the  decisive  month.  Traquair  and 
messengers  from  the  Bishops  had  gone  to  London.  The 
King  had  hitherto  shown  his  displeasure  by  leaving  the 
supplicates  substantially  unanswered.  There  had  been  no 

1  Kushworth,  II.  400—407 ;  Balfour's       1637  ;  Clarendon,  44,  45 ;  and  Steven- 
Annals  and  Baillie's  Letters  sub  anno       sou's  History,  itt  supra. 


THE  SCOTTISH  "TABLES"  AND  THEIR  STRUGGLE.        725 

sign,  however,  of  any  intention  to  abandon  the  Service- 
Book.     Moreover,  the  movement  was  now  so  wide  and  deep 
that  such  a  concession  would  have  been  of  no  use.     The 
Book  of  Canons,  the  High  Commission,  the  Five  Articles  of 
Perth,   Prelacy  itself, — all  must  go  !     Virtually  the  whole 
nation  had  pledged  itself  to  that  effect :  no  fewer  now  than 
thirty-eight   of  the  nobles  ;   lairds  and    gentlemen  without 
number ;  all  the  clergy,  with  the  exception  of  the  Aberdeen 
Doctors    and    a   few  others   here   and    there ;   and    all   the 
towns,  except  Aberdeen.1     The   Privy  Council  was  but   a 
raft  of  prelates  and  lay  officials  floating  on  a  popular  sea, — 
several  of  the  lay  officials  in  close  alliance  with  the  popular 
chiefs.     All  depended  on  the    nature  of  the  next  missive 
from  London.     The  missive  came  at  last,  the  ultimatum  of 
the   King  and   Laud   on  the   Scottish  question.     Traquair 
himself  brought  the  document  in  his  pocket.     It  transpired 
that  a  Council  had  been  secretly  convened  for  the  20th  at 
Stirling,  and  that  then  some  proclamation  was  to  be  made. 
At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  20th  a  proclamation 
was  read  at  the  cross  of  Stirling.    It  expressed  his  Majesty's 
extreme  displeasure  with  the  past;  it  declared  those  who 
had  assisted  at  recent  "meetings  and  convocations"  to  be 
liable  to  high  censure  \   it  forbade  "  all   such  convocations 
and  meetings  in  time  coming  under  pain  of  treason " ;  it 
commanded  "  all  noblemen,  barons,  ministers,  and  burghers, 
not  actually  indwellers  in  the  burgh  of  Stirling/'  to  depart 
thence  within  six  hours,  and  not  return  again  thither,  or  to 
any  other  place  where  the  Council  might  meet ;  and,  for  the 
rest,  it  advised  all  faithful  subjects  to  trust  to  his  Majesty's 
good  intentions.     No  sooner  was  this  proclamation  read  than 
Lords  Hume  and  Lindsay,  who  had  ridden  post  haste  from 
Edinburgh  to  be  in  time,  caused  a  protest,  which  they  had 
brought  with  them,  to  be  read  at  the  same  spot  with  all 
legal  forms ;  and,  leaving  a  copy  of  this  protest  affixed  by 
the  side  of  the  proclamation  to  the  market-cross  of  Stirling, 
they  posted  back  to  Edinburgh.     At  Edinburgh  a  repetition 
of  the  same  scene  occurred  on  the  22d,  Archibald  Johnstone 

1  Baillic  and  Stevenson. 


726  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OP    HIS    TIME. 

stepping  forward  on  a  platform  in  the  High  Street  at  the 
proper  moment  and  reading  the  protest  in  his  clearest  voice. 
Meanwhile  expresses  were  out,  summoning  the  Tables  to 
Edinburgh  again.  And  not  the  Tables  only.  To  Edinburgh, 
to  Edinburgh,  now,  all  Scottish  men  and  sons  of  mothers  that 
can  come !  Your  chiefs  have  risked  their  heads  in  the 
common  cause :  will  you  surround  them  like  men,  or  desert 
them  like  cowards  ? 

Scotland  responded,  and  the  men  who  had  risked  their 
heads  were  soon  ringed  round  by  a  sufficient  crowd  of 
adherents  of  all  ranks  and  classes.  But  what  next  ?  Such 
meeting  and  dispersing  could  go  on  for  ever.  This  aggre 
gate  enthusiasm  could  not,  by  the  laws  of  things,  be  main 
tained  long  at  the  same  strain.  Already  it  was  the  under 
stood  policy  of  Traquair  to  break  up  the  confederacy  as 
much  as  possible  by  inducing  the  different  orders  of  suppli 
cants  to  renew  their  petitions  separately.  What  then  was 
to  be  done  ?  Into  the  middle  of  the  chiefs  consulting 
together  at  the  Tables  the  right  thought  descended  as  by 
inspiration. 

Several  times  before  in  the  history  of  Scotland  since  the 
Beformation  advantage  had  been  found  in  the  device  of  a 
solemn  verbal  Band,  Oath,  or  Covenant,  pledging  the  entire 
nation,  all  ranks  and  degrees  alike,  to  stand  or  fall  together 
in  the  maintenance  and  defence  of  the  true  Religion,  or  of 
the  Scottish  version  of  it.  A  famous  document  of  the  kind, 
more  especially,  was  the  National  Covenant  of  1581,  called 
also  "  The  Second  Confession  of  Faith,"  which  had  been 
drafted  by  Mr.  John  Craig,  formerly  the  colleague  of  John 
Knox  in  the  ministry  of  Edinburgh,  but  then  living  on  as 
the  venerable  survivor  of  Knox  and  the  rest  of  the  first 
generation  of  Scottish  Reformers,  and  as  chaplain  to  young 
King  James  VI.  This  Covenant,  called  for  by  an  alarm  at 
that  moment  of  defection  in  high  places  back  to  the  Papacy, 
had  been  first  signed,  in  January  1580-1,  by  the  young  King 
himself  and  a  number  of  his  councillors  and  courtiers,  and 
then,  through  the  rest  of  1581,  in  obedience  to  a  Privy 
Council  ordinance  and  an  Act  of  the  General  Assembly  of 


THE    SCOTTISH    COVENANT  :    MARCH    1638.  727 

the  Kirk,  by  all  persons  universally  throughout  the  kingdom. 
It  had  been  appealed  to  and  in  a  manner  revived  in  1588  on 
the  alarm  of  the  expected  invasion  of  Great  Britain  by  the 
Spanish  Armada ;   and  there  had   been  a  second  universal 
subscription  to  it,  and   to  an  appended  political  band,  by 
public  order,  in  1590,  when  the  recollection  of  the  attempted 
Armada   invasion   was    recent,    and    neither    Scotland   nor 
England  had  recovered  from  the  dread  of  some  immense 
impending  peril  to  their  liberties  and  their  religion  from 
Spain  and  the  other  powers  of  the  Roman  Catholic  League. 
Since  then  the  great  document,  though  not  forgotten,  and 
indeed  once  again  nominally  renewed,  had  been  practically 
dormant ;  but  now  it  was  to  do  service  once  more,      "  The 
"  Noblemen,  with  Mr.  Alexander  Henderson  and  Mr.  David 
"Dickson,  resolves  upon  the  renewing  of  the  old  Covenant 
"  for  Religion,"  is  Baillie's  first  intimation  of  the  important 
project;    and   he    goes    on    to    tell   how    the   project,  thus 
emanating  first  from  the  Table  of  the  Nobles  with  clerical 
advice,  was  ventilated  for  a  day  or  two  quietly  among  the 
other  Tables,  and  more  publicly  in   sermons  by  Dickson, 
Rollock,  and  others,  till  all  was  complete.     The  difficulty 
was  not  about  the  old  Anti-Papal  Covenant,  of  Mr.  Craig's 
drafting,  which  it  was  proposed  to  renew,  but  about  the 
Band  to  be  annexed  to  it  applying  it   to  present  circum 
stances ;   but,  that  Band  having    been  produced  in   scroll, 
and  certain  verbal  modifications  having  been  made  in  it,  to 
meet  objections  by  Mr.  Baillie  and  others,  who  were  afraid 
.of  being  too  headlong  or  going  too  far  at  once,  the  agree 
ment  was  unanimous  and  enthusiastic.     The  signing  of  the 
document,  as  finally  settled,  is  said  to  have  begun  among 
the  chiefs  on  the  28th  of  February  ;  but  the  grand  beginning 
was  on  the  1  st  of-  March, — on  which  day,  a  great  congrega 
tion  having  assembled   in  the  Greyfriars  church   in  Edin 
burgh,  the  document  was  read,  and,  after  an  address  by 
Henderson,  was  signed,  in  the  church  or  in  the  churchyard, 
by  all   who  could  get  near  it,  to  the  number  of  several 
thousands,  "  consisting  of  all  the  nobles  who  were  then  in 
"  Scotland,  except  the  Lords  of  Privy  Council  and  four  or 


728  LIFE    OF    MILTON  AND  HISTOEY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

"five  others,  of  commissioners  from  all  the  shires  within 
"Scotland,  and  from  every  burgh,  except  Aberdeen,  St. 
"  Andrews,  and  Crail,  and  of  other  gentlemen  and  ministers 
"whose  zeal  had  brought  them  up  to  assist  or  concur  with 
"their  commissioners  upon  that  occasion."  Copies  were 
at  once  multiplied  for  distribution  and  circulation  through 
out  the  country,  each  containing  the  autograph  signatures 
of  the  chiefs,  or  of  some  of  them,  that  people  in  all  parts 
might  have  the  less  hesitation  in  writing  their  names  on 
parchments  so  headed  and  certified,  and  that  it  might  be 
known  to  posterity  who  had  been  the  original  Scottish 
Covenanters.1 

Posterity  needed  the  information.  Though  the  Scottish 
Covenant  and  the  Scottish  Covenanters  have  been  spoken 
about  and  written  about  abundantly  enough,  there  is  no 
subject  on  which,  even  within  Scotland  itself,  there  is  a 
greater  amount  of  ignorance  and  misconception,  arising  from 
contentedness  with  mere  phrases,  and  perverse  confusion  of 
dates  and  things.  There  was  to  be  a  subsequent  and  totally 
different  Covenant,  common  to  Scotland  and  England,  and 
the  name  Covenanters  was  to  be  applied  in  a  special  manner, 
and  by  a  kind  of  historical  prolongation,  to  the  humble  and 
vexed  residue  in  Scotland  of  the  persevering  adherents  to 
both  documents  in  the  reigns  of  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  ; 
but  this  original  Covenant  of  March  1638  was  a  purely  and 
exclusively  Scottish  document,  and  the  real  Covenanters  of 
that  date,  the  first  properly  historical  Covenanters,  were  no 
humble  or  persecuted  fraction  of  the  community,  but  were 
simply  the  whole  flower  and  strength  of  the  Scottish  nation, 
from  the  highest  peerage  to  the  lowest  peasantry,  banded 
in  defiance  to  Laud  and  to  the  political  and  ecclesiastical 
absolutism  of  Charles  the  First.  The  Covenant  of  March 
1638  consisted,  in  fact,  of  three  parts,  as  follows  :— 

I.  THE  COVENANT  OF  1581,  OK  CRAIG'S  COVENANT,  RENEWED 
VERBATIM,  THUS: — 

"  We,  all  and  every  one  of  us  underwritten,  protest  that,  after  long 
and  due  examination  of  our  own  consciences  in  matters  of  true  and 

i  Calderwood,  III.  501—506 ;  Baillie,  I.  52—54 ;  Stcvensou  (Edit.  1840),  pp. 
206—209. 


THE    SCOTTISH    COVENANT  I    MARCH    1638.  729 

false  religion,  we  are  now  thoroughly  resolved  in  the  truth  by  the 
Word  and  Spirit  of  God  ;  and  therefore  we  believe  with  our  hearts, 
confess  with  our  mouths,  subscribe  with  our  hands,  and  constantly 
affirm  before  God  and  the  whole  world,  that  this  only;  is  the  true 
Christian  faith  and  religion,  pleasing  to  God  and  bringing  salvation 
to  uian,  which  now  is,  by  the  mercy  of  God,  revealed  to  the  world  by 
the  preaching  of  the  blessed  Evangel,  and  is  received,  believed,  and 
defended  by  many  and  sundry  notable  Kirks  and  Realms,  but  chiefly 
by  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  the  King's  Majesty,  and  Three  Estates  of 
this  Realm,  as  God's  eternal  truth  and  only  ground  of  our  Salvation, 
— as  more  particularly  is  expressed  in  the  Confession  of  our  Faith 
established  and  publicly  confirmed  by  sundry  Acts  of  Parliaments, 
and  now  of  a  long  time  hath  been  openly  professed  by  the  King's 
Majesty  and  whole  body  of  this  Realm  both  in  burgh  and  land  [The 
reference  is  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  drawn  up  in  1560  as  the 
doctrinal  basis  of  the  Scottish  Reformation].  To  the  which  Confession 
and  Form  of  Religion  we  willingly  agree  in  our  conscience  in  all 
points,  as  unto  God's  undoubted  truth  and  verity,  grounded  only 
upon  his  written  Word.     And  therefore  we  abhor  and  detest  all  con 
trary  religion  and  doctrine ;  but  chiefly  all  kind  of  Papistry,  in  general 
and  particular  heads,  even  as  they  are  now  damned  and  confuted  by 
the  Word  of  God  and  the  Kirk  of  Scotland.     But  in  special  we  detest 
and  refuse  the  usurped  authority  of  that  Roman  Antichrist  upon  the 
Scriptures  of  God,  upon  the  Kirk,  the  Civil  Magistrate,  and  consciences 
of  men ;  all  his  tyrannous  laws  made  upon  indifferent  things  against 
our  Christian  liberty ;  his  erroneous  doctrine  against  the  sufficiency 
of  the  written  Word,  the  perfection  of  the  Law,  the  office  of  Christ, 
and  his  blessed  Evangel ;  his  corrupted  doctrine  concerning  original 
sin,  our  natural  inability  and  rebellion  to  God's  law,  our  justification 
by  faith  only,  our  imperfect  sanctification  and  obedience  to  the  law, 
the  nature,  number,  and  use  of  the  holy  sacraments ;  his  five  bastard 
sacraments,  with  all  his  rites,  ceremonies,  and  false  doctrine,  added  to 
the  ministration  of  the  true  sacraments,  without  the  Word  of  God ;  his 
cruel  judgment  against  infants  departed  without  the  sacrament ;  his 
absolute  necessity  of  baptism ;  his  blasphemous  opinion  of  transub- 
stantiation  or  real  presence  of  Christ's  body  in  the  elements,  and 
receiving  of  the  same  by  the  wicked,  or  bodies  of  men ;  his  dispensa 
tions  with  solemn  oaths,  perjuries,  and  degrees  of  marriage  forbidden 
in  the  Word;  his  cruelty  against  the  innocent  divorced;  his  devilish 
mass ;  his  blasphemous  priesthood ;  his  profane  sacrifice  for  sins  of  the 
dead  and  the  quick  ;  his  canonization  of  men,  calling  upon  angels  or 
saints  departed,  worshipping  of  imagery,  relics,  and  crosses,  dedicating 
of  kirks,  altars,  days,  vows  to  creatures ;  his  purgatory,  prayers  for 
the  dead,  praying  or  speaking  in  a  strange  language,  with  his  proces 
sions,  and  blasphemous  litany,  and  multitude  of  advocates  or  mediates ; 
his  manifold  orders,  auricular  confession ;  his  desperate  and  uncertain 
repentance ;  his  general  and  doubtsome  faith ;  his  satisfactions  of 
men  for  their  sins;  his  justification  by  works,  opus  operatum,  works 
of  supererogation,  merits,  pardons,  peregrinations,  and  stations ;  his 
holy  water,  baptizing  of  bells,  conjuring  of  spirits,  crossing,  saining, 
anointing,  conjuring,  hallowing  of  God's  good  creatures,  with  the 
superstitious  opinion  joined  therewith;  his  worldly  monarchy  and 
wicked  hierarchy;  his  three  solemn  vows,  with  all  his  shavelings^of 
sundry  sorts ;  his  erroneous  and  bloody  decrees  made  at  Trent,  with 
all  the  subscribers  or  approvers  of  that  cruel  and  bloody  band,  conjured 
against  the  Kirk  of  God.     And,  finally,   We  detest  all  his  vain 


730  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

allegories,  rites,  signs,  and  traditions,  brought  in  the  Kirk  without  or 
against  the  Word  of  God  and  doctrine  of  this  true  Reformed  Kirk ;  to 
the  which  we  join  ourselves  willingly,  in  doctrine,  faith,  religion, 
discipline,  and  use  of  the  holy  sacraments,  as  lively  members  of  the 
same  in  Christ  our  Head  :  promising  and  swearing,  by  the  great  name 
of  the  Lord  our  God,  that  we  shall  continue  in  the  obedience  of  the 
doctrine  and  discipline  of  this  Kirk,  and  shall  defend  the  same, 
according  to  our  vocation  and  power,  all  the  days  of  our  lives,  under 
the  pains  contained  in  the  law,  and  danger  both  of  body  and  soul  in 
the  day  of  God's  fearful  judgment. — And,  seeing  that  many  are  stirred 
up  by  Satan,  and  that  Roman  Antichrist,  to  promise,  swear,  subscribe, 
and  for  a  time  use  the  holy  sacraments  in  the  Kirk  deceitfully 
against  their  own  conscience,  minding  hereby  first,  under  the  external 
cloak  of  religion,  to  corrupt  and  subvert  secretly  God's  true  religion 
within  the  Kirk,  and  afterward,  when  time  may  serve,  to  become  open 
enemies  and  persecutors  of  the  same,  under  vain  hope  of  the  Pope's 
dispensation,  devised  against  the  Word  of  God,  to  his  greater  confusion 
and  their  double  condemnation  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  We 
therefore,  willing  to  take  away  all  suspicion  of  hypocrisy,  and  of  such 
double  dealing  with  God  and  his  Kirk,  protest,  and  call  the  Searcher 
of  all  hearts  for  witness,  that  our  minds  and  hearts  do  fully  agree  with 
this  our  Confession,  promise,  oath,  and  subscription,  so  that  we  are 
not  moved  with  any  worldly  respect,  but  are  persuaded  only  in  our 
conscience,  through  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God's  true  religion 
imprinted  in  our  hearts  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  we  shall  answer  to  Him 
in  the  great  day  when  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be  disclosed. — 
And,  because  we  perceive  that  the  quietness  and  stability  of  our 
Religion  and  Kirk  doth  depend  upon  the  safety  and  good  behaviour 
of  the  King's  Majesty,  as  upon  a  comfortable  instrument  of  God's 
mercy  granted  to  this  country  for  the  maintaining  of  his  Kirk  and 
ministration  of  justice  amongst  us,  We  protest  and  promise  with  our 
hearts,  under  the  same  oath,  hand-writ,  and  pains,  that  we  shall 
defend  his  person  and  authority  with  our  goods,  bodies,  and  lives,  in 
the  defence  of  Christ,  his  Evangel,  liberties  of  our  country,  ministra 
tion  of  justice,  and  punishment  of  iniquity,  against  all  enemies  within 
this  realm  or  without,  as  we  desire  our  God  to  be  a  strong  and  merci 
ful  defender  to  us  in  the  day  of  our  death  and  coming  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ;  to  whom,  with  the  Father,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  be  all 
honour  and  glory  eternally.  Amen." 

II.  RECITATION,  BY  YEAE  AND  CHAPTER,  OF  A  NUMBER  OF  STATUTES 
AND  ACTS  OF  PARLIAMENT,  CHIEFLY  OF  THE  REIGN  OF  JAMES  VI., 

BEARING   ON   THE   SUBJECT   OF    RELIGION   AND   THE   KlRK. 

III.  THE  BAND  FOR  THE  PRESENT  OCCASION,  ADOPTING  CRAIG'S 
COVENANT  OF  1581,  AND  DEFINING  IT  AS  APPLICABLE  TO  THE  LATE 
ANTI-PRESBYTERIAN  INNOVATIONS.1    This  Band  ran  as  follows  : 

"In  obedience  to  the  commandment  of  God,  conform  to  the 
practice  of  the  godly  in  former  times,  and  according  to  the  laudable 
example  of  our  worthy  and  religious  progenitors,  and  of  many  yet 
living  amongst  us  ...  and,  finally,  being  convinced  in  our  minds,  and 
confessing  with  our  mouths,  that  the  present  and  succeeding  genera 
tions  in  this  land  are  bound  to  keep  the  foresaid  National  Oath  and 

1  From  Baillie's  account   (I.  52-54)  Messrs.  Alexander  Henderson  and  David 

one  infers  that  those  chiefly  concerned  Dickson.    I  should  fancy  that  Dickson 

with  the  preparation  of  this  Band  were  was  the  main  draftsman, 
the  Earl  of  liothes,  Lord  Loudoun,  and 


THE    SCOTTISH    COVENANT'.    MARCH    1638.  731 

Subscription  inviolable,  We,  Noblemen,  Barons,  Gentlemen,  Burgesses, 
Ministers,  and  Commons,  under-subscribing,  considering  divers  times 
before,  and  especially  at  this  time,  the  danger  of  the  true  Reformed 
Religion,  of  the  King's  honour,  and  of  the  public  peace  of  the  king 
dom,  by  the  manifold  innovations  and  evils  generally  contained  and 
particularly  mentioned  in  our  late   Supplications,  Complaints,  and 
Protestations,  do  hereby  profess,  and  before  God,  and  his  angels,  and 
the  world,  solemnly  declare,  that  with  our  whole  heart  we  agree  and 
resolve  all  the  days  of  our  life  constantly  to  adhere  unto  and  to  defend 
the  foresaid  true  religion,  and, — forbearing  the  practice  of  all  innova 
tions  already  introduced  in  the  matters  of  the  worship  of  God,  or 
approbation  of  the  corruptions  of  the  public  government  of  the  Kirk, 
or  civil  places  and  power  of  Kirkmen,  till  they  be  tried  and  allowed 
in  free  Assemblies  and  in  Parliament, — to  labour  by  all  means  lawful 
to  recover  the  purity  and  liberty  of  the  Gospel  as  it  was  established 
and  professed  before  the  foresaid  novations.     And,  because,  after  due 
examination,  we  plainly  perceive,  and  undoubtedly  believe,  that  the 
innovations  and  evils  contained  in  our  Supplications,  Complaints,  and 
Protestations,  have  no  warrant  of  the  Word  of  God,  are  contrary  to 
the  Articles  of  the  foresaid  Confession,  to  the  intention  and  meaning 
of  the  blessed  Reformers  of  Religion  in  this  land,  to  the  above- written 
Acts  of  Parliament,  and  do  sensibly  tend  to  the  re-establishing  of  the 
Popish  religion  and  tyranny,  and  to  the  subversion  and  ruin  of  the 
true  Reformed  Religion,  and  of  our  liberties,  laws,  and  estates,  we 
also  declare  that  the  foresaid  Confessions  [of  1560  and  1581]  are  to 
be  interpreted  and  ought  to  be  understood  of  the  foresaid  novations 
and  evils  no  less  than  if  every  one  of  them  had  been  expressed  in  the 
foresaid  Confessions,  and  that  we  are  obliged  to  detest  and  abhor 
them  amongst  other  particular  heads  of  Papistry  abjured  therein. 
And  therefore,  from  the  knowledge  and  conscience  of  our  duty  to 
God,  to  our  King  and  Country,  without  any  worldly  respect  or 
inducement,  so  far  as  human  infirmity  will  suffer,  wishing  a  further 
measure  of  the  grace  of  God  for  this  effect,  We  promise  and  swear, 
by  the  great  name  of  the  Lord  our  God,  to  continue  in  the  profession 
and  obedience  of  the  foresaid  religion,  and  that  we  shall  defend  the 
same,  and  resist  all  these  contrary  errors  and  corruptions,  according 
to  our  vocation,  and  to  the  uttermost  of  that  power  that  God  hath 
put  in  our  hands,  all  the  days  of  our  life. — And,  in  like  manner, 
with  the  same  heart.  We  declare,  before  God  and  men,  that  We  have 
no  intention  nor  desire  to  attempt  anything  that  may  turn  to  the  dis 
honour  of  God,  or  to  the  diminution  of  the  King's  greatness  and 
authority  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  we  profess  and  swear  that  we  shall, 
to  the  uttermost  of  our  power,  with  our  means  and  lives,  stand  to  the 
defence  of  our  dread  sovereign  the  King's  Majesty,  his  person  and 
authority,  in  the  defence  and  preservation  of  the  foresaid  true  religion, 
liberties,  and  laws  of  the  kingdom,  as  also  to  the  mutual  defence  and 
assistance  every  one  of  us  of  another,  in  the  same  cause  of  maintain 
ing  the  true  religion  and  his   Majesty's  authority,   with  our  best 
counsel,  our  bodies,  means,  and  whole  power,  against  all  sorts  of 
persons  whatsoever,  so  that  whatsoever  shall  be  done  to  the  least  of 
us  for  that  cause  shall  be  taken  as  done  to  us  all  in  general  and  to 
every  one  of  us  in  particular,  and  that  we  shall  neither  directly  nor 
indirectly  suffer  ourselves  to  be  divided  or  withdrawn,  by  whatsoever 
suggestion,  combination,  allurement,  or  terror,  from  this  blessed  and 
loyal  conjunction,  nor  shall  cast  in  any  let  or  impediment  that  may 
stay  or  hinder  any  such  resolution  as  by  common  consent  shall  be 


732  LIFE   OP   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

found  to  conduce  for  so  good  ends,  but,  on  the  contrary,  shall  by  all 
lawful  means  labour  to  further  and  promote  the  same.  And,  if  any 
such  dangerous  and  divisive  motion  be  made  to  us  by  word  or  writ, 
We,  and  every  one  of  us,  shall  either  suppress  it ;  or,  if  need  be,  shall 
incontinent  make  the  same  known,  that  it  may  be  timeously  obviated. 
Neither  do  we  fear  the  foul  aspersions  of  rebellion,  combination,  or 
what  else  our  adversaries,  from  their  craft  and  malice,  would  put  upon 
us,  seeing  what  we  do  is  so  well  warranted,  and  ariseth  from  an 
unfeigned  desire  to  maintain  the  true  worship  of  God,  the  majesty  of 
our  King,  and  the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  for  the  common  happiness 
of  ourselves  and  our  posterity.  .  .  .  And,  that  this  our  union  and 
conjunction  may  be  observed  without  violation,  We  call  the  Living 
God,  the  Searcher  of  our  hearts,  to  witness,  who  knoweth  this  to  be 
our  sincere  desire  and  unfeigned  resolution,  as  we  shall  answer  to  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  great  day,  and  under  the  pain  of  God's  everlasting 
wrath,  and  of  infamy  and  loss  of  all  honour  and  respect  in  this  world, 
— most  humbly  beseeching  the  Lord  to  strengthen  us  by  his  Holy 
Spirit  for  this  end,  and  to  bless  our  desires  and  proceedings  with  a 
happy  success,  that  Religion  and  Righteousness  may  flourish  in  the 
land,  to  the  glory  of  God,  the  honour  of  our  King,  and  peace  and 
comfort  of  us  all. — In  witness  whereof,  We  have  subscribed  with  our 
hands  all  the  premisses." 

The  signing  of  this  Covenant,  begun  in  Greyfriars'  church 
in  Edinburgh  on  the  1st  of  March  1638,  was  continued  in 
Edinburgh  and  over  all  Scotland  for  many  weeks.  Copies 
were  going  about  everywhere  ;  the  Covenant  was  the  text 
in  all  the  pulpits,  the  topic  in  all  households ;  men  walked 
for  miles  to  see  a  copy  and  to  sign  it ;  nay,  the  swearing 
came,  in  many  places,  to  be  en  masse, — whole  congregations 
standing  up,  men,  women,  and  children  together,  after  the 
forenoon  sermon  on  Sundays,  and  raising  their  hands  in 
affirmation  while  the  minister  read  out  the  Covenant.  Only 
in  Aberdeen  was  there  manifest  lukewarmness  or  opposition. 
A  deputation  of  the  Covenanting  leaders,  consisting  of  the 
young  Earl  of  Montrose,  the  Lairds  of  Morphie  and  Dun, 
and  Messrs.  Henderson,  Dickson,  and  Cant,  visited  this 
northern  fastness  of  Prelacy,  to  see  what  could  be  done. 
They  were  received  civilly,  with  cake  and  wine,  by  the 
Magistrates  and  the  Aberdeen  Doctors;  Henderson,  Dickson, 
and  Cant  preached  in  public ;  but  the  native  granite  of  the 
place  was  too  hard,  and  little  impression  was  made. 


BOOK   IV. 

APRIL  1638— JULY  1639. 
MILTON'S  CONTINENTAL  JOUKNEY. 


MILTON'S  CONTINENTAL  JOURNEY. 
APEIL  1638— JULY  1639. 

IN  April  1638,  while  the  Scots  were  still  signing  their 
Covenant,  and  the  words  Covenant  and  Covenanters  were  just 
beginning  to  circulate  in  England  as  implying  something 
strange  that  was  happening  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
Island,  and  when  the  last  piece  of  properly  English  news 
was  the  termination  of  the  famous  ship-money  lawsuit  of 
Hampden  by  a  decision  against  him,  our  poet,  whom  we  left 
at  Horton,  was  preparing  to  depart  from  England.  A  tour 
on  the  Continent,  and  above  all  a  residence  in  Italy,  had 
long  been  his  wish;  and  he  had  at  length  obtained  his 
father's  somewhat  unwilling  consent. 

One  does  not  like  to  imagine  that  the  old  gentleman,  a 
widower  now  for  a  year,  was  to  be  left  alone  at  Horton 
during  his  eldest  son's  absence.  The  fact,  I  believe,  accords 
with  what  one  would  wish.  Milton's  younger  brother, 
Christopher,  whom  we  saw,  about  a  year  ago,  making  an 
affidavit  in  Westminster  as  to  his  father's  age  and  infirmity 
(ante  p.  631),  had  by  this  time  nearly  finished  his  law- 
studies  at  the  Inner  Temple,  and,  at  the  age  of  two-and- 
twenty,  was  about  to  be  called  to  the  bar.  More  precocious 
in  love  matters  than  his  elder  brother,  he  had  already  got 
married.  His  wife  was  Thomasine  Webber,  the  daughter 
of  a  London  citizen ;  and  there  is  all  but  perfect  evidence 
in  the  registers  of  Horton  parish  that  it  had  been  arranged 
that  the  young  couple  should  reside  with  the  old  scrivener 
at  Horton  and  keep  him  company  while  the  poet  was  abroad.1 

1  It    is   not  the   marriage-entry   of  The   first   stands   thus : — "  1639 :    An 

Christopher  Milton  that  I  have  found  infant   sonne  of    Christopher  Milton, 

in  the  Horton  Register,  but  the  burial-  gent.,  buried  March  ye  26th."     It  is  a 

entry  of  what  I  take  to  have  been  his  fair  calculation  that  the  marriage  took 

first  child,  and   the   baptism-entry  of  place  a  year  previously,  which  would  be 

what  I  take  to  have  been  his  second.  a  month  and  a  half   before  Milton's 


736  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

They  were  to  reside  with  him,  I  fear,  at  his  expense ;  and  it 
says  much  for  the  excellent  man's  love  of  his  children,  and 
something  also  for  the  extent  of  his  means,  that,  while 
consenting  to  this  arrangement  on  behalf  of  his  younger 
son,  he  cheerfully  incurred  also  the  additional  expense  of 
sending  the  elder  son  on  his  travels.  The  poet  was  to  take 
a  man-servant  with  him,  and  intended  to  be  absent  a  year 
or  two,  and  the  expense  to  the  ex-scrivener  cannot  have  been 
less  than  about  £250  a  year  of  the  money  of  that  day.1  Till 
Milton  was  over  thirty-two  years  of  age,  he  did  not,  so  far 
as  I  know,  earn  a  penny  for  himself. 

For  a  young  Englishman  going  abroad  at  that  time  the 
first  requisite  was  a  passport.  The  rule  was  that  this  could  be 
obtained  only  by  his  waiting  personally  on  one  of  the  Secre 
taries  of  State,  answering  any  questions  that  might  be  asked 
respecting  his  purposes  in  travelling,  and  giving  satisfaction 
as  to  his  religion.  In  Milton's  case  the  matter  seems  to 
have  been  managed  more  easily.  There  is  extant  the  faded 
and  disfigured  original  of  the  following  letter  addressed  to 
him,  without  date,  but  certainly  in  or  just  before  April  1638, 
by  his  friend  Henry  Lawes,  the  musician  : — 

"Sir, 

"  I  have  sent  you  with  this  a  letter  from  my  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  under  his  hand  and  seal,  which  will  be  a  sufficient 
warrant  to  justify  your  going  out  of  the  King's  dominions.  If  you 
intend  to  write  (?)  yourself,  you  cannot  have  a  safer  convoy  for  both 
than  from  Suffolk  House  ;  but  that  I  leave  to  your  own  consideration, 
and  remain  your 

"  faithful  friend  and  servant, 

"HENKY  LAWES."  2 
.     .     .     any  ways  approved, 

"  Mr.  John  Milton, 

"Haste  these." 

departure.  The  second  entry  stands  "  less  than  £300.  I  include  herein  all 
thus: — "1640:  Sarah,  ye  daughter  of  "  sorts  of  exercises, — his  riding,  dancing, 
Christopher  and  Thomasin  Milton,  "  fencing,  the  racket,  coaching-hire, 
baptized  Aug.  llth."  The  poet  had  "with  other  casual  charges,  together 
by  that  time  returned  to  England.  "  with  his  apparel,  which,  if  it  be 
1  In  Instructions  for  Forreine  Travel,  "fashionable,  it  matters  not  how  plain 
published  in  1642  by  James  Howell,  he  "  it  is."  This  is  calculated  more  parti- 
calculates  the  expenses  of  a  young  cularly  for  France.  At  Paris.  Howell 
nobleman  or  rich  young  squire  travel-  adds,  there  were  divers  "  academies," 
ling  abroad,  as  follows: — "As  for  ex-  where  one  could  board  and  le&rn  the 
'*'  penses,  he  must  make  account  that  fashionable  exercises  for  about  £110 
"  every  servant  he  hath  will  stand  him  sterling  per  annum. 
"  £50  a- piece  per  annum;  and  for  his  2  The  origin  al  of  this  letter,  in  Lawes's 
"  own  expenses  he  cannot  allow  himself  hand,  was  recently  found  lying  as  a 


LETTER    FROM    SIR    HENRY    WOTTON.  737 

The  Lord  Warden  of  tlie  Cinque  Ports  at  that  time  was 
Theophilus  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk,  whose  town-residence 
was  Suffolk  House,  at  Charing  Cross  corner,  afterwards 
Northumberland  House.  Whether  Milton  had  to  call  there, 
to  present  himself  to  the  Earl,  or  to  have  the  passport 
completed  by  any  additional  formality,  one  does  not  know. 

Milton  was  also  able  to  provide  himself,  it  seems,  with 
unusually  good  letters  of  introduction.  One  of  these  was 
from  no  less  a  person  than  the  celebrated  SirJHenry  Wotton, 
Provost  of  Eton,  whose  long  residence  abroad,  .as  English 
envoy  or  ambassador  at  various  Courts,  qualified  him  admir 
ably  for  giving  advice  to  any  young  English  scholar  setting 
out  on  his  travels  (ante  pp.  528  —  531).  Milton,  it  seems, 
though  Horton  is  not  more  than  four  or  five  miles  distant  from 
Eton,  had  only  very  recently  made  acquaintance  with  the 
venerable  Provost  and  partaken  of  the  classic  hospitality  of 
his  elegant  college  rooms;  but  he  had  been  so  pleased  with 
his  reception  that  he  had  ventured  to  send  the  Provost,  by 
way  of  parting-gift  before  going  abroad,  a  copy  of  his  Comus, 
in  the  anonymous  little  edition  published  the  preceding 
year  by  Henry  Lawes.  To  this  gift,  sent  to  Sir  Henry  with 
a  letter  on  the  6th  of  April  1638,  Milton  received  the  follow 
ing  most  courteous  and  most  interesting  reply.  It  has  an 
interest  independent  of  its  immediate  connexion  with  the 
intended  foreign  tour  :  — 

"  From  the  College,  this  13th  of  April  1638. 

"  It  was  a  special  favour  when  you  lately  bestowed  upon  me  here 
the  first  taste  of  your  acquaintance,  though  no  longer  than  to  make 
me  know  that  I  wanted  more  time  to  value  it,  and  to  enjoy  it  rightly  ; 

loose  piece  of  paper  in  the  middle  of  The  original  is  much  blurred,  and  per- 

the   interesting  Common  Place  Book  haps  the  word  given  as  "  icn/te  "  has 

of  Milton  discovered  by  Mr.  Alfred  J.  been   wrongly  deciphered.  —  Mr.    Hor- 

Horwood  at  Netherby  (  see  ante,  p.  303  );  wood  adds  an  interesting  piece  of  in- 

and  Mr.  Horwood  gave  it  to  the  public  formation.    "  On  the  back  of  the  letter," 

in  the  Introduction  to  his  Edition  of  he   says,  "are  the  following  lines  by 

that    Common    Place    Book    for    the  Milton's  haud: 
Camden     Society    in    1877.       I    have          ,-,.      ,  ,  ,    ,      , 

queried  the  words  "  write  yourself:'-         Fixe  lieere  yee  overdaled  sphears 
given  by  Mr.  Horwood  as  spelt  in  the          That  wmS  the  restless  foote  of  time- 

original   "  wryte   yourself  e"  —  because  The  lines  are  very  Miltonic  ;  but  I  can 

they  do  not  seem  to  make  sense.     Evi-  make  nothing  of  the  word  "  overdaled." 


dently  what  Lawes  meant  was  "  if  you       Perhaps  that  word  also  has  been 
intend  to  take  a  companion  tn'th  you.'"       deciphered. 


mis- 


738  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

and,  in  truth,  if  I  could  then  have  imagined  your  farther  stay  in 
these  parts  [i.  e.  at  Horton,  so  near  Eton],  which  I  understood  after 
wards  by  Mr.  H.  [doubtless  Mr.  John  Hales :  see  ante  p.  536],  I  would 
have  been  bold,  in  our  vulgar  phrase,  to  mend  my  draught  (for  you 
left  me  with  an  extreme  thirst),  and  to  have  begged  your  conversation 
again,  jointly  with  your  said  learned  friend,  over  a  poor  meal  or  two, 
that  we  might  have  banded  together  some  good  authors  of  the  ancient 
time, — among  which  I  observed  you  to  have  been  familiar. 

"  Since  your  going,  you  have  charged  me  with  new  obligations,  both 
for  a  very  kind  letter  from  you  dated  the  6th  of  this  month,  and  for  a 
dainty  piece  of  entertainment  which  came  therewith.  Wherein  I  should 
much  commend  the  tragical  part  [i.  e.  the  dialogue  of  Comics'],  if  the 
lyrical  did  not  ravish  me  with  a  certain  Doric  delicacy  in  your  songs 
and  odes  ;  whereunto  I  must  plainly  confess  to  have  seen  yet  nothing 
parallel  in  our  language.  Ipsa  mollities !  But  I  must  not  omit  to 
tell  you  that  I  now  only  owe  you  thanks  for  intimating  unto  me  (how 
modestly  soever)  the  true  artificer.  For  the  work  itself  I  had  viewed 
some  good  while  before  with  singular  delight,  having  received  it  from 
our  common  friend  Mr.  R,  in  the  very  close  of  the  late  R.'s  Poems, 
printed  at  Oxford ;  whereunto  it  was  added,  as  I  now  suppose,  that  the 
accessory  might  help  out  the  principal,  according  to  the  art  of  stationers, 
and  to  leave  the  reader  con  la  bocca  dolce.1 

"  Now,  Sir,  concerning  your  travels,  wherein  I  may  challenge  a 
little  more  privilege  of  discourse  with  you .  I  suppose  you  will  not 
blanch  Paris  in  your  way  :  therefore  I  have  been  bold  to  trouble  you 
with  a  few  lines  to  Mr.  M.  B.,  whom  you  shall  easily  find  attending 
the  young  Lord  S.  as  his  governor;2  and  you  may  surely  receive  from 
him  good  directions  for  the  shaping  of  your  farther  journey  into  Italy, 
where  he  did  reside,  by  my  choice,  some  time  for  the  King,  after  mine 
own  recess  from  Venice. 

"I  should  think  that  your  best  line  will  be  through  the  whole 
length  of  France  to  Marseilles,  and  thence  by  sea  to  Genoa,  whence 
the  passage  into  Tuscany  is  as  diurnal  as  a  Gravesend  barge.  I 
hasten,  as  you  do,  to  Florence  or  Siena, — the  rather  to  tell  you  a 
short  story,  from  the  interest  you  have  given  me  in  your  safety. 

"  At  Siena  I  was  tabled  in  the  house  of  one  Alberto  Scipioni,  an 
old  Roman  courtier  in  dangerous  times, — having  been  steward  to  the 
Duca  di  Pagliano,  who  with  all  his  family  were  strangled,  save  this 

1  The  most  probable  explanation  of  quarto,  but  Milton's  too  thin  for  sepa- 
this  passage  is  that  "our  common  rate  binding,  the  conjunction  might 
friend  Mr.  K.,"  who  had  sent  "Wotton  not  be  unnatural.  Wotton,  however, 
a  copy  of  Comus,  in  its  anonymous  con-  soon  distinguishes  between  the  bulkier 
dition,  some  time  before  Milton  and  beginning  and  the  sweet  morsel  at  the 
Wotton  had  met,  was  John  Rous  the  end  ;  and  it  is  an  agreeable  surprise  to 
Oxford  Librarian,  and  that  "  the  late  him  to  learn  that  his  young  neighbour, 
E.'s  Poems,"  to  which  this  copy  of  Mr.  Milton,  with  whom  he  has  just 
Comus  had  been  somewhat  incougru-  formed  an  acquaintance,  is  the  author 
ously  appended,  either  by  Rous  himself  of  the  piece  he  has  been  admiring, 
or  by  the  stationer  who  had  sold  it,  2  The  "young  Lord  S."  has  been 
were  the  Poems  of  the  late  Thomas  supposed  to  be  Lord  Scudamore,  son  of 
Randolph,  of  Cambridge,  edited  by  his  the  ambassador  at  Paris, — of  which, 
brother,  and  printed,  in  1638.  at  Ox-  however,  I  am  not  sure  ;  and,  "Mr.  M. 
ford,  "by  L.  Litchneld,  printer  to  the  B.,"  his  governor,  is  Michael  Branth- 
University,  for  Fr.  Bowman."  As  wait,  mentioned  elsewhere  by  Wotton 
Lawes's  edition  of  Comus  came  out  as  "  heretofore  his  Majesty's  agent  in 
nearly  at  the  same  time  with  the  post-  Venice,  a  gentleman  of  approved  con- 
humous  edition  of  Randolph's  poems,  fidence  and  sincerity."  —  See  Todd's 
and  as  both  publications  were  in  small  Milton,  VI.  183. 


THE    CONTINENT    GENERALLY    IN    1638.  739 

only  man  that  escaped  by  foresight  of  the  tempest.  With  him  I  had 
often  much  chat  of  those  affairs,  into  which  he  took  pleasure  to  look 
back  from  his  native  harbour;  and,  at  my  departure  toward  Kome 
(which  had  been  the  centre  of  his  experience),  I  had  won  his  con 
fidence  enough  to  beg  his  advice  how  I  might  carry  myself  securely 
there,  without  offence  of  others  or  of  mine  own  conscience.  '  Signor 
Arrigo  mio  [My  friend  Mr.  Harry]',  says  he,  ' / pensieri  stretti  ed  il 
viso  sciolto  [Thoughts  close  and  visage  free]  will  go  safely  over  the 
whole  world.' '  Of  which  Delphian  oracle  (for  so  I  have  found  it) 
your  judgment  doth  need  no  commentary  ;  and  therefore,  Sir,  I  will 
commit  you  with  it  to  the  best  of  all  securities,  God's  dear  love, 
remaining 

"  Your  friend,  as  much  at  command 

"  as  any  of  longer  date, 

"  HENKY  WOTTON." 

POSTSCRIPT. 
"  Sir, 

"  I  have  expressly  sent  this  my  footboy  to  prevent  your  departure 
without  some  acknowledgment  from  me  of  the  receipt  of  your  obliging 
letter, — having  myself,  through  some  business,  I  know  not  how,  neg 
lected  the  ordinary  conveyance  [between  Eton  and  Horton].  In  any 
part  where  I  shall  understand  you  fixed  I  shall  be  glad  and  diligent 
to  entertain  you  with  home-novelties,  even  for  some  fomentation  of 
our  friendship,  too  soon  interrupted  in  the  cradle."2 

A  day  or  two  after  Sir  Henry's  footboy  had  delivered  this 
gratifying  letter  and  its  enclosure  at  Horton,  Milton  was  on 
his  way  across  the  Channel. 

THE  CONTINENT  GENERALLY  IN  1638. 

SINCE  the  year  1618,  when  Milton  was  in  his  early  boy 
hood,  there  had  been  moving  on  in  slow  progression,  in 
various  parts  of  the  continent,  that  complex  and  yet  con 
tinuous  course  of  events  to  which  subsequent  historians, 
viewing  it  in  its  totality  from  1618  to  1648,  have  given  the 
name  of  THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR.  That  desolating  war  of 
the  Thirty  Years,  say  our  more  instructed  historians,  was 
the  last  war  of  religion  in  Europe.  The  statement  may  be 
too  positive.  Is  there  not  yet  to  come  the  prophetic  Arma 
geddon  ?  But,  if  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was  not  the  last 
war  of  religion  in  Europe,  it  was  the  last  for  a  long  time, 
at  once  the  consummation  politically  and  the  attenuation 

1   The    story    of    Scipioni    and    his  2   Prefixed    by    Milton    himself    to 

maxim  was  a  favourite  one  with  Wot-  Comus  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Minor 

ton, — always   told   by  him    to  young  Poems,  in  1645;  and  printed  also  by 

friends  and  pupils  going  abroad.     See  Izaak  Walton,  in   his   Reliquia    Wot- 

it   in   another  letter  of  his,  Reliquiee  toniana. 
Wottonianee.,  edit.  1672,  p.  356. 

3  B  2 


740  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

spiritually  of  the  movement  begun  in  Europe  by  the  Lu 
theran  Reformation. 

In  its  origin  the  War  was  an  insurrection  of  the  Protestants 
of  Bohemia  and  of  other  Slavonian  possessions  of  Austria 
against  the  persecuting  Roman  Catholic  policy  of  their 
Austrian  sovereigns.  These  Austrian  sovereigns  being 
also  Emperors  of  Germany,  the  war  had  instantly  extended 
itself  into  the  German  Confederacy,  and  the  Treaty  of  Passau, 
which  had  defined  since  1552  the  mutual  rights  and  relations 
of  German  Catholicism  and  German  Protestantism,  "had 
become  a  dead  letter.  The  representative  of  the  Protestant 
side  of  the  struggle,  whether  in  Bohemia  or  in  Germany, 
being  that  Frederick,  Elector  Palatine,  whom  the  Bohemians 
had  made  their  king,  and  who  lost  both  electorate  and  king 
dom  in  the  sequel,  it  is  usual  to  distinguish  this  first  stage 
of  the  war,  extending  from  1618  to  1625,  by  the  special 
name  of  the  Palatine  War  or  War  of  the  Palatinate.  Already, 
however,  before  this  stage  was  over,  the  powers  surrounding 
and  adjacent  had  associated  themselves  with  the  Germano- 
Bohemian  conflict,  and  woven  it  wider  into  its  continental 
complications. 

To  the  support  of  Austrian  imperialism  there  had  come 
forward  the  fraternal  power  of  Spain.  Severed  from  Germany 
since  the  closing  years  of  Charles  V.,  when  the  western  or 
Spanish  portion  of  his  vast  empire  passed  to  his  son  Philip 
II.,  and  the  eastern  or  Germanic  portion  to  his  brother  Fer 
dinand  I.,  Spain  had,  in  the  interval,  with  all  the  less  im 
pediment,  exercised  her  adopted  function  as  the  pre-eminently 
Catholic  power  of  Europe  and  the  champion  of  the  European 
reaction.  As  the  power  that  had  most  effectively  crushed 
the  Protestant  heresy  within  itself,  and  that  had  given  birth 
to  Jesuitism  as  a  specific  for  the  renovation  of  Catholicism 
everywhere,  she  had  claimed  the  function  by  every  right  of 
fitness.  In  exercising  it,  indeed,  she  had  gradually  and 
necessarily  sunk  from  her  former  greatness,  losing  portions 
of  her  dominions,  and  retaining  what  remained  only  by  a 
tyranny  as  mean  as  it  was  sombre.  Still,  as  mistress  of 
Naples,  Sicily,  and  Milan,  she  drew  in  her  train  the  whole 


THE    CONTINENT   GENERALLY   IN    1638.  741 

Italian  peninsula ;  nor  was  it  in  the  power  of  the  Pope  him 
self,  whose  servant  she  professed  to  be,  to  set  up  successfully, 
in  opposition  to  dictation  from  Madrid,  any  definition  of 
Catholicism,  or  any  rule  of  papal  policy,  that  might  have 
seemed  truly  pontifical  or  truly  Italian.  When,  therefore,^" 
Spain  associated  herself  with  Austrian  Imperialism  in  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  it  was  virtually  a  movement  of  the  two 
Latin  peninsulas  together  to  aid  in  the  suppression  of  German 
and  Slavonian  Protestantism.  Moreover,  as  Spain  had  taken 
the  opportunity  to  renew  in  1621  her  private  contest  with 
the  United  Dutch  Provinces,  to  which  there  had  been  a 
truce  since  1609,  those  Provinces  were  added  to  the  area  of 
the  struggle,  and  the  entire  Protestantism  of  the  Continent 
was  in  peril  from  the  Austro-Spanish  alliance. 

Whence  could  the  opposite  muster  come  ?  Whence  but 
from  those  States,  lying  out  of  the  area  of  the  struggle, 
where  Protestantism  was  already  assured  internally,  and 
therefore  bound  to  assert  itself  internationally, — to  wit, 
Great  Britain  and  the  Scandinavian  Kingdoms.  Great 
Britain  had  done  a  little,  but  not  very  much.  Since  the 
accession  of  the  Scottish  James,  the  "  right  Elizabeth  way  " 
had  been  forgotten,  no  less  in  the  foreign  politics  of 
England  than  in  her  domestic  administration.  One  of  his 
first  acts  had  been  to  make  peace  with  Spain ;  the  Spanish 
alliance  had  always  been  dear  to  him;  and,  at  the  very  time 
when  it  was  thought  he  should  be  drawing  the  sword  for  his 
son-in-law,  he  was  negotiating  the  Spanish  match.  The 
little  that  Parliament  compelled  him  to  do  he  had  done 
reluctantly.  Far  different  had  been  the  behaviour  of  the 
two  Scandinavian  kingdoms.  First,  the  Danish  King 
Christian  IV.  had  thrown  himself  and  his  kingdom  into  the 
conflict  in  behalf  of  continental  Protestantism,  and  had  led 
what  is  known  as  the  Danish  Stage  of  the  general  war, 
extending  from  1625  to  1629.  He  had  been  defeated  and 
driven  back,  leaving  the  German  Protestants  at  the  mercy 
cf  the  Emperor.  Then  had  come  the  turn  of  the  Swede. 
Accepting  the  cause  when  it  seemed  most  desperate,  the 
great  Gustavus  had  retrieved  it  by  his  victories,  had 


74-2  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTOKY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

consecrated  it  by  his  heroic  death,  and  had  bequeathed  it  to 
Sweden,  to  be  carried  on  by  the  wisdom  of  Oxenstiern  and 
the  valour  of  Swedish  generals.  This  formed  the  Swedish 
Stage  of  the  war,  extending  from  1629  to  1634. 

The  defeat  of  the  Swedes  at  Nordlingen  in  September 
1634  had  proved  the  insufficiency  of  Swedish  generalship 
for  the  cause,  and  perhaps  also  of  all  the  resources  of  Scan 
dinavia,  aided  by  volunteers  from  England  and  Scotland, 
when,  to  the  confusion  of  ordinary  calculations,  a  Catholic 
power  appeared  to  the  rescue.  Although  France,  as  if  by 
the  law  of  her  constitution  as  a  nation  mainly  Latin,  had 
ranged  herself  among  the  Roman  Catholic  states, — although 
her  Huguenots  had  never  been  more  than  a  considerable 
minority  of  her  population,  and,  despite  their  energy,  the 
political  centre  of  gravity  had  been  established  irremovably 
within  the  body  of  the  Roman  Catholic  majority, — yet  the 
result  of  so  much  Protestant  effort  expended  in  the  recent 
course  of  her  history  had  been  a  Catholicism  of  a  very  differ 
ent  grain  from  the  Spanish,  and  capable,  when  the  case 
required  it,  of  splendid  inconsistencies.  Henry  IY.  had 
left  the  Edict  of  Nantes  as  the  charter  of  French  Protestant 
liberties  ;  even  under  the  government  of  Mary  de'  Medici,  as 
Regent  for  her  son  Louis  XIII.,  Henry's  policy  of  toleration 
had  remained  in  partial  effect;  and,  when  Richelieu  attained 
the  office  of  supreme  minister  in  1624,  France  had  found  a 
new  master,  inheriting  Henry's  spirit,  with  competent 
variations.  In  name  a  Cardinal  of  the  Roman  Church,  he 
was,  in  fact,  a  great  secular  statesman.  Even  while  meet 
ing  the  insurgent  French  Protestants  with  inflexible  war, 
besieging  them  in  their  last  stronghold,  and  breaking  up,  on 
a  systematic  plan,  their  separate  political  organization,  he  had 
foreseen  for  France,  as  her  only  suitable  course  in  the  affairs 
of  Europe,  a  policy  of  opposition  to  the  retrograde  Catholi 
cism  of  Austria  and  of  Spain.  He  had  meditated  a  French 
definition  of  Catholicism,  to  be  flung  forth  into  Europe  in 
competition  with  the  Spanish,  and  to  which  the  Pope  him 
self  might  be  brought  over  by  circumstances,  and  by  French 
arms  and  diplomacy.  From  the  beginning  of  the  Thirty 


THE    CONTINENT    GENERALLY   IN    1638.  743 

Years'  War,  accordingly,  he  had  been  watching  its  progress 
and  working  France  into  connexion  with  it.  It  was  his 
boast  that  he  had  brought  the  Snow-King  from  his  Scan 
dinavian  home  to  oppose  by  his  Protestant  enthusiasm 
and  his  military  genius  the  alliance  of  the  Spaniard  and 
the  Austrian ;  and,  during  the  whole  of  the  Swedish 
stage  of  the  war,  but  more  especially  after  the  death 
of  Gustavus,  France  had  been  concerned  in  it,  through 
subsidies  and  diplomatic  services  in  Germany,  to  the  extent 
of  actual  partnership.  And  so,  a  time  having  come  when 
France  must  either  accept  the  place  of  principal  in  lieu  of 
that  of  partner,  or  see  the  war  abandoned  and  the  Austrian 
and  the  Spaniard  linking  Europe  in  a  common  dominion 
over  the  body  of  that  French  monarchy  which  had  hitherto 
kept  them  apart,  Eichelieu  had  not  hesitated.  Persuading 
Louis  XIII.  that  the  greatness,  if  not  the  existence,  of 
France  depended  on  her  now  undertaking  openly,  on  her 
own  account,  and  in  her  own  way,  though  with  Protestants 
as  her  allies,  the  enterprise  which  had  passed  through  so 
many  hands,  he  had  signalised  the  year  1635  by  a  crackle  of 
simultaneous  strategy  all  over  Europe.  War  had  been 
declared  against  Spain  as  well  as  against  the  Emperor ;  new 
relations  had  been  established  with  Oxenstiern  and  Sweden  ; 
the  wreck  of  the  Swedish  forces  in  Germany  had  been 
taken  into  French  pay ;  an  alliance  had  been  concluded 
with  the  States-General  of  Holland ;  and  French  armies 
had  invaded  Italy,  Germany,  Spain,  and  the  Netherlands. 
Thus  had  begun  the  final  or  French  Period  of  the  war,  to 
which  there  was  to  be  no  end  till  the  Peace  of  Westphalia 
in  1648. 

In  1638,  when  Milton  began  his  Continental  Journey, 
three  years  of  the  French  period  of  the  war  had  already 
accomplished  themselves.  The  marchings  and  counter- 
marchings  of  the  opposed  armies  were  the  subjects  of  talk 
everywhere ;  Bernhard  of  Weimar,  Guebriant,  Turenne, 
Baner,  Torstenson  and  others  were  blazing  as  military 
celebrities ;  and  all  along  the  tracks  of  those  generals  there 
were  creeping  negotiators,  as  famous  in  their  diplomatic 


7H  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

craft,  breaking  Richelieu's  threads,  or  knitting  them  together. 
At  this  point,  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  Continental  States 
collectively  may  make  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
England  more  intelligible  henceforward  : — 

FRANCE. — Louis  XIII.  was  in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  his  age  and 
the  twenty-eighth  of  his  reign  (1610-1643).  He  had  been  twenty-two 
years  married  to  his  queen,  Anne  of  Austria,  the  daughter  of  Philip 
III.  of  Spain  ;  but  the  marriage  was  yet  childless.  When  not  in 
the  camp,  the  court  was  usually  at  St.  Germains,  near  Paris.  The 
king  was  a  person  of  the  least  possible  consequence, — impassive,  par 
simonious,  and  fond  chiefly  of  farming  and  of  exercising  his  skill  as 
an  amateur  barber  on  all  his  household,  but  with  the  conspicuous 
merit  that  he  believed  in  Richelieu,  and  let  him  do  as  he  chose.  The 
queen-mother,  Mary  de1  Medici,  was  in  exile  in  Brussels,  plotting 
restlessly  for  the  destruction  of  the  Cardinal's  influence  and  her  own 
return  to  her  son's  side,  but  with  no  effect.  The  all-absorbing  subject 
of  Richelieu's  care  and  of  the  national  interest  was  the  progress  of 
the  war  in  its  different  seats,  and  of  the  negotiations  connected  with 
it.  There  were,  however,  subordinate  or  tributary  topics  of  interest. 
A  special  negotiation  was  on  foot  with  Pope  Urban,  both  through  the 
Papal  nuncio  at  Paris  and  through  D'Estre"es,  the  French  ambassador 
at  Rome,  relative  to  certain  differences  between  Richelieu  and  his 
Holiness  in  matters  affecting  the  French  Church.  There  were  differ 
ences  also  between  Richelieu  and  some  of  the  Courts  of  Law,  leading 
to  arrests  of  judges,  &c.  Moreover,  throughout  the  country  there 
were  complaints  of  impoverishment,  of  "excess  of  taxes  and  loans 
and  the  marches  and  swarming  of  the  soldiery."  In  the  midst  of  all 
this  the  gay  nation  was  the  gay  nation  still,  and  Paris  was  flourishing 
more  and  more  under  Richelieu's  liberal  care  of  industry,  art,  ana 
science.  The  Palace  of  the  Luxembourg,  the  Church  of  the  Sorbonne, 
and  the  Palais  Royal  had  been  recently  built  or  re-edified ;  the  Jardin 
de  v  Plantes  had  been  added  to  the  attractions  of  the  city ;  and  the 
famous  Academic  Fran$aise\i&d  just  been  founded  (1635).  Corneille 
had  produced  at  the  TkeAtre  Franqais  his  tragedy  of  the  Cid  (1637) ; 
and  there  were  French  names  of  note  in  other  departments,  marking 
the  progress  from  the  literary  era  of  Malherbe  towards  the  richer  age 
of  French  art  and  letters  under  Louis  XIV.  There  was  the  poet 
Racan ;  there  was  the  mathematician  Fermat ;  there  was  the  philo 
sopher  Gassendi ;  there  were  the  two  Poussins,  the  painters.  The 
greatest  French  thinker  of  the  age,  Ren6  Descartes,  was  not  at  this 
time  in  his  native  country,  but  was  residing  in  Holland,  where  his 
Discours  sur  la  Afetkode  had  just  been  published  (1637). 

SPAIN.— Philip  IV.  was  ruling  (1621-1665),  with  Olivarez  for 
minister  ;  and  the  chief  activity  of  the  nation  was  in  the  war  against 
the  French  and  the  Dutch.  In  the  imagination  of  strangers,  and 
especially  of  Englishmen,  all  was  sombre  and  gloomy  within  this 
most  Catholic  peninsula, — a  swarthy  peasantry  sleek  with  oil  arid 
garlic  ;  cloaked  hidalgos  moving  moodily  in  the  streets  of  cities  ; 
no  sign  of  life  save  in  continual  processions  of  monks  and  priests 
towards  splendid  churches.  And  yet,  in  this  age  of  Spain's  political 
decline,  had  not  Cervantes  arisen  (1547-1616)  to  contradict  such 
notions,  to  add  to  Spain's  past  glory  in  action  the  further  glory  of 
having  produced  one  of  the  recognised  masters  of  the  world's  collec- 


THE    CONTINENT   GENERALLY   IN    1638.  745 

tive  literature,  and  to  show  how  amid  the  wrecks  of  Catholicism 
there  might  survive  a  rich  human  life,  grave  with  the  wisdom  of 
the  past,  and  joyous  in  the  southern  sunshine  1  To  Cervantes,  as 
the  literary  luminary  of  Spain,  had  succeeded  Lope  de  Vega  the 
prolific,  with  his  2,000  dramas  (1568-1635)  ;  and  the  Spanish  Drama 
was  still  of  matchless  fame  in  its  kind  through  the  younger  and 
greater  genius  of  Calderon  (1601-1687).  The  contemporary  repre 
sentatives  of  Spanish  Art  were  the  Sevilian  painters  Zurbaran  and 
Velasquez,  the  immediate  predecessors  of  Murillo. — Meanwhile  Por 
tugal,  though  with  characteristics  and  traditions  of  her  own,  was 
politically  a  part  of  Spain ;  preparing,  however,  for  the  revolt  which 
was  to  give  her  a  separate  dynasty  in  the  house  of  Braganza. 

ITALY. — The  most  obvious  fact  then,  as  till  very  recently,  respect 
ing  this  noble  peninsula,— too  long  for  its  breadth,  as  Napoleon  used 
to  say  of  it, — was  its  disastrous  subdivision  into  many  distinct  states. 
Here  is  a  list  of  them  : — 

I.  THE  SPANISH  PROVINCES, — to  wit,  Naples  and  Sicily  in  the 

south,  and  the  Milanese  Territory  in  the  north,  governed  by 

Spanish  Viceroys  from  Madrid. 
II.  THE  THREE  REPUBLICS  :  Venice,  Genoa,  and  Lucca  ;  the  last 

insignificant. 
III.  THE  NATIVE  SOVEREIGNTIES  :— 

1.  Savoy  and  Piedmont:  Reigning  Duke,  Carlo  Emanuele 

II.  (1638-1675),  at  present  an  infant  under  the  guar 
dianship  of  his  mother,  the  Duchess  Christina,  sister  of 
Louis  XIII. 

2.  Parma  and  Piacenza:  Reigning  Duke,  Odoardo  (1622- 

1646),  of  the  Farnese  family. 

3.  Modena:  Reigning  Duke,  Francesco  I.  (1625-1658),  of  the 

Este  family. 

4.  Mantua :  Reigning  Duke,  Carlo  II.  (1630-1665),  of  the 

Gonzaga  family. 

5.  Tuscany:  Reigning  Grand  Duke,  Ferdinando  II.  (1621- 

1670),  of  the  house  of  the  Medici. 

6.  The  States  of  the  Church  :  Reigning  Pontiff,  Urban  VIII. 

(1623-1644),  of  the  Florentine  house  of  the  Barberini. 
Holding  so  large  a  portion  of  the  Italian  peninsula,  Spain  had  ex 
tended  in  great  measure  over  the  whole  the  same  methods  of  intel 
lectual  tyranny,  by  means  of  the  Inquisition,  &c.,  which  she  practised 
within  her  own  limits.  None  of  the  native  states,  at  least,  with  the 
exception  of  the  powerful  republic  of  Venice  and  perhaps  also  Savoy, 
dared  to  have  a  policy  which  contradicted  the  Spanish,  or  to  give 
refuge  to  men  whose  expulsion  Spain  demanded.  There  was,  indeed, 
in  the  character  of  the  ruling  Pope  a  certain  capricious  passion  for 
self-assertion  which  made  him  far  from  the  ideal  of  a  Spanish  Pope  ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  he  was  too  fast  bound  to  do  more  than  flutter. 

SWITZERLAND. — Though  not  definitively  recognised  as  a  European 
state  till  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  the  Helvetian  Republic,  with  its 
mixed  Germanic,  Gallic,  and  Italian  population,  divided  into  can 
tons,  <fec.,  some  Catholic  and  others  Protestant,  but  having  also  a 
federal  constitution  binding  its  parts  together,  was  already  a  fact  in 
the  European  system.  Geneva,  as  a  seat  01  Protestant  theology, 
retained  the  celebrity  which  had  been  acquired  by  her  in  that  char 
acter  in  the  days  of  Calvin. 

THE  UNITED  PROVINCES.— The  Dutch  Republic,  though  also  wait 
ing  for  its  formal  recognition  till  the  Thirty  Years'  War  should  be 


746  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

concluded,  was,  and  had  been  for  more  than  fifty  years,  a  stronger  fact 
in  Europe  than  Switzerland.  The  present  Stadtholder  was  Frederick 
Henry  of  Orange  (1625-1647),  by  whom  and  by  the  States-General 
the  war  against  Spain  was  vigorously  conducted,  in  alliance  with 
France.  Meanwhile,  under  its  singularly  free  institutions,  the 
republic  was  extending  its  commerce  with  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  was  not  only  producing  a  school  of  native  painters  in  Mirevelt, 
Rembrandt,  and  their  disciples,  and  supporting  universities  and 
breeding  scholars  renowned  over  the  world,  but  was  sheltering 
learned  refugees  from  all  other  nations.  And  yet  at  this  time 
Holland's  own  most  learned  son  was  in  exile.  This  was  the  famous 
Hugo  Grotius,  formerly  Pensionary  of  Rotterdam,  and  known  since 
1599  as  a  jurist,  a  poet,  a  philologist,  a  historian,  and  a  theologian. 
A  leader  of  the  Arminian  party,  and  mixed  up  with  the  politics  of 
Holland,  at  the  time  of  the  great  contest  between  the  Arminians 
and  the  Calvinists  during  the  preceding  Stadtholderate  (1618),  he 
had  fallen  along  with  his  party,  and,  when  his  friend  Barneveldt 
was  beheaded,  he  had  been  condemned  to  perpetual  imprisonment. 
He  had  escaped  from  prison  in  1621  by  the  contrivance  of  his  wife  ; 
and  since  then  he  had  resided  chiefly  in  Paris,  where  in  1625  he 
added  his  treatise  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pads  to  his  already  numerous 
works.  Since  the  death  of  the  preceding  Stadtholder  he  had  ventured 
back  to  Holland  on  trial ;  but,  as  the  sentence  against  him  had  not 
been  repealed,  he  had  not  found  it  safe  to  remain.  He  was  now  in 
his  fifty-sixth  year. 

THE  SPANISH  NETHERLANDS. — Under  a  nominally  separate  govern 
ment  in  the  mean  time,  though  in  reality  subject  to  Spain  and  about 
to  revert  to  Spain  in  form,  these  provinces,  in  the  midst  of  the  battles 
and  military  movements  of  which,  from  their  position,  they  were  so 
peculiarly  the  theatre,  were  earning  a  special  distinction  in  history 
through  the  fame  of  their  painters.  It  was  the  age  of  Rubens  (1577- 
1640),  Jacob  Jordaens  (1594-1678),  and  Vandyck  (1599-1641),  and  of 
others  of  the  Antwerp  school.  Both  Rubens  and  Vandyck  had 
relations  with  England ;  where,  indeed,  Van  Dyck  was  residing. 

GERMANY  AND  THE  AUSTRIAN  DOMINIONS.— Distracted  by  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  the  various  electorates  and  minor  states  of  the 
German  Empire,  with  their  Austrian  appendages,  were  less  rich  in 
products  purely  intellectual  than  they  had  been  at  any  former  time 
since  the  Reformation.  Kepler  (1571-1630)  and  Jacob  Boehine 
(1575-1624)  were  the  last  German  names  of  European  note,  except  in 
the  walk  of  scholarship ;  and  the  age  of  vernacular  German  literature 
had  hardly  begun.  In  Bohemia,  where  there  had  been  a  vernacular 
Slavonian  literature,  as  well  as  much  Latin  learning,  both  had  been 
arrested  by  the  persecution  of  Protestantism. 

POLAND. — This  Slavonian  country,  interesting  to  Europe  for  nearly 
a  century  as  having  produced  Copernicus  (1473-1543),  had,  during 
that  century,  made  an  extraordinary  start  in  consequence  of  the  intel 
lectual  stimulus  of  Protestantism,  and  produced  not  a  few  scholars, 
poets,  mathematicians,  and  theologians,  whose  names  might  be  better 
known  if  they  were  more  easy  to  pronounce.  Here,  in  particular,  the 
Socinian  Controversy  had  been  agitated  with  not  unimportant  results. 
But  the  "golden  age"  of  Poland, — if  it  had  not  ceased  in  1572,  when 
the  native  dynasty  of  the  Jagellons  became  extinct,  and  the  Poles 
began  their  system  of  electing  kings  from  the  highest  bidders, — had 
come  to  a  close  in  the  reign  of  the  third  of  these  elected  kings,  the 


THE  CONTINENT  GENERALLY  IN  1638.          747 

Swedish  Sigismund  III.  (1587-1632).  Protestantism  was  then  system 
atically  oppressed,  and  Poland  swarmed  with  Jesuits.  There  was  also 
an  inheritance  for  the  present  king,  Ladislav  VI.  (1632-1640),  of  wars 
with  Sweden  and  Russia. 

THE  OTTOMAN  EMPIRE. — The  confusion  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
it  was  supposed,  might  have  afforded  an  opportunity  to  the  Turks  to 
recommence  their  assaults  on  Christian  Europe.  The  wars  of  the 
Sultan  Amurath  IV.  (1623-1640),  however^  were  almost  exclusively  in 
Asia;  and,  save  for  the  appearance  occasionally  of  Turkish  corsairs 
in  the  Mediterranean  in  chase  of  Venetian  or  Genoese  vessels,  Europe 
heard  little  of  those  Mohammedans  who  had  lately  been  her  terror. 
The  Greek  lands  were  still  included  in  the  Turkish  dominion. 

RUSSIA. — Although  Russia  or  Muscovy  had  had  a  chaotic  history, 
chiefly  of  wars  with  the  Poles,  the  Tartars,  the  Swedes,  &c.,  stretching 
pretty  far  back,  it  had  but  just  taken  its  place  as  a  European  entity 
of  any  distinct  shape,  under  the  reigning  czar,  Michael  Romanoff 
(1613-1645),  the  founder  of  the  Russian  dynasty  which  still  exists. 

DENMARK  AND  NORWAY.— Christian  IV.,  the  well-meaning  Dane 
who  had  preceded  Gustavus  A-dolphus  as  the  voluntary  champion 
of  Continental  Protestantism  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  was  still 
governing  those  Scandinavian  and  Protestant  countries  (1588-1648) ; 
and  the  Danes  were  doing  something  in  commerce,  were  founding 
excellent  schools,  and  were  showing  the  beginnings  of  a  literature. 

SWEDEN. — Ennobled  at  once  as  a  European  state  by  the  heroic 
career  of  Gustavus,  Sweden  was  still  acting  a  first-rate  part  in  Europe, 
as  the  chief  ally  of  France  in  the  continental  war.  Oxenstiern, 
governing  as  Regent  for  Christina,  still  only  in  her  twelfth  year,  was 
one  of  the  wisest  and  most  experienced  of  statesmen,  and  no  unequal 
associate  even  for  Richelieu.  Administering  the  domestic  affairs  of 
Sweden  with  gravity  and  skill,  sending  the  best  generals  he  had  to 
command  the  Swedish  armies  in  the  field,  and  frequently  himself 
leaving  Sweden  to  have  diplomatic  conferences  with  other  powers, 
and  to  hold  the  balance  even  for  Swedish  interests,  he  was  ready 
to  use  all  available  foreign  talent  in  the  Swedish  service.  One  selec 
tion  that  he  made  of  this  kind  is  especially  interesting.  Poor  Grotius, 
without  a  country,  tossed  back  from  Holland  to  Paris,  had  for  many 
years  been  without  employment,  save  in  his  books  _arid  in  literary 
correspondence.  In  Paris  he  had  plenty  of  admiration  as  a  Dutch 
celebrity,  and  Madame  Grotius  had  her  share,  as  the  brave  wife  who 
had  schemed  her  husband's  escape  from  prison;  but  money  was 
beginning  to  fail  them.  Richelieu,  to  whom  Grotius  had  been  intro 
duced,  had  not  found  in  him  the  sort  of  man  that  would  be  likely  to 
co-operate  amicably  with  him  and  Pere  Joseph ;  and,  though  there  had 
been  offers  of  professorships  and  the  like  from  various  countries,  none 
had  come  up  to  the  mark.  Just,  however,  when  necessity  might  have 
made  him  accept  some  such  appointment,  he  and  his  wife  had  been 
invited  to  meet  Oxenstiern  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main  (1635).  Here 
Oxenstiern  had  behaved  most  handsomely.  Grotius  had  been  nomi 
nated  Councillor  to  Queen  Christina  and  her  Ambassador  at  the  Court 
of  Louis  XIII.  Accepting  the  appointment,  he  had  written  letters  to 
Holland  renouncing  his  Dutch  citizenship;  and  from  March  1636, 
when  he  presented  his  credentials  to  Louis  XIII. ,  Grotius  had  been 
residing  in  state  at  Paris  as  Swedish  ambassador,  and  his  wife  as 
Madame  V Ambassadrice. 


/4<3  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

The  relations  of  Great  Britain  to  this  motley  Continent 
were  by  no  means  of  a  kind  considered  respectable  then,  or 
that  even  now  can  be  considered  creditable.  What  was 
complained  of  was  not  merely  that  Charles  was  apathetic  in 
the  European  struggle,  but  that,  following  the  policy  of  his 
father,  he  was  showing  a  sympathy  with  Spain  likely  to 
become  active.  The  war  with  Spain  in  the  beginning  of  his 
reign  was  a  by-past  accident,  as  was  likewise  Hamilton's 
expedition  in  aid  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  The  home  policy 
of  Thorough  tended,  by  natural  affinity,  to  a  style  of  foreign 
policy  which  the  Opposition  could  denounce  as  truckling 
to  Continental  Catholicism ;  but  there  were  other  influences 
in  that  direction.  There  was  the  Queen,  with  her  Catholic 
cabinet  at  Denmark  House,  and  her  correspondence,  through 
agents,  with  the  Eoman  Court.  There  was  the  Queen- 
Mother,  Mary  de'  Medici,  in  Brussels,  plotting  against 
Richelieu,  corresponding  with  her  daughter,  and  sometimes 
inditing  letters,  with  her  signature  in  characters  an  inch 
long,  "  A  Monsieur  mon  beaufilz  le  Roy  d'Angleterre"1  To 
Charles's  vexation,  she  was  at  last  to  come  over  herself  (Oct. 
1638),  bringing  with  her  what  was  called  "  queen-mother 
weather."2  Acted  upon  by  these  influences,  and  by  a  dis 
tinctly  Spanish  party  in  the  Privy  Council,  Charles  had  been 
parting  gradually  with  every  notion  of  an  obligation  imposed 
upon  Britain  to  square  her  foreign  policy  by  her  Protestant 
professions.  To  him,  as  to  Laud,  the  difference  between 
the  ideal  Beauty  of  Holiness  and  the  actual  Papacy  was  not 
so  great  that  it  needed  to  be  thought  of  in  season  and  out 
of  season ;  and,  at  all  events,  a  Kepublican  and  Calvinistic 
Holland  growing  powerful  in  Europe  was  a  much  more 
uncomfortable  sight  than  a  Roman  Catholic  Emperor  coerc 
ing  his  subjects  back  to  the  Papacy.  Probably  the  only 
real  remaining  bond  between  Charles  and  the  Protestant 
cause  abroad  was  his  natural  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  his 
sister,  the  Ex-Queen  of  Bohemia, — a  widow  since  1632,  and 
living  in  eleemosynary  exile  at  the  Hague,  with  six  young 

1  Several  such  letters  are  in  the  State  Paper  Office. 
3  Laud's  Diary. 


LORD    SCUDAMORE    AND   THE    EARL    OP   LEICESTER.  7<t9 

sons  and  four  young  daughters  remaining  out  of  a  family  of 
fourteen.  Might  not  the  restoration  of  the  Palatinate, 
however,  be  made  a  matter  of  negotiation  with  the  Austrian 
and  the  Spaniard  ?  Whatever  semi- Protestant  hesitation 
on  this  score  still  remained  seemed  likely  to  vanish  when  it 
became  known,  in  1637,  that  a  scheme  had  been  formed 
between  Richelieu  and  the  Dutch  for  the  partition  of 
the  Spanish  Netherlands.  In  vain  Richelieu  solicited  the 
neutrality  of  England.  The  reply  was  that,  if  the  French 
did  attack  the  Flemish  ports,  an  English  fleet  would  be  at 
the  service  of  Spain.  Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  1638. 
The  balance  of  English  policy  vibrated  distinctly  towards 
the  Austro-Spanish  alliance,  and  Richelieu  was  out  of  temper 
in  consequence,  and  was  secretly  vowing  vengeance  through 
the  medium  of  the  Scottish  Troubles. 

Much  of  the  discomfort  arising  from  the  peculiar  state  of 
the  relations  between  England  and  France  fell  necessarily 
upon  the  English  ambassadors  at  Paris.  There  were  two 
such  ambassadors  in  1638.  One  was  John  Scudamore,  Baron 
Dromore  and  Viscount  Sligo  in  the  Irish  peerage,  and  the 
other  was  Robert  Sidney,  Earl  of  Leicester. 

Lord  Scudamore  was  of  the  ancient  family  of  the  Scuda- 
mores,  Skidmores,  or  Esquidmores,  of  Holme-Lacy  in  Here 
fordshire, — the  son  of  Sir  James  Scudamore,  celebrated  for 
his  bravery  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  immortalised  as  \ 
the  "  Sir  Scudamour "  of  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene.  Born 
in  1600,  and  educated  at  Oxford,  he  had  succeeded  to  the 
property  of  Holme-Lacy  on  the  death  of  his  grandfather, 
Sir  John,  who  had  also  been  a  man  of  some  note,  and  had 
outlived  his  son.  In  1621  he  had  been  made  a  baronet  by 
James,  and  in  1628  Charles  had  raised  him  to  the  peerage. 
He  seems  to  have  owed  these  honours  to  an  intimacy  with 
Laud,  which  had  been  begun  in  his  early  youth,  and  had 
been  continued  by  visits  of  Laud  to  Holme-Lacy  between 
1621  and  1626,  when  he  was  Bishop  of  St.  David's.  But 
Scudamore  was  a  man  of  talent ;  he  had  travelled  much ; 
and  he  was  so  assiduous  a  collector  and  reader  of  books  that 
Laud  had  to  give  him  the  advice  "not  to  book  it  too  hard." 


750  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Living  usually  on  his  estates  in  Herefordshire,  he  had  occu 
pied  himself  much  with  husbandry,  and  had  obtained  a 
celebrity  all  over  the  cider  country  as  the  first  to  introduce, 
among  other  improvements  in  cider-making,  the  cultivation 
of  the  "red-streak  apple"  as  the  best  for  the  purpose. 
Philips,  in  his  poem  of  Cider,  calls  the  red- streak  apple 
"  the  Scudamorean  plant."  From  cider-growing  and  hus 
bandry,  however,  Scudamore  had  been  called,  apparently 
by  Laud's  influence,  to  assume  the  duties  of  British  Ambas 
sador  at  Paris.  He  delivered  his  credentials  in  1635;  and 
from  that  time  till  the  date  with  which  we  are  concerned  he 
had  resided  in  Paris,  sending  over  twice  or  thrice  every 
week  official  despatches,  in  plain  hand  or  in  cipher,  to  one 
or  other  of  the  English  Secretaries  of  State.  In  matters 
ecclesiastical  he  kept  up,  by  agreement,  a  separate  corre 
spondence  with  Laud.  It  had  hitherto  been  the  duty  of  all 
English  ambassadors  on  the  Continent  to  cultivate  friendly 
relations  with  Continental  Protestantism  of  whatever  de 
nomination,  and  the  English  ambassadors  in  France,  in 
particular,  had  always  paid  French  Protestantism  the  com 
pliment  of  attending  divine  service  in  the  church  of  Charen- 
ton,  near  Paris,  the  rendezvous  of  the  Parisian  Protestants. 
Laud,  to  whom  the  strongly  Calvinistic  and  Presbyterian 
character  of  French  Protestantism  rendered  it  odious,  and 
who  was  busy  at  home  in  uprooting  the  Dutch  and  Walloon 
congregations,  had  resolved  that  this  practice  should  cease ; 
and,  accordingly,  Lord  Scudamore  had  not  only  discontinued 
attendance  in  the  Protestant  church  at  Charenton,  and  set 
up  a  chapel  in  his  own  house,  with  "  candles  upon  the  com 
munion-table  "  and  other  Laudian  ornaments,  but  was  also 
"  careful  to  publish  upon  all  occasions,  by  himself  and  those 
"who  had  the  nearest  relation  to  him,  that  the  Church  of 
<(  England  looked  not  on  the  Huguenots  as  a  part  of  their 
"  communion."1 

i  These  particulars  concerning  Lord  State  of  the  Churches  of  Door,  Home- 

Scudamore  are  partly  from  Burke's  Ex-  Lacy,  #c.,  endowed  ly  the  Right  Hon. 

tinct  Baronetage  (1844),  and  from  Cla-  John   Lord     Viscount  Scudamore,   with 

rendon's  History  (p.  318)  :  but  chiefly  some  Memoirs  of  that  ancient  Family : 

from  a  curious  old  parochial  history —  ly    Matthew    Gibson,  ~M.A^  Rector  of 

"A    View  of  the  Ancient  and  Present  Door,  1727," — and  from  my  own  read- 


MILTON    IN    PARIS.  751 

It  was  useful,  however,  to  have  as  colleague  to  Lord 
Scudamore  a  man  whose  sympathies  leant  sufficiently  the 
other  way  to  secure  some  remaining  connexion  with  the 
French  Calvinists.  Such  a  man  was  Robert  Sidney,  Earl  of 
Leicester,  the  second  of  the  Sidneys  in  that  revived  Earldom. 
He  was  considerably  older  than  Lord  Scudamore,  and,  as 
his  superior  in  rank,  occupied  the  embassy-house  in  Paris, 
while  Scudamore  had  a  private  mansion.  He  had  been 
appointed  to  the  embassy  in  1636.  He  "was  a  man," 
according  to  Clarendon,  "  of  great  parts,  very  conversant  in 
"  books,  and  much  addicted  to  the  mathematics,  and,  though 
' '  he  had  been  a  soldier,  .  .  .  was  in  truth  rather  a  speculative 
"  than  a  practical  man "  ;  to  which  we  may  add,  on  the 
evidence  of  his  letters,  that  he  was  somewhat  blustering  and 
headstrong.  He  and  Lord  Scudamore  do  not  seem  to  have 
worked  together  with  perfect  harmony,  and  a  division  of 
their  labours  seems  to  have  been  arranged,  so  as  to  turn 
their  different  qualities  to  account.  Like  Lord  Scudamore, 
the  Earl  had  his  family  with  him,  consisting  of  his  countess, 
Dorothy,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  and 
some  sons  and  daughters.  His  third  son,  Algernon  Sidney, 
afterwards  so  famous,  was  now  in  his  seventeenth  year.1 

MILTON'S  TEANSIT  THROUGH  PARIS. 

Milton,  as  we  are  left  to  calculate,  arrived  in  Paris  late  in 
April  or  early  in  May  1638.2  Of  his  adventures,  with  his 
man-servant,  on  the  road  from  Calais  to  Paris,  or  of  his  first 
impressions  of  France  and  its  people  as  derived  from  that 
somewhat  dull  and  rusty  portion  of  the  French  territory,  no 
account  has  come  down  to  us.  Neither  has  he  left  us  any 
account  of  his  first  impressions  of  Paris  itself.  We  have  to 

ings  of  Scudamore's  correspondence  in  fixed ;   but  the  first   positive   date  in 

the  State  Paper  Office.  Milton's  journey  is  Sept.  10,  1638,  by 

1  Dugdale's  Baronage;    Clarendon's  which   time  he  had  reached  Florence. 
Hist.   (p.   370) ;  and  the  Earl's  corre-  The  five  intermediate  months  have  to 
spondence  in  the  State  Paper  Office.  be  portioned  out  inf erentially  in  stages, 

2  Our  starting-point  in  the  itinerary  according  to  certain  hints  furnished  by 
is  Sir  Henry  Wotton's  letter,  dated  at  Milton  in  his  succinct  account  of  his 
Eton,  April  13,  1638,  and  bearing  that  travels  in  the  Defensio  Secunda  (Works, 
Milton  was  then  about  to  setTDut.    A  VI.  287-289). 

few  other  points,  as  we  shall  see,  are 


752  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

imagine  his  wanderings  through  the  narrow  old  streets  about 
Notre  Dame,  his  ascents  to  high  towers  to  get  a  view  of  the 
city  all  at  once,  his  visits  in  detail  to  the  Louvre,  the  Hotel 
de  Ville,  the  new  Palace  of  the  Luxembourg,  the  Palais 
Royal,  and  all  the  rest.  The  only  incidents  of  his  transit 
through  Paris  which  he  has  thought  fit  to  record  are  of  a 
special  nature.  After  mentioning  Sir  Henry  Wotton's 
"  elegant  epistle "  of  useful  advices  and  maxims,  sent  to 
him  as  he  was  leaving  England,  he  goes  on  to  say  : — "  In- 
"  troduced  by  others,  I  was  most  courteously  received  at 
"  Paris  by  the  most  noble  Thomas  [miswritten  for  John] 
"  Scudamore,  Viscount  Sligo,  ambassador  of  King  Charles, 
"  and  was  introduced  by  him,  in  his  own  name,  and  under 
"  the  charge  of  one  and  another  of  his  people  sent  to  conduct 
' '  me,  to  that  most  learned  man  Hugo  Grotij^s,  who  was  then 
"  Ambassador  from  the  Queen  of  Sweden  to  the  French 
"King,  and  whom  I  was  desirous  to  visit."1  The  reason 
why  Milton  refers  to  these  incidents  in  so  precise  a  manner 
is  that,  when  he  wrote  the  passage,  he  was  offering  proofs 
of  his  respectability. 

No  better  introduction  could  Milton  have  had  to  Grotius 
than  that  of  Lord  Scudamore.  Not  only  were  they  well 
acquainted  as  members  of  the  foreign  diplomatic  body  in 
Paris,  but,  at  this  very  time,  there  were  special  relations  of 
intimacy  between  them.  Grotius  was  then  much  occupied 
with  a  speculation  which  had  grown  up  in  his  mind  as  the 
result  of  his  peculiar  theological  position.  This  was  a  scheme 

1  Defensio  Secunda,  Works,  VI.  287.  find,  connexions  with  the  Seudamores. 

The  passage  corrects  a  mistake  of  some  Thus  a  "  Lady  Scudamore  "  (probably 

of  Milton's  biographers,  who  make  the  Lord  Scudamore's  mother)  is  one  of  the 

introduction  to  Lord  Scudamore  to  have  persons  mentioned   as  having  acted  a 

come  from  Sir  Henry  Wotton.     Wot-  part  with  the  Countess  of  Derby  and 

ton's  introduction  was  to  Mr.  Michael  others  of  her  family  in  the  dramatic 

Branthwait,  formerly  British  agent  at  entertainment   to  Queen  Elizabeth   at 

Venice,  and  then  in  Paris,  "  attending  Harefield    in    1602;   and    Henry   Bul- 

the  young  Lord  S.  [whoever  that  was]  strode,  of  Horton,  had  a  grand-aunt, 

as  his  governor  "  ;  and  the  higher  in-  originally  a  Bulstrode,  who  had  married 

troduction   to   Lord   Scudamore   came  a  Skydmore  (i.  e.  Scudamore),  and  was 

"  from  others."     Phillips  says  "  other  alive  in  Sept.  1612,  with  the  designation 

persons  of  quality."    I  have  an  impres-  of  "  old  Mrs.  Skydmore  of  Chilton  "  in 

sion  that  the  introduction  came  from  Bucks    (see    Sir     James    Whitlocke's 

the   Bridgewater  family  or  from  the  Liber  Famelicus,  edited  by  Mr.  Bruce, 

Bulstrodes.     Both   the  Egertons  and  p.  27). 
the  Bulstrodes,  at  all  events,  had,  I 


MILTON   IN  PARIS:    INTRODUCTION   TO   GROTIUS.  753 

for  a  union  of  all  the  Protestant  Churches,  except  the  Cal- 
vinistic  and  Presbyterian, — to  wit,  the  Swedish,  the  Danish, 
the  Norwegian,  and  the  English.  Oxenstiern,  it  seems,  was 
giving  some  attention  to  the  project  of  such  a  union,  of  which 
Grotius  was  by  no  means  the  only  advocate  or  inventor.  As 
ambassador  for  Sweden,  however,  and  a  man  of  European 
celebrity,  Grotius  was  a  fit  person  to  begin  overtures  on  the 
subject.  It  was  thought  good  that  he  should  address  the 
overtures  first  to  Laud.  For  greater  security  he  made  Lord 
Scudamore  the  medium  of  his  communications ;  and  there 
are  yet  extant  Lord  Scudamore' s  letters  to  Laud  explaining 
the  Grotian  scheme  and  what  became  of  it.  His  first  letter 
to  Laud  on  the  subject  is  of  date  Oct.  2,  1637.  He  there 
mentions  that  Grotius  has  been  with  him,  and  he  reports  the 
substance  of  what  had  passed.  The  Grotian  idea  was  that, 
if  the  English  and  Swedish  Churches  were  to  begin  a  union 
by  agreeing  to  certain  common  articles,  the  Danish  Church 
would  follow,  and  that  then,  if  there  were  once  a  Pope 
thoroughly  Spanish,  the  French  Catholics,  in  their  disgust, 
would  break  with  the  Papacy  and  take  to  an  Anglican 
model,  "  there  being  many  very  learned  Bishops  now  living 
"  that  singularly  approve  the  course  of  the  English  Church." 
Scudamore  is  content  with  reporting  the  words  of  Grotius, 
saying  nothing  himself  for  or  against,  but  adding — "  Cer- 
"  tainly,  my  Lord,  I  am  persuaded  that  he  doth  unfeignedly 
"  and  highly  love  and  reverence  your  person  and  proceed- 
"  ings :  body  and  soul,  he  professeth  himself  to  be  for  the 
"  Church  of  England,  and  gives  this  judgment  of  it,  that  it 
"  is  the  likeliest  to  last  of  any  Church  this  day  in  being." 
Notwithstanding  this,  Laud's  reception  of  the  project  was 
discouraging;  for,  in  a  subsequent  letter  of  Scudamore's, 
dated  Dec.  4,  1637,  he  speaks  thus  of  the  effect  on  Grotius 
of  passages  read  to  him  from  Laud's  letter  of  reply  : — "  To 
"  deal  clearly  with  your  Grace,  methought  he  seemed  to  be 
"  surprised  and  quailed  much  in  his  hopes  by  the  reasons 
<(  your  letter  gives  of  your  doubtfulness  whether  it  will  come 
"  so  far  as  he,  out  of  his  wishes,  thought  it  might  when 
"  England  and  Sweden  will  have  given  the  example  to  other 

VOL.  I.  3C 


754  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  Beformed  Churches."  To  one  of  these  reasons,  Scudamoro 
says,  Grotius  did  attempt  a  rejoinder,  but  te  to  the  difficulties 
"  arising  in  regard  of  government  he  had  less  to  say ;  and 
"  the  truth  is,  methought  he  seemed  willing  to  have  struggled 
"  them  off,  but  broke  forth  in  these  words  : — ( Well,  yet  it 
"  '  is  a  contentment  to  be  and  to  live  and  die  in  the  wishes 
" '  of  so  great  a  good  :  if  it  may  be  that  it  pleaseth  God  to 
" '  suffer  us  to  see  so  great  a  blessing  in  our  days,  our  joy 
" '  will  be  the  greater ;  but,  if  God  will  not  permit  it,  yet  it 
"'will  be  a  comfort  to  be  in  these  wishes.'"  The  matter 
recurs  in  subsequent  letters  of  Scudamore's,  but  the  specu 
lation  as  between  Grotius  and  Laud  was  virtually  at  an  end. 
From  these  letters,  however,  it  appears  that  Grotius  was 
anxious  to  secure  a  home  in  England,  if  he  should  quit  the 
Swedish  service.1 

According  to  Phillips,  Grotius  took  Milton's  visit  kindly, 
"  and  gave  him  entertainment  suitable  to  his  worth  and  the 
"high  commendations  he  had  heard  of  him."  Whether 
this  means  an  invitation  to  a  party  at  the  Swedish  Em 
bassy  must  be  left  to  conjecture.  At  all  events,  Milton 
had  seen  and  conversed  with  the  greatest  of  living  Dutch 
men. 

Milton's  stay  in  Paris  was  but  short.  "  Departing  after 
"  some  days  (pout  dies  aliquot)  towards  Italy,"  he  says, 
after  mentioning  Lord  Scudamore's  courtesy  and  kindness, 
"  I  had  letters  given  me  by  him  to  English  merchants  along 
"  my  proposed  route,  asking  them  to  be  of  use  to  me  by  any 
"  good  offices  in  their  power."  Wood,  without  giving  his 
authority,  says  that  he  "  soon  left  Paris,  the  manners  and 
genius  of  that  place  being  not  agreeable  to  his  mind." 
There  is  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  he  travelled  through 
France  at  some  leisure,  so  as  not  to  have  left  the  French 
territory  till  after  the  beginning  of  June.  The  following 
paragraphs  of  French  and  Parisian  gossip,  which  I  have 
culled  in  the  State  Paper  Office  from  the  despatches  sent 

1  The  letters  quoted  are  given  in  full       ginals  taken  by  Lord   Scudamore  and 
in  Gibson's  Parochial  History  of  Door.       preserved  in  his  family. 
Holme-Lacy,  &c.,  from   duplicate  ori- 


MILTON  IN  FRANCE:  CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  GOSSIP.   /  o5 

home  by  Lords  Scudamore  and  Leicester  for  the  months  of 
April,  May,  and  Jane  1638,  may  therefore  have  the  interest 
of  synchronism  with  Milton's  journey  through  France,  as 
well  as  of  novelty  in  themselves  : — 

First  mention  of  Louis  XIV.  in  History. — In  a  letter  dated  "  Paris, 
April  f-f,"  Lord  Scudamore  conveys  to  the  English  Ministry  the 
intelligence  that  there  is  now  no  doubt  that  the  French  Queen  is 
about  to  present  the  nation  with  a  royal  infant,  because  "  Madame 
Perome  the  midwife  affirms  that,  upon  Wednesday  last,"  she  became 
sure  of  the  fact  professionally.  As  the  marriage  of  the  king  and 
queen  had  been  childless  for  two-and-twenty  years,  this  was  import 
ant  news  both  for  France  and  England.  For  several  weeks  there 
were  visits  of  congratulation  to  the  Queen  by  the  ambassadors,  &c. 
She  was  then  at  St.  Germains  alone, — the  King  and  Cardinal  Richelieu 
having  left  for  the  camp  at  Compiegne  within  a  few  days  after  the 
public  announcement  of  the  event.  The  English  ambassadors,  wait 
ing  instructions  from  home,  were  among  the  last  to  offer  their  con 
gratulations  ;  and  it  is  not  till  May  y  that  Lord  Leicester  writes 
over  that  he  and  Lord  Scudamore  had  been  at  St.  Germains  and  per 
formed  that  duty.  "  I  exceeded  my  commission,"  he  says,  "  making  a 
"request  unto  the  Queen  that  the  child  which  she  carries  might  be  a 
''princess,  to  bring  as  much  happiness  to  our  hopeful  prince  [Charles 
"  II.,  then  eight  years  of  age]  as  it  hath  pleased  God  by  a  daughter  of 
"  France  to  bestow  upon  tiie  King  my  master  and  his  kingdoms  ;  but 
"she,  knowing  my  proposition  not  serious,  though  she  avowed  my 
"  reason  to  be  just,  answered  cheerfully  that  she  desired  the  King  of 
"Great  Britain  to  excuse  her  pour  cestefois  icy,  because  she  hoped  to 
"  have  a  son,  and  that  she  would  have  a  daughter  the  next  time  pour 
"  U  Prince  de  Galles."  A  son  it  proved  on  the  following  y  of  Sep 
tember,  when  Louis  XIV.  was  born.  Great  as  was  to  be  the  scale  of 
his  future  movements  in  the  world,  his  existence  for  the  present  was 
but  faintly  perceptible. 

The  tabouret  denied  to  Lady  Scudamore. — A  matter  which  figures 
much  in  the  letters  of  both  ambassadors  during  the  months  of  May 
and  June,  and  even  into  July  1638,  is  a  studied  slight  put  upon 
Lady  Scudamore  by  refusing  her  the  honour  of  the  tabouret, — i.  e. 
the  right  of  being  seated, — on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  of  ceremony  to 
the  French  Queen.  The  matter  is  first  mentioned  in  a  letter  of  Lord 
Scudamore's,  of  date  May  f|,  from  which  it  appears  that,  on  the 
preceding  Monday,  as  Lady  Scudamore  was  on  her  way  to  St.  Ger 
mains  to  congratulate  the  Queen  on  her  happy  condition,  she  was 
met,  a  league  from  the  town,  by  the  Count  de  Bruslon,  "  Conductor 
of  Ambassadors,"  who  "  said  he  came  purposely  to  meet  her,  and  to 
"  wish  her  to  go  no  farther,  for  they  would  refuse  her  the  tabouret, 
"in  regard  the  tabouret  is  given  in  England  to  Madame  de  Chev- 
"  reuse  and  refused  to  the  Ambassadrice  of  France."  Lord  Scuda 
more,  who  writes  as  quietly  about  the  affair  as  could  be  expected, 
thinks  it  of  the  more  importance  because  of  late  there  has  been  a 
disposition  at  the  French  Court  to  "  diminish  the  dignity "  of  am 
bassadors,  and  especially  of  those  of  England.  "  That  the  ambassadrice, 
"  who  is  d'une  qualite  plus  relevee  than  the  Duchesses  themselves, 
"should  then  stand, — she  only  of  England,  when  Madame  Grotius 
"and  other  ambassadrices  sit, — would  be  indeed  de  tres  manvaise 

3  c1  2 


756  LIFE    Or    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

"  grace.""  In  letter  after  letter  this  subject  recurs.  The  ambassa 
dors  receive  instructions  from  England  how  to  act ;  they  report  the 
results  ;  the  King  and  Richelieu  are  spoken  to ;  nay,  there  are  com 
munications  to  the  French  Queen  direct  from  Henrietta  Maria. 
"The  conflict,  I  believe,  will  be  sharp,"  writes  Leicester,  June  '-/, 
"  for  I  can  assure  you  they  are  much  animated  by  the  affront,  as 
"  they  understand  it,  of  giving  public  honours  to  a  subject  of  this 
"  king,  and  denying  them  to  his  ambassadrice  :  the  issue  is  doubt- 
"  ful,  the  consequences  uncertain,  and  .may  prove  of  much  greater  im 
portance  than  the  occasion  that  leads  them."  The  French  Court 
remaining  obstinate,  Lord  Scudamore  at  length  solves  the  difficulty 
in  the  only  possible  manner.  "The  business  of  the  tabouret,"  he 
writes  to  Windebank,  June  29 — July  9  [i.e.  "June  29,"  according 
to  the  English  or  old  style,  but  "  July  9,"  according  to  the  French 
or  new, — the  English  date  being  always  the  earlier],  "will  concern 
"  the  present  English  ambassadrice  not  very  long  ;  for  she  resolves, 
"about  six  weeks  hence,  to  return  to  England,  having  never  been 
"  right  in  her  health  since  her  coming  over."  A  contemporary  slight 
which  the  same  M.  de  Bruslon  offered  to  Scudamore  himself  in  his 
character  as  ambassador,  and  of  which  there  are  also  ample  details 
in  his  letters,  appears  to  have  convinced  him  that  there  was  a  desire 
on  the  part  of  the  French  Court  either  to  offend  the  English  Govern 
ment  through  him  or  to  get  rid  of  himself  personally  ;  and  at  length 
he  hints  that  his  own  recall,  to  follow  Lacly  Scudamore's  departure 
for  England  at  a  convenient  interval,  would  not  be  unwelcome. 

Threatened  Rapture  between  France  and  the  Papacy. — After  frequent 
allusions  in  previous  letters  to  the  differences  between  Richelieu  and 
the  Papal  Court  in  matters  relating  to  French  bishoprics  and  benefices, 
a  letter  of  Scudamore's  of  June  T88-  conveys  the  following  important 
intelligence:— "Upon  Tuesday  last  there  was  an  Order  of  Council 
"  with  the  King's  declaration  brought  to  the  Parlement,  prohibiting 
"  all  banquiers  to  send  any  money  to  Rome  for  benefices,  under  a  pain 
"  of  3,000  livres  ;  with  commandment  to  bring  their  registers  to  be 
"marked,  to  the  end  that  those  businesses  that  are  already  begun 
"  may  be  finished,  and  that  no  new  ones  may  be  set  on  foot, — the 
"  provisions  of  benefices  to  be  superseded  till  farther  order  be  given. 
"  To  obtain  which  Order  of  Council,  there  was  a  petition  in  the  names 
"  of  all  those  late  bishops  (which  are  about  twenty)  who  have  not  yet 
"been  able  to  obtain  their  bulls.  This  is  the  pretended  motive. 
"  Others  there  are,  as  is  said,  viz. :  because  the  Pope  will  not  admit 
"  Cardinal  Anthony  into  the  consistory  as  Protector  of  France,  being 
"  induced  to  revoke  his  promise  thereof  at  the  instance  of  the  Span- 
"ish  Ambassador;  the  refusal  of  the  cardinal's  hat  to  Pere  Joseph; 
"  that  they  at  Rome  endeavour  to  supplant  those  whom  the  King 
"  confers  benefices  upon,  and  to  substitute  others  in  their  places ; 
"that,  there  being  now  three  millions  ready  to  be  transported  to 
"Rome,  there  may  be  at  this  time  use  of  these  moneys  here, — 
"  it  being  this  King's  pleasure  that,  as  the  Cardinal  [Richelieu]  is  to 
"  dispose  of  all  Church-preferments  in  this  kingdom,  so  the  moneys 
"likewise  to  be  sent  to  Rome  for  benefices  should  be  ordered  by 
"him.  But  the  Parlement  hath  not  yet  verified  this  declaration. 
"  Upon  the  same  grounds  that  this  declaration  was  made,  there  was 
"an  assembly  of  the  Sorbonne  caused  to  meet  upon  Tuesday  last,  to 
"  deliberate  whether  a  Patriarch  may  not  be  made  in  France.  There 
"were  different  opinions  and  very  great  contestation  among  them. 
"  And,  besides,  for  above  a  year  since,  there  have  been  elected  Prieurs 


MILTON    IN    FRANCE  :    CONTEMPORARY    1RENCH    GOSSIP.       757 

"  in  convents  and  Bishops  made  on  purpose  to  sustain  this  cause.  Some 
"  think  that  Marshal  D'Estree  [the  French  ambassador  at  Rome]  is 
"by  this  time  come  away  from  Rome.  The  Pope's  nuncio  would  by 
"  no  means  believe  this  [about  the  decree]  when  it  was  first  told 
"him  ;  but,  since,  storms  mightily,  and  labours  all  he  can  to  hinder 
"  that  the  Order  of  Council  be  verified."  Enclosed  in  a  letter,  a  few 
days  after,  is  a  copy  of  the  famous  decree  in  the  original  French, 
dated  "  St.  Germain  en  Laye,  le  14  June,  1638,"  and  signed  "  Bou- 
thillier."  The  document  is  very  emphatic,  and  speaks  of  the  recent 
treatment  of  France  by  the  Papal  Court  as  contrary  to  the  Concor 
dats  fixing  the  relations  of  France  to  the  Papacy.  The  following, 
from  a  letter  of  Scudamore's,  of  date  £•*-  June,  shows  how  the  crisis 
terminated  : — "  The  arrest  of  Council  touching  the  affairs  of  Rome  is 
"  suspended,  the  Nuncio  having  promised  satisfaction  from  the  Pope 
"  within  six  weeks  or  two  months.  It  is  said  that,  the  bishops  meet- 
"  ing  together  a  few  days  since,  upon  this  occasion,  at  the  Cardinal 


"  terms  exhorted  the  rest  of  the  company  to  remain  firm  in  the  unity 
"  of  the  Church  ;  and  that  he,  for  his  part,  would  be  the  first  to  shed 
"  his  blood  for  the  defence  of  this  truth  which  they  had  signed  unto  ; 
"and  that  resolutely  they  ought  to  oppose  themselves  against  the 
"schism.  The  Cardinal  Rochefoucault  went  afterwards  to  Cardinal 
"  Richelieu,  and  told  him  their  and  his  own  opinion,  and  spake  very 
"boldly  unto  him,  as  being  a  man  of  great  probity,  and  of  whom 
"  Cardinal  Richelieu  believes  very  well.  So  that  it  is  conceived  that 
"  the  arrest  hath  not  been  so  much  suspended  for  the  instances  made 
"  by  the  Nuncio  as  by  the  bruits  and  murmurings  of  the  people 
"throughout  Paris.  Howsoever,  peradventure  this  that  hath  been 
"  done  will,  upon  the  election  of  another  Pope,  preserve  France  to  be 
"in  some  degree  considerable  and  regarded." 

Sir  Kenelm  Digby  making  mischief. — A  Catholic  convert  since 
1635,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  was  residing  in  Paris,  characteristically  loud 
and  braggart  in  all  he  did.  He  was  on  friendly  terms  with  Lord 
Scudampre,  through  whom,  indeed,  Laud  had  made  the  first  com 
munications  to  him  after  hearing  of  his  defection  to  the  Romish 
communion ;  and  he  and  the  Earl  of  Leicester  were  also  in  the  habit 
of  meeting,  but  with  ill  disguised  mutual  antipathy.  Whether  from 
personal  dislike  to  Sir  Kenelm,  or  from  conscientious  motives  in  the 
discharge  of  his  duty  as  ambassador,  the  Earl  had  sent  over  to 
England,  to  be  presented  to  his  Majesty,  certain  charges  against 
Sir  Kenelm's  behaviour  in  the  French  capital.  The  charges  are : — 
"(l.)_That  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  is  very  busy  in  seducing  the  King's 
"  subjects  in  these  parts  from  the  Church  of  England,  and  that  he 
"brings  them  to  that  end  to  Friars  and  Jesuits.  (2.)  That  he  takes 
"  to  himself  the  conversion  of  the  Lady  Purbeck.  (3.)  That  he  holds 
"  great  intelligence  with  the  Jesuits,  and  magnifies  everywhere  this 
"Roman  persuasion  to  the  prejudice  of  our  Church.  (4.)  That  he 
"hath  caused  the  making  and  printing  of  a  Catechism  in  English. 
"  [This  is  probably  his  Conference  with  a  Lady  on  the  Choice  of  a  Reli- 
"  gio:i,  printed  at  Paris,  1638.]  (5.)  That  lie  is  ever  falling  upon 
"discourses  of  Religion;  that  he  hath  lately  sent  into  England  a 
"  coffer  of  Popish  Books  ;  and  that  he  hath  been  very  bold  in  re- 
"  peating  some  speeches  that  he  saith  his  Majesty  uttered  concerning 
"his  opinion  of  the  true  and  real  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Sacrament. 


758  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

"  (6.)  That  he  spared  this  repetition  in  no  company."  —  On  these 
charges,  of  which  Sir  Kenelm  was  duly  informed,  and  especially  on 
that  of  his  attributing  to  King  Charles  words  implying  his  belief  in 
the  Popish  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  there  ensues  a  long  cor 
respondence,  in  which  Laud  takes  part.  Sir  Kenelm  denies  the 
charges,  or  all  that  is  important  in  them,  and  calls  Leicester  a  Puritan ; 
Scudamore  seems  to  take  Sir  Kenelm's  part ;  Leicester  asserts  again 
that  the  charges  are  literally  true,  advances  confirmatory  evidence, 
more  than  hints  that  Sir  Kenelm's  word  is  of  little  value,  and  treats 
the  counter  accusation  of  Puritanism  as  quite  irrelevant.  "  Neither  is 
"  it  to  this  purpose  material,"  he  writes  to  Laud,  "  whether  I  be  Jew 
"  or  Gentile,  Mahometan  or  Calvinist ;  though  I  think  it  would 
"  trouble  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  to  find  out,  by  anything  he  hath  ever 
"  heard  me  say,  why  I  am  not  all  as  well  as  any  one  of  them.  So, 
"likewise,  whether  he  be  Papist,  Deist  (as  they  call  him  here),  or 
"  Atheist,  it  is  nothing  to  me  more  than  in  Christian  charity." 

Sir  Kenelm  tiifjby  making  more  mischief.  —  Contemporaneous 
with  the  affair  of  the  last  paragraph  was  another,  which  I  digest  from 
the  letters  of  the  ambassadors  as  follows: — In  the  course  of  the  spring 
there  had  come  over  to  Paris,  "with  Mr.  Charles  Cavendish,  to 
accompany  him  in  his  travels,"  "  a  Scotch  gentleman "  named  Bris 
bane.  A  fellow-countryman  of  his,  Mr.  Buchanan,  who  resides  in 
London  sends  letters  after  him  giving  him  the  home  news ;  and  these 
letters  are  shown,  or  their  contents  communicated,  by  Brisbane  to  other 
Scots  in  Paris, — a  "  Mr.  William  Oliver,  gent.,"  "  a  Mr.  Annan,  Exempt 
des  Gardes?  &c.  Suddenly  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  goes  to  Lord  Scucfa- 
inore,  with  a  story  that  letters  are  being  shown  about  among  the  Scots 
in  Paris  to  the  effect  that  30,000  men  are  up  in  arms  in  Scotland,  and 
that  25,000  men  in  England  are  ready  to  join  them.  When  traced 
out,  the  origin  of  the  story  is  found  to  be  that  Sir  Kenelm  and  a  M. 
du  Bosc,  being  together  at  Royaumond  on  the  ffth  of  April  last,  had 
there  heard  Abbe"  Chambers  (also  a  Scotchman,  and  chaplain  to 
Richelieu)  give  an  account,  half  jestingly,  of  his  having  been  sent  for 
mysteriously  to  a  tavern  to  receive  some  important  intelligence  from 
one  of  his  countrymen.  On  going,  somewhat  reluctantly,  to  the 
tavern,  he  had  been  met  "below  stairs"  by  Mr.  Annan,  who  told  him 
the  above  story  of  the  rising  of  the  Scotch.  Chambers,  as  he  said, 
had  laughed  the  matter  off,  and  declined  Annan's  invitation  to 
accompany  him  upstairs,  where  Mr.  Oliver,  who  had  seen  a  letter 
from  Scotland  giving  the  news,  was  ready  to  confirm  it.  To  arrive  at 
all  this  had  cost  Lord  Scudamore  and  the  Earl  of  Leicester  a  great 
deal  of  trouble,  including  examinations  of  Sir  Kenelm,  M.  du  Bosc, 
Mr.  Oliver,  and  Mr.  Brisbane  himself.  Brisbane's  examination  was 
before  Lord  Scudamore,  whose  summons  in  the  King's  name  he  had 
immediately  obeyed  ;  but  the  full  account  of  what  passed  is  from  a 
letter  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  dated  June  ££•  According  to  this 
letter,  Mr.  Brisbane  having  been  confronted  with  Sir  Kenelm  Digby 
as  his  accuser,  and  having  made  his  denial  to  Sir  Kenelm's  face,  Lord 
Scudamore  had  "  commanded  him  to  tell  no  creature  living  of  what 
had  passed."  To  this  Brisbane  will  not  absolutely  consent.  ; '  My 
"  *  Lord,'  said  Brisbane,  '  you  may  be  assured  that  I  will  not  be  for- 
'  ward  to  talk  of  this  matter,  but  I  purpose  to  acquaint  such  a  one 
'with  it  (naming  me).'  My  Lord  Scudamore  asked  him  why  he 
should  do  him  that  wrong ;  Brisbane  replied  : — '  My  Lord,  I  con- 
'  ceive  my  duty  obliges  me  unto  it ;  and  I  hope  you  will  not  think  it 
'a  wrong  unto  you,  if  I  make  him  acquainted  with  it  who  hath  the 


759 

" '  honour  to  be  the  King's  ambassador  as  well  as  you.'  '  Well,'  said 
"  my  Lord  Scudamore,  *  since  he  is  the  King's  ambassador,  you  may 
" '  tell  it  him.' "  Brisbane  forthwith  does  go  with  the  story  to  the 
Earl  of  Leicester  ;  who,  though  desirous,  as  he  says,  to  keep  out  of  an 
affair  in  which  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  was  concerned,  could  not  refuse  to 
take  it  up  at  this  point.  Accordingly,  Sir  Kenelm  is  summoned  to 
meet  Mr.  Brisbane  again  in  Leicester's  house.  Sir  Kenelm  comes, 
but  carries  himself  haughtily,  and  hints  that,  if  Mr.  Brisbane  is 
aggrieved,  he  may  follow  him  to  England,  whither  he  is  going  soon,  and 
there  have  satisfaction.  Beyond  this  he  declines  discussing  the  affair 
before  the  Earl  of  Leicester.  The  Earl  asks  if  he  does  so  in  conse 
quence  of  any  order  from  the  King  to  discuss  it  only  with  Lord 
Scudamore.  Sir  Kenelm  signifies  that  such  is  the  case  ;  whereupon 
the  Earl,  bowing  to  that  intimation  as  final,  administers  a  knock 
down  blow,  which  he  has  kept  in  reserve.  "  l  Well,  Sir  Kenelm,'  I 
"  said,  '  since  you  are  so  reserved  concerning  others,  give  me  leave  to 
"  'ask  you  a  question  which  concerns  yourself,  and  hath  some  resem- 
"  'blance  with  the  other  :  Did  you  never  say  to  anybody  in  this  town 
" '  that  the  Scots  were  up  in  arms,  that  my  Lord  Hume  and  others 
"'were  proclaimed  rebels,  and  that  the  King  was  raising  6,000  men 
"  '  for  the  present,  to  go  against  them,  as  it  was  thought,  in  person  V" 
Sir  Kenelm  denies  the  allegation  in  toto  ;  whereupon  the  Earl  re 
sumes,  " '  You  shall  know  my  author  :  it  is  Father  Talbot,  a  great  and 
'' ( familiar  acquaintance  of  yours  ;  who  told  me  that  you  had  said  this 
" '  to  him  in  your  chamber,  and  had  offered  to  show  him  the  letters 
"  *  which  lay  upon  your  table  wherein  you  had  lately  received  that 
"  '  advertisement.  When  you  see  Father  Talbot,  who,  they  say,  is  in 
"  '  England,  you  may  tell  him  what  I  have  said.' "  Apparently,  Leices 
ter's  continued  charges  against  Sir  Kenelm  were  not  very  favourably 
received  at  home  ;  for,  in  a  subsequent  letter,  dated  "  June  22 — July 
2,"  addressed  to  Laud,  he  signifies  that,  for  the  future,  unless  any 
thing  new  occurs,  Sir  Kenelm  shall  have  no  more  notice  from  him. 
In  the  same  letter  he  solicits  Laud's  patronage  for  a  book  against  the 
Papacy  by  "Mr.  Blondell,"  a  French  Protestant  minister,  highly 
recommended  by  Grotius. 

Coming  in  contact  with  the  beginnings  of  such  incidents 
and  matters  of  gossip  as  he  passed  through  Paris,  Milton 
continued  his  leisurely  journey  through  Southern  France 
towards  Italy.  His  route  was  most  probably  by  Lyons  and 
the  Rhone,  and  through  Provence.  Arrived  in  Provence, 
lie  did  not,  as  Sir  Henry  Wotton  had  advised,  take  ship 
from  Marseilles  to  Genoa,  but  entered  Italy  by  its  land- 
frontier  at  Nice. 

ITALY  AND  THE  ITALIANS  IN  1638. 

His  long-cherished  wish  was  now  gratified.  Now  at  last 
lie  stood  on  the  shore  of  the  great  Mediterranean,  over  one 
bay  of  which  lie  could  gaze  as  far  as  the  e}re  could  reach, 


760  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

while  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  and  straight  southwards 
far  beyond  the  extreme  horizon,  he  could  imagine  the  rest 
of  its  blue  expanse  fringed  irregularly  round  by  that  wide- 
extending  margin  of  coasts,  peninsulas,  and  promontories 
which,  with  the  numberless  islands  intervening,  had  formed, 
once  upon  a  time,  the  whole  regarded  world  of  mankind 
and  the  sole  theatre  of  remembered  human  action.  Not 
over  the  whole  of  this  renowned  margin  could  he  hope  then 
or  ever  to  range.  Not  over  its  Asiatic  portion,  far  to  the 
east,  over  whose  sacred  lands  still  lingered  the  glow  of 
primeval  history  and  legend ;  nor  over  the  opposite  African 
shore,  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  the  Egyptian,  the  Cartha 
ginian,  and  the  Libyan,  and  now  possessed  by  the  Moor; 
nor  over  its  westernmost  peninsula  of  Spain,  where  Europe 
and  Africa  met  at  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  the  Goth  and 
the  Moor  together  had  superseded  the  Romanized  Iberian. 
It  was  doubtful  even  whether  his  travels  would  include 
Greece.  Already,  however,  his  foot  was  within  the  precincts 
of  the  one  land  of  his  dreams,  which  had  mainly  solicited 
him  hither, — this  fair  and  classic  Italy,  round  which  the 
other  Mediterranean  regions  seemed  but  to  group  themselves, 
and  which  had  once,  under  the  Roman,  held  them  all  within 
the  grasp  of  its  empire,  and  again,  a  second  time,  been  the 
centre  of  an  organization  comprising  their  European  half 
and  more,  till  farther  and  less  genial  lands  had  learnt  to 
assert  their  right,  and  the  immemorial  link  was  burst  that 
had  bound  man  to  the  Mediterranean.  Over  this  fair  penin 
sula,  at  least,  he  was  now  to  wander  at  will.  The  "  soft 
wind  blowing  from  the  blue  heaven"  already  fanned  his 
cheek ;  and,  with  the  variation  of  the  hotter  sun  and  the 
more  fervid  air,  as  he  advanced  southwards  from  city  to  city 
along  the  peninsula's  length,  he  was  to  have  the  same  sight 
of  the  blue  Mediterranean  on  one  side,  and  of  the  plains 
and  terraces  extending  thence,  rich  with  corn  and  wine,  or 
faint  with  olive-groves,  or  picturesque  with  garden  and  villa, 
to  the  bounding  clefts  and  peaks  of  the  approaching  or  reced 
ing  Apennines.  Here  was  Italian  nature,  the  same  as  it  had 
ever  been, — the  physical  Italy  of  the  sensuous  poets,  with 


ITALY   AND   THE    ITALIANS    IN    1638.  761 

fancies  or  recollections  of  which  they  interwove  their  most 
passionate  dreams  and  their  lays  of  love  and  its  longings. 
But  in  Milton  the  sensuous  poet  was  merged  in  the  poet  of 
larger  cares ;  nor  did  the  poet  in  him  exclude  the  historian 
and  the  scholar.  The  Italy  of  his  expectations  was  more 
than  the  land  of  blue  skies  and  refreshing  breezes,  of  the 
citron  amid  its  foliage,  of  the  pale  grey  olives  on  the  hills, 
of  the  oxen  steaming  in  the  field,  of  the  glittering  fireflies 
and  shrill  cicalas,  and  the  green  lizards  scudding  among  the 
rocks.  Of  equal  or  of  greater  interest  to  him  were  the 
monuments  of  past  humanity  which  covered  this  beautiful 
land.  There  were  the  relics  of  Italy's  earlier  supremacy, 
when  Rome  was  mistress  of  the  world, — the  sites  of  ancient 
cities  marked  by  their  mounds  and  ruins,  the  remains  of 
villas  and  baths,  the  painted  sepulchral  vases,  and  the  statues 
and  fragments  of  statues  dug  out  of  the  preserving  earth 
and  arranged  for  view  in  galleries  and  museums.  Mingled 
with  these  were  the  fresher  relics  of  Italy's  second  and  so 
different  empire, — the  castles  and  convents  on  the  coasts 
and  among  the  Apennines,  the  mediaeval  palaces  and  churches, 
the  statues  and  paintings  of  the  grand  race  of  Italy's  recent 
artists,  the  libraries  in  which  the  learned  had  walked,  the 
streets  in  which  famous  poets  had  lived,  the  tombs  of  many 
of  those  illustrious  dead,  the  living  legends  of  their  acts  and 
the  floating  fame  of  their  memories.  Nor  was  the  actual 
Italy  of  the  present  without  claims  on  the  traveller,  besides 
those  of  its  rich  inheritance.  Moving  over  the  peninsula, 
one  could  at  least  hear  the  true  Italian  speech,  though, 
broken  into  its  different  dialects ;  one  could  mark,  whether 
amid  the  peasantry  or  in  the  crowds  in  city  squares,  the 
Italian  eyes  and  faces  and  the  flashing  Italian  character 
istics  ;  one  could  see  the  monks  and  the  religious  processions 
threading  their  way  everywhere  through  the  quick-witted 
and  sarcastic  population,  and  so  study  Catholicism  at  its 
centre.  Perchance,  too,  both  among  the  clergy  and  among 
the  laity,  there  might  be  men  individually  remarkable,  whom 
ifc  would  be  a  benefit  for  a  stranger  to  know  and  an  honour 
afterwards  to  remember. 


762  LIFE    OP  MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OP   HIS   TIME. 

In  this  last  particular,  as  Milton  well  knew,  the  prospect 
was  not  so  hopeful  as  it  would  have  been  a  generation  or  two 
earlier.  As  Italy  had  preceded  the  other  countries  of  modern 
Europe  in  the  career  of  arts  and  letters,  and  had  already 
exulted  in  her  series  of  great  classic  writers  and  of  great 
national  artists  in  times  when  other  countries  could  exhibit 
but  the  rudiments  of  any  corresponding  excellence,  so,  in 
the  very  age  when  those  other  countries  had  consciously 
started  forward  to  make  up  tkeir  distance,  Italy  had  visibly 
fallen  behind  and  begun  to  confess  her  exhaustion.  The 
name  Seicentisti,  by  which  the  Italians  themselves  designate 
collectively  all  the  writers  of  their  nation  belonging  to  the 
seventeenth  century,  is  with  them  a  term  of  low  regard,  of 
the  significance  of  which  it  is  difficult  for  Englishmen, 
recollecting  the  character  of  that  century  in  their  own 
history,  to  form  an  adequate  conception.  But,  if  the  level 
was  low  in  Italy  through  the  whole  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  there  was  perhaps  no  point  in  the  century  when  it 
was  lower  than  in  and  about  the  year  1638.  After  Tasso, 
the  last  of  the  great  ones  (1544-1595),  there  had  been  a  few 
poets  who,  though  reckoned  among  the  Seicentisti  by  the 
last  portions  of  their  lives,  and  because  they  contributed  by 
their  influence  to  the  increase  of  the  "  reo  gusto  "  which  was 
to  ruin  the  succeeding  Seicentisti,  were  yet  men  of  un 
doubted  genius.  Such  were  Chiabrera  (1552-1637),  Tassoni 
(1565-1635),  and  Marini  (1569-1625).  But  these  were  now 
gone ;  and  there  remained  over  Italy,  as  representatives  of 
poesy  and  the  "  belle  letters "  generally,  a  host  of  men  of 
smaller  magnitude.  Under  a  few  seniors  of  some  mark, 
such  as  the  poets  Bracciolini  and  Testi,  the  antiquarian 
Pellegrini,  and  the  historians  Strada  and  Bentivoglio,  all 
educated  young  Italy,  from  the  Alps  to  Sicily,  was  in  that 
peculiar  mental  state,  compounded  of  epidemic  enthusiasm 
for  the  literature  of  the  past  and  incessant  small  practice  of 
literature  on  their  own  account,  which  is  still  best  described 
by  the  Italian  word  dilettantismo.  In  prose  the  dilettantism 
had  taken  the  form  of  memoirs  of  the  old  poets,  comment 
aries  on  passages  of  their  works,  comparisons  between  them 


ITALY   AND   THE    ITALIANS   IN    1638  :   THE   ACADEMIES.     763 

and  the  ancients,  essays  on  questions  of  style  and  grammar 
raised  by  them,  and,  in  short,  of  that  species  of  historical 
and  critical  stock-taking  the  excess  of  which  at  any  time  in 
the  literature  of  a  nation  augurs  ill  for  the  continuance  of 
the  business.  In  verse  the  results  of  the  same  dilettantism 
were  daily  or  weekly  crops,  in  all  the  Italian  cities,  of  sonnets, 
canzoni,  panegyrics,  epigrams,  and  small  dramas,  conceived 
after  the  most  recent  models,  and  florid  with  those  conceits 
and  Asiatic  extravagances  of  metaphor  the  taste'  for  which 
had  been  diffused  by  the  poetry  of  Marini.1 

In  the  arts  the  decline  was  scarcely'less  manifest  than  in 
literature.  In  painting  there  were  still  some  considerable 
successors  of  the  great  race  of  older  masters.  There  were 
Guido  Reni,  Domenichino,  and  Guercino,  of  the  Bolognese 
school  of  the  Caracci ;  there  was  Turchi,  of  the  Venetian 
school ;  there  was  Pietro  da  Cortona,  of  the  Florentine ; 
and  there  were  Spagnoletto  and  Salvator  Rosa,  of  the 
Neapolitan.  With  the  exception  of  the  last,  these  painters 
were  well  advanced  in  years.  Most  of  them  were  living 
in  Naples  or  in  Rome ;  in  which  last  city  also  lived,  under 
the  patronage  of  Pope  Urban,  the  architect  Boromini,  and 
the  sculptors  Algardi  of  Bologna  and  Bernini  of  Naples. 
In  music  the  report  is  much  more  favourable.  More  espe 
cially  in  Venice  and  in  Naples  there  were  composers  of  no 
small  fame ;  and,  in  the  decay  of  the  drama  proper,  there 
were  already,  in  those  and  in  other  towns,  beginnings  of 
the  opera. 

In  nothing  was  the  peculiar  intellectual  condition  of  Italy 
in  and  about  the  year  1638  more  characteristically  repre 
sented  than  in  the  unusual  number  and  the  unusual  social 
influence  at  that  time  of  her  so-called  "Academies."  The 
Italian  Academies  (Accademie)  were  institutions  distinct  from 
the  universities  and  public  schools  established  from  of  old 
in  all  the  chief  cities,  and  also  from  the  great  museums  and 

1  Tirabosehi.  torn.  VIII. passim;  but,  reader  must  not  accept  the  account  in 

for  different  views  of  the  Seicentisti,  the  text  as  more  than  a  report  of  what 

see  also   Hallam   and   Sismondi.     My  good  authorities   say,  nor  credit    me 

own  knowledge  does  net  enable  me  to  with  much  personal  knowledge  of  the 

do  more  than  express  the  views  of  such  Seicentisti  who  are  named, 
authorities  as  fairly  as  I  can  ;  and  the 


764  LIFE   OF   MILTON   AND   HISTOEY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

libraries.  They  corresponded  more  to  what  are  now  called 
clubs,  or  to  our  literary  and  debating  societies.  They  took 
their  rise  in  the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  "  Platonic 
Academy  "  was  founded  in  Florence,  under  the  auspices  of 
Cosimo  de'  Medici,  for  the  purpose  of  reading  and  discuss 
ing  the  writings  of  Plato,  and  when  also  associations  were 
formed,  under  the  same  name  of  Academies,  in  Rome, 
Naples,  and  Venice,  that  the  learned  in  those  cities  might 
read  the  classic  authors  together,  compare  manuscripts,  and 
exchange  their  ideas  and  their  information.  These  original 
institutions  had  died  out  or  been  suppressed;  but,  the 
fashion  having  been  set,  they  were  succeeded,  in  the  six 
teenth  century,  by  many  institutions  of  the  same  kind,  in 
the  same  and  in  other  towns.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
so  many  fresh  academies  sprang  up  that  a  list  has  been 
drawn  up  of  more  than  500  Italian  academies,  known  to 
have  existed  before  the  year  1729.1  These  academies  dis 
tribute  themselves  among  no  fewer  than  133  separate  towns. 
Bologna,  which  stands  at  the  head  of  the  list,  counts  as 
many  as  70;  Rome,  which  comes  next,  is  credited  with  56 ; 
Venice  with  43 ;  Naples  with  29 ;  Florence  with  20 ;  and 
so  on,  down  to  small  towns  and  mere  villages,  counting  two 
or  three  each.  This  is  for  the  whole  period  between  1500 
and  1729;  but  the  fashion,  if  not  at  its  height  in  1638,  was 
then  approaching  its  height.  There  was  then  no  town  of 
any  consequence  which  had  not  its  three,  or  four,  or  five 
academies,  whether  recently  formed  or  of  old  standing. 
Some  were  mere  fraternities  of  young  men,  dubbing  them 
selves  collectively  by  some  fantastic  or  humorous  designa 
tion,  and  meeting  in  each  other's  rooms,  or  in  gardens,  to 
recite  Latin  and  Italian  poems,  read  essays,  debate  questions, 
and  while  away  the  time.  Others,  with  names  either  grave 
or  fantastic,  had,  by  length  of  time,  and  a  succession  of 
eminent  members,  become  public,  and,  in  a  sense,  national 
institutes,  holding  their  reunions  either  in  spacious  buildings 

1    An   «'  Index  Academiarum   Italiae  list  is  corrected  and  enlarged  by  Fab- 
omnium  "is  given  in  "  M.  Joannis  Jarkii  ricius,  in    his   "Conspectus    Thesauri 
Specimen  Historic  Academiarum  Eru-  Litterarii  Italise :  Hamburg!.  1749." 
Uitarum  Italian:    Lipsiye,   1729."     The 


ITALY   AND   THE    ITALIANS    IN    1638  I    THE   ACADEMIES.     765 

of  their  own,  or  in  the  mansions  of  princes,  cardinals,  and 
other  noble  persons.  The  most  illustrious  at  the  time  of 
which  we  write  were  these  : — in  Florence,  the  Accademia 
Fiorentina,  or  Florentine  Academy,  founded  in  1540,  and 
the  Accademia  della  Crusca  (Academy  of  the  Bran),  founded 
later  in  the  same  century  by  seceders  from  the  Florentine ; 
in  Rome,  the  three  Academies  of  the  Umoristi  or  Humorists, 
the  Ordinati  or  Moderates,  and  the  Lincei  or  Lynxes,  all 
founded  since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century ; 
and  in  Bologna  the  Academy  of  the  Gelati  or  Frozens,  which 
had  existed  since  1588.  With  the  exception  of  the  Linc-ei, 
who  devoted  themselves  chiefly  to  mathematical  and  physical 
researches,  all  these  academies  were,  in  the  main,  centres 
of  that  dilettantism  in  poetry  and  the  arts  which  had  over 
spread  Italy.  One  of  them,  the  Delia  Crusca,  had  recently 
distinguished  itself  by  the  publication  of  a  Dictionary  of 
the  Italian  Language,  the  design  of  which  was  to  fix  the 
language  authoritatively  for  all  time  to  come,  by  determin 
ing  what  words  were  classic  according  to  the  best  Tuscan 
usage.  The  first  edition  of  this  Vocabolario  degli  Accademici 
della  Crusca  had  been  published  in  1612.  A  second  appeared 
in  1623.1 

In  calling  themselves  "  The  Lynxes,"  the  mathematicians 
and  physical  philosophers  of  Italy  had  selected  a  happy 
symbol.  It  was  as  if  they  proclaimed  that  it  was  in  their 
constitution  still  to  see  when  it  might  be  dark  to  others, 
and  that  their  occupation  of  penetrating  the  recesses  of 
nature,  seizing  facts  that  eluded  the  common  search,  and 
holding  them  as  if  in  permanent  excruciation  within  the 
fangs  of  their  definite  relations  of  magnitude,  weight,  and 
number,  might  be  carried  on  when  poets  were  asleep,  meta 
physicians  jaded,  painters  poor  and  meretricious,  and  orators 
without  employment.  The  first  age  of  the  Seicentisti,  at  all 
events,  was  the  age  of  an  extraordinary  outburst  of  the 
scientific  genius  in  Italy.  It  was  in  this  age,  above  all, 

1  This  account  of  the  Italian  Acade-  i.  cap.  3  ;  and  from  sketches  in  Salvini's 
mies  is  from  Jarkius  and  Fabricius,  as  "  Fasti  Consolari  dell'  Accademia  Fio- 
above ;  from  Tiraboschi,  torn.  VIII.  lib.  rentiua :  Fire'uze,  1717." 


760  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

that,  eclipsing    the    series    of  his    Italian   predecessors   in 
geometry  and  physics,  there  had  arisen  the  great  Galileo. 

Born  in  Pisa  in  1564,  which  was  also  the  birth-year  of 
Shakespeare,  and  from  his  earliest  youth  a  poet,  a  scholar, 
and  a  musician,  Galileo  had  chosen  science  as  the  occupation 
of  his  life.  After  holding  for  eighteen  years  (1592-1610)  a 
professorship  in  the  University  of  Padua,  whither  the  fame 
of  his  lectures  in  mechanics  drew  students  from  all  parts,  he 
had  been  recalled  to  his  native  Tuscany,  to  live  there  through 
the  rest  of  his  life,  with  the  honorary  titles  of  Philosopher 
to  the  Grand  Duke,  Principal  Mathematician  for  the  Uni 
versity  of  Pisa,  &c.,  but  without  any  official  duties  except 
such  as  he  might  himself  undertake.  Living  usually  in 
Florence,  or  in  some  villa  in  its  neighbourhood,  he  had 
here,  with  telescopes  constructed  by  his  own  hands,  made 
or  confirmed  most  of  his  great  discoveries  in  astronomy  ; 
and  here  also  he  had  carried  on  those  geometrical  and 
mechanical  speculations  which  fill  out  the  rest  of  his  fame. 
From  the  publication  of  his  first  telescopic  revelations  in 
1610  it  had  been  apparent  that  his  views  included  the 
Copernican  heresy ;  and,  the  heresy  having  spread  by  his 
means  among  the  Lincei  of  Rome,  who  had  elected  him  a 
member,  he  had  incurred  in  1616  his  first  ecclesiastical 
censure,  and  the  condemnation  of  his  writings  by  the  In 
quisition.  From  that  date,  strong  in  the  favour  of  the 
Grand  Duke  Cosirno  II.  and  his  successor  Ferdinand,  and 
also  in  the  respect  of  pupils  and  admirers  all  over  Italy,  he 
had  continued  his  labours  and  speculations  till,  in  1632,  his 
famous  Dialogues  concerning  the  Ptolemaic  and  Copernican 
Systems  had  occasioned  his  second  summons  to  Rome,  and 
his  second  condemnation  and  temporary  imprisonment  there 
by  sentence  of  the  Inquisition.  Liberated  from  his  Roman 
prison,  he  had  returned  to  Tuscany  in  December  1633,  in 
the  seventieth  year  of  his  age,  still  under  certain  restrictions 
on  his  liberty  imposed  by  the  Holy  Office  ;  and  the  last  years 
of  his  life  were  spent  at  Arcetri,  a  sunny  vine-clad  slope,  a 
little  way  out  of  Florence  on  the  south  side,  where  they  still 


GALILEO    IN    HIS   OLD    AGE.  767 

point  out  an  old  tower  which  was  his  observatory.  Here, 
though 

"  Seven  years  a  prisoner  at  the  city-gate, 
Let  in  but  in  his  grave-clothes," 

he  lived  happily  enough.  Surrounded  by  a  knot  of  pupils 
who  believed  in  him  with  adoration,  and  tended  him  faith 
fully  to  the  last,  he  received  in  his  villa,  called  II  Gioiello 
or  The  Gem,  the  visits  of  courtesy  which  his  ducal  patrons 
continued  to  pay  to  him,  and  visits  also  from  all  the  learned 
of  Florence,  and  from  foreigners  of  rank  and  distinction, 
anxious  to  behold  his  living  face.  Here,  in  a  select  circle, 
when  graver  subjects  were  not  on  hand,  his  strong  old  face 
would  relax,  and  he  \vould  be  as  charming  as  a  child.  On 
such  occasions  he  would  recite  poems  of  his  own  when  they 
were  asked  for,  or  play  his  own  music,  or  descant  on  the 
Latin  and  Italian  poets,  and  especially  on  his  favourite 
Ariosto,  not  failing  to  produce  for  his  guests  some  of  the 
choice  kinds  of  wine  of  which  he  was  continually  receiving 
presents,  and  in  which,  as  in  all  other  matters  of  the  kind, 
his  taste  was  exquisitely  fastidious.  On  fine  evenings  he 
would  still  be  in  his  observatory,  using  his  telescope.  At 
last,  in  1637,  when  he  was  in  his  seventy-fourth  year,  blind 
ness  came  over  him,  and  the  eyes  that  had  so  long  scanned 
the  heavens  could  see  their  orbs  no  more.  Just  before 
Milton  arrived  in  Italy,  Galileo's  blindness  had  become 
total.1 

Galileo  was  but  the  glorious  centre  of  a  group  of  Italians, 
most  of  them  younger  than  himself,  and  most  of  them  directly 
or  indirectly  his  pupils,  who  were  cultivating  with  success 
the  mathematical  and  physical  sciences  in  the  different 
Italian  cities.  There  was  Cavalieri  the  Milanese;  there 
were  Baliani  and  Renieri  of  Genoa ;  there  were  Castelli  the 
Brescian  and  Borelli  the  Neapolitan.  Torricelli, — born  in, 
1608,  and  therefore  exactly  Milton's  coeval,  as  Galileo  was 

1  Life  of  Galileo,  by  his  pupil  Viviani,  Galileo    held    the  consulship  of    the 

written  iu  1654,  but  inserted  in  Salvini's  Florentine  Academy.— Roger's  Italy, 

Memoir   of  Galileo,  in  his   Fasti  Con-  with  the  author's  notes. 
solari,    under    the    year    1622,  wheu 


768  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

exactly  Shakespeare's, — was  already  known,  and  was  either 
now  residing  with  Galileo  at  Arcetri  or  was  shortly  about 
to  do  so.  Viviani,  who  was  to  boast  himself  Galileo's  latest 
pupil,  the  Benjamin  of  his  personal  school,  was  in  his  seven 
teenth  year;  Cassini  was  in  his  fourteenth;  Malpighi  in  his 
tenth. 

MILTON  IN  ITALY. 

Unusually  well  informed  respecting  the  geography,  the 
history,  and  the  entire  social  condition  of  Italy  beforehand, 
and  with  an  unusually  good  knowledge  of  Italian  to  carry 
him  through,  Milton  passed  southwards,  by  a  few  rapid 
stages,  to  reach  the  central  and  more  interesting  parts. 

From  Nice,  his  first  station,  the  coasting  packet  carried 
him  to  Genoa.  This  city,  the  superb  appearance  of  which 
from  the  sea  was  then,  as  now,  the  admiration  of  tourists, 
occupied  him  apparently  but  a  few  days.  He  may  have  had 
time,  however,  to  note  some  of  its  characteristics,  including 
"  the  proud  palaces  in  and  about,"  of  which,  says  Howell, 
"  there  are  200  within  two  miles  of  the  town,  and  not  one  of 
"  them  of  the  same  form  of  building."  From  Genoa  he  took 
packet  again  for  Leghorn,  also  a  trading  port,  and  with  none 
of  Genoa's  pretensions  to  beauty,  but  interesting  as  being 
the  rising  maritime  town  of  Tuscany,  and  the  access  to  the 
Tuscan  interior. 

Having  walked  along  the  mole  and  the  canals  of  Leghorn, 
and  visited  possibly  some  of  the  English  merchants,  and 
received  remittances  from  home,  Milton  made  his  first 
journey  inland.  It  was  to  Pisa,  about  fourteen  miles  distant 
from  Leghorn,  but  only  four  miles  from  the  coast.  In  this 
ancient  and  famous  city,  formerly  the  fierce  rival  of  Florence, 
and  great  in  the  wars  of  the  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines,  but 
since  1509  subject  to  Florence,  Milton  might  have  spent 
many  days  without  exhausting  its  sources  of  interest.  There 
were  the  bridges  over  the  Arno,  and  the  many  ancient 
streets ;  there  was  the  great  Duomo  or  Cathedral,  begun  in 
1068  and  finished  in  1118,  with  its  exterior  of  glowing 
marbles,  and  its  interior  cool  and  gorgeous  with  painted 


MILTON   IN   ITALY:    FLORENCE.  769 

windows,  granite  columns,  marble  pavement,  and  statues 
and  carvings;  there  was  the  Baptistery,  built  between  1152 
and  1160,  with  its  pulpit  by  Nicolo  Pisano  and  its  other 
gems  of  Pisan  art ;  there  was  the  renowned  Belfry  or 
Leaning  Tower,  from  the  top  of  which  the  traveller,  dizzied 
with  an  unusual  sensation,  might  have  a  view  of  the  wide 
country  round,  and  far  out  over  the  Tuscan  Sea ;  there  was 
the  Campo  Santo  or  Cemetery,  dating  from  the  thirteenth 
century,  with  its  tombs,  its  ancient  marbles,  and  its  frescoes, 
by  Giotto,  Orcagna,  and  Memmi ;  and  besides  these  there 
were  towers  and  churches,  older  and  newer,  each  with  its 
own  beauties  and  peculiar  associations.  Not  unvisited,  we 
may  be  sure,  whatever  else  was  unvisited,  was  the  ruined 
Torre  della  Fame  or  Tower  of  Hunger,  famous  for  the  deaths 
of  Ugolino  and  his  sons,  told  so  terribly  by  Dante.  As  a 
University  town,  and  as  the  birthplace  of  Galileo,  Pisa  had, 
of  course,  its  two  or  three  academies;  but  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Milton  remained  long  enough  to  form  any  acquaint 
ance  with  them  or  their  members.  He  had  but  taken  Pisa 
on  his  way  to  Florence,  forty-five  miles  farther  inland,  up 
the  course  of  the  Arno. 

In  Florence  Milton  "remained,"  as  he  tells  us,  "two 
months."1  As  we  are  left  to  calculate,  they  were  the 
months  of  August  and  September  1638.  He  was  certainly 
in  Florence,  as  we  shall  find,  till  the  16th  of  September. 

During  those  two  months,  the  city,  long  imagined,  becomes 
gradually  familiar  to  him.  Presenting  itself  to  him  at  first 
generally,  as  a  city  of  sober  and  massive  construction, 
walled  in  from  the  bright  country  around,  and  divided  into 
two  unequal  parts  by  the  Arno, — shallow  and  sluggish,  as 
he  now  sees  it,  but  often,  he  is  told,  rushing  swift  and  yellow 
with  the  loosened  waters  from  the  mountains, — it  is  not  long 
before,  by  his  walks  through  its  streets,  and  his  crossings 
and  recrossings  of  the  bridges,  it  has  arranged  itself  to  his 
conception  more  definitely.  In  the  centre,  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  river,  is  the  oldest  part  of  all,  a  mass  of  narrow 

i  Def .  Sec. ;  Works,  YI. 
VOL.    I.  3D 


770  LIFE    OP   MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

and  dense  streets  and  alleys,  within  which  the  ancient 
Florentines  had  been  penned  up  in  days  that  were  legendary 
even  to  Dante ;  and  round  this,  in  widening  circle  on  both 
sides  of  the  river,  and  gradually  more  and  more  open  to  the 
sky,  till  the  circuit  of  the  walls  is  reached,  is  the  Florence 
of  later  growth,  as  formed  in  the  strict  era  of  the  Republic, 
and  extended  and  adorned  by  the  series  of  the  Medici. 
Then,  in  each  part,  what  objects  for  daily  visit  !  There  is 
the  Duoino,  with  the  Campanile  and  the  Battisterio;  there 
are  the  churches  of  Santa  Croce,  San  Michele,  Santa  Maria 
Novella,  San  Lorenzo,  San  Marco,  and  many  more ;  there  is 
the  Palazzo  'Yecchio,  or  old  Palace  of  the  Republic ;  there 
are  the  Uffizii  or  public  offices  of  the  Medici ;  there  are  the 
Grand  Ducal  palace  and  gardens  of  the  Pitti,  on  the  southern 
side  of  the  river ;  there  are  the  Palazzo  Strozzi,  the  Palazzo 
Riccardi,  and  other  palaces  of  more  private  note.  If  even 
to  the  student  at  a  distance  these  names  represent,  by  the 
vague  visions  which  they  call  up,  the  richness  of  Italian  art, 
and  much  of  all  that  was  Italian  from  the  thirteenth  century 
to  the  seventeenth,  what  a  world  of  sensation  in  them  for 
one  actually  moving  and  lingering  amid  them  !  In  the  very 
edifices  themselves  there  rise  up,  phantoms  no  longer,  the 
series  of  the  Tuscan  architects,  from  Arnolfo  di  Lapo,  who 
planned  the  Duomo,  on  to  Brunelleschi,  who  all  but  refounded 
Florence,  and  so  to  Michel  Angelo,  as  the  last.  In  like 
manner,  out  of  the  bewildering  wealth  of  statues,  paintings, 
carvings,  and  bronzes,  filling  the  edifices  within,  or  set  up 
near  them  without,  there  emerge,  in  something  like  living 
succession,  the  figures  of  Cimabue,  Giotto,  Orcagna,  Dona- 
tello,  Ghiberti,  Masaccio,  Fra  Angelico,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi, 
Ghirlandaio,  Michel  Angelo  once  more,  Bandinelli,  and 
Cellini.  Nor  is  it  only  with  the  artists  of  Florence  that 
those  palaces,  churches,  and  monuments  preserve  associa 
tions.  Here,  in  the  Laurentian  Library,  are  the  collections 
of  manuscripts,  begun  by  the  princely  Medici  when  they  led 
in  the  Revival  of  Learning  in  Europe.  There,  in  the 
Baptistery,  one  may  see  where  Dante  broke  the  carved  font 
in  his  haste  to  save  the  drowning  child ;  here,  in  San  Marco, 


MILTON    IN    ITALY  :    FLORENCE.  771 

is  the  cell  of  Savonarola.  Santa  Croce  is  full  of  tombs,  and 
in  the  crypts  of  San  Lorenzo  lie  all  the  Medici.  The  streets 
themselves  have  their  antiquities  and  legends.  In  one  they 
show  the  house  of  Dante ;  in  another  that  of  Guicciardini, 
with  that  of  Machiavelli  nearly  opposite ;  in  another  that  of 
Amerigo  Vespucci;  in  another  the  Casa  Buonnaroti,  still 
possessed  by  the  family  of  the  artist.  Little  wonder  that, 
exploring  such  a  city  day  after  day,  the  stranger  from  the 
north  learns  to  love  it,  and  that,  as  the  place  grows  familiar 
to  him,  and  the  charm  of  the  climate  steals  over  him,  and 
his  habits  arrange  themselves  in  daily  order,  so  as  to  meet 
the  morning  sunrise,  and  avoid  the  mid-day  glare,  and  leave 
the  evenings  for  the  pure  moonlight  by  the  Arno,  the  mistier 
north  is  forgotten  and  he  longs  to  make  Florence  his  home. 
"Where  this  is  impossible,  there  will  at  least  be  the  customary 
excursion  to  some  height  beyond  the  walls,  whence  the  city 
and  its  surroundings  may  be  seen  in  admiring  farewell.  It 
may  be  to  the  Villa  di  Bellosguardo  on  one  side,  or  it  may 
be  along  the  lovely  winding  road  that  ascends  to  the  ancient 
Fiesole,  and  so  to  the  famous  summit  whence  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent  looked  down  on  dome,  and  tower,  and  vineyard, 
and  valley,  and  knew  it  all  his  own. 

But  the  living  society  of  a  place  counts  for  more  than  the 
antiquities  or  the  scenery ;  and  in  this  respect  also  the 
Florence  of  1638  seems  to  have  been  all  that  a  visitor  could 
desire.  The  Dutch  scholar  and  poet,  Nicolas  Heinsius, 
writing  to  a  Florentine  friend  in  1653,  and  acknowledging 
his  pleasant  recollections  of  two  visits  of  his  to  Italy,  the 
first  in  1646,  could  express  himself  thus: — "It  is  to  be 
"  confessed  that  by  none  of  the  Italian  cities  is  the  palm  of 
"  learning  and  genius  at  present  taken  from  yours,  although 
"  it  is  now  peopled  by  a  far  smaller  crowd  of  inhabitants 
"  than  formerly.  So  much  is  this  the  case,  indeed,  that  you 
"  seem  to  be  avenging  with  anxious  effort  the  signal  injury 
"  of  the  fates,  and  to  be  in  a  manner  triumphing  over  your 
"  privation  and  solitude.  The  more  the  number  of  your 
"  citizens  decreases  and  falls  off,  the  more  steadily  you 
"  struggle  through  your  losses  by  continued  productiveness 

3   D  2 


772  LIFE    OP  MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

"in  new  intellects;  so  that,  out  of  your  small  total  of  a 
"  population,  there  are  many  that  stand  forth  as  men  to  be 
{t  spoken  of  for  their  excellent  gifts  by  more  than  one 
"  generation  of  posterity.  But,  as  the  sciences  were  first 
"  established  through  Tuscany  under  the  immortal  auspices 
"  of  the  Medicean  name,  what  wonder  that,  under  the  same, 
"  they  are  now  extending  their  limits  and  domain  ?  In  the 
"  two  journeys  which  I  made  in  Italy,  much  taken  as  I  was 
"with  the  agreeableness  and  the  genius  of  the  country, 
"  there  was  no  district  of  it  to  the  investigation  of  which 
"  I  gave  more  time,  or  that  affected  me  with  more  pleasure, 
"  than  yours.  To  relate  what  goodwill  and  courtesy  I 
"  experienced  among  you  would  be  a  discourse  for  another 
"  place  than  this,  and  would  grow  to  something  huge  in 
te  dimensions ;  nor  can  the  kind  offices  done  to  me  by  every 
"  one  individually  be  here  commemorated  and  reckoned  up 
"in  order.  Not  as  a  stranger  lodging  among  you,  not  as  a 
"  foreigner,  did  you  regard  me.  Admitting  me  into  the 
"  sacred  and  innermost  recesses  of  both  your  great  Aca- 
"  demies  [the  Florentine  and  the  Delia  Crusca],  and  thus 
"bestowing  on  me,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  freedom  of  both, 
"  and  enrolling  me  also  in  another  most  glorious  list  by  en- 
"  riching  and  adorning  me  with  the  title  of  one  of  the  Apatisti 
ff  [a  third  Florentine  brotherhood,  to  be  spoken  of  pre- 
"sently],  you  not  only  gave  me  most  handsome  entertain-* 
t(  ment  there,  but  also,  as  often  as  I  chose  to  address  you, 
"received  my  trifling  dissertations  with  attentive  ears." 
Heinsius  then  goes  on  to  mention  by  name  the  Florentine 
friends  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  their  politeness  to 
him,  and  to  acknowledge  in  particular  the  kindness  of  his 
correspondent.1 

Exactly  as  Heinsius  was  received  in  his  first  visit  to 
Florence,  and  by  the  very  same  persons  whom  he  goes  on 
to  mention,  had  Milton  been  received  some  years  before. 

1  The  passage  in  the  text  is  trans-  the  tiny  volume  of  "  Nicolai  Heinsii 

lated  from  the  Epistola  Dedicatoria  to  Poemata"  published  at  Leyden,  1653. 

Carlo  Dati  of  Florence  prefixed  to  the  Nicolas   Heinsius,  the   son  of   Daniel, 

Third  Book  of  Elegies  forming  part  of  was  born  at  Leyden  in  16:20. 


MILTON    IN   ITALY  :    HIS    FLORENTINE    FRIENDS.  773 

Introduced  to  one  or  more  of  them,  or  sought  out  by  them 
in  his  lodgings,  he  has  been  in  the  middle  of  the  best  society 
in  Florence  almost  from  the  day  of  his  arrival.  "There 
"immediately  (statim),"  he  says,  "I  contracted  the  ac- 
"  quaintance  of  many  truly  noble  and  learned  men,  and  also 
"  assiduously  attended  their  private  academies, — which  are 
"an  institution  there  of  most  praiseworthy  effect,  both  for 
"  the  cultivation  of  polite  letters  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
"  friendships.  The  memory  of  you,  JACOPO  GADDI,  of  you, 
"  CARLO  DATI,  of  you,  FRESCOBALDT,  COLTELLINI,  BONMATTEI, 
"  CHIMENTELLI,  FRANCINI,  and  of  not  a  few  others,  delightful 
"  and  pleasant  as  it  still  is  to  me,  time  shall  never  jdestroy."1 
To  this  list  of  Milton's  Florentine  friends  may  be  added,  on 
the  authority  of  an  allusion  in  one  of  Milton's  letters,  and 
on  other  authority  besides,  the  name  of  ANTONIO  MALATESTI. 
It  may  make  the  group  more  interesting  if  we  collect  a  few 
particulars  respecting  each  of  the  eight  separately. 

JACOPO  GADDT,  whom  Milton  names  first,  was  a  Florentine 
of  patrician  family  and  of  good  fortune,  apparently  still 
under  forty  years  of  age  in  1638,  but  of  established  literary 
influence  in  his  native  city.  This  he  owed  partly  to  the 
reputation  obtained  by  some  publications  of  his  own, — • 
including  a  volume  of  Latin  Poemata,  published  in  1628, 
and  three  distinct  volumes  of  Elogia,  Adlocutiones,  short 
historical  essays,  occasional  poems,  &c.,  in  Latin  and  in 
Italian,  all  published  in  1636  and  1637,— but  chiefly,  it 
would  seem,  to  his  extreme  sociability,  and  his  generous 
habits  in  his  intercourse  with  men  of  letters.  He  had  a 
wide  circle  of  correspondents  out  of  Florence,  including 
several  eminent  cardinals  and  prelates;  and  in  Florence 
itself  he  knew  everybody  and  was  known  by  everybody. 
Besides  being  a  member  of  the  Florentine  Academy  and  of 
other  similar  associations,  he  was  the  centre  and  chief  of  a 
club  or  academy  of  his  own  founding,  called  the  Svogliati  or 
"Disgusted."  This  club,  which  seems  to  have  been  of  a 
somewhat  private  character,  held  its  meetings  in  Gaddi's 
house,  in  the  Piazza  Madonna,  where  there  was  a  good 
i  Def.  Sec.' ;  Works,  VI.  288. 


774  LIFE    OF     MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

library  and  a  picture-gallery.  It  included  all  the  best  wits 
in  Florence,  and  it  was  Gaddi's  habit  to  secure  for  its 
reunions  every  stranger  of  any  likelihood  that  was  staying  in 
the  town.  "His  courtesy  was  such/'  according  to  one 
authority,  ff  as  to  render  his  acquaintance  one  of  the  first 
"  objects  of  desire  to  foreigners  from  far  countries  passing 
"  through  Florence."  These  habits  he  was  to  keep  up  for 
many  years  beyond  our  present  date,  during  which  time  he 
was  to  increase  his  reputation  by  the  publication  of  new 
collections  of  poems  and  of  papers  of  literary  biography 
which  he  had  read  in  his  own  or  in  other  academies,  and 
also  by  a  work  of  greater  magnitude,  entitled  De  Scriptoribus 
non-ecclesiasticis,  Greeds,  Latinis,  Italicis,  printed  in  two 
folio  volumes  in  1648  and  1649.  Gaddi's  club  of  the 
Svogliati  seems  to  have  been  in  its  most  flourishing  con 
dition  in  and  about  1638. 1 

CARLO  DATI,  or,  more  fully,  CARLO  EUBERTO  DATI,  who 
comes  next  in  Milton's  list,  has  left  a  more  distinguished 
name  among  the  Seicentisti  than  is  now  reserved  for  Gaddi. 
His  "  Vite  de'  Pittori  Antiehi,"  or  "  Lives  of  the  Ancient 
Painters/'  published  in  1667,  is  included  to  this  day  in 
collective  editions  of  the  Italian  authors;  and  he  is  also 
remembered  as  the  editor  of  selections  from  previous  Tuscan 
prose  writers,  and  the  author  of  panegyrics  addressed  to 
Louis  XIV.  and  other  sovereigns,  and  of  several  mathe 
matical,  antiquarian,  and  philological  tracts.  In  his  case, 
too,  however,  the  amount  of  surviving  reputation  seems  by 
no  means  proportionate  to  the  place  he  held  while  alive. 
For  some  thirty  or  forty  years  before  his  death  in  1675 
there  was  not  a  more  popular  name  than  his  among  the 
Tuscans,  and  there  were  not  perhaps  many  Italian  names 
better  known  among  contemporary  French  and  German 
scholars.  He  was  a  leading  member  of  every  academy  in 
Florence.  In  that  of  the  Delia  Crusca,  where  he  was 

1    Tiraboschi  has  not    much   about  d'  Italia"  (Brescia,  1769),  vol.  II.  pp. 

Gaddi ;  and  the  particulars  in  the  text  2404-5,  from  RoJli's  Italian  Memoir  of 

are  derived  from  a  sketch  in  Negri's  Milton,  prefixed    to  a  translation  of 

"  Istoria    degli    Scrittori     Fiorentiui "  Paradise   Lost,  in   1735,  and    from   a 

(Ferrara,    1722),  from    an    incidental  glance  at  Gaddi's  own  works, 
notice     in      Mazzuchelli's     "Scrittori 


MILTON    IN   ITALY:    HIS   FLORENTINE    FRIENDS.  775 

secretary  from  1640  onwards,  he  was  known  by  the  adopted 
fancy-name  of  "  Smarrito  "  or  "  The  Bewildered  "  ;  in  the 
Florentine  he  held  for  many  years  the  honorary  post  of 
Greek  and  Humanity  Professor,  and  was  at  length,  in  1649, 
elected  to  the  annual  dignity  of  the  presidency  or  consul 
ship.  Latterly  he  had  a  pension  from  Louis  XIV.,  and  it 
was  believed  that,  had  he  chosen  to  quit  Florence,  he  might 
have  gone  to  Paris  on  his  own  terms.  All  this  by  way  of 
anticipation.  In  1638  he  was  only  in  his  nineteenth  year, 
having  been  born  Oct.  2,  1619.  He  was,  therefore,  one  of 
the  youngest  members  of  the  Delia  Crusca,  if  he  already 
belonged  to  it.  Either  there,  however,  or  in  other  more 
private  academies,  such  as  the  Svogliati,  he  was  astonishing 
his  seniors  by  his  premature  acquisitions  in  science,  and 
drawing  down  bursts  of  applause  by  his  eloquence.  In  this 
last  gift,  and  especially  in  Tuscan  eloquence,  he  had,  says 
one  authority,  even  in  his  youth,  "  no  rival " ;  and  to  the 
same  effect  is  the  epithet  applied  to  him  by  another  of  his 
friends,  who  calls  him  "  our  City's  pure  flower,  and  the 
marrow  of  Tuscan  oratory."  A  certain  enthusiasm  of  dis 
position  made  him  as  eager  as  Gaddi  to  cultivate  the 
acquaintance  of  strangers  who  arrived  in  Florence ;  and 
scarcely  was  any  such  stranger  settled  in  his  inn  or  his 
lodging  when  Dati's  bright  face  was  sure  to  burst  in  upon 
him  with  welcome  in  its  looks,  invitations  to  mutual  com 
municativeness,  and  offers  of  service.  While  catering  for 
the  Svogliati  and  his  friend  Gaddi,  he  had  a  house  of  his 
own,  where  he  received  visitors  on  his  own  account,  and 
which  became,  in  time,  "  the  resort  of  the  literati,  and  par 
ticularly  of  Ultramontane  scholars."  It  was  to  Dati  that 
Nicolas  Heinsius  addressed  in  1653  the  letter  from  which 
we  have  quoted,  testifying  his  pleasant  recollections  ofl 
Florentine  hospitality  in  1646  ;  and  in  that  letter  he  dis 
tinctly  thanks  Dati  for  having  been  the  means  of  his  intro-  j 
duction  to  the  elite  of  his  native  city.  Of  all  the  eight 
Florentines  named  by  Milton  none  seems  to  have  formed  a 
stronger  attachment  to  him  than  this  ardent  young  Italian, 
then  scarcely  out  of  his  boyhood.  Milton,  as  we  shall  find, 


776  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

carried  away,  like  Heinsius  afterwards,  an  unusually  strong 
affection  for  Dati.1 

The  fourth  name  in  Milton's  list  is  that  of  AGOSTINO 
COLTELLINI.  He  was  now  about  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
having  been  born  in  1613,  a  Florentine  of  Bolognese 
descent ;  he  had  studied  in  Florence,  and  afterwards  at 
tended  the  classes  of  law  with  high  reputation  at  Pisa ;  and 
he  was  now  settled  as  an  Advocate  in  Florence.  Being  of 
weak  health,  and  of  extremely  small  stature  (piccolissima 
statura),  he  had  given  up  the  public  and  more  laborious 
parts  of  his  profession ;  and  he  seems  to  have  been  in 
circumstances  to  be  independent  of  it.  Several  years  before 
our  present  date,  he  had  made  a  great  hit  in  life,  by  found 
ing  a  new  Academy  under  the  name  of  the  Apatisti,  or  "  The 
Indifferents."  The  academy  had  grown  out  of  meetings 
held  by  him  and  his  young  companions  in  his  lodgings  in 
the  Yia  dell'Oriuolo,  during  and  immediately  after  the 
Plague  of  1630-1,  for  the  purpose  of  mutual  assistance 
and  encouragement  in  their  studies.  These  conversazioni 
had  succeeded  so  well,  and  had  been  found  to  supply  certain 
peculiar  wants  so  much  better  than  the  two  old  academies, 
and  than  others  already  existing,  that  they  had  taken 
development,  in  or  about  1633,  into  a  society  of  virtuosi, 
which  again  had  divided  itself  into  a  so-called  "Uni 
versity,"  for  grave  scientific  studies,  and  a  so-called 
"  Academy,"  for  the  cultivation  of  Latin  and  Tuscan 
literature, — both  under  the  name  of  the  Apatisti,  and  with 
a  connecting  organization.  By  the  year  1638  the  Academy 
had  been  fully  established,  with  its  laws,  its  office-bearers, 
its  patrons  among  the  saints,  its  "protector"  among  the 
princes  of  the  grand-ducal  house,  its  device  for  a  seal,  and 
its  motto  from  Dante.  One  of  its  rules  (and  there  was  a 
similar  custom  in  most  of  the  Italian  academies)  was  that 

1  Salvini's     "  Fasti    Consolari    dell'  ever,  the  information  consists  chiefly 

AccademiaFiorentina  "(Florence,  1717),  of  extracts  from  Heinsius.     There  are 

sub  anno  1649 ;  Tiraboschi,  torn.  VIII.  many  scattered  references  to  Dati  in 

pp.  412-13 ;  Negri,  as  above,  pp.  116,  contemporary  letters,  verses,  &c.,  be- 

117  ;  and  Bibliotheca  Aprosiana  (Ham-  sides  memoirs  of  him. 
burg,  1734),  pp.  185-188,  where,  how- 


MILTON  IN  ITALY:  HIS  FLORENTINE  FKIENDS.          777 

every  member  should,  in  his  academic  connexions,  sink  his 
own  name  in   some   anagram  or   pseudonym.      Coltellini's 
Apatistic  name  was  the  somewhat  clumsy  one  of  "  Ostilio 
Contalgeiii."     Under  this  name,  as  an   alternative  for  his 
own,  he  was  to  live  fifty-five  years  beyond  our  present  date. 
He  died  in  1693,  at  the  age  of  eighty.    In  the  course  of  this 
long  life  he  was  to  attain  many  distinctions.     He  was  to  be 
a  member  of  the  Delia  Crusca ;  he  was  to  fill  no  fewer  than 
four  times,  between  1659  and  his  death,  the  presidency  or 
consulship  of  the  Florentine ;  and  he  was  to  publish  a  series 
of  petty  compositions   in  prose  and  in  verse,  the  titles  of 
which  make  a  considerable  list.      But  the  chief  distinction 
of  his  life,  and  that  into  which  most  of  the  others  in  reality 
resolved  themselves,  was  his  having  founded  the  Apatisti. 
Such  were  the  attractions  of  this  academy,  and  so  energetic 
was  Coltellini  in  its  behalf,  that  within  ten  or  twenty  years 
after  its  foundation  it  had  a  fame  among  the  Italian  acade 
mies  equal,  in  some  respects,  to  that  of  the  first  and  oldest, 
and  counted  among  its  members  not  only  all  the  eminent 
Florentines,  but  most  of  the  distinguished  literati  of  Italy, 
besides  cardinals,  Italian  princes  and  dukes,  many  foreign 
nobles  and  scholars,  and  at  least  one  pope.     We  have  seen 
in  what  terms  Heinsius  wrote  in  1653  of  his  recollections  of 
it  in  1646.     At  our  date  it  had  not  yet  attained  such  wide 
dimensions  ;  but  it  already  included  among  its  members  not 
only  Coltellini' s  original  companions,  but  also  many  of  the 
seniors  of  the  Florentine  and  the  Delia  Crusca,  and  probably 
also  of  the  Svogliati.     In  1638  (which  seems  to  have  been 
the  first  year  of  its  complete  organization)  the  President,  or 
Apatista  Eeggente,  was  not  Coltellini,  but  a  much  older  per 
sonage, — Benedetto  Fioretti,  alias  "Udeno  Nisielli"  (1579 
— 1642),   of   some  repute  yet   as   a  grammarian,   critic    of 
poetry,   and    theological  writer.      The  meetings,  however, 
were    still    held    in    Coltellini's    house,   and  Coltellini   was 
to    take    the  next   turn   in   the    presidency.      Young    Dati 
was    of    course    a    member ;    his    anagram    was    "  Currado 
Bartoletti."     Nay  more,  he  was  the  secretary  of  the  society 


778  LIFE    OF  MILTON   AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

under  Fioretti's  presidency,  and  so,  in  that  year,  the  very 
man  to  bring  strangers  to  the  society's  meetings.1 

One  of  the  senior  members  of  the  new  society  of  Apatisti, 
and  also  an  eminent  member  of  the  Florentine,  the  Delia 
Crusca,  and  the  Svogliati,  and  an  associate  of  other  acade 
mies  in  other  Italian  cities,  was  BENEDETTO  BONMATTEI,  or 
BUOMMATTEI,  born  in  Florence  in  1581,  and  now  accordingly 
in  his  fifty-eighth  year.  He  was  a  priest  by  profession,  and 
in  that  capacity  "  most  religious"  ;  but,  after  having  filled 
parochial  or  other  clerical  charges  in  Rome,  Venice,  and 
Padua,  he  had  returned  to  Tuscany,  where,  since  1626,  he 
had  held  a  succession  of  scholastic  and  professorial  posts. 
Among  his  titles  since  1632  were  those  of  Lettore  di  Lingua, 
Toscana  and  Lettore  del  Collegia  Ferdinando  in  Pisa,  both 
conferred  on  him  by  the  Grand  Duke  ;  but  about  the  year 
1638  Florence  seems  to  have  been  his  habitual  place  of  resid 
ence.  He  had  first  appeared  as  an  author  as  early  as  1609, 
when  he  published  an  oration  on  the  death  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Ferdinando  I.;  and  this  had  been  followed  by  a  few 
other  works, — one  or  two  of  them  on  sacerdotal  topics,  one 
of  them  a  commentary  on  parts  of  Dante,  and  two  of  them  on 
Tuscan  grammar.  Of  these  the  last  were  the  most  valued ; 
and,  with  the  reputation  of  being  perhaps  the  first  authority 
in  all  matters  relating  to  the  Tuscan  language,  Buommattei 
was  now  engaged  on  a  systematic  treatise  on  Tuscan 
grammar,  which  was  to  supersede  and  include  his  former 
works  on  the  subject.  The  treatise,  still  accounted  one  of 
standard  merit,  was  not  published  till  1643,  when  it  appeared 
in  Florence  under  the  title  Delia  Lingua  Toscana;  but 
already  his  friends  were  expecting  it,  and  were  urging  its 
progress.  Partly  on  the  faith  of  it,  partly  from  his  general 

1  Tiraboschi,  torn.  VIII.  p.  48  and  and  some  other  early  trifles,  in  prose 
p.  407  ;  Negri,  pp.  3-5 ;  Bibliotheca  and  verse,  from  Coltellini's  pen,  pub- 
Aprosiana,  pp.  6-17  and  p.  114 ;  Killi's  lished  in  two  separate  parts  at  Florence 
"Notizie  dell'  Accademia  Fiorentina"  in  1641  and  1652,  both  under  the  title 
(Florence,  1700),  pp.  364-5  ;  and  of  "  Endecasillabi,"  and  under  the 
Salviui's  "  Fasti  Consolari,"  under  four  author's  pseudonym  as  "  Ostilio  Con- 
separate  years— 1660,  1664,  1672,  and  talgeni,  Accademico  Apatista."  The 
another.  The  four  notices  in  Salvini  allusions  to  other  Apatisti  in  some  of  the 
amount  in  all  to  a  detailed  biography.  pieces  in  this  volume  have  furnished 
lu  the  British  Museum  Library  there  is  me  with  a  few  particulars. 
a  volume  containing  a  series  of  sonnets 


MILTON    IN    ITALY  :    HIS    FLORENTINE    FRIENDS.  779 

erudition  and  his  weight  in  discourse,  he  was  at  this  time 
a  chief  pillar  in  all  the  Florentine  academies.  In  that  of 
the  Svogliati  he  held  the  office  of  " censor";  in  that  of  the 
Apatisti,  where  his  anagram  was  "  Boemonte  Battidente," 
he  was  to  be  president  in  1640,  immediately  after  Fioretti 
and  Coltellini;  in  the  same  year,  1640,  he  was  to  be  elected 
secretary  of  the  Delia  Crusca,  his  pseudonym  as  a  member 
of  which  was  t(  Benduccio  Kiboboli " ;  and  in  1641  he  was 
to  be  "  censor  "  of  the  Florentine.  He  was  to  survive  till 
1647,  and  to  add  other  publications  to  his  Lingua  Toscana, 
none  of  which,  however,  are  so  well  remembered.1 

Respecting  VALERIO  CHIMENTELLI,  PIETRO  FRESCOBALDI, 
and  ANTONIO  FRANCINI,  our  information  is  more  scanty 
than  about  the  preceding  four.  CHIMENTELLI  was  a  priest, 
like  Buommattei.  He  is  heard  of  afterwards  chiefly  in  con 
nexion  with  Pisa,  where  he  was  Professor,  first  of  Greek, 
and  then  of  Eloquence  and  Politics.  Heiusius,  who  visited 
him  there  along  with  Dati,  speaks  of  him  as  a  man  "  omni 
litter atura  perpoliius."  He  was  of  very  infirm  health,  and, 
when  he  died  in  or  about  1670,  left  nothing  of  consequence 
in  print,  except  an  archaeological  work,  entitled  "  H armor 
Pisanuni."  At  the  time  of  Milton's  visit  he  seems  to  have 
been  a  young  man,  moving  in  the  Coltellini  and  Gaddi  and 
Dati  set,  and  a  member  of  the  junior  academies  to  which 
they  belonged.2  The  same  may  be  said  of  FRESCOBALDI,  of 
whom,  less  is  known.  He  was  of  an  old  family ;  was  one 
of  Coltellini' s  original  companions  before  the  Academy  of 
the  Apatisti  was  founded,  and  is  addressed  by  Coltellini,  in  a 
letter  of  date  1631,  as  "Patritio  solertissimo  et  studiosissimo 
adolescenti" ;  was  a  member  of  the  Apatistic  Academy,  with 
the  anagram  "  Bali  Scoprifode  " ;  and  is  honourably  men- 

1  Tiraboschi,    torn.    VIII.    p.    409 ;  Endecasillabi,  where  he  inscribes  (1652) 
Negri,  pp.  91,'  92  ;  Eilli,  pp.  319-330  ;  a  whimsical  piece,  entitled  «  Gyneroti- 
and  a  more  detailed  and  exact  memoir  comania  seu  Mulieromorodeliramento, 
in    Mazzuchelli,    "  Scrittori     d'ltalia,"  &c.,"  to  "  Sig.   Valerio    Chimentellio, 
vol.   II.   pp.   2404-5.      But  notices   of  polymathissimo  Professor  della  Greca 
Buommattei  are  numerous.  Liugua    nel    Pisano    Lyceo."    In    his 

2  Negri,    pp.    516-517 ;     Tiraboschi,  Marmor  Pisanum  (1666)    Chimentelli 
torn.  VIII.  p.  350  ;  Nicolas   Heinsius,  describes  himself  iii  the  title-page  as 
Epistola  Dedicatoria  to   3d    Book   of  4i  In    Pisano    Lyceo    Eloq.   et   Politic. 
Elegies  ;  and  Coltellini's  (Contalgeni's)  Professor." 


780  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

tioned  by  Heinsius  among  his  Florentine  friends  of  1646. l 
FKANCINI  also  was  of  ancient  Florentine  descent,  and  seem 
ingly  not  older  than  Coltellini  and  Frescobaldi.  In  the 
academies  his  reputation  was  chiefly  in  Italian  poetry.  He 
is  said  to  have  left  many  poems  in  manuscript ;  and  a  sonnet 
and  madrigal  of  his  were  printed  in  1638,  at  the  end  of  an 
oration  of  Coltellini s,  delivered  before  the  Apatisti  on  the 
death  of  a  hopeful  young  member  of  their  body,  named 
Raffaelle  Gherardi.2 

That  Milton  should  have  omitted  to  mention  ANTONIO 
MALATESTI  in  his  list  is  the  more  curious  because  at  the  time 
when  the  list  was  penned  Malatesti  was  in  considerable 
repute  as  a  poet.  In  virtue  of  his  Sfinge,  a  collection  of 
poetical  enigmas,  published  first  in  1641,  and  enlarged  and 
reprinted  before  the  author's  death  in  1672,  and  in  virtue 
also  of  his  I  Brindisi  de'  Gidopi,  and  other  poems,  chiefly 
Anacreontic,  Malatesti  has  even  now  a  place  among  the 
minor  Seicentisti.  These  had  not  been  published  when 
Milton  was  in  Italy ;  but  the  young  author  was  then  one  of 
the  most  sprightly  wits  of  Florence  (prontissimo  ingegno  e 
vtvdcissimo  spirito,  says  Negri), — circulating  his  poems  in 
manuscript,  delighting  the  Apatisti  and  other  academies 
with  his  talent  in  improvisation,  well  accomplished  in  mathe 
matics,  and  more  than  an  amateur  in  painting.  A  sonnet 
of  his  accompanied  Francini's  verses  in  the  obituary  volume 
on  the  youth  Gherardi.  Dati,  Coltellini,  and  Chimentelli 
were  his  intimate  friends;  and,  when  he  published  his 
"  Sfinge,"  each  of  them  contributed  something  by  way  of 
recommendation  of  the  volume, — Dati  a  letter  in  prose,  and 
Coltellini  and  Chimentelli  complimentary  verses.  Galileo, 
also,  though  there  was  probably  none  of  the  group  that  was 
not  well  known  to  him,  and  in  the  habit  of  visiting  him, 
seems  to  have  had  a  special  kindness  for  Malatesti.  It  is 
surmised  that  Malatesti  may  have  been  Galileo's  pupil  in 
astronomy ;  and,  at  all  events,  the  philosopher  did  him  the 
honour  not  only  to  glance  over  the  first  part  of  his  "  Enigmas  " 

1  Huiusius  and  Coltelliui,  nl  fvpra,  2  Negri,  p.  60. 


MILTON    IN    ITALY:    HIS    FLORENTINE    FRIENDS.  781 

in  MS.,  but  also  to  write  a  sonnet  to  be  prefixed  to  the 
volume.  This  sonnet,  as  it  must  have  been  written  before 
1638,  Milton  may  have  seen  in  Galileo's  handwriting.1 

Carrying  off  Milton  and  his  man  almost  from  the  first  day  < 
of  their  arrival  in  Florence,  these  seven  or  eight  Florentines 
of  different  ages  vie  with  each  other  in  showing  them 
hospitality.  While  the  man  is  handed  over  to  his  brothers 
in  degree,  the  master  is  led  the  round  of  Florence,  petted 
everywhere,  and  lionized.  Finding  out  gradually  what  he 
is,  the  kindly  Florentines  talk  freely  in  his  presence,  and 
allow  him  to  talk  freely  in  turn.  On  the  one  hand,  he 
makes  no.  secret  of  his  own  religion,  when  that  matter  is 
broached;  and  they,  "  with  singular  politeness,"  as  he 
afterwards  acknowledges,  concede  him  full  liberty  of  speech 
on  that  delicate  subject.2  On  the  other,  they  do  not  conceal 
from  him  sentiments  which,  as  Italians,  they  all  shared,  but 
which  there  might  have  been  danger  in  expressing  to  an 
unknown  person.  "  I  could  recount,"  he  says,  when  depre 
cating  a  Censorship  of  the  Press  in  England  six  years  after 
wards,  "  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  in  other  countries, 
"  where  this  kind  of  inquisition  tyrannizes,  when  I  have 
"  sat  among  their  learned  men  (for  that  honour  I  had)  and 
"  been  counted  happy  to  be  born  in  such  a  place  of  philoso- 
"  phic  freedom  as  they  supposed  England  was,  while  them- 
"  selves  did  nothing  but  bemoan  the  servile  condition  into 
"  which  learning  amongst  them  was  brought, — that  this  was 
"  it  which  had  damped  the  glory  of  Italian  wits,  that  nothing 
"  had  been  there  written  now  these  many  years  but  flattery 
"and  fustian/'3  The  context  shows  that  it  was  chiefly  in 
Florence  that  he  heard  those  complaints. 

While  not  neglecting  the  Florentine  and  the  Delia  Crusca, 

i  Tiraboschi,    torn.    VIII.    p.    370;  and  Queries  (II.  146-7,  VIII.  237-8,  and 

Negri,  pp.  63,  64  ;  "  La  Sfinge  :  Enimmi  VIII.  295-6),  by  Mr.  S.  W.  Singer  and 

del  Sig.  Antonio  Malatesti :  3d  edit. :  Mr.  Bolton  Corney.     To  these  commu- 

Florence,  1683;"  Gamba's  "Serie  del  nicationsl  owetbereferencetoGamba's 

testi  di  lingua  e  di  altre  opere  impor-  work.      Mr.    Singer    quotes    Galileo's 

tanti  nella  Italiana  Letteratnra"  (4th  sonnet, 

edit.,  Venice,  1837) ;  but  chiefly  three  2  Epist.  Fam.  10. 

interesting   communications    to   Notes  *  Areopagitica :   Works,  IV.  428. 


LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

Milton  seems  to  have  spent  his  pleasantest  hours  among 
Gaddi's  Svogliati  and  Coltellini's  Apatisti.  They  would  not 
allow  him  to  be  merely  a  listener  ;  they  compelled  him  to  take 
part.  "  In  the  private  academies  of  Italy,"  he  says,  "  whither 
"  I  was  favoured  to  resort,  .  .  .  some  trifles  which  1  had  in 
"  memory,  composed  at  under  twenty  or  thereabout, — for 
"  the  manner  is  that  every  one  must  give  some  proof  of  his 
"  wit  and  reading  there, — met  with  acceptance  above  what 
"  was  looked  for,  and  other  things,  which  I  had  shifted,  in 
"  scarcity  of  books  and  conveniences,  to  patch  up  amongst 
"  them,  were  received  with  written  encomiums,  which  the 
"Italian  is  not  forward  to  bestow  on  men  of  this  side  the 
"  Alps."1  This  is  said  with  reference  to  his  Italian  tour  as 
a  whole ;  but  that  he  began  in  Florence,  and  chiefly  among 
the  Svogliati  and  Apatisti  there,  may  be  taken  for  granted. 
No  records  'of  the  Apatisti  are  known  to  be  extant  of  so 
early  a  date  as  the  time  of  Milton's  visit  to  Florence ;  but 
in  a  manuscript  in  the  Magliabecchian  Library  at  Florence 
one  may  still  read  the  minutes  of  the  weekly  meetings  of 
the  Svogliati  through  the  months  of  August  and  September 
1638.  Milton  is  not  mentioned  as  taking  part  till  the 
meeting  of  the  16th  of  September,  when  the  entry  in  the 
nnnutes  is  " I  Signori  Accademici  ragunati  in  numero  com- 
petente  :  furono  lette  alcune  composizioni  ;  e  particolarmente 
il  Giovanni  Miltone,  Inglese,  lesse  una  poesia  latino,  di  versi 
esametri  molto  erudita,"  i.  e.  "  The  gentlemen  of  the  Academy 
met  in  sufficient  number  :  there  were  read  some  compositions ; 
and,  in  particular,  Mr.  John  Milton,  Englishman,  read  a  very 
learned  piece  of  Latin  poetry  in  hexameter  verse." 2  If  this 
was  not  a  piece  "  patched  up  }J  for  the  occasion,  but  one  of 
the  old  pieces  he  had  in  memory,  I  should  guess  it  to  have 
been  his  poem  Naturam  non  pati  senium,  written  for  the 
Cambridge  Commencement  of  1628. 

Whatever  other  specimens  of  his  powers  in  any  of  the 
academies   were    presented   by  Milton  to   the    Florentine 

i  Reason   of    Church    Government  Professor  Stern's  Milton  und  Seine  Zeit 

(1641) :  Works.  III.  144.  (p.   449),   where    Dr.   B.   Mangold   of 

2  I  take  this  interesting  extract  from  Florence  is  named  as  having  communi- 

the  Appendix  to  the  Second  Book  of  cated  the  information. 


ENCOMIUM    FROM    FRANOINI.  783 

scholars,1  the  result  was  that  they  thought  him  a  prodigy. 
With  all  allowance  for  politeness  to  a  stranger,  and  for  the 
Italian  tendency  to  exaggerated  compliment,,  no  other  con 
clusion  can  be  formed  from  two  of  the  "  written  encomiums  " 
of  which  Milton  speaks,  both  furnished  him  while  he  was  in 
Florence.  The  one  is  an  Italian  ode  by  Francini ;  the  other 
is  a  Latin  prose-letter  by  young  Carlo  Dati.  Though  both 
very  extravagant,  both  are  worth  translating, — Francini's 
ode  in  such  forced  lyric  doggerel  as  may  more  closely 
represent  the  original,  matter  and  tune  together  : — 

ODE 

To  SIGNOR  GIOVANNI  MILTON, 
AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN. 

Up  with  me,  Clio,  through  the  air, 

Till  of  the  stars  a  coronet  I  twine  ! 

No  more  the  Greek  god  fair 

On  Pindus  or  Helicon  lias  leaves  enough  divine  : 

To  greater  merit  be  greater  honours  given, 

To  heavenly  worth  rewards  from  heaven. 

To  Time's  voracious  maw 

High  virtue  ever  cannot  remain  a  prey, 

Nor  can  Oblivion's  jaw 

Tear  from  the  memory  its  honoured  day. 

To  my  lyre's  bow  an  arrow  strong  and  sound 

Let  Virtue  fit,  and  Death  shall  bite  the  ground. 

All  in  the  ocean  deep 

Doth  England,  with  great  surges  girdled  round, 

Fit  isolation  keep, 

For  that  her  worth  exceeds  all  human  bound. 

This  land  bears  men  of  such  heroic  breed      / 

That  among  us  they  pass  for  gods  indeed. 

To  Virtue  in  exile 

Give  they  a  faithful  refuge  in  their  breast ; 

All  else  to  them  is  vile  ; 

Only  in  this  they  find  their  joy  and  zest. 

Repeat  it  thou,  Giovanni,  and  make  plain 

By  thy  true  virtue  how  true  is  my  strain. 

i  It  is  hardly  possible,  I  think,  that,  his  Fasti  Consolari  (1?17).     Whether 

if  there  had  been  auy  MSS.  of  Milton,  as  much  may  be  said  in  respect  to  the 

or    references    to    such,    among    the  remaining  chances  I  do  not  know ;  but, 

archives  of    the  Florentine    Academy,  as  Milton  seems  to  have  destroyed  little 

they  could  have   escaped  the   minute  of  what  he  wrote,  I  should  not  wonder 

researches  of   Rilli  (aided  by  Maglia-  if  we  have  now  among  his  works  every 

becchi)  for  his  Notizie  (1700),  or  the  scrap  of   what   he  "patched   up"  iix 

still  minuter  researches  of  Salvini  for  Italy. 


784  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF   HIS   TIME. 

Far  from  his  native  land 

The  artist's  burning  passion  Zenxis  drew, 

When  he  heard  the  rumour  grand 

Of  Helen,  which  Fame's  golden  trumpet  blew ; 

And,  to  depict  her  beauty  at  its  fairest, 

From  fairest  forms  he  culled  the  very  rarest. 

So  the  ingenious  bee 

Extracts  with  pains  the  honey  for  her  cells 

From  lily  or  from  pea, 

And  from  the  rose  and  all  the  meadow-bells ; 

So  diverse  chords  sweetly  combine  in  one, 

And  various  voices  make  a  unison. 

All  truest  glory  loving, 

Milton,  from  thine  own  clime,  through  various  parts, 

A  pilgrim  thou  earnest  roving, 

In  each  to  seek  out  sciences  and  arts. 

Kingly-great  Gaul  it  hath  been  thine  to  see, 

And  now  the  worthiest  wights  of  Italy. 

A  workman  nigh  divine, 

Virtue  alone  regarding,  hath  thy  thought 

Beheld  in  each  confine 

Whoso  still  treads  the  noble  path  he  ought, 

Then  of  the  best  selecting  yet  the  best, 

To  form  the  image  of  one  perfectest. 

Our  native  Florentines, 

Or  who  in  Florence  have  learnt  the  Tuscan  tongue, 

Whose  memory  still  shines 

Throughout  the  world,  eternalized  in  song, — 

These  thou  wouldst  master  for  thy  private  treasure, 

Making  their  converse  in  their  works  thy  pleasure. 

In  Babel's  proud-built  tower 
For  thee  in  vain  did  Jove  all  speech  confound, 
That  jargon-shattering  hour 
When  the  huge  ruin  mounded  the  flat  ground ; 
rj    For,  besides  English,  thou  canst  purely  speak 
Spanish,  French,  Tuscan,  Koman,  and  old  Greek. 

The  secrets  most  profound 

Which  Nature  holds  concealed  in  earth  and  heaven, 

Whose  darksome  depths  to  sound 

To  earthly  genius  it  is  hardly  given, 

Thou  knowest  clearly ;  and,  to  crown  the  whole, 

Of  moral  virtue  thou  hast  reached  the  goal. 

Beat  not  for  thee  Time's  wings  ! 

Let  him  stand  moveless ;  crushed  in  one  the  years 

Whose  rolling  sequence  brings 

Damage  too  much  to  what  man  most  reveres ; 

In  that  all  deeds  worthy  of  verse  or  story 

Thy  memory  clasps  in  simultaneous  glory. 

Give  me  thy  own  sweet  lyre, 

Wouldst  thou  I  spoke  of  thy  sweet  gift  of  song, 

By  which  thou  dost  aspire 

To  take  thy  place  in  the  celestial  throng. 


ENCOMIUM   FEOM    DATI.  785 

Thames  will  attest  this,  seeing  that  she  can 
Rival  Permessus,  having  thee  her  swan. 

I,  who,  by  Arno's  stream, 

Try  to  express  thy  merit  in  fit  ways, 

Know  that  I  mar  my  theme, 

And  humbly  learn  to  reverence,  not  to  praise  : 

My  tongue  I  then  refrain,  and  let  my  heart 

In  silent  wonder  do  her  better  part. 

From  Signer  ANTONIO  FRANCINI, 
Gentleman  of  Florence.1 

"  To  JOHN  MILTON  OF  LONDON, 

A  youth  illustrious  by  his  country  and  by  his    own    virtues  : 
A  man  who  by  his  travel   has  beheld  many,  and  by  his   study  all, 

E  laces  of  the  world,  so  that,  like  a  new  Ulysses,  he  might  everywhere 
jarn  all  things  from  all  people  :  A  Polyglott,  in  whose  mouth  tongues 
now  lost  so  live  afresh  that  all  idioms  are  poor  in  his  praises,  and  who 
fittingly  knows  them  to  such  perfection,  that  he  may  understand  the 
admiration  and  applauses  of  nations  which  his  own  wisdom  excites : 
One  whose  gifts  of  mind  and  graces  of  body  move  to  admiration,  and 
by  that  admiration  bereave  every  one  of  the  power  of  motion,  and 
whose  works  stimulate  to  applauses,  but  by  their  beauty  deprive  of 
voice  those  bent  on  praising  them  :  One  in  whose  memory  is  the  whole 
world ;  in  whose  intellect  wisdom ;  in  whose  will  the  ardent  quest  of 
glory ;  in  whose  mouth  eloquence  ;  who,  with  Astronomy  as  his 
guide,  hears  the  harmonious  sounds  of  the  celestial  spheres;2  who, 
with  Philosophy  as  master,  reads  those  marks  of  nature's  marvels  by 
which  the  greatness  of  God  is  expressed  ;  who,  with  assiduous  read 
ing  and  companionship  of  authors,  '  explores,  restores,  traverses  '  the 
secrets  of  antiquity,  the  ruins  of  age,  the  labyrinths  of  learning  (At  cur 
nitor  in  arduum  ?)  :  One  for  the  proclamation  of  whose  virtues  the 
mouths  of  Fame  would  not  suffice,  nor  is  the  amazement  of  men  in 
praising  them  enough, — 

In  token  of  reverence  and  love,  this  tribute  of  admiration  due  to 
his  merits  is  offered  by 

CARLO  DATI,  Patrician  of  Florence, 
Willingly  servant  to  such,  and  of  so  great  virtue  a  lover."3 

Besides  these  "  written  encomiums/'  preserved  by  Milton 
himself  and  afterwards  printed  by  him,4  there  is  authentic 

1  In  this  poem  of  Francini's  the  "  reo  this  extravagance   as  a  companion  to 
yusto"  as  the  Italians  call  it,  of  the  some  gift, — inscribed,  say,  on  the  blank 
"  stil  Marinesco,"  is  quite  discernible,  page   of  a   valuable   folio !      Such   an 
as  in  the  conceit  of  the  lyre  turned  into  epistle  alone,  from  so   young  a   man, 
a  bow  and  shooting  a  dart,  aud  gener-  even  if  on  vellum  and  in  gold  letters, 
ally  in  the  distorted  syntax  and  high-  would     hardly    have    justified     itself, 
flown  diction.  But  there  is  a  fine  truth  Moreover,  Milton  seems   to   allude  to 
of  feeling  in  it,  which  even  the  lyric  certain  gifts  from  his  Florentine  friends 
doggerel  of  the  attempted  translation  as  still  in  his  possession  after  his  return 
ought  to  have  preserved  in  some  degree.  to  England  (Epitaph  Damon,  line  135). 

2  Is  this  an  allusion  to  the  "De  Splia-          4  Prefixed  to  his  Latin  poems  in  the 
rarum  Concentu  "  ?  edition  of  his  minor  pieces  in  1645  ;  and 

3  Surely  the  enthusiastic  Dati  sent      reprinted  in  the  edition  of  1673. 
VOL.  I.  3  E 


786  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

record  of  another  testimonial,  of  a  peculiar  kind,  presented 
to  him  by  one  of  his  Florentine  admirers.  In  the  previous 
autumn,  it  seems,  Malatesti,  in  his  Villa  di  Taiano,  had 
amused  himself  with  writing  a  series  of  fifty  sonnets  to  a 
rustic  mistress,  real  or  imaginary,  whom  he  calls  by  the  pet 
name  of  Tina,  the  notion  being  that  each  of  the  sonnets 
should  contain,  under  its  apparent  meaning,  some  improper 
equivoque.  The  sonnets  had  perhaps  been  shown  about 
among*  his  laughing  Florentine  friends  before  Milton's 
arrival;  and  Malatesti,  either  less  capable  than  Francini 
and  Dati  of  perceiving  the  character  of  the  young  English 
man,  or  risking  a  joke  in  the  manner  of  a  compliment  meant 
to  be  real,  took  it  into  his  head  to  dedicate  the  series  to 
him.  Accordingly  Milton  received  a  manuscript  copy  of 
the  sonnets,  with  this  title  : — "  La  Tina  :  JSquivoti  Rusticali 
di  Antonio  Malatesti,  coposti  nella  sua  Villa  di  Taiano  il 
Settembre  dell  anno  1637  :  Sonetti  Cinquanta :  Dcdicati  alV 
Illmo  Siynore  et  Padrone  Ossmo  Signor  Giovanni  Milton, 
nobile  Inghlese."  This  manuscript  Milton  actually  took 
back  with  him  to  England.  It  must  have  lain  among  his 
papers  all  his  life, — turned  up  now  and  then  with  a  smile  of 
recognition  when  he  was  looking  for  something  else;  and  it 
was  not  till  eighty  years  after  his  death  that  accident 
brought  it  to  light,  and  the  sonnets  on  which  Malatesti  had 
bestowed  so  much  pains  were  recovered  for  the  curious.1 

1  The  story  of  Malatesti's  MS,  is  not  Warton  regrets  this,  as  the  MS.  would 
so  clear  and  coherent  as  might  be  have  been  a  greater  curiosity  in  Eng- 
wished ;  but  the  following  are  the  facts  land ;  but  in  vol.  I.  (p.  107)  of  the  Me- 
as  far  as  known : — About  the  middle  of  moirs  of  Mr.  Hollis,  published  in  1780, 
last  century,  Mr.  Brand  picked  up  the  it  is  distinctly  stated  that  he  sent  only 
original  MS.,  with  the  title  and  dedica-  "  a  copy."  Nothing  more  is  heard  in 
tion  as  in  the  text,  at  an  old  book-stall  England  of  the  MS.  or  the  copy  till 
in  London.  He  presented  the  MS.  to  the  publication  of  the  third  edition  of 
his  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Hollis,  who  Todd's  Life,  in  1826,  when,  to  the  slight 
valued  all  such  curiosities  extremely.  notice  of  the  matter  given  in  the  former 
Mr.  Hollis,  when  sendiug  to  the  Delia  edition  of  1809,  he  adds  (pp.  33,  34) 
Crusca  Academy  of  Florence,  in  Sep-  that  he  had  learnt  that  the  MS.  "  had 
tember  1758,  a  gift  of  a  copy  of  Milton's  found  its  way  back  to  this  country,  and 
Works,  and  of  Toland's  Life  of  Milton,  had  become  the  property  of  a  gentle- 
added  a  copy  of  the  MS.  of  Malatesti,  man  whose  books  were  not  long  since 
judging  that  a  work  of  the  Florentine  sold  by  Mr.  Evans,  of  Pall  Mall."  (The 
poet  the  existence  of  which  was  till  MS.  was,  I  suppose,  the  original,  which 
then  xmknown  would  be  interesting  to  had  never  left  England,  and  not  the 
the  literati  jof  that  city.  In  later  ver-  Florentine  MS.  mysteriously  brought 
sions  of  the  story,  it  is  assumed  that  back,  as  Todd  implies.)  This,  I  be- 
Mr.  Hollis  sent  the  original  MS.,  and  lieve,  is  all,  till  the  publication  of  a 


OTHER    FLORENTINE    CELEBRITIES. 


787 


Although,  from  the  special  mention  which  Milton  makes 
afterwards  of  Gaddi,  Dati,  Frescobaldi,  Coltellini,  Buommat- 
tei,  Chimentelli,  Francini,  and  Malatesti,  it  is  to  be  inferred 
that  those  eight  persons  were  his  chief  acquaintances  in 
Florence,  he  must  have  been  introduced  through  them  to 
many  others.  Among  the  most  notable  of  the  residents  in 
Florence  at  the  time  were  these : — Alessandro  Adimari 
(1579-1649),  minor  poet  and  translator  of  Pindar;  Lorenzo 
Lippi,  poet,  painter,  and  friend  of  Malatesti  (1606-1664); 
Michel  Angelo  Buonnaroti  the  younger,  nephew  of  the 
great  artist,  one  of  the  wealthiest  citizens,  a  munificent 
patron  of  art  and  letters,  and  himself  a  dramatic  author; 
Fioretti,  already  mentioned  as  first  president  of  the  Apatisti; 
and  Vincenzo  Capponi,  Filippo  Pandolfini,  and  Lorenzo 
Libri,  consuls  of  the  Florentine  successively  in  1638,  1639, 
and  1640.1  Coming  and  going  among  these  wits  and 
scholars  were  the  princes  of  the  ruling  house,  doing  their 
best,  by  courtesy  and  by  substantial  encouragement,  to 
maintain  the  reputation  acquired  by  Florence  under  the 
former  Medici. 


very  interesting  communication  from 
Mr.  S.  W.  Singer  in  Notes  and  Queries 
in  July  1850  (vol.  II.  146,  147).  Mr. 
Singer  had  seen  the  MS.  when  on  sale, 
and  had  copied  some  of  the  sonnets, 
and  he  there  gives  an  account  of  them, 
accompanied  by  one  or  two  specimens. 
His  description  of  them  is  that  they 
are  "  such  as  we  could  not  imagine 
'*  would  have  given  pleasure  to  the 
"  chaste  mind  of  Milton,  each  of  them 
"  containing,  as  the  title  indicates,  an 
"equivoque  which  would  bear  an  ob- 
"  scene  sense,  yet  very  ingeniously 
"  wrapped  up."  Three  years  after  Mr. 
Singer's  communication,  there  ap 
peared  in  the  same  periodical  (vol. 
VIII.  237,  238:  date  Sept.  10,  1853) 
another  on  the  same  subject,  from  Mr. 
Bolton  Corney,  containing  the  informa 
tion  that  Malatesti's  sonnets  had  actu 
ally  been  printed,  and  citing  as  his 
authority  the  Italian  bibliographer, 
Gamba,  in  the  fourth  edition  (Venice, 
1837)  of  whose  "  Serie  dei  Testi  di  Lin 
gua,  e  di  alt  re  opere  importanti  nella 
Italiana  Letteratura  "  the  Sonnets  are 
added  to  Malatesti's  previously  known 
writings,  with  this  title  : — "  Malatesti 


Antonio:  La  Tina:  Equivoci  Rusticali. 
(in  50  Sonettl)  :  Londra  :  Tommaso  Ed- 
lin,  1757,  in  8°."  This  title,  however, 
Gamba  informs  the  reader,  is  mislead 
ing,  as  the  book  bearing  it  had  really 
been  published,  not  in  London  in  1757, 
but  in  Venice,  as  a  bibliographical 
curiosity,  nearly  eighty  years  later  (i.  e. 
about  1837,  when  Gamba's  own  fourth 
edition  of  his  work  appeared).  There 
had  been  printed  fifty  copies  in  carta 
velina,  two  copies  on  large  English 
drawing  paper,  and  one  unique  copy  on 
vellum  ;  the  copy  which  served  for  the 
printer  having  been  one  in  MS.  which 
"  Signer  Brand  "  had  presented  in  1757 
to  Giovanni  Marsili.  of  the  University  of 
Padua,  then  on  a  visit  to  London.  The 
title  on  Marsili's  MS.  had  been  retained 
by  the  Venetian  editor, — i.  e.,  as  Mr. 
Bolton  Corney  shows,  by  Gamba  him 
self,  who  seems  to  have  had  a  fondness 
for  Malatesti.  There  is  a  third  com 
munication  on  the  subject  in  Notes  and 
Queries  (Sept.  24,  1853)  by  Mr.  Singer, 
containing  additional  particulars  about 
Malatesti. 

1  Tiraboschi,  torn.  VIII.,  and    Sal- 
vini,  Fasti  Consolari. 


788  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

While  many  of  the  meetings  of  Milton  with  Florentine 
celebrities  must  be  left  conjectural,  he  has  himself  recorded 
one,  the  most  interesting  of  all.  "  There  it  was,"  he  says, 
"  that  I  found  and  visited  the  famous  Galileo,  grown  old,  a 
"prisoner  to  the  Inquisition  for  thinking  in  Astronomy 
"  otherwise  than  the  Franciscan  and  Dominican  licensers 
"  thought.-"  l  The  words  imply  a  walk,  in  the  company  of 
Malatesti,  or  Gaddi,  or  Buommattei,  or  some  one  else  of 
the  Florentine  group,  to  Galileo' s  delightful  villa  at  Arcetri, 
just  beyond  the  walls  of  Florence,  an  introduction  to  the 
blind  sage  and  a  cordial  reception  by  him  according  to  his 
wont  in  such  cases,  a  stroll  perhaps,  under  the  guidance  of 
one  of  the  disciples  in  attendance,  to  the  adjacent  observ 
atory,  a  conversation  afterwards  with  the  assembled  little 
party  over  some  of  the  fine  wines  produced  in  welcome, 
and  all  the  while,  surely,  a  reverent  attention  by  the  visitor 
to  the  features  and  the  mien  of  Italy's  most  famous  son,  who 
could  judge  reciprocally  of  him  only  through  courteous  old 
mind  and  ear,  unable  to  return  his  visual  glance. 

"  Little  then 

Did  Galileo  think  whom  he  received, 
That  in  his  hand  he  held  the  hand  of  one 
Who  could  requite  him, — ' 

So  wrote  the  poet  Rogers,  naturally  enough,  of  this  famous 
meeting;  but  one  may  remember  it  rather  on  Milton's  own 
account.  Already  in  Milton's  writings  there  may  have  been 
observed  a  certain  fascination  of  the  fancy,  as  if  by  uncon- 
scious  presentiment,  on  the  subject  of  blindness.  How  in 
men  like  Homer  and  Tiresias  a  higher  and  more  prophetic 
vision  had  come  when  terrestrial  vision  was  denied,  and  the 
eyes  had  to  roll  in  a  less  bounded  world  within,  was  an  idea, 
I  think,  vivid  with  Milton  from  the  first,  and  cherished 
imaginatively  by  verbal  repetition.  And  now,  in  the  Italian 
Galileo,  frail  and  old,  he  had  seen  one  of  those  blind  illus 
trious  of  whom  he  had  so  often  dreamt,  and  of  whom  he 
was  to  be  himself  another.  The  sight  was  one  which  he 
could  never  forget.  Long  afterwards,  when  his  minor  recol- 

1  Areopagitica  (1644) :    Works,  IV.  428. 


789 

lections  of  Florence  and  Tuscany  had  grown  dim  in  the 
distance,  it  was  with  this  recollection  of  Galileo  that  he 
associated  whatever  remained.  Thus,  in  the  description  of 
Satan's  shield  in  the  first  Book  of  Paradise  Lost : — 

The  broad  circumference 

Hung  on  his  shoulders  like  the  moon,  whose  orb 
Through  optic  glass  the  Tuscan  artist  views 
At  evening,  from  the  top  of  Fesol6, 
Or  in  Valdarno,  to  descry  new  lands, 
Rivers,  or  mountains,  in  her  spotty  globe.1 

Florence  and  its  neighbourhood  come  in  here  but  as  acces 
sories  to  the  great  Galileo ;  but  in  what  follows  there  is  a 
wider  range  of  the  memory  over  the  scenery  so  recalled : — 

On  the  beach 

Of  that  inflamed  sea  he  stood,  and  called 
His  legions,  angel  forms,  who  lay  entranced, 
Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strow  the  brooks 
'In  Vallombrosa,  where  the  Etrurian  shades 
High  over-arched  embower. 

The  visit  to  Vallombrosa,,  the  Shady  Yale,  about  eighteen 
miles  from  Florence,  certified,  or  seeming  to  be  certified,  in 
this  often  quoted  passage,  is  sufficiently  interesting  in  itself. 
Among  all  Milton's  excursions  round  Florence  none  seems 
to  have  been  remembered  by  him  more  fondly ;  his  mention 
of  it  has  added  much  to  the  prior  poetical  celebrity  of  the 
spot ;  and  in  the  Convent  of  Vallombrosa  they  still  cherish, 
it  is  said,  the  legend  of  his  visit,  and  profess  even  to  show 
relics  in  authentication.2 

Among  the  actual  documents  relating  to  Milton's  stay  in 
Florence  the  following  letter  of  his  to  Buommattei,  on  the 
subject  of  the  treatise  on  Tuscan  grammar  then  in  prepara 
tion  by  that  Florentine  scholar,  will  come  appropriately  last. 
The  original  is  in  Latin  : — 

To  BENEDETTO  BONMATTEI  OF  FLORENCE. 

"  By  this  work  of  yours,  Benedetto  Bonmattei,  the  compilation  of 
new  institutes  of  your  native  tongue,  now  so  far  advanced  that  you 
are  about  to  give  it  the  finishing  touch,  you  are  entering  on  a  path  to 
renown  shared  with  you  by  some  intellects  of  the  highest  order,  and 

1  Paradise  Lost,  I.  287-291.     There  2  See  Wordsworth's  At  Vallombrosa 

is  another  mention  of  Galileo  in  the       (1837),  with  his  note  to  the  poem, 
poem,  V.  262. 


790  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

have  also,  as  I  see,  raised  a  hope  and  an  opinion  of  yourself  among 
your  fellow-citizens,  as  of  one  that  is  to  confer,  by  his  own  easy 
effort,  either  lucidity  or  richness,  or,  at  least,  polish  and  order,  on 
what  has  been  handed  down  by  others.  Under  what  extraordinary 
obligation  you  have  laid  your  countrymen  by  this,  they  must  be 
ungrateful  if  they  do  not  perceive.  For  whoever  in  a  state  knows 
1  how  to  form  wisely  the  manners  of  men  and  to  rule  them  at  home  and 
in  war  with  excellent  institutes,  him  in  the  first  place,  above  others,  I 
should  esteem  worthy  of  all  honour ;  but  next  to  him  the  man  who 
strives  to  establish  in  maxims  and  rules  the  method  and  habit  of 
speaking  and  writing  received  from  a  good  age  of  the  nation,  and,  as  it 
were,  to  fortify  the  same  round  with  a  kind  of  wall,  any  attempt  to 
overleap  which  ought  to  be  prevented  by  a  law  only  short  of  that  of 
Eomulus.  Should  we  compare  the  two  in  respect  of  utility,  it  is  the 
former  alone  that  can  make  the  social  existence  of  the  citizens  just 
and  holy,  but  it  is  the  latter  alone  that  can  make  it  splendid  and 
beautiful, — which  is  the  next  thing  to  be  wished.  The  one,  as  I 
believe,  supplies  a  noble  courage  and  intrepid  counsels  against  an 
enemy  invading  the  territory ;  the  other  takes  to  himself  the  task  of 
extirpating  and  defeating,  by  means  of  a  learned  detective  police  of 
ears  and  a  light  cavalry  of  good  authors,  that  barbarism  which  makes 
large  inroads  upon  the  minds  of  men,  and  is  a  destructive  intestine 
enemy  to  genius.  Nor  is  it  to  be  considered  of  small  consequence 
what  language,  pure  or  corrupt,  a  people  has,  or  what  is  their  custom 
ary  degree  of  propriety  in  speaking  it, — a  matter  which  oftener  than 
once  involved  the  salvation  of  Athens :  nay,  while  it  is  Plato's  opinion 
that  by  a  change  in  the  manner  and  habit  of  dressing  serious  com 
motions  and  mutations  are  portended  in  a  commonwealth,  I,  for  my 
part,  would  rather  believe  that  the  fall  of  that  city  and  its  low  and 
obscure  condition  were  consequent  on  the  general  vitiation  of  its 
•^  usage  in  the  matter  of  speech.  For,  let  the  words  of  a  country  be  in 
part  unhandsome  and  offensive  in  themselves,  in  part  debased  by  wear 
and  wrongly  uttered,  and  what  do  they  declare  but,  by  no  light  indi 
cation,  that  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  are  an  indolent,  idly-yawn 
ing  race,  with  minds  already  long  prepared  for  any  amount  of  servility] 
On  the  other  hand,  we  have  never  heard  that  any  empire,  any  state, 
did  not  flourish  moderately  at  least  as  long  as  liking  and  care  for  its 
own  language  lasted.  Therefore,  Benedetto,  if  only  you  proceed  to 
perform  vigorously  this  labour  of  yours  for  your  native  state,  behold 
clearly,  even  from  this,  what  a  fair  and  solid  affection  you  will  neces 
sarily  win  from  your  countrymen.  All  this  I  say,  not  because  I  sup 
pose  you  to  be  ignorant  of  any  of  it,  but  because  I  persuade  myself 
that  you  are  much  more  intent  on  the  consideration  of  what  you 
yourself  can  do  for  your  country  than  of  what  your  country  will,  by 
the  best  right,  owe  to  you.  I  will  now  speak  of  foreigners.  For 
obliging  them,  if  that  is  at  your  heart,  most  certainly  at  present  an 
ample  opportunity  is  offered, —since  what  one  is  there  among  them 


LETTER    TO   BUOMMATTEI.  791 

that,  happening  to  be  more  blooming  than  the  rest  in  genius  or  in 
pleasing  and  elegant  manners,  and  so  counting  the  Tuscan  tongue 
among  his  chief  delights,  does  not  also  consider  that  it  ought  to  have 
a  place  for  him  in  the  solid  part  of  his  literature,  especially  if  he  has 
imbibed  Greek  and  Latin  either  not  at  all  or  but  in  slight  tincture  1 
I,  certainly,  who  have  not  wet  merely  the  tips  of  my  lips  with  both<! 
those  tongues,  but  have,  as  much  as  any,  to  the  full  allowance  of  my 
years,  drained  their  deeper  draughts,  can  yet  sometimes  willingly  and 
eagerly  go  for  a  feast  to  that  Dante  of  yours,  and  to  Petrarch,  and  a 
good  few  more  ;  nor  has  Attic  Athens  herself,  with  her  pellucid  Ilissus, 
nor  that  old  Rome  with  her  bank  of  the  Tiber,  been  able  so  to  hold 
me  but  that  I  love  often  to  visit  your  Arno  and  these  hills  of  Faesule. 
See  now,  I  entreat,  whether  it  has  not  been  with  enough  of  providen 
tial  cause  that  /  have  been  given  to  you  for  these  few  days,  as  your 
latest  guest  from  the  ocean,  who  am  so  great  a  lover  of  your  nation 
that,  as  I  think,  there  is  no  other  more  so.  Wherefore  you  may,  with 
more  reason,  remember  what  I  am  wont  so  earnestly  to  request  of 
you,— to  wit,  that  to  your  work  already  begun,  and  in  greater  part 
finished,  you  would,  to  the  utmost  extent  that  the  case  will  permit, 
add  yet,  in  behalf  of  us  foreigners,  some  little  appendix  concerning! 
the  right  pronunciation  of  the  language.  For  with  other  authorities 
in  your  tongue  hitherto  the  intention  seems  to  have  been  to  satisfy 
only  their  own  countrymen,  without  care  for  us.  Although,  in  my 
opinion,  they  would  have  consulted  both  their  own  fame  and  the  glory 
of  the  Italian  tongue  much  more  certainly  had  they  so  delivered  their 
precepts  as  if  it  concerned  all  mankind  to  acquire  the  knowledge  of 
that  language,  yet,  in  so  far  as  has  depended  on  them,  you  might 
seem,  you  Italians,  to  regard  nothing  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
Alps.  This  praise,  therefore,  untasted  by  any  one  before,  will  be 
wholly  your  own,  and  keeps  itself  till  now  untouched  and  entire  for 
you  ;  nor  less  another  which  I  will  venture  to  mention.  Would  you 
consider  it  too  much  trouble  if  you  were  to  give  information  separately 
on  such  points  as  these  :— who,  in  such  a  crowd  of  writers,  can 
justly  claim  for  himself  the  second  place,  next  after  the  universally 
celebrated  authors  of  the  Florentine  tongue;  who  is  illustrious  in 
Tragedy;  who  happy  and  sprightly  in  Comedy;  who  smart  or 
weighty  in  Epistles  or  Dialogues;  who  noble  in  History?  By  this 
means  the  choice  of  the  best  in  each  kind  would  not  be  diffi 
cult  for  the  willing  student,  while,  whenever  it  might  please  him 
to  range  more  widely,  he  would  have  ground  on  which  to  step  in 
trepidly.  In  this  matter  you  will  have,  among  the  ancients,  Cicero 
and  Fabius  for  examples  ;  but  whether  any  of  your  own  men  I  know 
not. — Though  I  believe  I  have  already  (unless  my  memory  deceive  me) 
made  these  demands  of  you  every  time  we  have  fallen  on  the  matter 
in  talk, — such  is  your  politeness  and  kindly  disposition, — I  am  un 
willing  to  regard  that  as  any  reason  for  not  entreating  the  same  in 
set  phrase,  so  to  speak,  and  in  an  express  manner.  For  while  your 


792  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND   HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

own  worth  and  candour  would  assign  the  lowest  value  and  the  lowest 
estimation  to  your  own  labours,  my  wish  is  that  both  their  inherent 
dignity  and  my  individual  respect  should  set  the  just  and  exact  value 
upon  them ;  and  certainly  it  is  but  fair  everywhere  that,  the  more 
easily  one  admits  a  request,  the  less  defect  should  there  be  of  due 
honour  to  his  compliance. — For  the  rest,  should  you  perchance  wonder 
why,  on  such  a  subject,  I  use  the  Latin  tongue  rather  than  yours, 
please  to  understand  that  it  is  precisely  because  I  wish  to  have  this 
Italian  tongue  of  yours  cleared  up  for  me  in  precepts  by  yourself  that 
I  employ  Latin  openly  in  my  confession  of  poverty  and  want  of  skill. 
By  this  very  method  I  have  hoped  to  prevail  more  with  you, — not 
without  a  belief  at  the  same  time  that,  by  the  very  act  of  bringing 
with  me  that  hoary  and  venerable  mother  from  Latium  as  my  helper 
in  her  daughter's  cause,  I  should  make  sure  that  you  would  deny 
nothing  to  her  venerable  authority,  her  majesty  august  through  so 
many  ages.  Farewell. 

Florence,  Septemb.  10,  1638. 


Not  many  days  after  this  letter  was  written,  Milton,  having 
read  his  poem  among  the  Svogliati  on  the  16th,  left  Florence 
and  set  out  on  his  journey  farther  south.  Taking  what  was 
then  the  usual  way,  by  Siena, — where  he  may  have  stayed 
a  few  days,  and  thought  of  Sir  Henry  "Wotton's  friend, 
Alberto  Scipioni, — he  reached  Rome,  probably  about  the 
end  of  September  or  the  beginning  of  October,  when  the 
unhealthy  season  of  the  Campagna  was  fairly  over. 

At  Rome  he  remained,  he  says,  "  nearly  two  months  "  (ad 
him  estre  fere  spatium),  captivated  by  "the  antiquity  and 
ancient  renown  of  the  city."  In  other  words,  his  chief 
occupation,  through  October  and  part  of  November  1638, 
was  in  visiting  and  studying  "  the  antiquities  "  of  the  great 
capital.  It  was  the  usual  round  of  the  Pantheon  and  the 
Coliseum,  the  Capitol  and  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  the  baths, 
the  temples,  the  ancient  gates,  the  arches,  the  columns,  the 
aqueducts,  and  the  tombs  By  such  a  scholar  we  need  not 
doubt  that  the  labour  was  gone  through  steadily  and  system 
atically.  Before  he  quitted  the  city  the  Seven  Hills  must 
have  been  traced  out  by  him  as  distinctly  as  change  and 
ruin  would  permit,  and  old  Rome  must  have  been  reimagined 
on  them  with  tolerable  clearness  in  its  later  imperial  extent, 


MILTON    IN   ROME.  793 

when  the  space  of  the  monuments  was  wholly  covered,  and 
so  backward,  by  gradual  diminution,  through  the  less  monu 
mental  era  of  the  Republic  and  the  Consuls,  to  the  mythic 
reigns  of  the  Latino- Etruscan  kings.  Two  months  by  the 
Tiber,  varied  by  excursions  around,  would  enable  Milton  to 
carry  away  such  a  picture  of  ancient  Latium  as  would  serve 
to  illustrate  his  readings  in  Virgil,  Horace,  and  Livy,  to  the 
end  of  his  life. 

Though  the  Home  of  the  past  might  solicit  the  attention 
more  immediately,  the  shrunken  Rome  of  the  present  was 
not  without  its  features  of  interest.  St.  Peter's  was  then 
but  recently  completed  and  dedicated,  after  the  labours  of 
176  years;  and,  when  the  eye  had  been  satiated  with  its 
vastness,  and  with  the  grandeurs  of  the  adjacent  Vatican, 
there  were  the  hundreds  of  other  churches  and  palaces 
throughout  the  city,  each  with  its  statues  and  carvings  and 
paintings,  till  the  succession  wearied  by  its  detail,  and  one 
ended  where  one  began,  contrasting  Raphael  and  Michel 
Angelo  in  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican.  Of  strictly  mediaeval 
monuments  there  were  not  many,  but  enough  to  remind  one 
of  the  earlier  and  nobler  popes,  and  of  the  days  of  Rienzi 
and  the  Schism.  Through  the  streets,  too,  there  bustled  a 
living  population  of  110,000  souls,  presenting  many  charac 
teristics  that  could  be  distinguished  as  peculiarly  Roman, 
not  the  least  being  that,  wherever  one  went,  the  sacerdotal 
organization  of  the  city  was  indicated  to  the  eye  by  the 
amazing  number  of  priests.  To  form  a  secular  aristocracy, 
indeed,  there  were  about  a  hundred  families,  retaining  the 
names  and  some  of  the  rights  of  the  ancient  noble  houses  of 
Rome,  such  as  the  Orsini,  the  Colonnas,  the  Savelli,  the 
Conti,  the  Gaetani,  side  by  side  with  whom,  and  intermarried 
with  them,  were  more  recent  families,  also  of  wealth  and 
distinction,  imported  into  Rome  from  Florence,  Genoa, 
Parma,  Bologna,  and  other  Italian  cities,  and  even  from 
France  and  from  Portugal,  in  the  train  of  previous  popes. 
But  the  connexions  and  the  traditions  of  those  families  were 
really  ecclesiastical,  and  Roman  society  was  topped  by  the 
Cardinals  and  the  Pope. 


794  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

As  truly  the  capital  of  the  whole  peninsula,  Rome  still 
drew  to  herself  much  that  was  most  characteristic  of  the 
whole.  For  more  than  a  century,  despite  the  political  sub 
division  of  Italy  and  the  competition  of  other  cities,  this 
had  been  the  case.  Hence,  in  the  arrangements  of  the  city, 
an  unusual  number  of  posts  and  places,  ecclesiastical, 
educational,  and  diplomatic,  not  only  affording  provision  for 
native  talent,  but  attracting  and  detaining  talent  immigrant 
from  other  parts  of  Italy,  and  from  all  the  countries  of 
Europe.  From  the  necessities  of  their  position  at  the  head 
of  such  a  community,  the  Popes  and  the  Cardinals  had  come 
to  regard  the  patronage  of  learning  and  the  arts  as  part  of 
their  official  duties.  To  build  new  edifices,  to  surround 
them  with  gardens  and  fountains,  to  adorn  them  with 
sculptures  and  paintings,  to  preside  at  meetings  of  the 
academies  and  hold  large  conversazioni  in  their  own  palaces, 
to  collect  books  and  manuscripts  and  employ  librarians  to 
catalogue  and  keep  them,  were  occupations  for  the  resident 
cardinals,  in  addition  to  their  ordinary  business  as  governors 
of  the  provinces  of  the  papal  territory,  and  to  their  efforts, 
in  consistory  or  otherwise,  to  make  the  Papacy  still  felt  in 
the  politics  of  the  world.  What  the  cardinals  did  was  done 
also  by  the  secular  nobles ;  and  there  were  few  palaces  with 
out  their  libraries  and  picture-galleries,  large  or  small. 

Through  the  unusually  long  pontificate  of  Urban  VIII. 
(1623-1644)  the  aggregation  of  talent  in  Home  was  probably 
as  great  as  in  any  other  pontificate  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  This  pope,  indeed,  was  not  personally  so  active  a 
Msecenas  as  some  of  his  predecessors  had  been.  He  did 
rank  among  the  dilettanti,  having,  as  Cardinal  Maffeo 
Barberini,  written  many  Latin,  Greek,  and  Italian  poems, 
which,  when  published  collectively  in  a  superb  folio  volume 
at  Paris  in  1642,  were  to  be  accounted  highly  creditable  to 
the  head  of  Christendom.  But,  as  Pope,  he  busied  himself 
chiefly  with  capricious  interferences  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  which  satisfied  neither  the  French  nor  the  Spaniard, 
and  with  fortifications  of  his  own  capital  and  the  creation  of 
new  Cardinals.  No  fewer  than  seventy-four  cardinals  were 


MILTON    IN    EOME  :    ROMAN   ACADEMIES.  795 

made  by  him ;  and,  in  his  zeal  for  the  honour  of  the  office, 

he    was  the  first    to  confer  on   the    cardinals    the   title  of 

"  Eminency."     Among  his  cardinals  were  three  of  his  own 

relatives,  of  the  Florentine  house  of  Barberiui, — his  younger 

brother,  Antonio  Barberini,  and  his  two  nephews,  Francesco 

Barberini  and  Antonio  Barberini  the  younger,  both  sons  of 

his  elder  brother,  Carlo.    The  three  had  been  cardinals  since 

the  first  year  of  his  pontificate;  since  which  time  also  Carlo 

Barberini  and  another  of  his  sons,  Don  Taddeo,  had  held 

the  highest  secular  offices  in  the  gift  of  the  papacy.     Such 

was  the  accumulation  of  rich  posts  and  principalities  among 

these   members  of  the  Pope's  family  that,   even  after   the 

precedents  of  former  pontificates,  Urban' s  nepotism  seemed 

outrageous.     Rome  all  but  belonged  to  the  Barberini,  whose 

family  symbol   of  the  bees  met  the  eye  on  all   the  public 

buildings,    arid    on    their   carriages    in    the    public    drives. 

Urban's  care  of  his  relatives,  however,  did  not  prevent  him 

from  being  generous  and  friendly  to  others.     Moreover,  the 

Barberini  were  unexceptionably  respectable  in  their  conduct, 

and  most  competent  deputies  for  the  Pope  in  the  patronage 

of  art  and  letters.  Urban  himself  had  de.corated  the  Lateran 

and  increased  the  Vatican  Library,  and  the  other  Barberini 

vied  with    the   most  munificent   of    the   cardinals,  such  as 

Cesarini  and  the  learned  Bentivoglio,  in  the  intellectual  cast 

of  their  hospitalities.1 

In  Rome,  as  in  Florence,  the  organization  of  educated 
society,  apart  from  the  University  and  the  Schools,  was  in 
the  Academies.  Of  some  fifteen  or  twenty  Roman  academies 
existing  in  1638  the  most  celebrated  were  the  Umoristi,  the 
Ordinati,  the  Lincei,  the  Fantastici,  the  Negletti,  the  Malin- 
conicij  the  Partenii,  the  Delfici,  and  the  Intricati.2  With 
the  exception  of  the  Lincei,  of  which  the  absent  Galileo  was 
the  most  illustrious  member,  all  were  devoted  to  eloquence 
and  literature,  and  chiefly  to  verse-making  and  literary 
archaeology,  though  some  tended  to  theatricals,  and  some  to 

i  Rauke,  II.  307-310,  aiid  the  Lives  Docta  of  the  same  author, 

of    Urban    and    the    three    Barberiui  2  Fabricii  Couspectus,  &c.  (1749),  al- 

Cardiuals  in  the  Pontificium  Doctnm  of  ready  referred  to. 
George  Joseph  Eggs  aud  the  Furpu.ro, 


796  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY   OF    HIS    TIME. 

music.  To  one  or  another  everybody  of  account  in  Eome 
belonged,  and  many  belonged  to  several.  The  amount  of 
resident  scholarship  and  authorship  so  accommodated  and 
distributed  among  the  Academies  is  hardly  conceivable.  In 
a  curious  bibliographical  volume  of  the  time,  prepared,  in 
compliment  to  the  Barberini,  under  the  title  of  "Apes 
Romance"  or  "Bees  of  Rome,"  there  is  an  exact  list,  with 
brief  appended  accounts,  of  all  the  persons,  native  or  foreign, 
resident  in  Rome  through  1631  and  1632,  who  either  gave 
anything  to  the  press  within  those  two  years  or  had  pre 
viously  published  anything.1  I  have  counted  the  index  of 
names,  and  found  that  there  must  have  been  upwards  of 
450  known  authors  then  resident  in  Rome  in  a  total  popula 
tion  of  110,000  souls, — upwards  of  450  bees  of  the  Barberini, 
of  different  sizes  and  breeds,  then  humming  as  well  as  honey- 
making  in  the  papal  city.  Some  of  the  more  conspicuous  had 
died  or  departed  elsewhither  in  the  interval  between  1632 
and  1638;  but  that  the  swarm  was  kept  up,  by  additions,  to 
its  full  number,  seems  evident  from  the  fact  that  in  a  volume 
of  poetry  issued  in  1637  by  the  single  academy  of  the 
Fantastic!  there  are  contributions,  in  the  one  article  of 
vernacular  verse,  chiefly  sonnets  and  canzoni,  from  fifty-one 
different  poets,  members  of  that  academy.2 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  resident  literati  of  Rome 
were  priests,  and  among  these  the  Jesuits  had  indubitably 
the  pre-eminence.  Some  were  historians,  some  jurisconsults, 
some  geographers,  some  antiquarians;  many  were  theo 
logians  ;  and  there  was  one  worthy  man  whose  achievement 
was  a  Malay  Dictionary. — In  the  whole  body  of  the  prose- 
writers,  taken  miscellaneously,  one  may  mention,  as  perhaps 
of  greatest  consideration,  the  Jesuit  historian  and  critic 
Strada,  a  Roman  native,  his  rival  in  history,  Cardinal  Ben- 
tivoglio,  a  Ferrarese,  the  Roman  Sforza  Pallavicini,  after 
wards  a  cardinal,  the  numismatist  Angeloni,  secretary  to 
one  of  the  cardinals,  the  mathematician  Castelli,  already 

1  "  Leonis    Allatii    Apes    Komanse :  2    "  Poesie    de'    siguori    Accademici 

sive  De  Viris  Illustribus  qui  ab  aiiuo  Fantastici,  Roma,  1637,"  dedicated  to 

.1630  per  totum  1632  Eomte  adfuerunt  Cardinal    Cesarini,    Protector    of    the 

ac  typis  aliquid  evulgaruut."     Edition  Academy, 
by  Fabricius,  Hamburg,  1711. 


MILTON    IN    EOME  :    EOMAN    LITERATI.  797 

mentioned  in  connexion  with  Galileo,  and,  finally,  Torricelli, 
if  he  had  not  of  late  migrated  to  Florence.  To  this  list 
would  have  to  be  added  the  name  of  Giovanni  Batbista 
Doni,  a  Florentine  (1594-1647),  eminent  for  his  erudition, 
and  especially  for  his  publications  on  the  history  and  theory 
of  music,  but  that,  at  the  date  with  which  we  are  now  con 
cerned,  he  seems  to  have  been  absent  from  Rome  on  a  tour. 
Rome  had  been  his  usual  residence  since  the  accession  of 
Urban  to  the  pontificate ;  but  he  was  sometimes  in  his  native 
city,  where  he  was  much  respected,  and  where  Milton 
must  have  seen  him  or  heard  of  him.  —  Passing  to  the 
verse-writers,  or  rather  to  those  who  relied  on  their  verse 
(for  every  soul  in  the  crowd  occasionally  turned  out  an 
Italian  sonnet  or  a  Latin  elegy  or  epigram),  we  find,  resident 
in  Rome  in  1638,  at  least  two  of  the  four  men, — Bracciolini, 
Testi,  Achillini,  and  Ciampoli, — who  were  confessedly  at 
the  head  of  contemporary  Italian  poetry.  Bracciolini,  who 
was  a  Pistoian,  had  been  in  the  service  of  the  Barberini  a 
great  part  of  his  life,  and  was  now  secretary  to  Cardinal 
Antonio  the  elder,  a  venerable  member  of  most  of  the 
Roman  academies,  still  productive  as  a  poet,  but  notorious 
for  his  avarice ;  and  Ciampoli,  a  Tuscan  by  birth,  was  also 
in  favour  with  Urban,  who  had  made  him  a  canon  of  the 
Vatican.  Testi  and  Achillini  were  also  occasionally  visitors 
to  Rome,  and  both  were  members  of  the  Fantastic!  'and 
of  other  Roman  academies.  With  these  may  be  associated 
such  eminent  artists,  either  permanently  resident  in  Rome 
or  frequently  there,  as  Borromini,  the  papal  architect,  and 
Bernini,  the  papal  sculptor,  and  also,  in  another  direction, 
Niccolo  Riccardi,  a  Dominican  preacher  of  Genoese  birth, 
whose  pulpit  orations,  daring  to  the  verge  of  heresy,  were 
drawing  weekly  crowds  to  his  church. — The  names  hitherto 
mentioned  have  been  those  only  of  Romans  or  other  Italians  ; 
but  among  the  Bees  of  the  Barberini  were  a  large  number 
of  foreigners.  The  worthy  compiler  of  the  Malay  Dictionary 
was  a  Dutchman  or  Fleming,  named  David  Haex ;  the 
industrious  bibliographer,  Leo  Allatius,  to  whom  we  owe  so 
exact  an  account  of  the  composition  of  the  literary  swarm 


798  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

in  which  he  moved  as  one,  was  a  Greek  from  Chios ;  there 
were  Fitzherberts  from  England,  and  various  Patricks  from 
Ireland ;  Scotland  was  represented  by  David  Chambers  and 
George  Con,  or,  daring  their  absences  on  diplomatic  errands 
in  Paris  and  England,  by  other  writers  "  de  Scotorum  forti- 
tudine"  and  the  wrongs  of  Mary  Stuart ;  and  there  were 
Spanish  and  French  Jesuits  by  the  dozen.  Among  resident 
Germans  the  most  distinguished  for  his  learning  and  the 
most  widely  known  by  his  position  was  Lucas  Holstenius, — 
in  the  vernacular,  Lukas  Holste  or  Holsten,  not  f<  Holstein," 
as  usually  written, — Secretary  to  Cardinal  Francesco  Bar- 
berini,  and  one  of  the  Librarians  of  the  Vatican.  He  was  a 
native  of  Hamburg  and  had  been  educated  as  a  Protestant; 
had  travelled  in  Italy  in  1618;  had  been  in  Oxford  and 
London  from  1622  to  1625;  had  lived  afterwards  in  Paris, 
and  there  become  acquainted  with  Cardinal  Barberini  during 
the  Cardinal's  residence  in  that  capital  as  papal  legate ;  had 
abjured  Protestantism  on  entering  the  Cardinal's  service, 
and  had  accompanied  him  to  Rome  in  1627.  Since  settling 
in  Rome,  he  had  edited  portions  of  Porphyry  and  other 
Greek  authors ;  while  in  the  Vatican  he  was  worth  fifty  or 
dinary  librarians,  whether  as  keeper  of  the  manuscripts 
already  there,  or  as  a  collector  of  rare  books,  and  especially 
of  Greek  codices.1 

There  was  none  of  the  Barberini  family  round  whom  the 
learned  clustered  so  familiarly  as  round  Cardinal  Francesco, 
the  patron  of  Holstenius.  He  was  the  prime  minister  of 
Rome,  and  the  chief  councillor  of  his  uncle  Urban,  who, 
though  the  most  self-willed  man  in  the  world,  could  do 
nothing  without  him.  "  Urban  had  nothing  in  his  mouth 
"but  the  Cardinal  Padrone  :  Where  is  the  Cardinal  Padrone  ? 
"Call  the  Cardinal  Padrone;  S^eak  to  the  Cardinal  Pa- 
"  drone" ; 2  till  the  other  cardinals  murmured  at  such  favourit 
ism.  Francesco  was,  indeed,  somewhat  young  for  the  purple, 
having  been  born  in  Florence  in  1597.  "  He  was  a  man," 

1   Particulars    in   this   account,  not  2  MS.  of  a  Dr.  Bargrave  of  the  17th 

from  the  Apes  Romance  of  Allatins,  are  century,  quoted  by  Todd  in  his  Life  of 

ciiieny,  but  not  exclusively,  from  Tira-  Milton, 
boschi,  torn.  VIII. 


MILTON  IN  EOME  :  CARDINAL  BARBERINI.         799 

says  an  Italian  contemporary,  "  of  excellent,  virtuous,  and 
exemplary  habits,  and  of  a  gentle  disposition " ;  and  his 
annual  income  of  100,000  scudi  could  not  have  been  in 
more  generous  hands.  Besides  Holstenius,  he  had  many 
scholars,  artists,  and  poets  among  his  clients ;  Doni  was  his 
companion  and  bosom  friend  rather  than  his  retainer;  he 
had  founded  a  library,  called  the  Barberini  Library,  which 
attained  celebrity  even  by  the  side  of  that  of  the  Vatican; 
and  of  sonnets  and  panegyrics  in  his  honour  there  was  no 
end.  Among  his  other  titles  of  distinction  was  one  which 
related  him  in  a  particular  manner  to  British  subjects  and 
travellers  in  Rome.  It  was  the  custom  for  each  of  the 
Catholic  nations  to  have  some  one  of  the  resident  Roman 
Cardinals  as  the  special  protector  of  its  interests  at  the 
Papal  Court.  Thus  the  Cardinal  Protector  of  France,  regu 
larly  nominated  by  Louis  XIII.,  was  Bentivoglio.  By  no 
such  regular  nomination,  but  rather  by  self-appointment, 
Cardinal  Francesco  was  patron  of  England  and  Scotland. 
His  patronage  included  Aragon,  Lusitania,  and  Switzerland; 
but  to  no  nation  was  he  so  systematically  courteous  as  to 
the  English.  In  1626,  when  he  was  legate  at  Paris,  he  had 
sent  the  golden  rose  to  Queen  Henrietta  Maria ;  and  of  his 
attentions  to  the  English  in  Rome  there  are  proofs  to  this 
day  in  documents  in  the  English  Record  Office.  "  I  have 
"  been  to  visit  the  Cardinal  Barberino,"  writes  Thomas 
Windebank  from  Rome,  Sep.  10,  1686,  to  his  father,  Secre 
tary  Windebank,  •"  who,  having  notice  of  my  arrival  here, 
"  sent  to  visit  me  first.  He  is  so  obliging  and  courteous  to 
"  all  our  nation  that  I  have  the  less  wonder  at  the  honour 
"he  doth  me."  Young  Windebank  and  his  brother  were 
then  on  a  tour  in  Italy ;  and,  after  they  had  been  in  Rome 
a  second  time,  their  father  was  gratified  by  a  letter  from 
Panzani,  dated  May  31,  1637,  in  which,  regretting  that  he 
had  not  seen  them  himself,  he  says  that  they  have  gained 
golden  opinions  in  Rome  by  "  their  singular  modesty  and 
other  most  laudable  virtues,"  and  that  "  the  Lord  Cardinal 
Barberino  in  particular  cannot  satiate  himself  in  praising 
them."  Another  son  of  Windebank's,  who  was  in  Rome  in 


800  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

June  1638,  or  four  months  before  Milton,  had  also  written 
home  to  his  father  acknowledging  the  kindly  attentions  he 
had  received  from  the  Cardinal.1 

There  is  no  evidence  that  Milton  became  so  extremely 
intimate  with  the  society  of  Home  as  he  had  become  with 
that  of  Florence ;  bnt  there  is  evidence  that  he  did  form 
very  friendly  relations  in  Borne  also,  and  that  he  got  very 
near  indeed  to  the  centre. 

In  the  Travellers'  Book  of  the  English  College  at  Rome 
there  has  been  found  this  entry  in  Latin  under  the  date  Oct. 
30, 1638  :— "  The  30th  of  October  there  dined  in  our  College, 
"  and  were  hospitably  received,  the  following  English  gentle- 
(t  men, — the  most  distinguished  Mr.  N.  Gary,  brother  of  Lord 
"  Falkland,  Dr.  Holding  of  Lancaster,  Mr.  N.  Fortescue,  and 
"  Mr.  Milton,  with  his  servant."  The  hosts  on  the  occasion 
were,  of  course,  the  Roman  Catholic  authorities  and  members 
of  the  College ;  but,  as  was  natural,  no  distinction  was  made, 
in  the  invitation  of  guests  from  among  Englishmen  of  rank 
or  education  passing  through  Rome,  between  Roman  Catho 
lics  and  Protestants.  Besides  the  four  above-named  fellow- 
guests  of  Milton  at  the  table  of  this  special  rendezvous  of 
the  English  in  Rome,  one  hears  of  a  Thomas  Gawen  as  then 
in  Rome,  and  sometimes  encountering  Milton  privately  or 
in  public  places.  He  was  the  son  of  a  minister  of  the  same 
name  in  Bristol,  was  about  two  years  younger  than  Milton, 
had  been  educated  at  New  College,  Oxford,  had  taken  both 
degrees  in  Arts  and  also  holy  orders,  and,  being  now  on  his 
travels,  "  was  at  Rome,  and  accidentally  sometimes  fell  into 
the  company  of  John  Milton."  He  was  a  Protestant  enough 
youth  at  present,  looking  forward  to  a  career  in  the  English 
Church,  but  was  to  be  a  Roman  Catholic  before  his  death 
in  1683.2 

Milton  had   been  probably  three  or  four  weeks  in  Rome 

1  G.  J.  Eggs,  Purpura  Docta  (1719),  Thomas  Duffus  Hardy,  of  the  Eecord 
Article  Francesco  Barberini ;  Tiraboschi,  Office,  by  Mr.  Stevenson,  who  had  found 
VIII.  56-57  ;  Ranke,  Appendices,  Nos.  it  while  in  Rome  examining  the  Vatican 
115-120;  and  Documents  in  the  State  MSS.  for  the  British  Government ;  and 
Paper  Office.  it  was  published  by  Mr.  Horwood  in 

2  The  extract   from   the  Travellers'  the    Introduction    to    his    edition    of 
Book  of  the  English  College  at  Rome  Milton's  Common  Place  Book  in  1877. 
was  sent,  not  long  ago,  to  the  late  Sir  For  Gawen  see  "Wood's  Ath.  IV.  130. 


MILTON    IN    ROME  :    CHERUBINl    AND    HOLSTENIUS.  801 

before  his  registered  appearance  as  above  at  the  dinner-table 
of  the  English  College,  and  had  already  by  that  time,  through 
introductions  brought  with  him  from  home,  or  supplied  by 
his  Florentine  friends,  become  acquainted  independently 
with  some  of  the  Roman  notabilities.  One  of  these,  of 
whom  we  hear  only  in  the  most  shadowy  manner,  was  an 
ALEXANDER  CHURUBINI  : — There  is  a  notice  of  this  person  in 
the  Pinacotheca  of  Janus  Nicius  Erythrseus,  %.  e.  a  curious 
collection  of  contemporary  biographic  sketches  written  in 
Latin  by  Gianvittorio  Rossi,  a  Roman  author,  and  member 
of  the  Umoristi  and  other  academies  (b.  1577 — d.  1647). 
From  this  notice  it  appears  that,  though  the  name  of  Alex 
ander  Cherubini  has  no  place  now  in  the  History  of  Italian 
Literature,  he  was  known  in  his  lifetime  as  a  prodigy  of 
erudition.  He  was  the  son  of  Laertius  Cherubini,  an 
eminent  lawyer  in  Rome ;  and,  though  he  died  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-eight,  and  during  the  last  three  years  of  his 
life  was  more  like  a  dead  man  than  a  living,  tortured  as  he 
was  by  an  incurable  internal  disease,  he  seemed  to  Erythrasus 
to  surpass  all  that  had  been  told  of  Pico  Mirandola  and 
others  for  universality  of  acquisition.  "  There  was  nothing 
"  in  any  one  of  the  liberal  arts  that  he  did  not  know,  no 
"  book  extant  down  to  his  own  time  that  he  had  not  atten- 
"  tively  read,  and  all  the  contents  of  which  he  did  not 
"  remember."  He  was  especially  great  in  Plato,  and  had 
rendered  many  Greek  books  into  Latin.  When  death 
released  him  from  his  physical  sufferings,  it  released  him  also 
from  an  overwhelming  load  of  debt,  the  accumulation  of 
which  by  one  of  his  simple  habits  was  a  mystery  to  all  his 
friends.1 

With  these  particulars  Erythrseus  unfortunately  gives  no 
dates ;  but  Cherubim  was  probably  in  his  mortal  illness, 
and  a  walking  invalid,  when  Milton  made  his  acquaintance. 

1  Jani  Nidi   Erythrai  Pinacotheca^  — "  Angelus    Maria    Cherubinus,"    a 

Edit.  1729,  pp.  722— 725.— There  is  no  monk,  and  "  Flavins  Cherubinus."  They 

mention  of  Alexander  Cherubim  in  the  edited,  in  or  about  1632,  a  collection  of 

Apes  Romance,  of  Leo  Allatius,  probably  Papal    Constitutions  which    had   been 

because    he   was  too   young  to   have  prepared  by  their  father,  the  Roman 

published   anything  before   1632;  but  lawyer, 
two  brothers  of  his  are  there  mentioned, 

VOL.    I.                                                    3  F 


802  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

The  acquaintance  cannot  have  been  a  slight  one  ;  for,  though 
Milton  mentions  Cherubini  but  once  and  incidentally,,  it  is  in 
•  a  rather  important  connexion.  Hardly,  it  seems,  had  he 
become  acquainted,  by  whatever  means,  with  the  invalid 
young  Roman  scholar,  when  he  became  acquainted  also 
with  the  more  sturdy  naturalized  Roman  of  German  birth, 
LUCAS  HOLSTENIUS,  the  Librarian  of  the  Vatican.  As  the 
manner  and  the  results  of  his  introduction  to  Holstenius  are 
related  by  himself  with  much  precision  in  a  Latin  letter  of 
thanks  which  he  sent  to  Holstenius  about  five  months  after 
wards  (March  30,  1639),  it  will  be  best  to  quote  part  of  the 
letter  here,  reserving  the  rest  for  its  proper  place  in  the 
order  of  time  : — 

To  LUCAS  HOLSTENIUS  IN  THE  VATICAN  AT  ROME. 

Although  I  both  can  and  often  do  remember  many  courteous  and 
most  friendly  acts  done  me  by  many  in  this  my  passage  through  Italy, 
yet,  for  so  brief  an  acquaintance,  I  do  not  know  whether  I  can  justly 
say  that  from  any  one  I  have  had  greater  proofs  of  goodwill  than  those 
which  have  come  to  me  from  you.  For,  when  I  went  up  to  the  Vatican 
for  the  purpose  of  meeting  you,  though  a  total  stranger  to  you, — unless 
perchance  anything  had  been  previously  said  about  me  to  you  by 
Alexander  Cherubini, — you  received  me  with  the  utmost  courtesy. 
"7  Admitted  at  once  with  politeness  into  the  Museum,  I  was  allowed  to 
behold  the  superb  collection  of  books,  and  also  very  many  manuscript 
Greek  authors  set  forth  with  your  explanations, — some  of  whom,  not 
yet  seen  in  our  age,  seemed  now,  in  their  array,  like  Virgil's 

'penitus  convalle  virenti 
Inclusse  animse  superumque  ad  limen  iturae,' 

to  demand  the  active  hands  of  the  printer,  and  a  delivery  into  the 
world,  while  others,  already  edited  by  your  care,  are  eagerly  received 
everywhere  by  scholars  : — dismissed,  too,  richer  than  I  came,  with  two 
copies  of  one  of  these  last  presented  to  rne  by  yourself.  Then,  I  could 
not  but  believe  that  it  was  in  consequence  of  the  mention  you  made 
of  me  to  the  most  excellent  Cardinal  Francesco  Barberini  that,  when 
he,  a  few  days  after,  gave  that  public  musical  entertainment  with 
truly  Roman  magnificence  (ajcpoajua  illud  musicum  magnificentid  vere 
Romand  publice  exhiberet),  he  himself,  waiting  at  the  doors,  and 
seeking  me  out  in  so  great  a  crowd,  almost  seizing  me  by  the  hand 
indeed,  admitted  me  within  in  a  truly  most  honourable  manner. 
Further,  when,  on  this  account,  I  went  to  pay  my  respects  to  him 
next  day,  you  again  were  the  person  that  both  made  access  for  me 
and  obtained  me  an  opportunity  of  leisurely  conversation  with  him — 


MILTON  IN  ROME  :  THE  SINGER  LEONORA.        803 

an  opportunity  such  as,  with  so  great  a  man, — than  whom,  on  the 
topmost  summit  of  dignity,  nothing  more  kind,  nothing  more  cour 
teous, — was  truly,  place  and  time  considered,  too  ample  rather  than 
too  sparing.  I  am  quite  ignorant,  most  learned  Holstenius,  whether 
I  am  exceptional  in  having  found  you  so  friendly  and  hospitable,  or 
whether,  in  respect  of  your  having  spent  three  years  in  study  at 
'Oxford,  it  is  your  express  habit  to  confer  such  obligations  on  all 
Englishmen.  If  the  latter,  truly  you  are  paying  back  finely  to  our 
England  the  expenses  of  your  schooling  there,  and  you  eminently 
deserve  equal  thanks  on  private  grounds  from  each  of  us  and  on 
public  grounds  for  our  country.  If  the  former  is  the  case,  then  that 
I  should  have  been  held  distinguishable  by  you  above  the  rest,  and 
should  have  seemed  worthy  so  far  of  a  wish  on  your  part  to  form  a 
bond  of  friendship  with  me,  while  I  congratulate  myself  on  this 
opinion  of  yours,  I  would  at  the  same  time  attribute  it  to  your  frank 
ness  rather  than  to  my  merit.  *  *  * 

It  was  most  probably  at  the  magnificent  concert  in 
Cardinal  Barberini's  palace  mentioned  in  this  letter  that 
Milton  heard  for  the  first  time  the  famous  singer,  Leonora 
Baroni.  This  lady  was  the  daughter  of  the  beautiful  Adriana 
Baroni  of  Mantua ;  and  mother  and  daughter  were  reputed 
the  finest  voices  then  in  the  world.  There  was  another 
daughter,  Catherine ;  and  the  three  made  such  a  musical 
triad  as  moved  Italy  to  ecstasy  wherever  they  went.  They 
resided  in  Rome,  or  were  much  there,  between  1637  and 
1641 ;  at  which  time,  though  all  three  could  play  as  well  as 
sing,  Leonora  was  the  chief  singer,  her  mother  usually 
accompanying  her  on  the  theorbo,  and  her  sister  on  the 
harp.  Besides  being  unparalleled  in  music,  they  were  highly 
accomplished  and  excellent  ladies  in  all  respects,  Leonora 
not  so  handsome  as  her  mother,  but  graceful,  frank,  and  full 
of  intelligence.  Accordingly,  not  only  did  cardinals,  nobles, 
priests,  and  poets  surround  them  perpetually  in  deferential 
circle,  but  His  Holiness  himself  would  sometimes  listen  in 
sprightly  state.  Their  fame  had  reached  France  and  more 
distant  lands.1 

To  hear  Leonora  sing  was  the  greatest  musical  pleasure 
that  Rome  could  offer,  and  there  can  have  been  no  English 
man  then  in  Rome  that  could  appreciate  it  more  exquisitely 

1  Bayle's  Dictionary,  art.  Baroni;  and  Warton's  notes  quoted  in  Todd's 
Milton,  with  Todd's  additions. 

-       1  F  2 


804  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

than  Milton.  Whatever  his  anticipations,  they  seem  to 
have  been  more  than  answered ;  for,  while  he  has  left  much 
relating  to  his  visit  to  Rome  untold,  he  has  commemorated 
in  three  Latin  epigrams  his  admiration  of  the  matchless 
Mantuan.  Panegyrics  in  Italian  and  in  Latin  had  been 
showered  on  her  in  such  abundance  by  her  countrymen  that 
the  three  epigrams  addressed  to  her  by  the  unknown  Eng 
lishman  may  have  had  less  interest  for  her  at  the  time  than 
they  now  have  for  us.1  They  may  be  rendered  as  follows  : — 

To  LEONORA,  SINGING  AT  ROME. 

To  every  one,  so  let  the  nations  believe,  there  is  allotted,  from 
among  the  ethereal  ranks,  his  own  winged  angel.  What  wonder, 
Leonora,  if  to  tliee  there  should  be  a  greater  glory,  since  thy  very  voice 
sounds  God  as  present  in  thee  1  Either  God,  or  at  least  some  high 
intelligence  of  the  deserted  heaven,  warbles  active  in  secret  through 
thy  throat, — warbles  active  and  teaches  with  ease  that  mortal  hearts 
may  by  degrees  grow  accustomed  to  immortal  sound.  If,  however, 
God  is  all  things  and  through  all  diffused,  in  thee  alone  He  speaks ; 
all  else  He  inhabits  mute. 

TO   THE   SAME. 

Another  Leonora  captivated  the  poet  Tasso;  smitten  by  the  mad 
love  of  whom,  he  walked  raging  in  the  world.  Ah,  unfortunate  !  how 
much  more  happily  might  he  have  been  wrecked  in  thy  age,  Leonora, 
and  on  thy  account !  He  would  have  heard  thee  singing  with  thy 
Pierian  voice,  and  the  golden  strings  of  thy  mother's  lyre  moving  in 
harmony.  Then,  although  he  had  rolled  his  eyes  fiercer  than  Dircaean 
Pentheus,  or  had  moped  in  sheer  idiotcy,  thou  by  thy  voice  couldst 
have  composed  his  senses  wandering  in  blind  whirl,  and,  by  breathing 
calm  under  his  distempered  heart,  couldst  have  restored  him  to  him 
self  by  thy  soul-swaying  song. 

TO   THE   SAME. 

Why  boastest  thou,  Naples,  in  thy  credulity,  of  the  liquid  Siren, 
and  the  renowned  shrine  of  Parthenope  Acheloias,  and  that  the  Naiad 
of  the  shore,  dying  on  thy  bank,  consecrated  a  Chalcidic  funeral-pile  by 

1  On    the   authority   of    Erythraeus  in  later  days  to  have  seen  this  volume, 

mention  is  made  of  a  volume  of  Greek,  — which  is  a  pity,  as  a  sight  of  it  would 

Latin,   Italian,    French,    and    Spanish  determine  whether  Milton's  epigrams 

verses,  contributed  by  many  pens,  and  were  written  for  it,  or  separately  on  his 

printed   at   Rome,  under   the  title  of  own  account.     Testi  and  other  Italian 

"  Applausi  Poetici  alle  ylorie  della  Siy-  poets  have  sonnets  to  Leonora  in  their 

nora  Leonora  Baroni"     Nobody  seems  works. 


MILTON   IN    ROME  :    SALZILLI   AND    SELVAGGI.  805 

her  body  1 1  She  surely  lives  even  now,  and  has  exchanged  the  murmurs 
of  hoarse  Posilipo2  for  the  pleasant  bank  of  the  Tiber.  There,  graced 
by  the  studious  applauses  of  the  sons  of  Romulus,  she  entrances  by 
her  song  both  men  and  gods. 

Besides  Cherubim,  Holstenius,  and  Cardinal  Barberini, 
Milton  was  introduced  in  Rome,  he  tells  us,  to  "  other  men 
of  learning  and  genius  (aliis  viris  cum  doctis  turn  ingeniosis)" 
all  of  whom  received  him  "  most  politely."3  Only  two  of 
these,  at  most,  can  be  identified  by  name, — to  wit,  a  Roman 
poet  called  Joannes  Salsillus,  and  a  certain  Selvaggi.  Meet 
ing  Milton  in  the  academies  or  elsewhere,  these  two  persons 
became  so  much  more  intimate  with  him  than  the  rest,  or 
were  so  much  more  demonstrative  in  their  admiration,  that 
they  presented  him  with  "  written  encomiums,"  to  be  added 
to  those  already  in  his  possession.  They  were  brief  enough, 
one  consisting  of  four  lines  of  Latin  elegiacs,  the  other  of 
an  elegiac  Latin  couplet.  The  flattery  in  both  is  so  gross 
that  honest  prose  is  ashamed  of  them  : — 


"  To  JOHN  MILTON,  ENGLISHMAN,  DESERVING  TO  BE  CROWNED  WITH 

THE  TRIPLE  LAUREL  OF  POESY,  THE   GREEK  DOUBTLESS,  THE  LATIN, 
AND  THE  TUSCAN,  AN  EPIGRAM  OF  JOANNES  SALSILLUS,  ROMAN. 

Conquered  is  Homer's  Meles  ;  Virgil's  Mincio  wears  willows  ; 

Tasso's  Sebeto  now  ceases  to  babble  so  free  ; 
Thames,  as  the  victor,  carries  highest  of  any  her  billows, 

In  that  Milton's  muse  equals  the  one  to  the  three." 

ii. 
"To  JOHN  MILTON. 

Greece  may  exult  in  her  Homer,  Rome  may  exult  in  her  Virgil ; 
England  exults  in  one  equalling  either  of  these. 

SELVAGGI." 

Who  SELVAGGI  was  I  have  not  been  able  to  ascertain ;  nor, 
though  I  have  supposed  him  to  be  a  Roman,  am  I  quite 

1  The  Siren  Parthenope,  according  to  founded  by  the  Chalcidici. 

the    legend,  having   drowued    herself  2  Posilipo,  a  hill  near  Naples,  famous 

because  she  could  not  by  the  sweetness  for  a  grotto  or  tunnelled  road  passing 

of  her   voice  shipwreck   Ulysses,  was  through  it. 

buried   near   Naples,  which   had  been  3  Def,  Sec.  Works,  VI.  288. 


806  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND    HISTOEY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

sure  that  he  was.1  JOANNES  SALSTLLUS  I  have  identified  with 
GIOVANNI  SALZILLI,  a  poet  not  mentioned  in  any  of  the 
histories  of  Italian  literature,  but  who  was  a  contributor  to 
the  volume  of  Italian  poetry  already  mentioned  as  having 
been  published  by  the  Fantastici  in  1637.  Among  the  fifty- 
one  contributors  to  that  volume  are  Achillini  and  Testi;  and 
as,  even  in  such  company,  Salzilli's  contributions,  consisting 
of  eleven  sonnets,  two  canzoni,  one  canzonetta,  and  one 
descriptive  poem,  occupy  no  fewer  than  twenty-two  pages 
out  of  a  total  of  272,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  was 
an  important  personage  among  the  Fantastics.  As  he  does 
not  appear  among  the  Apes  Romance'  of  1631-2,  it  is  also 
likely  that  he  was  a  young  man ;  and,  if  we  may  judge  of 
the  state  of  his  health  from  the  following  poem  addressed 
to  him  by  Milton,  it  is  possible  that  the  reason  why  we  hear 
so  little  of  him  afterwards  is  that  he  died  early.  The  poem 
is  one  of  condolence,  and  is  written  in  Latin  scazons,  or 
"limping  measure," — so  called  from  a  metrical  peculiarity 
at  the  end  of  each  line,  giving  the  effect  as  of  a  limp,  or  of 
coming  suddenly  to  the  last  step  of  a  stair  with  the  wrong 
emphasis.  This  peculiarity  must  disappear  in  our  prose 
version  : — 

To  SALSILLUS,  A  ROMAN  POET,  IN  HIS  ILLNESS. 

A   POEM   IN  SCAZONS. 

0  thou  muse  that  by  choice  draggest  along  a  limping  pace,  and 
delightest,  slow  as  thou  art,  in  the  gait  of  Vulcan,  nor  thinkest  that 
less  delightful  in  its  place  than  when  yellow-haired  Deiope  lifts 
alternate  her  graceful  feet  before  the  golden  couch  of  Juno,  be  present 
now,  and  carry  these  few  words,  please,  to  Salsillus,  who  has  our 
poetry  so  much  at  heart,  and  prefers  it  undeservedly  to  what  is  great 
and  divine.     They  are  from  that  Milton,  a  Londoner  born  and  bred, 
who,  leaving  in  these  days  his  own  nest,  and  that  polar  tract  of  earth 
where  the  worst  of  the  winds,  with  wild  and  unruly  lungs,  blows 

1  Among  the  multitudinous  names  Genoese  extraction,  living  about  1637, 
of  Italian  poets  in  Quadrio  there  is  a  and  possibly  in   Home.    There  is  no 
Massimiliano  Selvaggi,  who  contributes  Selvaggi  among  the  "Apes  Romanae." 
to   a  volume   of   poems   published   at  There    was    a    "  Carolus    Selvaghius, 
Genoa  in  1595 ;  also  a  Pantaleone  Sel-  Theologus,"    originally    Professor     of 
vaggi   or  Silvaggio,  a  small  Genoese  Laws  at  Naples,  afterwards  Interpreter 
poet  (date  not  given) ;  also  a  Benedetto  of  the  Pandects  at  Rome,  in  the  Ponti- 
Salvago,  a  native   of  Messina,  but  of  ficate  of  Alexander  VII. 


MILTON'S  JOURNEY  TO  NAPLES.  807 

incessant  his  gasping  blasts  under  the  inclement  sky,  has  come  to  the 
fertile  fields  of  the  Italian  soil,  to  behold  its  cities  known  by  proud 
renown,  and  its  existing  men,  and  the  genius  of  its  learned  youth. 
The  same  Milton  wishes  you,  Salsillus,  all  that  is  good,  and  complete 
health  for  your  languid  body,  where  bile,  deep-seated,  now  infests  the 
spleen,  and,  fixed  in  the  chest,  hurts  the  breathing, — impious,  indeed, 
not  to  have  spared  this  to  you,  who  with  Roman  mouth  modulate,  in 
so  accomplished  a  manner,  the  Lesbian  song.  0  sweet  gift  of  the 
gods,  O  Health,  sister  of  Hebe,  and  thou,  Phoebus,  the  foe  of  diseases, 
slayer  of  Python,  or  Paean,  if  thou  preferrest  that  name,  this  man  is 
thy  priest.  Ye  oak-groves  of  Faunus,  and  ye  hills  kindly  with  the 
vinous  dew,  seats  of  the  mild  Evander,  if  there  grows  aught  salubrious 
in  your  valleys,  bring  ye  hither,  with  contending  speed,  relief  to  the 
sick  poet.  Thus  he,  restored  again  to  the  loving  Muses,  will  charm 
with  his  sweet  song  the  neighbouring  meads.  Numa  himself  shall 
wonder  at  the  strain  among  the  gloomy  groves  where  he  leads  his 
blessed  life  of  eternal  quiet,  gazing  always,  as  he  reclines,  at  his  own 
Egeria.  The  swollen  Tiber  himself  also,  soothed  by  the  influence, 
shall  favour  the  annual  hope  of  the  husbandmen  ;  nor  shall  advance 
to  besiege  kings  in  their  tombs,  rushing  loosely  on  with  too  left  a  rein ; 
but  shall  better  rule  the  course  of  his  waters  on  to  where  they  lose 
themselves  in  the  salt  kingdoms  of  the  curved  Portumnus.1 

Nearly  two  months  having  been  spent  in  Rome,  Milton 
set  out,  probably  late  in  November  1638,  for  Naples.  It 
appears  that  he  went  by  the  ordinary  land-road  and  by 
vettiira.  It  was  a  journey  of  more  than  a  hundred  miles, 
and  must  have  been  divided  into  several  stages  by  inter 
mediate  towns  and  villages.  To  while  away  the  tedium, 
however,  there  was,  in  addition  to  the  scenery,  and  to  the 
talk  of  his  man-servant  and  the  ordinary  adventures  at  inns, 
the  conversation  of  an  Italian  fellow-traveller,  who  was  like 
wise  bound  for  Naples.  This  was  "  a  certain  Eremite  Friar/' 
whose  name,  unfortunately,  is  not  given.  Talking  with  the 
young  Englishman,  and  learning  his  destination,  his  general 
purpose  in  travelling,  and  perhaps  also  the  names  of  some 
of  his  friends  in  Florence  and  Rome,  the  Friar  seems  at 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  these  fountain  of   Egeria  near  the  city,  the 

lines,  not  only  the  general  references  supposed  site  of  Numa's  dusky  grove, 

to  the  Italian  climate  iii  contrast  with  From  the  phraseology,  it  might  seem 

the  British,  but  also  the  topographical  that  Milton,  while  visiting  the  spots  of 

allusions  to  Rome  and  its  neighbour-  classic  interest  about  Rome,  referred  to 

hood, — the.  vine-clad  hills  of  Evander,  his  Livy  and  his  Horace  to  help  out  the 

the.  legendary  Arcadian  who  ruled  a  prosaic  details  of  the  guide-book.     In 

colony  111  Italy,  and  received  JSneas;  his  reference  to  the  Tiber  he  all  but 

the   swollen  Tiber ;  and   the  so-called  quotes  Horace,  Ode  I.  2. 


808  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

length  to  have  volunteered  the  remark,  "  When  we  get  to 
Naples,  you  must  see  MANSO."  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Milton  already  knew  all  about  the  person  thus  men 
tioned ;  but,  while  the  vettu-ra  is  jogging  on,  and  the  two 
fellow-travellers  are  still  conversing,  we  may  throw  in  the 
necessary  information. 

Born  in  1561,  and  therefore  now  three  years  older  than 
Shakespeare  would  have  been  had  he  been  living,  GIOVANNF 
BATTISTA  MANSO,  Marquis  of  Villa  and  Lord  of  Bisaccio  and 
Panca  in  the  territories  of  Naples,  was  not  only  the  most 
venerable  by  age  and  character,  but  also  the  highest  by 
wealth  and  influence,  of  all  the  native  Italian  noblemen  of 
those  territories,  and  the  very  next  man  in  Naples,  all  in  all, 
to  the  resident  Spanish  Viceroy.  Although  he  had  seen 
military  service  in  his  youth,  his  long  life  in  the  main  had 
been  of  that  private  sort,  seeking  satisfaction  in  self-culture, 
artistic  and  literary  dilettantism,  and  the  prosecution  of  all 
hopeful  forms  of  permitted  speculation  and  amusement,  to 
which  every  high-minded  Italian  was  driven  in  those  days 
of  Italian  dismemberment,  paralysis,  and  subjection  to  the 
foreigner.  He  could  look  back  on  a  life  of  this  sort  richer 
and  more  varied  than  had  been  experienced  by  almost  any 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  containing  some  peculiarly  bril 
liant  memories.  Chief  among  these  was  his  intimacy  with 
the  poet  Tasso,  dating  from  as  far  back  as  1588,  when  Tasso 
was  in  his  forty-fourth  year,  and  Manso  only  in  his  twenty- 
eighth. 

Great,  unhappy  Tasso  !  how  all  Italy  had  then  admired  and 
pitied  him  !  After  having  been  tossed  about  from  Neapolitan 
Sorrento,  where  he  had  been  born,  to  Home  in  his  first 
boyhood,  thence  to  Venice,  thence  to  Padua,  Bologna,  and 
numberless  places  more,  fate  had  brought  him,  when  he  was 
still  a  youth,  but  when  his  Rinaldo  was  already  out  in  the 
world,  to  his  place  of  doom  in  Ferrara.  After  fourteen  years 
of  honoured  and  pensioned  life  here,  varied  by  unaccountable 
flights  and  abrupt  returns,  his  madness,  or  his  passion  for 
the  Duke's  sister,  the  princess  Leonora,  had  broken  all 
bounds.  He  was  tortured  by  fears  that  he  was  unsound  in 


THE    NEAPOLITAN    MANSO.  809 

the  faith;  he  uttered  wild  sayings  against   the  Duke;    he 
rushed  at  a  servant  of  the  Court  with  a  knife.     Provoked 
by  these  outbreaks,  or  discovering  his  love  for  Leonora,  the 
Duke,  after  putting  him  under  gentle  restraint,  had  done 
the  deed  which  blasted  the  ancient  literary  honours  of  the 
house  of  Este.     For  a  year  Tasso  had  been  confined  as  a 
pauper  lunatic,  addressing  doleful  sonnets  and  letters  to  the 
Duke   and  the    Princesses;  nor,  though   more  liberty   was 
afterwards  allowed  him,  could  the  reclamations  of  all  Italy, 
— familiar  with  his  Aminta   since   1573,  and  now  ringing 
with    the   fame   of   his   Gerusalemme  Liberata, — obtain    his 
effective  release.     At  length,  in  1586,  intercessions  of  car 
dinals  and  princes  having  prevailed,  Tasso  was  free  to  wander 
where  he  chose.     Leonora  had  been  dead  five  years ;  and 
seven  years  of  imprisonment  had  done  their  work.  With  a 
mind  still  clear  and  sane  at  the  highest,  slowly  labouring 
into  sweetness  a  second  poem  of  the  Crusades,  and  rolling 
thoughts  of  sublimer  subjects  beyond  that,  Tasso  was  the 
prey  of  incurable  melancholy.     He  saw  apparitions,  some 
times  glorious,  as  when  the  Virgin  appeared  to  him  sphered 
in  crimson  vapour,  sometimes  horrible  and  impish  ;  he  heard 
laughings,  hissings,  and  the  ringing  of  bells  in  the  air ;  he 
suspected  all  around  him;  he  could  rest  nowhere.     Eluding 
his  friends,  he  would  change  his  place  of  abode  suddenly. 
He  would  pass  unknown  through  villages,  observed    as   a 
man  of  the  largest /ram e,  large  even  among  large  men,  of 
solemn  and  silent  demeanour,  and  always  dressed  in  black, 
with  linen  of  the  purest  white.     Sometimes  he  would  pass 
through  woods  and  disturb  brigands  at  their  carouse.     In 
one   of  those  rambles  he  came,  by  appointment,  from  his 
head-quarters  at  Rome,  to  his  almost  native  Naples,  which 
he  had  left  in  childhood,  and  had  visited  but  once  since. 
Then  it  was   that  Manso   and  he  became  acquainted.     It 
seemed  as  if  Providence  had  brought  the  maniac  to  young 
Manso's  door. 

At  Manso's  villa  near  Naples,  and  then  at  his  villa  at 
Bisaccio,  Tasso  had  been  tended  with  the  utmost  care,  and 
surrounded  by  all  that  could  soothe  and  amuse  him.  His 


810  LIFE    OP    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME. 

affection  for  Manso  became  stronger  than  any  friendship  he 
had  yet  acknowledged,  with  perhaps  one  exception,  while 
Manso' s  admiration  of  him  grew  with  every  day's  knowledge 
and  observation.  Once  Manso  was  present  when  his  phrensy 
was  at  its  height  and  he  wrestled  with  his  aerial  demon. 
Then  Tasso  called  on  Manso  to  look  and  listen,  and  Manso 
heard  Tasso  talk  in  so  rapt  and  lofty  a  strain  that  he  thought, 
if  their  intercourse  continued  long  and  there  were  more  of 
the  like,  the  end  might  be  his  own  belief  in  the  delusion 
rather  than  the  cure  of  Tasso. 

This  first  visit  lasted  for  some  time ;  but  twice  again 
Tasso,  in  his  wanderings,  had  come  to  Naples  to  be  Manso's 
guest.  It  was  during  the  last  of  those  visits,  in  1594,  that 
he  completed  his  Gerusalemme  Conqidstala,  in  which  he 
introduces  Manso's  name  among  those  of  the  Campanian 
Princes ;  and  it  was  then  also  that  he  began  or  projected 
his  Sette  Giornate,  and  also  his  Dialogue  on  Friendship,  in 
which  he  makes  Manso  one  of  the  speakers,  and  which,  when 
finished,  he  dedicated  to  Manso,  and  entitled  II  Manso  after 
him.  On  Tasso' s  death-bed  at  Rome,  in  the  following  year, 
Manso's  name  was  on  his  lips,  and  he  bequeathed  a  picture  of 
himself,  which  had  been  painted  for  Manso,  back  to  Manso's 
keeping.  It  was  reserved  for  Manso,  when  he  visited  Home 
some  years  afterwards,  to  cause  the  words  TORQUATI  TASSI 
OSSA  to  be  inscribed  on  the  plain  stone  in  the  Church  of  St. 
Onuphrio  under  which  Tasso  had  been  buried.  The  privilege 
of  erecting  a  tomb  to  the  poet  was  denied  him. 

This  friendship  with  Tasso,  now  a  matter  of  forty  years 
ago  and  more,  and  lying  indeed  in  another  century,  had 
been  succeeded  by  a  similar  friendship,  hardly  less  remark 
able,  in  Manso's  later  life.  The  same  offices  of  generous 
kindness  which  he  had  performed  in  his  youth  and  early 
manhood  for  the  great  Tasso,  his  senior,  had  been  performed 
by  him,  with  variations,  and  over  a  longer  period,  for  Italy's 
next  most  celebrated  poet,  his  junior  in  years,  the  soft 
and  sensuous  Marini.  The  life  of  this  poet,  from  his  birth 
at  Naples  in  1569,  had  likewise  been  one  of  wandering  and 
vicissitude ;  and  the  Italian  world,  now  at  the  height,  or  in 


THE   NEAPOLITAN    MANSO.  811 

the  depth,  of  their  admiration  of  his  peculiar  genius,  and 
not  yet  accustomed  to  think  of  him  as  "  il  piu  contagibso 
corrompitor  del  buon  gusto  in  Italia."  accounted  it  little  less 
to  the  glory  of  Manso  that  he  had  protected  Marini  than 
that  he  had  tended  Tasso.  For  Marini  too  had  lived  under 
Manso's  hospitable  roof,  had  been  led  by  his  advice  and 
served  by  him  in  many  ways ;  and,  at  the  death  of  Marini 
in  1625,  in  his  native  Naples  and  at  the  court  of  the  Spanish 
Viceroy,  two  years  after  his  Adone  was  published,  and  when 
his  fame  was  at  its  acme,  it  was  to  Manso  that  he  left  the 
honour  and  expense  of  burying  him  and  of  erecting  his 
monument. 

To  have  been  the  friend  of  Tasso  and  Marini  would  have 
been  distinction  enough  in  the  life  of  an  Italian  noble. 
These  were  but  the  more  brilliant  reminiscences,  however, 
of  a  life  identified  at  many  points  with  the  course  of  Italian 
Literature  through  the  preceding  half-century,  and  more 
especially  with  the  intellectual  interests  of  Southern  Italy 
in  its  condition  as  a  Spanish  province.  Manso  was  himself 
an  author.  His  first  known  work  was  his  Paradossi,  ovvero 
dell'  Amore  Dialoglii,  a  set  of  philosophical  prose  dialogues 
on  Love,  published,  apparently  without  his  consent,  at 
Milan  in  1608;  another  set  of  Dialogues,  en  titled  L'Erocallia, 
or  "  Love  and  Beauty,"  had  been  published  at  Venice  in 
1618,  and  again  at  Milan  in  1628  ;  his  most  interesting  work, 
his  Life  of  Tasso,  including  a  singularly  affectionate  collec 
tion  of  details  respecting  the  poet's  looks,  habits,  and 
opinions,  had  been  published  at  Naples  in  1619,  reprinted 
twice  at  Venice,  and  again  at  Rome  in  1634, — not  acknow 
ledged  by  the  author,  but  not  disowned  by  him  ;  he  was 
understood  to  be  preparing  a  similar  biography  of  Marini ; 
and  he  had  given  the  world  an  opportunity  of  judging  finally 
of  his  talents  in  poetry  by  the  publication  at  Venice,  in 
1635,  of  a  collection  of  his  juvenile  poems,  chiefly  sonnets 
and  canzoni,  under  the  title  of  Pocsie  Nomiche,  divise  in 
Rime  Amorose,  Sacre,  e  Morali.  To  this  collection  were  af 
fixed,  among  complimentary  sonnets  from  many  friends, 
six  from  the  pen  of  Tasso,  and  three  from  that  of  Marini. 


812  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Nor  was  this  all.  Two  of  the  most  famous  institutions  of 
Naples  owed  their  origin  to  Manso,  and  honoured  him  as 
their  president  and  patron, — the  Academy  of  the  Oziosi  or 
"  Idlers,"  and  the  College  Dei  Nobill.  The  Academy  was 
much  on  the  model  of  the  other  Italian  Academies,  and  held 
its  meetings  at  Manso's  Neapolitan  villa ;  the  College, 
founded  expressly  for  the  education  of  the  young  Neapolitan 
nobles,  was  an  institution  of  Manso's  own  devising,  and  in 
whose  interest  he  was  more  frugal  of  his  fortunes  than 
appeared  necessary,  that  he  might  endow  it  the  more  suit 
ably  at  his  death.  Here,  while  intellectual  and  artistic 
culture  of  all  kinds  was  attended  to,  there  was  also  a 
systematic  discipline  of  the  youth  in  riding,  fencing,  and 
other  chivalrous  and  soldierly  exercises,  in  order  that  "  by 
"  such  sportive  handling  of  arms  they  might  learn  how  to  use 
"  arms  when  they  should  have  to  assume  them  in  earnest/' 
There  were  similar  exercises  at  the  meetings  of  the  Oziosi. 
Perhaps  the  Spaniards  might  have  looked  with  suspicion  on 
such  practices,  had  they  been  under  the  auspices  of  any  one 
else  than  Manso. 

All  in  all,  in  the  year  1638,  there  was  not  a  name  in  Italy 
more  universally  known  than  that  of  Manso,  Marquis  of 
Yilla.  He  was  then  in  his  seventy-eighth  year,  and,  Molino 
of  Venice  and  Strozzi  of  Home  having  recently  died,  was 
regarded  as  the  sole  survivor  of  the  three  private  noblemen 
of  his  age  who  had  rivalled  ruling  princes  in  their  munifi 
cence  to  letters.  The  Church  held  him  in  honour  as  one  in 
•whom  piety  and  orthodox  scrupulosity  had  been  life-long 
characteristics,  while  to  his  lay  friends  the  strictness  of  his 
moral  notions  seemed  the  result  of  a  life  that  had  been 
regulated  all  along  on  some  such  principle  of  chivalrous 
asceticism  as  that  which  he  had  praised  in  Tasso.  In  a 
portrait  of  him  in  youth,  clad  in  armour,  I  see  some  resem 
blance  to  the  English  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  save  that  the  eyes 
seem  languid  and  dreamy.  In  his  old  age  he  preserved  his 
dignity  of  bearing,  even  while  joining  in  the  revels  of  his 
younger  friends,  and  submitting  to  every  law  or  custom  of 
their  frolicsome  society.  One  of  his  great  rules  of  chivalry 


MILTON    IN   NAPLES.  813 

and  good  fellowship  was  that  of  obedience  to  orders,  what 
ever  they  might  be ;  and,  on  certain  days  of  mirth,  when 
the  young  men  would  test  this  rule  on  himself,  by  ordering 
him  to  do  the  most  absurd  acts,  he  would  obey  in  the 
readiest  manner.  "  As  the  custom  was,  in  the  meetings  of 
"the  club  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  to  which  he  belonged,  he 
"  would  cheerfully  bear  being  rallied  on  his  defects :  if 
"ordered  to  touch  the  ground  with  his  mouth,  or  to  kiss 
"  the  feet  of  his  associates,  he  would  not  elude  the  command 
"and  refuse;  nor  would  he  be  less  obedient  if  he  were 
"  ordered  to  take  off  from  his  head  the  periwig  which  con- 
"  cealed  his  baldness,  for  straightway  off  it  would  go,  and 
"he  would  exhibit  his  bald  head  manfully  amid  the  great 
"  laughter  of  the  beholders."  Dignity  that  could  bear  up 
under  this  must  have  had  a  touch  of  Socratic  composure.1 

Meanwhile  our  travellers  have  arrived  in  Naples.  There, 
as  soon  as  they  had  settled  themselves  conveniently  in  some 
inn,  the  friendly  Eremite  Friar  was  as  good  as  his  word, 
and  did  bring  Milton  and  Manso  together.  "  By  a  certain 
"  Eremite,  with  whom  I  had  made  the  journey  from  Rome, 
"  I  was  introduced  to  JOANNES  BAPTISTA  MANSUS,  Marquis 
"  of  Villa,  a  most  noble  and  important  man,  to  whom  Tor- 
"  quatus  Tasso,  the  famous  Italian  poet,  addressed  his  Dis- 
"  course  on  Friendship  •  and,  as  long  as  I  stayed  there,  I 
"  experienced  the  most  friendly  attention  from  him,  he 
"  himself  acting  as  my  guide  through  the  different  parts 
"  of  the  city,  and  to  the  Palace  of  the  Viceroy,  and  coming 
"  himself,  not  once  only,  to  my  inn  to  visit  me." 

Milton  could  not  have  had  a  better  guide  in  Naples  than 
Manso.  He  loved  his  native  city ;  he  was  familiar  with 
every  aspect  of  it,  and  with  every  spot  near  it  sacred  either 
by  beauty  or  by  tradition ;  and  I  have  not  seen  a  description 
of  Naples  more  succinctly  charming  than  that  which  he 
introduces  in  his  Life  of  Tasso,  where  he  tells  of  that  poet's 

1  A  notice  of  Manso  in  Jani  Nidi  boschi  and  other  common  sources,  and 

Erythrcd    Pinacotkeca    has    furnished  from   Manso's    Vita  di   Tasso  and  his 

particulars  for  the  foregoing  sketch,  in  Poesie  Nomiche. 
addition  to  those  gatherer1  from  Tira- 


814  LIFE   OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS   TIME. 

rapture  with,  tlie  place  during  the  visit  in  which  their  friend 
ship  was  first  formed.  After  dwelling  on  the  fineness  of 
the  climate,  the  wonderful  natural  art  of  the  site,  and  the 
largeness  of  the  city  seen  at  the  first  glance,  he  passes  to 
the  perpetual  sea-view  on  the  south,  the  gentle  slopes  of 
the  hills  behind,  the  amplitude  of  the  plains  on  the  east, 
and  the  verdure  of  Posilipo  on  the  west.  Then,  widening 
the  circuit,  he  stations  the  visitor  on  the  delightful  shore  of 
the  bay,  bidding  him  observe  how  the  sea  sweeps  into  it  in 
a  cup-like  curve.  "  On  the  right  side  of  this  are  the  shores 
"  and  rocks  glorious  by  the  sepulture  of  Virgil  and  Sannazaro, 
"  by  the  grotto  of  Lucullus,  the  villa  of  Cicero,  the  still  and 
"  the  bubbling  waters  of  Cumas,  and  the  fires  of  Pozzuoli, 
"  all  protected  by  the  mountains  of  Baiae,  the  promontory 
"  of  Miletus,  and  the  island  of  Ischia,  dear  no  less  for  the 
"fable  of  Typhoeus  than  for  its  own  fertility;  on  the  left 
"  are  the  shores  no  less  famous  by  the  tomb  of  Parthenope, 
"by  Arethusa's  subterranean  streams,  by  the  gardens  of 
"  Pompeii,  by  the  fresh-running  waters  of  Sebeto,  and  by 
ff  the  smoke  of  burning  Vesuvius,  all  equally  shut  in  by  the 
"  mountain  of  Gaurus,  the  promontory  of  Minerva,  and  the 
"  isle  of  Capri,  where  Tiberius  hid  at  once  his  luxury  and 
"  his  vices/'  Then,  returning  to  the  city  itself,  he  descants 
on  the  strength  of  the  castle  and  fortifications,  the  length 
and  straightness  of  the  streets,  the  spaciousness  of  the 
squares,  the  variety  of  the  plentiful  fountains,  the  magnifi 
cence  of  the  public  and  private  buildings,  the  concourse  of 
foreign  residents,  the  crowd  and  bustle  of  the  native  popu 
lace,  the  pomp  of  the  cavaliers,  the  number  of  the  princes 
and  the  nobility,  the  assemblage  of  merchants  and  of  country 
people  in  the  markets,  and  the  superabundance  of  all  the 
requisites  of  pleasant  life,  from  the  wines  to  the  fruits  and 
the  flowers.  All  this,  he  says,  Tasso  had  admired  and 
praised ;  and,  had  there  been  a  spot  in  all  the  world  where 
that  poet  could  have  bfcen  at  rest,  Manso  thinks  it  would 
surely  have  been  Naples.1 

With  none  the  less  pleasure  would  Milton  behold  all  this 

i  Vita  di  Tasso,  edit.  1634,  pp.  190-193. 


MILTON    IN   NAPLES.  815 

because  Tasso  had  beheld  it  before  him,  or  because  the  same 
Manso  who  now  pointed  out  the  separate  beauties  had 
pointed  them  out  to  Tasso  fifty  years  before,  and  could  not 
refrain  now  from  mixing  recollections  of  Tasso  with  them, — 
how  here  Tasso  had  uttered  such  a  saying,  here  he  had 
seemed  suddenly  moody,  here  he  had  raised  his  large 
blue  eyes  to  heaven  with  that  peculiar  soaring  look  which 
he  had  seen  in  no  man  else.  And  then  to  enter  Manso's 
villa,  close  by  the  hill  of  Posilipo  and  the  grotto  of  Pozzuoli, 
with  the  sea  at  »its  feet  and  with  the  view  of  the  bay  from 
its  windows;1  to  know  that  Tasso  and  Marini  had  been  in 
those  rooms  ;  to  hear  farther  accounts  of  those  poets  person 
ally  ;  and  to  experience  the  courtesies  which  they  had  ex 
perienced  !  There  may,  possibly,  have  been  meetings  with 
some  of  Manso's  friends  of  the  Oziosi  and  the  Dei  Nobili, 
and  so  with  some  celebrities  of  Naples  whose  names  are  still 
remembered, — if  not  even  an  actual  glimpse  of  Domenichino 
and  Salvator  Rosa.  This  is  mere  conjecture;  but,  in  any 
case,  there  was  talk,  and  free  talk,  with  Manso  himself  of 
England  and  of  Italy,  of  poetry  in  general,  and  of  Milton's 
opinions,  plans,  and  prospects.  To  the  interest  of  the  good 
old  Italian  in  the  young  Englishman  there  was  but  one 
drawback.  "  He  excused  himself  to  me,"  says  Milton,  ,.. 
"  that,  though  he  wished  excessively  to  have  shown  me 
"  much  greater  attention,  he  had  not  been  able  to  do  so  in 
"  that  city,  because  I  would  not  be  more  close  in  the  matter 
"  of  religion."  Perhaps  Milton  was  too  unguarded  also  in 
other  matters.  Questions  of  politics,  as  well  as  of  religion, 
may  have  risen  in  his  mind.  That  beautiful  region  on  which 
Nature  lavished  her  smiles,  why  was  it  muffled  in  crape  ? 
why  did  it  not  cast  off  the  Spaniard  ?  Manso's  own  honour 
able  life,  had  that  been  all  that  it  might  have  been  and  ought 
to  have  been  ?  Hush  !  Such  thoughts  are  not  for  the  villa  of 
the  Marquis ;  but  look  at  that  skiff,  brown-sailed,  tacking  in 
the  bay.  A  young  lad  from  Amalfi  is  there,  known  among 
the  lazzaroni.  Now  his  song  rises  light  in  the  breeze ;  but, 

1  Appendix  No.  5  to  Walker's  "  His-       is  approximately  determined  by  docu> 
torical   Memoir   of   Italian   Tragedy "       mentary  evidence. 
(1799),  where  the  site  of  Manso's  villa 


816  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

a  few  years  hence,  will  not  all  Naples  be  round  him,  and 
shall  not  the  world  hear  of  the  fisherman  Masaniello  ? 

Milton  had  not  intended  that  Naples  should  be  the  termin 
ation  of  his  continental  tour.  Sicily  and  Greece  had  been 
in  his  programme,  lands  older  in  history  and  in  song  than 
he  had  visited  yet,  and  which  would  have  opened  to  him 
more  of  the  primeval  Mediterranean.  Why  he  did  not 
proceed  is  explained  by  himself.  "  While  I  was  desirous/' 
he  says,  "  to  cross  into  Sicily  and  Greece,- the  sad  news  of 
"  Civil  War  in  England  called  me  back  ;  for  I  considered  it 
"  base  that,  while  my  fellow-countrymen  were  fighting  at 
"  home  for  liberty,  I  should  be  travelling  abroad  at  ease  for 
"  intellectual  culture."  The  news  which  had  thus  reached 
Milton  at  Naples,  probably  in  the  latter  part  of  December 
1638,  was,  we  shall  find,  an  exaggeration  in  form,  but  not 
v  in  fact.  Scotland  was  then  in  open  rebellion  against  Charles 
and  Laud  under  the  banner  of  her  Covenant,  and  English 
Puritanism  was  astir  sympathetically.  Rumours  of  this 
condition  of  things  may  have  come  to  Naples  magnified  by 
distance  and  distorted  by  having  passed  through  Paris. 
Enough  was  true,  however,  to  justify  Milton's  resolution  to 
return  home. 

Having  made  up  his  mind  to  return,  he  thought  it  but  fit 
to  thank  Manso  for  his  kindness  in  a  more  deliberate  manner 
than  usual.  He  accordingly  wrote  in  his  inn,  and  addressed 
to  Manso  in  his  villa,  the  following  epistle  in  Latin  hexame 
ters.  The  heading  is  a  subsequent  addition,  prefixed  when 
the  poem  was  sent  to  the  press  in  England,  about  seven 
years  afterwards,  Manso  being  then  still  alive,  in  extreme 
old  age.1 

MANSO. 

Joannes  Baptista  Mansus,  Marquis  of  Villa,  is  a  man  illustrious  in 
the  first  rank  among  Italians  by  the  reputation  of  his  genius,  both  in 
the  study  of  letters  and  also  in  warlike  valour.  There  is  extant  a 
Dialogue  of  Torquato  Tasso  On  Friendship,  addressed  to  him  ;  for  he 
was  Tasso's  most  intimate  friend ;  by  whom  he  is  also  celebrated 

1  Manso  died  in  1645,  atat.  84 ;  and  eluding  the  'Epistle  to  Manso,  was 
the  first  edition  of  Milton's  poems,  in-  published  in  the  same  year 


MILTON    IN    NAPLES:    POEM    TO    MANSO.  817 

among  the  princes  of  Campania  in  the  poem  entitled  Gerusahmme 
Conquistata,  book  XX. — 

"  Fra  cavalier  magnanimi  e  cortesi 
Risplende  il  Manso." 

This  nobleman  honoured  the  author,  during  his  stay  in  Naples,  with 
every  kindness  in  his  power,  and  conferred  on  him  many  acts  of 
courtesy.  To  him,  therefore,  his  guest,  before  leaving  that  city,  to 
show  himself  not  ungrateful,  sent  the  following  poem. 

One  more  song  in  thy  praise  the  Muses  are  pondering,  Manso, 
One  more,  Manso,  to  thee,  whom  all  the  choir  of  Apollo 
Mark  as  the  man  in  chief  that  god  has  delighted  to  honour 
Since  the  death  of  Gallus  and  days  of  Etruscan  Maecenas. 
Thou  too,  if  but  the  breath  of  our  poetry  so  far  availeth, 
Safe  shalt  sit  .amidst  the  victorious  ivies  and  laurels.1 

Nobly  in  days  gone  by  great  Tasso's  fortunate  friendship 
Coupled  thy  name  with  his  and  wrote  them  on  pages  eternal. 
Later,  no  ignorant  muse  made  over  sweet-speaking  Marini 
Into  thy  charge  :  he  is  fain  himself  to  pass  for  thy  pupil 
All  through  his  flowing  tales  of  Assyrian  gods  and  their  amours, 
Sung  in  the  tender  strains  that  astound  the  Italian  fair  ones. 
Ay,  and  expressly  to  thee  alone  that  bard  on  his  death-bed 
Left  his  bones  in  trust  and  the  care  of  his  latest  commissions  : 
Nor  did  thy  loving  regard  deceive  thy  friend  in  his  coffin  ; 
Smiling  in  well-wrought  brass  we  have  seen  the  face  of  the  poet. 
Neither  has  this  seemed  enough  for  the  one  or  the  other  ;  thy  kindness 
Ceases  not  even  at  the  grave ;  the  men  themselves  thou  would st  rescue 
Back  from  the  dead  entire,  and  cheat  the  Fates  of  their  capture, 
Sketching  the  births  of  both,  and  the  chequered  course  of  their 

fortunes 

Here  in  life,  and  their  habits,  and  special  kinds  of  endowment, 
Rivalling  thus  that  ancient  who,  born  near  Mycale's  mountain, 
Told  in  Iris  eloquent  prose  the  life  of  ^Eolian  Homer. 
Therefore  do  I,  in  name  of  Clio  and  mighty  Apollo, 
Call  thee  my  father  Manso,  and  bid  thee  a  long  salutation, 
Pilgrim  youth  though  I  am  from  the  lands  of  the  northern  pole-star. 
Nor  wilt  thou,  in  thy  goodness,  despise  this  muse  from  a  distance, 
Which,  in  these  late  days,  and  scarcely  matured  in  the  cold  north, 
Indiscreetly  has  dared  to  flutter  through  Italy's  cities. 
We  also  think  that  we  have  heard  the  swans  in  our  river 
Making  music  at  night  through  all  the  shadowy  darkness, 
Where  our  silver  Thames,  at  breadth  of  her  pure-gushing  current, 
Bathes  with  tidal  whirl  the  yellow  locks  of  the  Ocean ; 
Nay,  and  our  Chaucer 2  once  came  here  as  a  stranger  before  me. 

1  Milton  helps  himself  here  to  a  line        Tityrus  ;  but,  as  Warton  pointed  out, 
from  his  Latin  poem  to  his  Father:  see       that  is  the  standing  name  for  Chaucer 
ante,  p.  336.  in  Spenser's  pastorals. 

2  The  name  in  the  Latin  original  is 
VOL.  I.  3G 


818  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

Deem  not  of  us  as  a  race  uncultured  and  useless  to  Phoebus, 
Bred  in  a  region  of  earth  underlying  the  seven-starred  Plough,  and 
Patient  the  long  nights  through  beneath  the  wintry  Bootes. 
We  too  have  Phoebus  in  honour  ;  we  too  erewhile  to  Phcebus 
(Else  old  legends  lie)  have  sent  our  tributes  of  worship, — 
Yellowing  stalks  of  corn,  and  ruddy-ripe  apples  in  baskets, 
Crocuses  breathing  sweet,  and  chosen  bands  of  our  maidens, 
Sprung  of  that  old  race  of  Druids  who,  practised  in  lore  of  the  priest 
hood, 

Sang  the  praises  of  heroes  and  deeds  of  worthy  example.1 
Hence  the  Grecian  girls,  in  their  customed  holiday  dances 
Hound  the  shrines  of  the  god  in  his  grassy  island  of  Delos, 
Name  even  now  in  their  chaunts  our  Cornish  adventuress  Loxo, 
Upis,  our  prophet-maid,  and  flaxen-haired  Hecaerge, 
Each  with  her  bosom  stained  with  the  blue  Caledonian  heath-juice2 

Wherefore,  happy  old  man,  wherever  over  the  wide  world 
Tasso's  glorious  verse  and  magnificent  name  shall  be  cherished, 
Or  there  shall  grow  and  spread  the  brilliant  fame  of  Marini, 
Thou  too  shalt  frequently  come  into  all  men's  mouths  for  applauses, 
And  with  proportioned  flight  shalt  wing  thy  journey  immortal. 
Rumour  then  shall  run  with  what  goodwill  in  thy  household 
Cynthius  dwelt  and  his  hand-maid  muses  came  to  thy  portals. 
Far  less  willingly  once  the  same  god,  outcast  from  heaven, 
Went  to  the  house  and  farm  of  King  Admetus  of  Pherse, 
Though  that  king  had  received  great  Hercules  into  his  guest-room. 
Only,  when  he  would  shun  the  noisy  mirth  of  the  herdsmen, 
Did  he  make  his  way  to  the  cave  of  the  mild-mannered  Centaur, 
Mid  the  winding  thickets  and  bowers  of  leafy  profusion 
Close  by  Peneus'  stream3 :  there  often  under  an  oak-tree, 
Won  by  the  kindly  request  of  his  friend,  he  would  lighten  and  solace 
Exile's  labours  hard  by  a  song  to  the  lute  which  he  carried. 
Then  neither  bank  of  earth  nor  the  huge  deep-socketed  boulders 
Kept  in  their  places  for  glee  ;  the  Rock  Trachinian  trembles, 
Missing  the  wonted  weight  of  its  acres  of  woody  incumbrance ; 
Down  from  their  hills  uprooted  the  elms  career  in  their  hurry ; 
Ay  and  the  spotty  lynxes  are  charmed  by  the  musical  magic. 

Old  man  loved  of  the  gods  !  great  Jupiter  must  have  been  friendly 
Just  at  thy  birth,  and  Phcebus  and  Mercury  also  together 

1  Another   line  borrowed  substanti-  3  "  Apollo,  being  driven  from  heaven, 
ally  from  the  poem  Ad  Patrem :  see  kept  the  cattle  of  King  Admetus,  in 
ante,  p.  335.  Thessaly,  who  had  entertained  Hercu- 

2  The  reference  is  to  the  three  Hy-  les.     This  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
perborean   nymphs,   Loxo,  Upis,    and  the  river  Peneus  and  of  mount  Pelion, 
Hecaerge,  who,  in  the  hymn  of  Calli-  inhabited  by  Chiron." — To  this  note  by 
machus,  send  fruits  to  Apollo  in  Delos.  Warton  it  may  be  added  that  Chiron 
Milton  makes  them   British   nymphs,  was  one  of  the  Centanrs,  highly  edu- 
andLoxo  more  particularly  thedaughter  cated,  of  singularly  mild  mauners,  and 
of  Corineus,  the  companion  of  Brutus,  most  hospitable  to  sages  who  visited 
and  the  first  legendary  king  of  Cornwall.  his  cave. 

See  a  note  of  Warton  on  the  passage. 


MILTON    IN   NAPLES  :    POEM    TO   MANSO.  819 

Mildly  have  shone  on  the  moment ;  for  no  one  not  from  his  birth-hour 
Dear  to  the  gods  above  can  be  a  great  poet's  protector. 
Hence  does  thy  old  age  bloom  as  with  lingering  garlands  of  roses, 
Keeping  the  clustering  honours  unshed    from  thy  forehead    and 

temples,1 
Genius  yet  in  strength,  and  the  edge  of  the  intellect  perfect. 

0  were  it  my  good  luck  to  have  such  a  friend  in  the  future, 

One  that  should  know  as  well  what  is  due  to  the  children  of  Phoebus, 

If  I  should  ever  recall  into  song  the  kings  of  my  country, 

Arthur  still  from  his  under-ground  stirring  the  warlike  commotion,       \ 

Or  should  tell  of  those  that  were  leagued  as  the  knights  of  his  Table, 

Great-souled  heroes  unmatched,  and  (O  might  the  spirit  but  aid  me!) 

Shiver  the  Saxon  phalanxes  under  the  shock  of  the  Britons  ! 

Then,  when  at  last,  having  measured  the  span  of  my  mortal  existence, 

Fall  of  years,  I  should  leave  to  the  dust  its  rightful  possession, 

He  would  be  standing,  I  know,  with  tears  in  his  eyes:  by  my  bed-side  ; 

No  more  needed  then  than  "  Make  me  thy  charge, "  as  he  stood  there ; 

He  would  see  that  my  limbs,  slack-stretched  in  inanimate  pallor, 

Gently  were  laid  and  with  care  in  their  small  receiving  encasement ; 

Haply  our  features  even  he  would  fetch  from  memorial  marble, 

Twining  the  Paphian  myrtle  or  leaf  of  Parnassian  laurel 

Round  the  sculptured  locks,  while  I  shall  be  resting  in  quiet. 

Then,  too,  if  faith  means  aught,  if  the  good  are  surely  rewarded, 

1  myself,  removed  to  the  heaven  where  the  gods  have  their  dwelling, 
Whither  labour,  and  conscience  pure,  and  ardour  promote  us, 

Still  shall  behold  all  this  from  that  high  world  of  the  secret, 
Far  as  the  fates  allow,  and  with  perfect  mental  composure 
Smiling  shall  feel  my  face  suffused  with  a  luminous  purple, 
Such  a  blush  as  may  come  in  the  blaze  of  the  bliss  of  Olympus. 

Thus  finely  addressed,  Manso  showed  his  corresponding 
appreciation  of  the  worth  of  his  young  English  admirer  by 
the  parting  gift  of  two  cups  of  rich  workmanship,  with 
engraved  or  painted  mythological  designs  on  them,2  and  by 
the  accompanying  compliment  of  a  Latin  epigram.  The 
compliment  is  an  adaptation  to  Milton  of  the  well-known 
story  of  the  beautiful  Anglic  youths  seen  at  Rome  by  Pope 
Gregory,  and  the  sight  of  whom  moved  that  Pope  to  the 
enterprise  of  converting  the  then  Pagan  English  to  Chris 
tianity  ;  and  it  is  as  pointed  as  it  is  brief : — 

i  One  can  hardly  reconcile  this  with  described  by  Milton  in  his  Epitaphium 

the  story  of  the  periwig  iu  Erythraeus :  Damonis,  written  after  his  return  to 

see  ante,  p.  813.  England. 

1  The  cups  we  shall  find  minutely 


820          LIFE  OP  MILTON  AND  HISTORY  OF  HIS  TIME. 

"  JOANNES  BAPTISTA  MANSUS,  MARQUIS  OF  VILLA,  NEAPOLITAN, 
TO  JOHN  MILTON,  ENGLISHMAN. 

"  Mind,  form,  grace,  face,  and  morals  are  perfect ;  if  but  thy  creed 
were, 
Then,  not  Anglic  alone,  truly  Angelic  thou  'dst  be." 

The  sentiment  expressed  so  delicately,  and  yet  so  distinctly, 
by  Manso,  seems  to  have  been  very  general  among  Milton's 
1  Italian  acquaintances.  From  his  first  entry  into  Italy 
he  had  thrown  aside  Scipioni's  maxim,  "  Thoughts  close 
and  visage  open,"  recommended  to  him  at  his  departure 
by  Sir  Henry  Wotton.  Everywhere  he  had  been  frank, 
not  to  say  polemical,  on  the  subject  of  his  religious  prin 
ciples,  so  that,  having  met  and  discoursed  with  many 
persons,  he  had  left  behind  him  a  track  of  criticisms 
and  comments  on  the  uncompromising  character  of  his 
Protestantism. 

Especially  at  Rome,  and  most  especially  of  all  among  the 
English  Jesuits  and  "  perverts "  there,  offence  had  been 
given  by  the  sight  of  an  Englishman,  of  good  means  and  of 
reputation  for  scholarship,  going  about  so  stiffly  Anti-Papist 
at  a  time  when  the  diplomacy  of  England  with  the  Court  of 
Rome  rendered  such  conduct  in  travelling  Englishmen  not 
at  all  fashionable  and  not  at  all  desirable.  Hence,  after 
he  had  left  Rome  for  Naples,  a  cabal  had  been  formed 
against  him  at  Rome  which  rendered  his  return  by  that 
city  rather  dangerous.  "  The  merchants  [at  Naples  ?] 
"warned  me,"  he  says,  "that  they  had  learnt  by  letters 
"  that  snares  were  being  laid  for  me  by  the  English  Jesuits, 
"  if  I  should  return  to  Rome,  on  the  ground  that  I  had 
(t  spoken  too  freely  concerning  religion.  For  I  had  made 
"this  resolution  with  myself, — not,  indeed,  of  my  own 
"  accord  to  introduce  in  those  places  conversation  about 
"religion,  but,  if  interrogated  respecting  the  faith,  then, 
"  whatsoever  I  should  suffer,  to  dissemble  nothing.  To 
"  Rome,  therefore,  I  did  return,  notwithstanding  what  I  had 
"been  told;  what  I  was,  if  any  one  asked,  I  concealed 
"  from  no  one ;  if  any  one,  in  the  very  City  of  the  Pope, 
"  attacked  the  orthodox  religion,  I,  as  before,  for  a  second 


RETURN   THROUGH.  ROME   AND   FLORENCE.  821 

"  space  of  nearly  two  months,  defended  it  most  freely."  l 
This  is  all  that  Milton  records  of  his  second  stay  in  Rome, 
including  January  and  part  of  February  1639 ;  and  we  are 
left  to  imagine  for  ourselves  his  renewed  intercourse  with 
Cherubini,  Holstenius,  Salzilli,  and  others,  his  renewed  ap 
pearances  in  the  Roman  academies,  and  his  presence,  with 
other  Englishmen,  at  some  of  the  impressive  ceremonies 
with  which  the  beginning  of  the  year  is  celebrated  in  the 
Roman  chapels  and  churches.2 

The  English  Jesuits  having,  after  all,  made  no  attempt  to 
molest  Milton,  he  took  his  final  farewell  of  Rome,  probably 
before  the  end  of  February,  and  arrived  for  the  second  time 
in  Florence.  Here  he  was  received,  he  says,  with  no  less  * 
eagerness  than  if  the  return  had  been  to  his  native  country 
and  his  friends  at  home ;  and  two  months, — bringing  him, 
say,  to  the  middle  of  April  1639, — were  again  spent  by  him 
most  agreeably  in  the  society  of  Graddi,  Dati,  Frescobaldi, 
Coltellini,  Buommattei,  Chimentelli,  Francini,  and  the  rest. 
There  may  possibly  have  been  a  second  visit  to  Galileo,  if 
indeed  the  one  famous  visit  does  not  belong  properly  to  this 
second  stay  of  Milton  in  Florence. — He  seems,  at  all  events, 
to  have  now  frequented  the  academies  even  more  regularly 
than  in  his  former  stay.  The  preserved  minutes  of  the  < 
Svogliati  record  his  presence  at  three  successive  meetings 
of  that  club  in  March  1639.  At  the  meeting  of  the  17th  of 
March  the  tenth  person  minuted  as  present  is  "  Miltonio," 
and  it  is  recorded  that,  while  the  main  business  was  a 
reading  and  explication  of  the  7th  chapter  of  the  Ethics 

i  Def.  Sec. :  Works,  VI.  pp.  288,' 289 :  Rome  "  to  express  their  civilities,  which 

Milton  did  not  exaggerate  the  danger.  otherwise  they  would  have  done." 
"  If  a  man  in  his  going  thither   [to  2  It  is  quite  possible  that  one  or  two 

"  Italy]  converse  with  Italians  and  dis-  of  the  incidents  which  I  have  referred 

"  cuss   or  dispute  his  religion,   he  is  to  Milton's  first  \isit  to  Borne  belong 

"  sure,  unless  he  fly,  to  be  complained  properly  to  the  second.    The  most  im- 

"on  and  brought  before  the  Itiquisi-  portant  incident, — his  introduction  to 

"  tion."    So  Lord  Chandos  had  written,  Holstenius,  and  consequently  to  Car- 

in   a  passage   in   his   Horce  Subseciva,  dinal  Barberiui, — is  distinctly  referred 

published  1620,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Mit-  by  himself  to  the  first  (Def.  Sec.)  ;  but 

ford  in  his  Memoir  of  Milton  (p.  xxxvi.).  the  encomiums  of  Salzilli  and  Selvaggi, 

Wood  speaks  as  if  he  had  heard  from  and  the  Epigrams  to  Leonora,  may  be- 

several  quarters  of  Milton's  "  resolute-  long  to  the  second.     Certainty  in  the 

ness  "  in  his  religion  at  Rome,  and  of  matter   being  impossible,   however,   I 

the   anger  of  the  English  Jesuits  in  have,  for  the  sake  of  coherence  in  the 

consequence,  and  the  fear  of  others  in  narrative,  kept  the  incidents  together. 


822  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTOEY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

Aristotle's  ?)  by  G.  Bartolommei,  followed  by  remarks  from 
several  of  the  auditors,  there  were  ' '  brought  and  read  some 
noble  Latin  verses  (alcuni  nobili  versi  latini)  "  by  Milton, 
Antinori,  and  Girolami.  At  the  meeting  of  the  24th,  which 
included  Alessandro  Pitti,  president  of  the  club,  Buommattei, 
consul,  Cavalcanti,  censor,  Bartolommei,  secretary,  Valori, 
the  Venetian  (?)  Resident,  Milton,  Doni,  Rena,  Girolami,  and 
Gaddi,  there  was  another  ethical  reading  by  Bartolommei, 
with  a  discussion  thereon,  after  which  were  "  an  eloge  and  a 
sonnet  by  Signor  Cavalcanti,  various  Italian  poems  by  Signors 
Bartolommei,  Buommattei,  and  Doni  (which  last  read  a  scene 
from  his  Tragedy),  and  various  Latin  poems  by  Signor  Milton 
and  an  epigram  by  Signor  Girolami."  On  the  31st  Milton 
was  again  present,  but  seems  to  have  taken  no  distinct  part ; 
and  this  is  the  last  meeting  at  which  he  is  mentioned  as 
having  been  present.1 — The  day  before  this  last  attendance 
of  his  among  the  Svogliati,  he  had  written  that  letter  of 
thanks  to  Holstenius  at  Rome,  the  first  portion  of  which 
has  already  been  quoted.  The  remainder,  referring  to  a 
kind  of  commission  which  Holstenius  had  given  him  on  his 
departure  for  Florence,  has  its  proper  place  here  : — 

*  *  *  The  commission  which  you  seemed  to  give  me,  relating  to 
the  inspection  of  a  Medicean  codex,  I  have  already  carefully  reported 
to  my  friends ;  who,  however,  hold  forth  for  the  present  very  small 
hope  of  effecting  that  matter.  In  that  library,  I  am  told,  nothing  can 
be  copied,  unless  by  leave  first  obtained ;  it  is  not  permitted  even  to 
bring  a  pen  to  the  tables.  But  they  tell  me  that  Giovanni  Battista 
Doni  is  now  in  Rome  ;  having  been  called  to  Florence  to  undertake 
the  public  lectureship  in  Greek,  he  is  daily  expected ;  and  through 

i  Stern's  Milton  und  Seine  Zeit,  Book  Dati—  I  find,  from  letters  in  the  State 

II.,  Appendix  (see  ante  p.  782  footnote).  Paper  Office,  that  Secretary  Winde- 

— The  remark  as  to  the  possibility  of  a  bank's   son   Christopher  was  residing 

division  of  the  recorded  incidents  into  in  Florence  at  the  time   of  Milton's 

those  of  the  first  and  those  of  the  second  second  visit,  and  receiving  many  atten- 

visit  applies  to  Florence  as  well  as  to  tions  from  the  Grand  Duke,  who  was 

Eome.      The  tense   of  some  parts   of  very  anxious    to    learn   "how  things 

Fraiicini's   complimentary  Italian   ode  were  going  on  in  Scotland,"  and  won- 

(ante  pp.  783-785)  might  suggest  that  dering  how  that   ';  barbarous   nation " 

it  was  not  written  till  Milton's  second  could  give  their  king  so  much  trouble, 

visit  to  Florence,  and  when  he  was  The  Scotch  commotions  seem  then  to 

about  to  leave  that  city  for  his  home-  have  been  the  talk  of  all  the  European 

ward  journey;  and  the  same  may  be  courts, 
true  of  the  similar  Latin  compliment  by 


BY    BOLOGNA   AND   FERRARA    TO   VENICE.  823 

him,  they  say,  it  will  be  easy  for  you  to  compass  what  you  want.1 
Still  it  would  have  been  truly  a  most  gratifying  accident  for  me  if  a 
matter  of  a  kind  so  eminently  desirable  had  advanced  somewhat 
farther  by  my  little  endeavour,  the  disgrace  being  that,  engaged  as 
you  are  in  work  so  honourable  and  illustrious,  all  men,  methods,  and 
circumstances,  are  not  everywhere  at  your  bidding. — For  the  rest,  you 
will  have  bound  me  by  a  new  obligation  if  you  salute  his  Eminence  \ 
the  Cardinal  with  all  possible  respect  in  my  name  ;  whose  great 
virtues,  and  regard  for  what  is  right,  singularly  evident  in  his  readiness  / 
to  forward  all  the  liberal  arts,  are  always  present  before  my  eyes,  as  • 
well  as  that  meek,  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  submissive  loftiness  of  mind, 
which  alone  has  taught  him  to  raise  himself  by  self-depression  ;  con- , 
cerning  which  it  may  truly  be  said,  as  is  said  of  Ceres  in  Callimachus, 
though  with  a  turn  of  the  sense  :  '  Feet  to  the  earth  still  cling,  while 
the  head  is  touching  Olympus.'    This  may  be  a  proof  to  most  other 
princes  how  far  asunder  and  alien  from  true  magnanimity  is  the  sour 
superciliousness  and  courtly  haughtiness  too  common.     Nor  do  I 
think  that,  while  he  is  alive,  men  will  miss  any  more  the  Este,  the 
Farnesi,  or  the  Medici,  formerly  the  favourers  of  learned  men. — 
Farewell,  most  learned  Holstenius ;  and,  if  there  is  any  more  than 
average  lover  of  you  and  your  studies,  I  should  wish  you  to  reckon 
me  along  with  him,  should  you  think  that  of  such  consequence, 
wheresoever  in  the  world  my  future  may  be. 
Florence,  March  30,  1639. 

Milton's  second  two  months  at  Florence  were  interrupted 
by  an  excursion  of  "  a  few  days "  to  Lucca,  about  forty 
miles  distant.  There  were  antiquities  and  interesting  works 
of  art  in  Lucca;  but,  as  there  was  nothing  of  contemporary 
importance  in  the  place,  I  can  only  suppose  that  the  motive 
of  the  visit  was  a  desire  to  see  the  town  and  district  whence 
his  friend  Charles  Diodati  and  the  whole  Diodati  family 
derived  their  lineage.  In  any  case,  Milton  had  to  return  to 
Florence  for  the  rest  of  his  projected  route  homewards 
through  the  north  of  Italy. 

•i  Holstenius  knew   Doni  very  well  "charge  of  those  who  know  not  even 

and  the  defects  of  the  Laurentian  Li-  "  the  names  of  authors  sufficiently,  and 

brary  at  Florence  too ;  for  among  his  "  are  mere  keepers  of  books."     Since 

printed  letters  (Lucca  Holstenii  Epistol®  then  Doni  and  Holstenius  must  have 

ad  ditersos  :  Paris,  1817)  is  one  of  date  been  much  together  ;  but,  as  already 

Dec.  15,  1629,  addressed  to  Doni  on  the  stated  (ante  p.  797),  Doni  seems  to  have 

subject  of  a  visit  which  Holstenius  had  been  absent  from  Borne  when  Milton 

paid  to  this  very  library.     He  has  not  was  there.     Milton  had  been  with  him 

had  time,  he  says,  thoroughly  to  ex-  in    Florence  at  the    meeting  of    the 

amine  it,  which  would  take  at   least  Svogliati  on  the  24th  of  March,  only 

four  days  ;  but  he  has  noted  that  "  this  six  days  before  this  mention  of  him, — 

"  library  also   has,   with    others,  that  unless,  indeed,  there  was  another  Doni. 
"common   defect  of  being  under  the 


824  LIFE    OP    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OP    HIS   TIME, 

"  Having  crossed  the  Apennines,  I  passed  through  Bologna 
"  and  Ferrara  on  my  way  to  Venice."  The  two  cities  of  the 
Papal  States  thus  dismissed  by  Milton  incidentally  in  his 
sketch  of  his  tour  might  have  been  worthy  of  longer  time 
than  he  se^ms  to  have  given  to  them.  Bologna  was  the 
most  nourishing  and  liberal  city  in  the  Pope's  dominions, 
the  seat  of  the  most  ancient  University  in  Italy,  and  of 
more  academies  than  any  other  single  Italian  town  could 
boast;  and  Ferrara  had  been  the  capital  of  the  princely 
house  of  Este,  and  was ,  consecrated  by  the  home  and  the 
tomb  of  Ariosto,  and  by  Tasso's  terrible  prison.  It  was 
probably  for  these  associations  that  Milton  did  visit  them ; 
but  he  must  have  done  so  hurriedly,  and  he  omits  details. 
Yet  it  seems  to  be  with  this  hurried  passage  through  Bologna 
and  Ferrara  on  his  way  to  Venice  that  one  is  bound  to  con 
nect  what  is,  in  one  respect  at  least,  the  most  fascinating 
incident  of  Milton's  Italian  tour  from  first  to  last. — Among 
his  minor  poems,  as  published  by  himself  in  1645,  are  five 
sonnets  and  one  canzone  written  in  Italian,  the  only  pieces 
he  is  known  to  have  attempted  in  that  tongue.  For  bio 
graphical  purposes  the  following  English  version  of  them 
may  suffice,  if  the  reader  will  first  accept  a  topographical 
explanation  rendered  necessary  by  the  first  of  them.  It  is 
that  a  river  called  the  Reno  flows  close  by  Bologna,  which, 
after  passing  Bologna,  takes  a  northern  course  through  the 
rich  level  country  between  Bologna  and  Ferrara,  before 
bending  eastward  to  the  Adriatic,  and  that,  in  going  from 
Bologna  to  Ferrara,  this  Heno  has  to  be  crossed  at  a  ford 
or  ferry  at  a  town  called  Malalbergo,  twenty  miles  from 
Bologna  and  ten  from  Ferrara. 

I 

Thou  graceful  lady,  whose  fair  name  knows  well 
The  grassy  vale  through  which  the  Reno  strays, 
Nearing  the  noble  ford,  that  man  is  base 
On  whom  thy  gentle  spirit  exerts  no  spell, 

That  frankly  makes  its  sweetness  visible, 
At  no  time  sparing  of  its  winning  ways, 
And  of  those  gifts,  Love's  bow  and  piercing  rays, 
Whereby  thy  lofty  virtue  doth  excel. 


MILTON'S  ITALIAN  SONNETS  AND  CANZONE.  825 

When  thou  dost  softly  speak  or  gaily  sing, 

So  as  might  move  the  hard  wood  from  the  hills, 
Let  each  one  guard  his  hearing  and  his  seeing 

Whom  secret  sense  of  his  own  vileness  fills ; 

Let  Heaven's  own  grace  its  high  deliverance  bring 
Ere  passion's  pain  grow  veteran  in  his  being. 

II. 

As  on  a  hill,  at  brown  of  evening-time, 

A  shepherd-maiden  from  some  neighbouring  bower 

Waters  with  care  a  lovely  foreign  flower, 

Which  spreads  but  ill  in  the  unwonted  clime, 
Far  from  the  genial  summer  of  its  prime, 

So  love  in  me,  quick  to  express  his  power," 

Bursts  into  new  speech-blossom  for  an  hour, 

While  of  thy  haughty  grace  I  try  to  rhyme 
In  words  that  my  good  kinsfolk  do  not  know, 

And  change  fair  Thames  for  Arno's  as  fair  tide. 

So  hath  Love  willed  it ;  and,  by  others'  woe, 
Right  well  I  wot  Love  will  not  be  denied. 

Ah  !  were  my  heart,  so  hard,  so  slow  to  yield, 

To  Him  who  plants  from  Heaven  as  good  a  field  ! 

CANZONE. 

Laughing,  the  ladies  and  the  amorous  youth 

Accost  me  round  : — "  Why  dost  thou  write,"  ask  they, 

"  Why  dost  thou  write  in  foreign  phrase  and  strain, 

"  Versing  of  love  with  daring  so  uncouth  ? 

"  Tell  us  ;  so  may  thy  hope  not  be  in  vain, 

"  And  thy  best  fancies  have  auspicious  way ! " 

Thus  they  go  jeering.     "  Other  streams,"  they  say, 

"  Other  far  waves  expect  thee,  on  whose  banks 

"  Laurels  in  verdant  ranks 

"  Are  growing,  even  now  are  growing,  for  thy  hair 

"  The  immortal  guerdon  of  eternal  leaves : 

"  Why  on  thy  shoulders  wilt  thou  this  load  bear  ] " 

My  song  from  me  this  fit  reply  receives : — 
"  My  lady  said  (and  what  she  says  I  treasure), 
"  This  is  the  language  in  which  Love  hath  pleasure." 

III. 

Diodati,  'tis  marvellous  but  true, 

This  stubborn  I,  who  held  Love's  law  in  scorn 
And  made  his  snares  my  jest,  at  last  forlorn 
Have  fallen  myself,  as  honest  men  may  do. 


826  LIFE    OF    MILTON   AND    HISTORY    OF   HIS    TIME. 

What  dazzles  me  is  not  the  casual  view 

Of  vermeil  cheeks  and  tresses  like  the  morn, 

But  a  new  type  of  beauty  foreign-born, — 

A  carriage  proud  and  stately,  and  thereto 
Eyes  calmly  splendid  of  a  lovely  black, 

Words  that  command  more  tongues  than  one  in  tune, 

And  such  a  song  as  from  the  fleecy  rack 
Of  Night's  mid  vault  might  lure  the  labouring  moon, 

While  from  her  eyes  such  fiery  flashings  thrill  me 

That,  though  I  stopped  my  ears,  the  gleams  would  kill  me. 

IV. 

For  certain,  lady  mine,  your  lovely  eyes 

Must  be  my  sun  :  they  beat  on  me  as  strong 

As  do  his  rays  on  one  who  toils  among 

The  sands  of  Libya,  while  amain  doth  rise, 
All  in  that  quarter  where  my  sorrow  lies, 

A  warm  sick  vapour,  as  I  move  along, 

Which  may  perchance,  or  haply  I  am  wrong, 

Be  that  which  lovers  in  their  speech  call  sighs. 
Part,  shut  in  turbidly,  my  breast  conceals ; 

Some  fluttering  few,  that  will  not  so  be  pent, 

The  air  around  condenses  or  congeals ; 
But  what  can  reach  my  eyes  and  there  find  vent 

Makes  one  long  rainy  night  of  my  repose, 

Until  my  dawn  returns  with  many  a  rose. 

V. 

Young,  gentle-natured.  and  a  simple  wooer, 

Since  from  myself  I  am  in  doubt  to  fly, 

Lady,  to  thee  my  heart's  poor  gift  would  I 

Offer  devoutly :  and  by  trial  sure 
I  know  it  faithful,  fearless,  constant,  pure, 

In  its  conceptions  graceful,  good,  and  high. 

When  the  world  roars,  and  flames  the  startled  sky, 

In  its  own  adamant  it  stands  secure, 
As  free  from  chance  and  malice  ever  found, 

And  fears  and  hopes  that  vulgar  minds  confuse, 

As  it  is  loyal  to  each  manly  thing, 
And  to  the  sounding  lyre  and  to  the  muse. 

Only  in  that  part  is  it  not  so  sound 

Where  Love  hath  set  in  it  his  cureless  sting.1 

1  On  a  matter  respecting  which  there  presenting  the  following  opinion,  f  urn- 
has  been  some  difference  of  opinion,  ished  me  in  1 858  by  my  friend  Signer 
and  on  which  I  am  not  myself  a  com-  Saffi : —  "  Concerning  the  few  Italian 
petent  judge,  —  the  Italian  style  of  "  poems  written  by  Milton  in  his  youth, 
these  poems. — I  have  the  pleasure  of  "  about  which  you  ask  my  opinion,  I 


PROBLEM    OP   THE    ITALIAN   SONNETS.  827 

Either  these  six  pieces  were  written  at  different  times  as 
experiments  in  Italian  verse  and  do  not  necessarily  relate  to 
one  person,  or  they  were  written  together  and  do  relate  to 
one  person.     The  latter  supposition  is  by  far  the  likelier,  if 
not  absolutely  inevitable.      In  that  case,  the  first  sonnet  < 
certifies  that  the  subject  of  the  little  group  of  pieces  was  a 
Bolognese   lady  whose   beauty  and   accomplishments   had 
made  a  deep   impression  on  Milton,  and  the  third  sonnet 
shows  that  Milton  imagined  himself  to  be  writing  to  his 
friend  Diodati  as  fittest  to  be  his  confidant  in  the  affair.     It 
may  still  be  a  question,  however,  where  and  when  the  pieces 
were  written.     It  is  not  an  untenable  hypothesis,  but  one 
which  the  phrasing  here  and  there  might  be  so  construed 
as  to  support,  that  the  pieces  were  not  written  in   Italy  at 
all,  but  in   England,  by  way  of  attempts  in  Italian,   some 
time  before  the  Italian  tour  had  been  thought  of.     Milton 
might  have  met  an  Italian  lady  in  London,  and  nowhere 
more  probably  than  in  the  house  of  Dr.  Theodore  Diodati, 
and   may  have   been  moved  to  confess  to  her,  through  his 
friend  Charles,  the  new  effects   produced  on  him  by  her 
foreign  and  southern  style  of  beauty,  her  black  eyes,  her 
stately  carriage,  her  unusual  gifts  of  mind  and  speech,  and 
her  splendid  singing.     On  this  hypothesis  it  is  necessary  to 
suppose  that  the  references  in  the  first  sonnet  to  the  Valley 
of  the  Reno  and  its  noble  ford  were  thrown  in  because 
Milton  had  ascertained  that  the  lady  was  a  Bolognese,  and 
had,  with  a  lover's  curiosity,  informed  himself  as  to  the 
characteristics  of  the  scenery  round  and  near  her  birth 
place.     But,  on  the  whole,  the  hypothesis  that  the  pieces 
were  written  in  England,  and  were  carried  by  Milton  with 
him  into  Italy  in  his  memory,  seems  strained  and  unnatural 

"  think  I   may  venture  to  offer  the  "  genius.    The  measure  of  the  verse  is 

"  following  remarks : — As  regards  the  "  generally  correct,  nay,  more  than  this, 

**  form  of  the  language,  there  are  here  "  musical ;  and  one  feels,  in  perusing 

"  and  there  irregularities  of  idiom  and  "  these  poems,  that  the  mind  of  the 

"  grammar,  and  metaphors   which  re-  "  young  aspiring  poet  had,  from  Pe- 

"  mind  one  of  the  false  literary  taste  "  trarch   to  Tasso,  listened  attentively 

"  prevalent  in  Italy  when  Milton  visited  "  to  the  gentlest  notes  of  the   Italian 

"  that  country  ;  although  such  a  defect  "  Muse,  though    unable  to  reproduce 

"  appears,  in  the  English  imitator,  modi-  "  them  fully  in  a  form  of  his  own." 
"  fied  by  the  freshness  of  his  native 


828  LIFE    OF   MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

in  comparison  with  the  general  and  traditional  belief  that 
I  they  were  written  in  Italy  during  his  tour.  The  little  series 
is  so  full  of  Italian  colour  and  circumstance  that  it  is  diffi 
cult,  in  reading  them,  to  fancy  them  penned  anywhere  else 
than  amid  Italian  surroundings,  and  for  Italian  critics  in 
the  first  instance.  The  canzone,  in  particular,  can  hardly 
be  interpreted  on  any  other  understanding.  Should  it  be 
assumed  as  a  settled  matter,  however,  that  the  pieces  were 
written  in  Italy,  one  may  still  remain  in  doubt  in  what  part 
of  Italy  they  were  written  and  at  what  point  of  Milton's 
tour.  May  they  not  have  been  among  those  trifles  which 
he  managed  to  "  patch  up  "  when  in  Florence  or  in  Rome, 
and  which,  with  the  Latin  and  English  pieces  he  had  in  his 
memory,  obtained  for  him  the  f{  written  encomiums  "  of  the 
wits  of  the  Florentine  and  Roman  academies  ?  Francini's 
ode  to  him  in  Florence,  and  still  more  distinctly  the  heading 
of  Salzilli's  epigram  to  him  in  Rome,  seem  to  imply  that 
there  had  been  attempts  in  Italian  verse  among  those  proofs 
of  Milton's  literary  talent  which  had  won  him  the  encomiums; 
and  we  know  of  nothing  else  of  the  kind  that  he  did  write 
than  precisely  our  present  five  love-sonnets,  with  the  at 
tached  canzone.  As  Florence  was  the  place  where  Milton 
seems  to  have  been  most  at  home,  one  might  credit  that 
city  with  the  little  bouquet  of  exotics  and  with  the 
adventure  that  occasioned  it,  and  suppose  Dati,  Francim, 
Gaddi,  Coltellini,  and  Malatesti  to  have  been  the  first 
admiring  critics  of  such  a  feat  by  their  English  visitor. 
There  might  be  arguments,  however,  in  favour  of  Rome, 
though  Warton's  notion,  that  the  lady  was  the  famous 
singer  Leonora,  is  wholly  gratuitous  and  must  at  once  be 
set  aside.  Whether  at  Florence  or  at  Rome,  the  lady  of  the 
Sonnets  and  Canzone  was  a  Bolognese ;  and,  as  Milton  did 
not  see  the  Reno  and  its  noble  ford  till  after  he  had  left 
Rome  and  Florence,  the  topographic  touches  in  the  first 
sonnet  in  honour  of  her  Bolognese  birth  must  have  been 
almost  as  much  from  information  or  hearsay  as  if  the  sonnet 
had  been  written  in  England.  If  it  should  seem  essential, 
however,  that  the  Reno  and  its  ford  had  been  actually  seen 


PROBLEM   OP   THE   ITALIAN   SONNETS.  829 

before  that  sonnet  wa3  written,  there  is  nothing  absolutely 
to  hinder  the  supposition  which  must  then  necessarily  follow, 
if  the  six  pieces  are  to  be  taken  as  relating  to  the  same 
person, — to  wit,  that  they  were  written  when  Milton  had 
left  Rome  and  Florence  behind  him  and  was  in  that  portion 
of  his  return-journey  to  England  which  took  him  through 
the  Vale  of  the  Reno  between  Bologna  and  Ferrara.  Though 
he  hurries  that  part  of  his  route  in  his  own  sketch  of  it 
afterwards,  it  is  quite  possible  that  he  may  have  rested  long 
enough  somewhere  thereabouts,  as  a  guest  in  some  house 
hold,  to  become  acquainted  with  some  fair  Bolognese  amid 
her  native  scenery  and  be  smitten  by  her  charms.  A  week 
may  do  a  great  deal  in  such  matters. 

One  fact  does  rather  militate  against  the  conclusion  that 
the  Sonnets  and  Canzone  were  written  at  so  late  a  date  in 
Milton's  journey,  when  indeed  he  was  all  but  bidding  fare 
well  to  Italy,  and  does  rather  remit  them  to  some  point  of 
those  previous  months  which  he  had  spent  in  Florence  and 
Rome.  This  is  that  they  make  his  friend  Charles  Diodati 
his  confidant  in  absence  and  look  forward  to  renewed  meet 
ings  with  Diodati  in  England  when  the  affair  should  be 
talked  over  between  them.  Now,  at  the  time  when  the 
pieces  were  written,  if  they  were  written  in  Italy  at  all, 
that  friend,  addressed  in  them  as  if  living,  was  already  in 
his  grave.  He  had  died  late  in  August  1638  in  the  house 
of  a  Mr.  Dollam  in  Blackfriars,  London,  and  had  been  buried 
in  the  parish  of  St.  Anne  there  on  the  27th  of  that  month, — 
his  sister,  Philadelphia  Diodati,  having  died  in  the  same 
house  little  more  than  a  fortnight  before  and  been  buried 
in  the  same  church  or  churchyard  on  the  10th.  Milton  was 
then  in  Florence,  amid  the  delights  of  the  first  of  his  two 
visits  to  that  city,  little  dreaming  that  the  friend  from  whom 
he  had  parted  hopefully  little  more  than  four  months  before, 
and  of  whom  and  his  Italian  connexions  he  doubtless  talked 
much  among  his  new  Florentine  acquaintances,  was  never 
to  be  seen  by  him  again.  It  is  certain  that  he  had  not 
heard  the  -news  of  Diodati's  death  when  he  left  Florence  for 
Rome  some  time  in  September  1638,  nor  during  the  next 


830  LIFE   OF   MILTON    AND   HISTORY  OF   HIS   TIME. 

two  months,  when  lie  was  in  Rome  on  his  first  visit,  nor 
even  as  late  as  December  1638,  when  he  was  in  Naples.  He 
returned  from  Naples  for  his  second  two  months  in  Rome 
in  the  full  belief  that  Diodati  was  alive  and  well.  The  only 
question,  therefore,  is  at  what  subsequent  point  of  his 
return-journey  the  shock  of  the  fatal  intelligence  awaited 
him.  Even  in  those  days  of  difficult  communication  it 
would  have  been  somewhat  extraordinary  if  no  rumour  of 
the  sad  event  came  to  him  during  his  second  stay  in  Rome 
in  January  and  February  1638-9,  or  during  his  second  stay 
in  Florence  in  the  two  following  months.  Hence  the  pro 
bability,  as  above  hinted,  that  the  Italian  Sonnets  and 
Canzone  have  to  be  referred  to  the  time  of  the  first  visit  to 
Florence  or  that  of  the  first  visit  to  Rome.  They  name 
Diodati  as  alive,  and  could  not  have  been  written  in  their 
present  form,  if  at  all,  after  Milton  had  heard  of  Diodati' s 
death.  If  the  sad  rumour  did  come  to  him  first  during  his 
second  visit  to  Florence,  it  must  have  thrown  a  blight  over 
that  visit  and  been  the  subject  of  condolences  with  him  by 
Dati,  Gaddi,  Francini,  and  the  rest  of  the  Florentine  group, 
and  we  can  then  also  imagine  a  melancholy  motive  for  that 
excursion  to  Lucca,  the  original  home  of  the  Diodatis,  by 
which  the  second  visit  to  Florence  was  interrupted.  But, 
though  the  probability  is  that  the  news  had  then  reached 
Milton,  the  only  certainty  is  that  it  reached  him  some  time 
during  his  return-journey  towards  England,  and  it  is  per 
fectly  possible  that  it  had  not  reached  him  even  as  late  as 
April  1639,  when  he  was  passing  northwards  from  Florence 
by  Bologna  and  Ferrara.1 

If  so,  the  news  might  have  reached  him  first  at  Venice, 

1  The  exact  time  and  place  of  the  return   from   Naples  is   furnished  by 

death  of   Charles    Diodati   were    not  certain  lines  of  the  Epitaphium  Damo- 

known  when  the  first  edition  of  the  nis,  where  he  speaks  of  having  looked 

present  volume  was  published,  nor  till  forward   to   the   pleasure   of   showing 

the  year  1874,  when  Colonel  Chester  Diodati.  among  other  memorials  of  his 

discovered  the  burial  entries  of  Diodati  Italian  tour,  the  two  cups  he  had  re- 

and  his   sister  in  the  register   of   St.  ceived  from  Manso. — A  future  letter  of 

Anne,   Blackfriars,   and    kindly    com-  Milton's  to  the  Florentine  Carlo  Dati, 

muuicated  the  information  at  once  to  to  be  quoted  in  due  time,  gives  just  a 
me   (see   Preface    to    the    Cambridge  •     shade  of  additional  probability  to  the 

Edition  of  Milton's  Poetical  Works).  conjecture  that  he  had  heard  of  Dioda- 

The  proof  that    Milton   cannot  have  ti's  death  before  the  end  of  his  second 

heard    of    the     death    till    after    his  visit  to  Florence. 


MILTON'S  RETURN  HOME  THROUGH  GENEVA.  831 

which  was  his  next  station  on  his  way  homeward,  and 
where,  he  tells  us,  he  "  spent  one  month  [part  of  April  and 
May  1639]  in  ex  mining  the  city."  Among  the  attractions 
of  Venice,  besides  those  of  which  all  the  world  has  heard 
from  that  day  to  this,  there  were  then  several  famous 
academies,  of  which  that  of  the  Incogniti  was  chief;  nor 
would  the  city  and  its  inhabitants  be  the  less  interesting  to 
Milton  from  the  fact  that  here  alone  in  Italy  was  there 
some  independence  as  against  both  Pope  and  Spaniard,  and 
that  there  had  even  been  expectations  that  Venice,  in  her 
struggle  with  the  Papacy,  would  show  the  example  of  an 
Italian  Protestantism.  It  is  possible  that,  through  Sir 
Henry  Wotton's  letter  to  Michael  Branthwait  at  Paris, 
Milton  may  have  had  special  introductions  to  Venetian 
families.  The  only  incident  of  his  month's  stay  in  Venice 
mentioned  by  himself,  however,  is  that  here  he  shipped  for 
England  a  number  of  books  which  he  "had  collected  in 
different  parts  of  Italy."  Phillips,  who  must  have  seen 
many  of  the  books  afterwards  on  Milton's  shelves,  tells  us 
that  some  of  them  were  "  curious  and  rare,"  and,  in  particu 
lar,  that  there  was  "  a  chest  or  two  of  choice  music-books 
*'  of  the  best  masters  flourishing  about  that  time  in  Italy, 
"  — namely,  Luca  Marenzo,  Monte  Verde,  Horatio  Vecchi, 
"  Cifra,  the  Prince  of  Venosa,  and  several  others."  Rid  of 
these  by  their  shipment,  Milton,  moving  homeward  more 
rapidly,  "through  Verona  and  Milan  and  the  Pennine  Alps," 
as  he  tells  us,  "  and  then  by  the  Lake  Leman,"  arrived  at 
Geneva.  In  this  rapid  transit  from  Venice  across  the 
northern  Lombard  plains,  other  cities  and  towns  of  note 
must  have  been  passed  through ;  and,  in  crossing  the  Alps 
by  St.  Bernard,  there  would  be  the  last  look  at  Italy 
beneath. 

THE  RETURN  HOME  THROUGH  GENEVA. 

As  if  delighting  in  a  breath  of  fresh  Protestant  theology 
after  so  long  a  time  in  the  Catholic  atmosphere  of  Italy, 
Milton  spent  a  week  or  two,  if  not  more,  in  Geneva.  The 
Swiss  city  still  maintained  its  reputation  as  the  great  con- 


832  LIFE    OF   MILTON   AND   HISTORY   OF   HIS    TIME. 

tinental  seat  of  Calvinistic  Protestantism.  Since  Calvin  and 
Farel,  there  bad  been  a  series  of  ministers  in  the  churches 
of  Geneva,  and  of  professors  in  her  University,  keeping  up 
the  faith  and  the  discipline  established  at  the  Eeformation. 
At  the  time  of  Milton's  visit  there  were  several  such  men, 
celebrated  over  the  Calvinistic  world  beyond  Geneva,  and 
especially  among  the  French  Protestants  and  the  Puritans 
of  England.  The  eldest  Turretin  was  dead;  but  he  had 
been  succeeded  in  the  chair  of  theology  by  the  learned 
German,  Frederick  Spanheim  (1600-1649),  who  had  studied 
in  Geneva  in  his  youth,  and  had  held  there,  since  1627,  the 
Professorship  of  Philosophy.  Another  theology  professor 
and  city  preacher  was  Theodore  Tronchin  (1582-1657),  who 
had  married  Beza's  grand-daughter,  and  had  been  pre 
viously  professor  of  Hebrew,  and  one  of  the  Genevese 
deputies  to  the  Synod  of  Dort.  A  certain  Alexander  More, 
or  Morus,  a  young  Frenchman  of  Scottish  descent,  of  whose 
unexpected  relations  to  Milton  long  afterwards  we  shall 
hear  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  in  due  course,  had  just 
been  appointed  professor  of  Greek  in  the  University,  and 
was  qualifying  himself  for  a  pastoral  charge  in  the  city. 
But  the  man  in  Geneva  of  greatest  note,  and  most  interest 
ing  to  Milton,  on  private  as  well  as  on  public  grounds,  was 
Dr.  Jean  or  Giovanni  Diodati,  the  uncle  of  his  dead  friend 
Charles.1  Besides  his  celebrity  as  professor  of  theology, 
city  preacher,  translator  of  the  Bible  into  Italian,  and  author 
of  various  theological  works,  Dr.  Diodati  had  a  special 
celebrity  as  an  instructor  of  young  men  of  rank  sent  from 
various  parts  of  Europe  to  board  in  his  house.  About  the 
year  1639  not  a  few  young  foreigners  of  distinction  were 
pursuing  their  studies  in  Geneva,  among  whom  one  finds 
Charles  Gustavus,  afterwards  King  of  Sweden,  and  several 
princes  of  German  Protestant  houses;  and  some  of  these 
appear  to  have  been  among  Diodati' s  private  pupils  at  the 
time  of  Milton's  visit  to  Geneva.  If  Milton  himself  was  not 
quartered  in  Diodati' s  house  during  his  visit, — the  house  on 
the  south  bank  of  the  lake,  two  miles  out  of  the  city,  which 

1  See  ante,  pp.  99—102. 


MILTON'S  RETURN  HOME  THROUGH  GENEVA.  833 

has  retained  its  name  of  the  Villa  Diodati  to  this  day, 
and  was  tenanted  in  1816  by  Lord  Byron, — he  must,  at 
all  events,  have  been  there  often.  "  At  Geneva,"  he  says, 
' '  I  was  daily  in  the  society  of  John  Diodati,  the  most  learned 
"  Professor  of  Theology. "  It  is  likely  enough  that  it  was  from 
the  Gfenevese  Professor  that  Milton  received  the  first  definite 
intelligence  of  the  time  and  the  circumstances  of  the  death 
of  poor  Charles  Diodati  in  London-.1 

Among  Milton's  introductions  at  Geneva,  through  Diodati 
or  otherwise,  was  one  to  the  family  of  Camillo  Cerdogni  or 
Cardouin,  a  Neapolitan  nobleman,  who  had  been  resident 
in  Geneva  since  1608  as  a  Protestant  refugee  and  a  teacher 
of  Italian.  The  family  kept  an  album,  in  which  they  liked 
to  collect  autographs  of  strangers  passing  through  the  city, 
and  especially  of  English  strangers.  Many  Englishmen,  and 
some  Scotchmen,  predecessors  of  Milton  in  the  usual  con 
tinental  tour,  had  already  left  their  signatures  in  this  album, 
and  among  them  no  less  a  man  than  Wentworth,  whose 
autograph  appears  in  it  under  date  1612,  when  he  was  in 
his  twentieth  year  and  on  his  travels.  Milton,  having  been 
asked  to  add  a  specimen  of  his  handwriting  to  the  numerous 
autographs  already  in  the  book,  complied  as  follows  : — 

if  Vertue  feeble  were 


Heaven  itselfe  would  stoope  to  her. 
Crelum,  non  animum,  muto  dum  trans  mare  curro. 
Junii  10,  1639.    JOANNES  MILTONIUS,  Anglus. 

There  could  have  been  no  more  characteristic  autograph. 
The  fragment  in  English  is  the  conclusion  of  his  own  Comus, 
and  the  appended  Latin  hexameter  must  be  taken  as  a 
declaration  that,  travel  where  he  might,  across  the  sea  or 
wherever  else,  the  sentiment  of  those  lines  remained  his 
belief  and  the  words  themselves  his  motto.2 

i  Histoire  de  Geneve,  par  M.  Spon,  2  The  Album  "was  brought  to  Eng- 

Geneva,  1730,  vol.  I.  pp.  506  et  seq. ;  land  a  few  years  ago,  and  sold  by  pub- 

Leti's  "  Historia  Genevrina  "  (1686),  vol.  lie  auction,"  says  Mr.  Hunter,  in  1850, 

IV.  pp.  134,  135 ;  and  articles  on  Dio-  in  his  Milton  Gleanings.   It  went  after- 

dati,  Spanheim,  &c.,  in  Chalmers's  Biog,  wards  to  America,  where  it  was  the 

Diet.  property    of    the    late   Hon,   Charles 

VOL.  I.                                                  3  II 


834  LIFE    OF    MILTON    AND    HISTORY    OF    HIS    TIME. 

From  Geneva,  where  the  entry  in  the  Cerdogni  album 
fixes  Milton  as  late  as  June  10,  1639,  he  returned  home 
wards,  l<  through  France/ '  he  says,  "  by  the  same  route  as 
before,"  i.  e.  by  Lyons,  the  Ehone,  and  Paris.  At  Paris  he 
would  no  longer  find  Lord  Scudamore,  that  nobleman 
having  been  recalled  to  England  at  his  own  request  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year,  leaving  the  Earl  of  Leicester  as  sole 
English  ambassador  at  the  French  Court.  He  may  have  had 
time,  however,  to  call  on  Grotius,  who  had  received  several 
letters  from  Lord  Scudamore  since  his  departure.1  Leaving 
Paris,  and  recrossing  the  Channel,  he  set  his  foot  again  in 
England,  after  a  total  absence  of  "  a  year  and  three  months, 
more  or  less,"  late  in  July  or  early  in  August  1639.  The 
sentence  which  he  thought  it  right  to  append  afterwards  to 
his  account  of  his  Continental  Journey  as  a  whole  may  fitly 
close  the  present  volume  : — "  I  again  take  God  to  witness, 
"  that  in  all  those  places,  where  so  many  things  are  con- 
"  sidered  lawful,  I  lived  sound  and  untouched  from  all  pro- 
f<  fligacy  and  vice,  having  the  thought  perpetually  with  me 
"  that,  though  I  might  escape  the  eyes  of  men,  I  certainly 
"  could  not  escape  the  eyes  of  God."  2 

Sumner,  and    much    prized    by    him  of  Holme-Lacy,  &c.),  it  appears  that 

while  he  lived,  and  where  it  still  re-  one  of  his  last  calls  in  Paris  was  on  the 

mains.  See  Sotheby's  Milton  Ramblings,  Prince  of  Conde\      "The  Prince,"  he 

where  an  account  of  the  Album  is  given,  says,  "  returning  me  a  visit,  and  speak- 

with  a  facsimile  of  Milton's  autograph  "  ing  of  the  affairs  of  Scotland,  said, 

in  it.  "  *  It  is  the  humour  of  these  Puritans 

i  In  a  letter  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  "  never  to    be    satisfied.      The    King 

of  date   *  s    Jan.    1638-9,    Scudamore  "  should  fall  upon  them  suddenly,  and 

writes  that  he  has  been  at  St.  G-ermains  "  cut  off  three  or  four  heads,  and  then 

to  take  his  leave  of    the   King   and  "  he  will  have  peace.'    This  the  Prince 

Queen,  but  that  it  will  be  a  month  "  desired  me  to  remember,  and  repre- 

before  he  comes  over.    From  another  "  sent  to  his  Majesty  from  one   who 

letter  of  his,  of  date  Feb.  1,  1638-9,  "  wished  his  felicity  and  repose." 

quoted  by  Gibson  (Parochial  History  2  Def.  Sec.:  Works,  VI.  289. 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


f 


PR 

3531 

M3 

1881 

v.l 


Mas son,  David 

The  life  of  John  Milton 


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