JOHN MILTON. 523 



modern times ; it is a masterly speech for the liberty of unlicensed 

 printing, which accomplished its great object, and was worthy to 

 attain it. Yet, if one were about to include this work in a collection 

 of chosen harangues, one would strike out some comic passages, as 

 below the dignity of the occasion, and some excursive declamations, 

 as foreign to the purpose ; and one would wish for a verbiage less 

 copious. Lord Bacon already complains that the admiration of 

 ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of lan- 

 guages, and the efficacy of preaching, had brought in an affected 

 eloquence ; and that the bent of the times was rather toward " copia" 

 than weight. " Men begin," he says, " to hunt more after words 

 than matter, and more after choiceness of phrase, and the round and 

 clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the 

 clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes 

 and figures, than after soundness of argument and depth of judg- 

 ment." Milton did not overlook worth of subject or strength of 

 plea ; but his sentences are distended to exuberance, and the lustre 

 of his ornaments often intercepts the attention which should settle on 

 the work within the frame. 



We next come \o his four treatises on the subject of " Marriage 

 and Divorce." The mind dwells upon these with less of pleasure than 

 on any other of his productions. His wife deserted him a few weeks 

 after his marriage ; he, finding entreaty and command equally inef- 

 fectual to bring her back, resolved, without further ceremony, to 

 repudiate her : these four treatises form an elaborate exposition of 

 his reasons. Spurned, galled, hot with indignation, he levied upon 

 his whole realm of thought and knowledge for forces of argument to 

 support his resolution. 



" The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" is the triumph of Milton's 

 pen ; we may add, of modern pamphleteering. The precedents 

 of erudition, the illustrations of fancy, the arguments of reason, are 

 employed with a readiness which leaves nothing to be supplied. 



It may be doubted if Cicero could have composed for Brutus 

 a better defence. Maturer taste or aroused feeling here gives direc- 

 tion and an energy to the march of the author's mind, which forbids 

 it to saunter in search of gay decoration, or to waste \vords in idle 

 entertainment. The cause of nations, the traditional morality of past 

 and future ages, the eternal interests of human kind, are at stake, and 

 they are weighed as in the balance of the universal Father. By the 

 citation of those solemn apophthegms, which the poets and historians, 

 the orators and philosophers, have consecrated, a jury is impanneled, 

 from distant times and places, of the collected leaders and teachers of 

 mankind, to vote in the great cause then pending within the precincts 

 of this country. The shades of the illustrious dead form assemblies 

 around the genius of Britain, to sanction his awful severity. 



This pamphlet, by substituting for the ancient doctrine of tyran- 

 nicide the modern doctrine of royal responsibility, has given security 

 to sovereigns, and has thereby favoured the mild exercise of power. 

 The Greek held a private individual entitled to remove, by violence, 

 a bad ruler; they defended, in their schools, the assassination of 

 tyrants. Since the book of Milton the verdict of the community has 



