MILTON, JOHN. 



MILTON, JOHN. 



.,-, bat perhaps a judicious historian will draw no con- 

 i of Ui* kind, especially with such imperfect materials before 

 i w* possess for the life of this illustrious Athenian. 

 Herodotus, lib. v. vi. ; Cornelius Nepos, whose biography of 

 I** Is of no value; Plutarch ; ThirlwaU, Uittory of Grteet ; and 

 Clinton, Fatti; for the office of Strategus, Schumann and Meier, 

 Attudtt Pnam; and for the topography of Marathon, Paosanias, 

 Dodwell. and K. D. Clarke, ft***!*.) 



MILTON, JOHN, son of John and Sarah Milton (the name is spelt 

 Myltun in the baptismal register), was born Di-cemb. r 9, 1608, at hia 

 biker's boos* in Bread-street, London. He was of a good family, 

 hi* fcth.r having besti educated at Christchurch, Oxford, but was 

 disinherited for turning Protestant He was a man of great musical 

 acquirements, and specimens of bis composition are preserved in 

 Barney's ' History of Music.' 



Milton's education appears to have been sedulously conducted ; 

 Ant under a person of Puritan opinions named Young, who was 

 mislsr of Jesus College, Cambridge, during the Protectorate, and 

 afterwards st St Paul's School, under Alexander Gill. From St 

 Paul's be proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge, where, as the 

 College Register informs us, he was admitted, February 12, 1624. 

 At the University he was distinguished for the peculiar excellence of 

 his Latin verse*, and, according to his own expression, met with 

 " more than ordinary favour and respect " during the seven yean of 

 his stay there. It will be unnecessary here to go into the momentous 

 question whether Milton wss whipped at Cambridge, as asserted by 

 Bitliop rtnmball, Aubrey, and other*. Dr. Johnson and Warton, as 

 is w. 11 known, believe that he suffered that indignity ; more recint 

 writer* think that there is small reason to admit the fact, and his 

 latest biographer, Kcightley, lays that he "was quite beyond the 

 hipping-age " when at Cambridge. What was then the whipping-age 

 i* however by no mean* clear, and there is no doubt that students 

 far beyond the sge of boyhood were in Milton's time whipped in the 

 .:...<: .*.-. 



After having declined both the church and the bar, he retired to 

 his father'* bouse at llorton in Buckinghamshire, where, during a 

 roidence of fire years, he read through the Greek and Latin writers 

 (" evolvendis Gucci* Latiui/que scriptoribua"), and, as it is supposed, 

 wrote bis ' Arcade*,' ' Comus,' ' L'Allegro,' ' 11 Penseroso, and 

 ' 1. \cida*.' AtUmpts have been made to fix the precise place where 

 tome of Hilton's minor poems were written, by a reference to the 

 descriptions of scenery contained in them. It appears to us that 

 these attempt* depend on a mistaken principle; that namely, o! 

 assuming the poet'* mind to be influenced in such matter* by the 

 scenery with hich he is at the time familiar. Now that localities 

 must affect a person who is writing descriptive poetry, no one will 

 deny ; but in purely imaginative poetry, like ' L'Allrgro ' or 'I 

 Penseroso,' we cannot attach any great weight to such considera- 

 tions, particularly when the dociiptions are to general, and when 

 the deeeriber is Milton. 



In 1687, on the death of his mother, Milton travelled into Italy, 

 visiting in succession Florence, Rome, Naples, and Venice, during 

 which journey he was introduced to Grotiua, to Galileo, and to Tasso's 

 patron, Manao. While in Italy news reached him of the progress of 

 UM troubles in England, Relinquishing hi* original intention o 

 prolonging hi* journey to Sicily and Greece, he re tu rue. I, in 1U39, anc 

 devoted himself to the education of hi* nephews, John and Edwarc 

 Phillip*, and to the politics of the day. Much has been said on his 

 system : Dr. Johnson has sneered at it; and more modern authorities 

 have caught at it in order to support a convenient theory, each perhaps 

 without reflecting much on the subject. The tendency of his scheme 

 was not to supply the then existing deficiency of instruction in the 

 knowledge of nature, or to substitute some other treatise on such 

 matter* for the work* of Aristotle, but to exchange, a* quietly as 

 possible, and at the same Urn* as decidedly, the merely formal routini 

 of claesical teaching for on* in which the book* that were read migh< 

 TOO** thought as well as exercise memory. Hi* list comprises almos 

 all the technical treatises extant in Latin and Greek, but excludes 

 history and almost all the better known books of poetry, probably 

 because be only Intended it for children, and postponed such subjects 

 for the instruction or amusement of riper yean. His aims were no 

 those of a mathematician or the philosopher of nature ; the state, no 

 seicoc*, was to his view, and his object was to make, not good members 

 of a university, bat well-informed citiiens. To this tend his eulogj 

 of manly ixsnUn and hi* plans for a common table, which could have 

 had litUe importance in the eye* of a student 



In 1C41 Milton began his political career by writing a treatise '0 

 Reformation,' which was followed in the same year by those on ' Pre 

 lattcal Episcopacy,' ' The Reason of Church Government urged against 

 Prelacy,' and some animadversion* on a tract of Bishop Hall's, and in 

 the next by ' An Apology for Smectymnuu*.' 



In 1613 he married hU first wife, who was the daughter of a country 

 sutssmsn of Oxfordshire. Not long afterwanls hi. conjugal troubles 

 began, by the refusal of his wif to return to him from a visit to her 

 father. He accordingly repudiated her, and in 1644 and 1646 pub 

 listed four treatises in justification of his conduct The former yea 

 i* also remarkable a* that in which he produced bis 'Tractate on 

 ** ' and that most able of all appeal*, the 'Areopsgitica, or a 



Speech for the liberty of Unlicensed Printing,' a work which contains 

 n the same space more passage* of surpassing eloquence than any other 

 which proceeded from his own or from any other pen. 



About this time Milton was reconciled to his wife, whose family 

 tad been reduced to distress by their devotion to the royal cause, 

 iis pen was silent until after the execution of Charles, when he pro- 

 duced a tract on ' The Tenure of Kings and Magistrate* ; proving that 

 is lawfull to call to account a tyrant or wicked king,' Ac. This was 

 ollovrod by ' Observations on the Articles of Peace, and Animadver- 

 sions on the Scotch Presbytery at Belfast,' in the same year (ir,4'.>). 

 lie next work, 'The History of England,' was interrupted by his 

 ppointmeut to the poet of Latin 'secretary to the Council of Slate, 

 rhich had determined that the Latin language should be need in all 

 'oreign negociations. The Council could not have chosen any man in 

 England better qualified for the omen by his sound scholarship and 

 lis ready command of the Latin language ; but it is to be regretted 

 hat in his controversies with Salmasius he should have stooped to 

 criticise stylo instead of weighing arguments. In his new capacity 

 Hilton was deputed to answer ' Kikou liasilike,' which ho did in his 

 Kikonoklastes ;' and soon after to rebut Salniasius's vindication of 

 monarchy, by hia 'Defensio Populi Anglican!,' of which two books 

 Hoboes declared himself unable to determine whose language was best 

 or whose arguments worst 



After his appointment as Latin secretary Milton changed his abode 

 to Westminster. Upon the death of his first wife he married a 

 daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney, who died in childbed 

 within a year of their marriage. In 1654, or perhaps before that 

 time, he became totally blind, a misfortune nhich his enemies con- 

 sidered as a judgment from Heaven. lie has himself given a curious 

 and interesting account of his blindness in his ' Latin Kpistleu,' 

 No. xv. 



The duties of his office, occasional pamphlets on politics, and his 

 ' History of England,' which appeared in 1670, employed him till he 

 began ' Paradise Lost.' At the Restoration he retired into obscurity ; 

 but be seems to have incurred no particular danger, although he was 

 once in custody of the serjeant-at-arms. Some ascribe his safety to 

 Sir W. Davcnant 



Having obtained indemnity under an Act passed in 1660, he married 

 his third wife, Elizabeth Miushull; and in ]065, according to Elwood 

 the Quaker (who acted in some measure as his secretary), he had 

 completed ' Paradise Lost,' which was shown to Elwood in a CuUhed 

 state in that year, during a visit paid by Milton to some friends of 

 Elwood'a in Buckinghamshire. The poem was licensed and published 

 in 1667. Five pounds were paid by Samuel Simmons, the bookseller, 

 for the copy, with a promise of five pounds more when 1300 copies 

 should have been sold of the first, second, and third editions 

 respectively. The ' Paradise Lost ' first consisted of only ten books. 

 The division into twelve was made in the stcoud edition, published 

 in 1674, three years before which time he hod produced 'Paradise 

 Regained' and ' Samson Agonistoa.' 



In 1673 be published a 'Summary of Logic;' in 1673 a treatise 

 'Of True Religion,' itc.; and in 1G74 his Latin letters and exercises. 

 His last work was a translation of the Polish declaration in favour of 

 John III. He died on Sunday, November 8, 1674, and was buried in 

 the chancel of St Giles, Cripplegste. 



For full information on Milton's life, his habits, appearance, &c., 

 the reader is referred to the very copious Life by Todd, prefixed to 

 his edition of Milton's Poetical Works ; and to the more recent one 

 by Keightley (8vo, 1855). 



Milton belonged to the Independents, a name in his time expressive 

 both of religious and of political tenets. He seems to have been as 

 bold in speech as in writing, and this boldness, so early as the date 

 of bis Italian journey, gave his friends some uneasiness for his safety. 

 But Milton did not consider, as some have supposed, that in entering 

 on controversy he was following the bent of his nature : he calls it 

 expressly a " manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to 

 myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the 

 use, as I may account it, but of my left hand." Yet he carefully 

 trained hinuelf for the controversial field, and assuredly it was, as 

 he wrote, " not as an unweaponed creature " that he commenced his 

 task. After the death of Charles ho took a decided part against the 

 Presbyterians, as is shown by his tract on the ' Tenure of Kings,' 

 and became the champion of republicanism against Salmasius. This 

 wa* the period of his greatest celebrity. A* Latin secretary he held 

 an official residence for eight years, and divided the curiosity of 

 foreigners with Cromwell himself. Yet, at the Restoration, he had 

 no hardship* to complain of, except the exorbitant fee* charged by 

 the serjeant-at-arms, and it is even said that he had the refusal of his 

 original office. 



It would be out of place hero to do more than notice in a cursory 

 manner Dr. Johnson's critique of Milton's poetry. To attempt by 

 writing to impress the beauties of an imaginative work upon those 

 acquainted with that work is a task more easy than useful ; for those 

 who do not appreciate poetic beauty without the guidance of another 

 man's judgment will seldom form any opinions of their own worth 

 possessing ; and in like manner those who are not by their own taste 

 directed to see the faultiness of a critique like tl at to which wo have 

 referred, will probably derive little benefit from being told that it has 



