i I 
 
 S B 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 PROSE WORKS OF JOHN MILTON. 
 
SELECTIONS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 PROSE WORKS OF JOHN MILTON 
 
 CRITICAL REMARKS AND ELUCIDATIONS. 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. JAMES J. G. GRAHAM, M.A., Oxon, 
 
 VICAR OF MUCH COWAKNE, HEEBFOBDSHIKB. 
 
 "Oujua e stylo, nimirmn horridulo et mcompto, auruin et margaritas effodere 
 possimus." — Milton's Prolusiones Oratorias. 
 
 " I have been looking into some of Milton's prose works lately, of which, I 
 am ashamed to say, I was and am grossly ignorant It must be a most ex- 
 pressive warning to men of genius, to read, as they often may ui his Tracts, 
 one sentence written as if an angel had held the pen, and the next, as it seems to 
 me, more like Cobbett's style than any other I know ot"— Letter of the Reo. John 
 Kehle to Sir J. T. Coleridge. 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1870. 
 
 TM right of Translation it reserved. 
 
I.0NDON : PRINTED BY ICAODONALD AND TUOWBLL, BLBNHBIM HOUSB 
 
93? 
 
 TO HER, 
 
 THE PERFECT WIPE, 
 
 " MY SUM OP EARTHLY BLISS," 
 
 TO WHOM I LONG HAVE OWED SUCH BLISS 
 
 AS MILTON ONLY KNEW FOR ONE BRIEF YEAR, 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 IN GRATITUDE THIS LABOUR OP LOVE. 
 
 446 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Editor's Preface 
 Chronology of Milton's Works 
 Introductory Remarks 
 
 I'AOE 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 21 
 
 FIVE TREATISES ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 I. Of Reformation in England .... 
 II. Of Prelatical Episcopacy .... 
 
 III. The Reason of Church Government 
 
 IV. Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence 
 V. An Apology for Smectymnuus 
 
 26 
 
 52 
 
 60 
 
 100 
 
 102 
 
 THREE TREATISES ON DOMESTIC LIBERTY. 
 
 ^ /-The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce 
 1. 1 -Jthe Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce 
 
 a (TeTRACHORDON AND COLASTERION .... 
 
 o 
 II. On Education 
 
 III. Areopagitica : A Speech on the Liberty of the Press 
 
 119 
 136 
 139 
 145 
 149 
 
 FOUR TREATISES ON CIVIL LIBERTY 
 
 I. Iconoclastes (One selection from this Work) 
 II. A Defence of the People of England 
 III. The Second Defence .... 
 
 rv. Authoris pro se Defensio . 
 
 Familiar Letters and Prolusions . 
 
 Appendix (Analysis of Lord Lytton's Poem on Milton) 
 
 233 
 236 
 245 
 
 284 
 
 293 
 333 
 
NOTE. « 
 
 Believing, as the Editor does, in the Divine right of Bishops — that 
 Episcopacy is a Divine institution, " platformed in the Bible," and 
 deducible from Apostolical times, he would gladly ignore, as much as 
 possible in the following Extracts, Milton's hatred of Prelacy, which is 
 easily accounted for. His sledge-hammer blows fall harmlessly, and 
 beside the mark, on those well versed in History, and the original Greek 
 of the New Testament. His arguments are inconclusive and oftentimes 
 suicidal, and directed against individuals of the Order, such as Bishop 
 Mountain and Archbishop Laud, rather than against the Order itself. 
 Bishops are not infallible, but Episcopacy is not to be abandoned 
 because we do not approve of some particular act of some individual 
 Bishop. Those of his day had but lately shaken off that "worst of 
 superstitions, and the heaviest of all God's judgments — Popery;" and 
 there is an evident confusion in Milton's mind of Papistical and 
 Reformed Bishops. He was his own Bishop and Pope, and went wrong 
 because he considered his own opinion orthodox and everybody else's 
 heterodox. Ipse dixit — nay, ipsissimus — not only the auro<; e^7] of the 
 Pythagorean school, but avToraro^. I John Milton have said it. 
 The Reader is once for all apprised that any passage savouring of 
 disrespect and dislike to Episcopacy has been inserted for special reasons, 
 since to eliminate such altogether from our Selections would be like 
 acting ' Hamlet' with the part of Hamlet left out. He is further 
 requested to observe that the quotations from Milton are marked by 
 two inverted commas, from all other authors by one. Footnotes are 
 abandoned, as it is thought that such information as is usually given 
 in them might with advantage be incorporated in the text. 
 
 The profits of the First Edition will be devoted to the Restoration 
 of Much Cowame Parish Church. 
 
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IN the mottoes which appear on our title-page we 
 have at once the reason and the plan of this la- 
 bour of love in which we are about to engage. Here 
 we find such a man as Keble, highly educated and 
 well read in our older and better writers, a double 
 First-Classman of Oxford, confessing his ignorance of 
 the prose works of our great national poet, and in the 
 same breath declaring that, when he did turn his at- 
 tention to them, he there often discovered sentences 
 of such transcendent excellence that they appeared 
 * written as if an angel had held the pen.' We be- 
 lieve that angels do guide the pen of those who, how- 
 ever encompassed with human infirmity, stand forth, 
 in the dark and evil days of trouble, and rebuke, and 
 blasphemy, the champions of God's eternal truth. 
 Such a one was Milton ; — and surely it is well worth 
 while to rescue from oblivion, and " not willingly let 
 die," any such magnificent passage which has fallen 
 from the pen of so great a man, though it may lie 
 buried beneath a mass of rubbish. To search after 
 
Z PREFACE. 
 
 these in a reverential and loving spirit, and to hold 
 them forth to the admiring gaze of others, rejecting 
 all that seems written in the style of Cobbett, by 
 whose side we can hardly conceive an angel to have 
 sat, save to weep, is the plan of the following work ; 
 and the reason which has induced us to undertake it 
 is the notorious prevailing ignorance, even amongst 
 literary men, of the prose works of John Milton. 
 
 The fact is indisputable, that, while everybody is 
 familiar with his poetry, nobody, except here and 
 there an individual, reads or appreciates his prose. 
 We appeal to the experience of any one who may 
 chance to have taken this volume into his hands. It 
 is more than probable that he will have to confess 
 with Keble, ' I am ashamed to say I was, and am, 
 grossly ignorant of Milton's prose works.' The 
 volumes are found in few small libraries, and where 
 they are found, they lie unopened by the owners, and 
 are consigned ' to the dust and silence of the upper 
 shelf No one is louder in deploring this fact than 
 Lord Macaulay, in his celebrated Essay on Milton. 
 ' It is to be regretted,' he says, * that the prose writ- 
 ings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. 
 As compositions, they deserve the attention of every 
 man who wishes to become acquainted with the full 
 power of the English language. They abound with 
 passages compared with which the finest declama- 
 tions of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a 
 
PREFACE. 6 
 
 perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with 
 gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books 
 of the Paradise Lost has the great poet ever risen 
 higher than in those parts of his controversial works 
 in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent 
 in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to 
 borrow his own majestic language, " a sevenfold 
 chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." ' He 
 then goes on to say — ^We had intended to look 
 more closely at these performances, to analyse the 
 peculiarities of the diction, to dwell at some length 
 on the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica, and the 
 nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and to point out 
 some of those magnificent passages which occur in the 
 Treatise of Reformation and the Animadversions on 
 the Remonstrant.' Yet Macaulay took care never to 
 do this ; he never resumed the subject, and, there- 
 fore, we are compelled to regard this expression of 
 his intention as a mere rhetorical flourish. We 
 heartily wish he had fulfilled his half-implied promise, 
 especially as ourselves have failed to discover the ner- 
 vous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, though we fully ap- 
 preciate the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica — 
 have failed to detect the magnificent passages of the 
 Animadversions on the Remonstrant, though we are 
 enchanted with those which occur in the Treatise of 
 Reformation. 
 
 Here, then, we fancy that we have found an un- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 trodden field. But let it not be thought that we are 
 presuming to do what Macaulay left undone ; we 
 only wish we possessed a tithe of his powerful critical 
 skill and acumen. Still, we flatter ourselves that we 
 shall be doing good service to the cause of literature, 
 if we direct attention to these long-forgotten crea- 
 tions of our great national poet, so full of interest 
 and instruction, and select from the prose works 
 of John Milton all that is really valuable and worth 
 preserving. He himself has told us that " a wise 
 man, like a good refiner, can gather gold from the 
 drossiest volume." And believing this, and that the 
 grains of gold are there, the work before us will be 
 to "find out the precious gem of truth, as amongst 
 the numberless pebbles of the shore ;" to separate the 
 gold from the dross ; the sentences ^ written as if an 
 angel held the pen,' from the sentences written ^ in 
 Cobbett's style ;' the sentences " of a venturous edge, 
 uttered in the height of zeal (and who knows whe- 
 ther they might not be the dictates of a Divine 
 Spirit ?)" from those uttered, we are constrained to 
 confess, in malice and bitterness, and all uncharitable- 
 ness ; and thus to save our readers the cost of pur- 
 chasing, and the trouble of wading through, the five 
 volumes of Bohn's edition, or the two quartos of Dr. 
 Birch's edition, or the three large folios of Toland's 
 edition. 
 
 For much, very much of Milton's prose is scarcely 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 worth reading. His political opinions are republican, 
 visionary, and Utopian ; and his religious opinions are 
 for the most part equally erroneous, onesided, and 
 overstrained. No wonder they made so little impression 
 on his contemporaries. They despised them; we abhor 
 them. No one would rise from their perusal a bet- 
 ter man, a better citizen, or a better Christian. When 
 stript of the truly magnificent language in which he 
 knows so well to clothe them, and seen in their naked 
 deformity, the politician, however liberal, and the 
 Christian, however puritancial, would infallibly shrink 
 from their adoption. 
 
 Perhaps it may seem strange that the Editor, who 
 calls himself a staunch Conservative and moderate 
 High Churchman, should desire to direct public atten- 
 tion to the writings of a red-hot republican ; especi- 
 ally in these unsettled times when the foundations of 
 the earth seem out of course, and all time-honoured 
 and long-tried, and therefore sacred, institutions seem 
 in peril, and the revolutionary days of Milton may 
 again recur, as history is known to repeat itself But 
 in defence we may say that it is lawful to be taught 
 even by an enemy — that a close study of Milton's 
 works will prove him to have been less revolutionary, 
 and less puritanical, than he is commonly supposed 
 to have been — that most men of his way of thinking 
 are better than their opinions, and themselves would 
 pause before they carried them out to their legitimate 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 consequences — that the lucubrations of a mind which 
 could conceive Paradise Lost or the Areopagitica 
 must always have a certain value, whether or not we 
 agree with some particular conclusions ; and for other 
 reasons which appear in the course of these prefatory 
 remarks, we do not shrink from avowing our deep 
 admiration and fervent love for this great and good 
 man. 
 
 The sound common-sense of Englishmen may, we 
 trust, avert the apprehended danger arising from the 
 levelling and revolutionary principles so rife amongst 
 us — such common-sense, for instance, as Dr. Johnson 
 evinces in the following anecdote, given in Boswell's 
 Life of Johnson, vol. i., p. 305. ' One day, at the house 
 of Catharine Macaulay Graham, the celebrated author 
 of the History of England, History of America, and 
 other works chiefly philosophical, and, by the way, a 
 great-aunt of the Editor, the Doctor put on a very grave 
 countenance, and said to her, ^ Madam, I am now be- 
 come a convert to your way of thinking. I am con- 
 vinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing ; 
 and to give you an unquestionable proof than I am in 
 earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved 
 fellow-citizen, your footman ; I desire that he may 
 be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, 
 sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. 
 She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish 
 to level down as far as themselves ; but they cannot 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have 
 some people under them ; why not, then, have some 
 people above them ?' 
 
 But Milton, republican as he was from the force of 
 circumstances, and the unhappy times in which his lot 
 was cast, was, as we have said, far superior to his 
 views, and was always sincere and honest. His mind 
 was essentially a religious mind. The subjects he 
 chose, in prose or verse, were themselves sacred, or 
 had a sacred tendency. And we are not surprised at 
 this, when we remember that he contemplated taking 
 Holy Orders. Thither he bent all his studies ; and as 
 in mature life he produced the Paradise Lost, so in 
 earliest youth he had been " smit with the love of 
 sacred song," paraphrasing Psalms at fifteen, and at 
 twenty-one producing his inimitable Ode on the Nati- 
 vity. In the strength and pride of manhood, he for- 
 sook his first love, and abandoning his high calling, 
 launched on the troubled waters of political and party 
 strife. Here religion was still the lodestar that 
 through all kept his life and spirit pure. And twenty 
 years after, when he abandoned prose, and once more 
 with renewed ardour " wandered where the muses 
 haunt," "escaped the Stygian pool" of politics and con- 
 troversy, " though long detained in that obscure so- 
 journ," his lyre will respond to none but sacred 
 themes. 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 'H ^dp0LTO<; Be ')(opBaU 
 "Epcora fiovvov ri')(6i. 
 
 * But my perverse, rebelKous lyre 
 Breathes nought but love and soft desire.' 
 
 No holier songs than the Paradise Lost and Re- 
 gained ever fell from the enraptured lips of sacred 
 heaven-inspired bard ; and what greatly enhances the 
 spotless purity of these productions is the time at 
 which they were composed, when ^obscene tumult 
 raged all around him, the effect of the prevalence of 
 Puritanism under the Commonwealth.' It was now 
 the Restoration, and the reaction of vice and im- 
 morality had set in. In the midst of all, and undis- 
 turbed by all, this great, and pure, and good man, 
 ' tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and 
 blindness, meditated a song so sublime, and so holy, 
 that it would not have misbecome the lips of those 
 ethereal Virtues whom he saw with that inner eye 
 which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the 
 jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold.' 
 But all his life through Milton was ever the same 
 holy and saintly man, uncorrupted and uncorruptible, 
 like his own seraph Abdiel, " faithful found, among 
 the faithless faithful only he." How can we help 
 admiring and loving him ? We care not for his poli- 
 tical and public character— we know that he had 
 strange notions concerning divorce and polygamy; 
 we have heard of his unkind daughters and unkinder 
 
PREFACE. y 
 
 first wife ; we remember that the taint of Arianism is 
 found in his later works, but still we can pardon all 
 his faults, and revere and love the genius and the 
 virtues of the man, the poet, and the Christian. We 
 confess to liking him best when he has on his singing 
 robes, but his prose has a charm for us which we find 
 nowhere else. Every word of his poetry, and many 
 passages of his prose, have a- magical influence on our 
 minds, and act almost like an incantation. Macaulay 
 makes this remark with reference to his poetry ; we 
 maintain that it is equally true with regard to several 
 passages which occur in his prose writings. We will 
 quote the beautiful words of the great Essayist : 
 ' There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in 
 his words than in other words. But they are words 
 of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced 
 than the past is present, and the distant near. New 
 forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all 
 the burial-places of the memory give up their dead. 
 Change the structure of the sentence, substitute one 
 synonym e for another, and the whole effect is de- 
 stroyed. The spell loses its power, and he who 
 would then hope to conjure with it would find him- 
 self as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, 
 when he stood crying, ' Open Wheat,' ' Open Barley,' 
 to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open Se- 
 same.' Yes, there is a charm in many of those re- 
 markable passages which we propose hereafter to 
 
10 PREFACE. 
 
 recite, for which we know not how to account. 
 * Their merit lies less in their obvious meaning than 
 in their occult power.' They have a sort of fascina- 
 tion for us which we cannot describe. They ring in 
 our ears much in the same way as Sir Walter Scott 
 tells us that the first stanza of the Ballad of Cumnor 
 Hall used to do in his. It had a peculiar species of 
 enchantment for his youthful ear, the force of which 
 was not entirely spent when he wrote Kenilworth. 
 And it is this wonderful power of affecting others, as 
 if with the wand of a magician, which is the triumph 
 and glory of genius, transmuting into gold everything 
 that it touches. Take Comus, for instance, and a 
 writer in the Quarterly shall unfold to us hoAV this 
 mighty magician deals with the most unpromising 
 subject. 'A young girl and her brothers are be- 
 nighted and separated as they pass through a forest 
 in Herefordshire. How meagre is this solitary fact ! 
 — how barren a paragraph would it have made for 
 the Herefordshire journal, had such a journal been 
 then in existence ! Submit it to Milton, and beauti- 
 ful is the form which it assumes. Then rings that 
 wood with the jocund revelry of Comus and his com- 
 pany, and the maiden draws near in the strength of 
 unblemished chastity, and her courage waxes strong 
 as she sees 
 
 " A sable cloud 
 Turn forth her silver lining on the night," 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 and she calls upon Echo to tell her of the flowery 
 cave which hides her brothers, and Echo betrays her 
 to the enchanter. Then comes the spirit from the 
 " starry threshold of Jove's court," and in shepherd 
 weeds leads on the brothers to her rescue ; and the 
 necromancer is put to flight, but not till he has bound 
 up the lady in fetters of stone ; and Sabrina hastens 
 from under her " translucent wave " to dissolve the 
 spell, and again they all three bend their happy steps 
 back to the roof of their fathers.' 
 
 And here we cannot refrain from quoting that ex- 
 quisite passage with which the great Whig historian 
 concludes his critique, which cannot fail to strike a re- 
 spondent chord in the heart of every lover of Milton. 
 'While this book' — his posthumous Treatise on Christ- 
 ian doctrine — ' lies on our table, we seem to be con- 
 temporaries of the writer. We are transported a 
 hundred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy 
 that we are visiting him in his small lodging ; that we 
 see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded 
 green hangings ; that we can catch the quick twinkle 
 of his eyes, rolling in vain to find the day ; that we 
 are reading in the lines of his noble countenance the 
 proud and mournful history of his glory and his af- 
 fliction. We imagine to ourselves the breathless silence 
 in which we should listen to his slight esi word, the 
 passionate veneration with which we should kneel to 
 kiss his hand and weep upon it, the earnestness with 
 
12 PREFACE. 
 
 which we should endeavour to console him, if indeed 
 such a spirit could need consolation, for the neglect of 
 an age unworthy of his talents and his virtues ; the 
 eagerness with which we should contest with his 
 daughters, or with his Quaker friend Elwood, the 
 privilege of reading Horner to him, or of taking down 
 the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. The 
 sight of his books, the sound of his name, are pleasant 
 to us. His thoughts are powerful not only to delight, 
 but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man 
 who can study either the life or the writings of the 
 great poet and patriot, without aspiring to emulate, not 
 indeed the sublime works with which his genius has 
 enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he 
 laboured for the public good, the fortitude with which 
 he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain 
 Avith which he looked down on temptations and dan- 
 gers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and 
 tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with 
 his country and with his fame.' 
 
 It is worthy of remark that for twenty years of his 
 life Milton wrote no poetry, except a few sonnets ; * sim- 
 ple but majestic records of the feelings of the poet.' 
 His various prose works, with one or two unimportant 
 exceptions, were all composed between the year 1641 
 and 1660 ; and this marks the period of his political 
 life, i.e.y from his thirty-third to his fifty-second year. 
 Strange that" after writing such a piece as Comus, which 
 
PREFACE. 13 
 
 he produced in his twenty-sixth year, he ever should 
 have stooped to humble prose, and not have found 
 out, till the best of his life was past, that poetry was 
 his proper and heaven-appointed vocation. It was 
 left to mature years, and blindness, and disappoint- 
 ment, and suffering, to teach him that the closet not 
 the senate was his proper field of action — that there 
 God had a work for him to perform, the noblest that 
 ever fell to the lot of a mortal man, and in which we 
 look upon him as truly inspired, though not to the 
 some degree and extent, or for the same purpose, as 
 were St. Paul and St. John. It was, however, a stern 
 sense of duty, and the noblest patriotism and self-ab- 
 negation, which turned him from poetry to prose. How 
 much must he have sacrificed ! All the fond aspira- 
 tions of his earliest years ! For that grand Epic, which 
 he was destined to accomplish, from first to last ever 
 loomed before him. At the age of nineteen he was 
 conscious of 
 
 " Thoughts that rove about 
 And loudly knock to have their passage out." 
 
 However " naked " he felt them then to be, he knew 
 ere long they would be decked in the richest robes 
 and gayest attire of his native language. To the eye 
 of his young mind the chiefest treasure of her ward- 
 robe had all been displayed. He longed to " clothe 
 his fancy in fit sound," and to be employed in " graver 
 subjects" than the "new-fangled toys," which de- 
 
14 PKEFACE. 
 
 lighted his fellow-collegians. From the task before 
 him, his '' deep transported mind " soared far " above 
 wheeling poles," and ''looked in at heaven's door," 
 and listening there longed 
 
 " To sing of secret things that come to pass 
 When beldame Nature in her cradle was." 
 
 At thirty he writes to a dear friend^ " Do you ask 
 what I am meditating? By the help of heaven, an 
 immortality of fame. But what am I doing? TTTepoj>v5) 
 I am letting my wings grow, and preparing to fly ; 
 but my Pegasus has not yet feathers enough to soar 
 aloft in the fields of air." Twenty-seven years after 
 Ivriting this, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, at 
 Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, whither he had retired 
 when the great plague was raging in London, in 
 1665, he finished that work which has for ever dis- 
 tanced him from all competitors, and, indeed, con- 
 ferred upon him an immortality of fame. It was 
 published two years after, in 1667, and sold for an 
 immediate payment of five pounds, with an agree- 
 ment for fifteen pounds more when a certain number 
 of copies should be sold. Simmonds was the pur- 
 chaser, who afterwards made over the original copy- 
 right to Jacob Tonson. ' Tonson, and all his family, 
 rode in their carriages from the profits of the five- 
 pound Epic' So long time elapsed before he saw 
 the cherished aspirations of his heart fulfilled, and 
 this must ever be to us a matter of deep regret. Yes, 
 
PREFACE. 15 
 
 in spite of the splendid passages which occur in his 
 prose works — in spite of that only readable one in its 
 entirety, the Areopagitica, which we so much admire, 
 we cannot help regretting that Milton should have 
 spent so many years in courting ' the muse of prose 
 literature,' engaged in controversial and political war- 
 fare. What self-denial, what stern and indomitable 
 self-control, these long years must have cost him ! 
 How uncongenial for such a man to write nothing 
 but dry despatches, manifestoes, letters of state, trea- 
 tises and tracts in defence and praise of the present 
 government ! We are surprised to find so much 
 genuine gold amongst this dross, when Parliament, 
 not the heavenly muse, inspires him. A mistaken 
 patriotism "damps his intended wing depressed." 
 He is no longer " smit with the love of sacred song." 
 No longer his celestial patroness, Urania (the mean- 
 ing, not the name), brings nightly to his ear his easy 
 unpremeditated verse. But darker days follow ; neg- 
 lected by his pet party, paid as a hireling to write at 
 the bidding of Parliament, yet no hireling he, thrust 
 aside, uncourted, unpreferred, sick at heart, and bro- 
 ken in body, blind, and afflicted with gout, proscribed 
 and outlawed, he bethinks himself of his long-neglect- 
 ed but still loved lyre ; searches for some heroic sub- 
 ject ; thinks he has found a fitting hero in King Ar- 
 thur ; abandons him for a more terrible one— we had 
 almost said for a far grander one — and, " long choos- 
 
16 PREFACE. 
 
 ing and beginning late," at last fixes upon Paradise 
 Lost. Surely he chose wisely and well ! He did 
 not wait in vain ; he did not wait a moment too long. 
 It was well for him and well for us that he had 
 
 " Fall'n on evil days, 
 On evil days had fall'n, and evil tongues. 
 In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round, 
 And solitude," 
 
 or he might have gone on writing prose to the end of 
 his days. Would this have been a calamity ? Yes, 
 if it had deprived the world of his immortal poem, 
 which is ' not the greatest of heroic poems, only be- 
 cause it was not the first.' But then perhaps his 
 prose works would have been better appreciated, for, 
 after all, they are worthier of a deeper study than 
 they have usually met with. They are full of magni- 
 ficent passages, such as no one but himself could have 
 written, resplendent with the magic touch and stamp 
 of genius, and, in the words of a competent judge, 
 ' written as if an angel had held the pen.' 
 
 We will proceed to cull from his prose works, ar- 
 ranged in their chronological order, the most striking 
 of these ' disjecta membra poetse,' these prose-poems, 
 what he himself so well calls " sentences of a ventur- 
 ous edge, uttered in the height of zeal ; and who 
 knows whether they might not be the dictates of a 
 Divine Spirit?" Our extracts will necessarily be 
 somewhat fragmentary and unconnected, but we trust 
 that they will include all that ordinary readers would 
 
PREFACE. 17 
 
 consider as valuable, interesting, and worthy of pre- 
 servation in the prose works of John Milton, the 
 friend and lover, the champion and martyr of 
 " white-robed truth " — " sincerely good and perfectly 
 divine." 
 
 It only remains to say that we have given entire, 
 and without multilation, his great masterpiece, the 
 Areopagitica : a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed 
 Printing. * The glory of this battle is all his own. 
 Thousands among his contemporaries raised their 
 voices against ship-money and the star-chamber. But 
 there were few indeed who discerned the more fear- 
 ful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and the 
 benefits which would result from the liberty of the 
 press and -the unfettered exercise of private judgment. 
 These were the objects which Milton had in view 
 when he attacked the licensing system, in that sub- 
 lime treatise which every statesman should wear as a 
 sign upon his hand, and as frontlets between his 
 eyes.' 
 
 Much Cowarne, February, 1870. 
 
 tt 
 
18 
 
 MILTON'S PROSE WORKS 
 
 ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. 
 
 There is great advantage to be derived from read- 
 ing and studying the works of an author in the order 
 in which they have been written. Editors have long 
 made this discovery, and our best editions of the 
 classics are those in which this chronological order is 
 observed ; such as Bentley's Horace, Scholefield's 
 ^schylus, and Bekker's Aristophanes. To read the 
 ancient tragedies and comedies in the order in which 
 they were acted, as far as it can be ascertained, must 
 add very much to their interest and historical value. 
 And in nothing is the benefit of chronological ar- 
 rangement more evident than in St. Paul's Epistles, 
 which, as arranged by Bishop Wordsworth in his 
 scholarly and invaluable Greek Testament, are seen 
 to form one connected and consistent whole, setting 
 forth a complete system of Doctrine and Discipline, 
 which they can hardly be said to do in their disjointed 
 and usual order. 
 
 These remarks will be found true with regard to 
 Milton's controversial writings, and in some measure 
 with regard to his poetry. 
 
CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS. 19 
 
 1641. Of Reformation in England. 
 
 1641. Of Prelatical Episcopacy. 
 
 1641. The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty. 
 
 1641. Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence. 
 
 1642. An Apology for Smectymunus. 
 
 1644. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. 
 
 1644. On Education. 
 
 1644. Areopagitica. 
 
 1645. The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce. 
 1645. Tetrachordon. 
 
 1645. Colasterion. 
 
 1650. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. 
 
 1650. The History of Britain to the Norman Conquest. First Four 
 
 Books. 
 
 1651. Iconoclastes. 
 
 1651. A Defence of the People of England. In Latin. 
 
 1654. The Second Defence. In Latin. 
 
 1655. Authoris pro se Defensio. 
 
 1655. Authoris ad Alexandri Mori Supplementum Responsio. 
 1655. A Manifesto of the Lord Protector. 
 1659. Considerations to remove Hirelings out of the Church. 
 1659. Of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. 
 
 1659. Letter on the Ruptures of the Commonwealth. 
 1649-1659. Letters of State. 
 
 1660. Mode of Establishing a Commonwealth. 
 1660. Brief Notes on Dr. Griffith's Sermon. 
 1625-1666. Familiar Letters. In Latin. 
 1670. Remainder of the History of Britain. 
 
 1672. Artis Logic* Plenior Institutio. 
 
 1673. Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration. 
 Posthumous Treatise on the Christian Doctrine. In Two 
 
 Books. In Latin. Discovered, in 1823, by Mr. Lemon, 
 deputy keeper of the state papers, among the presses of 
 his office, and translated by C. R. Sumner, late Bishop 
 of Winchester. 
 
 With regard to the chronology of Milton's great 
 Poems, it may be interesting to bear in mind that he 
 wrote his Ode on the Nativity at twenty-one, his 
 Comus at twenty-six, his Lycidas at twenty-nine, his 
 
 c2 
 
20 CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS. 
 
 Paradise Lost at fifty-seven, his Paradise Regained 
 and Samson Agonistes at sixty-one. 
 
 Milton's three marriages took place in his thirty- 
 fifth, fiftieth, and fifty-fourth year. He also fell in 
 love when he was nineteen. See his seventh elegy, 
 and Cowper's beautiful translation. It was love at 
 first sight. That is the one face for me. He saw, but 
 never spoke to the beloved object. 
 
 " She was gone, and vanish'd, to appear no more." 
 
 He proceeded to solace himself with his Latin Muse. 
 
 The one face that was for Milton was Catharine 
 Woodcock's, whom he married and lost in childbed 
 within the year. If his sonnets mean anything, and 
 are faithful records of the feelings of the poet, he was 
 and would have been happy with her. Witness the 
 eighteenth, like that on the Martyrs of Piedmont, a 
 ' collect in verse.' 
 
 " Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
 
 Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, 
 Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
 
 Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint. 
 
 Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child- bed taint 
 Purification in the old law did save, 
 And such as yet once more I trust to have 
 
 Full sight of her in heaven without restraint. 
 
 Came vested all in white, pure as her mind : 
 Her face was veil'd ; yet to my fancied sight 
 
 Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
 So clear as in no face with more delight. 
 
 But, O ! as to embrace me she inclined 
 I waked ; she fled ; and day brought back my night !" 
 
21 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 THE Prose Works of Milton seem at first sight to be 
 a very confused and miscellaneous series of com- 
 positions ; but they admit of an easy and simple clas- 
 sification, the key to which is seen at a glance in the 
 Second Defence. In the hif^hlv interestinpj autobio- 
 graphy which he there gives, he mentions the origin 
 and occasion of his most important works, the reasons 
 which induced him to undertake them, and the aim 
 and object which he had in view. 
 
 The passage itself will be quoted at length in its 
 proper place, when we come to our selections from 
 that portion of his productions. All his writings are 
 in defence of that thing which he called Liberty — a 
 subject on which he and some of his contemporaries 
 literally went mad. He divides liberty into three 
 species, essential to the happiness of social life — religi- 
 ous, domestic, and civil. On the first we have five 
 great Treatises, four of which were published in 1641, 
 viz.. The Treatises of Reformation, of Prelatical 
 Episcopacy, The Reason of Church Government, and 
 
22 INTRODUCTOKY REMARKS. 
 
 some Animadversions ; and in the following year he 
 produced the fifth, his Apology. In the cause of do- 
 mestic liberty, involving, as it does, three material 
 questions, marriage, education, and the free publication 
 of thought, he wrote three great Treatises, on Divorce 
 (for all on that subject we class as one), on Educa- 
 tion, and his Areopagitica, which deals with the free- 
 dom of the human mind, the most valuable but at that 
 time least valued liberty of all. These eight Treatises 
 he wrote without fee or reward, presenting gratuitous- 
 ly these fruits of his private studies to the Church and 
 to the State. And lastly, in the cause of civil liberty, 
 at the bidding and in the pay of Parliament, he 
 penned the Iconoclastes, and his two, or rather three, 
 Defences. 
 
 The origin of these several works was briefly this : 
 In the course of his travels he had arrived at Rome, 
 and was intending to visit Greece, when tidings of the 
 civil commotions in his native country reached his 
 ears. He determined at once to return and fight in 
 the ranks of Liberty. Accordingly, he boldly throws 
 himself into the breach, and wields his powerful pen, 
 in those eight treatises we have mentioned, in the 
 cause of religious and domestic liberty, leaving the 
 third, as he says, to the care of the magistrates. It 
 was then about the year 1650, and he expected an 
 interval of literary ease, and began writing his His- 
 tory of England, from the earliest times to the period 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 23 
 
 in which he was living. But ease and quietude were 
 not to be. his lot. A command from the Council of 
 State bade him compose an answer to the Icon Basi- 
 like, which had just appeared. To this we owe the 
 Iconoclastes, in which he declares how far his thoughts 
 were from insulting fallen majesty, only professing 
 to prefer Queen Truth to King Charles. Then 
 follows his battle with Salmasius and Alexander 
 More. 
 
 We have now mentioned the chief of his works, 
 putting aside some minor and unimportant short 
 pamphlets, and his voluminous but worthless posthu- 
 mous work on Christian Doctrine. So, after all, they 
 form a connected whole, consisting of twelve princi- 
 pal compositions — five in defence of what may be 
 called religious liberty, three of domestic liberty, and 
 four pre-eminently political and polemical. 
 
 The characteristic of the first series is his inveterate 
 and implacable hatred to Prelatical Episcopacy — this 
 is their sum and substance. His sentiments on the 
 subject of Divorce and on Education are untenable, 
 and simply absurd ; and with those on the Great Re- 
 bellion, and on the execution of Charles, it is impos- 
 sible to have any sympathy. His wretched squab- 
 bles with Salmasius and More excite our pity and 
 contempt. We cannot but regret that circumstances 
 should have led him to descant on such unfortunate 
 and unpromising themes ; but on these circumstances, 
 
24 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 not on Milton himself, we would fain cast the blame. 
 So utterly visionary and Utopian are they in them- 
 selves, though propounded in majestic language, and 
 interspersed with the sublimest and noblest thoughts, 
 that there is no fear, and never w^as, of his finding 
 followers, or forming a sect. And, in fact, he who 
 errs with him must be endued with the same gigantic 
 powers of soul and intellect as he possessed, which 
 will for ever preclude any danger that might arise 
 from studying his works. We regard him as a much 
 misunderstood, ill-used, and disappointed man. With 
 Hamlet, he might have exclaimed — 
 
 ' The time is out of joint ; — O cursed spite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right !' 
 
 But this was a work beyond even his powers. Still, 
 he set about it manfully and resolutely, and, failing, 
 he delivered his own soul. 
 
 We can well understand why his works should be 
 unpopular, especially to those who do not penetrate 
 beneath the surface ; and our desire is not so much to 
 direct attention to his opinions, but to the oftentimes 
 magnificent language in which they are clothed — not 
 to recommend all that he wrote, but certain parts, 
 which we would not willingly let die, or remain in an 
 undeserved and unjust oblivion. We do not hesitate 
 to say that the reading of his works by those whose 
 principles are formed, however much they seem to 
 fall in with and foster republican views, would tend 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 25 
 
 to generate a healthy tone in these degenerate days, 
 and that from the lofty, and majestic, and high-mind- 
 ed spirit which pervades them. Honesty of purpose 
 and consistency of conduct, in the midst of severe 
 temptation, are the characteristic marks and the true 
 glory of Milton. He is the most splendid example 
 which could be cited of the truth of that noble stanza 
 of Horace (Carm. iii., 3). 
 
 ' Justum ac tenacem propositi vimm 
 Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
 Nou vultus instantis tyranni 
 Mente quatit solida, neque Auster, 
 Dux inquieti turbidus Adrise, 
 Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis : 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinse.' 
 
 He was no reed shaken with the wind, but onward 
 he pursued his course, through good report and evil 
 report. He commands our respect even where we 
 most differ from him. Take the simple fact that he 
 took office under the usurper Cromwell, and refused 
 to take office under the Restoration, though urged to 
 do so, and we see how consistent and noble was that 
 mind which excessive light alone led astray. In a 
 word, he had grace to live 
 
 "As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye ;" 
 
 not meaning that God is a hard taskmaster to anyone, 
 but that He has given to everyone his allotted task to 
 do in this world ; and this is what Milton desired to 
 find out, and then did with all his might. 
 
26 
 
 OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND, 
 
 AND THE CAUSES THAT HITHERTO HAVE HINDERED IT. 
 WRITTEN TO A FRIEND. 
 
 WE are glad this work comes first under notice, 
 because it furnishes a good specimen of Mil- 
 ton's peculiar style. The length of the sentences al- 
 most takes away one's breath, and the wonder is how 
 those which occur in his speeches could have been 
 spoken by him ; just as we wonder how the actors 
 in the ancient theatres madet hemselves heard by an 
 audience of thirty thousand in the open air. Long as 
 they are. they are built up most artistically, and we 
 confess to liking them in Milton, though perhaps we 
 should not in any one else. 
 
 The exordium and the peroration of this remark- 
 able production are exceedingly grand and striking. 
 The latter astonishes and enchants us by its powerful 
 and matchless eloquence, and its richly musical ca- 
 dences. It has never been surpassed in any language, 
 and is a glorious specimen of impassioned prose. 
 Such an outburst seems to us little less than direct in- 
 
SELECTIONS FROM MILTON's PROSE WORKS. 27 
 
 spiration. It is in fact a prose-poein, a patriotic lyric; 
 and naturally prompts the question where does poetry 
 begin and prose end, and what is the proper domain 
 of each art ? for here we see them invading each other. 
 Macaulay doubtless had this celebrated passage in 
 view when he spoke of his prose style as ' stiff with 
 gorgeous embroidery — a perfect field of cloth of gold.' 
 This burst of ' devotional and lyric rapture/ in which 
 his excited feelings find a vent, and others, especially 
 in the Areopagitica, seem to us to rival the poetry of 
 the Paradise Lost. We have said so much that we 
 think our readers will not thank us if we detain 
 them any longer from the rich feast we propose to set 
 before them. 
 
 / 
 " Amidst those deep and retired thoughts, which, 
 
 with every man Christianity instructed, ought to be 
 
 most frequent of God, and of His miraculous ways and 
 
 works amongst men, and of our religion and works, 
 
 to be performed to Him ; after the story of our Saviour 
 
 Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the 
 
 flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of 
 
 glory in the spirit, which drew up His body also, till 
 
 we in both be united to Him in the revelation of His 
 
 kingdom : I do not know of anything more worthy to 
 
 take up the whole passion of pity on the one side, and 
 
 joy on the other, than to consider first the foul and 
 
 sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age. 
 
28 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the long deferred, but much more wonderful and 
 happy reformation of the church in these latter days. ' 
 Sad it is to think how that doctrine of the gospel, 
 planted by teachers divinely inspired, and by them 
 winnowed and sifted from the chaff of overdated cere- 
 monies, and refined to such a spiritual height and 
 temper of purity, and knowledge of the Creator, that 
 the body, with all the circumstances of time and 
 place, were purified by the affections of the regenerate 
 soul, and nothing left impure but sin ; faith needing 
 not the weak and fallible office of his senses, to be 
 either the ushers or interpreters of heavenly mys- 
 teries, save w^here our Lord Himself in His sacraments 
 ordained ; that such a doctrine should, through the 
 grossness and blindness of her professors, and the 
 fraud of deceivable traditions, drag so downwards, as 
 to backslide one way into the Jewish beggary of old 
 cast rudiments, and stumble forward another way into 
 the new-vomited paganism of sensual idolatry, attri- 
 buting purity or impurity to things indifferent, that 
 they might bring the inward acts of the spirit to the 
 outward and customary eyeservice of the body, as if 
 they could make God earthly and fleshly, because they 
 could not make themselves heavenly and spiritual ; 
 they began to draw down all the divine intercourse 
 betwixt God and the soul, yea, the very shape of God 
 Himself, into an exterior and bodily form, urgently 
 pretending a necessity and obligenient of joining the 
 
Milton's prose works. 29 
 
 body in a formal reverence and worship circum- 
 scribed ; they hallowed it, they fumed it, they sprink^ 
 led it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure inno- 
 cency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and 
 fantastic dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and gew- 
 gaws fetched from Aaron's old wardrobe, or the 
 flamen's vestry : then was the priest set to con his mo- 
 tions and his postures, his liturgies and his hurries, till 
 the soul by this means of overbodying herself, given 
 up justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace 
 downward : and finding the ease she had from her 
 visible and sensuous colleague, the body, in perform- 
 ance of religious duties, her pinions now broken, and 
 flagging, shifted off from herself the labour of high soar- 
 ing any more, forgot her heavenly flight, and left the 
 dull and droiling carcase to plod on the old road, and 
 drudging trade of outward conformity. And here, 
 out of question from her perverse conceiting of God 
 and holy things, she had fallen to believe no God at 
 all, had not custom and the worm of conscience 
 nipped her incredulity : hence to all the duties of 
 evangelical grace, instead of the adoptive and cheer- 
 ful boldness which our new alliance with God re- 
 quires, came servile and thrall-like fear : for in very 
 deed the superstitious man, by his good will, is an 
 atheist ; but being scared from thence by the pangs 
 and gripes of a boiling conscience, all in a pudder 
 shuffles up to himself such a God and such a worship 
 
30 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 as is most agreeable to remedy his fear ; which fear 
 of his, as also is his hope, fixed only upon the flesh, 
 renders likewise the whole faculty of his apprehension 
 carnal; and all the inward acts of worship, issuing 
 from the native strength of the soul, run out lavishly 
 to the upper skin, and there harden into a crust of 
 formality. Hence men came to scan the Scriptures 
 by the letter, and in the covenant of our redemption 
 magnified the external signs more than the quicken- 
 ing power of the Spirit ; and yet, looking on them 
 through their own guiltiness with a servile fear, and 
 finding as little comfort, or rather terror, from them 
 again, they knew not how to hide their slavish ap- 
 proach to God's behests, by them not understood nor 
 worthily received, but by cloaking their servile 
 crouching to all religious presentiments, sometimes 
 lawful, sometimes idolatrous, under the name of hu- 
 mility, and terming the piebald frippery and ostenta- 
 tion of ceremonies, decency. Then was baptism 
 changed into a kind of exorcism, and that feast of 
 free grace to which Christ invited His disciples to sit 
 as brethren and coheirs of the happy covenant, which 
 at that table was to be sealed to them, even that 
 feast of love and heavenly-admitted fellowship, the 
 seal of filial grace, became the subject of horror, and 
 glouting adoration, pageanted about like a dreadful 
 idol, which sometimes deceives well-meaning men, 
 and beguiles them of their reward by their voluntary 
 
Milton's prose works. 31 
 
 humility — which, indeed, is fleshly pride — preferring 
 a foolish sacrifice, and the rudiments of the world, as 
 St. Paul to the Colossians explaineth, before a savoury 
 obedience to Christ's example. Such was Peter s un- 
 seasonable humility, as then his knowledge was small, 
 when Christ came to wash his feet, who at an imper- 
 tinent time would needs strain courtesy with his mas- 
 ter, and falling troublesomely upon the lowly, all- 
 wise, and unexaminable intention of Christ, in what 
 He went with resolution to do, so provoked by his 
 interruption the meek Lord, that he threatened to 
 exclude him from his heavenly portion, unless he 
 could be content to be less arrogant and stiff-necked 
 in his humility. 
 
 " But to dwell no longer in characterizing the de- 
 pravities of the church, and how they sprung, and 
 how they took increase ; when I recall to mind at 
 last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge over- 
 shadowing train of error had almost swept all the 
 stars out of the firmament of the church, how the 
 bright and blissful Reformation (by divine, power) 
 struck through the black and settled night of ignor- 
 ance and anti- Christian tyranny, raethinks a sovereign 
 and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of 
 him that reads or hears, and the sweet odour of the 
 returning gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy 
 of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible sought out of 
 the dusty corners, where profane falsehood and neg- 
 
32 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 lect had thrown it, the schools opened, divine and 
 human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten 
 tongues, the princes and cities trooping apace to the 
 new-erected banner of salvation ; the martyrs, with 
 the unresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers 
 of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red 
 dragon. 
 
 "The pleasing pursuit of these thoughts hath oft- 
 times led me into a serious question and debatement 
 with myself, how it should come to pass that England 
 (having had this grace and honour from God to be 
 the first that should set up a standard for the recovery 
 of lost truth, and blow the first evangelic trumpet to 
 the nations, holding up, as from a hill, the new lamp 
 of saving light to all Christendom) should now be last 
 and most unsettled in the enjoyment of that peace, 
 whereof she taught the way to others ; although, in- 
 deed, our WicklifFe's preaching, at which all the suc- 
 ceeding reformers more effectually lighted their tapers, 
 was to his countrymen but a short blaze, soon damped 
 and stifled by the Pope and prelates for six or seven 
 kings' reigns ; yet methinks the precendency which 
 God gave this island, to be the first restorer of buried 
 truth, should have been followed with more happy 
 success, and sooner attained perfection, in which, as 
 yet, we are amongst the last : for, albeit in purity of 
 doctrine we agree with our brethren, yet in discipline, 
 which is the execution and applying of doctrine home. 
 
Milton's prose works. 33 
 
 we are no better than a sehism from all the Reforma- 
 tion, and a sore scandal to them. Certainly it would 
 be worth the while therefore, and the pains, to inquire 
 more particularly what and how many the chief causes 
 have been that have still hindered our uniform con- 
 sent to the rest of the churches abroad, at this time 
 especially when the kingdom is in a good propensity 
 thereto, and all men in prayers, in hopes, or in dis- 
 putes, either for or against it. 
 
 *^ Yet I will not insist on that which may seem to be 
 the cause on God's part ; as His judgment on our 
 sins, the trial of His own, the unmasking of hypo- 
 crites : nor shall I stay to speak of the continual 
 eagerness and extreme diligence of the pope and 
 papists to stop the furtherance of reformation, which 
 now have no hold or hope of England, their lost dar- 
 ling. But I shall chiefly endeavour to declare 
 those causes that hinder the forwarding of true disci- 
 pline, which are among ourselves. Orderly proceed- 
 ing will divide our inquiry into our forefathers' days, 
 and into our times. Henry VHI. was the first that 
 rent this kingdom from the pope's subjection totally ; 
 but his quarrel being more about supremacy, than 
 other faultiness in religion that he regarded, it is no 
 marvel if he stuck where he did. The next default 
 was in the bishops, who. though they had renounced 
 the pope, still hugged the popedom. In Edward the 
 Sixth's days, why a complete reformation was not ef- 
 
 D 
 
34 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 fected, to any considerate man may appear. First, he 
 no sooner entered his kingdom, but into a war with 
 Scotland ; rebellions on all sides, and other tumults ; 
 hereupon followed ambitious contentions among the 
 peers, which ceased not but with the protector s death ; 
 the prelates were halting and timeserving, followers of 
 this world, the least wry face of a politician hushed 
 them. But it will be said these men (Cranmer, Rid- 
 ley, and Latimer) were martyrs ; what then ? Though 
 every true Christian will be a martyr when he is 
 called to it, not presently does it follow, that every 
 one suffering for religion is, without exception. St. 
 Paul writes, that "a man may give his body to 
 be burnt (meaning for religion,) and yet not have 
 charity :" he is not therefore above all possibility of 
 erring, because he burnt for some points of truth. 
 Witness the Arians and Pelagians, which were slain by 
 the heathen for Christ's sake, yet we take both these 
 for no true friends of Christ." 
 
 We may infer from this passage that Milton was in 
 his younger years untainted by Arianism. 
 
 " More tolerable it were for the church of God, that 
 all these names were utterly abolished, like the brazen 
 serpent, than that men's fond opinion should thus idolize 
 them, and the heavenly and spotless truth be thus 
 captivated. 
 
 "Lastly, all know by example, that exact refor- 
 mation is not perfected at the first push. The 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 35 
 
 hindering causes in Queen Elizabeth's time will be 
 found to be common with those alleged for King Ed- 
 ward VI. : the greenness of the times, the weak estate 
 which Queen Mary left the realm in, the great places 
 and offices executed by papists, the bishops firm to 
 Rome. They had found a good tabernacle, they sat 
 under a spreading vine, their lot was fallen in a fair in- 
 heritance. Those that found fault with the decrees of 
 the convocation were subjected to 'imprisonments, trou- 
 bles, disgraces, and straight were branded with the 
 name of puritans. From this period I count to begin 
 our times. I shall distinguish such as I esteem to be 
 the hinderers of reformation into three sorts, Antiqui- 
 tarians (for so I had rather call them than antiquaries, 
 whose labours are useful and laudable) ; 2, Libertines ; 
 3, Politicians. 
 
 " To the votarists of antiquity I shall think to have 
 fully answered, if I shall be able to approve out of 
 antiquity. First, that if they will conform our bishops 
 to the purer times, they must mew their feathers. 
 Secondly, that those purer times were corrupt, and 
 their books corrupted soon after. Thirdly, that the 
 best of those that then wrote disclaim that any man 
 should repose on them, and send all to the scriptures. 
 
 "A fast friend of episcopacy, Camden, who cannot 
 but love bishops as well as old coins, and his much la- 
 mented monasteries, for antiquity's sake. 
 
 " Doubtless that which led the fathers into fraud and 
 
 d2 
 
36 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 error was that they attended more to the near tradi- 
 tion of what they heard the apostles sometimes did, 
 than to what they had left written, not considering 
 that many things which they did were by the apostles 
 themselves professed to be done only for the present, 
 and of mere indulgence to some scrupulous converts 
 of the circumcision ; but what they writ was of firm 
 decree to all future ages," 
 
 In contrast with Milton's opinion of the Apostolical 
 Fathers, we may cite the opinion of Archbishop Wake, 
 of Dr. Waterland, and of the present Bishop of Lin- 
 coln, Dr. Wordsworth. 
 
 1. ^ They were contemporary with the Apostles, 
 and instructed by them. They were men not only of 
 a perfect piety, but of great courage and constancy. 
 Their writings were approved by the Church in those 
 days, which could not be mistaken in its approbation 
 of them.' 
 
 2. ' The ancient Fathers are useful for fixing the 
 sense of Scripture in controverted texts. Those that 
 lived in or near the Apostolical times might retain in 
 memory what the Apostles themselves, or their imme- 
 diate successors, said upon such and such points. The 
 charismata, the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, 
 were then frequent, and visibly rested in and upon 
 the Church, and there only. The Fathers of the 
 third and fourth centuries had the advantage of many 
 
Milton's prose works. 37 
 
 written accounts of the doctrine of the former ages, 
 which have since been lost.' 
 
 3. 'The Ancient Interpreters are never flippant 
 and familiar, they are never self-conceited and vain- 
 glorious — they are never scornful and profane. They 
 handle Scripture with reverence ; their tone is high 
 and holy, produced by careful study of Scripture, 
 with humble prayer for light to the Divine Author of 
 Scripture. They reflect some of that light, and raise 
 and spiritualize the thoughts of the reader, and do 
 not depress them into the lower and more obscure 
 regions of clouds, which hang over the minds of those 
 who approach Scripture with presumption and irreve- 
 rence, and which disable them from seeing its light, 
 and, much more, from displaying it to others.' 
 
 " I am not of opinion to think the Church a vine 
 in this respect, because, as they take it, she cannot 
 subsist without clasping about the elm of worldly 
 strength and felicity, as if the heavenly city could not 
 support itself without the props and buttresses of 
 secular authority. 
 
 " The very essence of truth is plainness and bright- 
 ness ; the darkness and crookedness is our own. The 
 wisdom of God created understanding, fit and pro- 
 portionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the 
 eye to the thing visible. 
 
 "2. Libertines. — It will not be requisite to answer 
 
38 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 these men, but only to discover them; for reason 
 they have none, but lust and licentiousness, and there- 
 fore answer can have none. It is not any discipline 
 they could live under — it is the corruption and remis- 
 sion of discipline that they seek. It is only the merry 
 friar in Chaucer can disple (disciple) them. 
 
 " Full sweetly heard he confession, 
 And pleasant was his absolution, 
 He was an easy man to give penance." 
 
 And so I leave them, and refer the political discourse 
 of episcopacy to a second book." 
 
Milton's prose works. 39 
 
 THE SECOND BOOK. 
 
 " nnO govern well is to train up a nation in true 
 J- wisdom and virtue, and that which springs 
 from thence, magnanimity, and that which is our 
 beginning, regeneration, and happiest end, likeness to 
 God, which in one word we call godliness ; this is the 
 true flourishing of a land — other things follow as the 
 shadow does the substance. A commonwealth ought 
 to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty 
 growth and stature of an honest man, as big and com- 
 pact in virtue as in body ; for look what the grounds 
 and causes are of single happiness to one man, the 
 same ye shall find them to a whole state." 
 
 On the quotation which follows from Chaucer's 
 Ploughman, we may observe that Tyrwhitt does not 
 admit that tale into his edition. He says, ' I cannot 
 understand that there is the least ground of evidence, 
 either external or internal, for believing it to be a 
 work of Chaucer's.' It has not the least resemblance 
 to Chaucer's manner either of writing or thinking, in 
 his other works. It is not at all probable that a 
 Roman Catholic would be likely to rail and inveigh 
 against the whole government of the Church in the 
 style of thisPloughman'sTale. Nevertheless, we here see 
 
40 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 Milton pressing him into the service of Protestantism. 
 We must not omit the Fable of the Wen, an imita- 
 tion of the well-known Fable of the Stomach and the 
 Members, with which " pretty tale " Menenius Agrippa 
 pacified the insurrection of the Roman plebeians against 
 the patricians, and obtained the appointment of the 
 tribunes of the people, as beautifully related in 
 Shakespeare's Coriolanus, act i., scene i. ; also in 
 Camden's Remains. 
 
 " Upon a time the body summoned all the mem- 
 bers to meet in the guild, for the common good : the 
 head by right takes the first seat, and next to it a 
 huge and monstrous wen, little less than the head it- 
 self, growing to it by a narrower excrescency. The 
 members, amazed, began to ask one another what he 
 was that took place next their chief? None could 
 resolve. Whereat the wen, though unwieldly, with 
 much ado gets up, and bespeaks the assembly to this 
 purpose : " That as in place he was second to the 
 head, so by due of merit, that he was to it an orna- 
 ment, and strength, and of special near relation ; and 
 that if the head should fail, none were fitter than him- 
 self to step into his place : therefore he thought it for 
 the honour of the body that such dignities and rich 
 endowments should be decreed him, as did adorn and 
 set out the noblest members." To this was answered, 
 that it should be consulted. Then was a wise and 
 
Milton's prose works. 41 
 
 learned philosopher sent for, that knew all the char- 
 ters, laws, and tenures of the body. On him it is im- 
 posed by all, as chief committee, to examine, and dis- 
 cuss the claim and petition of right put in by the 
 wen ; who soon perceiving the matter, and wonder- 
 ing at the boldness of such a swoln tumour, " Wilt 
 thou," quoth he, " that are but a bottle of vicious and 
 hardened excrements, contend with the lawful and 
 freeborn members, whose certain number is set by 
 ancient and unrepealable statute ? Head thou art 
 none, though thou receive this huge substance from 
 it. What office bearest thou ? What good canst thou 
 show by thee done to the commonweal ? The wen, 
 not easily dashed, replies that his office was his glory ; 
 for so oft as the soul would retire out of the head 
 from over the steaming vapours of the lower parts to 
 divine contemplation, with him she found the purest 
 and quietest retreat, as being most remote from soil 
 and disturbance. " Lourdan," (or Lurdan, an old 
 word for blockhead) quoth the philosopher, '' thy 
 folly is as great as thy filth : know that all the facul- 
 ties of the soul are confined of old to their several 
 vessels and ventricles, from which they cannot part 
 without dissolution of the whole body ; and that thou 
 containest no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard 
 and loathsome uncleanness, and art to the head a foul 
 disfigurement and burden, when I have cut thee off^ 
 and opened thee, as by the help of these implements 
 I will do, all men shall see." 
 
42 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 ^* The prelates took the ready way to despoil us 
 both of manhood and grace at once, and that in the 
 shamefullest and ungodliest manner, upon that day 
 which God's law, and even our own reason hath con- 
 secrated, that we might have one day at least of seven 
 set apart wherein to examine and increase our know- 
 ledge of God, to meditate and commune of our faith, 
 our hope, our eternal city in heaven, and to quicken 
 withal the study and exercise of charity ; at such a 
 time that men should be plucked from the soberest 
 and saddest thoughts, and by bishops instigated and 
 pushed forward to gaming, jigging, wassailing, and 
 mixed dancing, is a horror to think !" 
 
 Milton here alludes to the celebrated Book of 
 Sports put forth by James L, 1618, and republished 
 with additions by Charles L, 1633, at the instigation 
 of Archbishop Laud ; and the bishops were ordered 
 to take care of its publication in all parish churches. 
 The Long Parliament, to their credit, ordered it to be 
 burnt by the hands of the common hangman 1643, two 
 years after Milton wrote this. 
 
 '^ Now I appeal to all wise men, what an excessive 
 waste of treasure hath been within these few years in 
 this land, not in the expedient, but in the idolatrous 
 erection of temples beautified exquisitely to outvie the 
 Papists, the costly and dear bought scandals and snares 
 of images, pictures, rich copes, gorgeous altar-cloths. 
 What can we suppose this will come to? If the 
 
Milton's prose works. 43 
 
 splendour of gold and silver begin to lord it once 
 again in the Church of England, we shall see Anti- 
 christ shortly wallow here, though his chief kennel be 
 at Rome. If they had but one thought on God's glory, 
 and the advancement of Christian faith, they would 
 be a means that with these expenses, thus profusely 
 thrown away in trash, rather churches and schools 
 might be built, where they cry out for want, and more 
 added where too few are ; a moderate maintenance to 
 every painful minister, that now scarce sustains his 
 family with bread ; which (I hope) the worthy men of 
 our land will consider." 
 
 The word " painful " here means taking pains. 
 Thus Fuller, ' the holiness of their living, and the 
 painfulness of their preaching.' ' Many things,' 
 Archbishop French well observes ' would not be so 
 painful in the present sense of the word, if they had 
 been more painful in the earlier, as perhaps some ser- 
 mons.' " They would rouse us up to a war fit for Cain 
 to be the leader of, an abhorred, a cursed, a fra- 
 ternal war. England and Scotland, dearest brothers 
 both in nature and in Christ, must be set to wade in 
 one another's blood ; and Ireland, our free denizen, 
 upon the back of us both, as occasion should serve : 
 a piece of service that the pope and all his factors 
 have been compassing to do ever since the Refor- 
 mation. 
 
 " But ever-blessed be He, and ever glorified, that 
 
44 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 from His high watch-tower in the heavens, discerning 
 the crooked ways of perverse and cruel men, hath 
 hitherto maimed and infatuated all their inventions, 
 and deluded their great wizards with a delusion fit 
 for fools and children : had God been so minded, he 
 could have sent a spirit of mutiny amongst us, as He 
 did between Abimelech and the Sechemites, to have 
 made our funerals ; but He, when we least deserved, 
 sent out a gentle gale and message of peace from the 
 wings of those His cherubims that fan His mercy- 
 seat. 
 
 " Go on both hand in hand, nations, never to be 
 disunited ; be the praise and the heroic song of all 
 posterity; merit this, but seek only virtue, not to ex- 
 tend your limits (for what needs to win a fading tri- 
 umphant laurel out of the tears of wretched men ?) ; 
 but to settle the pure worship of God in His church 
 and justice in the state : then shall the hardest diffi- 
 culties smooth out themselves before ye ; envy shall 
 sink to hell, craft and malice be confounded, whether 
 it be homebred mischief or outlandish cunning : yea, 
 other nations will then covet to serve ye, for lordship 
 and victory are but the pages of justice and virtue ; 
 join your invincible might to do worthy and god-like 
 deeds ; and then he that seeks to break your union, 
 a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations." 
 
 " If the sacred and dreadful works of holy disci- 
 pline, censure, penance, excommunication, and abso- 
 
Milton's prose works. 45 
 
 lution, where no profane thing ought to have access, 
 nothing to be assistant but sage and Christianly ad- 
 monition, brotherly love, flaming charity and zeal ; 
 and then, according to the effects, paternal sorrow, or 
 paternal joy, mild severity, melting compassion : if 
 such divine ministeries as these, wherein the angel of 
 the church represents the person of Christ Jesus, 
 must lie prostitute to sordid fees, and not pass to and 
 fro between our Saviour, that of free grace redeemed 
 us, and the submissive penitent, without the truckage 
 of perishing coin, then have the Babylonish merchants 
 of souls just excuse." 
 
 "This most mild, though withal dreadful and in- 
 violable prerogative of Christ's diadem, excommuni- 
 cation, serves for nothing but to prog and pander for 
 fees. But in the evangelical and reformed use of this 
 sacred censure no such prostitution, no such Iscarioti- 
 cal drifts are to be doubted, as that spiritual doom 
 and sentence should invade worldly possession, which 
 is the rightful lot and portion even of the wickedest 
 men, as frankly bestowed upon them by the all-dis- 
 pensing bounty as rain and sunshine. No, no ; it seeks 
 not to bereave or destroy the body ; it seeks to save 
 the soul by humbling the body, not by imprisonment 
 or pecuniary mulct, much less by stripes, or bonds, 
 or disinheritance, but by fatherly admonishment and 
 Christian rebuke, to cast it into godly sorrow, whose 
 end is joy, and ingenuous bashfulness to sin : if that 
 
46 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 cannot be wrought, then as a tender mother takes 
 her child and -holds it over the pit with scaring words, 
 that it may learn to fear where danger is ; so doth 
 excommunication as dearly and as freely, without 
 money, use her wholesome and saving terrors ; she is 
 instant, she beseeches, by all the dear and sweet pro- 
 mises of salvation she entices and woos ; by all the 
 threatenings and thunders of the law, and rejected 
 gospel, she charges and adjures : this is all her ar- 
 moury, her munition, her artillery ; then she awaits 
 with long sufferance, and yet ardent zeal. In brief, 
 there is no act in all the errand of God's ministers to 
 mankind wherein passes more lover-like contestation 
 between Christ and the soul of a regenerate man 
 lapsing, than before, and in, and after the sentence of 
 excommunication. As for the fogging proctorage of 
 money, with such an eye as struck Gehazi w^ith le- 
 prosy and Simon Magus with a curse, so does she 
 look, and so threaten her fiery whip against that 
 banking den of thieves that dare thus baffle, and buy, 
 and sell the awful and majestic wrinkles of her brow. 
 He that is rightly and apostolically sped with her in- 
 visible arrow, if he can be at peace in his own soul, 
 and not smell within him the brimstone of hell, may 
 have fair leave to tell all his bags over undiminished 
 of the least farthing, may eat his dainties, drink his 
 wine, use his delights, enjoy his lands and liberties, 
 not the least skin raised, not the least hair misplaced. 
 
Milton's prose works. 47 
 
 for all that excommunication has done : much more 
 may a king enjoy his rights and prerogatives unde- 
 flowered, untouched, and be as absolute and complete 
 a king as all his royalties and revenues can make him. 
 But let us not for fear of a scarecrow, or else through 
 hatred to be reformed, stand hankering and politizing, 
 when God with spread hands testifies to us, and points 
 us out the way to our peace." 
 
 We will conclude our selections from this remark- 
 able first prose composition of Milton with its truly 
 magnificent peroration. 
 
 ^'0, sir, I do now feel myself in wrapped on a sudden 
 into those mazes and labyrinths of dreadful and hideous 
 thoughts, that which way to get out, or which way to end, 
 I know not, unless I turn mine eyes, and with your help 
 lift up my hands to that eternal and propitious throne, 
 where nothing is readier than grace and refuge to the 
 distresses of mortal suppliants : and it were a shame 
 to leave these serious thoughts less piously than the 
 heathen were wont to conclude their graver discourses. 
 
 "Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory 
 unapproachable, parent of angels and men! next, 
 Thee I implore, omnipotent King, Redeemer of that 
 lost remnant whose nature Thou didst assume, ineffa- 
 ble and everlasting Love ! and Thou, the third sub- 
 sistence of divine infinitude, illumining Spirit, the joy 
 
48 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 and solace of created things! one Tripersonal God- 
 head ! look upon this Th}^ poor and almost spent and 
 expiring church, leave her not thus a prey to these 
 unfortunate wolves that wait and think long till they 
 devour Thy tender flock ; these wild boars that have 
 broken into Thy vineyard, and left the fruit of their 
 polluting hoofs on the souls of Thy servants. let 
 them not bring about their designs, that stand now at 
 the entrance of the bottomless pit, expecting the 
 watchword to open, and let out those dreadful locusts 
 and scorpions, to re-involve us in that pitchy cloud of 
 infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the 
 sun of Thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful 
 dawn, never more hear the bird of morning sing. Be 
 moved with pity at the afflicted state of this our shaken 
 monarchy, that now lies labouring under her throes, 
 and struggling against the grudges of more dreaded 
 calamities. 
 
 ^' Thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five 
 bloody inundations, and the succeeding sword of in- 
 testine war, soaking the land in her own gore, didst 
 pity the sad and ceaseless revolution of our swift and 
 thick coming sorrows ; when we were quite breathless, 
 of Thy free grace didst motion peace, and terms of 
 covenant with us ; and having first well-nigh freed us 
 from anti-Christian thraldom, didst build up this Bri- 
 tannic empire to a glorious and enviable height, with all 
 her daughter islands about her ; stay us in this felicity, 
 
Milton's prose works. 49 
 
 let not the obstinacy of our half-obedience and will- 
 worship bring forth that viper of sedition that for 
 these fourscore years hath been breeding, to eat 
 through the entrails of our peace : but let her cast her 
 abortive spawn without the danger of this travailing 
 and throbbing kingdom : that we still remember in our 
 solemn thanksgivings how, for us, the northern ocean, 
 even to the frozen Thule, was scattered with the proud 
 shipwrecks of the Spanish armada, and the very maw 
 of hell ransacked, and made to give up her concealed 
 destruction, ere she could vent it in that horrible blast. 
 
 " how much more glorious will those former de- 
 liverances appear, when we shall know them not only 
 to have saved us from greatest miseries past, but to 
 have reserved us for greatest happiness to come! 
 Hitherto Thou hast but freed us, and that not fully, 
 from the unjust and tyrannous claim of Thy foes; now 
 unite us entirely, and appropriate us to Thyself, tie us 
 everlastingly in willing homage to the prerogative of 
 Thy eternal throne. 
 
 " And now we know, Thou our most certain hope 
 and defence, that Thine enemies have been consulting 
 all the sorceries of the great whore, and have joined 
 their plots with that sad intelligencing tyrant that mis- 
 chiefs the world with his mines of Ophir, and lies 
 thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that have larded 
 our seas : but let them all take counsel together, and 
 let it come to nought ; let them decree, and do Thou 
 
 E 
 
50 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 cancel it; let them gather themselves, and be scat- 
 tered ; let them embattle themselves, and be broken ; 
 let them embattle, and be broken, for Thou art with us. 
 " Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, 
 some one may perhaps be heard offering at high strains, 
 in new and lofty measure, to sing and celebrate Thy 
 divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land 
 throughout all ages ; whereby this great and warlike 
 nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and con- 
 tinual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting 
 far from her the rags of her whole vices, may press on 
 hard to that high and happy emulation to be found 
 the soberest, wisest, and most Christian people at that 
 day when Thou, the eternal and shortly-expected 
 King, shalt open the clouds to judge the several king- 
 doms of the world, and distributing national honours 
 and rewards to religious and just commonwealths, 
 shalt put an end to all earthly tyrannies, proclaiming 
 Thy universal and mild monarchy through heaven and 
 earth ; where they, undoubtedly, that by their labours, 
 counsels, and prayers have been earnest for the com- 
 mon good of religion and their country, shall receive, 
 above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal ad- 
 dition of principalities, legions, and thrones into their 
 glorious titles, and in super-eminence of beatific vision, 
 progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of 
 eternity, shall clasp inseparable hands with joy and 
 bliss, in over-measure for ever. 
 
Milton's prose works. 51 
 
 " But they contrary, that by the impairing and di- 
 minution of the true faith, the distresses and servitude 
 of their country, aspire to high dignity, rule, and pro- 
 motion here, after a shameful end in this life, shall be 
 thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest 
 gulf of hell, where they shall remain in that plight for 
 ever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected, 
 most underfoot, and downtrodden vassals of per- 
 dition." 
 
 s2 
 
52 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 OF PRELATICAL EPISCOPACY, 
 
 AND WHETHER IT MAY BE DEDUCED FROM THE APOSTO- 
 LICAL TIMES, BY VIRTUE OF THOSE TESTIMONIES 
 WHICH ARE ALLEGED TO THAT PURPOSE IN SOME 
 LATE TREATISES. 
 
 THE Treatises here referred to are those by Bishop 
 Hall and by Archbishop Usher, who of course 
 would maintain the divine origin of Prelatical Episco- 
 pacy. They would agree with Milton that " it is clear 
 in Scripture that a bishop and presbyter is all one 
 both in name and office," but they would disagree 
 with his next proposition " that what was done by 
 Timothy and Titus, executing an extraordinary place, 
 as fellow-labourers with the Apostles, and of a univer- 
 sal charge in planting Christianity through divers re- 
 gions, cannot be drawn into particular and daily 
 example." Here we have the ^Am^^^5^//' acknowledged, 
 and the quarrel about names is profitless. Timothy 
 and Titus are confessed to have executed an extra- 
 ordinary office, as fellow-labourers of the Apostles, 
 distinct from that of the two inferior Orders of 
 presbyters or episcopi, as they were also called at first 
 by reason of their being overseers of their respective 
 
Milton's pkose works. 53 
 
 flocks, and of Deacons. The form of Church Govern- 
 ment presented to our view in these epistles of St. 
 Paul is therefore threefold : first, individuals exercising 
 authority over all, both Clergy and Laity ; secondly, 
 presbyters or bishops ; thirdly, deacons. Afterwards 
 the title of bishops was transferred and confined to the 
 highest Order of the Clergy ; and therefore the Pre- 
 face to the Ordinal of the Church of England truly 
 says, " It is evident unto all men diligently reading 
 the Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors, that from 
 the Apostles' time there ever have been these Orders 
 of Ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests, and 
 Deacons. 
 
 The thing itself is found hi Scripture, and the ex- 
 planation of the change in name is easy and satisfac- 
 tory. From what has been said we may see the rea- 
 son why this Treatise is entitled Of Prelatical Episco- 
 pacy. Milton's quarrel is not with the word " bishop " 
 as applied to the presbytery, but only with the word 
 ** prelate." Accordingly, his first words explain what 
 he means by Prelatical Episcopacy. 
 
 "Episcopacy, as it is taken for an order in the 
 church above a presbyter, or, as we commonly name 
 him, the minister of a congregation, is either of divine 
 constitution or of human. If only of human, we have 
 the same human privilege that all men have ever had 
 since Adam, being born free, and in the mistress 
 island of all the British, to retain this episcopacy, or 
 
54 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 to remove it. If it be of divine constitution, to satisfy us 
 fully in that the Scripture only is able, it being the only 
 book left us of divine authority, not in anything more 
 divine than in the all-sufficiency it hath to furnish us, 
 as with all other spiritual knowledge, so with this in 
 particular, setting out to us a perfect man of God, ac- 
 complished to all the good works of his charge : 
 through all which book can be nowhere, either by 
 plain text or solid reasoning, found any difference 
 between a bishop and a presbyter, save that they be 
 two names to signify the same order. Notwithstand- 
 ing this clearness, and that by all evidence of argu- 
 ment, Timothy and Titus had rather the vicegerency 
 of an apostleship committed to them, than the ordin- 
 ary charge of a bishopric, as being men of extraordin- 
 ary calling ; yet to verify that which St. Paul foretold 
 of succeeding times, when men began to have itching 
 ears, then not contented with the plentiful and whole- 
 some fountains of the gospel, they began after their 
 own lusts to heap to themselves teachers, and as if 
 the divine Scripture wanted a supplement, and were 
 to be eked out, they cannot think any doubt resolved, 
 and any doctrine confirmed ; unless they run to that 
 indigested heap and fry of authors which they call an- 
 tiquity. Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand of 
 blind chance, hath drawn down from of old to this 
 present, in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea- 
 weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, those are 
 the fathers." 
 
Milton's prose works. 55 
 
 Here we have much reckless assertion, and little 
 solid reasoning ; in fact, Milton begs the question, 
 and may be confuted from his own words. He allows 
 the very thing for which Prelatical Episcopalians con- 
 tend, and their doctrine could not be better express- 
 ed than he has done it, namely, that " Timothy and 
 Titus had the vicegerency of an apostleship committed 
 to them, as being men of extraordinary calling." 
 What can this mean but that thev held an office as 
 representatives of the Apostles, distinct, and apart 
 from, and superior to that exercised by those who 
 were indifferently designated bishops or presbyters ? 
 But our object is not to expose and refute the errors 
 which Milton entertained, but rather to cover them 
 with a reverential and loving hand, and to search for 
 those " sentences of a venturous edge, uttered in the 
 height of zeal " — zeal, however, mistaken and mis- 
 directed, which astonish and enchant- us with their 
 matchless beauty and marvellous rhythm, and sub- 
 lime and nervous rhetoric and elegance. ' God- 
 gifted organ-voice of England, mighty-mouth'd 
 inventor of harmonies,' in prose as well as verse ! 
 who would not sit at thy feet, and listen to the 
 melody and music of thy words, blind to thy faults, 
 the product not of thine own mighty, honest, and 
 truth-loving soul, but of those unhappy times in which 
 thy lot was cast ! golden-mouthed prophet and 
 lover of truth, thy very errors are almost sacred, be- 
 
56 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 cause of thy sincerity and honesty of intention, be- 
 cause of thine own pure and blameless life — we love 
 thee too well to scan them severely. His honesty 
 of purpose appears in this very attack on Prelatical 
 Episcopacy. " It came into my thoughts to persuade 
 myself, setting all distances and nice respects aside, 
 that I could do religion and my country no better 
 service for the time than doing my utmost endeavour 
 to recall the people of God from this vain foraging 
 after straw, and to reduce them to their firm stations 
 under the standard of the gospel, by making appear 
 to them, first the insufficiency, next the inconveni- 
 ency, and lastly the impiety of these gay testimonies, 
 that their great doctors would bring them to dote on." 
 
 " We do injuriously in searching among the vermin- 
 ous and polluted rags dropped overworn from the 
 toiling shoulders of time, with these deformedly to 
 quilt and interlace the entire, the spotless, and unde- 
 caying robe of truth, the daughter, not of time, but 
 of Heaven, only bred up here below in Christian 
 hearts, between two grave and holy nurses, the doc- 
 trine and discipline of the Gospel." 
 
 "Wherever a man, who had been anyway conver- 
 sant with the Apostles, was to be found, thither flew 
 all the inquisitive ears, although the exercise of right 
 instructing was changed into the curiosity of imperti- 
 nent fabling : where the mind was to be edified with 
 solid doctrine, there the fancy was soothed with 
 
Milton's prose works. 57 
 
 solemn stories : with less fervency was studied what 
 St. Paul or St. John had written, than was listened 
 to one that could say, Here he taught, here he stood, 
 this was his stature, and thus he went habited ; and, 
 happy this house that harboured him, and that cold 
 stone whereon he rested, this village wherein he 
 wrought such a miracle, and that pavement bedewed 
 with the warm effusion of his last blood, that sprout- 
 ed up into eternal roses to crown his martyrdom. 
 Thus, while all their thoughts were poured out upon 
 circumstances, and the gazing after such men as had 
 sat at table with the Apostles (many of which Christ 
 hath professed, yea, though they had cast out devils 
 in His name. He will not know at the last day), by 
 this means they lost their time, and truanted in the 
 fundamental grounds of saving knowledge, as was 
 seen shortly by their writings." 
 
 The same beautifully-expressed thought occurs in 
 Paradise Lost, chap. xi. : 
 
 " Here I could frequent 
 With worship place by place where He vouchsaf'd 
 Presence Divine ; and to my sons relate, 
 On this mount He appear'd ; under this tree 
 Stood visible ; among thege pines his voice 
 I heard ; here with Him at this fountain talk'd." 
 
 ^' It will next behove us to consider the inconveni- 
 ence we fall into, by using ourselves to be guided by 
 these kind of episcopal testimonies. He that thinks 
 it the part of a well-learned man to have read dili- 
 gently the ancient stories of the church, and to be no 
 
58 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 stranger in the volumes of the fathers, shall have all 
 judicious men consenting with him ; not hereby to 
 control and new-fangle the Scripture — God forbid ! — 
 but to mark how corruption and apostasy crept in by 
 degrees, and to gather up wherever we find the re- 
 maining sparks of original truth, wherewith to stop 
 the mouths of our adversaries, and to bridle them 
 with their own curb, who willingly pass by that which 
 is orthodoxal in them, and studiously call out that 
 which is commentitious, and best for their turns, not 
 weighing the fathers in the balance of scripture, but 
 scripture in the balance of the fathers. If we, there- 
 fore, making first the gospel our rule and oracle, shall 
 take the good which we light on in the fathers, and 
 set it to oppose the evil which other men seek from 
 them, in this way of skirmish we shall easily master 
 all superstition and false doctrine ; but if we turn this 
 our discreet and wary usage of them into a blind de- 
 votion towards them, and whatsoever we find written 
 by them ; we forsake our own grounds and reasons 
 which led us at first to part from Rome, that is, 
 to hold to the scriptures against all antiquity, and 
 must be constrained to take upon ourselves a thousand 
 superstitions and falsities." 
 
 We heartily concur in these admirable sentiments, 
 and wish our author had always borne them in mind, 
 and acted upon them. 
 
 "Lastly, I do not know, it being undeniable that 
 
Milton's prose works. 59 
 
 there are but two ecclesiastical orders, bishops and 
 deacons, mentioned in the gospel, how it can be less 
 than impiety to make a demur at that, which is there 
 so perspicuous." 
 
 Such is Milton's dictum, but we maintain that 
 scripture nowhere says that there are but two orders, 
 or the controversy would be at once decided ; in that 
 case it would be impossible but to acquiesce in his 
 next beautiful words, which are based on this false 
 assumption. " Certainly, if Christ's apostle have set 
 down but two," — again we ask where has He done 
 this ? — " then according to his own words, though he 
 himself should unsay it, and not only the angel of 
 Smyrna, but an angel from heaven, should bear us 
 down that there be three, St. Paul has doomed him 
 twice : " let him be accursed ;" for Christ has pro- 
 nounced that no tittle of His word shall fall to the 
 ground ; and if one jot be alterable, it is as possible 
 that all should perish ; and this shall be our righte- 
 ousness, our ample warrant, and strong assurance, 
 both now and at the last day, never to be ashamed 
 of, against all the heaped names of angels and mar- 
 tyrs, councils and fathers, urged upon us, if we have 
 given ourselves up to be taught by the pure and living 
 precept of God's word only ; which, without more ad- 
 ditions, nay, with a forbidding of them, hath within 
 itself the promise of eternal life, the end of all 
 our wearisome labours, and all our sustaining hopes." 
 
60 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT 
 URGED AGAINST PRELATY. 
 
 THE preface to the second book of this Treatise is 
 especially .interesting from his subject leading 
 him to speak of himself, his studies, intentions, and 
 aspirations, and why they were now interrupted and 
 postponed. 
 
 " In the publishing of human laws, to set them 
 barely forth to the people without reason or preface 
 or only with threatenings, in the judgment of Plato 
 was thought to be done neither generously nor 
 wisely. His advice was, that there should be used as 
 an induction some well-tempered discourse, showing 
 how good, how gainful, how happy it must needs be 
 to live according to honesty and justice ; which being 
 uttered with those native colours and graces of 
 speech, as true eloquence, the daughter of virtue, can 
 best bestow upon her mother's praises, would so in- 
 cite, and in a manner charm the multitude into the 
 love of that which is really good, as to embrace it ever 
 after, not of custom and awe, but of choice and pur- 
 pose, with true and constant delight. But this practice 
 we may learn from a better and more ancient author- 
 
Milton's prose works. 61 
 
 ity than any heatlien writer hath to give us ; and in- 
 deed being a point of so high wisdom and worth, how 
 could it be but we should find it in that book, within 
 whose sacred context all wisdom is unfolded. Moses, 
 therefore, the only law-giver that we can believe to 
 have been visibly taught of God, knowing how vain it 
 was to write laws to men whose hearts were not 
 first seasoned with the knowledge of God and of 
 His works, began from the book of Genesis, as a pro- 
 logue to His laws ; that the nation of the Jews, read- 
 ing therein the universal goodness of God to all crea- 
 tures in the creation, and His peculiar favour to them 
 in His election of Abraham, their ancestor, might be 
 moved to obey sincerely, by knowing so good a rea- 
 son of their obedience : how much more then ought 
 the members of the church, under the gospel, seek to 
 inform their understanding in the reason of that govern- 
 ment which the church claims to have over them ! But 
 because about the manner and order of this govern- 
 ment, whether it ought to be presbyterial or prelatical, 
 such endless question, or rather uproar, is arisen in this 
 land, as may be justly termed the eternal reproach of 
 our divines : I shall in the meanwhile not cease to hope 
 through the mercy and grace of Christ, the head and 
 husband of His church, that England shortly is to be- 
 long, neither to see patriarchal, nor see prelatical, but 
 to the faithful feeding and disciplining of that minis- 
 terial order, which the blessed apostles constituted 
 
62 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 throughout the churches ; and this, I shall essay to 
 prove, can be no other than that of presbyters and 
 deacons. And if any man incline to think I undertake 
 a task too difficult for my years, I trust through 
 the supreme enlightening assistance far otherwise ; for 
 my years, be they few or many, what imports it ? So 
 they bring reason, let that be looked on ; and for the 
 task, I conclude it must be easy ; God having to this 
 end ordained His gospel to be the revelation of His 
 power and wisdom in Christ Jesus. And this is one 
 depth of His wisdom, that He could so plainly reveal 
 so great a measure of it to the gross distorted appre- 
 hension of decayed mankind. Let others, therefore, 
 dread and shun the scriptures for their darkness ; I 
 shall wish I may deserve to be reckoned among those 
 who admire and dwell upon them for their clearness. 
 And this seems to be the cause why, in those places of 
 holy writ, wherein is treated of church government, 
 the reasons thereof are not formally and professedly 
 set down, because to him that heeds attentively the 
 drift and scope of Christian profession, they easi- 
 ly imply themselves." Most undoubedly. 
 
 ^^ The first and greatest reason of church government 
 we may securely, with the assent of many on the 
 adverse part, affirm to be because we find it so or- 
 dained and set out to us by the appointment of God 
 in the Scriptures ; but whether this be presbyterial or 
 prelatical, it cannot be brought to the scanning, until 
 
Milton's prose works. 63 
 
 I have said what is meet to some who do not think 
 it for the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant 
 that church discipline is platformed in the Bible, but 
 that it is left to the discretion of men. To this con- 
 ceit of theirs I answer that it is both unsound and 
 untrue ; for there is not that thing in the world of 
 more grave and urgent importance throughout the 
 whole life of man than is discipline. What need I 
 instance? He that hath read with judgment of na- 
 tions and commonwealths, of cities and camps, of peace 
 and war, sea and land, will readily agree that the 
 flourishing and decaying of all civil societies, all the 
 moments and turnings of human occasions, are moved 
 to and fro as upon the axle of discipline. So that 
 whatsoever power or sway in mortal things weaker 
 men have attributed to fortune, I durst with more 
 confidence (the honour of Divine Providence ever 
 saved) ascribe either to the vigour or the slackness of 
 discipline. Nor is there any sociable perfection in this 
 life, civil or sacred, that can be above discipline ; but 
 she is that which, with her musical chords, preserves 
 and holds all the parts thereof together. Hence in 
 those perfect armies of Cyrus in Xenophon, and 
 Scipio in the Roman stories, the excellence of mili- 
 tary skill was esteemed, not by the not needing, but 
 by the readiest submitting to the edicts of their com- 
 mander. And certainly discipline is not only the re- 
 moval of disorder, but if any visible shape can be given 
 
64 SELECTIONS PROM 
 
 to divine things, the very visible shape and image of 
 virtue, whereby she is not only seen in the regular 
 gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she 
 walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice 
 audible to mortal ears. Yea, the angels themselves, 
 in whom no disorder is feared, as the apostle that saw 
 them in his rapture describes, are distinguished and 
 quaternioned into their celestial princedoms and satra- 
 pies, according as God Himself has writ his imperial 
 decrees through the great provinces of Heaven. The 
 state also of the blessed in paradise, though never so 
 perfect, is not, therefore, left without discipline, whose 
 golden surveying-reed marks out and measures every 
 quarter and circuit of New Jerusalem. Yet is it not 
 to be conceived, that those eternal effluences of sanctity 
 and love in the glorified saints should by this means 
 be confined and cloyed with repetition of that which 
 is prescribed, but that our happiness may orb itself 
 into a thousand vagancies of glory and delight, and 
 with a kind of eccentrical equation be, as it were, an 
 invariable planet of joy and felicity ; how much less 
 can we believe that God would leave his frail and 
 feeble, though not less beloved church, here below, 
 to the perpetual stumble of conjecture and disturbance 
 in this our dark voyage, without the card and compass 
 of discipline! Which is so hard to be of man's 
 making, that we may see, even in the guidance of a 
 civil state to worldly happiness, it is not for every 
 
Milton's prose works. 65 
 
 learned, or every wise man, though many of them 
 consult in common, to invent or frame a discipline ; 
 but if it be at all the work of man, it must be of such 
 a one as is a true knower of himself, and in whom 
 contemplation and practice, wit, prudence, fortitude, 
 and eloquence, must be rarely met, both to compre- 
 hend the hidden causes of things, and span in his 
 thoughts all the various effects that passion or com- 
 plexion can work in man's nature ; and hereto must 
 his hand be at defiance with gain, and his heart in all 
 virtues heroic; so far is it from the ken of these 
 wretched projectors of ours that bescrawl their 
 pamphlets every day with new forms of government 
 for our church. And therefore all the ancient lawgivers 
 were either truly inspired, as Moses, or were such 
 men as with authority enough might give it out to be 
 so, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, because they wisely 
 forethought that men would never quietly submit to 
 such a discipline as had not more of God's hand in it 
 than man's. To come within the narrowness of house- 
 hold government, observation will show us many deep 
 counsellors of state, and judges, to demean themselves 
 incorruptibly in the settled course of affairs, and many 
 worthy preachers upright in their lives, powerful in 
 their audience : but look upon either of these men, 
 where they are left to their own disciplining at home, 
 and you shall soon perceive, for all their single know- 
 ledge and uprightness, how deficient they are in the 
 
 F 
 
66 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 regulating of their own family ; not only in what may 
 concern the virtuous and decent composure of their 
 minds in their several places, but that which is a lower 
 and easier performance, the right possessing of the 
 outward vessel, their body, in health or sickness, rest 
 or labour, diet or abstinence, whereby to render it 
 more pliant to the soul, and useful to the common- 
 wealth : which if men were but as good to discipline 
 themselves as some are to tutor their horses and 
 hawks, it could not be so gross in most households." 
 
 Here let us pause a moment to notice how truly 
 Milton describes his own case, though perhaps with- 
 out intending it. He knew well how to discipline 
 himself, but was utterly incapable of governing his 
 own household. Great as a statesman, great in man- 
 aging the public affairs, great as Cromwell's secretary 
 and adviser, great in his various plans and suggestions 
 for the better government of church and state, in do- 
 mestic life he miserably failed, both as a husband and 
 father. How unhappy and wretched were his hearth 
 and home is evident from the following extract from 
 his last will and testament : " The portion due to me 
 from Mr. Powell, my former wife's father, I leave to 
 the unkind children I had by her, having received no 
 part of it : but my meaning is, they shall have no 
 other benefit of my estate than the said portion, and 
 what I have besides done for them, they having been 
 very undutiful to me. All the residue of my estate 
 
Milton's prose works* 67 
 
 I leave to the disposal of Elizabeth, my loving wife." 
 This Elizabeth was his third wife, whom he married 
 in his fifty-fourth year, being blind and infirm, and 
 requiring a nurse. She, we are told, was a terma- 
 gant, and used frequently to tease him for his care- 
 lessness or ignorance about money matters, but on 
 the whole treated him with kindness and tenderness. 
 His three daughters by his first wife — the only child- 
 ren he ever had, fortunately, perhaps— Mary, De- 
 borah, and Anne, contested this will, and gained their 
 cause. The documents relating to this trial are given 
 by Warton, and incidentally reveal curious and in- 
 teresting circumstances of Milton's domestic life, but 
 full of melancholy and wretchedness. But to return 
 from this digression. 
 
 " If then it appear so hard, and so little known 
 how to govern a house well, which is thought of so 
 easy discharge, and for every man's undertaking, 
 what skill of man, what wisdom, what parts can be 
 sufiicient to give laws and ordinances to the elect 
 household of God? If we could imagine that He 
 had left it at random without His provident and gra- 
 cious ordering, who is he so arrogant, so presumptu- 
 ous, that durst dispose and guide the living ark of the 
 Holy Ghost, though he should find it wandering in 
 the field of Bethshemesh, without the conscious war- 
 rant of some high calling ? Certainly, if God be the 
 father of his family the church, wherein could He 
 
 f2 
 
68 . SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 express that name more than in training it up under 
 His own all- wise and dear economy, not turning it 
 loose to the havoc of strangers and wolves ? Again, 
 if Christ be the church's husband, expecting her to be 
 presented before Him a pure unspotted virgin, in 
 what could He shew His tender love to her more 
 than in prescribing His own ways, which He best 
 knew would be to the improvement of her health 
 and beauty? For of any age or sex, most unfitly 
 may a virgin be left to an uncertain and arbitrary 
 education. Yea, though she be well instructed, yet 
 is she still under a more strait tuition, especially if 
 betrothed. In like manner the church, bearing the 
 same resemblance, it were not reason to think she 
 should be left destitute of that care which is as neces- 
 sary and proper to her as instruction. For public 
 preaching, indeed, is the gift of the Spirit, working as 
 best seems to His secret will ; but discipline is the 
 practic work of preaching directed and applied, as is 
 most requisite, to particular duty ; without which it 
 were all one to the benefit of souls, as it would be 
 to the cure of bodies, if all the physicians in London 
 should get into the several pulpits of the city, and as- 
 sembling all the diseased in every parish, should 
 begin a learned lecture of pleurisies, palsies, lethar- 
 gies, to which, perhaps, none there present were in- 
 clined ; and so, without so much as feeling one pulse, 
 or giving the least order to any skilful apothecary. 
 
Milton's prose works. 69 
 
 should dismiss them from time to time, some groan- 
 ing, some languishing, some expiring, with this only 
 charge, to look well to themselves, and do as they 
 hear. Of what excellence and necessity, then, church 
 discipline is — how beyond the faculty of man to frame, 
 and how dangerous to be left to man's invention, who 
 would be every foot turning it to sinister ends ; how 
 properly, also, it is the work of God as Father, and 
 of Christ as Husband of the church, we have by this 
 much heard." So also says the Episcopalian. 
 
 The remaining chapters of this first book are unin- 
 teresting, and will not detain us long. 
 
 " One of these two, prelaty or presbytery, and none 
 other, is of God's ordaining ; and if it be, that ordin- 
 ance must be evident in the gospel." Observe here 
 that Milton differs from those who hold that no form 
 of church government is prescribed in Scripture, that 
 as much is to be said for one form as another ; which 
 is Dean Alford's erroneous opinion, as expressed late- 
 ly in " Good Words." 
 
 " With as good a plea (as that prelaty prevents 
 schism) might the dead-palsy boast to a man : It is 
 I that free you from stitches and pains, and the trouble- 
 some feeling of cold and heat, of wounds and strokes : 
 if I were gone all these would molest you. The 
 winter might as well vaunt itself against the spring : I 
 destroy all noisome and rank weeds, I keep down all 
 pestilent vapours. Yes, and all wholesome herbs, and 
 
70 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 all fresh dews, by your violent and hide-bound frost : 
 but when the gentle west winds shall open the fruitful 
 bosom of the earth, thus overgirded by your imprison- 
 ment, then the flowers put forth and spring, and then 
 the sun shall scatter the mists, and the manuring hand 
 of the tiller shall root up all that burdens the soil 
 without thank to your bondage." 
 
 Milton's prose works are interesting, as containing 
 many words which since his day have altogether 
 changed their meaning ; as, for instance, the two 
 words ^^ noisome " and '^ manuring " in the last quoted 
 passage. The former word we now use in the sense 
 of offensive, causing disgust; but the old meaning here, 
 and wherever it occurs in the authorised translation of 
 the Bible, is that of noxious or actually hurtful ; it is 
 used again a little further on, " And thus they are so 
 far from hindering dissensions, that they have made 
 unprofitable, and even noisome, the chiefest remedy 
 we have to keep Christendom at one, which is by 
 councils." The second word, " manuring," is now 
 confined to one branch of agriculture, in Milton's time 
 it was applied to the whole art of cultivating the soil, 
 and meant any work with the hand, being derived from 
 the French ^ manoeuvre.' It occurs in this old sense 
 in the Paradise Lost, 
 
 " branches overgrown 
 That mock our scant manuring." 
 
 In the preface to the second book of this treatise 
 
Milton's prose works. 71 
 
 he digresses to explain the right he had to meddle in 
 these matters, how he had relinquished and inter- 
 rupted his own more favourite studies at the call of 
 his country and of duty, but yet had not for ever 
 abandoned them, as he purposed in happier times 
 writing an epic poem. Thus at the age of thirty-three 
 the idea of his Paradise Lost, though not in that or in 
 any definite form, was floating before his mind ; and 
 twenty-five long years elapsed ere the aspirations so 
 dearly cherished throughout his life were realized. 
 The whole of this preface is far too valuable, too elo- 
 quent, and too interesting to be curtailed. 
 
 " How happy were it for this frail, and, as it may 
 be called, mortal life of man, since all earthly things 
 which have the name of good and convenient in our 
 daily use, are withal so cumbersome and full of trouble, 
 if knowledge, yet which is the best and lightsomest 
 possession of the mind, were, as the common saying 
 is, no burden ; and that what it wanted of being a 
 load to any part of the body, it did not with a heavy 
 advantage overlay upon the spirit ! For not to speak 
 of that knowledge that rests in the contemplation of 
 natural causes and dimensions, which must needs be a 
 lower wisdom, as the object is low, certain it is that 
 he who hath obtained in more than the scantiest mea- 
 sure to know anything distinctly of God, and of His 
 true worship, and what is infallibly good and happy in 
 the state of man's life, what is in itself evil and miser- 
 
72 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 able, though vulgarly not so esteemed ; he that hath 
 obtained to know this, the only high valuable wisdom 
 indeed, remembering also that God, even to a strict- 
 ness, requires the improvement of these His entrusted 
 gifts, cannot but sustain a sorer burden of mind, and 
 more pressing than any supportable toil or weight 
 which the body can labour under, how and in what 
 manner he shall dispose and employ those sums of 
 knowledge and illumination, which God hath sent him 
 into this world to trade with. And that which 
 aggravates the burden more, is, that having received 
 amongst his allotted parcels certain precious truths, of 
 such an orient lustre as no diamond can equal, which 
 nevertheless he has in charge to put off at any cheap 
 rate, yea, for nothing, to them that will, the great 
 merchants of this world, fearing that this course would 
 soon discover and disgrace the false glitter of their 
 deceitful wares, wherewith they abuse the people, 
 like poor Indians with beads and glasses, practise by 
 all means how they may suppress the vending of such 
 rarities, and at such a cheapness as would undo them, 
 and turn their trash upon their hands. Therefore, by 
 gratifying the corrupt desires of men in fleshly doc- 
 trines, they stir them up to persecute with hatred and 
 contempt all those that seek to bear themselves up- 
 rightly in this their spiritual factory : which they, 
 foreseeing, though they cannot but testify of truth, 
 and the excellency of that heavenly traffic which they 
 
Milton's prose works. 73 
 
 bring, against what opposition or danger soever, yet 
 needs must it sit heavily upon their spirits, that being, 
 in God's prime intention and their own, selected 
 heralds of peace, and dispensers of treasure inestim- 
 able, without price, to them that have no peace, they 
 find in the discharge of their commission, that they 
 are made the greatest variance and offence — a very 
 sword and fire both in house and city over the whole 
 earth. This is that which the sad prophet Jeremiah 
 laments, "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast 
 borne me, a man of strife and contention I" And 
 although divine inspiration must certainly have been 
 sweet to' those ancient prophets, yet the irksomeness 
 of that truth which they brought was so unpleasant 
 unto them, that everywhere they call it a burden. 
 Yea, that mysterious book of revelation, which the 
 great evangelist was bid to eat, as it had been some 
 eye-brightening electuary of knowledge and fore- 
 sight, though it were sweet in his mouth, and in the 
 learning, it was bitter in his belly, bitter in the 
 denouncing. Nor was this hid from the wise poet 
 Sophocles, who in that place of his tragedy where 
 Tiresias is called to resolve King (Edipus in a matter 
 which he knew would be grievous, brings him in 
 bemoaning his lot, that he knew more than other 
 men. For surely to every good and peaceable man, 
 it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the 
 displeaser and molester of thousands : much better 
 
74 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 would it like him doubtless to be the messenger of 
 gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended 
 business to all mankind, but that they resist and 
 oppose their own true happiness. But when God 
 commands to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous 
 or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he 
 shall say, or what he shall conceal. If he shall think 
 to be silent as Jeremiah did, because of the reproach 
 and derision he met with daily, " and all his familiar 
 friends watched for his halting," to be revenged on 
 him for speaking the truth, he would be forced to 
 confess as he confessed : " His word was in my heart 
 as a burning fire shut up in my bones ; I was weary 
 with forbearing, and could not stay." Which might 
 teach these times not suddenly to condemn all things 
 that are sharply spoken or vehemently written as 
 proceeding out of stomach, virulence, and ill-nature ; 
 but to consider rather, that no man can be justly 
 offended with him that shall endeavour to impart and 
 bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp but 
 saving words which would be a terror and a torment 
 in him to keep back. For me, I have determined to 
 lay up as the best treasure and solace of a good old 
 age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free 
 speech from my youth, where I shall think it available 
 in so dear a concernment as the Church's good. For 
 if I be, either by disposition or what other cause, too 
 inquisitive or suspicious of myself and mine own 
 
Milton's prose works. 75 
 
 doings, who can help it? But this I foresee, that 
 should the church be brought under heavy oppression, 
 and God have given me ability the while to reason 
 against that man that should be the author of so foul 
 a deed ; or should she, by blessing from above on the 
 industry and courage of faithful men, change this her 
 distracted estate into better days, without the least 
 furtherance or contribution of those few talents which 
 God at that present had lent me ; I foresee what 
 stories I should hear within myself all my life after, 
 of discourage and reproach. Timorous and ungrate- 
 ful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her 
 insulting enemies, and thou bewailest. What matters 
 it for thee, or thy bewailing ? When time was, thou 
 couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read, 
 or studied, to utter in her behalf Yet ease and 
 leisure was given thee for thy retired thoughts, out of 
 the sweat of other men. Thou hast the diligence, 
 the parts, the language of a man, if a vain subject 
 were to be adorned or beautified ; but when the 
 cause of God and His church was to be pleaded, for 
 which purpose that tongue was given thee which thou 
 hast, God listened if He could hear thy voice among 
 His zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast ; 
 from henceforward be that which thine own brutish 
 silence hath made thee. Or else I should have 
 heard on the other ear : Slothful, and ever to be set 
 light by, the church hath now overcome her late dis- 
 
76 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 tresses after the unwearied labours of many her true 
 servants that stood up in her defence ; thou also 
 wouldst take upon thee to share amongst them of 
 their joy: but wherefore thou? Where canst thou 
 show any word or deed of thine which might have 
 hastened her peace ? Whatever thou dost now talk, 
 or write, or look, is the alms of other men's active 
 prudence and zeal. Dare not now to say or do any- 
 thing better than thy former sloth and infancy ; or if 
 thou darest, thou dost impudently to make a thrifty 
 purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the painful 
 merits of other men ; what before was thy sin, 
 is now thy duty, to be abject and worthless. 
 These, and such like lessons as these, I know would 
 have been my matins duly, and my even-song. But 
 now by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I 
 have gained with good men and saints, to claim my- 
 right of lamenting the tribulations of the church, if 
 she should suffer, when others, that have ventured 
 nothing for her sake, have not the honour to be ad- 
 mitted mourners. But if she lift up her drooping 
 head and prosper, among those that have something 
 more than wished her welfare, I have my charter and 
 freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs. Concern- 
 ing, therefore, this wayward subject against prelaty, 
 the touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous 
 to a number of men, as by what hath been said I 
 may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that 
 
Milton's prose works. 77 
 
 neither envy nor gall hath entered rae upon this con- 
 troversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and 
 a preventive fear lest the omitting of this duty should 
 be against me, when I would store up to myself the 
 good provision of peaceful hours ; so, lest it should 
 be still imputed to me, as I have found it hath been, 
 that some self-pleasing humour of vain-glory hath in- 
 cited me to contest with men of high estimation, now 
 while green years are upon my head ; from this need- 
 less surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent 
 and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully that 
 which in this exigent behoveth me ; although I would 
 be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and 
 learned reader, to whom principally for a while I 
 shall beg leave I may address myself To him it will 
 be no new thing, though I tell him that if I hunted 
 after praise, by the ostentation of wit and learning, I 
 should not write thus out of mine own season, when 
 I have neither yet completed to my mind the full 
 circle of my private studies, although I complain not 
 of any insufficiency to the matter in hand ; or were I 
 ready to my wishes, it were a folly to commit any- 
 thing elaborately composed to the careless and inter- 
 rupted listening of these tumultuous times. Next, if 
 I were wise only to my own ends, I would certainly 
 take such a subject as of itself might catch applause, 
 whereas this hath all the disadvantages, on the con- 
 trary, and such a subject as the publishing whereof 
 
78 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 might be delayed at pleasure, and time enough to 
 pencil it over with all the curious touches of art, even 
 to the perfection of a faultless picture ; whereas in 
 this argument the not deferring is of great moment 
 to the good speeding, that if solidity have leisure to 
 do her office, art cannot have much. Lastly, I should 
 not choose this 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 ac- 
 count, but of my left hand. And though I shall be 
 foolish in saying more to this purpose, yet, since it 
 will be such a folly, as wisest men go about to com- 
 mit, having only confessed and so committed, I may 
 trust with more reason, because with more folly, to 
 have courteous pardon. For although a poet, soar- 
 ing in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland 
 and singing robes about him, might, without apology, 
 speak more of himself than I mean to do, yet for me, 
 sitting here below in the cool element of prose, a 
 mortal thing among many readers of no empyreal 
 conceit, to venture and divulge unusual things of my- 
 self, I shall petition to the gentler sort, it may not be 
 envy to me. I must say, therefore, that after I had 
 for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care 
 of my father (whom God recompense !) been exer- 
 cised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age 
 would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at 
 home and at the schools, it was found that whether 
 
Milton's prose works. 79 
 
 aught was imposed me by them that had the over- 
 looking, or betaken to of mine own choice in English, 
 or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by 
 this latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was 
 likely to live. But much latelier, in the private aca- 
 demies of Italy, whither I was favoured to resort, 
 perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, 
 composed at under twenty or thereabout (for the 
 manner is, that everyone 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 be- 
 stow on men of this side of the Alps. I began thus 
 far to assent both to them and divers of my friends 
 here at home, and not less to an inward prompting 
 which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and 
 intense study (which I take to be my portion in this 
 life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I 
 might perhaps leave something so written to after- 
 times, as they should not willingly let it die. These 
 thoughts at once possessed me, and these other ; that 
 if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three 
 lives and downward, there ought no regard be sooner 
 had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruc- 
 tion of my country. For which cause, and not only 
 for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the 
 
80 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to 
 that resolution, which Ariosto followed against the 
 persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art 
 I could unite to the adorning of ray native tongue ; 
 not to make verbal curiosities the end (that were a 
 toilsome vanity), but to be an interpreter and relater 
 of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens 
 throughout this island in the mother dialect. That 
 what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, 
 or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for 
 their country, I, in my proportion, with this over and 
 above, of being a Christian, might do for mine ; not 
 caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I 
 could attain to that, but content with these British 
 islands as my world ; whose fortune hath hitherto 
 been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their 
 small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent 
 writers, England hath had her noble achievements 
 made small by the unskilful handling of monks and 
 mechanics. 
 
 "Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem 
 too profuse to give any certain account of what the 
 mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, 
 hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest 
 hope and hardest attempting ; whether that epic form 
 whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other 
 two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book 
 of Job a brief model: or whether the rules of 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 
 
 8t 
 
 Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to 
 be followed, which in them that know art, and use 
 judgment, is no transgression, but an enriching of art : 
 and lastly, what king or knight before the Conquest, 
 might be chosen in whom to lay the pattern of a 
 Christian hero ? And as Tasso gave to a prince of 
 Italy his choice whether he would command him to 
 write of Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels, or 
 Belisarius against the Goths, or Charlemain against 
 the Lombards ; if to the instinct of nature, and the 
 emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and that 
 there be nothing adverse in our climate, or the fate of 
 this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal 
 diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in 
 our own ancient stories ; or whether those dramatic 
 constitutions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, 
 shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a 
 nation. The Scripture also affords us a divine pas- 
 toral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of 
 two persons, and a double chorus, as Origen rightly 
 judges. And the Apocalypse of St. John is the 
 majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting 
 up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with 
 a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping sym- 
 phonies ; and this my opinion the grave authority of 
 Parens, commenting that book, is sufficient to con- 
 firm. Or if occasion shall lead, to imitate those 
 raagnific odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and 
 
82 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 Callimachus are in most things worthy, some others 
 in their frame judicious, in their matter most an end 
 faulty. But those frequent songs throughout the law 
 and prophets beyond all these, not in their divine 
 argument alone, but in the very critical art of compo- 
 sition, may be easily made appear over all the kinds 
 of lyric poesy to be incomparable. These abilities, 
 wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of 
 God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most 
 abuse) in every nation ; and are of power, beside the 
 office of a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great 
 people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay 
 the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in 
 right tune ; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns 
 the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and 
 what He works, and what He suffers to be wrought 
 with high providence in His church, to sing victorious 
 agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs 
 of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through 
 faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the 
 general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice 
 and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in reli- 
 gion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, 
 whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the 
 changes of that which is called fortune from without, 
 or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts 
 from within ; all these things with a solid and treat- 
 able smoothness to paint out and describe. Teaching 
 
Milton's prose works. 83 
 
 over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through 
 all the instances of example, with such delight to 
 those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will 
 not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they 
 see her elegantly dressed ; that whereas the paths of 
 honesty and good life appear now rugged and diffi- 
 cult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will 
 then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though 
 they were rugged and difficult indeed. And what a 
 benefit this would be to our youth and gentry, may 
 be soon guessed by what we know of the corruption 
 and bane which they suck in daily from the writings 
 and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, 
 who, having scarce ever heard of that which is the 
 main consistence of a true poem, the choice of such 
 persons as they ought to introduce, and what is moral 
 and decent to each one, do for the most part lay up 
 vicious principles in sweet pills to be swallowed down, 
 and make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and 
 sour. But because the spirit of man cannot demean 
 itself lively in this body, without some recreating in- 
 termission of labour and serious things, it were happy 
 for the commonwealth if our magistrates, as in those 
 famous governments of old, would take into their 
 care not only the deciding of our contentious law- 
 cases and brawls, but the managing of our public 
 sports and festival pastimes ; that they might be, not 
 such as were authorised a while since, the provoca- 
 
 g2 
 
84 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 tions of drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure 
 and harden our bodies by martial exercises to all 
 warlike skill and performance; and may civilize, 
 adorn, and make discreet our minds by the learned 
 and affable meeting of frequent academies, and the 
 procurement of wise and artful recitations, sweetened 
 with eloquent and graceful enticements to the love 
 and practice of justice, temperance, and fortitude, 
 instructing and bettering the nation at all opportuni- 
 ties, that the call of wisdom and virtue may be heard 
 everywhere, as Solomon saith : " She crieth without, 
 she uttereth her voice in the streets, in the top of high 
 places, in the chief concourse, and in the openings of 
 the gates." Whether this may not be, not only in 
 pulpits, but after another persuasive method, at set 
 and solemn paneguries, in theatres, porches, or what 
 other place or way may win most upon the people to 
 receive at once both recreation and instruction, let 
 them in authority consult." 
 
 From this remarkable passage we see that the idea 
 of our popular Penny Readings occurred to the mind 
 of MiUon more than tw^o hundred years ago. 
 
 " The thing which I had to say, and those inten- 
 tions which have lived within me ever since I could 
 conceive myself anything worth to my country, I re- 
 turn to crave excuse that urgent reason hath plucked 
 from me, by an abortive and foredated discovery. 
 And the accomplishment of them lies not but in a 
 
Milton's prose works. 85 
 
 power above man's to promise ; but that none hath by 
 more studious ways endeavoured, and with more un- 
 wearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver 
 of myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend. 
 Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any 
 knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go 
 on trust with him toward the payment of what I am 
 now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from 
 the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine ; nor to be 
 obtained by the invocation of dame memory and her 
 siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal 
 Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and know- 
 ledge, and sends out His seraphim, with the hallowed 
 fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom 
 He pleases : to this must be added industrious and 
 select reading, steady observation, insight into all 
 seemly and generous arts and affairs ; till which in 
 some measure be compassed, at mine own peril and 
 cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from 
 as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity 
 upon the best pledges that I can give them. Al- 
 though it nothing content me to have disclosed thus 
 much beforehand, but that I trust hereby to make it 
 manifest with what small willingness I endure to in- 
 terrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and 
 leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheer- 
 ful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled 
 sea of noises and hoarse disputes, put from beholding 
 
86 ' SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still 
 air of delightful studies, to come into the dim reflec- 
 tion of hollow antiquities sold by the seeming bulk, 
 and there be fain to club quotations with men whose 
 learning and belief lies in marginal stuffings, who, when 
 they have, like good sumpters, laid ye down their 
 horse-loads of citations and fathers at your door, with 
 a rhapsody of who and who were bishops here or 
 there, ye may take off their pack-saddles, their day's 
 work is done, and episcopacy, as they think, stoutly 
 vindicated. Let any gentle apprehension, that can 
 distinguish learned pains from unlearned drudgery, 
 imagine what pleasure or profoundness can be in this, 
 or what honour to deal against such adversaries. But 
 were it the meanest under-service, if God by His secre- 
 tary conscience enjoin it, it were sad for me if I should 
 draw back; for me especially, now when all men 
 offer their aid to help, ease, and lighten the difficult 
 labours of the church, to whose service, by the inten- 
 tions of my parents and friends, I was destined of a 
 child, and in mine own resolutions : till coming to 
 some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny 
 had invaded 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 speaking, bought and begun 
 
Milton's prose wokks. 87 
 
 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." 
 
 ^' After this digression, I shall add another reason. 
 Albeit I must confess to be half in doubt whether I 
 should bring it forth or no, it being so contrary to the 
 eye of the world, and the world so potent in most 
 men's hearts, that I shall endanger either not to be 
 regarded, or not to be understood ; for who is there 
 almost that measures wisdom by simplicity, strength 
 by suffering, dignity by lowliness ? Who is there that 
 counts it first to be last, something to be nothing, and 
 reckons himself of great command in that he is a 
 servant? Yet God, wlien He meant to subdue the 
 world and hell at once, part of that to salvation, and 
 this wholly to perdition, made choice of no other 
 weapons or auxiliaries than these, w^hether to save or 
 to destroy. It had been a small mastery for Him to 
 have drawn out His legions into array, and flanked 
 them with His thunder ; therefore He sent foolishness 
 to confute wisdom, weakness to bind strength, de- 
 spisedness to vanquish pride : and this is the great 
 mystery of the gospel made good in Christ Himself, 
 who, as He testifies, came not to be ministered to, but 
 to minister ; and must be fulfilled in all His ministers 
 till His second coming." 
 
 " But let them chant while they will of preroga- 
 
88 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 tives, we shall tell them of scripture ; of custom, we 
 of scripture ; of acts and statutes, still of scripture ; 
 till the quick and piercing word enter to the dividing 
 of their souls, and the mighty weakness of the gospel 
 throw down the weak mightiness of man's reasoning." 
 " Truth, I know not how, hath this unhappiness 
 fatal to her, ere she can come to the trial and inspec- 
 tion of the understanding ; being to pass through 
 many little wards and limits of the several affections 
 and desires, she cannot shift it, but must put on such 
 colours and attire, as those pathetic handmaids of the 
 soul please to lead her in to their queen : and if she 
 find so much favour with them, they let her pass in 
 her own likeness ; if not, they bring her into the pre- 
 sence habited and coloured like a notorious falsehood. 
 And contrary, when any falsehood comes that way, 
 if they like the errand she brings, they are so artful 
 to counterfeit the very shape and visage of truth, that 
 the understanding not being able to discern the fucus 
 (paint) which these enchantresses with such cunning 
 have laid upon the feature, sometimes of truth, some- 
 times of falsehood interchangeably, sentences for the 
 most part one for the other at the first blush, accord- 
 ing to the subtle imposture of these sensual mistresses, 
 that keep the ports and passages between her and 
 the object." 
 
 " Now if the Roman censor could, without this 
 juridical sword or saw, strike such a reverence of 
 
Milton's prose works. 89 
 
 itself into the most undaunted hearts, as with one 
 single dash of ignominy to put all the senate and 
 knighthood of Rome into a tremble ; surely much 
 rather might the heavenly ministry of the evangel 
 bind herself about with far more piercing beams of 
 majesty and awe, by wanting the beggarly help of 
 halings and amercements in the use of her powerful 
 keys. For when the church without temporal sup- 
 port is able to do ber great works upon the unforced 
 obedience of men, it argues a divinity about her. But 
 when she thinks to credit and better her spiritual 
 efficacy, and to win herself respect and dread by 
 strutting in the false vizard of worldly authority, it is 
 evident that God is not there, but that her apostolic 
 virtue is departed from her, and hath left her key- 
 cold." 
 
 The church, though now under the Presbyterian 
 form of government, still retained, in Milton's opin- 
 ion, the power of the keys — the power of exercising 
 church discipline and administering ecclesiastical cen- 
 sure, and even excommunication. She possessed an 
 apostolic virtue, was still a divine institution. It is 
 curious to see here and elsewhere our great Puritan 
 contending for that godly discipline which prevailed 
 in the primitive church, but which has long been lost 
 to us — a fact which the Church of England acknow- 
 ledges and deplores year by year in her Commination 
 Service. The truth is, he never wholly shook off the 
 
90 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 Church of England training he received in his youth, 
 and up to the time that he had abandoned all inten- 
 tion of taking Holy Orders. It appears equally in 
 his poetry and his prose. In better times, and had 
 he been better treated and appreciated, we should 
 have seen him Deacon, Priest, and Bishop ; and what 
 a Bishop would he have made ! — a second, and, if 
 possible, still more eloquent Jeremy Taylor ! 
 
 But we must pass on to his interesting theory of 
 church discipline, as expressed in this book. 
 
 " The minister of each congregation " is to be 
 *^ God's spiritual deputy " in this matter, " who, being 
 best acquainted with his own flock, hath best reason 
 to know all the secretest diseases likely to be there. 
 Sometimes, also, not the elders alone, but the whole 
 body of the church is interested in the work of disci- 
 pline, as oft as public satisfaction is given by those 
 that have given public scandal. If anything may be 
 done to imbreed in us a generous and Christianly 
 reverence one of another, the very nurse and guard- 
 ian of piety and virtue, it cannot sooner be than by 
 such a discipline in the church, as may use us to have 
 in awe the assemblies of the faithful, and to count it 
 a thing most grievous, next to the grieving of God's 
 Spirit, to offend those whom He hath put in author- 
 ity. And this will be accompanied with a religious 
 dread of being outcast from the company of saints, 
 and from the fatherly protection of God in His 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 91 
 
 church, to consort with the devil and his angels. 
 But there is yet a more ingenuous and noble degree 
 of honest shame, whereby men bear an inward rever- 
 ence toward their own persons. And if the love of 
 God, as a fire sent from heaven to be ever kept alive 
 upon the altars of our hearts, be the first principle of 
 all godly and virtuous actions in men, this pious and 
 just honouring of ourselves is the second, and may be 
 thought as the radical moisture and fountain-head, 
 whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues 
 forth. Something I confess it is to be ashamed of 
 evil-doing in the presence of any ; and to reverence 
 the opinion and the countenance of a good man 
 rather than a bad, fearing most in his sight to offend, 
 goes so far as almost to be virtuous ; yet this is but 
 still the fear of infamy, and many such, when they 
 find themselves alone, saving tlieir reputation, will 
 compound with other scruples, and come to a close 
 treaty with their dearer vices in secret. But he that 
 holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for 
 the dignity of God's image upon him, and for the 
 price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly 
 marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both 
 a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, 
 and much better worth than to deject and defile, 
 with such a debasement, and such a pollution as 
 sin is, himself so highly ransomed and ennobled to 
 a new friendship and filial relation with God. Nor 
 
92 SELECTIONS FUOM 
 
 can he fear so much the oiFence and reproach of 
 others, as he dreads and would blush at the reflection 
 of his own severe and modest eye upon himself, if it 
 should see him doing or imagining that which is sinful, 
 though in the deepest secresy. How shall a man 
 know to do himself this right, how to perform his 
 honouraMe duty of estimation and respect towards his 
 own soul and body ? Which way will lead him best 
 to this hill-top of sanctity and goodness, above which 
 there is no higher ascent but to the love of God, which 
 from this self pious regard cannot be asunder ? No 
 better way, doubtless, than to let him duly understand 
 that as he is called by the high calling of God, to be 
 holy and pure, so is he by the same appointment or- 
 dained, and by the church's call admitted to such 
 offices of discipline in the church, to which his own 
 spiritual gifts, by the example of apostolic institution, 
 have authorized him. They who have an unworthy 
 and abject opinion of themselves, approach to holy 
 duties with a slavish fear, and to unholy doings with 
 a familiar boldness. For seeing such a wide and ter- 
 rible distance between religious things and themselves, 
 they fear religion with such a fear as loves not, and 
 think the purity of the gospel too pure for them, and 
 that any uncleanness is more suitable to their un- 
 consecrated estate." 
 
 "Thus, therefore, the minister assisted attends his 
 heavenly and spiritual cure. His end is to recover all 
 
Milton's prose works. 93^ 
 
 that is of man, both soul and body, to an everlasting 
 health. Two heads of evil he has to cope with, ignor- 
 ance and malice. Against the former he provides the 
 daily manna of incorruptible doctrine, not at those set 
 meals only in public, but as oft as he shall know that 
 each infirmity or constitution requires. Against the 
 latter, with all the branches thereof, he, beginning at 
 the prime causes and roots of the disease, sends in 
 those two divine ingredients of most cleansing power 
 to the soul, admonition and reproof. And he that 
 will not let these pass into him, though he be the 
 greatest king, must be thought to remain impure with- 
 in. As soon, therefore, as it may be discerned that 
 the Christian patient hath disordered his diet, and 
 spread an ill-humour through his veins, immediately 
 disposing to a sickness, the minister speeds him be- 
 times to overtake that diffused malignance with some 
 gentle potion of admonishment. This not succeeding 
 after once or twice, or oftener, in the presence of two 
 or three his faithful brethren appointed thereto, he 
 advises him to be more careful of his dearest healthy 
 and what it is that he so rashly hath let down into the 
 divine vessel of his soul, God's temple. If this obtain 
 not, he then, with the counsel of more assistants, who 
 are informed of what diligence hath been already 
 used, with more speedy remedies lays nearer to the 
 entrenched causes of his distemper, not sparing such 
 fervent and well-aimed reproofs as may best give him 
 
94 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 to see the dangerous estate wherein he is. To this 
 also his brethren and friends entreat, exhort, adjure ; 
 and all these endeavours, as there is hope left, are 
 more or less repeated. But if neither the regard of 
 himself, nor the reverence of his elders and friends 
 prevail with him to leave his vicious appetite, then as 
 the time urges, such engines of terror God hath given 
 into the hand of his minister, as to search the tenderest 
 angles of the heart : one while he shakes his stubborn- 
 ness with racking convulsions nigh despair; other 
 whiles with deadly corrosive he gripes the very roots 
 of his faulty liver to bring him to life through 
 the entry of death. Hereto the whole church be- 
 seech him, beg of him, deplore him, pray for him. 
 After all this performed with what patience and at- 
 tendance is possible, and no relenting on his part, 
 having done the utmost of their cure, in the name of 
 God and of the church they dissolve their fellowship 
 with him, and holding forth the dreadful sponge of 
 excommunion, pronounce him wiped out of the list of 
 God's inheritance, and in the custody of Satan till he 
 repent. Which horrid sentence, though it touch 
 neither life nor limb, nor any worldly possession, yet 
 has it such a penetrating force, that swifter than any 
 chemical sulphur, or that lightning which harms not 
 the skin, and rifles the entrails, it scorches the inmost 
 soul. Yet even this terrible denouncement is left to 
 the church for no other cause but to be as a rough and 
 
Milton's prose works. 95 
 
 vehement cleansing medicine, where the malady is 
 obdurate, a mortifying to life, a kind of saving by un- 
 doing. And it may be truly said, that as the mercies 
 of wicked men are cruelties, so the cruelties of the 
 church are mercies. For if repentance sent from 
 heaven meet this lost wanderer, and draw him out 
 of that steep journey wherein he was hasting towards 
 destruction, to come and reconcile to the church, if he 
 bring with him his bill of health, and that he is now 
 clear of infection, and of no danger to the other 
 sheep; then with incredible expressions of joy, all his 
 brethren receive him, and set before him those per- 
 fumed banquets of Christian consolation; with precious 
 ointments bathing and fomenting the old, and now to 
 be forgotten stripes, which terror and shame had in- 
 flicted ; and thus with heavenly solaces they cheer up 
 his humble remorse, till he regain his first health and 
 felicity. This is the approved way, which the gospel 
 prescribes, these are the spiritual weapons of holy 
 censure, and ministerial warfare, not carnal, but mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of strongholds, cast- 
 ing down imaginations, and every high thing that 
 exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and 
 bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience 
 of Christ." 
 
 This is a specimen of Milton's complete mastery of 
 the English language, of his own peculiar method of 
 building his lofty prose, piling up elaborate sentence 
 
96 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 upon sentence interlaced with simile upon simile, 
 rearing and constructing with consummate skill and 
 perseverance, a stately and gorgeous edifice of match- 
 less strength and beauty. But curious, instructive, 
 and suggestive as is the remarkable passage just cited, 
 for all practical purposes it is utterly impracticable, 
 extravagant, and visionary, as almost all his projects 
 and schemes of reformation undoubtedly were ; and 
 in this way we account for his unpopularity even with 
 the scholar and antiquarian. 
 
 Let us take another passage from the conclusion of 
 this treatise, equally striking, grand, imaginative, and 
 curious, but to which we are able to attach little mean- 
 ing and less practical worth. We gather from it his 
 hatred to prelacy, but nothing more. Here let us 
 call to mind how, in his early days, prelates, instead 
 of calling forth his hatred, inspired his muse. His 
 third elegy is a tribute of praise to the memory of 
 Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, who died 
 in 1826 ; and his third piece in his Sylvarum Liber is 
 another graceful tribute on the death of Nicholas 
 Felton, Bishop of Ely, which happened not many 
 days after. 
 
 " I cannot better liken the state and person of a 
 king than to that mighty Nazarite Samson, who being 
 disciplined from his birth in the precepts and the 
 practice of temperance and sobriety, without the 
 strong drink of injurious and excessive desires, grows 
 
Milton's prose works. 9T 
 
 up to a noble strength and perfection with his illus- 
 trious and sunny locks, the laws, waving and curving 
 about his godlike shoulders. And while he keeps 
 them about him undiminished and unshorn, he may 
 with the jawbone of an ass, that is, with the word of 
 his meanest officer, suppress and put to confusion 
 thousands of those that rise against his just power. 
 But laying down his head among the strumpet flat- 
 teries of prelates, while he sleeps and thinks no harm, 
 they wickedly shaving off all those bright and 
 weighty tresses of his law, and just prerogatives, 
 which were his ornament and strength, deliver him 
 over to indirect and violent counsels, which, as those 
 Philistines, put out the fair and far-sighted eyes of his 
 natural discerning, and make him grind in the prison- 
 house of their sinister ends and practices upon him ; 
 till he, knowing this prelatical rasor to have bereft 
 him of his wonted might, nourish again his puissant 
 hair, the golden beams of law and right ; and they 
 sternly shook, thunder with ruin upon the heads of 
 those his evil counsellors, but not without great 
 affliction to himself. This is the sum of their loyal 
 service to kings ; yet these are the men that still cry. 
 The king, the king, the Lord's anointed ! We grant 
 it ; and wonder how the}^ came to light upon any- 
 thing so true; and wonder more, if kings be the 
 Lord's anointed, how they dare thus oil over and 
 besmear so holy an unction with the corrupt and 
 
 H 
 
98 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 putrid ointment of their base flatteries ; which while 
 they smooth the skin, strike inward and envenom the 
 lifeblood." 
 
 The next and last passage we shall quote for the 
 sake of the old and unusual word which occurs in it, 
 giving Archbishop Trench's explanation of it from his 
 Select Glossary. 
 
 " Prelaty seems to have had this fatal gift in her 
 nativity, that whatsoever she should touch, it should 
 turn, not to gold, but to the dross and scum of 
 slavery, breeding and settling both in the bodies and 
 the souls of all such as do not in time, with the sove- 
 reign treacle of sound doctrine, provide to fortify 
 their hearts against her hierarchy." 'At present 
 * treacle ' means only the sweet syrup of molasses, but 
 was a word once of far wider reach and far nobler 
 significance, having come to us from afar, and by steps 
 which are curious to be traced. They are these : the 
 Greeks, in anticipation of modern homoeopathy, called 
 a supposed antidote to the vipers bite, which was 
 composed of the viper's flesh, OrjpioKi], from Orjplov, a 
 name often given to the viper, as in Acts xxviii., 5 ; 
 of this came the Latin Uheriaca,' and our 'theriac,' of 
 which, or rather of the Latin form, ' treacle ' is but a 
 popular corruption.' He does not cite this passage 
 from Milton, but in one from Gurnall we find even 
 the same epithet applied, 'The saints' experiences 
 help them to a sovereign treacle made of the scorpion's 
 
Milton's prose work^. 99 
 
 own flesh (which they through Christ have slain), and 
 that hath a virtue above all other to expel the venom 
 of Satan's temptations from the heart.' — The Christian 
 in Complete Armour^ c. ix., § 2. 
 
 h2 
 
100 . SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 ANIMADVERSIONS upon the REMONSTRANT'S 
 DEFENCE AGAINST SMECTYMNUUS. 
 
 THIS, the least pleasing of Milton's earlier contro- 
 versial works, was the fourth Treatise which he 
 put forth in 1641. It is arranged in the form of a 
 dialogue, and is coarse and commonplace. Sraectym- 
 nuus was a pamphlet written by five Presbyterian 
 divines, the initial letters of whose names form the 
 appellation, Smectymnuus, namely, Stephen Marshal, 
 Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, who was Milton's 
 tutor, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. 
 Bishop Hall replied to it, and he is the Remonstrant 
 against whom our author enters the lists. The work 
 before us was answered by a son of Bishop Hall, 
 assisted by his father, in the ' Modest Confutation 
 against a slanderous and scurrilous Libel,' which in 
 turn called forth the Apology for Smectymnuus in 
 1642, ' a noble and justifiable burst of egotism, richly 
 teeming with beautiful thoughts, full of youthful and 
 cheering reminiscences, and vehemently eloquent.' 
 So writes one of his editors. To this we shall pro- 
 ceed, passing by the Animadversions as containing 
 nothing meriting observation or preservation, in spite 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 101 
 
 of Lord Macaulay's extraordinary assertion that there 
 are magnificent passages occurring in it. We are at 
 a loss to conceive which he refers to. Probably that 
 at the close of the fourth Section, an apostrophe to 
 the Deity, but how unlike the one with which he 
 concludes his Treatise of Reformation, which we have 
 already given. We have read it more than once, 
 and can discover in it no " sentence of a venturous 
 edge, uttered in the height of zeal " — nothing that 
 touches a respondent chord in the soul — nothing that 
 exalts, invigorates, or inspires. Perhaps we ought to 
 except one sentence, which we regard as a prophetic 
 allusion to the Paradise Lost, and is therefore inter- 
 esting, and worth quoting. It is this, referring to the 
 time when God shall have settled peace in the church 
 and righteous judgment in the kingdom. " And he, 
 that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnished 
 present as a thank-offering to Thee, which could not 
 be deferred in regard of Thy so many late deliver- 
 ances wrought for us one upon another, may then 
 perhaps take up a harp, and sing Thee an elaborate 
 song to generations." 
 
102 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 AN APOLOGY FOR SMECTYMNUUS. 
 
 THIS Treatise is valuable for that noble egotism 
 and justifiable self-assertion which are its cha- 
 racteristics. Thus, parenthetically, as it were, and 
 incidentally, we are made acquainted, on the very 
 best authority, with many anecdotes, circumstances, 
 habits, thoughts, and feelings connected with the life 
 of Milton, which are most interesting, instructive, and 
 essential to everyone who would rightly understand 
 the complex character of this truly wonderful man. 
 Even when the connexion with the matter immedi- 
 ately in hand hardly seems to justify it, he passes on 
 to speak of himself, his intentions, hopes, and aspira- 
 tions, and reveals his most secret and private thoughts 
 with an ingenuous and enchanting simplicity. Never 
 was any man more transparent. He had nothing to 
 conceal ; he lived and acted in the spirit of his own 
 noble sonnet, composed on arriving at his twenty-third 
 year — 
 
 " All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye." 
 
 " If to that same great difficulty of well-doing what 
 we certainly know were not added in most men as 
 
Milton's trose works. 103 
 
 great a carelessness of knowing what they and others 
 ought to do, we had been long ere this much further 
 on our way to some degree of peace and happiness in 
 this kingdom. But since our sinful neglect of practis- 
 ing that which we know to be undoubtedly true and 
 good hath brought forth among us so great a diffi- 
 culty now to know that which otherwise might be 
 soon learnt ; I resolved (of what small moment so- 
 ever I might be thought) to stand on that side where 
 I saw both the plain authority of Scripture leading, 
 and the reason of justice and equity persuading ; with 
 this opinion, which esteems it more unlike a Christian 
 to be a cold neuter in the cause of the church, than 
 the law of Solon made it punishable after a sedition 
 in the State." 
 So Dryden 
 
 * neuters in their middle way of steering, 
 
 Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.' 
 
 " And because I observe that fear and dull dispo- 
 sition, lukewarmness and sloth, are not seldomer 
 wont to cloak themselves under the affected name of 
 moderation, than true and lively zeal is customably 
 disparaged with the term of indiscretion, bitterness, 
 and choler; I could not to my thinking honour a 
 good cause more from the heart than by defending it 
 earnestly, as oft as I could judge it to behove me, 
 notwithstanding any false name that could be invent- 
 ed to wrong or undervalue an honest meaning. 
 
104 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 Wherein if it be lawful to attribute somewhat to gifts 
 of God's imparting, which I boast not, but thankfully 
 acknowledge, and fear also lest at ray certain account 
 they be reckoned to me rather many than few ; or if 
 it be but justice not to defraud of due esteem the 
 wearisome labours and studious watchings, wherein I 
 have spent and tired out almost a whole youth, I 
 shall not distrust to be acquitted of presumption. 
 However, now against the rancour of an evil tongue, 
 I must be forced to proceed from the unfeigned and 
 diligent inquiry of my own conscience at home to 
 give a more true account of myself abroad than this 
 modest confuter, as he calls himself, hath given of 
 me. Albeit, that in doing this I shall be sensible of 
 two things, which to me will be nothing pleasant ; the 
 one is, that not unlikely I shall be thought too much 
 a party in mine own cause, and therein to see least : 
 the other, that I shall be put unwillingly to molest 
 the public view with the vindication of a private 
 name ; as if it were worth the while that the people 
 should care whether such a one were thus or thus. 
 Yet those I entreat who have found the leisure to 
 read that name, however of small repute, unworthily 
 defamed, would be so good and so patient as to hear 
 the same person not unneedfuUy defended." 
 
 *' I will not deny but that the best apology against 
 false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest 
 deeds set against dishonest words. But when I dis- 
 
Milton's prose works. 105 
 
 cerned the intent of this confuter was not so much to 
 smite at me, as through me to render odious the truth 
 which I had written, I conceived myself to be now 
 not as mine own person, but as a member incorporate 
 into that truth whereof I was persuaded, and whereof 
 I had declared openly to be a partaker. Whereupon 
 I thought it my duty not to leave on my garment the 
 least spot or blemish in good name, so long as God 
 should give me to say that which might wipe it off, 
 lest those disgraces which I ought to suffer, if it so 
 befall me, for my religion, through my default religion 
 be made liable to suffer for me." 
 
 " For doubtless that indeed according to art is 
 most eloquent, which turns and approaches nearest to 
 nature, from whence it came ; and they express nature 
 best, who in their lives least wander from her safe 
 leading. So that how he should be truly eloquent 
 who is not withal a good man, I see not." 
 
 " I must be thought, if this libeller (for now he 
 shows himself to be so) can find belief, after an inor- 
 dinate and riotous youth spent at the university, to 
 have been at length ' vomited out thence.' For which 
 commodious lie I thank him, for it hath given me an 
 apt occasion to acknowledge publicly with all grate- 
 ful mind, that more than ordinary favour and 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 ray 
 
106 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 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." 
 
 We have here Milton's flat denial of what some of 
 his biographers have too easily asserted that he was 
 ever rusticated or expelled from college. 
 
 *^ But he follows me to the city, ' and where my 
 morning haunts are he wisses not.' I will tell him. 
 Those morning haunts are where they should be, at 
 home ; not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an 
 irregular feast, but up and stirring, in winter often 
 ere the sound of any bell awake men to labour, or to 
 devotion ; in summer as oft with the bird that first 
 rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or 
 cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, or 
 memory have its full fraught ; then, with useful and 
 generous labours preserving the body's health and 
 hardiness to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish 
 obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and 
 our country's liberty, when it shall require firm hearts 
 in sound bodies to stand and cover their stations, 
 rather than to see the ruin of our protestation, and 
 the enforcement of a slavish life. 
 
 ^' These are the morning practices : proceed now 
 to the afternoon ; ' in playhouses,' he says, ^ and the 
 
Milton's prose works. 107 
 
 bordelloes.' Your intelligence, unfaithful spy of 
 Canaan ?" 
 
 His opponent has before confessed that he had 
 no certain notice of him further than what he gathers 
 from his writings. " In the Animadversions, saith he, 
 I find the mention of old cloaks, false beards, and 
 night-walkers ; therefore the animadverter haunts 
 playhouses and bordelloes; for if he did not how 
 could he speak of such gear ?" Having turned the 
 tables on the confuter he proceeds to say, ^' Since 
 there is such necessity to the hearsay of a tire, a peri- 
 wig, or a vizard, that plays must have been seen, 
 what difficulty was there in that ? when in the col- 
 leges so many of the young divines, and those in next 
 aptitude to divinity, have been seen so often upon the 
 stage. There, while they acted and overacted, among 
 other young scholars, I was a spectator ; they thought 
 themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools ; 
 they made sport, and I laughed ; they mispronounced 
 and I disliked ; and, to make up the atticism, they 
 were out, and I hissed.'^ Milton seems to have been 
 always unpopular both in boyhood and manhood ; he 
 had little or no humour in his composition, and his 
 attempts at it are ludicrous. He then rebuts the 
 absurd and unfounded charges, and ''in a way not 
 often trod discovers his inmost thoughts, through the 
 course of his years and studies." 
 
 '' I had my time, as others have, who have good 
 
108 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 learning bestowed upon them, to be sent to those 
 places where, the opinion w^as, it might be soonest at- 
 tained ; and as the manner is, was not unstudied in 
 those authors which are most commended. Whereof 
 some were grave orators and historians, whose matter 
 methought I loved indeed, but as my age then was, 
 so I understood them ; others were the smooth elegiac 
 poets, whom both for the pleasing sound of their 
 numerous writing, which in imitation I found most 
 easy, and most agreeable to nature's part in me, and 
 I was so allured to read, that no recreation came to 
 me better welcome. 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 if I found those authors anywhere speaking un- 
 worthy 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 and 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 who would not 
 be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in 
 laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem ; 
 
Milton's prose works. 109 
 
 that is, a coraposition 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 praiseworthy." 
 
 This magnificent and glorious sentence reminds us 
 of those lines in Cowley's Ode on Liberty (he was 
 Milton's junior by ten years), 
 
 ' K life should a well-order'd Poem be 
 
 (In which he only hits the white, 
 Who joins true Profit with the best Delight), 
 The more Heroic strain let others take, 
 
 Mine the Pindaric way I'll make. 
 The matter shall be grave, the numbers loose and free.' 
 
 But let US proceed with the interesting autobio- 
 graphy before us of one who was indeed himself a 
 true poem, and of the most heroic strain. 
 
 *' Next, readers, that I may tell ye whither my 
 younger feet wandered ; I betook me among those 
 lofty fables and romances which recount in solenm 
 cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our vic- 
 torious 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, the honour and chastity of virgin or 
 matron ; from whence even then I learned 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 
 
110 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 afterward, any of thera, 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 in- 
 decent things of the gods. Only this my mind gave 
 me, that every free and gentle spirit, without that 
 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 
 arms, to secure and protect the weakness of any at- 
 tempted chastity. So that even these books, which 
 to many others have been the fuel of wantonness and 
 loose living, I cannot think how, unless by divine in- 
 dulgence, proved to me so many incitements to the 
 love and stedfast observation of virtue. 
 
 " Thus, from the laureat 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 Xeno- 
 phon : 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 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 chiefest office of love begins and ends in 
 the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine 
 generation, knowledge and virtue. With such ab- 
 stracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your 
 
milton'vS prose works. Ill 
 
 listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have ye 
 in a still time, when there shall be no chiding, not in 
 these noises. 
 
 " Last of all, not in time, but as perfection is last, 
 that care was ever had of me, with my earliest ca- 
 pacity, not to be negligently trained in the precepts of 
 the Christian religion : this that I have hitherto re- 
 lated hath been to show that though Christianity had 
 been but slightly taught me, yet a certain reserved- 
 ness of natural disposition, and moral discipline, learnt 
 out of the noblest philosophy, an honest haughtiness, 
 and self-esteem, either of what I was, or what I might 
 be (which let envy call pride), were enough to keep 
 me still above all low descents of mind, and in dis- 
 dain of vice." 
 
 David Masson says, * Were we to define in one word 
 our impression of the prevailing tone, the character- 
 istic mood and disposition of Milton's mind, even in 
 his early youth, we should say, that it consisted in a 
 deep and habitual seriousness. We doubt not he is 
 thinking of himself and his own childhood, at all 
 events, the lines well describe his own youth, when 
 he says, in the first book of Paradise Regained — 
 
 " 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 : therefore, above my years, 
 The law of God I read, and found it sweet, 
 Made it my whole delight." 
 
112 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 'The outward manifestation of this seriousness/ 
 again to use the words of Masson, ' of this solemn and 
 even austere demeanour of mind, was a life of pure 
 and devout observance. He who does not lay stress 
 on this, knows not and loves not Milton !' But we 
 proceed with our extract. 
 
 " But having had the doctrine of holy scripture un- 
 folding those 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 deflouring and dishonourable ; in that 
 he sins both against his own body, which is the 
 perfecter sex, and his own glory, which is in the 
 woman ; and, that which is worst, against the image 
 and glory of God, which is in himself. Nor did I 
 slumber over that place expressing such high rewards 
 of ever accompanying the Lamb, with those celestial 
 songs to others inapprehensible, but not to those who 
 were not defiled with women, which doubtless means 
 fornication ; for marriage must not be called a defile- 
 ment." 
 
 He liext defends the vehement style of these Ani- 
 madversions, which he wrote against the Remonstrant 
 in defence of Smectvmnuus. 
 
Milton's prose works. 113 
 
 " Doth not Christ Himself teach the highest things 
 by the similitude of old bottles and patched clothes ? 
 Doth He not illustrate best things by things most 
 evil ? His own coming to be as a thief in the night, 
 and the righteous man's wisdom to that of an unjust 
 steward ? In the teaching of men diversely tempered, 
 different ways are to be tried. The Baptist, we know, 
 was a strict man, remarkable for austerity and set 
 order of life. Our Saviour, who had all gifts in Him, 
 was Lord to express His indoctrinating power in 
 what sort Him best seemed ; sometimes by a mild 
 and familiar converse ; sometimes with plain and im- 
 partial home-speaking, regardless of those whom the 
 auditors might think he should have had in more re- 
 spect ; otherwhile, with bitter and ireful rebukes, if 
 not teaching, yet leaving excuseless those His wilful 
 impugners. What was all in Him was divided among 
 many others, the teachers of His church ; some to be 
 severe, and ever of a sad gravity, that they may win 
 such, and check sometimes those who be of nature 
 over-confident and jocund ; others were sent more 
 cheerful and free, that they who are so tempered 
 may have by whom they might be drawn to salvation, 
 and they who are too scrupulous, and dejected of 
 spirit, might be often strengthened with wise consola- 
 tions and revivings ; no man being forced wholly to 
 dissolve that groundwork of nature which God created 
 in him, the sanguine to empty out all his sociable 
 
 I 
 
114 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 liveliness, the choleric to expel quite the unsinning 
 predominance of his anger ; but that each radical hu- 
 mour and passion, wrought upon and corrected as it 
 ought, might be made the proper mould and founda- 
 tion of every man's peculiar gifts and virtues. Some 
 also were indued with a staid moderation and sound- 
 ness of argument, to teach and convince the rational 
 and sober-minded ; yet not therefore that to be 
 thought the only expedient course of teaching, for in 
 times of opposition, when either against new heresies 
 arising, or old corruptions to be reformed, this cool, 
 unpassionate mildness of positive wisdom is not 
 enough to damp and astonish the proud resistance of 
 carnal and false doctors, then (that I may have leave 
 to soar awhile as the poets use) Zeal, whose substance 
 is ethereal, arming in complete diamond, ascends his 
 fiery chariot, drawn with two blazing meteors, figured 
 like beasts, but of a higher breed than any the zodiac 
 yields, resembling two of those four which Ezekiel 
 and St. John saw ; the one visaged like a lion, to ex- 
 press power, high authority, and indignation ; the 
 other of countenance like a man, to cast derision and 
 scorn upon perverse and fraudulent seducers : with 
 these the invincible warrior. Zeal, shaking loosely the 
 slack reins, drives over the heads of scarlet prelates, 
 and such as are insolent to maintain traditions, bruis- 
 ing their stiff necks under his flaming wheels. 
 
 '* Thus did the true prophets of old combat with 
 
Milton's prose works. 115 
 
 the false : thus Christ Himself, the fountain of meek- 
 ness, found acrimony enough to be still galling and 
 vexing the Pharisees. But ye will say these had im- 
 mediate warrant from God to be thus bitter ; and I 
 say, so much the plainer is it proved that there may 
 be a sanctified bitterness against the enemies of 
 truth." 
 
 "' The Spirit of God, who is purity itself, when He 
 would reprove any fault severely, or but relate things 
 done or said with indignation by others, abstains not 
 from some words not civil at other times to be 
 spoken. But these, they will say, were honest words 
 in that age when they were spoken. Which is more 
 than any rabbin can prove ; and certainly had God 
 been so minded. He could have picked such words as 
 should never have come into abuse. And thus I take 
 it to be manifest that indignation against men and 
 their actions notoriously bad hath leave and autho- 
 rity ofttimes to utter such words and phrases, as in 
 common talk were not so mannerly to use : that ye 
 may know, not only as the historian speaks, " that all 
 those things for which men plough, build, or sail, 
 obey virtue," but that all words, and whatsoever may 
 be spoken, shall at some time in an unwonted manner 
 wait upon her purposes." 
 
 A similar passage to this occurs in the " Authoris 
 pro se Defensio," vol. ii., p. 240, Dr. Birch's edition. 
 
 " But he proceeds, ' a rich widow, or a lecture, or 
 
 i2 
 
116 SELECTIONS PROM 
 
 both, would content me :' whereby I perceive him to 
 be more ignorant in his art of divining than any 
 gipsy. For this I cannot omit without ingratitude to 
 that Providence above, who hath ever bred me up in 
 plenty, although ray life hath not been unexpensive 
 in learning, and voyaging about ; so long as it shall 
 please Him to lend me what He hath hitherto thought 
 good, which is enough to serve me in all honest and 
 liberal occasions, and something over besides, I were 
 unthankful to that highest bounty, if I should make 
 myself so poor as to solicit needily any such kind of 
 rich hopes as this fortune-teller dreams of And that 
 he may further learn how his astrology is wide all 
 the houses of heaven in spelling marriages, I care not 
 if I tell him thus much professedly, though it be the 
 losing of my rich hopes, as he calls them, that I think 
 with them who, both in prudence and elegance of 
 spirit, would choose a virgin of mean fortunes, honest- 
 ly bred, before the wealthiest widow." 
 
 Here we may remark that Milton selected his three 
 wives out of the virgin state. 
 
 '' His next venom he utters against a prayer which 
 he found in the Animadversions ; he dislikes it, and 
 I therefore like it the better. Neither was it a 
 prayer, so much as a hymn in prose, frequent both in 
 the prophets, and in human authors ; therefore, the 
 style was greater than for an ordinary prayer." * The 
 muse of prose-literature,' observes David Masson 
 
Milton's prose works. 117 
 
 ' has been very hardly dealt with. We see not why, 
 in prose, there should not be much of that mighty 
 licence in the fantastic, that measured riot, that un- 
 abashed dalliance with the extreme and the beautiful, 
 which the world allows, by prescription to verse. All 
 speed, then, to the prose invasion of the peculiar 
 realm of verse ; and the farther the conquest can 
 proceed, perhaps the better in the end for both 
 parties. The time is perhaps coming when the best 
 prose shall be more like verse than it now is, and the 
 best verse shall not disdain a certain resemblance to 
 prose.' 
 
 *'If we have indeed given a bill of divorce to 
 popery and superstition, why do we not say as to a 
 divorced wife, " Those things which are yours take 
 them all with you, and they shall sweep after you "? 
 Why were we not thus wise at our parting from 
 Rome ? Ah ! like a crafty adulteress, she forgot not 
 all her smooth looks and enticing words at her part- 
 ing : " Yet keep these letters, these tokens, and these 
 few ornaments ; I am not all so greedy of what is 
 mine, let them preserve with you the memory" — of 
 what I am ? No, but — '^ of what I was ; once fair 
 and lovely in your eyes." Thus did those tender- 
 hearted reformers dotingly suffer themselves to be 
 overcome. And she, like a witch, but with a contrary 
 policy, did not take something of theirs, that she still 
 might have power to bewitch them, but for the same 
 
118 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 intent left something of her own behind her." " But 
 now, readers, we have the port within sight ; his last 
 section, which is no deep one, remains only to be 
 forded, and then the wished shore." 
 
 " I that was erewhile the ignorant, on the sudden 
 by his permission am now granted " to know some- 
 thing." And that " such a volley of expressions " he 
 hath met withal, " as he would never desire to have 
 them better clothed." For me, readers, although I 
 cannot say that I am utterly untrained in those rules 
 which best rhetoricians have given, or unacquainted with 
 those examples which the prime authors of eloquence 
 have written in any learned tongue ; yet true elo- 
 quence I find to be none, but the serious and hearty 
 love of truth : and that whose mind soever is fully 
 possessed w^ith a fervent desire to know good things, 
 and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge 
 of them into others, when such a man would speak, 
 his words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, 
 trip about him at command, and in well-ordered files, 
 as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places." 
 
Milton's prose works. 119 
 
 THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE; 
 
 restored to the good of both sexes. 
 
 In Two Books. 
 
 To the Parliament of England with the Assembly. 
 
 IN the year 1644 Milton produced this extraordinary 
 work, his brief Treatise on Education, and his 
 incomparable Areopagitica. He had a short time 
 previously been married to his first wife, who, after 
 one month of wedded life, suddenly returned to her 
 father, and stayed with him three years. On hearing 
 that he meditated a divorce, she as suddenly threw 
 herself at his feet and obtained his forgiveness. It 
 was to justify his resolution of being divorced that he 
 wrote the present work, which will not detain us 
 long, but we shall hope to rescue from out this mass 
 of trash a few sentences of transcendant beauty. He 
 professes ^' with much labour to have first found out, 
 or at least first published, to the manifest good of 
 Christendom, that which, calling to witness everything 
 mortal and immortal, he believes unfeignedly to be 
 true ; and then he doubts not but with one gentle 
 stroking to wipe away ten thousand tears out of the 
 
120 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 life of man." Such was his sincerity even when most 
 erring. ^ This elaborate discussion,' writes Warton 
 on his eleventh sonnet which is entitled " On the 
 detraction which followed upon my writing certain 
 Treatises," ^ unworthy in many respects of Milton, 
 and in which much acuteness of argument, and com- 
 prehension of reading, were idly thrown away, was 
 received with contempt, or rather ridicule. He held 
 that disagreement of mind was a better cause of sepa- 
 ration than adultery. Here was a fair opening for 
 the laughers. For this doctrine our author was sum- 
 moned before the Lords. But they not approving 
 his accusers, the presbyterian clergy, or thinking the 
 business too speculative, he was quickly dismissed. 
 On this occasion Milton commenced hostilities against 
 the presbyterians,' and joined the independents. His 
 conjugal life is anything but pleasant to contemplate. 
 Perhaps so laborious a student, so sensitive, and stern, 
 and unbending a character had better have remained 
 single. That he was not averse to marriage is evident 
 from his essaying it three times. It was not every 
 woman who could be a help-meet for such a mind as 
 his, or make him happy. But Mary Powell was the 
 last person we should have expected him to choose. 
 No wonder such a marriage proved an unhappy one. 
 He entertained the most exalted views of love, mar- 
 riage, and domestic felicity, regarding a true woman 
 with the utmost reverence as the companion of man's 
 
Milton's prose works. 121 
 
 intellect, the remedy of loneliness, " another self, a 
 second self, a very self itself" " Cleave to a wife, 
 but let her be a wife, let her be a meet help, a solace, 
 not a nothing, not an adversary, not a desertrice." 
 The prime end of marriage is, ' the mutual society, 
 help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the 
 other, both in prosperity and adversity.' This failing, 
 divorce became a duty in Milton's opinion. Our sur- 
 prise is that a mind so rightly constituted as was his 
 could go wrong in this matter. That he was ex- 
 tremely susceptible of the softer passions is evident 
 from the general tenour of his writings, and from the 
 fact that he was in love when he was nineteen, as we 
 learn from his seventh Latin Elegy. Who the object 
 of this boyish passion was it is impossible to say. It 
 seems to have been unreturned, and her heart to have 
 been created of hard adamant. She was quickly and 
 for ever separated from him, but he felt it most 
 keenly, as these verses show ; and the lovesick youth 
 laments, • 
 
 " Nescio cur, miser est suaviter omnis amans." 
 
 " I know not why, every lover is sweetly wretched." 
 Henceforth he prays, if ever it should be his lot to 
 love again, that one dart may pierce the breast of two 
 lovers. Alas ! his prayer was doomed never to be 
 answered, except, perhaps, for one short year. It 
 was about this time, while at Cambridge, the following 
 adventure, which, however, is a mere tradition, and 
 
122 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 rests on no authority, happened to him. And we can- 
 not do better than describe it in the words of ' Satan ' 
 Montgomery. 
 
 * There is a tale — and let it live 
 
 Such life as fond romance can give, — 
 
 That once as slumb'ring Milton lay 
 
 In umbrage from the noon-warm day, 
 
 Beneath the twilight of a tree, 
 
 That arch'd its waving canopy, 
 
 A maiden saw his sleeping face. 
 
 And, spell-bound with its beauteous grace, 
 
 Her wonder in sweet song express'd. 
 
 And placed it on the poet's breast : — 
 '' If eyes when shut the heart can take. 
 
 How bright their vict'ry when awake /" 
 
 Oh ! who can tell what beauty flowed 
 
 From feelings by such words bestow'd ? 
 
 The Eve of his enchanted thought. 
 
 From hues of nature's heaven was wrought, 
 
 And she, of Paradise the queen, 
 
 Embodied what his soul had seen.' 
 
 But we must pass on to our selections, which will 
 prove the truth of these remarks. 
 
 "If it were seriously asked (and it would be no 
 untimely question), renowned parliament, select as- 
 sembly ! who, of all teachers and masters that have 
 ever taught, hath drawn the most disciples after him, 
 both in religion and in manners ? it might be not un- 
 truly answered, custom. Though virtue be com- 
 mended for the most persuasive in her theory, and 
 conscience, in the plain demonstration of the spirit, 
 finds most evincing ; yet whether it be the secret of 
 divine will, or the original bUndness we are born in, 
 so it happens for the most part that custom still is 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 123 
 
 silently received for the best instructor. Except it 
 be because her method is so glib and easy, in some 
 manner like to that vision of Ezekiel, rolling up her 
 sudden book of implicit knowledge, for him that will 
 to take and swallow down at pleasure, which puffs up 
 unhealthily a certain big face of pretended learning, 
 and not only in private mars our education, but also 
 in public is the common climber into every chair, 
 where either religion is preached, or law reported ; 
 filling each estate of life and profession with abject 
 and servile principles, depressing the high and heaven- 
 born spirit of man far beneath the condition wherein 
 either God created him or sin hath sunk him. To 
 pursue the allegory, custom being but a mere face, 
 as echo is a mere voice, rests not in her unaccomplish- 
 ment, until by secret inclination she accorporate her- 
 self with error, who,, being a blind and serpentine 
 body, without a head, willingly accepts what he wants, 
 and supplies what her incompleteness went seeking. 
 Hence it is that error supports custom, custom coun- 
 tenances error; and these two between them would 
 persecute and chase away all truth and solid wisdom 
 out of human life, were it not that God, rather than 
 man, once in many ages calls together the prudent 
 and religious counsels of men, deputed to repress the 
 encroachments, and to work off the inveterate blots 
 and obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle 
 insinuating of error and custom. Against which no- 
 
124 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 torious injury and abuse of man s free soul, to testify 
 and oppose the utmost that study and true labour can 
 attain, the duty and the right of an instructed Chris- 
 tian calls me through the chance of good or evil re- 
 port, to be the sole advocate of a discountenanced truth : 
 a high enterprise, lords and commons, a high enter- 
 prise and a hard, and such as every seventh son of a 
 seventh son does not venture on." 
 
 Brand, in his Popular Antiquities^ vol. iii, p. 265, 
 says, ^ The seventh son of a seventh son is accounted 
 an infallible doctor, having an intuitive knowledge of 
 the art of curing all disorders.' 
 
 " Nor have I, amidst the clamour of so much envy 
 and impertinence whither to appeal, but to the con- 
 course of so much piety and wisdom here assembled. 
 Bringing in my hands an ancient and most necessary, 
 most charitable, and yet most injured statute of Moses: 
 not repealed ever by Him who only had the authority, 
 but thrown aside with much inconsiderate neglect ; as 
 once the whole law was in Josiah's time. And he 
 who shall endeavour the amendment of any old ne- 
 glected grievance in church or state, or in the daily 
 course of life, shall be boarded presently by the ruder 
 sort, with a thousand idle descants and surmises. But 
 were they not more busy and inquisitive than the 
 apostle commends, they would hear him at least, 
 " rejoicing so the truth be preached, whether of envy 
 or other pretence whatsoever :" for truth is as impos- 
 
Milton's prose works. 125 
 
 sible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sun- 
 beam." 
 
 A fine parallel passage occurs in the conclusion of 
 the fifth of the Prolusiones Oratorige, " Satis enim 
 superque suo Marte valet ad se defendendam invicta 
 semper Veritas ; nee ad id alienis indiget adminiculis ; 
 et licet nobi^ aliquando superari, et pessum premi 
 videatur, inviolatam tamen perpetuo servat se, et in- 
 tactani ab erroris unguibus ; in hoc soli non absimilis, 
 qui ssepe involutum se, et quasi inquinatum nubibus 
 ostendit humanis oculis, cum tamen collectis in se 
 radiis, totoque ad se revocato splendore purissimus ab 
 omni labe colluceat." 
 
 " What though the brood of Belial, to whom no 
 liberty is pleasing, but unbridled and vagabond lust 
 without pale or partition, will laugh broad perhaps, 
 to see so great a strength of scripture mustering up in 
 favour, as they suppose, of their debaucheries ; they 
 will know better when they shall hence learn, that 
 honest liberty is the greatest foe to dishonest licence. 
 He who wisely would restrain the reasonable soul of 
 man within due bounds, must first himself know per- 
 fectly, how far the territory and dominion extends of 
 just and honest liberty. As little must he offer to 
 bind that which God hath loosened, as to loosen that 
 which He hath bound. The ignorance and mistake 
 of this high point hath heaped up one huge half of 
 all the misery that hath been since Adam. In the 
 
126 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 gospel we shall read a supercilious crew of masters, 
 whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye, grieving 
 that God should be so facile to man, was to set 
 straiter limits to obedience than God hath set, to en- 
 slave the dignity of man, to put a garrison upon his 
 neck of empty and over-dignified precepts : and we 
 shall read our Saviour never more grieved and 
 troubled than to meet with such a peevish madness 
 among men against their own freedom. How can we 
 expect Him to be less offended with us, when much 
 of the same folly shall be found yet remaining where 
 it least ought, to the perishing of thousands ? The 
 greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only 
 of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and 
 scarecrow sins at home. What greater weakening, 
 what more subtle stratagem against our Christian 
 warfare, when besides the gross body of real trans- 
 gressions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain 
 and shadowy menacing of faults that are not ? When 
 things indifferent shall be set to overfront us under 
 the banners of sin, what wonder if we be routed, and 
 by this art of our adversary, fall into the subjection 
 of worst and deadliest offences ?" 
 
 " No place in heaven or earth, except hell, where 
 charity may not enter : yet marriage, the ordinance 
 of our solace and contentment, the remedy of our 
 loneliness, will not admit now either of charity or 
 mercy, to come in and mediate, or pacify the fierce- 
 
Milton's prose works. 127 
 
 ness of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied loneli- 
 ness of this remedy." 
 
 *^ Man is the occasion of his own miseries in most 
 of those evils which he imputes to God's inflicting. 
 Though it were granted us by divine indulgence to be 
 exempt from all that can be harmful to us from with- 
 out, yet the perverseness of our folly is so bent, that 
 we should never cease hammering out of our own 
 hearts, as it were out of a flint, the seeds and sparkles 
 of new misery to ourselves, till all were in a blaze 
 again. And no marvel if out of our own hearts, for 
 they are evil ; but even out of those things which 
 God meant us, either for a principal good, or a pure 
 contentment, we are still hatching and contriving 
 upon ourselves matter of continual sorrow and per- 
 plexity." 
 
 He hopes " to restore the much-wronged and over- 
 sorrowed state of matrimony, not only to those merci- 
 ful and life-giving remedies of Moses, but, as much as 
 may be, to that serene and blissful condition it was in 
 at the beginning." 
 
 Is it possible that a sane man could use such lan- 
 guage as the following — " that some conscionable and 
 tender pity might be had of those who have unwarily, 
 in a thing they never practised before, made them- 
 selves the bondmen of a luckless and helpless matri- 
 mony :" and again — " to redeem and restore such as 
 are the object of compassion, having in an ill hour 
 
128 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 hampered themselves, to the utter dispatch of all their 
 most beloved comforts and repose for this life's 
 term ?" This surely is utter nonsense ; and if the 
 beautiful exhortation in our marriage service were 
 properly attended to, no further legislature on the 
 subject would be needed — 'this holy estate is not 
 by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unad- 
 visedly, lightly, or wantonly, like brute beasts that 
 have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, 
 advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly con- 
 sidering the causes for which matrimony was ordained.' 
 Had Milton weighed this sentence of the Liturgy he 
 hated, he would have had no occasion to write this 
 Treatise on Divorce, for he never would have married 
 his first wife, whom he so lightly and unadvisedly 
 chose. 
 
 It is curious that about this time, and previous to 
 the Reformation in the wilder districts of Scotland, 
 there actually prevailed a lawless and iniquitous cus- 
 tom called ' handfasting ' — exactly the state of things 
 which Milton seems here to desiderate. It is thus 
 described in the Monastery of Sir Walter Scott. ' We 
 Border-men are more wary than your inland clowns 
 of Fife and Lothian — no jump in the dark for us — no 
 clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know 
 how they will wear with us — we take our wives like 
 our horses, upon trial. When we are handfasted, as 
 we term it, we are man and wife for a year and day — 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 129 
 
 that space gone by, each may choose another mate, 
 or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry 
 them for life — and this we call handfasting.' We 
 cannot forbear quoting the passage which follows in 
 the novel, a complete answer, if answer were needed, 
 to the theory of Divorce propounded by Milton. 
 ^ Then, said the preacher, I tell thee, noble Baron, in 
 brotherly love to thy soul, it is a custom licentious, 
 gross, and corrupted, and, if persisted in, dangerous, 
 yea damnable. It binds thee to the frailer being 
 while she is the object of desire — it relieves thee 
 when she is most the subject of pity — it gives all to 
 brutal sense, and nothing to generous and gentle 
 affection. I say to thee, that he who can meditate 
 the breach of such an engagement is worse than the 
 birds of prey. Above all, it is contrary to the pure 
 Christian doctrine, which assigns woman to man as 
 the partner of his labour, the soother of his evil, his 
 helpmate in peril, his friend in affliction ; not as the 
 toy of his looser hours, or as a flower, which, once 
 cropped, he may throw aside at pleasure.' 
 
 The concluding sentence of the Preface is perhaps 
 worth transcribing. " But if we shall obstinately dis- 
 like this new overture of unexpected ease and re- 
 covery, what remains but to deplore the frowardness 
 of our hopeless condition, which neither can endure 
 the estate we are in, nor admit of remedy either 
 sharp or sweet ? Sharp we ourselves distaste ; and 
 
130 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 sweet, under whose hands we are, is scrupled and 
 suspected as too luscious. In such a posture Christ 
 found the Jews, who were neither won with the aus- 
 terity of John the Baptist, and thought it too much 
 licence to follow freely the charming pipe of Him 
 who sounded and proclaimed liberty and relief to all 
 distresses : yet truth in some age or other will find 
 her witness, and shall be justified at last by her own 
 children." 
 
 ^' In God's intention a meet and happy conversa- 
 tion is the chief est and the noblest end of marriage, 
 the prevention of loneliness to the mind and spirit of 
 man. What hinders the solace and peaceful society 
 of the married couple more than the unfitness and 
 defectiveness of an unconjugal mind? This is that 
 desire which God put into Adam in Paradise, the 
 desire and longing to put off an unkindly solitariness, 
 by uniting another body, but not without a fit soul to 
 his, in the cheerful society of wedlock. Which, if it 
 were so needful before the fall, when man was much 
 more perfect in himself, how much more is it needful 
 now against all the sorrows and casualties of this life, 
 to have an intimate and speaking help, a ready and 
 reviving associate in marriage ? W^hereof who misses, 
 by chancing on a mute and spiritless mate, remains 
 more alone than before. But all ingenuous men will 
 see that the dignity and blessing of marriage is placed 
 in the mutual enjoyment of that which the wanting 
 
Milton's prose works. 131 
 
 soul needfully seeks. Hence it is that Plato in his 
 festival discourse brings in Socrates relating what he 
 feigned to have learned from the prophetess Diotima, 
 how Love was the son of Penury, begot of Plenty in 
 the garden of Jupiter. Which divinely sorts with 
 that which in effect Moses tells us, that Love was the 
 son of Loneliness, begot in Paradise by that sociable 
 and helpful aptitude which God implanteth betweefn 
 man and woman toward each other." 
 
 '^ When he shall find himself bound fast to an un- 
 complying discord of nature, or, as it oft happens, to 
 an image of earth and phlegm, with whom he looked 
 to be the co-partner of a sweet and gladsome society, 
 and sees withal that his bondage is now inevitable, he 
 will be ready to mutiny against Divine Providence : 
 and this doubtless is the reason of those lapses, and 
 that melancholy despair, which we see in many 
 wedded persons, though they understand it not, or 
 pretend other causes, because they know no remedy." 
 
 " Marriage is a covenant, the very being whereof 
 consists not in a forced cohabitation, and counterfeit 
 performance of duties, but in unfeigned love and 
 peace : and of matrimonial love, no doubt but that 
 was chiefly meant, which by the ancient sages was 
 thus parabled ; that Love, if he be not twin-born, yet 
 hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros ; 
 whom, while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet 
 with many false and feigning desires, that wander 
 
 k2 
 
132 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 singly up and down in his likeness ; by them in their 
 borrowed garb, Love, though not wholly blind, as 
 poets wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being 
 born an archer aiming, and that eye not the quickest 
 in this dark region here below, which is not Love's 
 proper sphere, partly out of the simplicity and credu- 
 lity which is native to him, often deceived, embraces 
 and consorts him with these obvious and suborned 
 striplings, as if they were his mother's own sons ; for 
 so he thinks them, while they subtilly keep themselves 
 most on his blind side. But after a while, as his 
 manner is, when soaring up into the high tower of his 
 Apoga3um, above the shadow of the earth, he darts 
 out the direct rays of his then most piercing eyesight 
 upon the impostures and trim disguises that were 
 used with him, and discerns that this is not his genu- 
 ine brother, as he imagined ; he has no longer the 
 power to hold fellowship with such a personated 
 mate : for straight his arrows lose their golden heads, 
 and shed their purple feathers, his silken braids un- 
 twine, and slip their knots, and that original and 
 fiery virtue given him by fate all on a sudden goes 
 out, and leaves him undeified and despoiled of all his 
 force ; till finding Anteros at last, he kindles and re- 
 pairs the almost faded ammunition of his deity by the 
 reflection of a co-equal and homogeneal fire. Thus 
 mine author sung it to me : and by the leave of those 
 who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no 
 
Milton's prose works. 1 33 
 
 mere amatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful 
 in these matters, men heretofore of greatest name in 
 virtue have esteemed it one of the highest arcs, that 
 human contemplation circling upwards can make from 
 the globy sea whereon she stands) ; but this is a deep 
 and serious verity, showing us that love in marriage 
 cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual ; and where 
 love cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing 
 but the empty husk of an outside matrimony." 
 
 " As those priests of old were not to be long in 
 sorrow, or if they were, they could not rightly exe- 
 cute their function ; so every true Christian in a 
 higher order of priesthood is a person dedicate to joy 
 and peace, offering himself a lively sacrifice of praise 
 and thanksgiving ; and there is no Christian duty that 
 is not to be seasoned and set off with cheerishness ; 
 which in a thousand outward and intermitting crosses 
 may yet be done well, as in this vale of tears : who 
 sees not therefore how much more Christianity it 
 would be to break by divorce that which is more 
 broken by forcible keeping, rather than ' to cover the 
 altar of the Lord with continual tears, so that He 
 regardeth not the offering any more,' rather than that 
 the whole duty of serving God should be blurred and 
 tainted with a sad unpreparedness and dejection of 
 spirit, wherein God has no delight." 
 
 '' There is a certain scale of duties, there is a cer- 
 tain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which 
 
184 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 for want of studying in right order, all the world is in 
 confusion." 
 
 " The author of Ecclesiasticus, whose wisdom hath 
 set him next the Bible." We quote the next passage 
 for the sake of the word ' assassinated,' used in the 
 sense of ' extremely maltreated,' here and in Samson 
 Agonistes, 
 
 " Such usage as your honourable lords 
 Afford me, assassinated and betrayed." 
 
 " As for the custom that some parents and guardians 
 have of forcing marriages, it will be better to say 
 nothing of such a savage inhumanity, but only thus ; 
 that the law which gives not all freedom of divorce 
 to any creature endued with reason so assassinated, is 
 next in cruelty." 
 
 *^ To banish for ever into a local hell, whether in 
 the air or in the centre, or in that uttermost and 
 bottomless gulf of chaos, deeper from holy bliss than 
 the world's diameter multiplied." This is the germ of 
 the description of the site of hell in the commence- 
 ment of Paradise Lost, 
 
 " Such place eternal justice had prepared 
 For those rebellions ; here their prison ordain'd 
 In utter darkness, and their portion set 
 As far removed from God and light of heaven, 
 As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole." 
 
 Here also is found the germ of the title of that his 
 greatest work, the immortal syllables though trans- 
 posed. 
 
Milton's prose works. 135 
 
 " It will best behove our soberness to follow rather 
 what moral Sinai prescribes equal to our strength, than 
 fondly to think within our strength all that Lost 
 Paradise relates." 
 
 " Last of all, to those whose mind is still to main- 
 tain textual restrictions, I would ever answer by 
 putting them in remembrance of a command above 
 all commands, which they seem to have forgot, and 
 Who spake it ; in comparison whereof this which they 
 so exalt is but a petty and subordinate precept. " Let 
 them go, therefore," and consider well what this lesson 
 means, ^' I will have mercy and not sacrifice :" for on 
 that '' saying all the law and prophets depend ;" much 
 more the gospel, whose end and excellence is mercy 
 and peace. Or if they cannot learn that, how will 
 they hear this ? which yet I shall not doubt to leave 
 with them as a conclusion, that God the Son hath put 
 all other things under His own feet, but His com- 
 mandments He hath left all under the feet of charity." 
 
136 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 THE JUDGMENT OF MARTIN BUCER, 
 CONCERNING DIVORCE. 
 
 IT may be convenient, before we proceed with our 
 Selections from the Treatise on Education, and 
 the Areopagitica, which follow next in chronological 
 order, to pass on to the three parasitical Treatises, 
 which grow out of, and are intimately connected with 
 the elaborate work which has just been before us, 
 namely the Judgment of Martin Bucer, Tetrachordon, 
 and Colasterion, for under such uncouth and repelling 
 titles did Milton put forth his several performances. 
 They were published in the year 1645, the following 
 year to that in which the Doctrine and Discipline of 
 Divorce appeared ; and together they exhaust all that 
 can be said on the subject, and we may ask, What are 
 all these reasonings worth, whereas the words of 
 Christ are plainly against all divorce, " except in case 
 of fornication" ? We believe that no one would care 
 to read more of these Treatises than we have here set 
 down. We light upon few sentences of a venturous 
 edge, uttered in the height of zeal indeed, but not of 
 a zeal according to knowledge, and therefore shall 
 dismiss this part of our subject very quickly. 
 
Milton's prose works. 137 
 
 The first Treatise is said in the title to be '' written 
 to Edward the Sixth, and now Englished ; wherein a 
 late book, restoring the " Doctrine and Discipline of 
 Divorce," is here confirmed and justified by the au- 
 thority of Martin Bucer." It is not our purpose to 
 transcribe any of Bucer s arguments, and we care not 
 any more for his opinion on Divorce than we do for 
 Milton's ; the preface and postscript of the latter are 
 all that we have to do with. 
 
 " Certainly if it be in man's discerning to sever 
 providence from chance, I could allege many instances 
 wherein there would appear cause to esteem of me no 
 other than a passive instrument under some power 
 and counsel higher and better thaD can be human, 
 working to a general good in the whole course of this 
 matter. For that I owe no light or leading received 
 from any man in the discovery of this truth, what 
 time I first undertook it in the " Doctrine and Disci- 
 pline of Divorce," and had only the infallible grounds 
 of scripture to be my guide. He who tries the inmost 
 heart, and saw with what severe industry and exami- 
 nation of myself I set down every period, will be my 
 witness. When I had almost finished the first edition, 
 I chanced to read in the notes of Hugo Grotius upon 
 the fifth of Matthew. Glad, therefore, of such an able 
 assistant, however at much distance, 1 resolved at 
 length to put off into this wild and calumnious world. 
 For God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I 
 
138 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 durst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of 
 disesteem. and found I durst." 
 
 " Thus far Martin Bucer : — others may read him in 
 his own phrase on the First to the Corinthians, and 
 ease me who never could delight in long citations, 
 much less in whole traductions ; whether it be natural 
 disposition or education in me, or that my mother bore 
 me a speaker of what God made mine own, and not a 
 translator." He had epitomized his author, not "giving 
 an inventory of so many words, but weighing their 
 force." 
 
Milton's prose works. 139 
 
 TETRACHORDON : 
 
 EXPOSITIONS UPON THE FOUR CHIEF PLACES IN SCRIPTURE 
 WHICH TREAT OF MARRIAGE, OR NULLITIES IN MARRIAGE. 
 
 ON 
 
 Gen. I. 27, 28, compared and explained by Gen. ii. 18, 23, 24. 
 
 Deut. XXIV. 1, 2. 
 
 Matt. v. 31, 32, with Matt. xix. 3-11. 
 
 1 Cor. VII. 10-16. 
 
 To the Parliament. 
 
 THE immediate cause of his writing this Treatise 
 was the clamour which was raised on the 
 publication of his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce ; 
 and a sermon appears to have been preached before 
 the Lords and Commons on a day of humiliation, in 
 which it was said that ' there was a wicked book 
 abroad' — 'uncensured, and deserving to be burnt;' 
 and ' inpudence ' was charged upon the author, who 
 durst ' set his "name to it and dedicate it to Parliament.' 
 To this Milton replies, but not very forcibly. He seems 
 also to have had recourse to his Muse, and wrote his 
 eleventh and twelfth sonnets, entitled, ''On the De- 
 traction which followed upon my writing certain Trea- 
 tises." The one begins, 
 
140 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 " A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon, 
 
 And woven close, both matter, form, and style ; 
 The subject new : it walk'd the town awhile, 
 Numb'ring good intellects ; now seldom por'd on." 
 
 The rest of this sonnet is poor, as he attempts 
 humour, of which he was utterly destitute ; the other 
 is far more interesting, and we insert it entire, as illus- 
 trative of his unpopularity. 
 
 " I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs 
 By the known rules of ancient liberty, 
 When straight a barbarous noise environs me 
 Of owls, and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs : 
 
 As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs 
 Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny, 
 Which after held the sun and moon in fee. 
 But this is got by casting pearls to hogs ; 
 
 That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood. 
 And still revolt when truth would set them free. 
 Licence they mean when they cry Liberty ; 
 
 For who loves that, must first be wise and good ; 
 But from that mark how far they rove we see. 
 For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood." 
 
 Gen. I, 27, 28. 
 
 ^' It is enough determined, that this image of God, 
 wherein man was created, is meant wisdom, purity, 
 justice, and rule over all creatures. All which, being 
 lost in Adam, was recovered with gain by the merits 
 of Christ." 
 
 " Man, the portraiture of God." 
 
 " Had the image of God been equally common to 
 them both, it had no doubt been said, " In the image 
 of God created He them." But St. Paul ends the 
 controversy by explaining that the woman is not 
 
Milton's prose works. 141 
 
 primarily and immediately the image of God, but in 
 reference to the man : " The head of the woman," saith 
 he, 1 Cor. xi., " is the man" ; he the image and glory 
 of God, she the glory of the man ; he not for her, but 
 she for him. Therefore his precept is, " Wives, be 
 subject to your husbands, as is fit in the Lord," Col. iii., 
 18; "in everything," Eph. v., 24. Nevertheless man 
 is not to hold her as a servant, but receives her into 
 a part of that empire which God proclaims him to, 
 though not equally, yet largely, as his own image and 
 glory : for it is no small glory to him, that a creature 
 so like him should be made subject to him. Not but 
 that particular exceptions may have place, if she ex- 
 ceed her husband in prudence and dexterity, and he 
 contentedly yield : for then a superior and more natu- 
 ral law comes in, that the wiser should govern the less 
 wise, whether male or female." 
 
 '^ Moreover, if man be the image of God, which 
 consists in holiness, and woman ought in the same 
 respect to be the image and companion of man, in 
 such wise to be loved -as the church is beloved of 
 Christ ; and if, as God is the head of Christ, and 
 Christ the head of man, so man is the head of woman; 
 I cannot see, by this golden dependence of headship 
 and subjection, but that piety and religion is the main 
 tie of Christian matrimony." 
 
 Gen. II. 18, 23, 24. 
 " Hitherto all things that have been named were 
 
142 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 approved of God to be very good : loneliness is the 
 first thing which God's eye named not good. And 
 here "alone" is meant alone without woman; other- 
 wise Adam had the company of God himself, and 
 angels to converse with ; all creatures to delight him 
 seriously, or to make him sport. God could have 
 created him out of the same mould a thousand friends 
 and brother Adams to have been his consorts ; yet for 
 all this, till Eve was given him, God reckoned him to 
 be alone." 
 
 " Austin contests that manly friendship had been a 
 more becoming solace for Adam, than to spend so 
 many secret years in an empty w^orld with one woman. 
 But our writers deservedly reject this crabbed opinion; 
 and defend that there is a peculiar comfort in the 
 married state, which no other society affords. No 
 mortal nature can endure, either in the actions of re- 
 ligion, or study of wisdom, without sometime slacken- 
 ing the cords of intense thought and labour, which, 
 lest we should think faulty, God Himself conceals us 
 not his own recreations before the world was built : 
 " I was," saith the Eternal Wisdom, " daily his delight, 
 playing always before Him." And to Him, indeed, 
 wisdom is as a high tower of pleasure, but to us a steep 
 hill, and we toiling ever about the bottom. He exe- 
 cutes with ease the exploits of His omnipotence, as 
 easy as with us it is to will, but no worthy enterprise 
 can be done by us without continual plodding and 
 
Milton's prose works. 143 
 
 wearisomeuess to our faint and sensitive abilities. We 
 cannot, therefore, always be contemplative, or prag- 
 matical" (busy, we only employ the word in an ill 
 sense) " abroad, but have need of some delightful 
 intermissions, wherein the enlarged soul may leave off 
 awhile her severe schooling, and like a glad youth in 
 wandering vacancy, may keep her holidays to joy and 
 harmless pastime ; which as she cannot well do with- 
 out company, so in no company so well as where the 
 different sex in most resembling unlikeness, and most 
 unlike resemblance, cannot but please best, and be 
 pleased in the aptitude of that variety." 
 
 " Here the heavenly in stitutor contents not Himself 
 to say, I will make him a wife ; but resolving to give 
 us first the meaning before the name of a wife, saith, 
 graciously, " I will make him a help-meet for him." 
 The original is more expressive than other languages 
 word for word can render it ; but all agree effectual 
 conformity of disposition and affection to be hereby 
 signified; which God, as it were, not satisfied with 
 the naming of a help, goes on describing another self, 
 a second self, a very self itself." 
 
 " That there was a nearer alliance between Adam 
 and Eve than could be ever after between man and 
 wife, is visible to any. For no other woman was ever 
 moulded out of her husband's rib, but of mere stran- 
 gers for the most part they come to have that con- 
 sanguinity which they have by wedlock. And if we 
 
144 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 look nearly upon the matter, though marriage be 
 most agreeable to holiness, to purity, and justice, yet 
 is not a natural, but a civil and ordained relation. 
 For if it were in nature, no law or crime could dis- 
 annul it, to make a wife or husband otherwise than 
 still a wife or husband, but only death ; as nothing 
 but that can make a father no father, or a son no 
 son. — Adam spake like Adam the words of flesh and 
 bones, the shell and rind of matrimony ; but God 
 spake like God, of love, and solace, and meet help, 
 the soul both of Adam's words and of matrimony." 
 
 We find nothing worthy of Milton in the remainder 
 of this tedious and heavy Treatise, which may de- 
 servedly be consigned to oblivion ; as also may the 
 next, entitled Colasterion, which means a scourge or 
 instrument of chastisement ; a favourite title at this 
 period ; thus we have Burton's Flagellum Pontificis et 
 Episcoporum Latialium, and the celebrated Histrio- 
 mastix of William Prynne, who was sentenced to a 
 fine of £5,000, and imprisonment for life, by the Star- 
 chamber, in 1634, for an alleged libel on the Queen 
 in the said book. It was he, who again in 1637, con- 
 demned to have his ears cut off in the pillory (for 
 they had been sewn on in prison), and to be branded 
 on both cheeks, with the letters S. L. — Seditious 
 Libeller, cried out to the executioner, ' Cut me, tear 
 me : I fear thee not : I fear the fire of hell.' 
 
Milton's prose works. 145 
 
 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 OUR author is a wholesale root-and-branch Re- 
 former ; he would reform everything, church, 
 government, marriage, and now education; but all 
 his systems and schemes happily proved abortive, 
 visionary, vague, and vain. Instead of our public 
 schools and universities, against which he seems to 
 have been deeply prejudiced, he would have in every 
 city '' a spacious house and ground about it fit for an 
 academy, which should be at once both school and 
 university, and big enough to lodge a hundred and 
 fifty persons." He objects to " forcing the empty wits 
 of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, 
 which are the acts of ripest judgment, and not matters 
 to be wrung from poor striplings like the plucking of 
 untimely fruit." Vacations are to be abolished, but 
 he lays down rules for exercise and diet as well as 
 study. We cannot sum up this absurd and impracti- 
 cable scheme of " the reforming of education " better 
 than in the sarcastic words of a Quarterly Reviewer. 
 ^ Here will every stripling, by the time he is one and 
 twenty, have read more Latin and Greek authors 
 than, perhaps, the most veteran scholar in these de- 
 
 L 
 
146 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 generate days : he will besides have mastered the 
 Italian, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, and Syrian at " odd 
 hours." He will have made himself, in his school- 
 room and playground, a complete farmer, architect, 
 engineer, sportsman, apothecary, anatomist, law-giver, 
 philosopher, general officer of cavalry, skilled in " em- 
 battling, marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging, 
 and battering," equal to the command of an army, 
 the moment he has escaped from the rod ; and thus 
 will he prove himself, "in a dangerous fit of the 
 commonwealth, no poor, shaken, uncertain reed, of 
 such a tottering conscience as many great counsellors 
 show themselves, but a stedfast pillar of the state." 
 This is hardly an exaggeration, and Milton himself 
 seems not to have had much faith in the very scheme 
 he propounds, for in conclusion he says, " Only I 
 believe that this is not a bow for every man to shoot 
 in, that counts himself a teacher; but will require 
 sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave 
 Ulysses." One or two sentences are all that are worth 
 selecting. 
 
 " The end of learning is to repair the ruin of our first 
 parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that 
 knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him, 
 as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true 
 virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of 
 faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because 
 our understanding cannot in this body found itself but 
 
Milton's prose works. 147 
 
 on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the know- 
 ledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly 
 conning over the visible and inferior creature, the 
 same method is necessarily to be followed in all 
 discreet teaching. Language is but the instrument 
 conveying to us things useful to be known. And 
 though a linguist should pride himself to have all the 
 tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have 
 not studied the solid things in them, as well as the 
 words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be 
 esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman competently 
 wise in his mother dialect only." 
 
 He would allow an hour and a half, ere they ate, at 
 noon for exercise, and due rest afterwards. The ex- 
 ercise he commends is the exact use of their weapon, 
 and practice in wrestling, '' wherein Englishmen were 
 wont to excel." 
 
 " The interim of unsweating themselves regularly, 
 and convenient rest before meat, may, both with profit 
 and delight, be taken up in recreating and composing 
 their travailed spirits with the solemn and divine har- 
 monies of music, heard or learned ; either whilst the 
 skilful organist plies his grave and fancied descant in 
 lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful 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 
 
 l2 
 
148 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 wise men and prophets be not extremely out, have a 
 great power over dispositions and manners, to smooth 
 and make them gentle from rustic harshness and dis- 
 tempered passions. The like also would not be inex- 
 pedient after meat, to assist and cherish nature in her 
 first concoction, and send their minds back to study 
 in good time and satisfaction. Where having followed 
 it close under vigilant eyes, till about two hours before 
 supper, they are, by a sudden alarum or watchword, 
 to be called out to their military motions, under sky 
 or covert, according to the season, as was the Roman 
 wont ; first on foot, then, as their age permits, on 
 horseback, to all the arts of cavalry. Besides these 
 constant exercises at home, there is another oppor- 
 tunity of gaining experience to be won from pleasure 
 itself abroad ; in those vernal seasons of the year 
 when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury 
 and sullenness against nature, not to go out and see 
 her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven 
 and earth. I should not, therefore, be a persuader to 
 them of studying much then, after two or three years 
 that they have well laid their grounds, but to ride out 
 in companies, with prudent and staid guides, to all the 
 quarters of the land : learning and observing all places 
 of strength, all commodities of building and of soil, 
 for towns and tillage, harbours and ports for trade. 
 Sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn 
 there also what they can in the practical knowledge of 
 saiHng and of sea-fight." 
 
Milton's prose works. 149 
 
 AREOPAGITICA. 
 
 A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLIGENCED PRINTING. 
 
 To the Parliament of England, 
 
 WE have now arrived at Milton's masterpiece in 
 prose-composition, the Areopagitica, so named 
 after the Areopagiticus of " that old man eloquent," 
 Isocrates, which towers aloft above the rest, as much 
 as Comus does above his minor poems, and Paradise 
 Lost above all his works, poetical or prose. The 
 elder Disraeli characterises it as * an unparalleled ef- 
 fusion.' It is a work of love and inspiration, breathing 
 the most enlarged spirit of literature ; separating, at 
 an awful distance from the multitude, that character 
 ''who was born to study and to love learning for 
 itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but perhaps for 
 that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which God 
 and good men have consented shall be the reward of 
 those whose published labours advance the good of 
 mankind." Macaulay speaks of its ' sublime wisdom' ; 
 and, indeed, it deserves to be the manual and model 
 of the statesman ; ' which every statesman,' to quote 
 the glowing words of that great writer, ' should wear 
 
150 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 as a sign upon his hand, and as frontlets between his 
 eyes.' 
 
 Our author nowhere shows higher rhetorical skill 
 than in the manner in which he conducts his argu- 
 ment. He does not rush in medias res at once, but 
 cautiously and circuitously approaches his subject with 
 much tact and delicacy. His mildness and modesty 
 at the beginning of this admirable and noble speech 
 are as conspicuous as his boldness and vehemence 
 when he is once fairly launched on the current of his 
 eloquence. Then he carries all before him, warming 
 as he advances with his theme, and pouring forth 
 * those vivid, inspiring,' and inspired 'flashes of elo- 
 quence which find their way to the very heart and 
 root of all our noblest sympathies. Nothing can be 
 more replete with grandeur than that creative, life- 
 infusing spirit, which breathes through the whole, 
 kindhng up an intense love of the good and the 
 beautiful; and awakening in every breast a devout 
 admiration for those possessors of virtue and genius 
 commissioned by heaven to reveal to us how much of 
 the great and God-like there is in man.' He com- 
 mences with a moderate yet manly and telling en- 
 comium on the parliament. The very fact of his 
 making this speech proves that his country is free. 
 He regards it as a certain testimony and trophy of 
 freedom, and insinuates how desirable and beneficial 
 it would be, both to literature and the country at large, 
 
Milton's prose works. 151 
 
 to call in one of their published orders which he hints 
 at, but does not yet name. Thus they would deserve 
 and win the praise and gratitude of all men. They 
 would further be imitating ^Hhe old and elegant 
 humanity of Greece." Isocrates and others had done 
 what he was now doing. From his private house. 
 " that old man eloquent," whom " that dishonest vic- 
 tory at Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, killed with report," 
 wrote his Areopagitic discourse to the parliament of 
 Athens, and boldly advised them to abandon that 
 form of democracy which was then established. Such 
 an honour he now seeks at their hands, and appealing 
 to their love of truth, uprightness of judgment, pru- 
 dent spirit, and meek demeanour, he at length pre- 
 sents them with a fit instance wherein to show their 
 superiority, even to the polished Athenians, by re- 
 scinding their late order, and according to the nation 
 the liberty of unlicenced printing. He then orderly 
 arranges the several heads of his own incomparable 
 Areopagitic discourse, and the torrent of his eloquence 
 bursts forth with inimitable grandeur and magnifi- 
 cence. We will, as we promised, ' follow the stream 
 in the great original.' 
 
 Before, however, we do this, it may be interesting 
 to quote from Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, his 
 remarks on the literary fate of Milton in this respect. 
 ^ His genius was castrated alike by the monarchical and 
 republican government. The royal licenser expunged 
 
152 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 several passages from Milton's history, in which Milton 
 had painted the superstition, the pride, and the cun- 
 ning of the Saxon monks, which the sagacious Licenser 
 applied to Charles II. and the bishops ; but Milton 
 had before suffered as merciless a mutilation from his 
 old friends the republicans, who suppressed a bold 
 picture, taken from life, which he had introduced into 
 his History of the Long Parliament and Assembly of 
 Divines. Milton gave the unlicensed passages to the 
 Earl of Anglesey, the editor of Whitelock's Memorials. 
 It is a quarto tract, entitled, ' Mr. John Milton's 
 Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of 
 Divines in 1641 ; omitted in his other works, and 
 never before printed, and very seasonable for these 
 times — 1681.' It is inserted in the uncastrated edition 
 of Milton's prose works in 1738. (Dr. Birch's edition.) 
 It is a retort on the Presbyterian Clement "Walker's 
 History of the Independents ; and Warburton, in his 
 admirable characters of the historians of this period, 
 alluding to Clement Walker, says, ^ Milton was even 
 with him in the fine and severe character he draws of 
 the Presbyterian administration.' 
 
 The ignorance and stupidity of these censors were 
 often, indeed, as remarkable as their exterminating 
 spirit. The noble simile of Milton, of Satan with the 
 rising sun, in the first book of the Paradise Lost, had 
 nearly occasioned the suppression of our national 
 epic : it was supposed to contain a treasonable allusion. 
 
Milton's prose works. 153 
 
 " as when the sun, new risen, 
 Looks through the horizontal misty air 
 Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon. 
 In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
 On half the nations, and with fear of change 
 Perplexes monarchs." 
 
 This office seems to have lain dormant a short 
 time under Cromwell, from the scruples of a con- 
 scientious licenser, who desired the council of state in 
 1649, for reasons given, to be discharged from that 
 employment. This Mabot, the licenser, was evidently 
 deeply touched by Milton's address for "the Liberty 
 of unlicensed Printing." The office was, however, 
 revived on the restoration of Charles II. ; and through 
 the reign of James II. the abuses of licensers were 
 unquestionably not discouraged; for in reprinting 
 Gage's ^ Survey of the West Indies,' the twenty-second 
 chapter being obnoxious for containing particulars of 
 the artifices of "the papalins," so Milton calls the 
 Papists, in converting the author, was entirely chopped 
 away by the licenser's hatchet. The castrated chapter, 
 as usual, was preserved afterwards separately. Lite- 
 rary despotism at least is short-sighted in its views, 
 for the expedients it employs are certain of overturn- 
 ing themselves. At the revolution in England, licences 
 for the press ceased ; but its liberty did not commence 
 till 1694, when every restraint was taken off by the 
 firm and decisive tone of the commons.' 
 
 As it will tend materially to the elucidation of the 
 great speech before us, we will venture to quote 
 
154 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 further from the valuable observations of Isaac Dis- 
 raeli on Licensers of the Press. 
 
 ^ In the history of literature, and perhaps in 
 that of the human mind, the institution of the 
 Licensers of the Press, and Censors of Books, 
 was a bold invention, designed to counteract that of 
 the Press itself; and even to convert this newly-dis- 
 covered instrument of freedom into one which might 
 serve to perpetuate that system of passive obedience, 
 which had so long enabled modern Rome to dictate 
 her laws to the universe. It was thought possible in 
 the subtilty of Italian astuzia and Spanish monachism, 
 to place a sentinel on the very thoughts, as well as on 
 the persons of authors ; and in extreme cases, that 
 books might be condemned to the flames, as well as 
 heretics. 
 
 ' Of this institution, the beginnings are obscure, for 
 it originated in caution and fear ; but as the work 
 betrays the workman, and the national physiognomy 
 the native, it is evident that so inquisitorial an act 
 could only have originated in the inquisition itself 
 Feeble or partial attempts might previously have 
 existed, for we learn that the monks had a part of 
 their libraries called the inferno^ which was not the 
 part which they least visited, for it contained all the 
 prohibited books which they could smuggle into it. 
 But this inquisitorial power assumed its most formid- 
 able shape in the Council of Trent, when Pius IV. was 
 
Milton's prose works. 155 
 
 presented with a catalogue of condemned books. His 
 bull not only confirmed this list, but added rules how 
 books should be judged. Subsequent popes enlarged 
 these catalogues and rules. Inquisitors of books were 
 appointed ; at Rome they consisted of certain cardi- 
 nals, and " the master of the holy palace." These 
 catalogues were called Indexes. The simple Index is 
 a list of condemned books never to be opened ; but 
 the Expurgaiory Index indicates those only prohibited 
 till they have undergone a purification. No book was 
 to be allowed on any subject, or in any language, 
 which contained a single position, an ambiguous sen- 
 tence, even a word, which, in the most distant sense, 
 could be construed opposite to the doctrines of the 
 supreme authority of this Council of Trent. 
 
 'The results of these indexes were somewhat curious. 
 As they were formed in different countries, the opinions 
 were often diametrically opposite to each other. Men 
 who began by insisting that all the world should 
 not differ from their opinions, ended by not agreeing 
 with themselves. A civil war raged among the Index- 
 makers ; and if one criminated, the other retaliated. 
 The expurgatory Indexes excited louder complaints ; 
 because the purgers and castrators as they were 
 termed, or, as Milton calls them, " the executioners of 
 books," by omitting, or interpolating passages, made 
 an author say, or unsay, what the inquisitors chose. 
 The whole process of these expurgatory Indexes that 
 
156 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 "rakes through the entrails of many an old good 
 author, with a violation worse than any could be 
 offered to his tomb," as Milton says, must inevitably 
 draw oif the life blood, and leave an author a mere 
 spectre ! A book in Spain and Portugal passes 
 through six or seven courts before it can be pub- 
 lished, and is supposed to recommend itself by the 
 information, that it is published with all the necessary 
 privileges. One case is said to have occupied them 
 during forty years. 
 
 * When the insertions in the Index were found of no 
 other use than to bring the peccant volumes under 
 the eyes of the curious, they employed the secular 
 arm in burning them in public places. They had yet 
 to learn that burning was not confuting, and that 
 these literary conflagrations were an advertisement by 
 proclamation. The publisher of Erasmus's Colloquies in- 
 trigued to procure the burning of his book, which raised 
 the sale to twenty-four thousand! In the reign of Henry 
 VIII. we seem to have burnt books on both sides ; it 
 was an age of unsettled opinions ; in Edward's the 
 Catholic works were burnt ; and Mary had her pyra- 
 mids of Protestant volumes ; in Elizabeth's, political 
 pamphlets fed the flames ; and libels in the reign of 
 James I. and his sons. 
 
 * France cannot exactly fix on the asra of her 
 Censeurs de Livres ; and we ourselves, who gave it 
 its death-blow, found the custom prevail without any 
 
Milton's prose works. 157 
 
 authority from our statutes. The laws of England 
 have never violated the freedom and the dignity of 
 its press. Proclamations were occasionally issued 
 against authors and books ; and foreign works were, 
 at times, prohibited. Elizabeth, as despotic in deeds 
 as the pacific James was in words ^ condemned one 
 author to have the hand cutoff which wrote his book; 
 and she hanged another. The regular establishment 
 of licensers of the press appeared under Charles I. 
 It must be placed among the projects of Laud, and 
 the king, I suspect, inclined to it. The presbyterian 
 party in parliament who thus found the press closed 
 on them, vehemently cried out for its freedom ; and 
 it was imagined, that when they had ascended into 
 power, the odious office of a licenser of the press 
 would have been abolished ; but these pretended 
 friends of freedom, on the contrary, discovered them- 
 selves as tenderly alive to the office as the old govern- 
 ment, and maintained it with the extremest vigour. 
 Such is the political history of mankind.' 
 
 This last observation of Disraeli will account for the 
 otherwise strange fact that this noble work of Milton's, 
 to which we now proceed, had little or no effect 
 upon the Presbyterians, if perhaps we except the case 
 of Mabot. 
 
158 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 AREOPAGITICA. 
 
 " rflHEY, who to states and governors of the com- 
 JL monwealth direct their speech, high court of 
 parliament ! or wanting such access in a private con- 
 dition, write that which they foresee may advance the 
 public good ; I suppose them, as at the beginning of 
 no mean endeavour, not a little altered and moved 
 inwardly in their minds ; some with doubt of what 
 will be the success, others with fear of what will be the 
 censure; some with hope, others with confidence of 
 what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of 
 these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I en- 
 tered, may have at other times variously affected; 
 and likely might in these foremost expressions now 
 also disclose which of them swayed most, but that the 
 very attempt of this address thus made, and the 
 thought of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the 
 power within me to a passion, far more welcome than 
 incidental to a preface. 
 
 " Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, 
 I shall be blameless, if it be no other than the joy and 
 gratulation which it brings to all who wish to promote 
 their country's liberty ; whereof this whole discourse 
 
Milton's prose works. 159 
 
 proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a trophy. 
 For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no 
 grievance ever should rise in the commonwealth : that 
 let no man in this world expect ; but when complaints 
 are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily 
 reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty 
 obtained that wise men look for. To which if I now 
 manifest by the very sound of this which I shall 
 utter, that we are already in good part arrived, and 
 yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and 
 superstition grounded into our principles, as was 
 beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be 
 attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance 
 of God, our deliverer ; next, to your faithful guidance 
 and undaunted wisdom, lords and commons of Eng- 
 land I Neither is it in God's esteem, the diminution 
 of His glory, when honourable things are spoken of 
 good men, and worthy magistrates ; which if I now 
 first should begin to do, after so fair a progress of 
 your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon 
 the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might 
 be justly reckoned among the tardiest and the un- 
 willingest of them that praise ye. 
 
 "Nevertheless there being three principal things, 
 without which all praising is but courtship and flat- 
 tery : first, when that only is praised which is solidly 
 worth praise ; next, when greatest likelihoods are 
 brought, that such things are truly and really in those 
 
160 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 persons to whom they are ascribed ; the other, when 
 he who praises, by showing that such his actual per- 
 suasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that 
 he flatters not ; the former two of these I have here- 
 tofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from 
 him who went about to impair your merits with a 
 trivial and malignant encomium ; the latter as belong- 
 ing chiefly to my own acquittal, that whom I so ex- 
 tolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved oppor- 
 tunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies 
 what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare 
 as freely what might be done better, gives ye the 
 best covenant of his fidelity ; and that his loyalest 
 affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. 
 His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest 
 advice is a kind of praising ; for though I should 
 affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better 
 with truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if 
 one of your published orders, which I should name, 
 were called in ; yet at the same time it could not but 
 much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal 
 government, when as private persons are hereby ani- 
 mated to think ye better pleased with public advice 
 than other statists have been delighted heretofore 
 with public flattery. And men will then see what 
 difference there is between the magnanimity of a 
 triennial parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of 
 prelates and cabin counsellors that usurped of late, 
 
Milton's prose works. 161 
 
 whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your 
 victories and successes more gently brooking written 
 exceptions against a voted order, than other courts, 
 which had produced nothing worth memory but the 
 weak ostentation of wealth, would have endured the 
 least signified dislike at any sudden proclamation. 
 
 " If I should thus far presume upon the meek de- 
 meanour of your civil and gentle greatness, lords and 
 commons ! as what your published order hath directly 
 said, that to gainsay, I might defend myself with ease, 
 if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did 
 they but know how much better I find ye esteem it 
 to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, 
 than the barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian 
 stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose polite 
 wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths 
 and Jutlanders, I could name him who from his pri- 
 vate house wrote that discourse to the parliament of 
 Athens, that persuades them to change the form of 
 democracy which was then established. Such honour 
 was done in those days to men who professed the 
 study of wisdom and eloquence, not only in their own 
 country, but in other lands, that cities and signiories 
 heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they 
 had aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did 
 Dion Prusseus, a stranger and a private orator, coun- 
 sel the Rhodians against a former edict ; and I abound 
 with other like examples, which to set here would be 
 
 M 
 
162 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 superfluous. But if from the industry of a life wholly 
 dedicated to studious labours, and those natural en- 
 dowments haply not the worst for two and fifty de- 
 grees of northern latitude, so much must be derogat- 
 ed, as to count me not equal to any of those who had 
 this privilege, I would obtain to be thought not so in- 
 ferior, as yourselves are superior to the most of them 
 who received their counsel ; and how far you excel 
 them, be assured, lords and commons ! there can no 
 greater testimony appear, than when your prudent 
 spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason, 
 from what quarter soever it be heard speaking, and 
 renders ye as willing to repeal any act of your own 
 setting forth as any set forth by your predecessors. 
 
 ^' If ye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think 
 ye were not, I know not what should withhold me 
 from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to show 
 both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, 
 and that uprightness of your judgment which is not 
 wont to be partial to yourselves ; by judging over again 
 that order which ye have ordained " to regulate 
 printing : that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be 
 henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved 
 and licensed by such, or at least one of such, as shall 
 be thereto appointed." For that part which preserves 
 justly every man's copy to himself, or provides for 
 the poor, I touch not ; only wish they be not made 
 pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful 
 
Milton's prose works. 163 
 
 men, who oiFend not in either of these particulars. 
 Bat that other clause of licensing books which we 
 thought had died with his brother quadragesimal and 
 matrimonial when the prelates expired, I shall now 
 attend with such a homily, as shall lay before ye, 
 first, the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be 
 loath to own ; next, what is to be thought in general 
 of reading, whatever sort the books be ; and that this 
 order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous, 
 seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly in- 
 tended to be suppressed ; last, that it will be primely 
 to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of 
 truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our 
 abilities, in what we know already, but by hindering 
 and cropping the discovery that might be yet further 
 made, both in religious and civil wisdom. 
 
 " I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment 
 in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant 
 eye how^ books demean themselves, as well as men ; 
 and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest 
 justice on them as malefactors ; for books are not ab- 
 solutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life 
 in them to be as active as that soul was whose pro- 
 geny they are ; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the 
 purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect 
 that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as 
 vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's 
 teeth : and being sown up and down, may chance to 
 
 m2 
 
164 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, 
 unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as 
 kill a good book : who kills a man kills a reasonable crea- 
 ture, God's image ; but he who destroys a good book 
 kills reason itself — kills the image of God, as it were, 
 in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth, 
 but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master 
 spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
 life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a life, 
 whereof, perhaps, there is no great loss ; and revolu- 
 tions of ages- do not oft recover the loss of a rejected 
 truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the 
 worse. We should be wary, therefore, what perse- 
 cution we raise against the living labours of public 
 men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved 
 and stored up in books ; since we see a kind of homi- 
 cide maybe thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom ; 
 and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of 
 massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slay- 
 ing of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal 
 and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself ; slays an 
 immortality rather than a life. But lest I should be 
 condemned of introducing licence, while I oppose 
 licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much histori- 
 cal, as will serve to show what hath been done by an- 
 cient and famous commonwealths, against this disor- 
 der, till the very time that this project of licensing 
 crept out of the inquisition, was catched up by our 
 
Milton's prose works. 165 
 
 prelates, and hath caught some of our presbyters. 
 " In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier 
 than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two 
 sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take 
 notice of; those either blasphemous and atheistical, or 
 libellous. Thus the books of Protagoras were by the 
 judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and him- 
 self banished the territory for a discourse, begun with 
 his confessing not to know " whether there were gods, 
 or whether not." And against defaming, it was agreed 
 that none should be traduced by name, as was the 
 manner of Vetus Comoedia, whereby we may guess 
 how they .censured libelling; and this course was 
 quick enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the 
 desperate wits of other atheists, and the open way of 
 defaming, as the event showed. Of other sects and 
 opinions, though tending to voluptuousness, and the 
 denying of divine Providence, they took no heed. 
 Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus, or 
 that libertine school of Cyrene, or what the Cynic 
 impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. 
 Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old 
 comedians were suppressed, though the acting of them 
 were forbid ; and that Plato commended the reading 
 of Aristophanes, the loosest of them all, to his royal 
 scholar, Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be 
 excused, if holy Chrysostom, as is reported, nightly 
 studied so much the same author, and had the art to 
 
166 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a 
 rousing sermon. 
 
 " That other leading city of Greece, Lacedsemon, 
 considering that Lycurgus, their lawgiver, was so ad- 
 dicted to elegant learning as to have been the first 
 that brought out of Ionia the scattered works of 
 Homer, and sent the poet Thaletas from Crete, to 
 prepare and mollify the Spartan surliness with his 
 smooth songs and odes, the better to plant among 
 them law and civility; it is to be wondered how 
 museless and unbookish they were, minding nought 
 but the feats of war. There needed no licensing of 
 books among them, for they disliked all but their own 
 laconic apophthegms, and took a slight occasion to 
 chase Archilochus out of their city, perhaps for com- 
 posing in a higher strain than their own soldiery bal- 
 lads and roundels could reach to ; or if it were for 
 his broad verses, they were not therein so cautious, 
 but they were as dissolute in their promiscuous con- 
 versing ; whence Euripides affirms, in Andromache, 
 that their women were all unchaste. 
 
 ** This much may give us light after what sort of 
 books were prohibited among the Greeks. The 
 Romans, also, for many ages trained up only to a 
 military roughness, resembling most the Lacedae- 
 monian guise, knew of learning little but what their 
 twelve tables and the pontific college with their 
 augurs and flamens taught them in religion and law ; 
 
Milton's prose works. 167 
 
 so unacquainted with other learning, that when Car- 
 neades and Critolaus, with the Stoic Diogenes, coming 
 ambassadors to Rome, took thereby occasion to give 
 the city a taste of their philosophy, they were sus- 
 pected for seducers by no less a man than Cato the 
 Censor, who moved it in the senate to dismiss them 
 speedily, and to banish all such Attic babblers out of 
 Italy. But Scipio and others of the noblest senators 
 withstood him and his old Sabine austerity; honoured 
 and admired the men ; and the Censor himself at last, 
 in his old age, fell to the study of that whereof before 
 he was so scrupulous. And yet, at the same time, 
 Neevius and Plautus, the first Latin comedians, had 
 filled the city with all the borrowed scenes of Men- 
 ander and Philemon. Then began to be considered 
 there also what was to be done to libellous books and 
 authors ; for Nsevius was quickl)^ cast into prison for 
 his unbridled pen, and released by the tribunes upon 
 his recantation : we read also that libels were burnt, 
 and the makers punished, by Augustus. 
 
 "The like severity, no doubt, was used, if aught 
 were impiously written against their esteemed gods. 
 Except in these two points, how the world went in 
 books, the magistrate kept no reckoning. And there- 
 fore Lucretius, without impeachment, versifies his 
 Epicurism to Memmius, and had the honour to be set 
 forth the second time by Cicero, so great a father of 
 the commonwealth ; although himself disputes against 
 
168 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 that opinion in his own writings. Nor was the satiri- 
 cal sharpness or naked plainness of Lucilius, or Catul- 
 lus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for 
 matters of state, the story of Titus Livius, though it ex- 
 tolled that part which Pompey held, was not there- 
 fore suppressed by Octavius C^sar, of the other faction. 
 But that Naso was by him banished in his old age, for 
 the wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere covert 
 of state over some secret cause; and besides, the 
 books were neither banished nor called in. From 
 hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the 
 Roman Empire, that we may not marvel, if not so 
 often bad as good books were silenced. I shall there- 
 fore deem to have been large enough, in producing 
 what among the ancients was punishable to write, 
 save only which, all other arguments were free to 
 treat on. 
 
 '' By this time the emperors were become Christians, 
 whose discipline in this point I do not find to have been 
 more severe than what was formerly in practice. The 
 books of those whom they took to be grand heretics 
 were examined, refuted, and condemned in the gene- 
 ral councils ; and not till then were prohibited, or 
 burnt, by authority of the emperor. As for the writ- 
 ings of heathen authors, unless they were plain invec- 
 tives against Christianity, as those of Porphyrins and 
 Proclus, they met with no interdict that can be cited, 
 till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian council, 
 
Milton's prose works. 169 
 
 wherein bishops themselves were forbid to read the 
 books of Gentiles, but heresies they might read; while 
 others long before them, on the contrary, scrupled 
 more the books of heretics than of Gentiles. And 
 that the primitive .councils and bishops were wont 
 only to declare what books were not commendable, 
 passing no further, but leaving it to each one's con- 
 science to read or to lay by, till after the year 800, is 
 observed already by Padre Paolo, the great unmasker 
 of the Trentine Council. After which time the Popes 
 of Rome, engrossing what they pleased of political 
 rule into their own hands, extended their dominion 
 over men's eyes, as they had before over their judg- 
 ments, burning and prohibiting to be read what they 
 fancied not; yet sparing in their censures, and the 
 books not many which they so dealt with ; till Martin 
 tl^ Fifth, by his bull, not only prohibited, but was the 
 first that excommunicated the reading of heretical 
 books ; for about that time WiclifFe and Husse grow- 
 ing terrible, were they who first drove the papal court 
 to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which course Leo 
 the Tenth and his successors followed, until the Coun- 
 cil of Trent and the Spanish inquisition, engendering 
 together, brought forth or perfected those catalogues 
 and expurging indexes, that rake through the entrails 
 of many an old good author with a violation worse 
 than any could be offered to his tomb. 
 
 " Nor did they stay in matters heretical, but any 
 
170 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 subject that was not to their palate, they either con- 
 demned in a prohibition, or had it straight into the 
 new purgatory of an index. To fill up the measure 
 of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain 
 that no book, pamphlet, or paper should be printed 
 (as if St. Peter had bequeathed them the keys of the 
 press also as well as of Paradise) unless it were ap- 
 proved and licensed under the hands of two or three 
 gluttonous friars. For example : — 
 
 " Let the chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this 
 present work be contained aught that may withstand 
 the printing. 
 
 " Vincent Raebata 
 
 *' Vicar of Florence^ 
 
 " I have seen this present work, and find nothing 
 athwart the Catholic faith and good manners ; in wit- 
 ness whereof I have given, &c. 
 
 "NicoLO Cini, 
 
 " Cliancello7' of Florence^ 
 
 "Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed 
 that this present work of Davanzati may be printed. 
 
 *' Vincent Rabbata," &c. 
 
 "It may be printed, July 15. 
 
 " Friar Simon Mompei d' Amelia, 
 
 " Chancellor of the Holy Office in Florence^ 
 
 " Sure they have a concert, if he of the bottomless 
 
Milton's prose works. 171 
 
 pit had not long since broke prison, that this quad- 
 ruple exorcism would bar him down. I fear their 
 next design will be to get into their custody the licens- 
 ing of that which they say Claudius intended, but 
 went not through with. Vouchsafe to see another of 
 their forms, the Roman stamp : — 
 
 " Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend mas- 
 ter of the Holy Palace. 
 
 " Belcastro, Vicegerent 
 
 " Imprimatur, 
 
 " Friar Nicholo Rodolphi, 
 
 " Master of the Holy Palacer 
 
 Sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, 
 dialogue wise, in the piazza of one title-page, compli- 
 menting and ducking each to other with their shaven 
 reverences, whether the author, who stands by in per- 
 plexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to 
 the spunge. These are the pretty responsories, these 
 are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our 
 prelates and their chaplains, with the goodly echo they 
 made ; and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly 
 imprimatur, one from Lambeth-house, another from 
 the west-end of Paul's ; so apishly romanizing, that the 
 word of command was still set down in Latin ; as if 
 the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast 
 no ink without Latin ; or perhaps, as they thought, no 
 vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit 
 
172 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 of an imprimatur : but rather, as I hope, for that our 
 English, the language of men ever famous and fore- 
 most in the achievements of liberty, will not easily 
 find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory pre- 
 sumption Englished. 
 
 " And thus ye have the inventors and the original 
 of book licensing ripped up, and drawn as lineally as 
 any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, 
 from any ancient state, or polity, or church, nor by 
 any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later ; nor 
 from the modern custom of any reformed city or 
 church abroad ; but from the most anti-christian coun- 
 cil, and the most tyrannous inquisition that ever in- 
 quired. Till then books were ever as freely admitted 
 into the world as any other birth ; the issue of the 
 brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb ; 
 no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity of 
 any man's intellectual offspring ; but if it proved a 
 monster, who denies but that it was justly burnt, or 
 sunk into the sea ? But that a book, in worse condi- 
 tion than a peccant soul, should be to stand before a 
 jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo yet in 
 darkness the judgment of Radamanth and his col- 
 leagues, ere it can pass the ferry backward into light, 
 was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity, 
 provoked and troubled at the first entrance of reform- 
 ation, sought out new limboes and new hells wherein 
 they might include our books also within the number 
 
Milton's prose works. 173 
 
 of their damned. And this was the rare morsel so 
 officiously snatched up, and so ill-favourably imitated 
 by our inquisiturient bishops, and the attendant minor- 
 ites, their chaplains. That ye like not now these most 
 certain authors of this licensing order, and that all 
 sinister intention was far distant from your thoughts, 
 when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who 
 know the integrity of your actions, and how ye hon- 
 our truth, will clear ye readily. 
 
 " But some will say, what though the inventors were 
 bad, the thing for all that may be good. It may be 
 so ; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but 
 obvious and easy for any man to light on, and yet 
 best and wisest commonwealths through all ages and 
 occasions have forbore to use it, and falsest seducers 
 and oppressors of men were the first who took it up, 
 and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder 
 the first approach of reformation ; I am of those who 
 believe it will be a harder alchymy than Lullius 
 ever knew, to sublimate any good use out of such 
 an invention. Yet this only is what I request to 
 gain from this reason, that it may be held a dan- 
 gerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves; 
 for the tree that bore it, until I can dissect one by 
 one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, 
 as was propounded, what is to be thought in general 
 of reading books, whatever sort they be, and whether 
 be more the benefit, or the harm that thence proceeds. 
 
174 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 '' Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel, 
 and Paul, who were skilful in all the learning of the 
 Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not 
 probably be without reading their books of all sorts, 
 in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to in- 
 sert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek 
 poets, and one of them a tragedian ; the question was, 
 notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the 
 primitive doctors, but with great odds on that side 
 which affirmed it both lawful and profitable, as was 
 then evidently perceived, when Julian the Apostate, 
 and subtlest enemy of our faith, made a decree, for- 
 biddding Christians the study of heathen learning ; 
 for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, 
 and with our own arts and sciences they overcome us. 
 And indeed the Christians were so put to their shifts 
 by this crafty means, and so much in danger to de- 
 cline into all ignorance, that the two Apollinarii were 
 fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberal 
 sciences out of the Bible, reducing into divers forms 
 of orations, poems, dialogues, even to the calculating 
 of a new Christian grammar. 
 
 '^ But, saith the historian Socrates, the providence 
 of God provided better than the industry of Apolli- 
 narius and his son, by taking away that illiterate law 
 with the life of him who devised it. So great an 
 injury they then held it to be deprived of Hellenic 
 learning; and thought it a persecution more under- 
 
Milton's prose works. 175 
 
 mining, and secretly decaying the church, than the 
 open cruelty of Decius or Diocletian. And perhaps 
 it was with the same politic drift that the devil 
 whipped St. Jerome in a lenten dream, for reading 
 Cicero ; or else it was a phantasm, bred by the fever 
 which had then seized him. For had an angel been 
 his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much 
 on Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading, not 
 the vanity, it had been plainly partial, first, to correct 
 him for grave Cicero, and not for scurril Plautus, 
 whom he confesses to have been reading not long 
 before ; next to correct him only, and let so many 
 more ancient fathers wax old in those pleasant and 
 florid studies, without the lash of such a tutoring ap- 
 parition ; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good 
 use may be made of Margites, a sportful poem, now 
 extant, writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante, 
 an Italian romance much to the same purpose ? 
 
 " But if it be agreed we shall be tried by visions, 
 there is a vision recorded by Eusebius, far ancienter 
 than this tale of Jerome, to the nun Eustochium, and 
 besides, has nothing of a fever in it. Dionysius Alex- 
 andrinus was, about the year 240, a person of great 
 name in the church for piety and learning, who had 
 wont to avail himself nmch against heretics by being 
 conversant in their books ; until a certain presbyter 
 laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he durst 
 venture himself among those defiling volumes. The 
 
176 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 worthy man, loath to give offence, fell into a new 
 debate with himself, what was to be thought ; when 
 suddenly a vision sent from God (it is his own epistle 
 that so avers it) confirmed him in these words : " Read 
 any books whatever come to thy hands, for thou art 
 sufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each 
 matter." To this revelation he assented the sooner, 
 as he confesses, because it was answerable to that of 
 the apostle to the Thessalonians : " Prove all things, 
 hold fast that which is good." 
 
 " And we might have added another remarkable 
 saying of the same author : "To the pure, all things 
 are pure ;" not only meats and drinks, but all kind of 
 knowledge, whether of good or evil ; the knowledge 
 cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will 
 and conscience be not defiled. For books are as 
 meats and viands are ; some of good, some of evil 
 substance ; and yet God in that unapocryphal vision 
 said without exception, " Rise, Peter, kill and eat," 
 leaving the choice to each man's discretion. Whole- 
 some meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or 
 nothing from unwholesome ; and best books to a 
 naughty mind are not unapplicable to occasions of 
 evil. Bad meats will scarcely breed good nourish- 
 ment in the healthiest concoction ; but herein the 
 difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and 
 judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, 
 to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Whereof 
 
Milton's prose works. 177 
 
 what better witness can ye expect I should produce, 
 than one of your own now sitting in Parliament, the 
 chief of learned men reputed in this land, Mr. Selden ; 
 whose volume of natural and national laws proves, 
 not only by great authorities brought together, but by 
 exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically 
 demonstrative, that all opinions, yea, errors, known, 
 read, and collated are of main service and assistance 
 toward the speedy attainment of what is truest. 
 
 " I conceive, therefore, that when God did enlarge 
 the universal diet of man's body (saving ever the rules 
 of temperance). He then also, as before, left arbitrary 
 the dieting and repasting of our minds ; as wherein 
 every mature man might have to exercise his own 
 leading capacity. How great a virtue is temperance, 
 how much of moment through the whole life of man ! 
 Yet God commits the managing so great a trust, 
 without particular law or prescription, wholly to the 
 demeanour of every grown man. And therefore 
 when He Himself tabled the Jews from heaven, that 
 omer, which was every man's daily portion of manna, 
 is computed to have been more than might have well 
 sufficed the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. 
 For those actions which enter into a man, rather than 
 issue out of him, and therefore defile not, God uses 
 not to captivate under a perpetual childhood of pre- 
 scription, but trusts him with the gift of reason to be 
 his own choser ; there were but little work left for 
 
 N 
 
178 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 preacliing, if law and compulsion should grow so fast 
 upon those things which heretofore were governed 
 only by exhortation. Solomon informs us, that much 
 reading is a weariness to the flesh ; but neither he, nor 
 other inspired author, tells us that such or such reading 
 is unlawful ; yet certainly had God thought good 
 to limit us herein, it had been much more expedient 
 to have told us what was unlawful, than what was 
 wearisome. 
 
 " As for the burning of those Ephesian books by 
 St. Paul's converts; it is replied, the books were magic, 
 the Syriac so renders them. It was a private act, a 
 voluntary act, and leaves us to a voluntary imitation : 
 the men in remorse burnt those books which were 
 their own ; the magistrate by this example is not ap- 
 pointed ; these men practised the books, another 
 might perhaps have read them in some sort usefully. 
 Good and evil we know in the field of this world 
 grow up together almost inseparably ; and the know- 
 ledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the 
 knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resem- 
 blances hardly to be discerned, that those confused 
 seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an inces- 
 sant labour to cull out, and sort asunder, were not 
 more intermixed. It was from out the rind of one 
 apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as 
 two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the 
 world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam 
 
MILTON*S PROSE WORKS. 179 
 
 fell into of knowing good and evil ; that is to say, of 
 knowing good by evil. 
 
 " As therefore the state of man now is, what wis- 
 dom can there be to choose, what continence to for- 
 bear, without the knowledge of evil ? He that can 
 apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and 
 seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distin- 
 guish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is 
 the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugi- 
 tive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, 
 that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but 
 slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is 
 to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly 
 we bring not innocence into the world — we bring im- 
 purity much rather ; that which purifies us is trial, 
 and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue, there- 
 fore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation of 
 evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to 
 her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not 
 a pure ; her whiteness is but an excremental white- 
 ness, which was the reason why our sage and serious 
 poet Spencer (whom I dare be known to think a 
 better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas), describing 
 true temperance under the person of Guion, brings 
 him in with his palmer through the cave of Mammon, 
 and the bower of earthly bliss, that he might see and 
 know, and yet abstain. 
 
 " Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice 
 
 n2 
 
180 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 is in this world so necessary to the constituting of hu- 
 man virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirm- 
 ation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less 
 danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity, than 
 by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all 
 manner of reason ? And this is the benefit which 
 may be had of books promiscuously read. But oi 
 the harm that may result hence, three kinds are 
 usually reckoned. First is feared the infection that 
 may spread ; but then, all human learning and con- 
 troversy in religious points must remove out of the 
 world, yea, the Bible itself ; for that ofttimes relates 
 blasphemy not nicely ; it describes the carnal sense of 
 wicked men not elegantly, it brings in holiest men 
 passionately murmuring against Providence through 
 all the arguments of Epicurus : in other great disputes 
 it answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader ; 
 and ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty of his mar- 
 ginal Keri, that Moses and all the prophets cannot 
 persuade him to pronounce the textual Chetiv. For 
 these causes we all know the Bible itself put by the 
 papist into the first rank of prohibited books. The 
 ancientest fathers must be next removed, as Clement 
 of Alexandria, and that Eusebian book of evangelic 
 preparation, transmitting our ears through a hoard of 
 heathenish obscenities to receive the gospel. Who 
 finds not that Irenseus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and 
 others discover more heresies than they well confute. 
 
Milton's prose works. 181 
 
 and that oft for heresy which is the truer opinion ? 
 
 " Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen 
 writers of greatest infection, if it must be thought so, 
 with whom is bound up the life of human learning, 
 that they wrote in an unknown tongue, so long as we 
 are sure those languages are known as well to the 
 worst of men, who are both most able and most dili- 
 gent to instil the poison they suck, first into the courts 
 of princes, acquainting them with the choicest de- 
 lights and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Pe- 
 tronius, whom Nero called his arbiter, the master of 
 his revels ; and that notorious ribald of Arezzo, dread- 
 ed and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name not 
 him, for posterity's sake, whom Henry the Eighth 
 named in merriment his vicar of hell. By which 
 compendious way all the contagion that foreign books 
 can infuse will find a passage to the people far easier 
 and shorter than an Indian voyage, though it could 
 be sailed either by the north of Cataio eastward, or 
 of Canada westward, while our Spanish licensing gags 
 the English press never so severely. 
 
 " But, on the other side, that' infection which is 
 from books of controversy in religion is more doubt- 
 ful and dangerous to the learned than to the ignor- 
 ant ; and yet those books must be permitted untouch- 
 ed by the licenser. It will be hard to instance where 
 any ignorant man hath been ever seduced by any 
 papistical book in English, unless it were commended 
 
182 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 and expounded to him by some of that clergy ; and 
 indeed all such tractates, whether false or true, are as 
 the prophecy of Isaiah was to the eunuch, not to be 
 " understood without a guide." But of our priests 
 and doctors, how many have been corrupted by 
 studying the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonists, and 
 how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the 
 people, our experience is both late and sad. It is not 
 forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was per- 
 verted merely by the perusing of a nameless discourse 
 written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to 
 confute. 
 
 " Seeing therefore that those books, and those in 
 great abundance, which are likeliest to taint both life 
 and doctrine, cannot be suppressed without the fall of 
 learning, and of all ability in disputation, and that 
 these books of either sort are most and soonest catch- 
 ing to the learned (from whom to the common people 
 whatever is heretical or dissolute may quickly be con- 
 veyed), and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt 
 without books a thousand other ways which cannot 
 be stopped, and evil doctrine not with books can pro- 
 pagate, except a teacher guide, which he might also 
 do without writing, and so beyond prohibiting ; I am 
 not unable to unfold how this cautelous enterprise of 
 licensing can be exempted from the number of vain 
 and impossible attempts. And he who were plea- 
 santly disposed could not well avoid to liken it to the 
 
Milton's prose works. 183 
 
 exploit of that gallant man, who thought to pound 
 up the crows by shutting his park gate. 
 
 " Besides another inconvenience, if learned men be 
 the first receivers out of books, and dispreaders both 
 of vice and error, how shall the licensers themselves 
 be confided in, unless we can confer upon them, or 
 they assume to themselves, above all others in the 
 land, the grace of infallibility and uncorruptedness ? 
 And again, if it be true that a wise man, like a good 
 refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, 
 and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, 
 yea, or without a book ; there is no reason that we 
 should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his 
 wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool that 
 which, being restrained, will be no hinderance to his 
 folly. For if there should be so much exactness al^ 
 ways used to keep that from him which is unfit for 
 his reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle 
 not only, but of Solomon, and of our Saviour, not 
 vouchsafe him good precepts, and by consequence not 
 willingly admit him to good books ; as being certain 
 that a wise man will make better use of an idle pam- 
 phlet than a fool will do of sacred Scripture. 
 
 '^ It is next alleged, we must not expose ourselves 
 to temptations without necessity, and next to that, not 
 employ our time in vain things. To both these objec- 
 tions one answer will serve, out of the grounds already 
 laid, that to all men such books are not temptations 
 
184 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 nor vanities ; but useful drugs and materials where- 
 with to temper and compose effective and strong 
 medicines, which man's life cannot want (dispense 
 with). The rest, as children and childish men, who 
 have not the art to qualify and prepare these working 
 minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear ; but hin- 
 dered forcibly they cannot be, by all the licencing 
 that sainted inquisition could ever yet contrive ; which 
 is what I promised to deliver next : that this order of 
 licencing conduces nothing to the end for which it was 
 framed ; and hath almost prevented me by being clear 
 already while thus much hath been explaining. See 
 the ingenuity of truth, who, when she gets a free and 
 willing hand, opens herself faster than the pace of 
 method and discourse can overtake her. It was the 
 task which I began with, to show^ that no nation, or 
 well instituted state, if they valued books at all, did 
 ever use this way of licencing ; and it might be an- 
 swered, that this is a piece of prudence lately dis- 
 covered. 
 
 ^' To which I return, that as it was a thing slight 
 and obvious to think on, so if it had been difficult to 
 to find out, there wanted not among them long since 
 who suggested such a course ; which they not follow- 
 ing, leave us a pattern of their judgment that it was 
 not the not knowing, but the not approving, which 
 was the cause of their not using it. Plato, a man of 
 high authority indeed, but least of all for his Com- 
 
Milton's prose works. 185 
 
 inonwealth, in the book of his laws, which no city 
 ever yet received, fed his fancy with making many 
 edicts to his airy burgomasters, which they who other- 
 wise admire him, wish had been rather buried and ex- 
 cused in the genial cups of an academic night-sitting. 
 By which laws he seems to tolerate no kind of learn- 
 ing, but by unalterable decree, consisting most of prac- 
 tical traditions, to the attainment whereof a library of 
 smaller bulk than his own dialogues would be abun- 
 dant. And there also enacts, that no poet should 
 so much as read to any private man what he had 
 written, until the judges and law-keepers had seen it, 
 and allowed it; but that Plato meant this law pe- 
 culiarly to that commonwealth which he had imagined, 
 and to no other, is evident. Why was he not else a 
 lawgiver to himself, but a transgressor, and to be ex- 
 pelled by his own magistrates, both for the wanton 
 epigrams and dialogues which he made, and his per- 
 petual reading of Sophron Mimus and Aristophanes, 
 books of grossest infamy ; and also for commending 
 the latter of them, though he were the malicious li- 
 beller of his chief friends, to be read by the tyrant 
 Dionysius, who had little need of such trash to spend 
 his time on ? But that he knew this licencing of poems 
 had reference and dependence to many other pro- 
 visoes there set down in his fancied republic, which in 
 this world could have no place ; and so neither he 
 himself, nor any magistrate or city, ever imitated 
 
186 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 that course, which, taken apart from those other col- 
 lateral injunctions, must needs be vain and fruitless. 
 
 " For if they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless 
 their care were equal to regulate all other things of 
 like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endea- 
 vour they knew would be but a fond labour ; to shut 
 and fortify one gate against corruption, and be ne- 
 cessitated to leave others round about wide open. If 
 we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify man- 
 ners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, 
 all that is delightful to man. No music must be 
 heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and 
 doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no ges- 
 ture, motion, or deportment be taught our youth, but 
 what by their allowance shall be thought honest ; for 
 such Plato was provided of It will ask more than 
 the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes, 
 the violins, and the guitars in every house ; they must 
 not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be 
 licensed what they may say. And who shall silence 
 all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in 
 chambers? The windows also, and the balconies, 
 must be thought on; these are shrewd books, with 
 dangerous frontispieces, set to sale : who shall pro- 
 hibit them, shall twenty licensers ? The villages also 
 must have their visitors to inquire what lectures the 
 bagpipe and the rebec reads, even to the ballatry and 
 the gamut of every municipal fiddler ; for these are 
 
Milton's peose works. 187 
 
 the countryman's Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors. 
 
 " Next, what more national corruption, for which 
 England hears ill abroad, than household gluttony? 
 Who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting ? And 
 what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that fre- 
 quent those houses where drunkenness is sold and 
 harboured? Our garments also should be referred 
 to the licensing of some more sober workmaster, to 
 see them cut into a less wanton garb. Who shall 
 regulate all the mixed conversation of our youth, male 
 and female together, as is the fashion of this country ? 
 Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what 
 presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid 
 and separate all idle resort, all evil company ? These 
 tilings will be, and must be : but how they shall be 
 least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the 
 grave and governing wisdom of a state. 
 
 " To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and 
 Utopian politics, which never can be drawn into use, 
 will not mend our condition ; but to ordain wisely as 
 in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath 
 placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato's licensing of 
 books will do this, which necessarily pulls along with 
 it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us 
 all both ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate ; but 
 those unwritten, or at least unconstraining laws of 
 virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which 
 Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of 
 
188 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the commonwealth, the pillars and the sustainers of 
 every written statute ; these they be, which will bear 
 chief sway in such matters as these, when all licensing 
 will be easily eluded. Impunity and remissness for 
 certain are the bane of a commonwealth ; but here 
 the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to 
 bid restraint and punishment, and in what things per- 
 suasion only is to work. If every action which is 
 good or evil in man at ripe years were to be under 
 pittance, prescription, and compulsion, what were 
 virtue but a name, what praise could be then due to 
 well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just or conti- 
 nent ? 
 
 "Many there be that complain of divine Provi- 
 dence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish 
 tongues ! when God gave him reason. He gave him 
 freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing ; he had 
 been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he 
 is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that 
 obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force ; God 
 therefore left him free, set before him a provoking ob- 
 ject ever almost in his eyes ; herein consisted his 
 merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his 
 abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within 
 us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly 
 tempered are the very ingredients of virtue ? They are 
 not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine 
 to remove sin, by removing the matter of sin ; for, be- 
 
Milton's prose works. 189 
 
 sides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very- 
 act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a 
 time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from 
 all, in such a universal thing as books are ; and when 
 this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye 
 take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet 
 one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetous- 
 ness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth 
 into the severest discipline that can be exercised in 
 any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came 
 not thither so : such great care and wisdom is required 
 to the right managing of this point. 
 
 " Suppose we could expel sin by this means ; look 
 how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of 
 virtue : for the matter of them both is the same : re- 
 move that, and ye remove them both alike. This 
 justifies the high providence of God, who, though He 
 commands us temperance, justice, continence, yet 
 pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable 
 things, and gives us minds that can wander beyond 
 all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a 
 vigour contrary to the manner of God and of nature, 
 by abridging or scanting those means, which books 
 freely permitted, are both to the trial of virtue, and 
 the exercise of truth ? 
 
 " It would be better done, to learn that the law 
 must needs be frivolous, which goes to restrain things, 
 uncertainly and yet equally working to good and to 
 
190 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 evil. And were I the chooser, a dram of well-doing 
 should be preferred before many times as much the 
 forcible hindrance of evil doing. For God sure esteems 
 the growth and completing of one virtuous person, 
 more than the restraint of ten vicious. And albeit, 
 whatever thing we hear or see, sitting, walking, travel- 
 ling, or conversing, may be fitly called our book, and 
 is of the same effect that writings are ; yet grant the 
 thing to be prohibited were only books, it appears 
 that this order hitherto is far insufficient to the end 
 which it intends. Do we not see, not once or oftener, 
 but weekly, that continued court libel against the par- 
 liament and city, printed, as the wet sheets can wit- 
 ness, and dispersed among us for all that licensing can 
 do ? Yet this is the prime service a man would think 
 wherein this order should give proof of itself If it 
 were executed, you will say. But certain, if exe- 
 cution be remiss or blindfold now, and in this par- 
 ticular, what will it be hereafter, and in other books ? 
 " If then the order shall not be vain and frustrate, 
 behold a new labour, lords and commons, ye must re- 
 peal and proscribe all scandalous and unlicensed books 
 already printed and divulged ; after ye have drawn 
 them up into a list, that all may know which are con- 
 demned, and which not ; and ordain that no foreign 
 books be delivered out of custody, till they have been 
 read over. This office will require the whole time of 
 not a few overseers, and those no vulgar men. There 
 
Milton's prose works. 191 
 
 be also books which are partly useful and excellent, 
 partly culpable and pernicious ; this work will ask as 
 many more officials, to make expurgations and ex- 
 pun ctions, that the commonwealth of learning be not 
 damnified. In fine, when the multitude of books in- 
 crease upon their hands, he must fain to catalogue all 
 those printers who are found frequently offending, 
 and forbid the importation of their whole suspected 
 typography. In a word, that this your order may be 
 exact, and not deficient, ye must reform it perfectly, 
 according to the model of Trent and Sevil, which I 
 know ye abhor to do. 
 
 *^ Yet though ye should condescend to this, which 
 God forbid, the order still would be but fruitless and 
 defective to that end, whereto ye meant it. If to pre- 
 vent sects and schisms, who is so unread or uncate- 
 chised in story, that hath not heard of many sects re- 
 fusing books as a hinderance, and preserving their 
 doctrine unmixed for many ages, only by unwritten 
 traditions ? The Christian faith (for that was once a 
 schism !) is not unknown to have spread all over Asia, 
 ere any gospel or epistle was seen in writing. If the 
 amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy 
 and Spain, whether those places be one scruple the 
 better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since 
 all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed 
 upon books. 
 
 " Another reason, whereby to make it plain that 
 
192 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 this order will miss the end it seeks, consider by the 
 quality which ought to be in every licenser. It cannot 
 be denied, but that he who is made judge to sit upon 
 the birth or death of books, whether they may be 
 wafted into this world or not, had need to be a man 
 above the common measure, both studious, learned, 
 and judicious ; there may be also no mean mistakes in 
 the censure of what is passable or not ; which is also 
 no mean injury. If he be of such worth as behoves 
 him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing 
 journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his 
 head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen 
 books and pamphlets, oftimes huge volumes. There 
 is no book that is acceptable, unless at certain seasons ; 
 but to be enjoined the reading of that at all times, 
 and in a hand scarce legible, whereof three pages 
 would not down at any time in the fairest print, is an 
 imposition I cannot believe how he that values time, 
 and his own studies, or is but of a sensible nostril, 
 should be able to endure. In this one thing I crave 
 leave of the present licensers to be pardoned for so 
 thinking : who doubtless took this office up, looking on 
 it through their obedience to the parliament, whose 
 command perhaps made all things seem easy and un- 
 laborious to them ; but that this short trial hath 
 wearied them out already, their own expressions and 
 excuses to them who make so many journeys to solicit 
 their license, are testimony enough. Seeing therefore 
 
Milton's prose works. 193 
 
 those, who now possess the employment, by all evi- 
 dent signs wish themselves well rid of it, and that no 
 man of worth, none that is not a plain unthrift of his 
 own hours, is ever likely to succeed them, except he 
 mean to put himself to the salary of a press corrector, 
 we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are 
 to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and 
 remiss, or basely pecuniary. This is what I had to 
 show, wherein this order cannot conduce to that end 
 whereof it bears the intention. 
 
 '' I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to 
 the manifest hurt it causes, in being first the greatest 
 discouragement and affront that can be offered to 
 learning and to learned men. It was the complaint 
 and lamentation of prelates, upon every least breath of 
 a motion to remove pluralities, and to distribute more 
 equally church revenues, that then all learning would 
 be for ever dashed and discouraged. But as for that 
 opinion, I never found cause to think that the tenth 
 part of learning stood or fell with the clergy : nor 
 could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy 
 speech of any churchman, who had a competency left 
 him. If therefore ye be loath to dishearten utterly 
 and discontent, not the mercenary crew of false pre- 
 tenders to learning, but the free ingenuous sort of 
 such as evidently were born to study and love learn- 
 ing for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the 
 service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting 
 
 o 
 
194 SELECTIONS FEOM 
 
 fame and perpetuity of praise, which God and good 
 men have consented shall be the reward of those 
 whose published labours advance the good of man- 
 kind : then know, that so far to distrust the judgment 
 and the honesty of one who hath but a common 
 repute in learning, and never yet offended, as not to 
 count him fit to print his mind without a tutor and 
 examiner, lest he should drop a schism, or something 
 of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indig- 
 nity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon 
 him. 
 
 " What advantage is it to be a man, over it is to be 
 a boy at school, if we have only escaped the ferule, 
 to come under the fescue of an imprimatur ? if serious 
 and elaborate writings, as if they were no more than 
 the theme of a grammar-lad under his pedagogue, 
 must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a 
 temporizing and extemporizing licenser ? He who is 
 not trusted with his own actions, his drift not being 
 known to be evil, and standing to the hazard of the 
 law and penalty, has no great argument to think him- 
 self reputed in the commonwealth wherein he was 
 born for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a 
 man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason 
 and deliberation to assist him ; he searches, medi- 
 tates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers 
 with his judicious friends ; after all which done, he 
 takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as 
 
Milton's prose works. 195 
 
 well as any that wrote before him, if in this, the most 
 consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, 
 no industry, no former proof of his abilities, can bring 
 him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mis- 
 trusted and suspected, unless he carry all his consider- 
 ate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense 
 of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured 
 licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his 
 inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew 
 the labour of book- writing ; and if he be not repulsed, 
 or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with his 
 guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his 
 title to be his bail and suret}^, that he is no idiot or 
 seducer ; it cannot be but a dishonour, and deroga- 
 tion to the author, to the book, to the privilege and 
 dignity of learning. 
 
 " And what if the author shall be one so copious of 
 fancy, as to have many things well worth the adding, 
 come into his mind after licensing, while the book is 
 yet under the press, which not seldom happens to the 
 best and diligent writers ; and that perhaps a dozen 
 times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond 
 his licensed copy; so often then must the author 
 trudge to his leave-giver, that those his new insertions 
 may be viewed ; and many a jaunt will be made, ere 
 that licenser, for it must be the same man, can either 
 be found, or found at leisure ; meanwhile either the 
 press must stand still, which is no small damage, or 
 
 o2 
 
196 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the anthor lose his accuratest thoughts, and send the 
 book forth worse than he had made it, which to a 
 diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation 
 than can befall. 
 
 " And how can a man teach with authority, which 
 is the life of teaching ; how can he be a doctor in his 
 book, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, 
 whenas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the 
 tuition, under the correction of his patriarchal licenser, 
 to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the 
 hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? 
 When every acute reader, upon the first sight of a 
 pedantic licence will be ready with these like words to 
 ding the book a quoit's distance from him : — " I hate 
 a pupil teacher ; I endure not an instructor that 
 comes to me under the wardship of an over-seeing fist. 
 I know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his 
 own hand here for his arrogance ; who shall warrant 
 me his judgment?" "The state, sir," replies the 
 stationer : but has a quick return : — " The state shall 
 be my governors, but not my critics ; they may be 
 mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this 
 licenser may be mistaken in an author. This is some 
 common stuff:" and we might add from Sir Francis 
 Bacon, that " such authorised books are but the lan- 
 guage of the times." For though a licenser should 
 happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will 
 be a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very 
 
Milton's PROSE WORKS. 197 
 
 office and his commission enjoins liim to let pass nothing 
 but what is vulgarly received already. 
 
 " Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of 
 any deceased author, though never so famous in his 
 lifetime, and even to this day, comes to their hands 
 for licence to be printed, or reprinted, if there be 
 found in his book, one sentence of a venturous edge, 
 uttered in the height of zeal (and who knows whether 
 it might not be the dictate of a divine spirit ?), yet, not 
 suiting with every low decrepit humour of their own, 
 though it were Knox himself, the reformer of a king- 
 dom, that spake it, they will not pardon him their 
 dash ; the sense of that great man shall to all pos- 
 terity be lost, for the fearfulness, or the presumptuous 
 rashness of a perfunctory licenser. And to what an 
 author this violence hath been lately done, and in 
 what book, of greatest consequence to be faithfully 
 published, I could now instance, but shall forbear till 
 a more convenient season. Yet if these things be not 
 resented seriously and timely by them who have the 
 remedy in their power, but that such ironmoulds as 
 these thall have authority to gnaw out the choicest 
 periods of exquisitest -books, and to commit such a 
 treacherous fraud against the often remainders of 
 worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will 
 belong to that hapless race of men, whose misfortune 
 it is to have understanding. Henceforth let no man 
 care to learn, or care to be more than worldly wise ; 
 
198 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 for certainly in higher matters to be ignorant and 
 slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the 
 only pleasant life and only in request. 
 
 " And as it is a particular disesteem of every know- 
 ing person alive, and most injurious to the written 
 labours and monuments of the dead, so to me it seems 
 an undervaluing and vilifying of the whole nation. 
 I cannot set so light by all the invention, the art, the 
 wit, the grave and solid judgment which is in England, 
 as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capa- 
 cities, how good soever ; much less that it should not 
 pass except their superintendence be over it, except 
 it be sifted and strained with their strainers, that it 
 should be uncurrent without their manual stamp. 
 Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be 
 monopolized and traded in by tickets, and statutes, 
 and standards. We must not think to make a staple 
 commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark 
 and license it like our broadcloth and our woolpacks. 
 What is it but a servitude like that imposed by the 
 Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of our 
 own axes and coulters, but we must repair from all 
 quarters to twenty licensing forges ? 
 
 " Had any one written and divulged erroneous 
 things and scandalous to honest life, misusing and 
 forfeiting the esteem had of his reason among men, 
 if after conviction this only censure were adjudged 
 him, that he should never henceforth write but what 
 
Milton's prose works. 199 
 
 were first examined by an appointed officer, whose 
 hand should be annexed to pass his credit for him, 
 that now he might be safely read ; it could not be 
 apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. 
 Whence to include the whole nation, and those that 
 never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and 
 suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood 
 what a disparagement it is. So much the more 
 whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad 
 without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir 
 forth without a visible jailor in their title. Nor is it 
 to the common people less than a reproach j for if we 
 be so jealous over them as that we dare not trust 
 them with an English pamphlet, what do we but cen- 
 sure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded 
 people ; in such a sick and weak state of faith and 
 discretion, as to be able to take nothing down but 
 through the pipe of a licenser ? That this is care or 
 love of them, we cannot pretend, whenas in those 
 popish places, where the laity are most hated and 
 despised, the same strictness is used over them. Wis- 
 dom we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach 
 of licence, nor that neither : whenas those corruptions, 
 which it seeks to prevent, break in faster at other 
 doors, which cannot be shut. 
 
 " And in conclusion it reflects to the disrepute of 
 our ministers also, of whose labours we should hope 
 better, and of their proficiency which their flock reaps 
 
200 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 by them, than that after all this light of the gospel 
 which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, 
 they should be still frequented with such an un- 
 principled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whifF 
 of every new pamphlet should stagger them out of 
 their catechism and Christian walking. This may 
 have much reason to discourage the ministers, when 
 such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, 
 and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are 
 not thought fit to be turned loose to three sheets of 
 paper without a licenser ; that all the sermons, all the 
 lectures preached, printed, vended in such numbers, 
 and such volumes, as have now well-nigh made all 
 other books unsaleable, should not be armour enough 
 against one single Enchiridion, without the castle of 
 St. Angelo of an imprimatur. 
 
 " And lest some should persuade ye, lords and 
 commons, that these arguments of learned men's 
 discouragement at this your order are mere flourishes, 
 and not real, I could recount what 1 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 philosohpic freedom, 
 as they supposed England was, while themselves 
 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 ; 
 
Milton's prose works. 201 
 
 that nothing had been there written now these many 
 years but flattery and fustian. There it was 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. And though I knew that England then was 
 groaning loudest under the prelatical yoke, neverthe- 
 less I look it as a pledge of future happiness, that 
 other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. 
 
 " Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies 
 were then breathing in her air, who should be her 
 leaders to such a deliverance, as shall never be for- 
 gotten by any revolution of time that this world hath 
 to finish. When that was once begun, it was as little 
 in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard 
 among learned men of other parts uttered against the 
 inquisition, the same I should hear, by as learned men 
 at home, uttered in time of parliament against an 
 order of licensing ; and that so generally, that when I 
 had disclosed myself a companion of their discontent, 
 I might say, if without envy, that he whom an honest 
 qusestorship had endeared to the Sicilians was not 
 more by them importuned against Verres, than the 
 favourable opinion which I had among many who 
 honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, 
 loaded me with entreaties and persuasions, that I 
 Vv^ould not despair to lay together that which just 
 reason should bring into my mind, towards the 
 
202 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 removal of an undeserved thraldom of learning. 
 
 " That this is not therefore the disburdening of a 
 particular fancy, but the common grievance of all 
 those who had prepared their minds and studies 
 above the vulgar pitch, to advance truth in others, 
 and from others to entertain it, thus much may 
 satisfy. And in their name I shall for neither friend 
 nor foe conceal what the general murmur is ; that if 
 it come to inquisitioning again, and licensing, and that 
 we are so timorous of ourselves, and suspicious of all 
 men, as to fear each book, and the shaking of each 
 leaf, before we know what the contents are ; if some 
 who but of late were little better than silenced from 
 preaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, 
 except what they please, it cannot be guessed w^hat is 
 intended by some but a second tyranny over learning : 
 and will soon put it out of controversy, that bishops 
 and presbyters are the same to us, both name and 
 thing. 
 
 " That those evils of prelaty which before from ^ve 
 or six and twenty sees were distributively charged 
 upon the whole people w^ill now light wholly on learn- 
 ing, is not obscure to us : whenas now the pastor of a 
 small unlearned parish, on the sudden shall be exalted 
 archbishop over a large diocess of books and yet 
 not remove, but keep his other cure too, a mysti- 
 cal pluralist. He who but of late cried down 
 the sole ordination of every novice bachelor of 
 
Milton's prose works. 203 
 
 art, and denied sole jurisdiction over the simplest 
 parishioner, shall now, at home in his private chair, 
 assume both these over worthiest and excellentest 
 books, and ablest authors that write them. This 
 is not the covenants and protestations that we 
 have made ! This is not to put down prelacy ; this is 
 but to chop an episcopacy ; this is but to translate the 
 palace metropolitan from one kind of dominion into 
 another ; this is but an old canonical sleight of com- 
 muting our penance. To startle thus betimes at a mere 
 unlicensed pamphlet, will, after awhile, be afraid of 
 every conventicle, and a while after will make a con- 
 venticle of every Christian meeting. 
 
 " But I am certain, that a state governed by the 
 rules of justice and fortitude, or a church built and 
 founded upon the rock of faith and true know- 
 ledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While things are 
 yet not constituted in religion, that freedom of writing 
 should be restrained by a discipline initiated from the 
 prelates, and learned by them from the inquisition to 
 shut us up all again into the breast of a licenser, must 
 needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all 
 learned and religious men ; who cannot but discern 
 the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the con- 
 trivers; that while bishops were to be bated down, 
 then all presses might be open ; it was the people's 
 birthright and privilege in time of parliament, it was 
 the breaking forth of light. 
 
204 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 " But now the bishops abrogated and voided out of 
 the church, as if our reformation sought no more, but 
 to make room for others into their seats under another 
 name ; the episcopal arts begin to bud again ; the 
 cruse of truth must run no more oil ; liberty of print- 
 ing must be enthralled again, under a prelatical com- 
 mission of twenty; the privilege of the people nullified; 
 and, which is worse, the freedom of learning must 
 groan again, and to her old fetters : all this, the parlia- 
 ment yet sitting. Although their own late arguments and 
 defences against the prelates might remember them, 
 that this obstructing violence meets for the most part 
 with an event utterly opposite to the end which it 
 drives at : instead of suppressing sects and schisms, it 
 raises them and invests them with a reputation : '^ the 
 punishing of wits enhances their authority," saith the 
 Viscount St. Albans ; " and a forbidden writing is 
 thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flys up in 
 the faces of them who seek to tread it out." This 
 order, therefore, may prove a nursing mother to sects, 
 but I shall easily show how it will be a step-dame to 
 truth : and first, by disenabling us to the maintenance 
 of what is known already. 
 
 " Well knows he who uses to consider, that our 
 faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as 
 our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in 
 scripture to a streaming fountain ; if her waters flow 
 not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a 
 
Milton's prose works. 205 
 
 muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may 
 be a heretic in the truth ; and if he believe things 
 only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so 
 determines, without knowing other reason, though his 
 belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes 
 his heresy. There is not any burden that some would 
 gladlier post off to another, than the charge and care 
 of their religion. There be, who knows not that 
 there be ? of protestants and professors, who live and 
 die in as errant and implicit faith, as any lay papist of 
 Loretto. 
 
 " A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to 
 his profits, finds religion to be a traffic so entangled, 
 and of so many fiddling accounts, that of all mysteries 
 he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. 
 What should he do ? Fain he would have the name 
 to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neigh- 
 bours in that. What does he therefore, but resolves 
 to give over toiling, and to find himself out some 
 factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the 
 whole managing of his religious affairs ; some divine 
 of note and estimation that must be. To him he ad- 
 heres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, 
 with all the locks and keys, into his custody ; and 
 indeed makes the very person of that man his religion; 
 esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence 
 and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man 
 majT- say his religion is now no more within himself. 
 
206 SELECTIONS PROM 
 
 but is become a dividual moveable, and goes and 
 comes near him, according as that good man frequents 
 the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts 
 him, lodges him ; his religion comes home at night, 
 prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously laid to 
 sleep ; rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some 
 well-spiced bruage, and better breakfasted, than he 
 whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on 
 green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his re- 
 ligion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind enter- 
 tainer in the shop trading all day without his religion. 
 " Another sort there be, who when they hear that 
 all things shall be ordered, all things regulated and 
 settled; nothing written but what passes through the 
 custom-house of certain publicans that have the ton- 
 naging and poundaging of all free-spoken truth, will 
 straight give themselves up into your hands, make 
 them and cut them out what religion ye please : there 
 be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes, 
 that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and 
 rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream. What 
 need they torture their heads with that which others 
 have taken so strictly, and so unalterably into their 
 own purveying ? These are the fruits which a dull 
 ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth 
 among the people. How goodly, and how to be 
 wished were such an obedient unanimity as this ! 
 What a fine conformitv would it starch us all into ! 
 
Milton's prose works. 207 
 
 Doubtless a staunch and solid piece of framework, as 
 any January could freeze together. 
 
 " Nor much better will be the consequence even 
 among the clergy themselves : it is no new thing never 
 heard of before, for a parochial minister, who has his 
 reward and is at his Hercules' pillars in a warm bene- 
 fice, to be easily inclinable, if he have nothing else 
 that may rouse up his studies, to finish his circuit in an 
 English Concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings 
 and savings of a sober graduateship, a Harmony and 
 a Catena, treading the constant round of certain com- 
 mon doctrinal heads, attended with their uses, motives, 
 marks, and means ; out of which, as out of an alphabet 
 or sol-fa, by forming and transforming, joining and 
 disjoining variously, a little book-craft, and two hours' 
 meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the per- 
 formance of more than a weekly charge of sermoning: 
 not to reckon up the infinite helps of interliniaries, 
 breviaries, synopses, and other loitering gear. But as 
 for the multitude of sermons ready printed and piled 
 up, on every text that is not difiicult, our London 
 trading St. Thomas in his vestry, and add to boot St. 
 Martin and St. Hugh, have not within their hallowed 
 limits more vendible ware of all sorts ready made : 
 so that penury he never need fear of pulpit provision, 
 having where so plenteously to refresh his magazine. 
 But if his rear and flanks be not impaled, if his back- 
 door be not secured by the rigid licenser, but that a 
 
208 SELECTIONS FROM: 
 
 bold book may now and then issue fortb, and give the 
 assault to some of his old collections in their trenches, 
 it will concern him then to keep waking, to stand in 
 watch, to set good guards and sentinels about his re- 
 ceived opinions, to walk the round and counter-round 
 with his fellow-inspectors, fearing lest any of his flock 
 be seduced who also then would be better instructed, 
 better exercised, and disciplined. And God send that 
 the fear of this diligence, which must then be used, do 
 not make us affect the laziness of a licensing church ! 
 
 *• For if we be sure we are in the right, and do not 
 hold the truth guiltily, which becomes not, if we our- 
 selves condemn not our own weak and frivolous teach- 
 ing, and the people for an untaught and irreligious 
 gadding rout ; what can be more fair, than when a 
 man judicious, learned, and of a conscience, for aught 
 we know, as good as theirs that taught us what we 
 know, shall not privily from house to house, which is 
 more dangerous, but openly by writing, publish to 
 the world what his opinion is, what his reasons, and 
 wherefore that which is now thought cannot be sound? 
 Christ urged it as wherewith to justify Himself, that 
 He preached in public; yet writing is more public 
 than preaching ; and more easy to refutation it need 
 be, there being so many whose business and profession 
 merely it is to be the champions of truth ; which if 
 they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth or 
 inability ? 
 
Milton's prose works. 209 
 
 '^ Thus much we are hindered and disinured by this 
 course of licenshig towards the true knowledge of 
 what we seem to know. For how much it hurts and 
 hinders the licensers themselves in the calling of their 
 ministry, more than any secular employment, if they 
 will discharge that office as they ought, so that of 
 necessity they must neglect either the one duty or the 
 other, I insist not, because it is a particular, but leave 
 it to their own conscience, how they will decide it 
 there. 
 
 '^ There is yet behind of what I purposed to lay 
 open, the incredible loss and detriment that this plot 
 of licensing puts us to, more than if some enemy at 
 sea should stop up all our havens, and ports, and 
 creeks : it hinders and retards the importation of our 
 richest merchandise, — truth : nay, it was first estab- 
 lished and put in practice by anti-Cliristian malice and 
 mystery, or set purpose to extinguish, if it were possi- 
 ble, the light of reformation, and to settle falsehood ; 
 little differing from that policy wherewith the Turk 
 upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibiting of printing. 
 It is not denied, but gladly confessed, we are to send 
 our thanks and vows to heaven, louder than most 
 of nations, for that great measure of truth which we 
 enjoy, especially in those main points between us and 
 the Pope, with his appurtenances the prelates : but he 
 who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have 
 attained the utmost prospect of reformation that the 
 
 p 
 
210 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 mortal glass wherein we contemplate can show us, till 
 we come to beatific vision, that man by this very 
 opinion declares that he is yet far short of truth. 
 
 " Truth indeed came once into the world with her 
 divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious 
 to look on : but when He ascended, and His apostles 
 after Him were laid asleep, then straight arose a 
 wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of 
 the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they 
 dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, 
 hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and 
 scattered them to the four winds. From that time 
 ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst ap- 
 pear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the 
 mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering 
 up limb by limb still as they could find them. We 
 have not yet found them all, lords and commons, nor 
 ever shall do, till her Master's second coming. He 
 shall bring together every joint and member, and 
 shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveli- 
 ness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing pro- 
 hibitions to stand at every place of opportunity for- 
 bidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, 
 that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of 
 our martyred saint. 
 
 " We boast our light ; but if we look not wisely on 
 the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can 
 discern those planets that are oft combust, and those 
 
Milton's prose works. 211 
 
 stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the 
 sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them 
 to such a place in the firmament, where they may be 
 seen evening or morning? The light which we have 
 gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by 
 it to discover onward things more remote from our 
 knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, 
 the unmitring of a bishop, and the removing him from 
 off the presbyterian shoulders, that will make us a 
 happy nation : no ; if other things as great in the 
 church, and in the rule of life both economical and 
 political, be not looked into and reformed, we have 
 looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and 
 Calvin have beaconed up to us, that we are stark 
 blind. 
 
 "There be who perpetually complain of schisms 
 and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man 
 dissents from their maxims. It is their own pride and 
 ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will 
 hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be 
 suppressed which is not found in their syntagma. 
 They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, 
 who neglect and permit not others to unite those 
 dissevered pieces, which are yet wanting to the body 
 of truth. To be still searching what we know not, 
 by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we 
 find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and propor- 
 tionable), this is the golden rule in theology as well 
 
 p2 
 
212 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a 
 church ; not the forced and outward union of cold, 
 and neutral, and inwardly divided mind. 
 
 " Lords and Commons of England ! consider what 
 nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the 
 governors : a nation not slow and dull, but of a 
 quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit ; acute to invent, 
 subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach 
 of any point the highest that human capacity can soar 
 to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest 
 sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among 
 us, that writers of good antiquity and able judgment 
 have been persuaded, that even the school of Pytha- 
 goras, and the Persian wisdom, took beginning from 
 the old philosophy of this island. And that wise and 
 civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here 
 for Ca3sar, preferred the natural wits of Britain before 
 the laboured studies of the French. 
 
 " Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal 
 Transylvanian sends out yearly from as far as the 
 mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the 
 Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their staid 
 men, to learn our language and our theological arts. 
 Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the 
 love of Heaven, we have great argument to think in 
 a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards 
 us. Why else was this nation chosen before any 
 other, that out of her, as out of Sion, should be pro- 
 
Milton's prose works. 213 
 
 claimed and sounded forth the first tidings and 
 trumpet of reformation to all Europe ? And had it 
 not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates 
 against the divine and admirable spirit of WicklifFe, 
 to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps 
 neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerome, no, nor the 
 name of Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known : 
 the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been 
 completely ours. But now, as our obdurate clergy 
 have with violence demeaned the matter, we are 
 become hitherto the latest and the backwardest 
 scholars, of whom God offered to have made us the 
 teachers. 
 
 " Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and 
 by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as 
 they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God 
 is decreeing to begin some new and great period in 
 His church, even to the reforming of reformation 
 itself; what does He then but reveal Himself to His 
 servants, and as His manner is, first to His English- 
 men ? I say, as His manner is, first to us, though we 
 mark not the method of His counsels, and are un- 
 worthy. Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, 
 the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and sur- 
 rounded with His protection ; the shop of war hath 
 not there more anvils and hammers working, to 
 fashion out the plates and instruments of armed 
 justice in defence of beleagured truth, than there be 
 
214 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, 
 musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas 
 wherewith to present, as with their homage and their 
 fealty, the approaching reformation : others as fast 
 reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of 
 reason and convincement. 
 
 " What could a man require more from a nation so 
 pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge ? What 
 wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but 
 wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, 
 a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ? We 
 reckon more than five months yet to harvest ; there 
 need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, 
 the fields are white already. Where there is much 
 desire to learn, there of necessity will be much 
 arguing, much writing, many opinions ; for opinion in 
 good men is but knowledge in the making. Under 
 these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong 
 the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and 
 understanding, which God has stirred up in this city. 
 What some lament of we rather should rejoice at, 
 should rather praise this pious forwardness among 
 men, to re-assume the ill-deputed care of their 
 religion into their own hands again. A little gene- 
 rous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, 
 and some grain of charity might win all these dili- 
 gences to join and unite into one general and brotherly 
 search after truth ; could we but forego this prelatical 
 
Milton's pbose woeks. 215 
 
 tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian 
 liberties into canons and precepts of men. I doubt 
 not, if some great and worthy stranger should come 
 among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a 
 people, and how to govern it, observing the high 
 hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended 
 thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth 
 and freedom, but that he would cry out, as Pyrrhus 
 did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, " If 
 such were my Epirots, I would not despair the great- 
 est design that could be attempted to make a church 
 or kingdom happy." 
 
 " Yet these are the men cried out against for 
 schismatics and sectaries, as if, while the temple of the 
 Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the 
 marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a 
 sort of irrational men, who could not consider there 
 must be many schisms and many dissections made in 
 the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God 
 can be built. And when every stone is laid artfully 
 together, it cannot be united into a continuit}^, it can 
 but be contiguous in this world : neither can every 
 piece of the building be of one form ; nay, rather the 
 perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate 
 varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not 
 vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and the grace- 
 ful symmetry that commends the whole pile and 
 structure. 
 
216 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 "Let us therefore be more considerate builders, 
 more wise in spiritual architecture, when great re- 
 formation is expected. For now the time seems 
 come, wherein Moses, the great prophet, may sit in 
 heayen rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious 
 wish of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, 
 but all the Lord's people, are become prophets. No 
 marvel then though some men, and some good men 
 too perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then 
 was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own 
 weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and sub- 
 divisions will undo us. The adversary again ap- 
 plauds, and waits the hour ; when they have branched 
 themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties 
 and partitions, then will be our time. Fool ! he sees 
 not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though 
 into branches ; nor will beware, until he see our small 
 divided maniples cutting through at every angle of his 
 ill-united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are 
 to hope better of all these supposed sects and schisms, 
 and that we shall not need that solicitude, honest 
 perhaps, though overtimorous, of them that vex in 
 this behalf, but shall laugh in the end at those mali- 
 cious applauders of our differences, I have these 
 reasons to persuade me. 
 
 " First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and 
 blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads 
 and incursions round, defiance and battle oft ru- 
 
y** Milton's prose works. 217 
 
 moured to be marching up, even to her walls and 
 suburb trenches ; that then the people, or the greater 
 part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with 
 the study of highest and most important matters to be 
 reformed, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, 
 inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity and admira- 
 tion, things not before discoursed or written of, argues 
 first a singular good will, contentedness, and confi- 
 dence in your prudent foresight, and safe government, 
 lords and commons ; and from thence derives itself 
 to a gallant bravery and well-grounded contempt of 
 their enemies, as if there were no small number of as 
 great spirits among us, as his was who, when Rome 
 was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, 
 bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate whereon 
 Hannibal himself encamped his own regiment. 
 
 " Next, it is a lively and cheerful presage of our 
 happy success and victory. For as in a body when 
 the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not 
 only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the 
 acutest and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety, 
 it argues in what good plight and constitution the 
 body is ; so when the cheerfulness of the people is so 
 sprightly up, as that it has not only wherewith to 
 guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, 
 and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points 
 of controversy and new invention, it betokens us not 
 degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, by casting 
 
218 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive 
 these pangs, and wax young again, entering the glori- 
 ous ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to 
 become great and honourable in these latter ages. 
 Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant 
 nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, 
 and shaking her invincible locks : methinks I see her 
 as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling 
 her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam ; purging 
 and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain 
 itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole noise of 
 timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love 
 the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, 
 and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a 
 year of sects and schisms. 
 
 " What should ye do then, should ye suppress all 
 this flowery crop of knowledge and new light sprung 
 up and yet springing daily in this city ? Should ye 
 set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring 
 a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know 
 nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel ? 
 Believe it, lords and commons ! they who counsel ye 
 to such a suppressing, do as good bid ye suppress your- 
 selves ; and I will soon show how. If it be desired 
 to know the immediate cause of all this free writing 
 and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer 
 than your own mild, and free, and humane govern- 
 ment; it is the liberty, lords and commons, which 
 
Milton's prose works. 219 
 
 your own valorous and happy counsels have purchased 
 us ; liberty which is the nurse of all great wits : this 
 is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits 
 like the influence of heaven ; this is that which hath 
 enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehen- 
 sions degrees above ourselves. Ye cannot make us 
 now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing 
 of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that 
 made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our 
 true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, 
 formal, and slavish, as ye found us ; but you then 
 must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, 
 arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye 
 have freed us. That our hearts are now more capa- 
 cious, our thoughts more erected to the search and 
 expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue 
 of your own virtue propagated in us ; ye cannot sup- 
 press that, unless ye reinforce an abrogated and mer- 
 ciless law, that fathers may dispatch at will their 
 own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye 
 and excite others ? Not he who takes up arms for 
 coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. 
 Although I dispraise not the defence of just immuni- 
 ties, yet love my peace better, if that were all. Give 
 me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely 
 according to conscience, above all liberties. 
 
 '' What would be best advised then, if it be found 
 so hurtful and so unequal to suppress opinions for the 
 
220 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 newness or the unsuitableness to a customary accept- 
 ance, will not be my task to say ; I shall only repeat 
 what I have learned from one of your own honourable 
 number, a right noble and pious lord, who had he 
 not sacrificed his life and fortunes to the church and 
 commonwealth, we had not now missed and bewailed 
 a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument. Ye 
 know him, I am sure ; yet I for honour's sake, and 
 may it be eternal to him, shall name him, the Lord 
 Brook. He writing of episcopacy, and by the way 
 treating of sects and schisms,' left ye his vote, or rather 
 now the last words of his dying charge, which I know 
 will ever be of dear and honoured regard with ye, so 
 full of meekness and breathing charity, that next to 
 His last testament, who bequeathed love and peace to 
 His disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read 
 or heard words more mild and peaceful. He there 
 exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those, 
 however they be miscalled, that desire to live 
 purely, in such a use of God's ordinances, as the best 
 guidance of their conscience gives them, and to tolerate 
 them, though in some disconformity to ourselves. The 
 book itself will tell us more at large, being published 
 to the world, and dedicated to the parliament by him, 
 who both for his life and for his death deserves, that 
 what advice he left be not laid by without perusal. 
 
 *'And now the time in special is, by privilege to 
 write and speak what may help to the further dis- 
 
Milton's prose works. 221 
 
 cussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus, 
 with his two controversial faces, might now not insig- 
 nificantly be set open. And though all the winds of 
 doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth 
 be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and pro- 
 hibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and false- 
 hood grapple ; who ever knew truth put to the worse, 
 in a free and open encounter ? Her confuting is the 
 best and surest suppressing. He who hears what 
 praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be 
 sent down among us, would think of other matters to 
 be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed 
 and fabricated already to our hands. 
 
 '^ Yet when the new light which we beg for shines 
 in upon us, there be who envy and oppose, if it come 
 not first in at their casements. What a collusion is 
 this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use 
 diligence, " to seek for wisdom as for hidden trea- 
 sures," early and late, that another order shall enjoin 
 us, to know nothing but by statute ? When a man 
 hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep 
 mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings 
 in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it 
 were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objec- 
 tions in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, 
 offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, 
 only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; 
 for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, 
 
222 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the chal- 
 lenger should pass, though it be valour enough in 
 soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars 
 of truth. For who knows not that truth is strong, 
 next to the iVlmighty ; she needs no policies, nor 
 stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those 
 are the shifts and the defences that error uses against 
 her power : give her but room, and do not bind her 
 when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the 
 old Protends did, who spake oracles only when he was 
 caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself 
 into all shapes except her own, and perhaps tunes her 
 voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before 
 Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. 
 
 ''Yet is it not impossible that she may have more 
 shapes than one ? What else is all that rank of things 
 indifferent, wherein truth may be on this side, or on 
 the other, without being unlike herself? What but a 
 vain shadow else is the abolition of " those ordinances, 
 that handwriting nailed to the cross" ? What great 
 purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often 
 boasts of? His doctrine is that he who eats or eats 
 not, regards a day or regards it not, may do either to 
 the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated 
 in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, 
 and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy 
 to be ever judging one another ? I fear yet this iron 
 yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print 
 
Milton's prose works. 223 
 
 upon our necks: the ghost of a linen decency yet 
 haunts us. We stumble, and are impatient at the least 
 dividing of one visible congregation from another, 
 though it be not in fundamentals ; and through our 
 forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to re- 
 cover, any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe 
 of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from 
 truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. 
 We do not see that while we still affect by all means 
 a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into 
 a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congeal- 
 ment of " wood and hay and stubble " forced and 
 frozen together, which is more to the sudden degene- 
 rating of a church than many subdichotomies of petty 
 schisms. 
 
 " Not that I can think well of every light separa- 
 tion ; or that all in a church is to be expected " gold 
 and silver, and precious stones " : it is not possible 
 for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good 
 fish from the other fry ; that must be the angels' 
 ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all 
 cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be ? 
 this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and 
 more Christian, that many be tolerated rather than 
 all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and 
 open superstition, which as it extirpates all religious 
 and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, 
 provided first that all charitable and compassionate 
 
224 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 means be used to win and regain the weak and the 
 misled : that also which is impious or evil absolutely 
 either against faith or manners, no law can possibly 
 permit that intends not to unlaw itself: but those 
 neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are 
 what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or 
 of discipline, which though they may be many, yet 
 need not interrupt the unity of spirit, if we could but 
 find among us the bond of peace. 
 
 " In the meanwhile, if any one would write, and 
 bring his helpful hand to the slow-moving reforma- 
 tion which we labour under, if truth have spoken to 
 him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, 
 who hath so bejesuited us, that we should trouble 
 that man with asking licence to do so worthy a deed ; 
 and not consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, 
 there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than 
 truth itself: whose first appearance to our eyes, 
 bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is 
 more unsightly and unplausible than many errors ; 
 even as the person is of many a great man slight and 
 contemptible to see. And what do they tell us vainly 
 of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that 
 none must be heard but whom they like, is the worst 
 and newest opinion of all others ; and is the chief 
 cause why sect and schisms do so much abound, and 
 true knowledge is kept at distance from us ; besides 
 yet a greater danger which is in it. For when God 
 
Milton's prose works. 225 
 
 shakes a kingdom, with strong and healthful commo- 
 tions, to a general reforming, it is not untrue that many 
 sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing. 
 " But yet more true it is, that God then raises to 
 His own work men of rare abilities, and more than 
 common industry, not only to look back and revive 
 what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further, 
 and to go on some new enlightened steps in the dis- 
 covery of truth. For such is the order of God's 
 enlightening His church, to dispense and deal out by 
 degrees His beams, so as our earthly eyes may best 
 sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, 
 where and out of what place these His chosen shall 
 be first heard to speak ; for He sees not as man sees, 
 chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote 
 ourselves again to set places and assemblies, and out- 
 ward callings of men ; planting our faith. one while in 
 the old convocation house ; and another while in the 
 chapel at Westminster ; when all the faith and religion 
 that shall be there canonized, is not sufiicient without 
 plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruc- 
 tion, to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify 
 the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the 
 spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the 
 number of voices that can be there made ; no, though 
 Harry the Seventh himself there, with all his liege 
 tombs about him, should lend them voices from the 
 dead to swell their number. 
 
 Q 
 
226 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 " And if the men be erroneous who appear to be 
 the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our 
 sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, 
 that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle 
 dismissions, that we debate not and examine the 
 matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience ; 
 if not for their sakes yet for our own ? Seeing no 
 man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the 
 many ways of profiting by those who, not contented 
 with stale receipts, are able to manage and set forth 
 new positions to the world. And were they but as 
 the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that 
 notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the 
 armoury of truth, even for that respect they were not 
 utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those 
 whom God hath fitted for the special use of these 
 times with eminent and ample gifts, and those per- 
 haps neither among the priests, nor among the phari- 
 sees, and we, in the haste of a precipitant zeal, shall 
 make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, 
 because we fear they come with new and dangerous 
 opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we 
 understand them; no less than woe to us, while, 
 thinking thus to defend the gospel, we are found the 
 persecutors ! 
 
 '^ There have been not a few since the beginning of 
 this parliament, both of the presbytery and others, 
 who by their unlicensed books to Ihe contempt of an 
 
Milton's prose works. 227 
 
 imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our 
 hearts, and taught the people to see day ; I hope that 
 none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us 
 this bondage, which they themselves have wrought 
 so much good by contemning. But if neither the 
 check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the 
 countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, 
 who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought 
 unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our elders how 
 unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting 
 is ; if neither their own remembrance what evil hath 
 abounded in the church by this lett of licensing, and 
 what good they themselves have begun by transgress- 
 ing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade and 
 execute the most Dominican part of the inquisition 
 over us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup 
 so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal dis- 
 tribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors 
 themselves ; whom the change of their condition hath 
 puffed up, more than their late experience of harder 
 times hath made wise. 
 
 " And as for regulating the press, let no man think 
 to have the honour of advising ye better than your- 
 selves have done in that order published next before 
 this, "That no book be printed, unless the printer s 
 and the author's name, or at least the printer's, be 
 registered." Those which otherwise come forth, if 
 they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and 
 
 q2 
 
228 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the executioner will be the timeliest and the most 
 effectual remedy that man's prevention can use. For 
 this authentic Spanish policy of licensing books, if I 
 have said aught, will prove the most unlicensed book 
 itself within a short while ; and was the immediate 
 image of a star-chamber decree to that purpose made 
 in those times when that court did the rest of those 
 her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the 
 stars with Lucifer. Whereby ye may guess what 
 kind of state prudence, what love of the people, what 
 care of religion or good manners there was at the 
 contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pre- 
 tended to bind books to their good behaviour. And 
 how it got the upper hand of your precedent order so 
 well constituted before, if we may believe those men 
 whose profession gives them cause to inquire most, it 
 may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old 
 patentees and monopolizers in the trade of booksell- 
 ing ; who, under the pretence of the poor in their 
 company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining 
 of each man his several copy (which God forbid should 
 be gainsaid !), brought divers glossing colours to the 
 house, which were indeed but colours, and serving to 
 no end except it be to exercise a superiority over 
 their neighbours ; men who do not therefore labour 
 in an honest profession, to which learning is indebted, 
 that they should be made other men's vassals. An- 
 other end is thought was aimed at by some of them 
 
Milton's pro^e works. 229 
 
 in procuring by petition this order, that having power 
 in their hands, malignant books might . the easier 
 escape abroad, as the event shows. But these sophisms 
 and elenchs of merchandise I skill not : this I know, 
 that errors in a good government and in a bad are 
 equally almost incident ; for what magistrate may not 
 be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of 
 printing be reduced into the power of a few ? But 
 to redress willingly and speedily what hath been 
 erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain ad- 
 vertisement more than others have done a sumptuous 
 bride, is a virtue (honoured lords and commons !) an- 
 swerable to your highest actions, and whereof none 
 can participate but greatest and wisest men." 
 
230 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES : 
 
 PROVING 
 
 THAT IT IS LAWFUL, AND HATH BEEN HELD SO THROUGH ALL 
 AGES, FOR ANY, WHO HAVE THE POWER, TO CALL TO AC- 
 COUNT A TYRANT, OR WICKED KING, AND AFTER DUE CON- 
 VICTION, TO DEPOSE, AND PUT HIM TO DEATH, IF THE OR- 
 DINARY MAGISTRATE HAVE NEGLECTED, OR DENIED TO DO 
 IT. AND THAT THEY WHO OF LATE SO MUCH BLAME DE- 
 
 THE enuDciation of this elaborate and wicked title 
 is quite enough to deter any from wasting their 
 time in the perusal of the Treatise itself. We pro- 
 nounce this, published in 1650, the year following 
 the murder and execution of Charles I., and his once 
 celebrated work, Eiconoclastes, written at the re- 
 quest of Parliament, in 1651, in answer to a book 
 entitled " Eikon Basilike, the portraiture of his sacred 
 Majesty in his solitudes and sufferings," to be the dros- 
 siest of all Milton's prose works, from which we are 
 unable to extract any single grain of gold. In the 
 Second Defence of the People of England, we shall 
 come to a most interesting account of the circum- 
 stances under which both of these were written, which 
 we shall quote in its place. From that passage we 
 
Milton's prose works. 231 
 
 learn that the first four books of his History of Eng- 
 land were composed at this period — that is, in 1650; 
 but the remainder did not appear till a considerable 
 time afterwards. He now kept himself secluded at 
 home, and thought he was about to enjoy an interval 
 of uninterrupted literary ease, or, rather, of political 
 ease and literary labour, for his active mind could not 
 long be idle. To his surprise, the Council of State 
 requested him to reply to the King's book, of which, 
 in a short time, forty-seven editions had been sold, 
 comprising forty-eight thousand five hundred copies. 
 He opposed, accordingly, the Iconoclast to his Icon. 
 " I did not," says he, " insult over fallen majesty, as 
 is pretended ; I only preferred Queen Truth to King 
 Charles." Reginam Veritatem regi Carolo antepo- 
 nendara arbitratus. Almost immediately afterwards 
 he was appointed by the Council to reply to Salma- 
 sius, which he does in his Defensio pro populo Angli- 
 cano, to which we shall presently proceed. We do 
 not intend to enter into a defence of Charles himself, 
 though our own inclinations and sympathies would 
 certainly lead us to do this, nor into the authenticity 
 of his celebrated book. We agree with Southey, 
 that, * in any other age, Charles I. would have been 
 the best and the most popular of kings. His unam- 
 bitious and conscientious spirit would have preserved 
 the kingdom in peace ; his private life would have 
 set an example of dignified virtue, such as had rarely 
 
232 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 been seen in courts ; and his love of arts and letters 
 would have conferred permanent splendour upon his 
 age, and secured for himself the grateful applause of 
 after generations.' Under more favourable circum- 
 stances, we can even imagine that such a king as he 
 might have been would have become the friend and 
 patron of such a man as Milton would then have been, 
 and in spite of untoward circumstances was, the fos- 
 terer of his genius, the admirer of his learning, the 
 re warder of his merit. 
 
 One word more on the authenticity of the Eikon 
 Basilike ; judging from external evidence it may be 
 doubtful whether Charles or Bishop Gauden were the 
 author, but the internal evidence is wholly in favour 
 of the former. Southey says ' there is very little 
 testimony on Gauden's side (strictly speaking, perhaps, 
 none at all), except his own. There is a mass of testi- 
 mony which shows that the king had the book con- 
 tinually in his hand, revised it much, and had many 
 transcripts of it. Had it been the work of Gauden, or 
 of any person writing to support the royal cause, a 
 higher tone concerning episcopacy and prerogative 
 would have been taken ; there would have been more 
 effort at justification ; and there would not have been 
 that inefficient but conscientious defence of fatal con- 
 cessions ; that penitent confession of sin where weak- 
 ness had been sinful ; that piety without alloy ; that 
 character of mild and even magnanimity; and that 
 
Milton's prose works. 233 
 
 heavenly-mindedness, which render the Eikon Basilike 
 one of the most interesting books in our language.' 
 — SoutJieys Life of Cromwell. We m ay j ust rem ark that 
 the editor of Bohn's edition of Milton's Prose Works, 
 pronounces the Eikon Basilike to be ^ a volume too 
 dull to be now read with patience' ; and consistently 
 with his republican principles and predilections he ad- 
 mires and extols the Eiconoclastes. We leave it to 
 others to decide which opinion is the correct one, only 
 ourselves avowing our inability to detect in Milton's 
 answer to the Eikon any of his usual sentences of a 
 venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and pos- 
 sibly at the dictate of a divine spirit. Alas, his good 
 genius seems to have forsaken him, and we cannot 
 wonder at it. His diction here corresponds with his 
 theme ; and never rises to a higher level. No angel 
 held the pen while he wrote. 
 
 There is, however, one celebrated passage in the 
 first chapter of the Eiconoclastes, which we must not 
 omit, though it has often been misunderstood. It is 
 this : 
 
 "Andronicus Comnenus, the Byzantine emperor, 
 though a most cruel tyrant, is reported by Nicetas to 
 have been a constant reader of St. Paul's Epistles ; and 
 by continual study had so incorporated the phrase and 
 style of that transcendant Apostle into all his familiar 
 letters, that the imitation seemed to vie with the 
 original. Yet this availed not to deceive the people 
 of that empire, who, notwithstanding his saint's vizard, 
 
234 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 tore him to pieces for his tyranny. From stories of 
 this nature both ancient and modern which abound, 
 the poets also, and some English, have been in this 
 point so mindful of decorum, as to put never more 
 pious words in the mouth of any person, than of a 
 tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse author, 
 wherein the king might be less conversant, but one 
 whom we well know was the closet companion of 
 these his solitudes, William Shakespeare ; who intro- 
 duces the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as 
 high a strain of piety and mortification as is uttered in 
 any passage of this book, and sometimes to the same 
 sense and purpose with some words in this place : * I 
 intended,' saith he, * not only to oblige my friends, 
 but my enemies.' The like saith Richard, ii. 1. 
 
 ' I do not know that Englishman alive 
 With whom my soul is any jot at odds, 
 More than the infant that is born to-night ; 
 I thank my God for my humility.' 
 
 Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the 
 whole tragedy, wherein the poet used not much licence 
 in departing from the truth of history, which delivers 
 him a deep dissembler, not of his affections only, but 
 of religion." 
 
 Warton and others have supposed that Milton is 
 here reproaching Charles with being familiar with 
 Shakespeare. Nothing can be farther from the fact, 
 as well might we say that he censures Comnenus for 
 studying St. Paul's Epistles. Milton himself was 
 familiar with and greatly admired the bard of Avon. 
 
Milton's prose works. 235 
 
 To prove this assertion we need only quote his beauti- 
 ful '' Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, Wil- 
 liam Shakespeare," written in his twenty-first year, in 
 1630, and a passage from the L' Allegro, written a few 
 years afterwards. 
 
 " What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, 
 The labour of an age in piled stones ? 
 Or that his hallow'd rehcs should be hid 
 Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? 
 Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 
 Thou, in our wonder and astonishment. 
 Hast built thyself a live-long 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." 
 
 " Then to the well- trod stage anon. 
 If Jonson's learned sock be on. 
 Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child. 
 Warble his native wood-notes wild." 
 
 There can be no doubt that Milton both admired 
 and appreciated Shakespeare. The word "stuff" is 
 not used in a disparaging sense, but simply means that 
 this and similar passages prove that tyrants have often 
 counterfeited a religious character. Shakespeare fre- 
 quently uses it in the sense of material, matter, or 
 essence of anything; thus in Othello, * stuff o' the con- 
 science,' in Macbeth, ' that perilous stuff that weighs 
 upon the heart,' and in Julius Caesar, ' ambition should 
 be made of sterner stuff.' 
 
236 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 A DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND, 
 
 IN ANSWER TO 
 
 SALMASIUS'S DEFENCE OF THE KING. — DEFENSIO PRO POPULO 
 ANGLICANO, CONTRA CLAUDII SALMASII DEFENSIONEM 
 REGIAM. 
 
 THE First Defence was probably published in the 
 same year as the Iconoclastes, and the Second 
 Defence in 1654. Both were undertaken at the re- 
 quest of Parliament ; the one in reply to Salniasius, the 
 other to an anonymous writer, who appears to have 
 been Alexander More. Both were written in Latin, 
 and therefore in a translation can afford no just criter- 
 ion of Milton's real and unique style. We must here 
 be ' delighted with ideas rather than words ;' and in- 
 deed they are mainly interesting from the personal 
 details of his own life, habits, and travels, the refer- 
 ences to his blindness and personal appearance, and 
 the motives and occasions of his various works, which 
 they contain. The autobiography of any great man 
 or notoriety must ever be invaluable, and we should 
 treasure up any chance sentence in which he may 
 speak of himself, and be thankful for the egotism in 
 which circumstances may have caused him to indulge. 
 
Milton's prose works. 237 
 
 From his Second Defence, the Apology for Smectym- 
 nuus, and his Familiar Letters, an Apologia pro vita 
 su^ might easily be constructed in Milton's own words, 
 as interesting as that of the great heresiarch Newman ; 
 and must always afford valuable material to any one 
 who undertakes to write the life, or illustrate the 
 works, or who would really understand the grand and 
 colossal character and genius of our immortal Poet. 
 
 From this time we notice that Milton begins to in- 
 dulge in coarse and intemperate language, and in 
 acrimonious vituperations against his opponents. We 
 shall here cite, as a fitting introduction to this Treatise 
 and some that followed, the observations of Isaac 
 Disraeli on the acrimony which the most eminent 
 scholars have infused frequently in their controversial 
 writings. 
 
 ^ The celebrated controversy of Sdlraasius continued 
 by Morus with Milton — the first the pleader of King 
 Charles, the latter the advocate of the people — was of 
 that magnitude, that all Europe took a part in the 
 paper- war of these two great men. The answer of 
 Milton, who perfectly massacred Salmasius, is now 
 read but by the few. Whatever is addressed to the 
 times, however great may be its merit, is doomed to 
 perish with the times ; yet on these pages the philoso- 
 pher will not contemplate in vain. 
 
 ' It will form no uninteresting article to gather a few 
 of the rhetorical weeds, for flowers we cannot well call 
 
238 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 them, with which they mutually presented each other. 
 Their rancour was at least equal to their erudition, 
 the two most learned antagonists of a learned age ! 
 Salmasius was a man of vast erudition, but no taste. 
 His writings are learned ; but sometimes ridiculous. 
 He called his work Defensio Begia, Defence of Kings. 
 The opening of this work provokes a laugh. " Eng- 
 lishmen ! who toss the heads of kings as so many 
 tennis-balls ; who play with crowns as if they were 
 bowls ; who look upon sceptres as so many crooks." 
 
 ^ That the deformity of the body is an idea we at- 
 tach to the deformity of the mind, the vulgar must 
 acknowledge ; but surely it is unpardonable in the 
 enlightened philosopher thus to compare the crooked- 
 ness of corporeal matter with the rectitude of the in- 
 tellect. Salmasius seems also to have entertained this 
 idea, though his spies in England gave him wrong 
 information ; or, possibly, he only drew the figure 
 of his own distempered imagination. 
 
 ' Salmasius sometimes reproaches Milton as being 
 but a puny piece of man ; an homunculous, a dwarf 
 deprived of the human figure, a bloodless being, com- 
 posed of nothing but skin and bone ; a contemptible 
 pedagogue, fit only to flog his boys ; and sometimes 
 elevating the ardour of his mind into a poetic 
 frenzy, he applies to him the words of Virgil, " Mon- 
 strum horrendum^ informe^ ingens, cui lumen ademp- 
 tum^ Our great poet thought this senseless declama- 
 
Milton's prose works. 239 
 
 tion merited a serious refutation ; perhaps he did not 
 wish to appear despicable in the eyes of the ladies ; 
 and he would not be silent on the subject, he says, 
 lest any one should consider him as the credulous 
 Spaniards are made to believe by their priests, that a 
 heretic is a kind of rhinoceros, or a dog-headed mon- 
 ster. Milton says, that he does not think any one ever 
 considered him as unbeautiful ; that his size rather 
 approaches mediocrity than the diminutive ; that he 
 still felt the same courage and the same strength 
 which he possessed when young, when, with his 
 sword, he felt no difficulty to combat with men more 
 robust than himself; that his face, far from being 
 pale, emaciated, and wrinkled, was sufficiently credit- 
 able to him; for though he had passed his fortieth year, 
 he was in all other respects ten years younger. And 
 very pathetically he adds, " that even his eyes, blind 
 as they are, are unblemished in their appearance ; in 
 this instance alone, and much against my inclination, 
 I am a deceiver." 
 
 ' Morus, in his epistle dedicatory of his Regii San- 
 guinis Clamor^ compares Milton to a hangman ; his 
 disordered vision to the blindness of his soul, and 
 vomits forth his venom. 
 
 ^ When Salmasius found that his strictures on the 
 person of Milton were false, and that, on the contrary, 
 it was uncommonly beautiful, he then turned his bat- 
 tery against those graces with which nature had so 
 
240 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 liberally adorned his adversary. And it is now that 
 he seems to have laid no restrictions on his pen ; but 
 rasring with the irritation of Milton's success, he throws 
 out the blackest calumnies, and the most infamous 
 aspersions. 
 
 ' It must be observed, when Milton first proposed 
 to answer Salmasius he had lost the use of one of his 
 eyes : and his physicians declared, that if he applied 
 himself to the controversy, the other would likewise 
 close for ever ! His patriotism was not to be baffled 
 but with life itself. Unhappily, the prediction of his 
 physicians took place. Thus a learned man in the 
 occupations of study falls blind : a circumstance even 
 now not read without sympathy. Salmasius considers 
 it as one from which he may draw caustic ridicule and 
 satiric severity. 
 
 ' Salmasius glories that Milton lost his health and his 
 eyes in answering this apology for King Charles ! He 
 does not now reproach him with natural deformities ; 
 but he malignantly sympathises with him, that he 
 now no more is in possession of that beauty which 
 rendered him so amiable during his residence in Italy. 
 He speaks more plainly in a following page ; and in a 
 word, would blacken the austere virtue of Milton with 
 a crime too infamous to name. 
 
 ' Impartiality of criticism obliges us to confess that 
 Milton was not destitute of rancour. When he was 
 told that his adversary boasted he had occasioned the 
 
Milton's prose works. 241 
 
 loss of his eyes, he answered, with the ferocity of 
 irritated passion — " And 1 shall cost Mm Ms lifeT A 
 prediction which was soon after verified : for Christina, 
 queen of Sweden, withdrew her patronage from Sal- 
 raasius, and sided with Milton. The universal neglect 
 the proud scholar felt hastened his death in the course 
 of a twelvemonth. 
 
 ' How the greatness of Milton's mind was degraded ! 
 He actually condescended to enter into a correspond- 
 ence in Holland to obtain little scandalous anecdotes 
 of his miserable adversary Morus, and deigned to adu- 
 late the unworthy Christina of Sweden, because she 
 had expressed herself favourably on his " Defence." 
 Of late years we have had but too many instances of 
 this worst of passions, the antipathies of politics ! ' 
 
 One more quotation from Disraeli's Curiosities of 
 Literature, and we have done. 
 
 ^Salmasius' wife was a termagant; and Christina 
 said she admired his patience more than his eru- 
 dition, married to such a shrew. Mrs. Salmasius in- 
 deed considered herself as the queen of science, be- 
 cause her husband was acknowledged as sovereign 
 among the critics. She boasted that she had for her 
 husband the most learned of all the nobles, and the 
 most noble of all the learned. Our good lady always 
 joined the learned conferences which he held in his 
 study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of 
 majesty. Salmasius was mild in conversation, but the 
 
 R 
 
242 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 reverse in his writings, for our proud Xantippe con- 
 sidered him as acting beneath himself if he did not 
 magisterially call every one names !' 
 
 The translation we shall make use of is ascribed by 
 Toland to Mr. Washington, a member of the Temple ; 
 that of the Second Defence to Robert Fellowes, M.A., 
 Oxon. In the first we find only one passage worthy 
 transcribing, and that a very interesting one, occurring 
 in the Preface. 
 
 ^' I am about to discourse of matters neither incon- 
 siderable nor common, but how a most potent king, after 
 he had trampled upon the laws of the nation, and began 
 to rule at his own will and pleasure, was at last sub- 
 dued in the field by his own subjects, who had under- 
 gone a long slavery under him ; how afterwards he 
 w^as cast into prison, and when he gave no ground, 
 either by words or actions, to hope better things of 
 him, was finally by the supreme council of the king- 
 dom condemned to die, and beheaded before the very 
 gates of the royal palace. I shall likewise relate by 
 what right this judgment was given, and all these 
 matters transacted ; and shall easily defend my coun- 
 trymen from the most wicked calumnies both of do- 
 mestic and foreign railers. Which things, if I should 
 so much as hope by any diligence or ability of mine, 
 such as it is, to discourse of as I ought to do, and to 
 commit them so to writing, as that perhaps all nations 
 and all ages may read them, it would be a very vain 
 
Milton's prose works. 243 
 
 thing in me. For what style can be august and mag- 
 nificent enough ? Since we find by experience that in 
 so many ages as are gone over the world, there has 
 been but here and there a man found, who has been 
 able worthily to recount the actions of great heroes, 
 and potent states ; can any man have so gt)od an opin- 
 ion of his own talents, as to think himself capable of 
 reaching these glorious and wonderful works of Al- 
 mighty God, by any language, by any style of his ? 
 Which enterprise, though some of the most eminent 
 persons in our commonwealth have prevailed upon me 
 by their authority to undertake (whose opinion I 
 consider as a very great honour, that they should 
 pitch upon me before others to vbe serviceable in this 
 kind ; and true it is that from my very youth, I have 
 been bent exremely upon such sort of studies, as in- 
 clined me, if not to do great things myself, at least to 
 celebrate those that did) ; yet as having no confidence 
 in any such advantages, I have recourse to the divine 
 assistance ; and invoke the great and holy God, the 
 giver of all good gifts, that I may as substantially, and 
 as truly, discourse and refute the sauciness and lies of 
 this foreign declaimer, as our noble generals piously 
 and successfully by force of arms broke the king's 
 pride, and his unruly domineering, and afterwards 
 put an end to both by inflicting a memorable punish- 
 ment upon himself, and as thoroughly as a single per- 
 son" (meaning himself in his Iconoclastes) "did with ease 
 
 r2 
 
244 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 but of late confute and confound the king himself, rising 
 as it were from the grave, and recommending himself to 
 the people in a book published after his death, with 
 new artifices and allurements of words and expressions. 
 " If it be asked, why we did not attack him sooner? 
 why we suffered him to triumph so long, and pride 
 himself in our silence ? For others I am not to an- 
 swer ; for myself I can boldly say, that I had neither 
 words nor arguments long to seek for the defence of 
 so good a cause, if I had enjoyed such a measure of 
 health, as would have endured the fatigue of writing. 
 And being but weak in body, I am forced to write by 
 piecemeal, and break off almost every hour, though 
 the subject be such as requires an uninterrupted study 
 and intenseness of mind. But though this bodily in- 
 disposition may be a hinderance to me in setting forth 
 the just praises of my most worthy countrymen ; yet I 
 hope it will be no difficult matter for me to defend 
 them from the insolence of this silly little scholar." 
 
Milton's prose works. 245 
 
 THE SECOND DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF 
 ENGLAND : 
 
 AGAINST AN ANONYMOUS LIBEL, ENTITLED, "THE ROYAL 
 BLOOD CRYING TO HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE ON THE 
 ENGLISH PARRICIDES." 
 
 A GRATEFUL recollection of the divine good- 
 ness is the first of human obligations ; and 
 extraordinary favours demand more solemn and de- 
 vout acknowledgments : with such acknowledgments 
 I feel it my duty to begin this work. First, because 
 I was born at a time when the virtue of my fellow- 
 citizens, far exceeding that of their progenitors in 
 greatness of soul and vigour of enterprise, having 
 invoked Heaven to witness the justice of their cause, 
 has succeeded in delivering the commonwealth from 
 the most grievous tyranny, and religion from the most 
 ignominious degradation. And next, because when 
 there suddenly arose many who basely calumniated 
 the most illustrious achievements, and when one emi- 
 nent above the rest (Salmasius), inflated with literary 
 pride, had in a scandalous publication, which was 
 particularly levelled against me, nefariously under- 
 taken to plead the cause of despotism, I, who was 
 
246 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 neither deemed unequal to so renowned an adversary, 
 nor to so great a subject, was particularly selected by 
 the deliverers of our country, and by the general 
 suffrage of the public, openly to vindicate the rights 
 of the English nation, and consequently of liberty 
 itself Lastly, because in a matter of so much mo- 
 ment, I did not disappoint the hopes nor the opinions 
 of my fellow-citizens : while men of learning and 
 eminence abroad honoured me with unmingled appro- 
 bation ; while I obtained such a victory over my 
 opponent, that he was obliged to quit the field with 
 his courage broken and his reputation lost ; and for 
 the three years which he lived afterwards he gave me 
 no further trouble. 
 
 ^' Though I did not participate in the toils or dan- 
 gers of the war, yet I was at the same time engaged 
 in a service not less hazardous. For since from my 
 youth I was devoted to the pursuits of literature, and 
 my mind had always been stronger than my body, 
 I did not court the labours of a camp, but resorted to 
 that employment in w^hich my exertions were likely 
 to be of most avail. Thus, with the better part of my 
 frame I contributed as much as possible to the good 
 of ray country, and to the success of the glorious cause 
 in which we were engaged ; and I thought that if God 
 willed the success of such glorious achievements, it was 
 equally agreeable to His will that there should be 
 others by whom those achievements should be re- 
 
Milton's prose works. ^ 247 
 
 corded with dignity and elegance ; and that the truth, 
 which had been defended by arms, should also be 
 defended by reason ; which is the best and only 
 legitimate means of defending it. Hence, while I 
 applaud those who were victorious in the field, I will 
 not complain of the providence which was assigned 
 me ; but rather thank the Author of all good for 
 having placed me in a station which may be an object 
 of envy to others rather than of regret to myself I 
 am far from wishing to speak ostentatiously of myself ; 
 but in a cause so great and glorious I can hardly 
 refrain from assuming a more lofty and swelling tone 
 than the simplicity of an exordium may seem to 
 justify. The subject of which I treat has excited such 
 general and such ardent expectation, that I imagine 
 myself not in the forum or on the rostra, surrounded 
 only by the people of Athens or of Rome, but about 
 to address in this, as I did in my former Defence, the 
 whole collective body of people, through the wide 
 expanse of anxious and listening Europe. I seem to 
 survey, as from a towering height, the far-extended 
 tracts of sea and land, and innumerable crowds of 
 spectators, betraying in their looks the liveliest 
 interest, and sensations the most congenial with my 
 own. Here I behold the stout and manly prowess of 
 the Germans disdaining servitude ; there the generous 
 and lively impetuosity of the French ; on this side, 
 the calm and stately valour of the Spaniard ; on that, 
 
248 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the composed and wary magnanimity of the Italian. 
 Of all the lovers of liberty and virtue, the magnani- 
 mous and the wise, in whatever quarter they may be 
 found, some secretly favour, others openly approve ; 
 some greet me with congratulations and applause, 
 others, who had long been proof against conviction, 
 at last yield themselves captive to the force of truth. 
 Surrounded by congregated multitudes, 1 now imagine 
 that, from the columns of Hercules to the Indian 
 Ocean, I behold the nations of the earth recovering 
 that liberty which they had so long lost. Nor shall I 
 approach unknown, nor perhaps unloved, if it be told 
 that I am the same person who engaged in single 
 combat that fierce advocate of despotism ; till then 
 reputed invincible in the opinion of many, and in his 
 own conceit ; whom I silenced with his own weapons ; 
 and over whom I gained a complete and glorious 
 victory. That this is the plain unvarnished fact 
 appears from this : that after the most noble Queen of 
 Sweden had invited Salmasius or Salmatia (for to 
 which sex he belonged is a matter of uncertainty) to 
 her court, where he was received with great distinc- 
 tion, my Defence suddenly surprised him in the midst 
 of his security. It was generally read, and by the 
 queen among the rest, who, attentive to the dignity 
 of her station, let the stranger experience no diminu- 
 tion of her former kindness and munificence. But 
 with respect to the rest, such a change was instantly 
 
Milton's prose works. 249 
 
 effected in the public sentiment, that he, who but 
 yesterday flourished in the highest degree of favour, 
 seemed to-day to wither in neglect ; and soon after 
 receiving permission to depart, he left it doubtful 
 among many whether he were more honoured when 
 he came, or more disgraced when he went away. 
 And all this I have mentioned that I might clearly 
 show what reasons I had for commencing this work 
 with an effusion of gratitude to the Father of the 
 universe. Such a preface was most appropriate, in 
 which I might prove, by an enumeration of particulars, 
 that I had not been without my share of human 
 misery ; but that I had, at the same time, experienced 
 singular marks of the divine regard; and I again 
 invoke the same Almighty Being, that I may still be 
 able with the same integrity, the same diligence, and 
 the same success to defend the dearest interests, not 
 merely of one people, but of the whole human race, 
 against the enemies of human liberty. 
 
 " But the conflict between me and Salmasius is now 
 finally terminated by his death ; and I will not write 
 against the dead ; nor will I reproach him with the 
 loss of life as he did me with the loss of sight ; though 
 there are some who impute his death to the penetrat- 
 ing severity of my strictures, which he rendered only 
 the more sharp by his endeavours to resist. And he 
 was destroyed, after three years of grief, rather by the 
 force of depression than disease." 
 
250 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 He then passes to his present anonymous opponent, 
 whom, however, he well knows, and after severely 
 handling him, mentions by name. We are thankful 
 to meet with the following passage : — "If I inveigh 
 against tyrants, what is this to kings ? whom I am far 
 from associating with' tyrants (quos ego a tyrannis 
 longissime sejungo). As much as an honest man dif- 
 fers from a rogue, so much I contend that a king dif- 
 fers from a tyrant. Whence it is clear that a tyrant 
 is so far from being a king, that he is always in direct 
 opposition to a king. And he who peruses the re- 
 cords of history will find that more kings have been 
 subverted by tyrants than by their subjects. He 
 therefore who would authorize the destruction of 
 tyrants, does not authorize the destruction of kings, 
 but of the most inveterate enemies to kings. But 
 that right which you concede to kings, the right of 
 doing what they please, is not justice, but injustice, 
 ruin, and despair (non est jus, sed injuria, sed scelus, 
 sed ipsa pernicies)." 
 
 " Let us now come to the charges which were 
 brought against myself. Is there anything reprehen- 
 sible in my manners or my conduct ? Surely nothing. 
 What no one, not totally divested of all generous sen- 
 sibility, would have done, Salmasius reproaches me 
 with want of beauty and loss of sight. 
 
 " A monster huge and hideous, void of sight." 
 
 1 certainly never supposed that I should have been 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 251 
 
 obliged to enter into a competition for beauty with 
 the Cyclops ; but he immediately corrects himself, 
 and says, " though not indeed huge, for there cannot 
 be a more spare, shrivelled, and bloodless form." It 
 is of no moment to say anything of personal appear- 
 ance, yet lest (as the Spanish vulgar, implicitly con- 
 fiding in the relations of their priests, believe of here- 
 tics) anyone, from the representations of my enemies, 
 should be led to imagine that I have either the head 
 of a dog, or the horn of a rhinoceros, I will say some- 
 thing on the subject, that I may have an opportunity 
 of paying my grateful acknowledgments to the Deity, 
 and of refuting the most shameless lies. I do not be- 
 lieve that I was ever noted for deformity by anyone 
 who ever saw me ; but the praise of beauty I am not 
 anxious to obtain. My stature certainly is not tall, 
 but it rather approaches the middle than the diminu- 
 tive. Yet what if it were diminutive, when so many 
 men, illustrious both in peace and war, have been the 
 same ? And how can that be called diminutive, 
 which is great enough for every virtuous achieve- 
 ment ? Nor, though very thin, was I ever deficient 
 in courage or in strength ; and I was wont constantly 
 to exercise myself in the use of the broadsword, as 
 long as it comported with my habit and my years. 
 Armed with this weapon, as I usually was, I should 
 have thought myself quite a match for anyone, though 
 much stronger than myself; and I felt perfectly secure 
 
252 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 against the assault of any open enemy. At this mo- 
 ment I have the same courage, the same strength, 
 though not the same eyes ; yet so little do they be- 
 tray any external appearance of injury, that they are 
 as unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who 
 most distinctly see. In this instance alone I am a 
 dissembler against my will. My face, which is said 
 to indicate a total privation of blood, is of a com- 
 plexion entirely opposite to the pale and the cadaver- 
 ous ; so that, though I am more than forty years old, 
 there is scarcely anyone to whom I do not appear 
 ten years younger than I am ; and the smoothness of 
 my skin is not, in the least, affected by the wrinkles 
 of age. If there be one particle of falsehood in this 
 relation, I should deservedly incur the ridicule of 
 many thousands of my countrymen, and even many 
 foreigners to whom I am personally known. Thus 
 much necessity compelled me to assert concerning my 
 personal appearance. I wish that I could with equal 
 facility refute what this barbarous opponent has said 
 of my blindness ; but I cannot do it ; and I must sub- 
 mit to the affliction. It is not so wretched to be 
 blind, as it is not to be capable of enduring blindness. 
 But why should I not endure a misfortune which it 
 behoves every one to be prepared to endure, if it 
 should happen ; which may, in the common course of 
 things, happen to any man ; and which has been 
 known to happen to the most distinguished and vir- 
 
Milton's prose works. 253 
 
 tuous persons in history. Shall I mention those wise 
 and ancient bards, whose misfortunes the gods are 
 said to have compensated by superior endowments ? 
 But God Himself is truth ; in propagating which, as 
 men display a greater integrity and zeal, they approach 
 nearer to the similitude of God, and possess a greater 
 portion of His love. We cannot suppose the Deity 
 envious of truth, or unwilling that it should be freely 
 communicated to mankind. The loss of sight, there- 
 fore, which these inspired sages, who were so eager 
 in promoting knowledge among men, sustained, 
 cannot be considered as a judicial punishment. Or 
 shall I mention those worthies who were as distin- 
 guished for wisdom in the cabinet, as for valour in 
 the field? And first, Timoleon of Corinth, who 
 delivered his city and all Sicily from the yoke of 
 slavery ; than whom there never lived in any age, 
 a more virtuous man, or a more incorrupt states- 
 man : next Appius Claudius, whose discreet counsels 
 in the senate, though they could not restore sight to 
 his eyes, saved Italy from the formidable inroads of 
 Pyrrhus : then Caecilius Metellus the high-priest, who 
 lost his sight, while he saved, not only the city, but 
 the palladium, the protection of the city, and the most 
 sacred relics, from the destruction of the flames. 
 On other occasions Providence has indeed given 
 conspicuous proofs of its regard for such singular ex- 
 ertions of patriotism and virtue ; what, therefore^ hap- 
 
254 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 pened to so great and so good men, I can hard- 
 ly place in the catalogue of misfortunes. Why should 
 I mention others of later time, as Dandolo of Venice, 
 the incomparable Doge ; or Boemar Zisca, the bravest 
 of generals, and the champion of the cross ; or Jerome 
 Zanchius, and some other theologians of the highest 
 reputation ? For it is evident that the patriarch 
 Isaac, than whom no man ever enjoyed more of the 
 divine regard, lived blind for many years ; and per- 
 haps also his son Jacob, who was equally an object of 
 the divine benevolence. And in short, did not our 
 Saviour Himself clearly declare that the poor man 
 whom He restored to sight had not been born blind, 
 either on account of his own sins, or those of his pro- 
 genitors ? And with respect to myself, though I have 
 accurately examined my conduct, and scrutinized my 
 soul, I call Thee, God, the searcher of hearts, to 
 witness, that I am not conscious, either in the more 
 early, or in the later periods of my life, of having 
 committed any enormity, which might deservedly have 
 marked me out as a a fit object for such a calamitous 
 visitation. But since my enemies boast that this af- 
 fliction is only a retribution for the transgressions of 
 my pen, I again invoke the Almighty to witness, that 
 I never, at any time, wrote anything which I did not 
 think agreeable to truth, to justice, and to piety. This 
 was my persuasion then, and I feel the same persua- 
 sion now. Nor was I ever prompted to such exer- 
 
Milton's prose works. 255 
 
 tions by the influence of ambition ; by the lust of 
 lucre or of praise ; it was only by the conviction of 
 duty, and the feeling of patriotism, a disinterested pas- 
 sion for the extension of civil and religious liberty. 
 Thus, therefore, when I was publicly solicited to write a 
 reply to the Defence of the royal cause, when I had 
 to contend with the pressure of sickness, and with the 
 apprehension of soon losing the sight of my remain- 
 ing eye, and when my medical attendants clearly an- 
 nounced, that if I did engage in the work, it would be 
 irreparably lost, their premonitions caused no hesita- 
 tion and inspired no dismay. I would not have lis- 
 tened to the voice even of Esculapius himself from 
 the shrine of Epidauris, in preference to the sugges- 
 tions of the heavenly monitor within my breast ; my 
 resolution was unshaken, though the alternative was 
 either the loss of my sight, or the desertion of my 
 duty. I considered that many had purchased a less 
 good by a greater evil, the meed of glory by the loss 
 of life ; but that I might procure great good by little 
 suffering ; that though I am blind, I might still dis- 
 charge the most honourable duties, the performance 
 of which, as it is something more durable than glory, 
 ought to be an object of superior admiration and es- 
 teem ; I resolved, therefore, to make the short inter- 
 val of sight, which was left me to enjoy, as beneficial 
 as possible to the public interest. Thus it is clear by 
 what motives I was governed in the measures which 
 
256 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 I took, and the losses which I sustained. Let, then, 
 the calumniators of the divine goodness cease to re- 
 vile, or to make me the object of their superstitious 
 imaginations. Let them consider, that my situation, 
 such as it is, is neither an object of my shame or my 
 regret, that my resolutions are too firm to be shaken, 
 that I am not depressed by any sense of the divine 
 displeasure ; that, on the other hand, in the most mo- 
 mentous periods, I have had full experience of the 
 divine favour and protection ; and that, in the solace 
 and the strength which have been infused into me 
 from above, I have been enabled to do the will of 
 God ; that I may oftener think on what he has be- 
 stowed, than on what He has withheld ; that, in short, 
 I am unwilling to exchange my consciousness of rec- 
 titude with that of any other person ; and that I feel 
 the recollection a treasured store of tranquillity and 
 delight. But if the choice were necessary, I would, 
 sir, prefer my blindness to yours ; yours is a cloud 
 spread over the mind, which darkens both the light of 
 reason and of conscience ; mine keeps from my view 
 only the coloured surfaces of things, while it leaves 
 me at liberty to contemplate the beauty and sta- 
 bility of virtue and of truth. How many things are 
 there besides which I would not willingly see ; how 
 many things which I must see against my will; and how 
 few which I feel any anxiety to see ! There is, as the 
 Apostle has remarked (rather, exemplified, the Latin 
 
Milton's prose works. 257 
 
 is, prseeunte Apostolo), a way to strength through 
 weakness. Let me then be the most feeble creature 
 alive, as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate 
 the energies of my rational and immortal spirit ; as 
 long as in that obscurity, in which I am enveloped, 
 the light of the divine presence more clearly shines, 
 then, in proportion, as I am weak, I shall be invinci- 
 bly strong ; and in proportion as I am blind, I shall 
 more clearly see. Oh ! that I may thus be per- 
 fected by feebleness, and irradiated by obscurity ! 
 And indeed, in my blindness. I enjoy in no incon- 
 siderable degree the favour of the Deity, who regards 
 me with more tenderness and compassion in propor- 
 tion as I am able to behold nothing but Himself. 
 Alas ! for him who insults me, who maligns and 
 merits public execration ! For the divine law not only 
 shields me from injury, but almost renders me too 
 sacred to attack ; not indeed so much from the priva- 
 tion of my sight, as from the overshadowing of those 
 heavenly wings which seem to have occasioned this 
 obscurity ; and which, when occasioned, he is wont to 
 illuminate with an interior light, more precious and 
 more pure." 
 
 Nothing can surpass the beauty, the pathos, and the 
 piety of the original in this splendid passage, which 
 the very free translation of Mr. Fellowes, in Bohn s 
 edition, fails altogether to convey. One sentence he 
 has entirely omitted, by a lapsus plumae, we suppose. 
 
 s 
 
258 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 That our readers may judge for themselves we will 
 here set down the Latin which Milton actually wrote ; 
 which will also serve as a sample of his elegant and 
 pure style of writing in that language. 
 
 " Ad csecitatem denique quod attinet, malle me, si 
 necesse est, meam, quam vel suam. More, vel tuam. 
 Vestra imis sensibus iramersa, ne quid sani videatis aut 
 solidi, mentem obcascat : mea, quam objicitis, colorem 
 tantummodo rebus et superficiem demit ; quod verum 
 ac stabile in iis est contemplationi mentis non adimit. 
 Quam multa deinde sunt quse videre nollem, quam 
 multa qu£e possem libens non videre, quam panca re- 
 liqua sunt quse videre cupiam. Sed neque ego ceecis, 
 afflictis, moerentibus, imbecillis, tametsi vos id miserum 
 ducitis, aggregari me discrutior; quandoquidem spes 
 est eo me propius ad misericordiam summi Patris 
 atque tutelam pertinere. Est quoddam per imbecilli- 
 tatem, prseeunte Apostolo, ad maximas vires iter : sin 
 ego debilissimus, dummodo in mea debilitate immor- 
 talis ille et melior vigor eo se efficacius exerat ; dum- 
 modo in meis tenebris divini vultus lumen eo clarius 
 eluceat; tum enim infirmissimus ero simul et vali- 
 dissimus, csecus eodem tempore etperspicacissimus; hac 
 possim ego infirmitate consummari, hac perfici, possim 
 in hac obscuritate sic ego irradiari. Et sane hand 
 ultima Dei cura cseci sunius ; qui nos, quo minus quic- 
 quam aliud praeter ipsum cernere valemus, eo cle- 
 mentius atque benignius respicere diguatur. Vas qui 
 
Milton's prose works. 259 
 
 illudit nos, v£e qui l^edit, exsecratione publica devo- 
 vendo ; nos ab injuriis honmiuin non modo incolutnes 
 sed pene sacros, divina lex reddidit, divinus favor ; nee 
 tarn oculorum hebetudine, quam celestium alarum 
 umbra ras nobis fecisse tenebras videtur, factas illus- 
 trare rursus interiore ac longe prsestabiliore lumine 
 baud raro solet." 
 
 " To this I ascribe the more tender assiduities of my 
 friends, their soothing attentions, their kind visits, their 
 reverential observances. (Hue refero, quod et amici 
 officiosius nunc etiam quam solebant, colunt, obser- 
 vant, adsunt.) This extraordinary kindness, which I 
 experience, cannot be any fortuitous combination ; and 
 friends, such as mine, do not suppose that all the 
 virtues of a man are contained in his eyes. Nor do 
 the persons of principal distinction in the common- 
 wealth suffer me to be bereaved of comfort, when they 
 see me bereaved of sight, amid the exertions which I 
 made, the zeal which I showed, and the dangers which 
 I run for the liberty which I love. But, soberly re- 
 flecting on the casualties of human life, they show me 
 favour and indulgence, as to a soldier who has served 
 his time, and kindly concede to me an exemption from 
 care and toil. They do not strip me of the badges of 
 honour which I have once worn ; they do not deprive 
 me of the places of public trust to which I have 
 been appointed : they do not abridge my salary or 
 emoluments ; (si quid est ornamenti, non detrahunt ; 
 
 s2 
 
260 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 si quid publici numeris, non adimunt ; si quid 
 ex e^ re commodi, non minuunt;J which, though I 
 may not do so much to deserve as I did formerly, they 
 are too considerate and too kind to take away ; 
 and, in short, they honour me as much as the Athenians 
 did those whom they determined to support at the 
 public expense in the Prytaneum. Thus, while both 
 God and man unite in solacing me under the weight 
 of my affliction, let no one lament my loss of sight in 
 so honourable a cause. And let me not indulge in 
 unavailing grief, or want the courage either to despise 
 the revilers of my blindness, or the forbearance easily 
 to pardon the offence. I return to you, whoever you 
 may be, who, with a remarkable inconsistency, seem 
 to consider me at one time as a giant, and at another 
 as a dwarf (Nunc pumilionem me, nunc Antaeum 
 vis esse.)" 
 
 We now pass on to the interesting episode of his 
 autobiography. 
 
 " I will now mention who and whence I am. I 
 was born at London, of an honest family ; my father 
 was distinguished by the undeviating integrity of his 
 life ; my mother, by the esteem in which she was held, 
 and the alms which she bestowed. My father destined 
 me from a child to the pursuits of literature; and my appe- 
 tite for knowledge was so voracious, that, from twelve 
 years of age, I hardly ever left my studies, or went to 
 
Milton's prose works. 261 
 
 bed before midnight. This primarily led to my loss of 
 sight. My eyes were naturally weak, and I was sub- 
 ject to frequent headaches ; which, however, could 
 not chill the ardour of my curiosity, or retard the 
 progress of my improvement. My father had me 
 daily instructed in the grammar-school, and by other 
 masters at home. He then, after I had acquired a 
 proficiency in various languages, and had made a con- 
 siderable progress in philosophy, sent me to the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge. Here I passed seven years in 
 the usual course of instruction and study, with the 
 approbation of the good, and without any stain upon 
 my character, till I took the degree of Master of Arts. 
 After this I did not, as this miscreant feigns, run away 
 into Italy, but of my own accord retired to my father's 
 house (at Horton, in Buckinghamshire), whither I was 
 accompanied by the regrets of most of the fellows of 
 the college, who showed me no common marks of 
 friendship and esteem. On my father's estate, where 
 he had determined to pass the remainder of his days, 
 I enjoyed an interval of uninterrupted leisure which I 
 entirely devoted to the perusal of the Greek and Latin 
 classics ; though I occasionally visited the metropolis, 
 either for the sake of purchasing books, or of learning 
 something new in mathematics or in music, in which 
 I, at that time, found a source of pleasure and amuse- 
 ment. In this manner I spent five years till my mo- 
 ther's death. I then became anxious to visit foreign 
 
262 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 parts, and particularly Italy. My father gave me his 
 permission, and I left home with one servant. On 
 my departure, the celebrated Henry Wootton, who 
 had long been King James's ambassador at Venice, 
 gave me a signal proof of his regard, in an elegant 
 letter which he wrote, breathing not only the warmest 
 friendship, but containing some maxims of conduct 
 which I found very useful in my travels. The noble 
 Thomas Scudamore, King Charles's ambassador, to 
 whom I carried letters of recommendation, received 
 me most courteously at Paris. His lordship gave me 
 a card of introduction to the learned Hugo Grotius, at 
 that time ambassador from the Queen of Sweden to 
 the French court ; whose acquaintance I anxiously de- 
 sired, and to whose house I was accompanied by some 
 of his lordship's friends. A few days after, when I 
 set out for Italy, he gave me letters to the English 
 merchants on my route, that they might show me any 
 civilities in their power. Taking ship at Nice, I arrived 
 at Genoa, and after wards visited Leghorn, Pisa, and Flo- 
 rence. In the latter city, which I have always more 
 particularly esteemed for the elegance of its dialect, its 
 genius, and its taste, I stopped about two months; when I 
 contracted an intimacy with many persons of rank and 
 learning ; and was a constant attendant at their lite- 
 rary parties ; a practice which prevails there, and tends 
 so much to the diffusion of knowledge, and the pre- 
 servation of friendship. No time will ever abolish the 
 
Milton's pkose works. 263 
 
 agreeable recollections which I cherish of Jacob Gaddi, 
 Carolo Dati, Frescobaldo, Cultellero, Bonomatthai, 
 Clementillo, Francisco, and many others. From Flo- 
 rence I went to Siena, thence to Rome, where, after I 
 had spent about two months in viewing the antiquities 
 of that renowned city, where I experienced the most 
 friendly attentions from Lucas Holstein, and other 
 learned and ingenious men, I continued my route to 
 Naples. There I was introduced by a certain recluse, 
 with whom I had travelled from Rome, to John Bap- 
 tista Manso, marquis of Villa, a nobleman of distin- 
 guished rank and authority, to whom Torquato Tasso, 
 the illustrious poet, inscribed his book on friendship. 
 During my stay, he gave me singular proofs of his re- 
 gard ; he himself conducted me round the city, and to 
 the palace of the viceroy ; and more than once paid 
 me a visit at my lodgings. On my departure he 
 gravely apologised for not having shewn me more 
 civility, which he said he had been restrained from 
 doing, because I had spoken with so little reserve on 
 matters of religion. When I was preparing to pass 
 over into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelligence 
 which I received of the civil commotions in England 
 made me alter my purpose ; for I thought it base to be 
 travelling for amusement abroad, while my fellow- 
 citizens were fighting for liberty at home. While I 
 was on my way back to Rome, some merchants in- 
 formed me that the English Jesuits had formed a plot 
 
264 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 against me if I returned to Rome, because I had 
 spoken too freely on religion ; for it was a rule which 
 I laid down to myself in those places, never to be the 
 first to begin any conversation on religion ; but if any 
 questions were put to me concerning ray faith, to de- 
 clare it without any reserve or fear. I, nevertheless, 
 returned to Rome. I took no steps to conceal either 
 my person or my character ; and for about the space of 
 two months I again openly defended, as I had done 
 before, the reformed religion in the very metropolis of 
 popery. By the favour of God, I got safe back to 
 Florence, where I was received with as much affection 
 as if I had returned to my native country. There I 
 stopped as many months as I had done before, except 
 that I made an excursion for a few days to Lucca ; 
 and, crossing the Apennines, passed through Bologna 
 and Ferrara to Venice. After 1 had spent a month 
 in surveying t,he curiosities of this city, and had put on 
 board a ship the books which I had collected in Italy, 
 I proceeded through Verona and Milan, and along the 
 Leman Lake to Geneva. The mention of this city 
 brings to my recollection the slandering More, and 
 makes me again call the Deity to witness, that in all 
 those places in which vice meets with so little discour- 
 agement, and is practised with so little shame, I never 
 once deviated from the paths of integrity and virtue, and 
 perpetually reflected that, though my conduct might 
 escape the notice of men, it could not elude the in- 
 
Milton's prose works. 265 
 
 spection of God. At Geneva I held daily conferences 
 witli John Deodati, the learned professor of Theology. 
 Then pursuing my former route through France, I 
 returned to my native country, after an absence of 
 one year and about three months ; at the time when 
 Charles, having broken the peace, was renewing 
 what is called the episcopal war with the Scots, 
 in which the royalists being routed in the first en- 
 counter, and the English being universally and 
 justly disaffected, the necessity of his affairs at last 
 obliged him to convene a Parliament. As soon 
 as I was able, I hired a spacious house in the city for 
 myself and my books ; where I again with rapture 
 renewed my literary pusuits and where I calmly 
 awaited the issue of the contest, which I trusted 
 to the wise conduct of Providence, and to the courage 
 of the people. The- vigour of the Parliament had 
 begun to humble the pride of the bishops. They said 
 that it was unjust that they alone should differ from 
 the model of other reformed churches ; that the 
 government of the church should be according to the 
 pattern of other churches, and particularly the word of 
 God. This awakened all my attention and my zeal. 
 I saw that a way was opening for the establishment 
 of real liberty ; that the foundation was laying for the 
 deliverance of man from the yoke of slavery and 
 superstition ; that the principles of religion, which 
 were the first objects of our care, would exert a salu- 
 
266 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 tary influence on the manners and constitution of the 
 repubHc ; and as I had from my youth studied the 
 distinctions between rehgious and civil rights, I per- 
 ceived that if I ever v\rished to be of use, I ought at 
 least not to be wanting to my country, to the church, 
 and to so many of my fellow-Christians, in a crisis of 
 so much danger. I therefore determined to relin- 
 quish the other pursuits in which I was engaged, and 
 to transfer the whole force of my talents and my 
 industry to this one important object. I accordingly 
 wrote two books to a friend concerning the Reforma- 
 tion of the Church of England. Afterwards, when 
 two bishops of superior distinction (Bishop Hall and 
 Archbishop Usher) vindicated their privileges against 
 some principal ministers (the five w^hose initials form 
 the word Smectymnuus), I thought that on those 
 topics, to the consideration of which I was led solely 
 by my love of truth, and my reverence for Christi- 
 anity, I should not probably write worse than those 
 who were contending only for their own emoluments 
 and usurpations. I therefore answered the one in 
 two books, of w^hich the first is inscribed. Concerning 
 Prelatical Episcopacy, and the other Concerning the 
 mode of Ecclesiastical Government ; and I replied to 
 the other in some Animadversions, and soon after in 
 an Apology. On this occasion it was supposed that I 
 brought a timely succour to the ministers, who were 
 hardly a match for the eloquence of their opponents ; 
 
Milton's prose works. 267 
 
 and from that time I was actively employed in refut- 
 ing any answers that appeared. When the bishops 
 could no longer resist the multitude of their assail- 
 ants, I had leisure to turn my thoughts to other sub- 
 jects; to the promotion of real and substantial 
 liberty ; which is rather to be sought from within than 
 from without ; and whose existence depends, not so 
 much on the terror of the sword, as on sobriety of 
 conduct and integrity of life. When, therefore, I 
 perceived that there were three species of liberty 
 which are essential to the happiness of social life — 
 religious, domestic, and civil ; and as I had already 
 written concerning the first, and the magistrates were 
 strenuously active in obtaining the third, I determined 
 to turn my attention to the second, or the domestic 
 species. As this seemed to involve three material 
 questions, the conditions of the conjugal tie, the edu- 
 cation of the children, and the free publication of the 
 thoughts, I made them objects of distinct considera- 
 tion. I explained my sentiments, not only concern- 
 ing the solemnization of the marriage, but the disso- 
 lution, if circumstances rendered it necessary ; and I 
 drew my arguments from the divine law, which Christ 
 did not abolish, or publish another more grievous 
 than that of Moses. I stated my own opinions, and 
 those of others, concerning the exclusive exception of 
 fornication, which our illustrious Selden has since, in 
 his Hebrew Wife, more copiously discussed ; for he in 
 
268 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 vain makes a vaunt of liberty in the senate or in the 
 forum, who languishes under the vilest servitude, to 
 an inferior at home. On this subject, therefore, I 
 published some books which were more particularly 
 necessary at that time, when man and wife were often 
 the most inveterate foes, when the man often staid to 
 take care of his children at home, while the mother of 
 the family was seen in the camp of the enemy, 
 threatening death and destruction to her husband. I 
 then discussed the principles of Education in a sum- 
 mary manner, but sufficiently copious for those who 
 attend seriously to the subject; than which nothing 
 can be more necessary to principle the minds of men 
 in virtue, the only genuine source of political and 
 individual liberty, the only true safeguard of states, 
 the bulwark of their prosperity and renown. Lastly, 
 I wrote my Areopagitica, in order to deliver the press 
 from the restraints with which it was encumbered ; 
 that the power of determining what was true and what 
 was false, what ought to be published and what 
 to be suppressed, might no longer be entrusted to a 
 few illiterate and illiberal individuals, who refused 
 their sanction to any work which contained views or 
 sentiments at all above the level of the vulgar super- 
 stition. On the last species of civil liberty, I said 
 nothing, because I saw that sufficient attention was 
 paid to it by the magistrates ; nor did I write any- 
 thing on the prerogative of the crown, till the king, 
 
Milton's prose works. 269 
 
 voted an enemy by the Parliament, and vanquished in 
 the field, was summoned before the tribunal which 
 condemned him to lose his head. But when, at 
 length, some Presbyterian ministers, who had formerly 
 been the most bitter enemies to Charles, became 
 jealous of the growth of the Independents, and of 
 their ascendancy in the Parliament, most tumult- 
 uously clamoured against the sentence, and did all 
 in their power to prevent the execution, though 
 they were not angry so much on the account 
 of the act itself, as because it was not the act 
 of their party; and when they dared to affirm 
 that the doctrine of the Protestants, and of all 
 the reformed churches, was abhorrent to such an 
 atrocious proceeding against kings, I thought that it 
 became me to oppose such a glaring falsehood ; and 
 accordingly, without any immediate or personal appli- 
 cation to Charles, I showed, in an abstract considera- 
 tion of the question, what might be lawfully done 
 against tyrants ; and in support of what I advanced, 
 produced the opinions of the most celebrated divines ; 
 while I vehemently inveighed against the egregious 
 ignorance or effrontery of men, who professed better 
 things, and from whom better things might have been 
 expected. That book (the Tenure of Kings and Ma- 
 gistrates, 1650) did not make its appearance till after 
 the death of Charles, and was written rather to recon- 
 cile the minds of the people to the event, than to dis- 
 
270 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 CUSS the legitimacy of that particular sentence which 
 concerned the magistrates, and which was already 
 executed. Such were the fruits of my private studies 
 which I gratuitously presented to the church and to 
 the state, and for which I was recompensed by no- 
 thing but impunity ; though the actions themselves 
 procured me peace of conscience, and the approba- 
 tion of the good ; while I exercised that freedom of 
 of discussion which I loved. Others, without labour 
 or desert, got possession of honours and emoluments ; 
 but no one ever knew me either soliciting anything 
 myself, or, through the medium of my friends, ever 
 beheld me in a supplicating posture at the doors of the 
 senate, or the levees of the great. I usually kept 
 myself secluded at home, where my own property, 
 part of which had been withheld during the civil 
 commotions, and part of which had been absorbed in 
 the oppressive contributions which I had to sustain, 
 afforded me a scanty subsistence. When I was re- 
 leased from these engagements, and thought that I 
 was about to enjoy an interval of uninterrupted ease, 
 I turned my thoughts to a continued history of my 
 country, from the earliest times to the present period. 
 I had already finished four books, when, after the 
 subversion of the monarchy, and the establishment of 
 a republic, I was surprised by an invitation from the 
 Council of State, who desired my services in the 
 office for foreign affairs. A book appeared soon 
 
Milton's prose works. 271 
 
 after, which was ascribed to the King, and contained 
 the most invidious charges against the Parliament. I 
 was ordered to answer it ; and opposed the Icono- 
 clast to his Icon. I did not insult over fallen majes- 
 ty, as is pretended ; I only preferred queen Truth to 
 king Charles. The charge of insult, which I saw that 
 the malevolent would urge, I was at some pains to 
 remove in the beginning of the work ; and as often as 
 possible in other places. Salmasius then appeared, 
 to whom they were not, as More says, long in look- 
 ing about for an opponent, but immediately ap- 
 pointed me, who happened at the time to be present 
 at the council. I have thus given some account of 
 myself, in order to stop your mouth, and to remove 
 any prejudices which your falsehoods and misrepre- 
 sentations might cause even good men to entertain 
 against me." 
 
 We must not omit the characters which he here 
 draws of the Regicides, or, as they would prefer to 
 be called, the Tyrannicides, the leading and master 
 spirits of the Commonwealth, such as Cromwell, 
 Bradshaw, Fairfax, Fleetwood, and others. 
 
 CHARACTER OF BRADSHAW. 
 
 " John Bradshaw (a name which will be repeated 
 with applause wherever liberty is cherished or is 
 
272 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 known) was sprung from a noble family. All his 
 early life he sedulously employed in making himself 
 acquainted with the laws of his country ; he then 
 practised with singular success and reputation at the 
 bar; he showed himself an intrepid and unwearied 
 advocate for the liberties of the people : he took an 
 active part in the most momentous affairs of the state, 
 and occasionally discharged the functions of a judge 
 with the most inviolable integrity. At last, when he 
 was entreated by the Parliament to preside in the 
 trial of the king, he did not refuse the dangerous 
 office. To a profound knowledge of the law, he add- 
 ed the most comprehensive views, the most generous 
 sentinaents, manners the most obliging and the most 
 pure. Hence he discharged that office with a pro- 
 priety almost without a parallel ; he inspired both 
 respect and awe ; and, though menaced by the dag- 
 gers of so many assassins, he conducted himself with 
 so much consistency and gravity, with so much pre- 
 sence of mind and so much dignity of demeanour, 
 that he seems to have been purposely destined by 
 Providence for that part which he so nobly acted on 
 the theatre of the world. And his glory is as much 
 exalted above that of all other tyrannicides, as it is 
 both more humane, more just, and more strikingly 
 grand, judicially to condemn a tyrant, than to put 
 him to death without a trial. In other respects, 
 there was no forbidding austerity, no moroseness, in 
 
Milton's prose works. 273 
 
 his manner ; he was courteous and benign ; but the 
 great character which he then sustained, he with per- 
 fect consistency still sustains, so that you would sup- 
 pose that not only then, but in every future period of 
 his life, he was sitting in judgment upon the king. 
 In the public business his activity is unwearied ; and 
 he alone is equal to a host. At home his hospitality 
 is as splendid as his fortune will permit : in his friend- 
 ships there is the most inflexible fidelity ; and no one 
 more readily discerns merit, or more liberally rewards 
 it. Men of piety and learning, ingenious persons in 
 all professions, those who have been distinguished by 
 their courage or their misfortunes, are free to partici- 
 pate his bounty ; they are sure to share his friendship 
 and esteem. He never ceases to extol the merits of 
 others, or to conceal his own ; and no one was ever 
 more ready to accept the excuses, or to pardon the 
 hostility, of his political opponents. If he undertake 
 to plead the cause of the oppressed, to solicit the 
 favour or deprecate the resentment of the powerful, 
 to reprove the public ingratitude towards any par- 
 ticular individual, his address and his perseverance are 
 beyond all praise. On such occasions no one could 
 desire a patron or a friend more able, more zealous, 
 or more eloquent. No menace could divert him from 
 his purpose ; no intimidation on the one hand, and no 
 promise of emolument or promotion on the other, 
 could alter the serenity of his countenance, or shake 
 
 T 
 
274 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the firmness of his soul. By these virtues which en- 
 deared him to his friends and commanded the respect 
 even of his enemies, he has acquired a name which 
 will flourish in every age and in every country of the 
 world." 
 
 We subjoin the Latin, though both this and the too 
 brief autobiography are, on the whole, very faithfully 
 rendered ; but no translation can ever equal the 
 original. 
 
 "Est Joannes Bradscianus (quod nomen libertas 
 ipsa, quacunque gentium colitur, memorise sempiternas 
 celebrandum commendavit), nobili familia, ut satis 
 notum est, ortus ; unde patriis legibus addiscendis, 
 primam omnem setatem sedulo impendit ; dein con- 
 sultissimus cansarum ac dissertissimus patronus, liber- 
 tatis et populi vindex acerrimus, et magnis rei-publicse 
 negotiis est adhibitus, et incorrupti Judicis munere 
 aliquoties perfunctus : tandem uti Regis judicio prsesi- 
 dere vellet, a senatu rogatus, provinciam sane pericu- 
 losissimam non recusavit. Attulerat enim ad legum 
 scientiam ingenium liberale, animum excelsum, mores 
 integros ac nemini obnoxios ; unde illud munus omni 
 prope exemplo majus ac formidabilius, tot Sicariorum 
 pugionibus ac minis petitus, ita constanter, ita graviter, 
 tanta animi cum prsesentia ac dignitate gessit atque 
 implevit, ut ad hoc ipsum opus, quod jam olim Deus 
 edendum in hoc populo rairabili providentia decre- 
 
Milton's prose works. 275 
 
 verat, ab ipso Numine designatus atque factus videretur; 
 et Tyrannicidarum omnium gloriam tantum superaverit, 
 quanto est humanius, quanto justius, ac maj estate ple- 
 nius, Tyrannum judicare, qaam injudicatum occidere. 
 Alioqui nee tristis, nee severus, sed comis ac placidus, 
 personam tamen quam suscepit tantara, ^qualis ubique 
 sibi, ac veluti consul non unius anni, pari gravitate 
 sustinet : ut non de tribunali tantum, sed per omnem 
 vitam judicare Regem diceres. In consiliis ac labori- 
 bus publicis maxime omnium indefesssus, multisque 
 par unus ; domi, si quis alius, pro suis facultatibus hos- 
 pitalis ac splendidus, amicus longe fidelissimus, atque 
 in omni fortuna certissimus, bene merentes quoscunque 
 nemo citius aut libentius agnoscit, neque maj ore benevo- 
 lentia prosequitur ; nunc pios, nunc doctos, aut quavis 
 ingenii laude cognitos, nunc militares etiam et fortes 
 viros ad inopiam redactos suis opibus sublevat ; iis si 
 non indigent, colit tamen libens atque amplectitur ; 
 alienas laudes perpetuo prsedicare, suas tacere solitus ; 
 hostium quoque civil ium, si quis ad sanitate m rediit, 
 quod experti sunt plurimi, nemo ignoscentior. Quod 
 si causa oppressi cujuspiam defendenda palam, si gratia 
 aut vis potentiorum oppuganda, si in quenquam bene 
 meritum, ingratitudo publica objurganda sit, turn 
 quidem in illo viro, vel facundiam vel constantiam 
 nemo desideret, non patronum, non amicum, vel ido- 
 neum magis et intrepidum, vel disertiorem alium quis- 
 quam sibi optet; habet, quem non minae dimovere 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 recto, non metus aut inunera proposito bono atque 
 officio, vultusque ac mentis firmissimo statu dejicere 
 valeant. Quibus virtutibus, et plerisque merito charus, 
 et inimicissirais non contemnendus, gestarum egregie 
 rerum in republica laudem, apud omnes turn exteros 
 turn posteros, in omne sevum propagabit." 
 
 CHARACTER OF CROMWELL. 
 
 '^Oliver Cromwell was sprung from a line of il- 
 lustrious ancestors, who were distinguished for the civil 
 functions which they sustained under the monarchy, 
 and still more for the part which they took in restor- 
 ing and establishing true religion in this country. In 
 the vigour and maturity of his life, which he passed in 
 retirement, he was conspicuous for nothing more than 
 for the strictness of his religious habits, and the inno- 
 cence of his life ; and he had tacitly cherished in his 
 breast that flame of piety which was afterwards to 
 stand him in so much stead on the greatest occasions, 
 and in the most critical exigencies. In the last Parlia- 
 ment which was called by the King, he was elected to 
 represent his native town, when he soon became dis- 
 tinguished by the justness of his opinions, and the 
 vigour and decision of his counsels. When the sword 
 was drawn, he offered his services, and was appointed 
 to a troop of horse, whose numbers were soon in- 
 creased by the pious and the good, who flocked from 
 
Milton's prose works. 277 
 
 all quarters to his standard ; and in a short time he 
 almost surpassed the greatest generals in the magni- 
 tude and the rapidity of his achievements. Nor is this 
 surprising ; for he was a soldier disciplined to perfec- 
 tion in the knowledge of himself. He had either ex- 
 tinguished, or by habit had learnt to subdue, the 
 whole host of vain hopes, fears, and passions, which 
 infest the soul. He first acquired the government of 
 himself, and over himself acquired the most signal 
 victories ; so that on the first day he took the field 
 against the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms 
 consummately practised in the toils and exigencies of 
 war. It is not possible for me in the narrow limits in 
 which I circumscribe myself on this occasion, to en- 
 numerate the many towns which he has taken, the 
 many battles which he has won. The whole surface 
 of the British Empire has been the scene of his ex- 
 ploits, and the theatre of his triumphs ; which alone 
 would furnish ample materials for a history, and want 
 a copiousness of narration not inferior to the magni- 
 tude and diversity of the transactions. This alone 
 seems to be a sufficient proof of his extraordinary and 
 almost supernatural virtue, that by the vigour of his 
 genius, or the excellence of his discipline, adapted, not 
 more to the necessities of war than to the precepts of 
 Christianity, the good and the brave were from all 
 quarters attracted to his camp, not only as to the best 
 school of military talents, but of piety and virtue ; and 
 
 y 
 
278 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 that during the whole war, and the occasional inter- 
 vals of peace, amid so many vicissitudes of faction and 
 of events, he retained and still retains the obedience 
 of his troops, not by largesses or indulgence, but by 
 his sole authority, and the regularity of his pay. In 
 this instance his fame may rival that of Cyrus, of 
 Epaminondas, or of any of the great generals of anti- 
 quity. Hence he collected an army as numerous and as 
 well equipped as any one ever did in so short a time ; 
 which was uniformly obedient to his orders, and dear 
 to the affections of the citizens ; which was formid- 
 able to the enemy in the field, but never cruel to 
 those who laid down their arms ; which committed no 
 lawless ravages on the persons or the property of the 
 inhabitants ; who, when they compared their conduct 
 with the turbulence, the intemperance, the impiety, 
 and the debauchery of the royalists, were wont to 
 salute them as friends, and to consider them as guests. 
 They were a stay to the good, a terror to the evil, 
 and the warmest advocates for every exertion of piety 
 and virtue." 
 
 CHARACTER OF FAIRFAX. 
 
 " Nor would it be right to pass over the name of 
 Fairfax, who united the utmost fortitude with the ut- 
 most courage, and the spotless innocence of whose life 
 seemed to point him out as the peculiar favourite of 
 
Milton's prose works. 279 
 
 Heaven. Justly, indeed, may you be excited to re- 
 ceive this wreath of praise ; though you have retired 
 as much as possible from the world, and seek those 
 shades of privacy which were the delight of Scipio. 
 Nor was it only the enemy whom you subdued, but 
 you have triumphed over that flame of ambition, and 
 that lust of glory which are wont to make the best 
 and the greatest of men their slaves. The purity of 
 your virtues, and the splendour of your actions, con- 
 secrate those sweets of ease which you enjoy, and 
 which constitute the wished-for haven of the toils of 
 man. Such was the ease which, when the heroes of 
 antiquity possessed, after a life of exertion and glory 
 not greater than yours, the poets, in despair of find- 
 ing ideas or expressions better suited to the subject, 
 feigned that they were received into heaven, and in- 
 vited to recline at the tables of the gods. But whe- 
 ther it were your health, which I principally believe, 
 or any other motive which caused you to retire, of 
 this I am convinced, that nothing could have induced 
 you to relinquish the service of your country, if you 
 had not known that in your successor liberty would 
 meet with a protector, and England with a stay to its 
 safety, and a pillar to its glory. For while you, 
 Cromwell, are left among us, he hardly shows a proper 
 confidence in the Supreme, who distrusts the security 
 of England ; when he sees that you are in so special a 
 manner the favoured object of the divine regard." 
 
280 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 COMMEMORATION OF FLEETWOOD, LAMBERT AND 
 OTHERS. 
 
 " I NOW feel myself irresistibly compelled to com- 
 memorate the names of some of those who have most 
 conspicuously signalized themselves in these times : 
 and first, thee, Fleetwood, whom I have known 
 from a boy to the present blooming maturity of your 
 military fame, to have been inferior to none in hu- 
 manity, in gentleness, in benignity of disposition, 
 whose intrepidity in the combat, and whose clemency 
 in victory, have been acknowledged even by the 
 enemy ; next thee, Lambert, who, with a mere 
 handful of men, checked the progress, and sustained 
 the attack of the Duke of Hamilton, who was attend- 
 ed by the whole flower and vigour of the Scottish 
 youth : next thee, Desborough, and thee, Hawley, 
 who wast always conspicuous in the heat of the com- 
 bat, and the thickest of the fight : thee, Overton, 
 who hast been most endeared to me now for so many 
 years by the similitude of our studies, the suavity of 
 your manners, and the more than fraternal sympathy 
 of our hearts ; you, who, in the memorable battle of 
 Marston Moor, when our left wing was put to the 
 rout, were beheld with admiration, making head 
 against the enemy with your infantry, and repelling 
 his attack, amid the thickest of the carnage ; and 
 lastly you, who, in the Scotch war, when under the 
 auspices of Cromwell, occupied the coast of Fife, 
 
Milton's prose works. 281' 
 
 opened a passage beyond Stirling, and made the 
 Scotch of the west, and of the north, and even the 
 remotest Orkneys, confess your humanity, and submit 
 to your power. Besides these, I will mention^some 
 as celebrated for their political wisdom and their civil 
 virtues, who are known to me by friendship or by 
 fame. Whitlocke, Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, 
 Sydney, (a name indissolubly attached to the interests 
 of liberty,) Montacute, Laurence, both of highly cul- 
 tivated minds and polished taste ; besides many other 
 citizens of singular merit, some of whom were dis- 
 tinguished by their exertions in the senate, and others 
 in the field." 
 
 The last few sentences of the peroration are all that 
 appear to us worth preserving. 
 
 " With respect to myself, whatever turn things may 
 take, I thought that my exertions on the present 
 occasion would be serviceable to my country ; and as 
 they have been cheerfully bestowed, I hope that they 
 have not been bestowed in vain. And I have not 
 circumscribed my defence of liberty within any petty 
 circle around me, but have made it so general and 
 comprehensive, that the justice and the reasonable- 
 ness of such uncommon occurrences explained and 
 defended, both among my countrymen and among 
 foreigners, and which all good men cannot but ap- 
 prove, may serve to exalt the glory of my country, 
 and to excite the imitation of posterity. If the 
 
282 SELECl:iONS fkom 
 
 conclusion do not answer to the beginning, that is 
 their concern ; I have delivered my testimony, I 
 would almost say, have erected a monument that will 
 not readily be destroyed, to the reality of those 
 singular and mighty achievements which were above 
 all praise. As the epic poet, who adheres at all to 
 the rules of that species of composition, does not 
 profess to describe the whole life of the hero whom 
 he celebrates, but only some particular action of his 
 life, as the resentment of Achilles at Troy, the return 
 of Ulysses, or the coming of iEneas into Italy ; so it 
 will be sufficient, either for my justification or apology, 
 that I have heroically celebrated at least one exploit 
 of my countrymen ; I pass by the rest, for who could 
 recite the achievements of a whole people ? If after 
 such a display of courage and vigour, you basely 
 relinquish the path of virtue, if you do anything 
 unworthy of yourselves, posterity will sit in judgment 
 on your conduct. They will see that the foundations 
 were well laid ; that the beginning (nay, it was more 
 than a beginning) was glorious ; but with deep emo- 
 tions of concern will they regret, that those were 
 wanting who might have completed the structure. 
 They will lament that perseverance was not conjoined 
 with such exertions and such virtues. They will see 
 that there was a rich harvest of glory, and an oppor- 
 tunity afforded for the greatest achievements, but that 
 men only were wanting for the execution ; while they 
 
Milton's prose works. 283 
 
 were not wanting who could rightly counsel, exhort, 
 inspire, and bind an unfading wreath of praise round 
 the brows of the illustrious actors in so glorious a 
 scene." 
 
 We here insert that beautiful sonnet, addressed to 
 his pupil and friend, Cyriack Skinner, which Milton 
 wrote on the total loss of his sight, occasioned, as he 
 has already told us, by his writing these Treatises in 
 Defence of the People. 
 
 " Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot. 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, 
 
 Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 
 
 In liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask 
 Content, though blind, had I no better guide." 
 
284 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 AUTHORIS PRO SE DEFENSIO. 
 
 THIS Third Defence is omitted in Bohn's edition 
 of the Prose Works of Milton, and the reason I 
 presume to be, because no translation into English of 
 this work exists. Its full title is, "The Author's 
 Defence of himself, against Alexander More, Ecclesi- 
 astic, that he is rightly said to be the author of an 
 infamous libel, entitled, *The Cry of the Royal Blood 
 to Heaven for vengeance on the English Parricides.' " 
 In this he vindicates himself, as in the First and 
 Second Defence he had vindicated the people and the 
 Republic. " Quando hoc necessario tollendum mihi 
 onus est, dabit quisque veniam, uti spero, si populo 
 qui non defui pridem et Reipublicse, mihimet nunc 
 non defuero." It consists of two parts, in the first he 
 proves that he had correctly assumed in his Second 
 Defence that More was the author of the pamphlet in 
 question ; and in the second he replies to a rejoinder 
 which his ' miserable adversary ' had put forth. 
 This Milton entitles, "Authoris ad Alexandri Mori 
 Supplementum Responsio." No doubt it is to this 
 " Authoris pro se Defensio " that tlie elder Disraeli 
 especially alludes when he descants on the acrimony 
 
Milton's prose avorks. 285 
 
 of Milton. How ridiculous the attitudes in which 
 great men appear, when they sink ' the dignity of the 
 author in the malignity of the man,' and ^employ 
 the style of the .fish-market.' We have too much 
 reverence for Milton to follow him in his, in some 
 respects, still magnificent, torrent of abuse in which 
 he well-nigh annihilates his opponent ; nor shall we 
 retail that mutual recrimination of infamous and 
 scurrilous charges of which perhaps both were inno- 
 cent ; certainly the one, who had obtained his infor- 
 mation by hearsay, and by, I regret to write it, a 
 mean and dishonourable correspondence with friends 
 abroad where More resided. Besides our design is 
 to reproduce whatever is of intrinsic worth and inter- 
 est in the prose of Milton, and in this performance 
 we meet with no sentence of a venturous edge ; on 
 the contrary, all is uttered in the height of malice 
 and irritation. Consequently there is nothing to 
 transcribe — nothing to rescue from that oblivion in 
 which it has so long lain buried in a learned language. 
 We must except the incidental allusions to some per- 
 sonal details of his history, as, for instance, the state 
 of his health and of his eyesight, and the domestic 
 alfliction under which he was suffering when he wrote 
 the Second Defence ; and now, two years after, he 
 writes this Treatise, his great adversary, Salmasius, 
 dead, his eyesight irrecoverably gone, and his health 
 partially despaired of, and partially restored. The 
 
286 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 " domestic grief of two funerals," mentioned in the 
 passage we shall quote, we conceive — for the chrono- 
 logical arrangement of the events of Milton's life is 
 by no means very clear — refers to the death of his 
 second wife in childbed, Catharine Woodcock, whom 
 he lost the year after their marriage ; that his grief 
 was most poignant appears from his exquisite sonnet 
 on his deceased wife, beginning — 
 
 " Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
 Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave." 
 
 It is remarkable that he lost his first wife, Mary 
 Powell, the mother of his three daughters, on a simi- 
 lar melancholy occasion. " Verum me, tum maxime, 
 et infirma simul valetudo, et duorum funerum luctus 
 domesticus, et defectum jam penitus oculorum lumen 
 divers^ longe sollicitudine urgebat : foris quoque ad- 
 versarius ille prior (Salmasius), isti (More) longe prge- 
 ferendus, impendebat ; jamjamque se totis viribus in- 
 cursurum indies minatabitur ; quo derepente mortuo, 
 levatum me parte aliqua laboris ratus, et valetudine 
 partim desperate partim restituta, utcunque confirm- 
 atus, ne omnino vel summorum hominum expectationi 
 deesse, vel omnem inter tot mala abjecisse curam ex- 
 istimationis viderer, ut primum de isto Clamatore ano- 
 nymo certum aliquid comperiendi facultas data est, 
 hominem aggredior. De te. More, dictum hoc volo ; 
 quern ego nefandi illius clam oris vel esse authorem, 
 vel esse pro authore haud injuria habendum statuo." 
 
Milton's prose works. 287 
 
 We are now approaching the conclusion of our 
 task, or the one book of Familiar Letters is all that 
 remains for examination and selection. We find no- 
 thing further which will serve our purpose either 
 in this '^ Authoris pro se Defensio," or in those 
 smaller works of which we have given the dates, or 
 in the History of England, which, though written by 
 a schoolmaster, has never become a school-book, or 
 in the Latin Grammar, which no one has ever used, 
 or in the Treatise on Logic, which has never displaced 
 Aldrich or Huyshe, or, lastly, in his posthumous 
 Treatise on Christian Doctrine. We confess to a 
 little disappointment, notwithstanding the consider- 
 able amount of genuine gold we have succeeded in 
 extracting even from some of the most unpromising 
 and drossiest of his works. We thought, unreason- 
 ably perhaps, that " the precious life-blood of a mas- 
 ter spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to 
 a life beyond life," would prove the vitality, and be 
 found somewhere latent in every single work he had 
 published. We thought that it might be said of him, 
 ' nihil tetigit quod non ornavit ' — that such a mind 
 could not write long on any subject without some 
 scintillation of transcendant genius sparkling on the 
 page sooner or later ; with this conviction we set out, 
 but we now close our labours with this sanguine feel- 
 ing considerably modified. We do not just see that 
 he who enchants and enchains us in his poetry must 
 
288 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 • 
 
 necessarily do the same in his prose; that he who could 
 write the Paradise Lost, and Com us, and Lycidas, 
 must be the same ^ thing to worship and to wonder 
 at,' when, with passions roused and self-love wounded, 
 he takes up his pen and parable against some wretch- 
 ed and contemptible libeller like Salmasius or Alex- 
 ander More. Passion and prejudice can throw a dark 
 and impenetrable cloud over the brightest intellect — 
 even over such a mind as Milton's ; and the Divine 
 Spirit which dictated to him the whole of Paradise 
 Lost, and most certainly some parts of the Areopagi- 
 tica, forsook him when he took the field against such 
 miserable antagonists, and in so bad and unrighteous 
 a quarrel. 
 
 The fact is, our mind has so long dwelt upon Mil- 
 ton, that we fear it has contracted an almost morbid 
 over-activity — what the Greeks express by the one 
 word irepivoiay but which has no equivalent in our own 
 language. This expressive word, translated by Liddell 
 and Scott, ^ over- wiseness,' occurs in Thucydides (iii. 43,) 
 in the speech of Diodotus, and denotes that over-sus- 
 piciousness of the motives of their public men, into 
 which fault the Athenians were so apt to fall. Thus 
 the word is used in a good and bad sense, but in both 
 signifies the excess of an active mind, which not only 
 sees all that is really to be seen in a subject, but fan- 
 cies something more. We were amused to read Ar- 
 nold's note, explanatory of this word, as it exactly 
 
Milton's prose works. 289 
 
 expresses what some reviewer might possibly say of 
 us, charging us with the Athenian failing of Treplvota. 
 His words are these, ' It is the fault into which men 
 are apt to fall in commenting upon works which they 
 highly admire ; because from an attentive study of 
 them they discover beauties which general readers do 
 not notice, they are tempted to think that still deeper 
 study will bring to light still greater treasures ; and 
 attribute to every word of their author some deep 
 meaning, or some particular beauty.' We plead guilty 
 to the impeachment in some slight degree, but with 
 very large reservations ; on no subject would ireplvota 
 be more pardonable, than when exhibited in comment- 
 ing on the prose works of our great national Poet ; and 
 we only hope, that, if it be our failing, it may be the 
 failing also of every one who condescends to criticise 
 our labours. 
 
 But we must not forget that our labour of love, 
 for such it has in truth been to us, is not quite ended ; 
 but at once proceed to our author's Familiar Letters, 
 originally written in Latin, and translated in Bohn's 
 edition, by Mr. Fellowes, of Oxford, whose transla- 
 tion of the Second Defence we were not altogether 
 pleased with. They extend over a period of about 
 forty years, the date of the first being 1625, and of 
 the last 1666. And we cannot better express our 
 own views and feelings than by adopting, and cordi- 
 ally subscribing to those expressed by the Editor 
 
 u 
 
290 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 of the above named edition in his introductory re- 
 marks. 
 
 * For nobleness of sentiment, and lofty dignity of 
 thought, no letters with which I am acquainted sur- 
 pass these. They commence in youth, and, few, alas, 
 as they are, carry us forward to a period not far re- 
 moved from the writer's death. It seems to me im- 
 possible to peruse them without the deepest interest. 
 They open to us, though doubtless much too little, a 
 view into the every-day frame of mind, and household 
 habits, of our great poet ; and few, perhaps, will read 
 these valued fragments of his inner life, without ex- 
 periencing the sincerest regret that there should be 
 no more of them, without perceiving with sorrow the 
 number of the leaves decrease, and the end approach- 
 ing, of what, to all who love, as I do, the memory of 
 this good and great man, must be an enjoyment of the 
 most perfect and exalted nature.' 
 
 These letters were published by Milton himself, in 
 1674, the last year of his life, to which he added some 
 Academical Exercises to complete the volume. The 
 title in Latin is "Authoris Epistolarum Familiarum 
 Liber Unus : Quibus accesserunt ejusdem, jam olim 
 in Collegio Adolescentis Prolusiones quaedam Ora- 
 toriag." These latter are seven in number, and though 
 highly lauded by Masson, in his Life of Milton, as 
 distinguished by peculiar characteristics, and full of 
 biographical light, and each described and translated 
 
Milton's prosp: works. 291 
 
 by him in part, they are, in the opinion of the editor, 
 uninteresting and unreadable. Masson states, ' though 
 they have been in print since 1674, I really have 
 found no evidence that as many as ten persons have 
 read them through before me.' At all events, there is 
 another who has read them through, of whom the 
 biographer has never heard. We shall, therefore, 
 pass them by, only remarking that Masson has re- 
 stored to its proper connexion the sixth with the first 
 piece in his " Miscellaneous Poems," commencing, 
 " Hail native language," &c., and which is thus head- 
 ed, "Anno £etatis xix. At a Vacation Exercise in 
 in the College, part Latin, part English. The Latin 
 speeches ended, the English thus began." The Latin 
 is in prose, that of this sixth Prolusion, and the 
 English is in verse. The above-named writer says, 
 * the sixth exercise stands by itself, as a voluntary 
 discourse delivered by appointment in the summer 
 vacation, 1628, at a meeting of the youths of the Uni- 
 versity, held for the purpose of fun and frolic. The 
 essay consists of two parts — the first being a dissertation 
 on the compatibility of occasional frolic with philosophi- 
 cal studies ; and the second a frolicsome harangue, 
 expressly comic and even coarse, introductory to the 
 other sports of the day. We have the interesting 
 fact, handed down to us by Aubrey and after him by 
 Wood, here authenticated for us by Milton himself, 
 that, at Christ's College, he used to go by the nick- 
 
 u 2 
 
292 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 name of the Lady?' **An denique ego a Deo aliquo 
 
 vitiatUS * * * Ut sic repente eV drfX^ia^ ek appevd 
 
 dXXaxOelrjv dv ? A quibusdam audivi nuper Domina. At 
 cur videor illis parum masculus ? verum utinam illi 
 possint tam facile exuere asinos, quam ego quicquid 
 est faminag." 
 
milton's prose works. 293 
 
 FAMILIAR LETTERS. 
 
 I. — To his Tutor, Thomas Young. 
 
 " rpHOUGH I had determined, my excellent tutor, 
 -L to write you an epistle in verse, yet I could 
 not satisfy myself without sending also another in prose, 
 for the emotions of my gratitude, which your services 
 so justly inspire, are too expansive and too warm to 
 be expressed in the confined limits of poetical metre ; 
 they demand the unrestrained freedom of prose, or 
 rather the exuberant richness of Asiatic phraseology : 
 though it would far exceed my power accurately to 
 describe how much I am obliged to you, even if I 
 could drain dry all the sources of eloquence, or ex- 
 haust all the topics of discourse which Aristotle or the 
 famed Parisian Logician has collected. You complain 
 with truth that my letters have been very few and 
 very short ; but I do not grieve at the omission of so 
 pleasurable a duty, so much as I rejoice at having such 
 a place in your regard as makes you anxious often to 
 hear from me. I beseech you not to take it amiss, 
 that I have not now written to you for more than 
 
294 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 three years ; but with your usual benignity impute it 
 rather to circumstances than to inclination. For heaven 
 / knows, that I regard you as a Parent (te instar Patris 
 colam), that I have always treated you with the utmost 
 respect, and that I was unwilling to tease you with my 
 compositions. And I was anxious that if my letters 
 had nothing else to recommend them, they might be 
 recommended by their rarity. And lastly, since the 
 ardour of my regard makes me imagine that you are 
 always present, that I hear your voice and contem- 
 plate your looks ; and as thus (which is usually the case 
 with lovers) I charm away my grief by the illusion of 
 I your presence, I was afraid when I wrote to you the 
 / idea of your distant separation should forcibly rush 
 j upon my mind ; and that the pain of your absence, 
 i Avhich was almost soothed into quiescence, should re- 
 j vive and disperse the pleasurable dream. I long since 
 • received your desirable present of the Hebrew Bible. 
 I wrote this at my lodgings in the city, not, as usual, 
 surrounded by my books. If, therefore, there be 
 any thing in this letter which either fails to give plea- 
 sure, or which frustrates expectation, it shall be com- 
 pensated by a more elaborate composition as soon as 
 I return to the dwelling of the Muses." 
 
 London, March 26, 1625. 
 
 II. — To Alexander Gill. 
 " I RECEIVED 3^our letters and your poem, with which 
 
Milton's peose works. 295 
 
 I was highly delighted, and in which I discover the 
 majesty of a poet, and the style of Virgil. I knew 
 how impossible it would be for a person of your genius 
 entirely to divert his mind from the culture of the 
 muses, and to extinguish those heavenly emotions, 
 and that sacred and ethereal fire which is kindled in 
 your heart. For what Claudian said of himself may 
 be said of you, your " whole soul is instinct with the 
 fire of Apollo." If, therefore, on this occasion, you 
 have broken your own promises, I here commend the 
 want of constancy which you mention ; I commend 
 the want of virtue, if any want of virtue there be. 
 But in referring the merits of your poem to my judg- 
 ment, you confer on me as great an honour as the gods 
 would if the contending musical immortals had called 
 me in to adjudge the palm of victory ; as poets babble 
 that it formerly fell to the lot of Tmolus, the guardian 
 of the Lydian mount. I know not whether I ought 
 to congratulate Henry Nassau more on the capture 
 of the city, or the composition of your poems. For I 
 think that this victory produced nothing more en- 
 titled to distinction and to fame than your poem. 
 But since you celebrate the successes of our allies in 
 lays so harmonious and energetic, what may we not 
 expect when our own successes call for the congratu- 
 lations of your muse ? Adieu, learned sir, and believe 
 me greatly obliged by the favour of your verses." 
 
 London, May 26, 1 628. 
 
296 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 III. — To the Same. 
 " In my former letter I did not so much answer yours 
 as deprecate the obhgation of then answering it ; and 
 therefore at the time I tacitly promised that you should 
 soon receive another, in which I would reply at length 
 to your friendly challenge. But, though I had not 
 promised this, it would most justly be your due, since 
 one of your letters is full worth two of mine, or 
 rather, on an accurate computation, worth a hundred. 
 When your letter arrived I was strenuously engaged 
 in that work concerning which I had given you some 
 obscure hints, and the execution of which could not be 
 delayed." [Probably the Ode on Christ's Nativity, 
 which seems to have been intended as part of a 
 larger work, which the author, finding above his years, 
 abandoned.] " One of the fellows of our college, who 
 was to be the respondent in a philosophical disputation 
 for his degree, engaged me to furnish him with some 
 verses which are annually required on this occasion ; 
 since he himself had long neglected such frivol- 
 ous pursuits, and was then intent on more serious 
 studies. Of these verses" [the fourth in his Sylvarum 
 Liber, headed " Naturam non pati senium,"] " I sent 
 you a printed copy, since I knew both your dis- 
 criminating taste in poetry, and your candid allow- 
 ances for poetry like mine. If you will in your 
 turn deign to communicate to me any of your pro- 
 ductions, you will, I can assure you, find no one to 
 
Milton's prose works. 297 
 
 whom they will give more delight, or who will more 
 impartially endeavour to estimate their worth. For 
 as often as I recollect the topics of your conversation, 
 the loss of which I regret even in this seminarv of 
 erudition, (vel ipsis Athenis, ipsa in Academia,) I 
 cannot help painfully reflecting on what advantages I 
 am deprived by your absence, since I never left your 
 company without an increase of knowledge, and 
 always had recourse to your mind as an emporium of 
 literature. Among us, as far as I know, there are 
 only two or three, who, without any acquaintance 
 with philology or philosophy, do not unfledged be- 
 take themselves to theology ; and of this they acquire 
 only a slender smattering, not more than sufficient to 
 enable them to patch together a sermon with scraps 
 pilfered, with little discrimination, from this author and 
 from that." 
 
 There is a very curious passage from an old book, 
 entitled ' Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World 
 Discovered,' published in 1628 by John Earle, who 
 was made a Bishop at the- Restoration, cited in a note 
 to the Areopagitica in Bohn's edition of Milton's Prose 
 Works, which we will here transcribe. It is the pic- 
 ture of * a young raw preacher, who is a bird not yet 
 fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirp- 
 ing on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what 
 peril soever. His collections of study are the notes of 
 sermons, which, taken up at St. Mary's, he utters in 
 
298 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 the country. And if he writes Brachigraphy, his stock 
 is so much the better. His prayer is conceited, and 
 no man remembers his college more at large. The 
 pace of his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly 
 over hill and dale until the clock stop him. The 
 labours of it is chiefly in his lungs ; and the only thing 
 he has made of it himself is the faces. He takes on 
 against the Pope without mercy, and has a jest still in 
 lavender for Bellarmine. His action is all passion, and 
 his speech interjections : he has an excellent faculty 
 in bemoaning the people, and spits with a very good 
 grace. He will not draw his handkerchief out of its 
 place, nor blow his nose without discretion. He 
 preaches but once a year, though twice on Sunday : 
 for the stuff is still the same, only the dressing a little 
 altered. He has more tricks with a sermon, than a 
 tailor with an old cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and 
 at last quite disguise it with a new preface. His 
 fashion and demure habit get him in with some town- 
 precision, and make him a guest on Friday nights. 
 You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape, and 
 serge facing, and his ruff, next his hair, the shortest 
 thing about him. The companion of his walks is some 
 zealous tradesman, whom he astonisheth with strange 
 points, which they both understand alike. His friends, 
 and much painfulness, may prefer him to thirty pounds 
 a year ; and this means, to a chambermaid : with 
 
Milton's prose works. 299 
 
 whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlock. 
 Next Sunday you shall have him again.' 
 
 '' Hence I fear lest our clergy should relapse into 
 the sacerdotal ignorance of a former age. Since I find 
 so few associates in study here I should instantly direct 
 my steps to London, if I had not determined to spend 
 the summer vacation in the depths of literary solitude, 
 and, as it were, hide myself in the chamber of the 
 muses. (Claustris Musarum.) As you do this every 
 day, it would be injustice in me any longer to divert 
 your attention or engross your time. Adieu." 
 
 Cambridge, July 2, 1628. 
 
 IV. — To Thomas Young. 
 
 '* On reading your letter, I find only one superfluous 
 passage, an apology for not writing to me sooner ; for 
 though nothing gives me more pleasure than to hear 
 from you, how can I or ought I to expect that you 
 should always have leisure enough from more serious 
 and more sacred engagements to write to me ; par- 
 ticularly when it is kindness, and not duty, which 
 prompts you to write ? Your many recent services 
 must prevent me from entertaining any suspicion of 
 your forgetfulness or neglect. Nor do I see how you 
 could possibly forget one on whom you had conferred 
 so many favours. Having an invitation into your part 
 of the country in the spring, I shall readily accept it, 
 
300 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 that I may enjoy the deliciousness of the season, as 
 well as that of your conversation ; and that I may 
 withdraw myself for a short time from the tumult of 
 the city to your rural mansion, as to the renowned 
 portico of Zeno, or Tusculan of Cicero, where you live 
 on your little farm, with a moderate fortune, but a 
 princely mind ; and where you practise the contempt 
 and triumph over the temptations of ambition, pomp, 
 luxury, and all that attracts the gaze and admiration 
 of the multitude. I hope that you who deprecated 
 the blame of delay, will pardon me for my precipi- 
 tance ; for after deferring this letter to the last, I chose 
 rather to write a few lines, however deficient in ele- 
 gance, than to say nothing at all. Adieu, Reverend 
 Sir." 
 
 Cambridge, July 21, 1628. 
 
 V. — To Alexander Gill, 
 
 " If you had made me a present of a piece of plate, 
 or any other valuable which excites the admiration of 
 mankind, I should not be ashamed in my turn to 
 remunerate you, as far as mv circumstances would 
 permit. But since you, the day before yesterda}^, 
 presented me with an elegant and beautiful poem in 
 Hendecasyllabic verse, which far exceeds the worth 
 of gold, you have increased my solicitude to discover 
 in what manner I may requite the favour of so 
 
Milton's prose works. 301 
 
 acceptable a gift. I had by me at the time no com- 
 positions in a like style which I thought fit to come in 
 competition with the excellence of your performance. 
 I send you therefore a composition which is not 
 entirely my own," a Greek translation of Ps. cxiv., 
 " but the production of a truly inspired bard, from 
 whom I last week rendered this ode into Greek 
 heroic verse, as I was lying in bed before the day 
 dawned, without any previous deliberation, but with 
 a certain impelling faculty, for which I know not how 
 to account. By his help who does not less surpass 
 you in his subject than you do me in the execution, I 
 have sent something which may serve to restore the 
 equilibrium between us. If you see reason to find 
 fault with any particular passage, I must inform you 
 that, from the time I left your school, this is the first 
 and the last piece I have ever composed in Greek ; 
 since, as you know, I have attended more to Latin 
 and to English composition. He who at this time 
 employs his labour and his time in writing Greek, is 
 in danger of writing what will never be read. Adieu, 
 and expect to see me, God willing, at London on 
 Monday, among the booksellers. In the meantime, 
 if you have interest enough with that Doctor who is 
 the master of the college, to promote my business, I 
 beseech you to see him as soon as possible, and to act 
 as your friendship for me may prompt." 
 
 From my Villa, Dec. 4, 1634. 
 
302 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 VI. — To Charles Deodati. 
 Charles Deodati was educated with Milton at St. 
 Paul's School in London, of which Alexander Gill, 
 celebrated for his Latin poetry, was master. His 
 admirable character, and intimacy with our author, 
 are evident from these letters, from the first and sixth 
 Elegies, the fourth Sonnet, and the Epitaphiuni 
 Damonis, to which we refer our readers. 
 
 " I clearly see that you are determined not to be 
 overcome in silence ; if this be so, you shall have the 
 palm of victory, for I will write first. Though if 
 the reasons which make each of us so long in writing 
 to the other should ever be judicially examined, it 
 will appear that I have many more excuses for not 
 waiting than you. For it is well known, and you well 
 know, that I am naturally slow in writing, and averse 
 to write ; while you, either from disposition or from 
 habit, seem to have little reluctance in engaging in 
 these literary allocutions. It is also in my favour, 
 that your method of study is such as to admit of fre- 
 quent interruptions, in which you visit your friends, 
 write letters, or go abroad ; but it is my way to suffer 
 no impediment, no love of ease, no avocation what- 
 ever to chill the ardour, to break the continuity, or 
 divert the completion of my literary pursuits. From 
 this and no other reason it often happens that I do 
 not readily employ my pen in any gratuitous exer- 
 
Milton's pkose works. 803 
 
 tions; but I am not nevertheless a very sluggish 
 correspondent ; nor has it at any time happened that 
 I ever left any letters of yours unanswered till another 
 came. So I hear that you write to the bookseller, 
 and often to your brother, either of whom, from their 
 nearness, would readily have forwarded any commu- 
 nication from you to me. But what I blame you for 
 is, the not keeping your promise of paying me a visit 
 when you left the city ; a promise which, if it had 
 once occurred to your thoughts, would certainly have 
 forcibly suggested the necessity of writing. These are 
 my reasons for expostulation and censure. You will 
 look to your own defence. But what can occasion 
 your silence ? Is it ill health ? Are there in those 
 parts any literati with whom you may play and prattle 
 as we used to do ? When do you return ? How 
 long do you mean to stay among the Hyperboreans ? 
 I wish you would give me an answer to each of these 
 questions ; and that you may not suppose I am quite 
 unconcerned about what relates to you, I must inform 
 you that in the beginning of the autumn I went out 
 of my way to see your brother, in order to learn how 
 you did. And lately when I was accidentally in- 
 formed in London that you were in town, I instantly 
 hastened to your lodgings ; but it was only the 
 shadow of a dream, for you were nowhere to be found. 
 Wherefore as soon as you can do it without inconveni- 
 ence to yourself, I beseech you to take up your quar- 
 
304 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 ters where we may at least be able occasionally to 
 visit one another ; for I hope you would not be a 
 different neighbour to us in the country than you are 
 in town. But this is as it pleases God. I have much 
 to say to you concerning myself and my studies, but I 
 would rather do it when we meet ; and as to-morrow 
 I am about to return into the country, and am busy in 
 making preparations for my journey. I have but just 
 time to scribble this. Adieu." 
 
 London, Sep. 7, 1637. 
 
 Nil.— To the Same. 
 
 " Most of my other friends think it enough to give 
 me one farewell in their letters, but I see why you do 
 it so often ; for you give me to understand that your 
 medical authority (he was a physician in Cheshire) is 
 now added to the potency, and subservient to the 
 completion of those general expressions of goodwill 
 which are nothing but words and air. You wish me 
 my health six hundred times, in as great a quantity 
 as I can wish, as I am able to bear, or even more 
 than this. Truly, you should be appointed butler to 
 the house of health, whose stores you so lavishly be- 
 stow ; or at least Health should become your parasite, 
 since you so lord it over her, and command her at 
 your pleasure. I send you therefore my congratula- 
 tions and my thanks, both on account of your friend- 
 
Milton's prose works. 305 
 
 ship and your skill. I was long kept waiting in ex- 
 pectation of a letter from you, which you had engaged 
 to write ; but when no letter came, ray old regard for 
 you suffered not, I can assure you, the smallest dim- 
 inution, for I had supposed that the same apology for 
 remissness, which you had employed in the beginning 
 of our correspondence, you would again employ. 
 This was a supposition agreeable to truth and to the 
 intimacy between us. For I do not think that true 
 friendship consists in the frequency of letters or in 
 professions of regard, which may be counterfeited ; 
 but it is so deeply rooted in the heart and affections, 
 as to support itself against the rudest blast ; and when 
 it originates in sincerity and virtue, it may remain 
 through life without suspicion and without blame, 
 even when there is no longer any reciprocal inter- 
 change of kindnesses. For the cherishing aliment of 
 a friendship such as this, there is not so much need of 
 letters as of a lively recollection of each other's vir- 
 tues. And though you have not written, you have 
 something that may supply the omission ; your pro- 
 bity writes to me in your stead ; it is a letter ready 
 written on the innermost membrane of the heart ; the 
 simplicity of your manners, and the rectitude of your 
 principles, serve as correspondents in your place : your 
 genius, which is above the common level, writes, and 
 serves in a still greater degree to endear you to me. 
 But now you have got possession of this despotic 
 
 X 
 
306 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 citadel of medicine, do not alarm me with the menace 
 of being obliged to repay those six hundred healths 
 which you have bestowed, if I should, which God for- 
 bid, ever forfeit your friendship. Remove that for- 
 midable battery which you seem to have placed upon 
 my breast to keep oif all sickness, but what comes by 
 your permission. But that you may indulge any ex- 
 cess of menace, I must inform you that I cannot help 
 loving such as you are ; for whatever the Deity may 
 have bestowed upon me in other respets, He has cer- 
 tainly inspired me, if any ever were inspired, with a 
 passion for the good and beautiful. Nor did Ceres, 
 according to the fable, ever seek her daughter Proser- 
 pine with such unceasing solicitude as I have sought 
 this rov KaXov IBiav, this perfect model of the beautiful 
 in all the forms and appearances of things (TroXXalyfiap 
 fiop^al TMv Aaiixovidiv, many are the forms of the Divini- 
 ties). I am wont day and night to continue my 
 search ; and I follow in the way in which you go 
 before. Hence, I feel an irresistible impulse to culti- 
 vate the friendship of him who, despising the preju- 
 dices and false conceptions of the vulgar, dares to 
 think, to speak, and to be that which the highest 
 wisdom has in every age taught to be the best. But 
 if my disposition or my destiny were such that I could 
 without any conflict or any toil emerge to the highest 
 pitch of distinction and of praise, there would neverthe- 
 less be no prohibition, either human or divine, against 
 
Milton's prose works. 307 
 
 my constantly cherishing and revering those who have 
 either obtained the same degree of glory, or are suc- 
 cessfully labouring to obtain it. But now I am sure 
 that you wish me to gratify your curiosity, and to let 
 you know what I have been doing, or am meditating 
 to do. Hear me, my Deodati, and suffer me for a 
 moment to speak without blushing in a more lofty 
 strain. Do you ask what I am meditating ? By the 
 help of heaven, an immortality of fame. But what 
 am I doing ? TTTepo^vw^ I am letting my wings grow 
 and preparing to fly ; but my Pegasus has not yet 
 feathers enough to soar aloft in the fields of air. I 
 will now tell you seriously what I design ; to take 
 chambers in one of the inns of court, where I may 
 have the benefit of a pleasant and shady walk ; and 
 where with a few associates I may enjoy more com- 
 fort when I choose to stay at home, and have a more 
 elegant society when I choose to go abroad. In ray 
 present situation, you know in what obscurity I am 
 buried, and to what inconveniences I am exposed. 
 You shall likewise have some information respecting 
 my studies. I went through the perusal of the Greek 
 authors to the time when they ceased to be Greeks ; 
 I was long employed in unravelling the obscure his- 
 tory of the Italians under the Lombards, the Franks, 
 and Germans, to the time when they received their 
 liberty from Rodolphus, king of Germany. From that 
 time it will be better to read separately the particular 
 
 x2 
 
308 SELECTIONS FKOM 
 
 transactions of each state. But how are you employ- 
 ed ? How long will you attend to your domestic ties 
 and forget your city connexions ? But unless this 
 novercal hostility be more inveterate than that of the 
 Dacian or Sarmatian, you will feel it a duty to visit me 
 in my winter quarters. In the meantime, if you can 
 do it without inconvenience, I wdll thank you to send 
 me Guistiniani, the historian of Venice. I will either 
 keep it carefully till your arrival, or, if you had rather, 
 will soon send it back again. Adieu." 
 
 London, Sept. 23, 1637. 
 
 VIIL — To Benedetto Buoninattai, a Florentine. 
 
 Hitherto we have transcribed these letters entire, 
 but some of those which remain may with advantage 
 be abridged, which is especially the case with the one 
 before us. 
 
 " Among foreigners, there is no one at all conspicu- 
 ous for genius or for elegance, who does not make the 
 Tuscan language his delight, and indeed consider it 
 as an essential part of education, particularly if he be 
 only slightly tinctured with the literature of Greece or 
 of Rome. I, who certainly have not merely wetted 
 the tip of my lips in the stream of those languages, 
 but, in proportion to my years, have swallowed the 
 most copious draughts, can yet sometimes retire with 
 
Milton's prose works. 809 
 
 avidity and delight to feast on Dante, Petrarch, and 
 many others ; nor has Athens itself been able to con- 
 fine me to the transparent wave of its Ilissus, nor 
 ancient Rome to the banks of its Tiber, so as to pre- 
 vent my visiting with delight the stream of the Arno 
 and the hills of Fgesolse. A stranger from the shores 
 of the farthest ocean, I have now spent some days 
 among you, and am become quite enamoured of your 
 nation. * * * On this occasion I have employed the 
 Latin rather than your own language, that I might in 
 Latin confess my imperfect acquaintance with that 
 language which I wish you by your precepts to em- 
 bellish and adorn. And I hoped that if I invoked 
 the venerable Latian mother, hoary with years, and 
 crowned with the respect of ages, to plead the cause 
 of her daughter, I should give to my request a force 
 and authority which nothing could resist." 
 
 Florence, Sept. 10, 1638. 
 
 IX.— ^7o L\ike Holstein^ in the Vatican at Home, 
 ** Though in my passage through Italy, many persons 
 have honoured me with singular and memorable 
 proofs of their civility and friendship, yet on so short 
 an acquaintance I know not whether I can truly say 
 that any one ever gave me stronger marks of his regard 
 than yourself For, when T went to visit you in the 
 Vatican, though I was not at all known to you, you 
 
310 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 received me with the utmost kindness. You after- 
 wards obligingly admitted me into the Museum, you 
 permitted me to see the precious repository of litera- 
 ture, and many Greek MSS. adorned with your own 
 observations. Some of which you have already pub- 
 lished, which are greedily received by the learned. 
 You presented me with copies of these on my depar- 
 ture. And I cannot but impute it to your kind 
 mention of me to the noble Cardinal Francisco Barbe- 
 rino, that at a grand musical entertainment which he 
 gave, he waited for me at the door, sought me out 
 among the crowd, took me by the hand, and intro- 
 duced me into the palace with every mark of the 
 most flattering distinction. I strenuously urged my 
 friends, according to your instructions, to inspect the 
 Codex Mediceus ; though they have at present but 
 little hope of being able to do it. For in that Library 
 nothing can be transcribed, nor even a pen put to 
 paper, without permission been previously obtained. 
 * * * I add that you will lay me under new obliga- 
 tions, if you will express my warmest acknowledg- 
 ments, and my most respectful compliments to the 
 most noble Cardinal, whose great virtues, and whose 
 honest zeal, so favourable to the encouragement of all 
 the liberal arts, are the constant objects of my admi- 
 ration. Nor can I look without reverence on that 
 mild and, if I may so speak, that lowly loftiness of 
 mind, which is exalted by its own humiliation." 
 
MILTON S PROSE WORKS. 311 
 
 X. — To Charles Deodati, a Florentine Noble. 
 
 We must distinguish this Charles Deodati from Milton's 
 schoolfellow and most intimate friend, whose death 
 nine years before the date of this letter is alluded to 
 here in such pathetic terms. He is called Damon, as 
 under the name of Lycidas he laments the death of 
 his friend, Edward King. In the argument of his 
 poem entitled " Epitaphium Damonis,'' we read, 
 " Damonis autem sub person^ hie intelligitur Carolus 
 Deodatus ex urbe Hetruri^e Luca paterno genere 
 oriundus c^etera Anglus." 
 
 " I derived from the unexpected receipt of your 
 letter a pleasure greater than T can express ; but of 
 which you may have some notion from the pain with 
 which it was attended ; and without a mixture of 
 which hardly any great pleasure is conceded to man- 
 kind. For as soon as T came to that passage in which 
 3'ou tell me you had previously sent me three letters 
 which must have been lost, the simplicity of m}^ joy 
 began to be imbued with grief and agitated with 
 regret. I would not conceal from you that my depar- 
 ture from Florence excited in me the most poignant 
 sensations of uneasiness ; that city was and is to me 
 most dear. I appeal to the tomb of Damon, which I 
 shall ever cherish and revere ; his death occasioned 
 the most bitter sorrow and regret, which I could find 
 no more easy way to mitigate than by recalling the 
 
312 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 memory of those times, when, with so many kind 
 friends, and particularly with you, I tasted bliss with- 
 out alloy. This you would have known long since, 
 if you received my poem on that occasion. I had it 
 carefully sent, that whatever poetical merit it might 
 possess, the few verses which are included in the 
 manner of an emblem might afford no doubtful proof 
 of my love for you. * * * I confess that I found 
 other reasons for silence in these convulsions which 
 my country has experienced since my return home, 
 which necessarily diverted my attention from the 
 prosecution of my studies to the preservation of my 
 property and my life. For can you imagine that I 
 could have leisure to taste the sweets of literary ease 
 while so many battles were fought, so much blood 
 shed, and while so nmch ravage prevailed among my 
 fellow-citizens ? But even in the midst of this tem- 
 pestuous period, I have published several works in my 
 native language, which if they had not been written 
 in English, I should have pleasure in sending to you. 
 My Latin poems I will soon send as you desire ; and 
 this I should have done long ago without being 
 desired, if I had not suspected that some rather harsh 
 expressions which they contained against the Roman 
 Pontiff would have rendered them less pleasing to 
 your ears. Now I request, whenever I mention the 
 rites of your religion in my own way, that you will 
 prevail on your friends (for I am under no apprehen- 
 
Milton's prose works. 313 
 
 sions from you) to show me the same indulgence not 
 only which they did to Algerius and to Petrarch on 
 a similar occasion, but which you did formerly with 
 such singular benevolence to the freedom of my con- 
 versation on topics of religion." 
 
 London, April 21, 1647. 
 
 XI. — To Hermann Milks, Secretary to the Count of Oldenburgh, 
 *' First, the delay of writing has been occasioned by 
 ill-health, whose hostilities I have now almost per- 
 petually to combat, and which often keeps me from 
 the Council ; next, by a cause of ill-health, a necessary 
 and sudden removal to another house, which had 
 accidentally begun to take place on the day that your 
 letter arrived ; and lastly by shame that I had no in- 
 telligence concerning your business, which I thought 
 that it would be agreeable to communicate." 
 
 Westminster. 
 
 XII. — To the renowned Leonard Philaras, the Athenian, 
 " 1 WAS in some measure made acquainted with your 
 favourable opinion of my Defence of the People of 
 England by your letters to the Lord Auger. I then 
 received your compliments with your picture and an 
 eulogy worthy of your virtues. If Alexander the Great 
 declared that he encountered so many dangers of 
 
314 SELECTIONS EKOM 
 
 warfare and trials for the sake of having his praises 
 celebrated by the Athenians, ought not I to congratip- 
 late myself on receiving the praises of a man in whom 
 alone the talents and virtues of the ancient Athenians 
 seem to recover their freshness and their strength after 
 so long an interval of corruption and decay. To the 
 writings of these illustrious men which your city has 
 produced, in the perusal of which I have been occu- 
 pied from my youth, it is with pleasure I confess that 
 I am indebted for all my proficiency in literature. 
 Did I possess their command of language and their 
 force of persuasion, I should feel the highest satisfac- 
 tion in employing them to excite our armies and our 
 fleets to deliver Greece, the parent of eloquence, from 
 the despotism of the Ottomans. Such is the enterprise 
 in which you seem to wish to implore my aid. And 
 what did formerly men of the greatest courage and 
 eloquence deem more noble or more glorious, than by 
 their orations or their valour to assert the liberty and 
 independence of the Greeks? But we ought besides 
 to attempt to inflame the present Greeks with an 
 ardent desire to emulate the virtue, the industry, the 
 patience of their ancient progenitors ; and this we 
 cannot hope to see effected by any one but yourself, 
 and for which you seem adapted by the splendour of 
 your patriotism, combined with so much discretion, so 
 much skill in war, and such an unquenchable thirst 
 for the recovery of your ancient liberty. Nor do I 
 
Milton's prose works. 315 
 
 think that the Greeks would be wanting to themselves, 
 nor that any other people would be wanting to the 
 Greeks." 
 
 London, June, 1652. 
 
 XIV. — To Henry Oldenburgh, Aulic Counsellor to the 
 Senate of Bremen. 
 
 '' Some unexpected engagements concurred to delay 
 my answering your former letters, or I should not 
 have sent you my Defence without any compliment or 
 apology. I had more than once an intention of sub- 
 stituting our English for your Latin, that you might 
 lose no opportunity of writing it. With respect to the 
 subject of your letter you are clearly of my opinion, 
 that that cry to Heaven could not have been audible 
 by any human being, which only serves the more 
 palpably to show the effrontery of him who affirms 
 with so much audacity that he heard it. Who he 
 was you have caused a doubt ; though long since, in 
 some conversations which we had on the subject just 
 after your return from Holland, you seemed to have 
 no doubt but that More was the author to whom the 
 composition was in those parts unanimously ascribed. 
 If you have received any more authentic information 
 on this subject, I wish that you would acquaint me 
 with it. This unexpected contest with the enemies of 
 liberty has involuntarily withdrawn my attention from 
 
316 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 very different and more pleasurable pursuits. What 
 I have done I feel no reason to regret, and I am far 
 from thinking, as you seem to suppose, that I have 
 laboured in vain." 
 
 Westminster, July 6, 1654. 
 
 XV. — To Leonard Philaras^ the Athenian. 
 *^ When you unexpectedly came to London, and saw 
 me who could no longer see, my affliction, which 
 causes none to regard me with greater admiration, and 
 perhaps many even with feelings of contempt, excited 
 your tenderest sympathy and concern. You would 
 not suffer me to abadon the hope of recovering my 
 sight ; and informed me that you had an intimate 
 friend at Paris, Doctor Thevenot, who was particularly 
 celebrated in disorders of the eyes, whom you would 
 consult about mine, if I would enable you tc/ lay be- 
 fore him the causes and symptoms of the complaint. 
 I will do what you desire, lest I should seem to reject 
 that aid which perhaps may be offered me by Heaven. 
 It is now, I think, about ten years since I perceived 
 my vision to grow weak and dull ; and at the same 
 time I was troubled with pain in my kidneys and 
 bowels. In the morning, if I began to read, as was 
 my custom, my eyes instantly ached intensely, but 
 were refreshed after a little corporeal exercise. The 
 candle which I looked at seemed as it were encircled 
 
Milton's prose works. 317 
 
 with a rainbow. Not long after the sight in the left 
 part of the left eye (which I lost some years before 
 the other) became quite obscured ; and prevented me 
 from discerning any object on that side. The sight 
 in my other eye has now been gradually and sensibly 
 vanishing away for about three years ; some months 
 before it had entirely perished, though I stood mo- 
 tionless, everything which I looked at seemed in mo- 
 tion to and fro. A stiff cloudy vapour seemed to have 
 settled on my forehead and temples, which usually 
 occasions a sort of somnolent pressure upon my eyes, 
 and particularly from dinner till the evening. I ought 
 not to omit that while I had any sight left, as soon as 
 I lay down on my bed and turned on either side, a 
 flood of light used to gush from my closed eyelids. 
 Then, as my sight became daily more impaired, the 
 colours became more faint, and were emitted with a 
 certain inward crackling sound ; but at present, every 
 species of illumination being, as it were, extinguished, 
 there is diffused around me nothing but darkness, or 
 darkness mingled and streaked with an ashy brown. 
 Yet the darkness in which I am perpetually immersed, 
 seems always, both by night and day, to approach 
 nearer to white than black ; and when the eye is roll- 
 ing in its socket, it admits a little particle of light, as 
 through a chink. And though your physician may 
 kindle a small ray of hope, yet I make up my mind 
 to the malady as quite incurable ; and I often reflect, 
 
318 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 that as the wise man admonishes, days of darkness are 
 destined to each of us, the darkness which I experi- 
 ence, less oppressive than that of the tomb, is, owing 
 to the singular goodness of the Deity, passed amid the 
 pursuits of literature, and the cheering salutations of 
 friendship. But if, as it is written, " Man shall not 
 live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
 from the mouth of God," why may not anyone acquiesce 
 in the privation of his sight, when God has so amply 
 furnished his mind and his conscience with eyes ? 
 While he so tenderly provides for me, while He so 
 graciously leads me by the hand, and conducts me 
 on the way, I will, since it is His pleasure, rather re- 
 joice than repine at being blind. And, my dear 
 Philaras, whatever may be the event, I wish you fare- 
 well with no less courage and composure than if I had 
 the eyes of a lynx." 
 
 Westminster, Sept. 28, 1654. 
 
 XVI. — To Leo, of Aizema. 
 ** With respect to the book concerning Divorce, which 
 you say you had engaged some one to turn it into 
 Dutch, I would rather you had engaged him to turn 
 it into Latin. For I have already experienced how 
 the vulgar are wont to receive opinions which are not 
 agreeable to vulgar prejudice. I formerly wrote three 
 Treatises on this subject : one in two books, in which 
 
Milton's prose works. 319 
 
 the Doctrine of Divorce is diffusely discussed : another 
 entitled Tetrachordon, in which the four principal 
 passages in Scripture relative to the doctrine are ex- 
 plained : a third, Colasterion, which contains an an- 
 swer to some vulgar sciolist. I know not which of 
 these works, or which edition, you have engaged him 
 to translate. The first Treatise has been twice pub- 
 lished, and the second edition has been much en- 
 larged. If you have not already received this inform- 
 ation, or wish me to send you the more correct edi- 
 tion, or the other Treatises, I shall do it immediately, 
 and with pleasure. For I do not wish at present 
 they should receive any alterations or additions. If 
 you persist in your present purpose, I wish you a faith- 
 ful translator and every success." 
 
 Westminster, Feb. 5, 1654. 
 
 XVII. — To Ezehiel Spanheim^ of Geneva, 
 "It having been signified to you that it would be 
 highly grateful to me if you would lend me your as- 
 sistance against our common enemy, you have kindly 
 done this in your present letter ; of which I have 
 taken the liberty, without mentioning the Author's 
 name, to insert a part in my Defence (pro testimonio 
 inserere non dubitavi). This work I will send you as 
 soon as possible after the publication." 
 
 Westminster, March 24, 1654. 
 
320 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 XVIIT. — To Henry Oldenburgh. 
 " Those ancient records of the Chinese from the period 
 of the deluge, which you write are promised by 
 the Jesuit Martinius, are no doubt on account of 
 their novelty expected with avidity ; but I do not see 
 what authority or support they can add to the books 
 of Moses," (verum auctoritatis, aut firmaraenti, ad 
 Mosaicos Libros adjungere quid possint non video.) 
 
 Westminster, June 26, 1656. 
 
 XX. — To the accomplished youth, Peter Heimbach. 
 
 " You have done all I desired respecting the Atlas, of 
 which I wished to know the lowest price. You say it 
 is a hundred and thirty florins, which I think is enough 
 to purchase the mountain of that name. But such is 
 the present rage for typographical luxury, that the 
 sumptuous furniture of a Library costs less than that 
 of a Villa. Paintings are of little use to me. While 
 I roll my blind eyes about the world, I fear lest I 
 should seem to lament the privation of sight in pro- 
 portion to the exorbitance of the price for which I 
 should have purchased the book. Do you endeavour 
 to learn in how many volumes the entire work is con- 
 tained ; and of the two editions whether that of Blaeu 
 or Janson be the more accurate and complete." 
 
 Westminster, Nov. 8, 1656. 
 
Milton's prose works. 321 
 
 XXL — To the accomplished Emeric Bigot, 
 " It gives ine pleasure that you are convinced of the 
 tranquillity which I possess under this afflicting priva- 
 tion of sight, as well as of the civility and kindness with 
 which I receive those who visit me from other coun- 
 tries. And indeed why should I not submit with com- 
 placency to this loss of sight*, which seems only with- 
 drawn from the body without, to increase the sight 
 of the mind within. (Orbitatem certe luminis quidni 
 leniter feram, quod non tam amissum quam revocatum, 
 intus atque re tract um, ad acuendam potius mentis 
 aciem quam ad hebetandam, sperem). Hence books 
 have not incurred my resentment, nor do I intermit the 
 study of books, though they have inflicted so heavy a 
 penalty on me for my attachment ; the example of 
 Telephus, King of Mysia, who did not refuse to receive 
 a cure from the same weapon by which he had been 
 wounded, admonished me not to be so morose." 
 
 Westminster, March 24, 1658. 
 
 XXIII. — To the illustnous Lord Henry De Bras, 
 " I PREFER Sallust to any of the Latin historians ; 
 which was also the general opinion of the ancients. 
 Your favourite Tacitus deserves his meed of praise ; 
 but his highest praise, in my opinion, consists in his 
 having imitated Sallust. In historical composition 
 the style should correspond with the nature of the 
 
 Y 
 
322 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 narrative. The historian should be able to say much 
 in a few words, to unite copiousness with brevity. 
 The decorations of style I do not greatly heed ; for I 
 require an Historian, not a Rhetorician. I do not 
 want frequent interspersions of sentiment, or prolix 
 dissertations on transactions, which interrupt the 
 series of events, and cause the Historian to entrench 
 on the office of the Politician." 
 
 Westminster, July 15, 1657. 
 
 XXYL— To Lord Henry De Bras. 
 " I CONGRATULATE mysclf on having been so fortunate 
 in characterizing the merits of Sallust as to have ex- 
 cited you to the assiduous perusal of that author, who 
 is so full of wisdom, and who may be read with so 
 much advantage. Of him I will venture to assert 
 what Quintilian said of Cicero, that he who loves Sal- 
 lust is no mean proficient in historical composition. 
 Polybius, Halicarnassus, Diodorus, and many others, 
 whose works are interspersed with precepts on the 
 subject, will better teach you what are the duties of 
 an historian." 
 
 Westminster, Dec. 16, 1657. 
 
 XXIX. — To Henry Oldenhurgh. 
 " I AM not willing, as you wish me, to compile a his- 
 tory of our troubles ; for they seem rather to require 
 
Milton's prose works, 323 
 
 oblivion than commemoration ; nor have we so much 
 need of a person to compose a history of our troubles 
 as happily to settle them. I fear with you lest our 
 civil dissensions, or rather maniacal agitations, should 
 expose us to the attack of the lately confederated 
 enemies of religion and of liberty ; but those enemies 
 could not inflict a deeper wound upon religion than 
 we ourselves have long since done by our follies and 
 our crimes. But whatever disturbances kings and 
 cardinals may meditate and contrive, I trust that God 
 will not suifer the machinations and the violence of 
 our enemies to succeed according to their expecta- 
 tions. I pray that the Protestant synod, which you 
 say is soon to meet at Leyden, may have a happy ter- 
 mination, which has never yet happened to any synod 
 that has ever met before. But the termination of this 
 might be called happy, if it decreed nothing else but 
 the expulsion of More. As soon as my posthumous 
 adversary shall make his appearance, I request you to 
 give me the earliest information." 
 
 Westminster, Dec. 20, 1659. 
 
 XXXI. — To Peter Heimbach, 
 
 We will give Hayley's translation of this concluding 
 letter : — 
 
 " If, among so many funerals of my countrymen, in 
 a year so full of pestilence and sorrow, you were in- 
 
 y2 
 
324 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 duced, as you say, by rumour, to believe that I also 
 was snatched away, it is not surprising ; and if such a 
 rumour prevailed among those of your nation, as it 
 seems to have done, because they were solicitous for 
 ray health, it is not unpleasing ; for I must esteem it 
 as a proof of their benevolence towards me. But by 
 the graciousness of God, who had prepared for me a 
 safe retreat in the country, I am still alive and well ; 
 and, I trust, not utterly an unprofitable servant, what- 
 ever duty in life there yet remains for me to fulfil. 
 That you remember me after so long an interval in 
 our correspondence, gratifies me exceedingly, though, 
 by the politeness of your expression, you seem to af- 
 ford me room to suspect that you have rather forgot- 
 ten me, since, as you say, you admire in me so many 
 different virtues wedded together. From so many wed- 
 dings I should assuredly dread a family too numer- 
 ous, were it not certain that in narrow circumstances, 
 and under severity of fortune, virtues are most excel- 
 lently reared, and most flourishing ! Yet one of these 
 said virtues has not very handsomely rewarded me for 
 entertaining her ; for that which you call my political 
 virtue, and which I should rather wish you to call my 
 devotion to my country (enchanting me with her 
 captivating name), almost, if I may say so, expatri- 
 ated me. Other virtues, however, join their voices 
 to assure me that wherever we prosper in rectitude, 
 there is our country. In ending my letter, let me ob- 
 
Milton's prose works. 325 
 
 tain from you this favour ; that if you find any parts 
 of it incorrectly written, and without stops, you will 
 impute it to the boy who writes for me, who is utterly 
 ignorant of Latin, and to whom I am forced (wretch- 
 edly enough) to repeat every single letter of every 
 word that I dictate. I still rejoice that your merit 
 as an accomplished man, whom I knew as a youth of 
 the highest expectation, has advanced you so far in 
 the honourable favour of your Prince. For your pros- 
 perity in every other point you have both my wishes 
 and my hopes. Farewell." 
 
 London, Aug. 26, 1666. 
 
 Our task is now ended ; but how pitiable and pain- 
 ful is the condition in which we here reluctantly leave 
 this great and good man, about eight years before his 
 death, obliged to employ, through stress of poverty 
 and the unkindness of his daughters, an ignorant lad 
 as his amanuensis, to whom he is compelled to dictate 
 not the Latin words only, but one by one the letters 
 of which they were composed. The question here 
 arises on what work in that language was he engaged 
 at this time, and why did he employ this wretched boy 
 and not his own daughters, to whom we know about 
 this period he dictated the Paradise Lost? Where 
 was Elwood ? And was there no Macaulay, gladly to 
 sit at the feet of the immortal bard, for the sake of 
 
326 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 his society and conversation, and write down the 
 glorious sentences which flowed from his lips, not 
 knowing whether they might not prove the dictate of 
 a divine spirit ? It seems probable that he was now 
 occupied with the composition of the latter part of his 
 Treatise of Christian Doctrine, which is entitled " De 
 Doctrina Christian^, ex Sacris duntaxat Libris petit4, 
 Disquisitionum Libri duo posthumi." This work was 
 discovered in 1823 by Mr. R. Lemon in the course of 
 his researches in the State Paper Office, in one of the 
 presses, together with a corrected copy of Milton's 
 State Letters, the whole parcel being loosely wrapped 
 in two or three sheets of newspaper and directed ^ To 
 Mr. Skinner, Mercht.' Here it had probably lain for 
 nearly a century and a half It was entrusted by the 
 King into the hands of the late Bishop of Winchester, 
 Dr. Sumner, to edit and translate, who thus writes. 
 *The manuscript itself consists of 735 pages, closely 
 written on small quarto letter paper. The first part, 
 as far as the 15th chapter of the first book, is in a small 
 and beautiful Italian hand ; being evidently a corrected 
 copy, prepared for the press, without interlineations of 
 any kind. The character is evidently that of a female 
 hand, and it is the opinion of Mr. Lemon, whose 
 knowledge of the handwriting of that time is so ex- 
 tensive that the greatest deference is due to his judg- 
 ment, that Mary, the second daughter of Milton, was 
 employed as amanuensis in this part of the volume. 
 
Milton's prose works. 327 
 
 The mistakes are of a nature to induce a suspicion that 
 the transcriber was imperfectly acquainted with the 
 learned languages. For instance, in quoting Heb. iv. 
 13, patientia is substituted for patentia. And we re- 
 member the charge, which, as Mr. Todd notices, has 
 been brought against the paternal conduct of Milton ; 
 * I mean his teaching his children to read and pro- 
 nounce Greek and several other languages, without 
 understanding any hut English.'' The remainder of the 
 manuscript is in an entirely different hand, being a 
 strong upright character, supposed by Mr. Lemon to 
 be the handwriting of Edward Philipps, the nephew 
 of Milton ; but we believe it to be the handwriting of 
 this very boy alluded to in this concluding letter, the 
 date of which is 1666. The Bishop continues, *This 
 part of the volume is interspersed with numerous in- 
 terlineations and corrections, differing from the body 
 of the manuscript, but the greater part of them un- 
 doubtedly written by the same person who transcribed 
 the first part of the volume. Hence it is probable 
 that the latter part of the MS is a copy transcribed 
 by Philips,' or, as we conjecture, by this boy, so given 
 to make mistakes, ^ and finally revised and corrected 
 by Mary and Deborah Milton from the dictation of 
 their father, as many of the alterations bear a strong 
 resemblance to the reputed handwriting of Deborah, 
 the youngest and favourite daughter of Milton, whom 
 he trained up in Latin and Greek to make her his 
 amanuensis.' 
 
328 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 We however differ from the Bishop in this latter 
 supposition, because there is evidence that all his 
 daughters treated him unkindly and embittered the 
 latter years of his life, at last deserting him altogether, 
 probably upon his marrying his third wife, Elizabeth 
 Minshull, in 1661. Their conduct necessitated his 
 marriage, and at the same time necessitated the 
 employment of this boy as amanuensis ; whose copy 
 of the latter part of this Treatise may have been 
 revised by Philipps, or possibly, if the handwriting 
 require it, by one or other of his ' pelican daughters ' 
 relenting. That this epithet is not too strong appears 
 from the testimony of Milton's brother, Christopher 
 Milton, and of his maidservant, Elizabeth Fisher, on 
 the occasion of the trial of the validity of his nuncu- 
 pative will in the Prerogative Court. The former 
 proves that Hhe said deceased was then ill of the 
 goute ; and what he then spoke touching his will was 
 in a very calm manner; only (he) complained, but 
 without passion, that his children had been unkind to 
 him.' * * * 'That he knoweth not how the parties 
 ministring these interrogatories frequent the church, or 
 in what manner of behaviour of life and conversation 
 they are of, they living apart from their father four or 
 five years last past ; and as touching his the deceased's 
 displeasure with them, he only heard him say at the 
 tyme of declaring of his will, that they were undutifull 
 and unkind to him, not expressing any particulars ; 
 
Milton's prose works. 329 
 
 but in former tyines he hath heard him complain that 
 they were careless of him being blind, and made 
 nothing of deserting him.' 
 
 The evidence of Elizabeth Fisher proves their mis- 
 conduct and inattention ' against that head so old and 
 white' still more glaring. * This respondent hath 
 heard the deceased declare his displeasure against the 
 parties ministrant his children ; and particularly the 
 deceased declared to this respondent that a little 
 before he was marryed to Elizabeth Milton, his own 
 relict, a former maid-servant of his, told Mary, one of 
 the deceased's daughter, and one of the ministrants, 
 that she heard the deceased was to be marryed, to 
 which the said Mary replied to the said maid-servant, 
 that that was no news to heare of his wedding, but if 
 shee could heare of his death that was something : 
 and further told this respondent, that all his said 
 children did combine together and counsel his maid- 
 servant to cheat him the deceased in her marketings, 
 and that his said children had made away some of his 
 bookes, and would have sold the rest of his books to 
 the dunghill women, or hee the deceased spoke words 
 to this respondent to the selfesame effect and pur- 
 pose.' Again the picture rises before our eyes, not 
 such as Romney drew it, but such as this last epistle 
 depicts it. There is the same majestic form, seated in 
 the same elbow-chair, enshrouded in the same ample 
 cloak ; but the countenance is no longer lighted up 
 
330 SELECTIONS FROM 
 
 like the face of an angel, rapt into Paradise, and seeing 
 its glories, and speaking its language. No sublime 
 vision now lights up that calm and careworn face, and 
 the words which fall from his lips are not inspired, 
 breathing, living, burning words, but such as posterity 
 cares not to read, mere antiquarian rubbish, words 
 philosophical perhaps, but still naked, tame, prosaic. 
 And to complete the sad picture, who are now his 
 amanuenses ? not loving, and partial, and wondering 
 daughters, as Romney conceived them to be ; not a 
 Macaulay, who, we know, would gladly have filled 
 that office, had he been Milton's contemporary ; not 
 El wood, who often before formed one in this beauti- 
 ful picture ; not Heimbach, who surely after receiving 
 this letter could scarcely help offering his services ; not 
 these, but a wretched hired blundering boy is sitting 
 at that table in that temple of the muses, thinking of 
 the bright fields instead of the task before him, as 
 that blurred and well-nigh illegible manuscript plainly 
 testifies. But it is well that it should be so ; it is well 
 that we should leave him thus, desolate indeed and 
 neglected, but still self-collected, self-sustained, majestic 
 and grand in his sorrows and in his ruins ; for was he 
 not the Martyr no less than the Champion of the Truth 
 which he had always loved, but at times failed to 
 find? 
 
 His own Muse shall answer the question : — 
 
Milton's prose works. 331 
 
 " God of our fathers ! what is man, 
 That Thou towards him with hand so various, 
 Or might I say contrarious, 
 
 Temper'st Thy providence through his short course, 
 Not evenly, as Thou rulest 
 The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute, 
 Irrational and brute ? 
 Nor do I name of men the common rout, 
 That, wandering loose about. 
 Grow up and perish, as the summer fly. 
 Heads without name, no more remembered ; 
 But such as Thou hast solemnly elected, 
 With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd, 
 To some great work, Thy glory. 
 And people's safety, which in part they effect : 
 Yet toward these thus dignified, Thou oft, 
 Amidst their height of noon, 
 
 Changest Thy countenance, and Thy hand, with no regard 
 Of highest favours past 
 From Thee on them, or them to Thee of service. 
 
 Nor only dost degrade them, or remit 
 To life obscured, which were a fair dismission, 
 But throw'st them lower than Thou didst exalt them high ; 
 Unseemly falls in human eye, 
 Too grievous for the trespass or omission ; 
 Oft leavest them to the hostile sword 
 Of heathen and profane, their carcases 
 To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captived ; 
 Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times, 
 And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude. 
 If these they 'scape, perhaps in poverty 
 With sickness and disease Thou bow'st them down, 
 Painful diseases and deform'd, 
 In crude old age ; 
 
 Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 
 The punishment of dissolute days : in fine, 
 Just or unjust, alike seem miserable, 
 For oft alike both come to evil end. 
 
 So deal not with this once Thy glorious champion, 
 The image of Thy strength, and mighty minister. 
 What do I beg ? how hast Thou dealt already ? 
 Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn 
 His labours, for Thou canst, to peaceful end." 
 
332 SELECTIONS FROM MILTON's PROSE WORKS. 
 
 We can hardly even now tear ourselves away from 
 the works and words of this great and good man, 
 whose memory we so much revere and love. The 
 last two lines of that magnificient chorus, which we 
 have just cited from the Samson Agonistes, worthy of 
 J^schylus, contain a prayer, applicable to himself, and 
 answered in his own case. In the true words of his bio- 
 grapher Hayley, ' however various the opinions of men 
 may be concerning the merits or demerits of Milton's 
 political character, the integrity of his heart appears 
 to have secured to him the favour of Providence ; since 
 it pleased the Giver of all good not only to turn his 
 labour to a peaceful end, but to irradiate his declining 
 life with the most abundant portion of those pure and 
 sublime mental powers, for which he had constantly 
 and fervently prayed, as the choicest bounty of 
 Heaven.' 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THERE is a poem on Milton, by Lord Lytton/ 
 which portrays our great patriot poet in his 
 youth, manhood, and old age — youth of love, man- 
 hood of duty, age of suffering — the three words which 
 sum up the history of his whole life. We propose, as 
 a fitting conclusion to the work in which we have 
 been so long engaged, translating it into humble 
 prose, adopting as much as may be Lord Lytton's own 
 phraseology. And we do so because we deeply feel 
 that the prose we have been citing proceeded from a 
 heart full of love, of duty, and of pain, and would 
 repair any injustice we may have unwittingly done to 
 the memory of so noble a man. The story is very 
 likely to have been true, founded, as it is, on Milton's 
 Italian sonnets, and on the well-known legend of an 
 Italian lady, seeing the Poet lying asleep at the foot 
 of a tree in his college gardens, and placing in his 
 hand some verses. The same lady meets him on his 
 tour in Italy, and the love which springs up between 
 them is interrupted by his sudden determination to 
 
334 APPENDIX. 
 
 return to England, that he may wield his pen against 
 the foes of Liberty. 
 
 It was in the merry month of June that young 
 Milton lay dreaming under the shade of a beech-tree, 
 on a violet bank, in the cloistered gardens of Christ's 
 College, when lo ! a beautiful stranger from Italian 
 skies, passing by, bends over the unconscious dreamer, 
 and silently gazes away her heart. Suddenly he 
 starts from his sleep, and their eyes met one moment, 
 and no more ; in maiden shame she fled, and passed 
 from his enamoured sight, perhaps for ever. No, not 
 for ever. They met again by strange coincidence. 
 
 Time waned ; the fair youth had grown into man- 
 hood, and now has left his father's hearth for foreign 
 shores. He visits Galileo, and the sages and literati 
 of Italy. One evening the glorious wanderer w^as 
 invited to a banquet, perhaps at the house of his 
 friend, the Marquis Manso. All admired — all yield- 
 ed to that English guest. Ah ! little dreamed those 
 flatterers, as they gazed on his lofty brow, his locks 
 of gold, and stately mien — the radiant cynosure of 
 all — little dreamed they what that bright heart was 
 destined to befall ! Yes, the noblest heart is always 
 the easiest wrung, and such was his. We know, how, 
 returning to England, he bore the daily fever, and 
 the midnight toil, in Liberty's defence, the hope de- 
 feated, and the name belied ; and, worst of all, we 
 know how sorrow coiled around his hearth, and on 
 
APPENDIX. 335 
 
 his declining day neglect and obloquy wreaked their 
 spite. The bright eyes around him little dreamed of 
 all this, and still less of that rich flood of glorious 
 light, which yet should start through those clouds, 
 and gild that declining day. 
 
 But to our tale : — the festive rite was over, the 
 guests departed, and still our wanderer lingered on 
 the lovely scene. With folded arms and upward 
 brow, he leant against the pillar of a tree, when 
 hark! the still boughs rustle, and a light footstep 
 passed by the flowers. He turned ; — what nymph is 
 there ? 'Tis she, whose loveliness hadj so long ago, 
 in his England's gardens, beamed on him as he slept 
 beneath the beech-tree. She fled not now, and they 
 became lovers. He knew not her name, nor would 
 she disclose it ; so he found a name for her — "• Zoe " 
 — stolen from the tuneful Greek, which means ^' life," 
 when common lips do speak, and more on those that 
 love. 
 
 They met again in twilight and in stealth. Their 
 love made life one melody; for poetry lay deep within 
 the soul of each. Thus two months pass away ; and 
 now Zoe waits her lover on the hill, where the ruins 
 of Caesar's palace lay. He comes; and they sate them 
 on a fallen column. Then she, sighing, says. " joy to 
 meet, but despair to part!" And he replies, "And 
 wherefore part ? What, if my life be wrenched from 
 youth too soon to find in duty manhood's troubled 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 doom. As the star iclings to the melancholy moon, 
 so let thy soul to mine. I seek my England, canst 
 thou leave thy Rome ?" She, starting from his breast, 
 faltered, " What dost thou ask ? Must it all end in 
 this ? Rest here. England has toil — Italia happiness !" 
 And thus the MAN replied, '' Hear and approve me. 
 In my father's land men are enslaved to Force and 
 Tyranny ; and Liberty now calls me with imperial 
 voice homeward to her cause. And I am sworn by 
 mine own free choice to serve her ; and shall I be 
 found recreant when she draws the sword ?" 
 
 The lady yields, and consents to fly with him, and 
 share his fate — when, suddenly her aged father stands 
 a shadow in the shadow, and sternly moving his 
 beckoning hand commands her, " Come !" 
 
 Years have flown by, and Civil Strife has raged and 
 ceased. And on the doomed sight of the laborious 
 student darkness has stolen. Yet he argues not against 
 Heaven's hand or will, nor bates a jot of heart or hope, 
 but still bears up, and steers right onward, supported 
 by Truth and Conscience. doubtful labour, but 
 glorious pain ! And whether we blame or laud the 
 cause for which he toiled and pleaded and suffered, 
 we must feel that all human life has been made grander 
 by his grand self-sacrifice. Yes, while earth disputes, 
 if the strife be righteous, the martyr, Truth's martyr, 
 soars beyond it to the skies. Whatever our state- 
 
APPENDIX. 837 
 
 creed may be, we must all venerate in Milton his 
 heroic purpose; his ma-jestical disdain of self; the soul 
 in which we see conviction welding duty, the iron 
 mainspring of his mind ; and man's strong heart-throb 
 beating for mankind and for England's weal. These 
 must move our homage. 
 
 Once more the scene changes. 
 
 An old man is seated at the door of his humble 
 dwelling. Through the narrow opening you might 
 see uncertain footprints on the sanded floor, which 
 tell of blindness — on the table the untasted meal, the 
 scattered volumes, and that pillowed elbow-chair, in 
 which the poor wanderer, worn out with toil and 
 travel, found repose at last. And while he sate — a 
 timorous trembling step drew near — 'twas that of his 
 long-lost Italian love. Year on year she had pined 
 to gaze on that brow, last seen when she was young : 
 —AND NOW! 
 
 Thus as she stood and gazed, and noiseless wept, 
 two young slight forms, Mary and Deborah, crossed 
 the threshold, and kissed the hand of the blind grey 
 man ; and the old, familiar, sweet, yet stately smile 
 strayed over his lips, and they led him in. The 
 widowed bride stayed without, and wept aloud as she 
 heard slow sonorous deep organ-tones. 
 
 Then comes the burial of the Martyr Poet : — and 
 when the rest were gone, an aged woman is seen, 
 
 z 
 
oHH APPENDIX. 
 
 veiled and arrayed in sable widowed weeds, kneeling 
 upon the stone. The notes of her low prayer were 
 sweet with the strange nmsic of a foreign tongue. 
 Thrice to that spot Mary and Deborah came with 
 garlands, and decked that grave with flowers. On 
 the fourth day some hand had cast away in scorn the 
 flowers that breathed of priest-craft; but the poor 
 stranger came not with the morn — her heart was 
 broken ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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