Milton, John

John (1608-1674), an eminent English poet. He was born in London, the son of John Milton, scrivener, and his wife, Sarah Jeffrey. The father, born of Roman Catholic parents, had been disinherited because he became a Protestant. He had succeeded, however, in acquiring a "plentiful estate" on his own account. He was an intelligent man of fine character. Of the mother, Milton himself says that she was "a most excellent mother and particularly known for her charities through the neighborhood." The boy John was destined from the first for the study of polite literature, his natural tastes and aptitudes according well with his father's plans for him. He tells us that at the age of twelve he studied frequently until midnight, thereby producing the first injury to his eyes. His father instructed him at first, teaching him, among other things, to play on the organ. He was next put under the care of Thomas Young, an efficient master, and when twelve years old went to St. Paul's School. The earliest English verses known to have been written by Milton were produced while he was a pupil at this school. They consist of paraphrases of the one hundred fourteenth and one hundred thirty-sixth psalms.

When, as he expresses it, he had "acquired various tongues and also some not insignificant taste for the sweetness of philosophy," he was sent to Cambridge. Owing to a pink and white complexion, and possibly also to his refinement of manner, he was dubbed "The Lady of the College," by his fellow students. Milton spent seven years at Cambridge, although he was once withdrawn from college for a time owing to a quarrel with his tutor. He won considerable notice for Latin as well as for English poems, and although he was not a favorite, his abilities were recognized and appreciated by students and academic authorities alike.

After taking his master's degree in 1632, Milton retired to his father's estate in Horton. He had intended to become a clergyman, but decided that his views were not in accord with those of the church. He also considered studying law, but finally settled seriously to literature. To this period of six years, spent for the most part at Horton, belong Milton's minor poems. His Ode on the Nativity was in fact written before he left college. L'Allegro is a lively descriptive poem of mirth

II Penseroso is a poem of contemplative moods, not of grief, but of chastened thoughtfulness such as becomes one walking in a vast cathedral-like wood, or at Mt. Vernon, or in a great cemetery of the nation's dead:

Comus was written for a court entertainment to be acted with fairy costumes and masks. Lycidas is a dirge or lament for the death of a college friend, Edward King, who was drowned in the Irish Sea.

After the death of his mother in 1637 Milton traveled on the continent and, returning to England, settled in London and interested himself with the education of his nephews. The strife between Parliament and the king was now coming on, and Milton took up the cudgels for the Puritans, becoming known as the keenest writer of pamphlets in the party. His language is bitter, denunciatory, coarse and abusive. "Dunghill adversary," "envious gabble," "gaudy rottenness," "bestial tyranny," "obscene priest," "deepest gulf of hell," are mild expressions compared with others that may be chosen almost at random from the pages of his political pamphlets. Curiously enough Macaulay calls them "a perfect field of cloth of gold." They indicate the white heat in which the deeds of the day were wrought.

Soon after the beginning of the civil war Milton married. He was at this time a learned and austere man of thirty-four, deep in political controversies; his wife, a gay young girl of seventeen, daughter of a Royalist justice of the peace. She was evidently unhappy in the stern atmosphere of her husband's home, and after two months of married life she went to visit friends. She was to stay until Michaelmas, but when the time came she refused to return to her husband. As a result of this disagreement Milton issued several bitter pamphlets on divorce, which aroused much indignation and made for their author many enemies. After two years a reconciliation was brought about, and Mrs. Milton returned to her husband's home. She died in 1652, leaving him three daughters. About this time his overtaxed eyes gave out completely, and total blindness came upon him. He married a second time. His wife, Catherine Woodcock, died within fifteen months. She is best known by Milton's beautiful sonnet written to her memory. His daughters, young and poorly taught, made sorry work of helping their blind father. They could write but little, and though he taught them to read Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, and Spanish, they did not understand what they read and naturally rebelled at the wearisome task of reading. Doubtless the father asked too much and the daughters gave too little. Finally, in 1662, he married a third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, a young woman twenty-four years of age. She proved a devoted wife and, by her tact and good management, Milton was able to live in peace and comfort.

Meanwhile Milton's work had been almost continuous. After the execution of Charles I in 1649 he was made Latin Secretary to the Council of State, which office he filled until 1660. His was considered the ablest pen in the commonwealth. In that day documents of importance were written in Latin. On the restoration of the Stuarts, Milton retired into obscurity, broken-hearted at the overthrow of his hopes for England. He was for a time in danger from the vengeance of the Royalists. His property was lost and his circumstances straitened. He continued his literary work, however, and, while he sat in darkness, dictated his great epics, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

While Milton was familiar with the Greek and Roman mythology, his ideas for Paradise Lost are drawn chiefly from the Bible account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf. Satan, who sat "High on a throne of royal state," with "A mind not to be changed by place or time," and who thought it "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," is the central personage of this poem. He is not a Biblical character. Milton got his idea from Anglo-Saxon sources, and our ideas of Satan are from Milton, not from the Bible. Milton's Eve is an interesting study, revealing now and again what he would have had his own wife be. He is said to have received but twenty-five dollars an edition for Paradise Lost.

Samson Agonistes, Treatise on Logic, and Tract on True Religion are other works of this period. He was at work on Theology, later published under the title Doctrines of Christ, when death came to him in 1674. Milton's remains lie in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London. The ablest article on the great poet's life and writings is Macaulay's Essay on Milton.

Milton is second to none but Shakespeare among English poets. By nature studious, he became a profound scholar, while losing none of his intense love of beauty and harmony. Living in strenuous times, he was zealous for his country, giving his eyesight at what he believed the call of duty, but he was disappointed in his hopes. He was obsessed from his earliest years with the conviction that it was laid upon him to write a great poem for the glory of his country. It is little wonder that his natural seriousness grew into an austerity that repelled rather than won affection and made him what he must ever seem to us, a grand but solitary figure.

QUOTATIONS.

CRITICISMS.

Prince of poets.--Hazlitt. First place among our English poets.--Addison. John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of English liberty--Macaulay.

There is no force in his reasonings, no eloquence in his style, and no taste in his compositions.--Goldsmith.

An appreciation of Milton is the last reward of consummated scholarship.--Mark Pattison.

It is certain that this author, when in a happy mood and employed on a noble subject, is the most wonderfully sublime of all poets in the language.--Hume.

Milton is as great a writer in prose as in verse. Prose conferred celebrity on him during his life, poetry after his death; but the renown of the prose-writer is lost in the glory of the poet.--Chateaubriand.